Ep 549: Simple Steps to Set Your Next Big Goal | Caroline Miller Episode Recap
AJV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden, and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started.
AJV (00:34):
Do you have a dream that feels just slightly out of reach? Like you’ve got this thing that you really wanna do, and maybe you haven’t even told anyone, but it just feels a little impossible. Well, we’re gonna talk about how do you set big goals today and how to actually reach ’em. And I think first of all, we should talk about what are big goals. And big goals are things that stretch you. Big goals that are, are things that take you out of your comfort zone. These are things that are not necessarily attainable or reachable. They’re not realistic. They’re big. They’re they’re big. They’re gonna force you to be different, learn different things, try new things, fail
AJV (01:32):
These are big goals, and there are, they are goals that change you in the process of trying to reach them. Do you don’t even have to reach them. It’s the process that happens in you trying to reach them. Now, why I think this is a huge part of this. It’s like, why should you set big goals? One because it forces you to become a new and better version of yourself. It forces you to grow. And growth is good. Challenge being challenged is good. Hard work is good. It produces discipline and resilience and work ethic that cannot be, cannot be learned any other pla any other way or in any other place. But there has to be a, a why behind this. That’s internal, that’s intrinsic. It cannot be extrinsic or external. It cannot just be about, oh, I wanna make more money or I wanna beat this other person.
AJV (02:31):
There has to be a, a profound why behind this, that even if you have setbacks, even if you experience moments of failure, even if you have moments of doubt that you proceed because it’s significant enough to keep trying in the midst of it not working. Right? That is really important. The why has to be bigger than the why not, right? And when you’re setting big goals, these are dreams, these are life goals. They have to really have a fundamental why that is significant. Beyond worldly stuff, beyond titles or ego or money or pride or ambition or success. It has to be beyond that. Okay? Now, next thing we’ve gotta break it down. Like what do you actually have to learn in order to do the thing? I just had a, an amazing podcast interview with Caroline Miller who wrote the new book Bake Goals.
AJV (03:28):
And a huge part of it is you have to just determine using goal setting theory GST. Is this a learning goal? In other words, is this something that you’ve never done before? Or is it a performance goal, which is, you’ve done this before, but the goal is to do more of it or do it better, right? So first and foremost, you have to determine in this big goal, what what am I gonna have to learn? Because in order to do it better, you first have to learn it, right? In order to have performance goals, you have to have done it before. So if it’s a big goal, then ask yourself, is this truly a learning goal or is it a performance goal? And if it’s brand new and you’ve never done it before, it’s a learning goal. So what do you need to learn? Who do you need to learn from?
AJV (04:16):
How quickly can you learn it? What resources do you need to learn it? Do you have the money to invest into learning this? These are all things that are a part of reaching really big goals. And the first thing you have to ask is, is it a learning goal or is it a performance goal? And if it’s a learning goal, then we need to give ourselves grace in the process. IE patience, right? Because there are things that you have to learn before you can get results, okay? And so that’s kind of getting into the specifics. Is it a learning goal or is it a performance goal? Right? Then we gotta have our, our, our group our positivity group, our accountability group, our mentorship group, our coaching group, whatever we wanna call it. But we have to have our group, IE our people. We have to have systems and groups of accountability, but not just accountability, but also of support, right?
AJV (05:10):
I think one of the most important things that I actually talked about with Caroline Miller on this podcast is how important it is for us to be around people who believe that we can do it, but also who believe in doing big things in general, right? It, it’s, you have to discern and decide who gets to come along on this big goal journey with you, and who doesn’t
AJV (06:09):
That, and that could include mentor groups, coaching programs masterminds. These could also be friends and family. But you really have to discern, it’s like, Hey, I know I’m gonna need positive influences in my life. I know I’m gonna need people who believe in me, believe in what I’m doing, and also who just believe bigger in general. So, right. So those are your, that’s your group, right? Systems and people of accountability. But not just accountability but support, right? But this also includes a, a peer group of learning from people who’ve done what you’ve done in a way that you can also do it, right? So that’s looking for mentors, coaches, role models who have achieved what you want to achieve in a way that you can do it, right? So I think about myself all the time when I’m looking for a different coach or a, a mastermind to join.
AJV (06:57):
And it’s like, it’s one thing to go, I know they’ve done it, but I also have to discern, did they do it in a way that I think would work for me?
AJV (07:40):
Or if I’m gonna have to slow it down and pace it out. But this is giving myself grace to do something that is big that I haven’t ever done before. But also the time to do it with people who believe in me, who will support me, but then also discerning who I need to learn from. And it’s not anyone. It’s a specific type of person. So that I can follow in those footsteps and, and learn in a way that I can digest and do it in my unique way, right? So those are all systems of accountability and your people group, right? Next is we’re gonna have to build some resilience to do big things. We’re gonna, and that includes discipline. That includes perseverance. That in that includes some grit, right? We’re gonna have to mentally note in advance if we’re gonna do something big what could go wrong and what am I gonna do when, probably not if, but when bad thing happens. Prepare in advance for setbacks. Don’t get caught off guard. Fully expect them so that when they come, they don’t shut you down. They are, they may be naysayers. What are you gonna do if they come your way? There may be setbacks. It may go slower than you want. So what are you gonna do if that happens? Things may break, things may fail, things may not launch. Well, it may not go the way you want. What are you going to do if that happens?
AJV (09:15):
Know in advance so that when it comes, you have a plan in place to keep moving forward. ’cause If you don’t, these are the things that knock us off the horse. These are the things that throw us off. Throw us off the rails. And if we’re not prepared, we lose so much time that we give up. We give up hope. We give up that this even is something we wanted to do. And so we stop. And the only failing that happens is when we quit, not quit. The things that we decide are no longer good for us, but we quit the things because they got too hard for us. There’s a difference between quitting because it’s no longer good for me and quitting because it just got too hard for me. Don’t quit. ’cause It gets hard. That’s where character is built. That’s where you are built. Don’t quit because it gets hard. You quit when it’s no longer good for you. But just remember, hard things are good for you.
AJV (10:11):
Hard things create character that cannot be built anywhere else. But that is up, up to you to discern what those things are, but prepare in advance, prepare in advance for them. Next, take consistent action. Co consistency, right? It’s not the first time you’ve ever heard. This won’t be the last time you’ve ever heard this. And that’s because it’s true.
AJV (11:15):
This is all about taking action. And that, that requires a plan. You have to know what direction you’re going to take the first or the hundredth step. So know your direction and have it well mapped out so that you can benchmark. Is this a daily, a weekly, a monthly, quarterly thing? And also, where do I need to be at these different benchmarks? Where do I need to be? 90 days in the journey, six months in the journey, 12 months in the journey. If we’re gonna set out to do big things, we need a big detailed plan, right? And that is about how do you set out those daily consistent things that you’re gonna do? And again, they, they’re not all daily. Some are daily. But what are the things that need to happen to create consistency to hitting this big goal? And last, but most certainly not least, is what are your points of reflection? And I think this is one of the things that is most important in my life, is on a very, I would say, consistent basis, for lack of another word, since I just talked about consistency. You have to remember not just why you’re doing this, but more importantly who you’re doing it for. And I have to tell you right now, it shouldn’t be you. Big goals should not just be centered on you.
AJV (12:31):
That is one of the first ways that you won’t achieve them. It’s because it was too isolated to just you, and that’s just not big enough. Doing it just for yourself isn’t big enough. So when I talk about have reflection on the who, I mean, who is this goal really for? Is it for your kids? Is it for your family? Is it for your spouse? Is it for your clients? Is it for your future clients? Is it for the next generation? But who is this for? And remember that when you’re doing this, it’s not just a goal for a thing. There is impact for a person when you achieve your goals. And that, that that goes beyond you. And if you do it well, and if you do it right, if it’s really big, it goes beyond just your friends and family too.
AJV (13:21):
It has the opportunity to impact your community. It has the impact to, you know, potentially impact your nation or even the world. Like that is a big goal. And big goals require a big focus on who, who is this for? Like, who am I building this business for? Who am I making this content for? Who am I writing this book for? Who am I doing this, you know, sporting event for who, whatever it is, it’s like, who is this for? Is it to prove that it can be done for everyone who comes after me? Is it to put a stop to the chaos that’s happening in and around, you know, my community? Who is it for? And if you re remind yourself and remember that there are people at stake here, then it, that is what gives you some endurance, that gives you some ammunition to push through on the dark nights when you’re like, what am I doing?
AJV (14:18):
What was I thinking? Well, what you were thinking is that people are worth it because they are. So don’t forget in the midst of numbers and metrics and things and steps and lessons, that there is a who at the center that will benefit from you accomplishing this goal. And it’s beyond you and it’s beyond your family potentially beyond your community. But there is a who, a group of people, a person that you have the opportunity to have life-changing impact on if you do this. And that is what should keep you moving. It’s the who at the center of those big goals.
Ep 548: The Power of Setting Big Goals with Caroline Miller
AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode on the Influential Personal Brand podcast, a j Vaden here. Super excited to introduce you guys to a new friend of mine. And also super excited to get to have this conversation literally on the eve, right this as this podcast is reaching your ears. This is the eve of her book launch her new book called Big Goals. We’re gonna be talking to Caroline Miller today who is an eight times, let me say that again. An eight times bestselling author, an international speaker, and a globally renowned expert and positive psychology. And let me just say, we all need a little bit more positivity right now.
AJV (00:56):
Looking forward to next year, we should all be in the mindset on what are the goals that we have for the next year. Or some of us are thinking three, five years, 10 years, but oh yeah. One of the things that we wanna challenge is, but are we setting the right goals and are we setting big goals? And so this is a conversation today about what’s the science and the power behind big goals. And Caroline, how, how, how long have you been actually writing this book? Like, not just the physical words, but the, the, the research and the, the data. Like how long has this book been in progress?
CM (01:38):
I would love to say my whole life I’ve been obsessed with goals, but really ever since the science of goal setting lock and latham’s goal setting theory was introduced to me in 2005. That’s when my life changed. And this book is the result of squeezing the tube of toothpaste earlier this year to get out a brand new streamlined guide to this science. ’cause Most people don’t know it. And it’s extraordinary to me that most people don’t know it.
AJV (02:04):
Yeah. Like, I just wanted to hear, it’s like, that’s like, we’re talking about almost 20 years of data and research and just experience and all of the things in that’s gonna go into the next hour. So Yeah, when we think about the amount of time and expertise and just dedication spent on this subject matter, subject matter, I would just highly encourage, like, think about this for a second and then we’re gonna jump into the interview. What if in the next hour you could get the consolidated data and findings from 20 years of research that can empower you to set bigger and better goals for your life, would it be worth it? And I bet the answer is yes. So stick around, stay for the whole episode and we’re gonna start that now. So, Caroline, welcome to the show.
CM (02:52):
Well, that’s galvanizing. I’d stick around
AJV (03:04):
Well, I, I wanna know. So I mean, a part of why I wanted to have you on this show is like, you know, the first question I had for you, and we had talked just a little bit about this before I hit record, is like, what do you think separates big goals from all of the other goals that are being set? ’cause If, just for context for, if you’re listening, as you’re reflecting on the goals that you had for this year, as, as I did kind of prepping for this interview, and as you look forward to the goals that you’re setting next year, it’s like, are these big like
CM (03:53):
Well, I think it’s baked into the word big. I think big girl goals are the ones that have some of our passion and the things that we’re most excited about baked into them. So, big goals change our lives. They do change the world. They change our world. Sometimes they change the entire world. And because they’re so big, they require a different set of skills and talents and focus and grit that regular local goals don’t have. And we know from the science, I’m gonna share with you the big secret goal setting theory. We know the best outcomes across the board come from setting challenging and specific goals. And those are big goals. And most people set no goals or low goals that they’re pretty sure they’re gonna accomplish. And what happens is the world, the world rewards people who set big goals because of what goes into achieving them and how much awe they can inspire in you and others. So we all need to have big goals, and we all need to find out what we’re made up in the process of going after our own big goals.
AJV (05:02):
As someone who does typically set goals, how, how could I even define for myself what’s a big goal?
CM (05:11):
A big goal should be if you stretch your hand out and your fingertips are at the end, a big goal is past your fingertips. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (06:11):
Hmm. That’s so good. And I love, I literally like wrote this down, it’s like big goals change you in the process.
CM (06:19):
Yeah. They change you. They, yeah. That’s so Yeah. Well, they change you because it’s, it says that you have audacity, that you’re willingness to push all your chips in the middle of the table. You’re willing to find out what you made of, you’re willing to find out who has your back. In the process of doing this, you often find out who really has your back. Not people who say they do, but who’s there. And there’s a, a trick I can share with you from psychology where you, you know, who has your back by one thing that they do. I’ll get back to that. But it does change you because you begin to ladder up to more and more things that you’re passionate about that are important to you when you play a little bit bigger. Now, let me just say, asterisk has to be your goal. It can’t be your parents’ goal, your spouse’s goal, your culture’s goal, your religion’s goal. It has to be something that lights you up. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (07:37):
You know what I, what I love about what you just said is like, what I heard is that
CM (07:46):
Oh, what a concept.
AJV (07:52):
You know, and it’s, I think a lot of people want big things, but they don’t wanna have to do a lot of work.
CM (08:00):
And that has really changed in, in the last few generations. That’s a piece of what drove me towards this book because I raised three wonderful adult children, and I happened to be raising them during the self-esteem movement when we were told as parents, tell your kids they’re winners. Give them trophies even if they don’t make the team valedictorians, were taken out of school. Playgrounds were dumbed down so that nobody could get hurt, comfort animals for all. I mean, I gotta tell you, the whole world became a dumbed down bubble wrapping of this generation. And so for many of them, the first time that they get any real honest feedback about who they are, this grades are so inflated that’s been proven is when they get a real performance review in the workplace. And for some, it’s like, what do you mean I didn’t exceed expectations by showing up?
CM (08:57):
I mean, whatcha whatcha saying? So yeah. So I think this concept of doing hard things was filtered out of society and not just in the United States. Really everywhere. It was a movement that swept the world. And there’s always pockets of exceptions there, there athletes, they’re Eagle Scouts. There are people who pursue, you know, passions. They start companies. They have, you know, instruments that they play. However, there was a zeitgeist, there was a cultural revolution against doing hard things because you’re not supposed to be stressed. And in the process of removing stress from our children’s lives, we didn’t make them resilient. They didn’t develop grit. So I wrote a book called Getting Grit that came out in 2017 because I really wanted to talk about the fact that I cultivated grit when I set the biggest goal of my life in my early twenties to, to save my own life.
CM (09:50):
I had bulimia. And it was a time when there was no cure, no hope you were gonna be bulimia for the rest of your life. If you made it that long, you’d probably lose your teeth. You probably wouldn’t be able to have children. I mean, it came with all kinds of side effects, but it was hopeless. And I decided I wanted to live more than I wanted to die, more than I wanted to chase an image of what my body could possibly look like if I got good enough at this bulimia thing. But I lost everything. I lost, I lost my sport. I, I lost piano. I limped through Harvard. I’m not sure how I got through it, but I did. And I hit my left bottom at 21 and decided I wanted to recover. My parents who didn’t know about it, nobody.
CM (10:33):
It was my goal. And because of that, I cultivated grit One day at a time. I failed. I failed, I made mistakes. But you know what? I kept getting up and I had this big passionate goal. I wanna live and I wanna survive ’cause I must have more to give to this world than my swimming times and my SAT sports and I survive. And I wrote a book called, my Name is Caroline. That really set me on a course of sharing how you have a big dream like recovery or going to the moon or living in a foreign country and, you know, pursuing a dream job there, how do you do it? And I decided that in order to cultivate grit, you have to have certain qualities that are not inborn, but you have to decide. You wanna work hard and have passion, and have persistence, and have patience and have humility and all the qualities that go into it. That’s what it takes to achieve big goals. And we all should have them, but we should all know, going back to your point, work is involved and it’s gonna be hard. And that’s just the way it is.
AJV (11:42):
So I wanna talk about that for just a second in this, you know, concept of setting pit goals. Because inherently that means you’re doing something you’ve never done before, which is, is gonna require you to learn things you don’t know, try things you haven’t tried, work with people you haven’t met. There’s a lot of that Right. Associated with that. Yeah. So a question that I have is, I would imagine, and I’m pretty certain many people struggle staying motivated when tur when working towards big goals like this. And so, mm-hmm. I would be curious to hear from you, like what are the, some of the strategies that you’ve uncovered or even some of the science and the data of how do you drive and resilience when you’re trying to achieve something that’s real hard?
CM (12:29):
Well, this goes back to the secret I promised I’d share with your listeners. Okay. It’s all about goal setting theory. So I was introduced to goal setting theory when I went back to school. I went to the University of Pennsylvania to get a master’s degree in applied positive psychology. So it was the first 33 people in the world to get this degree in the science of happiness. And in assignment that fall 2005 was goal setting theory and Lockman latham’s goal setting theory is ranked number one of 73 management theories. Number one, never a replication crisis. None of these challenges that exist for so many theories. And it divides goals into learning goals and performance goals. And it’s simple and elegant, but if you get it wrong, you can really screw up businesses. I mean, it can cause businesses to fail. It can cause you to disengage from your goals.
CM (13:18):
My recovery from bulimia was a learning goal. And so whenever you’re doing something for the first time, maybe the world’s doing it for the first time, you have to give yourself the grace of learning the skills, finding the right people, learning how to make the best decisions learning how to have resilience and grit as you fail and get up and have hope. And so you have to set those metrics in the process of having a learning goal to tell you, I’m going in the right direction. Because goal setting theory says you have to have feedback. You have to have the kind of feedback that tells you that you’re on the right track, you’re doing the right thing, this is going well, or it’s not going well. And then you pivot. And you always have to have the humility to be teachable by the process of pursuing goals. But also because you have the humility to have people around you who are your board of advisors, and you listen to them and you trust them and you seek their advice. And ca counsel, because something called stupid grit is when you don’t have any of that and you’re sure you know how to do it, and you’re just gonna bulldoze your way to whatever the outcome is that you think is the right way to go with the strategy, you’re sure it’s gonna help you.
AJV (14:30):
Mm. And I, and I, and I love that it’s like the difference between a learning goal and a performance goal and learning is realizing, Hey, I’m doing this for the first time. Yes. Or be some trial and error. There’s likely gonna be successes and failures. It’s gonna be one of those, like I take two steps forward, take five steps back. Right?
CM (14:51):
Right. Like
AJV (14:51):
That. I think that’s a really good and helpful kind of this way of even going like, Hey, am I, as I’m setting goals, are these learning goals IE first time things? Or are these performance goals which are right improvement? Is that a a good assumption?
CM (15:07):
Yes. So I, in the book, in big goals, I call them checklist goals because these are things like recipes. You’ve done them before and there might be a way to fine tune the recipe. Maybe another teaspoon of sugar is gonna make the banana bread taste better. But performance goals are things where you can reliably say, if I follow these steps and I do it in this order in which I’ve gotten the best outcomes before I can expect this outcome by this date. So there are lots of things that we do that we’ve done before. And what we need to do when we set out to, you know, pursue learning goals or performance goals, is first ask ourselves what’s new? If it’s a performance goal, a checklist goal, what’s new? What’s come out in artificial intelligence, or what’s new in the world in technology that I can use to actually use this checklist goal, this performance goal to get faster, better, stronger.
CM (15:58):
I’ll give you an example from the Paris Olympics. There were nine swimmers from the United States in the Paris Olympics who were training with something called digital twins at the University of Virginia. And so the fast suits are gone and poach have really expanded as much knowledge as they can have at the moment to train these elite athletes. But they found that you could create a digital twin of yourself doing the perfect stroke, perfect streamlining coming off the walls with no friction or drag with your head. And what they found was they compared the current swimmer with the perfect digital twin, and they would use the digital twin to make little tweaks in their strokes. I’ll just give you an example. Kate Douglas set a world record and won the 200 meter brushstroke with the digital twin training. And so for a year and a half, she worked on moving her head just like half an inch because the computer model said, you do that, you’re gonna set, you’re gonna set lots of records.
CM (16:58):
So it’s work. So that’s a performance goal. She knew how to swim, she knew how to train. She, she had to coach, she had the teammates. But this digital twin was new. Learning goals. The first thing you have to do is flatten your learning curve as fast as possible. Not, oh, I’ll just do my best. And I’ll see how it goes. It’s where am I gonna get the knowledge? Who do I need to meet? Is this knowledge on YouTube? Is it in Wikipedia? Is it in a book? Is it in a documentary? Who’s doing it really well in the world? And I can study them by reading a biography or whatever it is. And that’s how you eventually turn learning goals into performance goals. And this is the biggest mistake being made in the workplace right now. And I’ve been all over the world. I’ve worked with lots of companies, everyone’s setting goals. Nobody is using goal setting theory, but they all have fancy productivity dashboards and they’re paying a fortune for ’em. And I am mystified that the number one theory, the number one theory with decades of rigorous scholarship behind it is still unknown by most of the world. And most of the world is setting goals. And I’m gonna, I’m fixing that with the book. Big Goals, goals. I had to, we’re in a dire situation right now, partly because of Covid, but that’s another point I can make.
AJV (18:14):
Yeah, I know. It’s interesting. In my prior life for prior to Brain Builders Group, you know, I was a sales consultant and I did that for 14 years and all, all I did was monitoring performance metrics and word performance metrics. Right? Never once or did I come across what would be considered a learning goal. These were all,
CM (18:36):
Wow,
AJV (18:37):
All performance goals. Mm-Hmm.
CM (18:43):
You don’t know how to do it,
AJV (18:44):
Right. It was, I never heard that, ever. Right. Never saw it. Think about dashboards. And so can you just give the audience like a tangible example of like, what, what would it look like on paper to have a learning goal versus a performance goal? Like what, what would that sound like in like real world?
CM (19:04):
I have so many examples I could give you. I’ll just give you one of my, one of my clients who was a superstar working in a big department store system. She had risen as high as she could and she knew how to do her job and she always did it well. She got lots of awards, bonuses, you know, stars on the wall, et cetera. And she had a dream of being an entrepreneur. And there was this very specific kind of company she wanted to start. So she got money from family and friends. She used all her bonus money and she launched this company. And by the time she found me, she was about to throw in the towel on her big bowl, her big dream. And here’s what she said to me, Caroline, every Monday morning I dial into a mastermind group and we all announce our goals for the week. And, and mine are always aggressive because that’s the way I’ve always operated. It’s always worked for me. Big goals. And then by Friday we’re, we call back and, you know, we talk about our progress. And every Friday I’ve failed at all my goals. And I asked her one simple question, I’ll, I’ll make up a name. Natalie. Natalie, how many of the goals that you’re announcing on Monday for this new business, this entrepreneurial business, are things that you’ve done before?
CM (20:12):
Yeah. And she thought about it and she went, none of ’em. I’ve never opened, done Shopify. I’ve never put booths together. I’ve never gone to trade shows to sell things. I’ve never walked into pet stores to try to sell this. I’ve never done any of these things, but that doesn’t matter ’cause I just work very hard and I should be able to do all these things. And I said, eventually you can. But what you did was you assumed that you could perform and have outcomes that you wanted by Friday or the next Friday or whatever, without giving yourself the grace of learning these things. You haven’t gotten a mentor. She was very proud. She hadn’t gotten a mentor, she hadn’t worked with a small business administration. She hadn’t taken on the time and the willingness to learn all the things that were the fundamentals. So on paper, what does it look like?
CM (20:58):
You know, she had to learn Excel, she had to get a mentor, she had to build a budget, she had to find an internet consultant who actually put Shopify on a website. She was trying to make her own website. I got, I could go on and on and on. But whenever you are superstar, you’re doing really well in one department of life and you try to go to another department, but you’ve never, you’ve never done those things before. You’re just thinking, I’m a high achiever, I can do it. You’re setting yourself up for failure, disengagement, depression, feeling overwhelmed, and then coding yourself as someone who just can’t do those things. And we live in a quick fix society, and this is common. We want instant results. And we think that we can just transfer hard work from one area to hard work in another area. It doesn’t work like that. Goal setting theory breaks it out beautifully.
AJV (21:45):
I love that so much. And you know, what I love about that so often is that so resonates with so many of the conversations that we hear at our company, brand builders group about people come in and they, they have big, big dreams of, yeah, I want to rock and launch a New York Times bestselling book. I want to build this coaching program. I want to impact a million people speaking on stages. I wanna do these big things. And when all of those haven’t happened in a year, they’re like, I failed.
CM (22:15):
I’m just, you failed. Blame it on you then
AJV (22:19):
No that those things take time, right? There’s, you know, there’s a process, there’s a, there’s a system of, back to what you said, it’s like we expect all these results and we don’t Yeah. Actually give credit to what you have to learn and the process to get the results. And those are
CM (22:39):
Right. And how do you learn? Those are perfect examples. And sometimes what we do is we deputize, we hire a company or we go to some guru and we think, well, that person’s gonna give us all the secrets and if we just work with them, it’ll all just magically happen. There’s always work involved. And what I’m sure you’re describing is the process of learning the steps on the way to being able to accomplish these things. And what do you do? You study exemplars of success in whatever that area is. And let’s say it’s a woman who wants to make a, you know, make it, make it big on a stage. And all she’s studying are men who’ve been able to do the same thing. That doesn’t transfer either. And we’re just now realizing that age agentic women have to operate differently from men because women get penalized for displaying that kind of behavior.
CM (23:30):
So you have to make sure that the role models, role models you’re studying look like you, sound like you, maybe they’re from your culture and that what worked for them will work for you. So often what we see is somebody on YouTube or on Instagram or whatever, saying, well, this is how I lost weight, or this is how I built my business, or this, this, this, this, this. And we think, ’cause it worked for them, it’ll work for us. Stop and ask yourself this question. Will it work for me, my learning style, the kind of money that I can invest in this? Mm-Hmm.
CM (24:18):
And it’s the how, how are you gonna accomplish these goals? And my acronym is bridge. You start with brainstorming a certain kind of brainstorming. You go to the relationships. Who are the people? Who are the people who have to be with me on this journey? And who shouldn’t be with me on this journey? Who’s gonna be negatively contagious? People don’t ask themselves that question. What kind of investments do I have to make up time, energy, money, character, strengths, whatever. Here’s a big one. Decision making. People don’t understand their own decision making processes. They’ve never done, for example, a noise audit on the noise that has entered into the decision making. And that’s Danny Kahneman’s work on. And it’s bigger than bias. What kinds of decisions are we making when we’re impacted by the north in our lives? And then grit. Good. Grit is the G.
CM (25:06):
How do we cultivate grit if we’re gonna need it? It’s a big goal. We’re gonna need it. And then excellence. What are we shooting for? Not, which cannot be measured, cannot be achieved, and vice versa. And you can’t hit a target. You can’t see, you have to set a standard of excellence for your big goal. And I’m gonna go back to lock and Latham. The best results for both learning goals and performance goals are what’s called challenging and specific past my fingertips. Stretch your arm out. That’s challenging and specific. So that’s what we’re shooting for. So you always have to go through that, that rigorous strategy building before you get going. You skip a step, you’re gonna have to go back anyway, so you might as well do all the work at, at the very beginning.
AJV (25:46):
You know, it’s the, so in parallel to what we teach at Brain Builders Group, ’cause we’re a strategy firm and we go strategies like the architectural blueprint where you wouldn’t start building a house until you had a solid detailed, you know, well-defined plan. And you don’t start building up until you go down. Right? Yeah, yeah. And
CM (26:07):
It’s gotta lay the cornerstone.
AJV (26:09):
People like to skip through strategy, they like to hurry through it ’cause it’s not the fun stuff. Yeah. it’s, it, it’s the hard stuff, right? It’s the stuff that feels like no progress is being made. However, when you do it right, everything else allows to go faster. Now, you have said something a couple of times, and I’ve jotted this down. You mentioned the swimmer with her team and her coach. You’ve mentioned mentors and coaches and role models. I am assuming that the people component of this plays a role. So I’m just curious, like when, when you’re looking at big goals, like what is the people component and, and probably specifically accountability, right? How much does that really play in? And I love what you said, it’s like you gotta pay, pay attention on who should come along for the journey and who shouldn’t. Like who’s positive, who’s negative. So how do you decide like who should come along and what people I need and what accountability support that’s required?
CM (27:10):
Yeah. Big question. Important question. So Shelly Gable at the University of California, Santa Barbara did research that found that when you share a big goal or dream with somebody, there is one way to respond that tells you that that person has your back and wants you to succeed. And that research finding is this, if they respond with curiosity and enthusiasm called active, constructive responding, that person just signaled to you that they’re gonna be with you to celebrate, to pick you up. When things aren’t going well, they’re gonna check in on you. Those are the people you wanna surround yourself with. There are three other ways to respond, but they’re all negative. But that’s what you’re looking for. So you’re looking for accountability. That’s one. You’re looking for people who support you. You are looking to isolate yourself from the negative contagion. And I wanna say something very special about women.
CM (28:02):
Women make massive mistakes in this area. What women do is they surround themselves with frenemies friends who are enemies. Because the research shows that 84% of women do this because they don’t want anyone to think they’re not nice. And so women endure a lot of what I call incoming fire. A lot of microaggressions, a lot of comments about passive, passive aggressive. Oh, why do you want a goal that big? Are you gonna see your children enough? I mean, I could go on and on and on, but there’s a robust set of studies at, its kind of sickening when you look at them showing that the number one detractors of age agentic women are other women. It comes from men too. And a recent meta-analysis found that the one area where women have made zero progress since 1940 in other people’s eyes in the workplace is in being goal directed.
CM (28:58):
And nagen, we’ve gone up in terms of being seen as competent and warm and communal. But when it comes to being ambitious, this is where we pay a social penalty because we’ve violated stereotype norms. And this is the hidden hand, I believe that’s holding women back. I truly believe it’s holding women back. So the answer to that is every woman should be in a mastermind group, a self formed mastermind group that is full of people who have proven through active, constructive responding and other methods along the way that tell you, this person is really here for me and I wanna support this person as well who meet monthly. Maybe it’s virtual, maybe it’s in person, doesn’t matter. But you must be around a team of people who believe in you because then we have more hope. It’s, it becomes bidirectional and we develop this upward spiral of wellbeing.
CM (29:53):
We become more creative, we take more risks. We’re, we’re happier. I could go on and on and on. And men are more transactional. It’s just a fact. Men, men develop the kinds of relationships where you get a piece of pie that means I get a piece of pie. Let’s all have pie. You know, unfortunately women have been socialized and wired to think you got pie. That means I don’t get pie, so I’m gonna take your pie. Or I’m gonna tell everyone that your pie is terrible. Or some version of that. And I’m not being general, I I, I vowed not to speak about this part unless I knew the research called because everyone has an N of one. Everybody has their own experience. I have all the research to back what I’m saying. And that makes a difference. So you must know who has your back, who’s who do you need to learn from? Who’s gonna be your accountability partner? Who’s gonna be your coach? Who’s gonna be the people that you pay, who have the knowledge or the training or the skills to teach you how to be on stage to teach you how to do social media, et cetera, et cetera. Or you delegate Mm-Hmm
AJV (31:02):
Yeah. I think that’s so good. And I think so much of that kind of comes back to even some of the other interconnected parts of, you know, all of your expertise and experience just around positive psychology, right? Yeah. It’s like doing big things requires you to be around people who believe you can do big things, right? Right.
CM (31:21):
Yeah. Because it gives you hope. And I have to say this too. So my, my fifth book, creating Your Best Life was the first book for the mass market that brought this brand new at the time, Meta-Analysis out that showed that all success with all goal is proceeded by being happy first. So we’re talking about all goal, professional goals, personal goals, relationship goals, religious goals, whatever the goal is. You must be flourishing first. You don’t have to be happy Dappy, but you do have to be content serene, joyful, you know, flourishing because it sets you up with all of the chemicals and all of the mindset and the outlook to actually attract other people to you. So you build relationships, you take in more information from the environment, you’re more optimistic. I mean every good thing happens when you’re flourishing. When you’re cynical and pessimistic.
CM (32:17):
It’s the absolute opposite. But the first step in any strategy session is, are you flourishing and do you know how to flourish? And when was the last time that you were a seven or an eight on a scale of nine, you know, one to 10. And what did it take to get you there? ’cause We know from positive psychology, there’s several positive interventions that work for everybody. Hmm. And we might as well know what they are. But then we all have some of our own that might be hybrids of some of those music, you know, being with the right people, gratitude practices, prayer, yoga, meditation, journal writing practice of forgiveness. I mean, there are a few things that work for everybody and we better know what ours is and boot ourselves up every day. ’cause It’s our job to do this. The Happy Fairy is not gonna fly through the window every day and make you happy.
CM (33:04):
It’s work too. This is all work. And guess what? Work is not a bad word. Work is something that’ll make you proud at the end of the day. In fact, lock and Latham found when they studied the Pope Wood Association in this, I think it was the 1970s, they found that loggers who knew how to cut down trees the minute they said, go cut down like 10 more trees than you’ve ever cut down with this logging crew that you’re familiar with. And you all have the right tools. So you know how to, there’s nothing left to learn, but go cut down more trees than you’ve ever cut down. Suddenly there was a sense of pride. Mm-Hmm.
CM (33:50):
But I could really go on a rant about this, but this is the way we all need to live. Because as we come out of the Coronavirus Pandemic, which is a black swan event, just like what preceded the Renaissance, which was also when things became more evidence-based art, science, music, education, all of it became more evidence-based. That’s where we are. And we ought to embrace evidence-based goal setting theory because we are in a renaissance right now and the train has left the station and you better have a guidebook for all the evidence-based practices that we know make a difference in success.
AJV (34:24):
Hmm. And you know, I think that one of the most significant things of just like that was like an aha in my head is this idea. It’s like in order for you to set and achieve big goals, you have to be in a good place.
CM (34:36):
Yeah.
AJV (34:37):
You know, you gotta be in a healthy, happy state of mind of Yeah. You know, otherwise, you know, you know, and it’s like, it’s like before you even begin that venture, it’s like, Hey, do I have the right would? You said the seven, what did you call ’em? Positive,
CM (34:55):
Positive interventions. Interven.
AJV (34:57):
Yeah. Yeah.
CM (34:58):
And they’re, they, they tend to work for almost everybody depending on whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert or wherever you’re located. Some might work better for some people than others. Sometimes your first interaction with something like mindfulness or meditation, whether or not you fall in love with it and it has an impact on you predicts whether or not you’re gonna kind of continue to do it. But I have zest, that’s one of my top character strengths and I’m a master swimmer and I get up at 4 35, whatever it is, and I go swim with people. I like them. We work hard. And so by six 30 the hardest part of my day is over. Yeah. We know that rigorous exercise is positive intervention. And if you start your day with that, the rest of the day is a domino effect. It’s just easier. Everything’s easier. But you’ve booted up your chemicals, you’ve booted up all of the testosterone and all of the emotions and the oxytocin, everything you need for the day to be better, be better. The exercise, I think is the best way to start the day. Maybe meditation rivals it, but I haven’t done anything better than exercise.
AJV (36:02):
Yeah. I love that this came up because I literally, this morning at like 6:45 AM I was talking to my husband ’cause my business partner and he’s traveling, so I’m just, me and the kids are home. And I got up extra early to do like my devotional some reading. And and I had, that’s one thing that’s really important to me is my morning routine. And I always get up, I do my devotional, read the Bible I do some sort of like book that I’m reading and then I go on a very fast paced, rigorous walk and it’s about five minute I wear my weighted vest and it’s just kinda like, ah. And he’s been traveling a ton the last few weeks. And so I haven’t had the opportunity to get in my walk and I him this morning, literally this morning, I’m like, I’m in a funk because I’m not getting my morning walk. Yeah. And he would, it’s so funny you said that. I literally had the same thought and I was like, you thought wow funk because I’m not. He goes, yeah, I guess he goes, because I have noticed you’ve been a little off schedule. And I’m like, yes. I put two and two together literally this morning that I am off schedule with my walks and I am in it. Yeah,
CM (37:13):
Yeah. No, it’s true. And I’m so impressed with your routine. I just got waited best myself so I know what you’re doing and that’s impressive. But you found your routine and you intuitively, I’m telling you now, the research is matching what you’re doing. You’re booting up your wellbeing probably to the highest level of the level that you were born with. We all have a set point, so we have a range. So you’re probably getting about as high as you can get or at least close to it. And that wellbeing is the rocket fuel of success with goals. Yeah. And so to start the day that way and to feel better and to just have everything pumping in the right direction is the way I think most people should consider making at least one change to their lives. Because if you wanna succeed at your goals, start here. Yeah. Start with upping your flourishing. It’s like what are the ways to do it? It’s
AJV (38:02):
The pre-work, right? You gotta do the pre-work. Yeah. To be in the right place, to do the right things, to hit big goals.
CM (38:10):
I think so. I mean, at least that’s what the research shows. I, I am completely evidence-based. I really do believe that there’s so many opinions out there and I’m trying to kill off zombie goal approaches ’cause I can’t stand anymore. These, these approaches that won’t die like smart goals. That’s not science. In fact, it’s detrimental to have smart goals. ’cause When people use r for realistic, that’s a violation of goal setting theory. You don’t set realistic goals. Those are what’s called low goals. But there’s also something called jargon, mishmash syndrome. And smart goals falls prey to that because S-M-A-R-T means a lot of different things depending on where you are. The M and the R and the A can all mean slightly different things. So smart goals is in science, law of attraction definitely isn’t science. I’m sorry. But if you want it and you write it in lipstick, uhuh, it doesn’t work.
CM (39:08):
Now maybe a vision board is gonna prime you. That’s real science. A a vision board can make you think goal directed thoughts and everything that matches that thought can be sticky and could stick to you. But you got, you know what, we have one life, one life to go pursue our dreams and to make a really positive impact on the world with what we do and how we do it. Use goal setting theory and then add my bridge methodology on top because I’ve been testing it for 20 years. The only thing I have found that includes all of the science that really makes a difference on grit and resilience and mindset and motivation every in relationships and character, strengths and happiness. The only thing I’ve ever found and work it, learn it, work it. I have so many worksheets in this book so that people can practice.
CM (39:55):
But I think this is the most important book I’ve ever read. And I’ll say one more thing as a mother, because I I know you’re a mother. My children have all lost friends to suicide. And my husband and I didn’t lose any friends to suicide growing up. And I know that there’s suicide clusters and suicide contagion and we live in an anxious, depressed world. And it’s become harder for this generation to survive difficult times because they want things to pass so quickly. Now this is a real simplification, not all suicide, it’s because of this. But I really do believe that many of the people we’re familiar with who’ve taken their own lives. They had big dreams and they were hitting stumbling blocks. One young man, we know it was online gambling and he had lost money and he was hiding it from his family. And, and there’s shame. But if you have a big dream and you want to accomplish goals, there is a way to make those goals happen without just wishing for it and hoping for it and thinking you’re gonna have some quick get rich scheme come at you from YouTube, do the work because it pays off.
AJV (41:09):
You know, I personally cannot relate more to this message because it’s a testament of hard work actually makes you feel better.
CM (41:21):
Yeah. It does.
AJV (41:23):
It like a gen like when you know that you just laid it on the line regardless if you win or lose. Yeah. It’s like, man, I just laid and I it feels good. And part of what feels good is the amount of practice and preparation and learning. And that came through the process of regardless of what happened and you started this interview with this. And then I know we’ll wrap it up, but I thought it was so interesting because I was right before this like self-esteem generation and we didn’t get trophies for showing up. Like my, my dad’s an entrepreneur of alum, a lumber company and it was just very, to earn it right. It was like his dad was a genuine lumberjack and it was just a very hard work work culture and I’m so grateful for it. Yeah. But my kids are in this soccer league and this is so funny that this is coming up. So at this last Saturday, it was their final game of the season. Right. And he’s like, I have five and seven year olds, they’re littles. But at the end it’s all up to the coach’s discretion of like, does he hand out a little trophy or a little rib or anything? And on my five-year-Old’s team, the coach didn’t hand anything out.
CM (42:37):
Oh wow. And my Oh wow.
AJV (42:40):
My five-year-old said, mom, where’s our trophy? And I, he, he was looking at the other ones and I looked at my husband, I was like, they didn’t hand out it like a ribbon or a trophy. And we literally looked at each other and they’re like, well, did he win anything
CM (42:55):
AJV (42:57):
It was like, we literally had, and my husband was like, you think we should like buy one off of Amazon? And I was like,
CM (43:01):
No. Oh my gosh, no.
AJV (43:03):
And it was like, we literally had this debate and we both had to like gut check ourselves of going, yeah, what does he need a Ruben for? What’s he gonna do with the trophy? And it, but it was like this like instinctual thing of like, what? And then we both like came to our senses and we’re like, no, he didn’t win anything. He played a five-year-old soccer league. No, we’re not, he usually
CM (43:23):
Has a mercy rule. They stop keeping score ’cause they don’t wanna hurt anyone’s feelings.
AJV (43:28):
That’s not the case with our kids. Our kids make us the scorekeeper. So we have to tell every ah,
CM (43:34):
Interesting
AJV (43:35):
12 to one
CM (43:37):
Yeah.
AJV (43:37):
They, it was a really interesting thing. And we told our 5-year-old, I was like, Hey bud you know, they don’t technically keep score here. There is no champion. There is like no, like championship. And he goes, but we won. And I said, we did technically win, but
CM (43:55):
Conversation
AJV (43:56):
To have with him. Interesting. And after at the three minute, like, well, you know, technically da da da da. And he was like, okay. And off he goes,
CM (44:05):
Ah. And it was like this, that’s a great story.
AJV (44:08):
And it was an aha moment to me and my, I’m like, the only reason it even came up to him is he saw it and as soon as he realized, oh, like there’s a process to how you win these. He has now asked us since Saturday, what do I have to do to win one of those trophies?
CM (44:24):
No way.
AJV (44:26):
Multiple times. And so now he’s got a goal. He wants a soccer trophy and we’re, we’re, we’re practicing out in our backyard. And, but it was an amazing revelation of if we had just given it to him, yeah. It would’ve destroyed this inner competition, this inner drive
CM (44:45):
Incentive incentive to work or something. And now
AJV (44:48):
What do I have to do to win one? I’m like, well, you have to be in a league that keeps score and you have to like try out. And he’s like, now he’s like, okay, okay, okay.
CM (44:57):
Wow. You know, it’s interesting because the research finds that even children who are given an award or a reward that they haven’t earned, they know and they devalue what they’re being given to. They know there was nothing that really went into it. And that’s what’s so fascinating to me. I have a a, a story very similar to yours where we joined a swim league and the team had gotten rid of the record board even though three Olympians had swam there in the seventies, eighties and nineties, and had gone on to win world championships in the Olympics. Seventh in the Olympics. One of them too. And we, we were like, what did you do with the record board? Well, we hit it. We hit it because the kids would be so discouraged if they saw how fast they’d been before. Well I, they made me the, a rep and I had the biggest record board ever made for summer swim teams made in Austin, Texas.
CM (45:52):
And it was sent to us in Bethesda, Maryland. And the, we invited these three very scary men back and we had this big party Breakfast of champions. And that record board is still the talk of the entire swim league, which has produced lots of Olympians. First thing kids do when they arrive at a swim meet is they go stand in front of the record board. ’cause Like your son, people long to know what does it take to be elite? Mm-Hmm
AJV (46:38):
I mean, genuinely like just even having this conversation at the same timing of this like little soccer league wrap up has been also I think a really big testament. Not just to us who have teams and employees or just even us as an individual setting goals, but I would say specifically as a parent, it’s like, don’t rob your kids of hard work.
CM (47:01):
Yeah. No, it’s true
AJV (47:03):
Of hard work. Don’t try to make it easy for them. It’s like there is power and the grit and the perseverance and the resilience. How else do we learn that stuff,
CM (47:13):
Right? Well, you don’t, you can’t, you can’t buy it. You can’t chant it. It only comes this way. And the other thing is we have to show them that we are resilient when bad things happen to us, when we don’t get the job we want, when we’re fired, when you don’t get a book contract, when you get bad speech reviews, whatever it is, kids need to see that you too are resilient and that there’s mom and dad and they survived it. My gosh. You know, I bet I could survive not making the travel soccer team or whatever, not being the lead in the play or not getting an A on everything. That’s our responsibility as parents, even though you might as well take a knife and just plunge it right into my heart. Because watching your children not succeed or get what they want is heartbreaking. But to this day, my three adult children, the absolute best things that ever happened to them in life, in life that had the best outcomes were the worst things that happened to them. And you know what they survived and boy, what a lesson. Not even just to us, to them it made them all better. Men and women.
AJV (48:16):
Yeah. This is so good. Thank you so much for coming on. This has been so insightful and just chock full of day backed reasoning on importance of setting big goals. Big goals comes out November 27th. Yeah. Grab a copy at anywhere where you buy books check it out. But then also if you go to big goals book.com, if you pre-order the book, then you also receive a 20 a page PDF workbook to help you through this process. Yeah. So go to big goals book.com, get your copy. Comes out officially November 27th. Caroline, thank you so much for being on the show today. And y’all, thank you. You guys wanna connect with Caroline? Where should they follow you online? What’s the best platform?
CM (49:05):
I, I think LinkedIn. Linkedin, Caroline Adams, Miller. But I’m on Instagram and Facebook, you know, I have a social media team that keeps me active, but you know, and then my website, caroline miller.com.
AJV (49:18):
So I would just encourage go to your platform of choice. Go to caroline miller.com, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram pick your platform of choice, but grab a copy of big goals to help you have a life changing year next year. Thank you for being on the show. Everyone else, stay tuned for the recap episode and we will see you next time on the Influential Personal Brand.
CM (49:40):
Thank you.
Ep 545: When Enough Is Enough | Budget Besties Episode Recap
AJV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help Mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well-known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started.
AJV (00:34):
How to know when enough is enough. I’m specifically talking about money here, and as we round out 2024, which is when I’m recording this and I look ahead to 2025, which I imagine many of you are, I think that’s a question that’s really timely. How much is enough? And when you think about it in the terms of money, I would encourage you to think about money not in terms of how much you make or, or how much you wanna keep, but it’s more of what do you wanna do with the money that you have? And I’m in a lot of different circles with friends, family, different business owners, entrepreneurs even just conversations in the Brand Builders Group community, and even just conversations with the team at Brand Builders Group. And I, I have never met anyone ever who has said, no, I, I don’t want to make more money.
AJV (01:35):
Now, they may admit I don’t need more money, but I have never actually heard anyone say, no, I don’t want to make more money. But I have also heard the following statements or sentiments simultaneously, which is, why do I always feel the need to make more? How do I know when enough is enough? And what ultimately is this magical number that would make me feel financially secure? And I think that’s a really good question for all of us. And one of the things that I have been spending a lot of time thinking about is, you know, I don’t think anyone is asking the question, how much am I spending? As much as we are asking how much do I want to be making, or how much do I think I need to be making? But spending and making
AJV (02:40):
I know that there are many people in poverty who are going, no, I need to make more money. This is not about spending. I cannot afford groceries. I am not speaking to that group of people in this particular conversation. That is a different need. That is a different conversation. But for the rest of everyone who specifically lives in the United States, right, you are already making more than the majority of the entire world just by living here. And the average salary in the United States is $48,000. If you’re making more than that, then you are already making more than the average American. If you make over six figures you are already making more than almost 50% of the average American. And yet we have this question of enoughness and making more. And have we actually ever stopped and asked ourselves, how much am I spending?
AJV (03:38):
And is that, is that an area I need more control over versus always the desire of more? And I don’t think wanting more is bad. Don’t hear what I’m not saying. There are many things that I think having more of is awesome. I think making more money is a good and powerful thing. I want to make more money. But I don’t want to ever be in a position that making more creates less time for my family. I never want making more money to pull me away from the work that God has me to do. I never want to be making more money so that I have no peace and no rest because I’ve said yes to every single thing in an effort of making more. And yet, I have no time for my husband, my children, myself, the the Lord. Friends, I think there’s, there’s exchanges here that we make.
AJV (04:31):
And sometimes I think the question should be is, am I spending too much? Versus am I, how do I make more? And this is not a conversation for everyone. It’s for a very specific person and a very specific season who is asking themselves, when is enough enough? And perhaps what you have is already enough, and it’s not about making more. But it could be about spending less. And it may not even be about spending less. It may just be more about spiritual contentness. It’s being content and at peace with what you have and what you’re making. Because my husband often says this peace is the new profit. More money isn’t going to necessarily fix the problems that we have. More money often creates more problems, right? Biggie small said it best. More money, more problems. And often the more that we make, the more that we just naturally spend there’s a natural lifestyle acclimation that occurs unintentionally and most of the time unaware where we naturally make more.
AJV (05:42):
And so we naturally spend more, thus always creating this desire, this intentional thought that we need to make more. And that’s not necessarily a true, it’s the byproduct of our spending went up. And regardless of how much you make percentage wise, it never feels like you have any leftover. And a part of this is in conjunction with the end of the year, the beginning of the year, and a recent conversation that we had on the podcast with the budget besties who have a financial podcast for women. We can listen to it wherever you listen to your podcast. But it was a really great conversation about awareness, about it’s not often I need to make more conversation. It’s often, do you even know where you’re spending? And are you overspending? Which creates this discontent to make you think you need to make more?
AJV (06:38):
And is it really a spending conversation versus a money conversation? And a lot of that comes down to this B word, right, called a budget. It’s like, do you actually subscribe to living on a budget where there is a designated pile of money that you have for the necessities of your life? IE the bills that you have? Then do you set aside the amounts for spending or savings or whatever it may be? But those are intentional decision decisions of going, I can be content with whatever I have in any situation. And it’s not always a chase for more. Again, not saying that more is bad, it’s just at what cost. It’s just at what cost. And I wanna reiterate, I want more. I want more for our team and for our clients, but not at the cost of peace and joy and time and health and family and friends.
AJV (07:41):
And then it’s an exchange of you can actually have more by simply deciding to spend less. That’s an exchange of going when it, it, it depends on what you want more of. I also believe in the concept of Die with Zero. I believe that when, you know, I go to the grave, I don’t want anything left over. I wanna see the fruits of my labor, labor put to work and whatever I choose to invest it into. But I think these are decisions of going like, how are we using and investing the money that we make in a way that brings more peace not just more dollars in a banking account, because that ain’t going with you. And it’s not that you shouldn’t have reserve savings, you should have emergency funds. I believe in all of those things. And also, this is the decision of going, I’m the, I am the authority.
AJV (08:32):
I am the authority over money in my life. Money is not the authority over me. Money does not dictate the decisions I make. I dictate the decisions and then choose how to use the money I have. And many of us will make financial decisions that will take up 60% of the waking hours of our life. That’s called a job
AJV (09:30):
You better
AJV (10:14):
Do you want better relationships? Do you want better health? Like, what are the things that you really want? And then what are you doing to get those things? And I cannot say this enough, but I’m gonna say it one more time. Making more money is not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. It’s a necessary thing. It’s about what we do with that money and how we let it rule over our hearts. That can be a bad thing, not always, but sometimes it’s just, are you in control or is in, is it in control of you? Is it forcing you to make decisions that are out of alignment with who you are and what you want? And I think that is a question of when is enough enough? And I think all of us have to come to terms with do I really need more money or do I need something else, right? Do I need more purpose, more fulfillment, more time, more peace? And can I get that without stretching and forcing this money conversation by simply choosing to potentially spend less? So when is enough enough.
Ep 544: Keeping More of the Money You Make with the Budget Besties
AJV (00:01):
Hey everybody, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. It’s AJ Vaden here, and I’m about to introduce you to two of the most joyful and outgoing and entertaining but also financially prudent and savvy women that I’ve come in contact with in a long time. And they call themselves the budget besties, but
AJV (00:55):
The answer is yes. This might be an episode for you. Would you have like to have less debt, more spending power, less financial pe or more financial peace and less financial stress? If you answered yes to any of those, then this is likely an episode around money, specifically budgeting that will help you have a better and more successful financial path moving forward. And so, as we’re rounding out the year and looking forward to how can we best prepare our audience to have an awesome next year, I thought having the budget besties on the show would be so helpful and powerful for you guys. So let me give them a quick formal introduction, and then we’re gonna get right to the heart of this interview. So, Shayna and Vanessa are best friends and business partners on a mission to help take the shame out of the money conversation. They are master, master financial coaches and also co-hosts of one of the top rated, top 1% actually range podcast financial coaching for women. Now, we’re not gonna talk about financials just for women today, but if you happen to be of the female six, then
SR (02:22):
Us. Yes. Thank you for having us. We’re so excited to talk about the B word
AJV (02:26):
VP (02:59):
You know, I think that we are both financially wired in a way, and I will tell you that I, this whole thing, the reason why we came together, it’s a, it’s a total God story. Yeah. Right. So we met at the YMCA, our boys were four years old,
SR (03:12):
They’re now 16. I know. So just pause for a moment and do the math there,
VP (03:17):
And we were, we worked out together and I was going, I just started going to a church and Shayna needed a new church. And so that next week she came with me and within two weeks we were starting to lead a community group together. Yeah. If that tells you about our friendship.
SR (03:32):
Yeah. So yeah, we signed up for this church and within two weeks we’re leading a community group together that kind of gives you the idea of our friendship and the level of intensity in which we do
VP (03:40):
Anything in difference. Yeah.
SR (03:41):
And so, you know, we did life together as moms, our boys. Like I said, like she said, they were four, now they’re 16 and we’re still doing life together. But it all started AJ with a little book that I know that you are familiar with called The Total Total Money Makeover. Mm-Hmm.
VP (04:07):
Yeah. So I honestly, it’s, it’s hard for me to stay tuned into a book. I read this book in a week. I loved it. I loved the concept of it. My, we were actually going to Portugal. We took the kids and we went for three months to Portugal. My husband came out to
SR (04:20):
Live with her grandmother.
VP (04:21):
Yeah. So my grandmother, I’m half Portuguese, she was out there for six months and she said, bring the kids. And I said, can I do that? And she said, yeah. So I told my husband, I said, babe, I’m gonna go though. I went for three months and really found out what was really important to my family, our morals, values. We loved that simple life. I really, really enjoyed the simplicity of living in a small house and enjoying family and only having what we needed and going to pick the fresh vegetables and everything. So anyways you know, we came back, sold the big house, sold all the stuff that we didn’t need. We bought a smaller house, downsized. And after buying that house in three years, so I was 31 and mortgage free. And debt free. And I realized that that to me was a goal. I wanted to be able to own our house. I wanted to be able to have things that were ours and we didn’t want to live like the Joneses anymore. Like we had our own way of living now. Yeah.
SR (05:07):
And so we were, we were still friends, but we are military, so we were about to move away from Florida, which is where we’re back now. And I was able to through my own I was a stay-at-home mom primarily, but I also had a, you know, side hustle as, as we all did at some point, it seems like. And I was able to cashflow a trip to Disney World for my family, pay for it in cash, which was the first family vacation that we had taken. Military families. You get famously, you get to go home, that’s your vacation every single time,
VP (06:03):
SR (06:54):
Yeah. And, and just real quick, ’cause I know we’ve been talking for about 30 minutes already. It just reminds me of your story with Lewis, how he called, you know, right after that happened with you guys. And it was just that, and that’s what we need as well. We need, God, we need neon flashing signs. Otherwise we may not do be be as keen to understand what, what you have for us. And praise God, he had it for us in that moment, and we’ve been going ever since. Yeah.
AJV (07:16):
You know, what I love about it is we don’t talk a lot about publicly, like the brand positioning statement of brand builders group, but if this is new to any of you listening, it’s like we talk about brand positioning statements at brand Builders group with our clients and our members, which Shayna and Vanessa are, and we talk about you know, the, the core of any personal brand is to determine what problem you solve for the world. What’s the cause of that problem? What message do you have, which is the solution to that problem? How do you uniquely solve that in a way only you can, which is your uniqueness? What are the payoffs to solving it? And that’s kind of your brand positioning statement. And what I love what you guys just said is at the heart of the center of what we build our entire company on, which is very simple. It’s not sexy but it’s very simple and it’s teach what you know. Mm-Hmm.
SR (08:13):
Yeah.
VP (08:13):
And
AJV (08:14):
Well, any great business is a result of, you did something, it changed your life, and now you wanna help other people do the same thing.
SR (08:22):
Yep.
VP (08:22):
Right?
SR (08:23):
Yeah. And you guys always say you’re most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. We once were those people. And and you know, we’ve had great mentorship and we’ve been able, we’ve been doing this now for long enough that we’ve been able to kind of take our, to build our own system and, and build our own like you said, best practices. Yeah. But, but for sure we are now helping who we are people who make good money, but have nothing to show for it
VP (08:46):
AJV (09:15):
Well, I love that. And I wanna talk about that. And I have to tell you, like we, we did a total money makeover before we got married. Our commitment to each other is that we would not get married and until we could enter our marriage completely debt free, so that we, we were starting from, you know, ground zero clean slate. And so we did the envelopes for almost two years until we both paid off all of our debt and then got married without any debt and entered. And that’s how we started our marriage. Mm-Hmm.
SR (10:00):
Well, it reminds us of a story. So let’s you know, you know, brand builders, Rory, you guys say a lot. Diluted focus equals diluted results. Mm-Hmm.
VP (10:29):
Yeah. So we were you know, we’re at the front of the class, we’re looking out, and all of a sudden I see a roach. Okay. A big fat Florida roach crawling across the floor, like almost robotic, but its big old arms, and it’s approaching one of our clients. And I gradually, like, continue to let Shana teach, and I just walked out.
SR (10:48):
We’re all on Upward Dog. Yes. Nobody can see
VP (10:51):
Yeah. And I got up quietly, grabbed an extra mat, put it over the roach, and slid it all the way across the room so nobody could see it.
SR (11:00):
Yeah. And, and what what we’ve learned is that that’s kind of how people treat their finances. Mm-Hmm.
VP (11:27):
Yeah. You know, a lot of times they’re,
AJV (11:29):
I wanna touch on that for just a second. Yeah. Because you said an important word there, they feel
VP (11:33):
Yep.
AJV (11:34):
Mm-Hmm.
VP (11:53):
Have. No, absolutely. Because when we first started this, we were trying to find our words. What is, what is actually happening with people when we realize is they have a lot of money. They’re not, they don’t need to live paycheck to paycheck, but it feels that way because their money, they’re not being good stewards of their money, not on purpose, but just because their money is coming in and it’s going out as fast as it is, you know, as fast as it’s coming in. Because there is no rhyme or reason to how they’re spinning. They, it’s not organized. Everything is convoluted into one account. It’s very overwhelming as to what’s happening. And they’re sticking their head in the sand and just not paying attention to it. Yeah. And
SR (12:26):
That’s really, that’s really you know, we’ve all heard of lifestyle creep, and so you have, you know, lifestyle creep as you’re spending, or your money increases, so do your, so does your spending. But what we’ve learned, AJ
VP (13:17):
But, but they, they don’t know what they don’t know. So, like Shana said, they’re sticking in this 18-year-old mindset of one checking account, one one way of doing stuff, because that’s the first way that they were taught. The only way they were taught. They’ve never been taught a new way, which is, you know, nothing wrong with them. It’s just and we’ve not sought out a different way. Right, right.
SR (13:35):
Well, and, and honestly, people feel paralyzed a little bit. So if they do go to seek it out, they get, imagine being our age, which is very young. We’re very young. All of us are very young. Ej It’s fine. And, and being told, you know, just, you know, intensely do nothing but pay off debt. That’s really hard when you have kids and you have all of us.
AJV (13:56):
And very fun. It
SR (13:57):
Not, it’s not fun. It’s not very fun. And, and it’s, it’s, it’s paralyzes people a little bit. Right? Mm-Hmm. So what we wanna do is explain it maybe in a little bit different way so that you can, you know, be a good steward, like Vanessa said, but also let’s, let’s fund some of these fun things. Mm-Hmm. You know, we, honestly, honestly, we’re a little bougie. We wanna be bougie, but we wanna be on a budget. Okay. And we believe you can do both. Yeah. And
VP (14:19):
You know, we love Dave Ramsey, but we used his system first with our clients, and then we found our own system. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (14:59):
And I think those are a couple of things that I think are really good to kind of talk about. So what are some of the biggest pitfalls, traps, mistakes, whatever we wanna call ’em, I’m gonna call ’em mistakes. What are some of the biggest mistakes that you guys see with people managing their money? And what are some things we can do to avoid those next year and forevermore?
SR (15:22):
Well, there’s, there’s one really, really big one. And this is what every, there’s a lot we can go into a lot especially when it comes to relationships and there’s so many different things. But the big one really, honestly, AJ is having one account. So imagine you have one account and it’s trying to track and you’re trying and do a mental math, which hello, I’m not even good at real math, like with a calculator, let alone with just trying to do it in my head. But you’re trying to mental math, whether did the rent get paid my phone bill, but also I need to go to Target. But also the kids are wanting to stop by Chick-fil-A, but all oh, field trip dues are, are tomorrow. Like you’re trying to do all this mental math with one account,
VP (15:54):
And then also at the same time you’re at the grocery store trying to figure out is there enough in there because what’s been pulled and what hasn’t. Right. Yeah.
SR (15:59):
‘Cause The bill’s still gonna get paid. And so you’re trying to do all of this math. So that is one, one mistake. And when we say the 18-year-old system, that’s kind of what it is. You thought, well, I went to the bank and I opened my account. And that’s how it is. Well, we are in this digital age, ladies and gentlemen, so you can have more than one checking account. And so what we teach is let’s separate all of that. Let’s separate and have a Bills account, let’s separate and have spending account, let’s separate and have savings. And we can make all of that automatic, but really truly organizing it and separating it into, like you alluded that you and Rory did when you guys were were, you know, engaged, you had your cash envelopes. We can kind of put that exact same system into your bank and then you can very clearly know what’s going on. And that really does take away some of the stress and the mental math in the mo in the moment.
AJV (16:44):
Yeah.
VP (16:44):
That’s really helpful.
AJV (16:47):
I have a, I have a question. It’s like, why don’t people do that? Is it just ’cause they don’t know that they can’t?
SR (16:54):
Yes.
VP (16:55):
Yeah. That it’s honestly, when we tell people, Hey, open up a second checking account, they’re like, what do you mean? And we’re like, I mean, you can, you can do that. The thing is, is that they’re so used to just having, you know, when you go to a bank, they tell you to open one checking and one savings, and that’s just how you end up operating unknowingly. That you can have a whole different system available to you if you just ask. Right. If all the what is it, what’s the saying? All the answers to the questions you don’t ask, it’s always no. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (17:40):
Yeah. Then, so, okay, here’s a technical question for everyone listening. So then let’s just say I, I just, I jotted down four. There’s a Bills account. We would, we would call it a household account, but Bills account, a spending account, a savings account, and then I stuck one called taxes. So let’s just pretend that we had four accounts, right? So when you get paid is it a manual I’m gonna take in my weekly paycheck and you know, this much goes here, this much goes here? Or are you guys suggesting that you have auto amounts going to different places? Or what, what are some of like the tactical best practices of managing? Yes. Because that takes a kind of organized Truman.
SR (18:22):
Well, well first of all, the, the biggest mistake is manually managing your accounts. The more you’re in it, the, you know, the more we tend to mess it up. No, love us. Right? It’s kinda like me in the kitchen. It’s fine. But the, the thing that we find is that you want to separate all of those accounts. Yeah. And
VP (18:41):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what what you wanna do is have all of your income come into your, your bills account. So that first, the main account that you have is your bills account. Yeah. And so all of your income, every source of income that’s coming in is coming into one main account. And you only keep in there what’s enough to pay for all of your bills and all of your debt payments. And then from there you automatically are funding Yeah. Funding the other accounts. Yeah.
SR (19:05):
Well, because the, the mistake that you, that you were alluding to that people do is they try to live paycheck. They try to assign paycheck to a specific paycheck to specific jobs. What we want you to do is let’s take a bird’s eye view, a monthly view of what your money can actually do in a month. And that’s from that bird’s eye view. Then we can start to manipulate each paycheck. But what we want, what we love AJ, is to take the rollercoaster ride out of this paycheck to paycheck, this feast or famine. You know, we have people say, well this is this, this, check the rent’s due. So we don’t really have a lot for groceries or, you know, whatever. So stuff like that. And we’re
VP (19:36):
Telling you can actually eat four weeks out of the month, aj, it’s fantastic.
SR (19:40):
VP (19:57):
So much weight off the shoulders.
SR (19:58):
Yes. Especially as mom, they’re, they’re coming at you from every angle with something. And then so we really wanna be able to solve that problem. The other thing that you talked about, taxes. So that’s, we’re gonna separate. We, we really want you to separate your business and your personal and we would have you automate setting aside taxes. Mm-Hmm.
VP (20:29):
That’s the best part that you can rename all your accounts. Yeah.
SR (20:31):
And you know what, so you have boys, we have daughters. If you have an account that says, you know, Melanie’s wedding, you are so much less likely to steal money from that for you to go to go to Target or whatever, go shopping. And so and so you can rename it. We have people say, my name is no when it comes to their savings account, like all kinds of
VP (20:50):
Fun things don’t touch this. Like, right.
SR (20:51):
Yeah. And so, and, and then the real thing is like when you log into your own bank app, you don’t need a special app. You can see all of this money Mm-Hmm.
VP (21:02):
Think that’s the other part of it is people believe or they have this notion that they need a separate app, some third party device or thing that’s gonna help them track all their money. And what, what we like to say is let your bank to be your personal assistant. Let your bank app do the work for you and you can set it up automatically. We teach them this system to where, like you said, the money comes in and then the money all goes out. And it’s all based on what your budget is telling you you’re allotted for those different accounts. But then once it’s set up, right, do something today that’s gonna make tomorrow easier. Once you can set it up, take the time to do that, you’re, you step back and it’s so nice that not have to worry about that. You know, for instance, for an example, my husband gets paid every Wednesday afternoon. So Thursday morning all my transfers happen. Mm-Hmm.
SR (21:48):
And you have money for groceries every week. It’s so amazing.
AJV (21:51):
Yeah. And, and I love, and I love adding some of the funness to it of like, you know, you know, give it personality, but also give it purpose. Right? Mm-Hmm.
VP (22:39):
A lot. A lot. And we’ve also had people who have made a budget, but then they don’t know what to do with it. And that’s, I think that’s where we, where we feel bad because we have tried to use other people’s budgets for our business. And we first came to to, together we tried to find a budget that would help people you know, see if we can partner with somebody to use their budget that they’ve already created. And the reality is that there was not one out there that made sense to us. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (23:20):
Reason I ask, the reason I ask is I was sitting here thinking, how many people actually make budgets?
VP (23:29):
Well,
SR (23:29):
It’s the B word for a reason. Right? Right.
VP (23:30):
It’s taboo.
AJV (23:31):
It’s so, so, okay, so here’s my question for you guys. How do you make a budget? Like, if we’ve got people listening today that are going, well, I thought budgets were people who, for people who didn’t make enough money or I felt budgets or something that you, you, you know, do only when you’re this. And it’s like, if you’re sitting there listening to this going, I I don’t actually have a family budget. I actually don’t have a budget for how I spend my money. What would be a couple of first steps for everyone to do if we’re, if we’re trying to get a financial grasp on how are we going to better steward the money we have? I I do think budgets are helpful and necessary even if you choose not to follow it. It’s like visibility, awareness is step one is awareness. Right? Yeah. So what, what do we do? Like, what’s step? Well,
SR (24:19):
I think, I think the first thing to think is, is to understand that the perception of a budget is that it’s restrictive. Yeah. And I don’t wanna do it. It’s a chore. But what we are going to do is we’re going to let, is show you how it gives you freedom. Freedom to spend and freedom to live the life that you wanna live, to be, you know, bougie on a budget as we say. But, and it’s a very simple process to make a budget. But I think going back to, you know, when you were talking about you and Rory as young people, it’s really about being intentional. Like I, yes, you make good money, but do you, are you really proud? Are you, are you, are you certain about where what it’s doing and where it’s going? Or and is it
VP (24:53):
Serving
SR (24:53):
You well? Yeah. Or is it serving future you? Well, so we can be really intentional and really fun, but what Vanessa was alluding to is we saw these budgets with variable fixed and blah. And where everybody’s like, but what, so what do I do with my hands? Okay. So what you do is you have your income. That’s what you start with. It’s very exciting, aj. It’s the best number. Everybody’s like, woo woo income. So we like to start with the income. Okay. And then next we like to li list out our debt payments. Okay. So we’re trying to do this, you could do this in 10 minutes. Yeah. Rough draft. Be okay with the, you know, b plus work. Let out your list out your debt minimums, because that is what you’re minimally gonna need to pay every month. Mm-Hmm.
VP (25:54):
So after you list it out,
AJV (25:55):
Can I pause there for a second? I have a question for you guys. This is back to a tactical question. How do you even do that? Like to, like, how do you even list out all of the bills? ’cause I think a lot of people are set it and forget it and sometimes there’s annual subscription payments that come out. And it’s like, are you are, how, how do you even do that for a very, for the person who’s going to, I actually, I want to do this. Mm-Hmm.
VP (26:24):
Well, we like to tell people to do a 90 day audit. So a 90 day audit, it’s gonna have you gather all the information that you need to be able to make this. Now we understand there’s quarterly bills, there’s annual bills, like we get that. But if, let’s just start with the monthly stuff first. What are you getting charged for monthly? And sometimes they’re on four different credit cards. Sometimes they’re in one account. Mm-Hmm.
SR (27:10):
Well, and what’s really funny is we, we do work with primarily people who make good money and they don’t necessarily need to cut their bills. That’s not usually the problem. It’s more spending. Yeah. But once they see everything listed out, aj and like you said, it’s just set it and forget it. Well, 7 30, 45, 99 over, like, once you start to see it, you’re like, oh, let me, let me go ahead and take a little ownership over this. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (27:44):
Yeah. And there’s
VP (27:44):
No shame on, like, we’ve had people that fill up every single line in our budget with their subscriptions and all their everything there. That’s fine. We don’t, that’s, there’s no shame in that. We want you to be able to live a life that you can afford. But that’s the thing is can you afford it? And sometimes you don’t know the answer to that because you haven’t listed it on paper to even see if it’s possible.
AJV (28:00):
I was in a conversation with my husband, Rory a couple of weeks ago about all these miscellaneous charges. ’cause We have a household bookkeeper that’s something that we’ve chosen to invest our money into because both of us are like, we’re not very good at monitoring this and we need someone to help us. And I, a couple months earlier I had seen those and I had gone in and made sure like, well, we don’t use that. We’ve outgrown that. Or we don’t, we, we hired, you know, a full-time nanny. We don’t need the babysitter app anymore. And so I had canceled all these, but they kept coming. Mm-Hmm. And I was like, I was like about to like dispute all these charges with a credit card. Like, I was like furious. I was like, I canceled all these, y’all, both of us had them on two separate cards, two separate account names. And not only were we paying for stuff not being used, neither of us had known the other person had also signed up and subscribed to it. So I think part of the reason you’re not was asking is like, man, you don’t even know where your money is going sometimes unless you’re doing these types of audits. And I had canceled in this particular with like a care.com, but he had signed up for one and we were both paying for the same thing. Gum app that we’re both of them not being utilized.
VP (29:15):
Right. It happens a lot. Yeah. We see that a lot. We, I even had a lady who was paying for an auto insurance on a card that she no longer owned for like a year. And she, we couldn’t, she wouldn’t, you know, I don’t have access to their bank accounts, but she was like, something’s not adding up as a girl. We have to figure this out. Sure enough, it was an insurance payment. Yeah.
AJV (29:34):
And, and so I think that’s why I ask, because I think that’s so important. It’s like, even if you go, oh yeah, I’m gonna keep all those, it’s just, just awareness. Yeah. It’s just awareness of like, where’s your money going? And that was just like a recent story that happened to us. And I’m like, ah, that is so ridiculous. It’s awareness. We had that So ridiculous. Yeah. Didn’t even know. It is.
SR (29:55):
Yeah. It is awareness. And that’s like what we were talking about sweeping, sweeping the under the rug usually. And I you said you that you guys have a bookkeeper because you’re not good at math. Which I would not agree with. But anyway. Yeah. I thought I was gonna, you were gonna say ’cause you’re too busy. Yeah. Like you guys are a lot busy. You have full lives. And do I wanna spend amount, amount enough time on, on my budget?
AJV (30:14):
Absolutely. Managing it.
SR (30:15):
Oh, managing. That’s what was, sorry. Yeah. She’s like, excuse me. I’m very good. CEO good at math. I don’t like math, but really, but who has, who has the time? And really we do try to solve that, right. And make this a very hands off, very easy system so that you, so, so that we all can spend time on, on more fun things than budgeting. But it is, it does happen more often than you think. And that’s really what, like you said, it’s just awareness. Let’s just look at this once in a while and make sure that everything that we’re spending our money on is what we wanna be spending our money on. Well,
VP (30:42):
In the old days, you think about, there were check registries, people were, they’re tracking transactions. There’s apps that are trying to help you do that. And you’re, that is so time consuming. Nobody has the time. We’re very busy. We have a lot, we have wonderful lives that we’re very excited about. They’re very full that we want to do. We wanna spend our time doing other things with our kids and at their events at work. Nobody has time to sit there and track your finances. So, like Shana said, the way that we have it set up for you is an automatic system that if you just take the time one afternoon to be able to do, it’s a basically a set it and forget it. Remember that George Foreman a long time ago,
SR (31:24):
And if you can imagine the Bills account, so what, what we said is if you have one checking account right now, you have hundreds of transactions, like literally every, every Chick-fil-A every, you know, soccer due from YMC or whatever, everything is in there. If you switch it to what we’re talking about having a Bills account, you would’ve found those much easier because there’s only so many bills transactions happening. And you can really, you can clearly isolate that and without a lot of time and you’ll be able to see it. So then, but okay, so to recap, we were talking about income. Yay. Fun number, excited. Everybody’s having a good time immediately to kind of the worst number, which is debt minimums, which the Vaden didn’t have when they got married. Congratulations. And then we’re going to the bills, right? But then after that is the,
VP (32:02):
The most fun.
SR (32:03):
That’s when we’re getting, we’re getting, we’re finally here where we get to spend money. It’s very exciting. This
VP (32:07):
Is where you live in your budget, right? Yeah.
SR (32:08):
And so this is really what, what differentiated us when we, when we made our, our budget. When you spend money, this is when you’re swiping. When you’re either going to the grocery store, you’re going to the restaurant, you’re going even if you’re paying for a babysitter, all of this stuff that you’re spending, it’s not a bill, but it’s over here. It’s discretionary. It’s different every month maybe. And that’s what we really wanna put over there in that column. And we will add, you know, with, when you use the audit that we talked about, that’s when it can get a little ugly. We’ve had clients come in and say, well, I did what you told me and I wanted to throw up, up. So thank you for that. Because they were spending so much money on restaurants. Imagine, you know, $4,000 a month on, on restaurants. If you have a goal to get out of debt, seen it, you have a goal to travel. Like, you know, it’s just not in alignment. And that’s what, like you said before, awareness. It’s what it’s really about.
VP (32:54):
Yeah. So the idea with this spending account is really just allow you to see how much money you’re spending. And so there’s two questions here. What am I spending my money on and what do I wanna be spending my money on? Mm-Hmm.
SR (33:37):
Well, and another key part of this pers of this spending column, and we’re not done yet, we got one more column after the spending, but is personal spending. So when you were asking earlier about feeling people have money, baggage, and they have different kind of self sabotage things that they do when it comes to their money. And so one of the, one of the ways to fix that is to get you used to having money. You have money, you have money to spend, nobody’s telling. You can’t. And so you can take away some of that, some of that angst that people have. You have permission. You have permission. Go to target girl, go to target to your heart out or wherever you need to go. And, and, and that’s the personal spending money. And we want that separate for each you know, the the husband and the wife or whatever, whatever you know, situation you have there. We want that separate so that you can, you can have it. And, and it really does help heal. Yes. Your relationship with money in some ways. And, you know, this whole system is really gonna help heal your relationship with your spouse when it comes to money as well.
AJV (34:35):
Hmm. Yeah. I think that’s so good of just like the personal spending accounts where it’s like, don’t have to ask permission. These are set aside amounts where it’s my free will money. And I, and I love that. And I think, you know, one of the things I think is like, so important that you guys brought up is like, we have money baggage, right? Mm-Hmm.
AJV (35:22):
I have to make more. And the question is, but do you
VP (35:59):
You know, we’ve had couples come together and, and never actually talk about money before they get married. And so when they get married, well, first of all, nobody ever taught them how to handle their own money. And then they get married, and now you’re having to handle two people’s, you know, two people money together that neither one of ’em ever spoke about. Mm-Hmm. So then you have the husband whose family maybe was very wealthy never had to worry about money. So he just spent all the time. Then you have the wife who came in whose family didn’t have a lot of money. So any money she does have, she wants to hold onto it because there’s money baggage there. And he has money baggage in his own way because never had to worry about it. So it was never a problem. Right. And then they come together trying to work this out and, and do finances together. It’s really, really difficult.
SR (36:40):
Hmm. Yeah. And one of the, one of the things that people are doing is they’re, they’re trying to not, they’re not looking at their numbers. So they’re just spending, spending spending until the, until they get to zero. That’s usually, or until their credit card balance is, is maxed. That’s, those are the two options. And, and so when we take ’em through the system, they have to get used to having money. It’s such a strange phenomenon. Like, you know, you, you’re making good money, you have money, like you’re, you’re doing well, but they, you still have this internal need to spend, spend, spend because you, you’re still living on that 18-year-old system or whatever where I didn’t have anything. And it’s scarcity. And so that is one interesting thing that we’ve seen is their, their money starts to stack up in their savings account. They have money every time they get paid.
SR (37:21):
And you can’t, you can’t have this self-sabotage loop of spend, spend, spend, have no money, spend, spend. It starts to break it. But it really is about, you know, taking full ownership when it’s amazing how I, how we can see people that, that spend money on their hair, their nails, their vacations, their, their car, like they’re so spiny, but once they actually start to look at it, they, and they take ownership. They’re not running from it anymore. Right. They’re looking at it, they’re taking ownership. They, they change. They really do. This is gonna blow your mind. They get more excited about saving money. Mm-Hmm.
VP (38:05):
We have on average, depending on where people are in their, their financial journey, like they’re either paying off or saving about $20,000 in six months after working with us and seeing that the system that we put in, in place for them. But Shayna just had a client the other day who had money in the account and before they met, she just like transferred it out somewhere and Shayna’s like, what, what’d you do? And she said, well, I had money in there, so I just moved it. And she’s like, no, no, no. What the reality is, is because she’s not used to having money, she’s not used to seeing any money in her account. She’s usually always in the red or it’s, you know, at zero. So for her to see this money that we specifically put there on purpose, that was really hard for her to like settle with and be okay with.
AJV (38:41):
Yeah. I think, I think that that the, those emotional ties to money that we all have, regardless if it came from childhood, adolescence, adulthood, doesn’t matter where it comes from, it comes from something. And it’s, it really is having good awareness of what am I making? What am I spending, what do I want? And then what do I have to do about it? Right. Mm-Hmm.
SR (39:25):
Well, as we alluded to, go ahead and print out three months worth of those statements. Print out the credit, whether it’s credit card or debit card, no shame there, but let’s just look at it. We like, we like to imagine that everybody can embrace their inner nerd and just get some highlighters, get, you know, just take, take a moment and just look and see what’s been going on. Bring
VP (39:43):
A beverage, bring some snacks, make a fun afternoon of it, and
SR (39:46):
Really just see what’s been going on with your money. And you know, when, when people do this, they, they tend to get down on themselves a little bit. They like, like we alluded to, several clients have come and say, well, that wasn’t fun. Mm-Hmm.
VP (40:19):
Yeah. That, that’s true. Literally when we make a budget, they’re like, what do you mean I have $3,000 left over? I’m like, well, I mean, the one thing we love about finances, that numbers don’t lie. Yeah. Math doesn’t lie. It’s really black and white. So for them to be able to see all this leftover money, it’s really eyeopening. So, you know, when they do the 90 day audit and they look at all their, their, their
SR (40:35):
Numbers Yeah.
VP (40:36):
How they have been spending their money. The next step is to, the one thing that they can do is separate your accounts. Mm-Hmm. If it’s the one thing that they got out of this podcast at all is to open a separate checking account specifically for spending, and they can transfer a certain amount of money in the air every paycheck based on what their budget allows for them to have the freedom to spend. So that way it’s not convoluted, it’s not met mixed up with all of their bill and their debt payments. Well,
SR (40:59):
And just one more little thing, you know, we’re coming into the new year, you’re gonna be thinking about your goals anyway at brand builders. You know, we start with who, who are, who are you going to serve right here? Think about who you wanna be. Think about what you guys, what this big exciting vision you have for your life. Because no matter what it is, whether it’s being generous, whether it’s traveling, whether it’s something for your, your kids, it re probably gonna require money. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (41:35):
Yeah. The, that’s good. And I, and I love that ’cause it’s like, money is not bad. Right? Letting it rule over your life is bad, but money itself is not inherently bad. It is not bad to make money. Money is necessary and does much good. It’s just what we do with the money and is it ruling over our hearts or are we ruling over it? And this is a step to putting you in control over you ruling it, not it ruling you. Right. Exactly. Yeah, this has been so good and, and so timely as we head into the new year and specifically as we’re going, like most of your spending for the year is done. Mm-Hmm.
SR (42:34):
Oh, well, yes. We really, really do. So we talked about this budget system that we created working with clients after, after you know, using other ones. And we have redesigned it and it’s really important that everybody knows it’s clear, it’s beautiful. That’s important. It’s important. If you want to look at the math, it should look nice. It has check boxes. Yes. We have added some bells and whistles, but it’s a whole system for you to be able to take control of your finances and, you know, set up your
VP (42:59):
Budget. Yeah. So you get lifetime access to this budget system. So you get to use it year after year. The idea is that you use one whole system for the entire year, then you get to re Mm-Hmm.
SR (43:39):
May be so scary if it’s one page right. Like that, that seems fair. And so you can go to budget besties.com/aj to to check that
AJV (43:47):
Out. Yeah. So I would just encourage, like, if you’re listening to this going, man, it’s been a while since I made a budget. I should probably, I should probably have one. Or man, I don’t really know what to do and I never review my spending. This is an opportunity to have a reset moment. Mm-Hmm,
AJV (44:43):
You guys can go to budget besties.com/podcast. And then you can also just look it up which is Financial Coaching for Women. So check them out visit their podcast, check out their website check out this course. And most importantly, make sure that you make some changes about how you’re viewing your money so that you get to keep more of it. Shane and Vanessa, thank you so much for being on the show. For everyone who’s listening, stay tuned for the recap episode and we will see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 541: Self-Doubt vs. Self-Belief | Marshawn Evans Daniels Episode Recap
AJV (00:03):
The difference between self-doubt and self-belief. These are not clinical definitions. I didn’t use Wikipedia or pull out the Webster dictionary. These are AJ Vaden definitions. Self-Doubt is the inability to believe in yourself. Self-Belief is simply the ability to believe in yourself, right? So self-doubt is the inability to believe in yourself, where self-belief is the ability to believe in yourself. And I kind of wanna talk about this concept of how do we turn self-doubt into self-belief? And I would encourage that there is nothing tactical, that I am going to give you some sort of checklist or workbook or a list of you know, self, you know, affirmations or positive goal setting exercises. That’s not what I have for you. What I have for you today is a perspective shift. It’s a decided choice to believe and to also factually realize that the hardest things that you’ve been through that have likely caused yourself doubt are most likely the things that have the power to change someone else’s life.
AJV (01:23):
And I just wanted to sit with that for a second. I’m gonna repeat that. Is that the things in your life that have most likely created this disbelief in yourself, this unbelief in yourself, IE self-doubt. So the things that have created self-doubt are also simultaneously, most likely the exact same things that have the power to change someone else’s life. You see, the challenge with self-doubt is it gets you believing that the insecurities that we have whether it’s through traumatic experiences or words spoken over us, or words spoken to us, or failures those things force us to believe that somehow we’re not worthy of doing something bigger and better because we’ve had this failure. We, we were the victim of something. We we weren’t able to do something in a better light or a better way the first time. And it convinces us that somehow we don’t have the authority to help someone else because of that thing, right? And it could be a divorce, it could be a failed business. It, it could be the fact that you are not married. It could be the fact that you’ve never been an entrepreneur who knows what it is. I know that, you know, I have insecurities in my life from comparison, right? The, the simple act of comparison creates this, this inkling of somehow other people are better and more well
AJV (02:59):
Positioned, they’re more informed, have more expertise. And that’s a lie. It’s a lie because the things that have seemingly failed in my life are also the things that I am best and most well positioned to speak on, to coach people through to go, I completely understand where you are. I have been there before and this is how I overcame it. This is how I got out of it. The things that have the potential to create self-doubt are the exact same things that have the power to speak life into other people. And if we’re focused on our insecurities, it’s an act of just self-reflection. And, and not in a good way. It’s an act of selfishness, of self-centeredness to go, well, I’m, I’m only worried about me. How I will look, my ability to do this. Instead of going, I don’t care how I have to do this.
AJV (04:00):
I know that what I went through. There are other people out there going through the same thing. They just need someone who can relate to them, who ha who is on the other side of it. You don’t have to be well-spoken. You don’t have to have great frameworks or formulas to actually have the power to help someone else change their life. That is self-belief is believing in your own ability to help someone else. And when we let self-doubt creep in, what it really ultimately does is it puts us into hiding. And it it disallows us from doing the thing that we actually wanna do. We want to help people. We want to serve people, but we’ve got this self-doubt thing creeping in because we’re comparing ourselves or we’re reflecting all the things that haven’t worked. We’re reflecting on all the failures, and we’re forgetting that the things that were the failures are the things that people need to hear the most.
AJV (04:59):
Nobody wants to hear about all of your wi your wins and your victories and successes. Those are important for credibility. But that’s not what makes you personable. That’s not what makes you relatable. What makes you relatable is knowing that you went through the fire and you made it through, right? That you sunk to the bottom and made it back up to the top. That’s what people need to know. They need to know that you know what it’s like to have been at the depths of the sea and you know how to swim back to shore, right? That is the, that is the, the special and unique part about overcoming self-doubt, which is realizing the things that you’re the most insecure about are the things that have the power to speak life and into other people if we just bring them to light. But if we allow them to remain in this area of self-doubt, IE hiding, then it ref, it literally creates this, this curtain, this, this impossibility of
AJV (05:56):
Our ability to help impact other people. And so I would just encourage you to lean into the things that are seemingly at the core of your self-doubt and go, no, those are the things. Those are actually the things that people wanna know. Those are the things that actually will draw people to you. Those are the things that people need help with. And when they know that you’ve been through them, then they will also believe that you can help them through them. It’s a perspective shift of going, what I went through is not what makes me unworthy, it’s what equips me to be the perfect candidate to help the next person. So is it gonna be self-doubt or self-Belief one has the power to keep you in hiding. The other one has the power to bring life into others around you. So two self-belief.
Ep 540: Believing Bigger with Marshawn Evans Daniels
AJV (00:00):
Hey everybody, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. I am genuinely over the moon, excited to introduce to you today Marshawn Evans Daniels, and she was introduced to me by a friend, and I know if you guys follow me on social media and listened to this podcast, you have heard me refer to the a hundred Days of Believing Bigger devotional that was gifted to me by a dear friend earlier this year. And I’ve been raving about it, and I was just sharing with her, but before I hit record, how rare it is that I would read something and then stalk the person down and be like, I’ve got to interview on our show. Like, you have to share your words with our audience. And I’m so grateful, I’m so genuinely excited to introduce you guys to her. But before I give her a quick formal introduction, I want to tell all of you why you need to stick around for this particular episode as we’re rounding out the end of the year as we are sitting here in 2024, I think it’s a really unique time of year for everyone to go
AJV (01:25):
That could be doing more. It could be doing less. It could be, you know, rising up. It could be stepping back, whatever it may be. This is a really awesome season to step back and reflect, but also dream and, and really think about what that looks like. And so this is one of those episodes that it doesn’t matter who you are or where you are in your personal brand journey, it will have application to you. So I highly encourage you to stick around to the very, very end. I promise you it’s going to be worth it. Now, without further ado, let me give a quick formal bio. Marshawn Evans Daniels is a reinvention strategist and a faith and business mentor. She is a former pro sports attorney, a Miss America finalist. She was a Trump apprentice. And I think just as cool for the last 15 years she has been doing coaching and consulting and speaking and authoring on topics of how do you live bigger, how do you believe bigger?
AJV (02:26):
How do you dream bigger by helping people craft and sell hand offers close mass market brand deals, corporate contracts upload their uplevel, their visibility. And I’m sure I missed at least a hundred things,
MED (03:02):
Thank you for having me. It has been worth the wait
AJV (03:08):
Well, I’m genuinely so excited to just introduce you and just to help our audience get to know you a little bit, can you kind of just give us a little bit of the backstory? You’ve got such this amazingly, you know, complex and different and really cool path that has led you to where you are. Can you kind of just give us a play by play of how’d you end up doing what you do with all of this stuff that you have done?
MED (03:32):
Well, I appreciate that intro and the question, I believe that the hardest question, but the most important question that anyone can answer is who are you? Hmm? What do you do
MED (04:23):
And who was I and where did I belong and did I fit? And was I good enough to be in a space simply by being exactly how God made me. And actually in his image, each of us represents the actual image of God, the actual visual of God we’re extensions of his DNA. But when I showed up for school the first day it’s kindergarten for my brother, first grade for me. And I remember watching all of these kids walk straight to their classroom and we got stopped at the front door and they said that we were at the wrong school. Now, there was another school very close to us, but they assumed that we were supposed to be at the one down the street. ’cause There was an apartment complex where a lot of the brown kids were at, and they just assumed that that’s where we were supposed to be at school at.
MED (05:06):
And so they required my dad to pull out. And my mom was there that day as well to pull out Id to prove that this is where we belong and that this is where we were supposed to be. And I remember that feeling of wondering why nobody else was stopped, why everyone else got to go straight to their classroom. And they looked at our id, we did pay the taxes. We did have a house in the right zip code. And that really really showed, really defined the next six years. And I say that because I was labeled a problem child. I was labeled antisocial and that I needed special ed. When I ended up graduating from Georgetown Law School, I ended up graduating high school with honors. I graduated college, Magna laude, had over $200,000 in academic scholarships. They told my brother he needed special ed, he went to Rice University. We both graduated college and law school, a hundred percent debt free at the top academic institutions in the world. And the reason we were able to do that, I believe largely was because we had parents that taught us about who we are at home. That was not defined by what other people said, but they also introduced us to Christ. They introduced us to the Holy Spirit. They introduced us to God, and then they introduced us to church. And that’s a difference. Yeah.
MED (06:27):
That order is specific. Yeah. They introduced us to God and not just a God, but the God of the universe who had a son, and that there was this gift of the Holy Spirit. And to learn that at three years old, mm-Hmm. I’m now a mother. My greatest title is a mom. So I’m a mom of triplets. And to now have girls who are four years old, my middle child started speaking in the spirit at the age of three and remembering how important it is to arm our kids early. So for me, in terms of how I ended up here, it’s been a really big faith walk. I don’t have the connections. There’s nothing about my family that would make sense as to why at 18, 19 years old, I was appointed by George W. Bush as a teenager to the state advisor group for Texas to help impact youth policy and crime that I would be, you know, selected to work with the US Justice Department at 15 years old to be traveling around the world speaking.
MED (07:23):
But there’s something that’s really powerful when you find your voice early. And so when we talk today in this internet marketing business world about brand, to me branding is a, is a, is a easy business word to describe how do you help people, you know, how do you help people? But ultimately it’s less about brand, it’s more about voice. And so I’ve been on this journey to just figure out what God, where, where’s the next adventure. So it’s taken me to, to law, to law practice, to a sports agency. I signed the highest paid defensive end in the NFL as my first client. It took me from growing that having Rolls Royce, Tiffany and Company Nike as my clients, N-F-L-N-B-A players losing that. And that’s really how I stumbled into this space was through heartbreak and disruption that we could talk about. But I think that, you know, today, it’s an interesting question because I feel like I’m at a new turning point again, of what’s next. And every time I think about that, I’m like, let me not look too much at my brand because my brand is what I built and how I described it. But let me just lean back into where does the voice, where are you leading me to lead, and what are you leading me to say next?
AJV (08:37):
Hmm. That’s so good. And I, I love what you said too. It’s, it’s more than a brand. It’s the voice. Yeah. And I love hearing that. And quite honestly, I, I didn’t even know those things about you when you were 15 or 18, and I didn’t even know that you were the mom to 4-year-old triplets. Oh,
MED (08:53):
Yeah.
AJV (08:54):
Like, so that’s
MED (08:55):
AJV (08:58):
Mm-Hmm. I, like, I’ve been so, like actually just in your books Mm-Hmm. I hadn’t even like, stepped out to go like, what is this? I mean, now. And I think, you know, one of the things that I would encourage everyone who is listening to be reminded of is you can listen to podcasts like this and, and you can read blogs and you can follow social media, but there’s stuff, there’s something different about what you learn in a book. Mm-Hmm.
MED (09:38):
Yeah. So the book you’re probably referring to that you’re most familiar with is a hundred Days of Believing Bigger. That is one of many, my first book I wrote in 2008 called Skirts in the Boardroom. And it is, it was published by Wiley, the largest business book publisher in the world. It was the first time they published a book with a black female under the age of 30, which is a very big deal considering this is where the business titans all the, all the guys were publishing their books. So I was in my twenties, and this was before Facebook
MED (10:50):
And so I wrote that book ’cause there was something to say, and I was on the show, the Apprentice, 1 million people apply, 18 get selected, nine of there or more women. And because of the way the show worked, they picked one African-American woman out of a million. And so be, but beyond that, all the experiences I had, and I’ve always loved deal making. I’ve always loved high fast-paced environments. And so I wrote about confidence and what does it really mean to wear your skirt? Oh my gosh I forgot what my acronym for skirts actually stands for
MED (11:42):
We belonged in the place of deal making. My second book came 10 years later in 2018 called Believe Bigger, which is, it’s about it’s not about success. It’s about supernatural alignment actually. And how embracing disruption for for reinvention. Mm-Hmm.
MED (13:15):
And I, and this is where the a hundred days of believing bigger the message of believe bigger, the brand that I’ve built around confidence, all of this, some of this, this season, these last 14 years came out of betrayal and infidelity. Mm. Came outta depression of being a person who built, has built a immaculate resume with the best law schools and the best experiences. Big companies, big clients. I’m on television and, and private, which became public because it was a public wedding. It’s embarrassing. And so when I say believe bigger, it is not superficial. It is not bathed in the superficiality or the shallowness, the pink and black of this girl boss movement. It is out of the way that any holy reckoning, any higher elevation that really comes from the hand of heaven, it comes from the same thing that God, that Christ had to go through.
MED (14:11):
It comes from betrayal,
MED (15:02):
And the number of women who have left marriages that they weren’t supposed to be and called off weddings that they knew they weren’t supposed to step into or stepped into them and read, you know what? I have enough. Someone did this, maybe I could do it too. And I could give myself a yes and say no, despite what people would say, despite what my previous yes. Was. That should have never been a yes. And so I write books about belief. Mm-Hmm. Right. And so out of that people were teaching the messages inside of Belief Bigger. And I, my devotional, I grew my email list. I’ve grown my platform not by sending out business tips every week by sending out devotionals, and then people have trusted me in business. And that’s where a hundred Days of Believing Bigger came from. But I will tell you, I wrote it while I was pregnant.
MED (15:52):
Mm. With triplets where the doctors were giving us a 4% likelihood of going full term. So when you read any of the things in a hundred Days of Believing Bigger, I was literally carrying three babies. And the doctors were saying that we needed to selectively reduce, Hmm. I’m carrying three babies. They’re telling me that I’m geriatric, that I am ultra high risk. I had to change my language to high potential, high possibility in speaking life. And so it’s in that environment that a hundred Days of Believing Bigger was written. It came out in 2020 in the middle of a pandemic at the beginning of a pandemic. And it sold a year’s worth of books in 14 days. And this is what happens when God breathes on something. And that’s why I know that a hundred Days of Believing Bigger is it’s a, it’s a, it’s a reminder to me that God will do exceeding and abundantly above all you ever hope or imagine. But we have to first imagine that we are worthy to be included in that vision of his as well. So that’s a long way of asking why did I write a books, why I write books in general. Well, I think
AJV (16:57):
It’s so good because I think in general, what what honestly, and, and so much of in Believe Bigger, and I, I don’t wanna jump to my own assumptions, but you talk about this split rock moment. Yes.
MED (17:10):
Mm-Hmm.
AJV (17:10):
AJV (17:51):
And I, I’m just curious for the people who are listening, who, well, and I’ll let you define what that split drop mo moment is, but for the people who are listening, going like, okay, I resonate with that. Like, I, I’m, I’m at one of those moments where I’m like, nothing is going right. Yeah. Like, are you kidding me? Like, that’s so great for you Marshawn
MED (18:27):
Well, you know, the word says in the Bible that not by strength, and you know, not by my, not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord, there’s certain things that we cannot do on our own. And for me, well, I’ll tell you this, the idea of the split rock moment was a phrase that I came up based off of a passage I read in Isaiah 48 21, where he talks about how God led the people into the desert. And then he split the rock and then water gushed out. And I’m reading this scripture on the side of my bed. This is maybe days, weeks, I can’t remember exactly the timing after I called this wedding off. So I’m on the side of my bed in pajamas. Probably hadn’t bathed that day. Certainly doubt. I even brushed my teeth. ’cause This is how snotty and ugly depression looks sometimes.
MED (19:09):
But I’m on the side of my bed on the floor with my Bible, and I see this scripture, and I’ve been having dreams about being in deserts. So when it says he led them into the desert, that really almost jarred me to a point where it caused me to sit up. And I felt like it was it was calling to me. And I sat with this passage for days. And when I saw he led them into the desert, I was like, wait a minute. God, you put me here. This wasn’t an attack of the enemy. Now it doesn’t mean the enemy won’t try to use something. You know, I always say Jesus came writing in on a donkey. And it’s you, you gotta get the book
MED (19:57):
But sometimes it has to be something that wakes you up. And the question is, if there’s a split rock, it’s separating us from something. When you look at a rock when I was at TCU, Texas Christian University for college, I took geology and I don’t remember there being a lot of water inside of rocks. Right.
MED (20:50):
It is taking you into a massively different place. ’cause Then when he says he split the rock and water gushed out, it was like an oasis was created. And that is radically different than a desert. And sometimes where you are has been something that has been really well watered. I was in this sports space and everything was going well. And even after I called everything off from the wedding, I tried to go back into it. ’cause I closed that business down to become a wife and a and a and a mama. So I didn’t know how I was gonna, now with my Georgetown law degree and all these opportunities, I didn’t know how I was gonna pay my bills. So that what was once what was once soil can become dirt when God takes his hands off of it. And then the question is, am I supposed to move?
MED (21:30):
But then why? What I realized is that it wasn’t just a breakup with a person, it was a breakup with myself and a version of myself that was divine defined by success. Mm-Hmm.
MED (22:15):
It is for your own protection and redirection so you can come in alignment with your real assignment. And I would’ve never desired because I didn’t desire to work with women. There’s a reason why I worked with athletes. And then God sit the split rock in the midst of a woman telling me she’s sleeping with my fiance. And God says, you’re gonna change the lives of women like never before. And I’m like, not excited. Sometimes we think the calling is exciting, but you have to fall back in love by first losing your old loves. And that’s how that’s how real, real supernatural reinvention, divine reinvention, redirection, realignment with your master assignment. All the seasons of past though, are important as you know, what you all likely teach as well is that you wanna bring what you’ve learned with you, but you can’t bring who you’ve been with you in terms of that being your core identity, if you wanna step into greater impact.
AJV (23:12):
You know, I love that. And I love that question of like, you know, what’s a disruption if it causes you to ask, who am I? And you know, curious, like, would you have said like, at that moment prior to this, like, and you kind of said it was all divine by titles and success and money and ambition, and like, how would you answer that today?
MED (23:34):
Hmm. I think I’ve done a lot of work around this for sure. So I, I know that I am a catalyst. The evidence of my life is catalystic. Mm-Hmm. Right. And I know that God didn’t just give me a voice that he created us as voice. Mm-Hmm. We see this in Genesis one, three when he said, let there be light. And if we’re created in his image, we’re created to create the way that he creates. And that, and it’s interesting because I literally was in a hundred days of believing bigger this morning, and I opened up to day 27 and I was journaling it myself. And, and I’m off, I’m off schedule. For those of you who fall off schedule, I’m off schedule in my own book. But I was looking at it, you wanna know what the question is today, aj, but today, so the title is on identity.
MED (24:24):
The subject is you are Distinctive. And the question for today is, how is your personality a clue to what God designed you to do? Right. And I struggled with this. I’ve done this devotional multiple times. There’s a point where I had to put it down because I’m like, God, you’ve told me over and over who I am. And this is just a authentic reality of sometimes you’ve, you, you know who you are and there’s still some resistance in your life. Hmm. You’re seeing evidence and fruit in other people, and you’re feeling like you’re still in a pause. And sometimes, sometimes it is exhausting to ask God, who am I? Because he’s already told you. And even in that he’s paused some things.
MED (25:29):
But I will say it’s funny ’cause I wasn’t gonna bring this. And he said, you bring this to this interview,
MED (26:28):
And I think the more successful you become, again,
AJV (27:16):
Yeah. I love that. I ha I have to remind myself often when I feel like I’m in seasons of standstill or seasons of pause, that it’s because God is preparing me. He’s teaching me often patience.
MED (28:36):
Yes.
AJV (28:36):
And the biggest thing that I need to do is learn how to, to, to do less and to say no. In a season of like, if I’m really gonna do what I’m called to do, then I, I have to learn how to say no. I
MED (28:49):
Have to and to have room to hear the Yes. Yeah. I think what you’re experiencing is, is busyness happens at all levels, but the higher up you are, the harder it is to discern blessed versus busy.
AJV (29:01):
Totally.
MED (29:02):
You’re not alone. And there’s several women that I’ve been talking to that are kind of in this same space. And what I’ve come to describe it as now as a fog, an intentional fog to allow certain things to settle. But, you know, I’ve got this contract here for a five year endorsement deal. I just signed a two YA two book children’s deal. I turned in into second draft of my manuscript yesterday. And then we’ve got a new mastermind that we’ve rolled out. And so it’s not that there’s not, sometimes it’s not that you’re not where you wanna be, but you still feel there’s another place that you are to be. And when there’s things coming in and they don’t, you don’t feel a quick, yes, it makes logical sense, but then can you hear if there’s something else? And I feel like there’s something else that these things are not bad.
MED (29:55):
And all these things are great, these are preparation for the future. But I think for women who are visionaries, it is important for us to just recognize sometimes that we can be very successful and things are great, but there’s still more sometime. But God’s gonna go deeper though. Before he can review. We’ve gotta hear more of his voice. It’s not gonna necessarily be from a, from a coach or even from a podcast. You know, my my hope is that when someone hears what I say, they would go pick up a Bible. Mm-Hmm. Even if you never have before or pick up a devotional. I think what I try to do with a hundred days of believing Bigger is anchored in such a way that it speaks to probably where you are. If you’re drawn to goals, vision, dreams, and ambition, likely it hasn’t been properly discipled.
MED (30:46):
‘Cause There’s all, there’s not much in the church or Bible or resources, podcasts that really disciple both together. But the worst thing you can do is become dependent on another person’s voice and that person begin to shape who you are. And I think that’s the illness of this entire industry. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (31:26):
Yeah. And I love that you bring that up. So I have a question for you. Yes. So in this world where everything is so visibility driven, social media driven, me, me, me personality especially, and like I’m in the space of personal branding now we, we define it slightly different than how most other entities would define personal branding. However, I am curious to hear your thoughts on when everything surrounding success has to do with more, faster, bigger, you know, those types of things. H how, how would you recommend somebody redefining what success looks like that is purpose driven and meaningful versus the worldly sense of, you know, success or visible?
MED (32:13):
Yeah. Well, when I started my company coming out of that broken season, I had an event called me University, the Ultimate Business in Branding bootcamp. And I had been on CNN, I’d been a brand manager, essentially with my sports agency managing athletes, NFL players, but also entertainer celebrities. I’d helped, I’ve helped number of Miss Americas and Miss Universes, miss USA contestants, I shouldn’t say Miss Universe, but Miss USAs, some have gone on to Miss Universe. And so I have always believed in presentation. Look, I competed in Miss America
MED (33:08):
And then as I really get came to understand, this was a calling, I was like, is branding superficial? Hmm. Is this actually wrong? And the reality is you know, God said, not just let there be light, and then there was light. But we are supposed to be light. We are supposed to be seen. And there’s, I will say this really clearly, and some of you need to write this down, but there’s absolutely nothing wholly about hiding. Mm. That’s pious. There’s nothing represent the, the problem is God has been poorly branded. And also because there are not people who a lot and a lot of people right now, faith has become popular. It’s become very manipulative. Also that utilizing faith as part of the brand for many people is a marketing tool because they know that people will come into their programs. That’s perverted too.
MED (33:57):
The question isn’t about presentation. God made women to look a certain way because he wants people to see us. We’re supposed to be attractive. We’re designed to attract, we’re never, it is supernaturally a part of the gift that makes the yoke easy burden and light for us. Being your best self is never a bad thing. Caring about, if you brush your teeth, why not put on some mascara? Like it’s the same thing. It’s not, there’s nothing wholly or unholy about that activity. Presenting yourself as an authority. There’s nothing wrong with that either. If you actually are. Now, if you’re not, it’s gonna bo it’s gonna burst one day. But ultimately it’s less about brand. It’s more about voice. And what is it that you are, what are your values and what do you see when you determine your values and you’re really clear about that.
MED (34:50):
And you then you see what do you, what do you envision when you’re casting vision for people? This is not about you being successful. This is about you helping other people to be successful. I believed I said this in 2011 for the first time, I said, I believe that entrepreneurship is a new faith movement. That was before it was a movement. I just believe that. And other people locked into that vision. And now there are a lot of people who teach faith in business as it should be that way. But I do believe it’s time for next level to that vision because it’s I don’t believe that most people who talk about faith in business are actually growing people in their faith. That means it’s just a cheap marketing trick. So for me, it’s not about success in terms of money, it’s about alignment with assignment.
MED (35:40):
Mm-Hmm.
AJV (36:26):
That’s so good because it’s
MED (36:28):
There.
AJV (36:28):
Yeah. You know what, I wrote this down. I said, this is so good. And if you didn’t hear her write this down. Now it’s like, there’s nothing holy about hiding. And you know, I think one of the things that, you know, and I’ve, I don’t know if this was in believe bigger or in the devotional, but like one of the things that really stuck out to me is the difference of playing small. And how, like, I think self-doubt. I think you talk about how self-doubt is really tied to playing small. And there was something that you just said that made me think about that, about there’s nothing holy in hiding. And if you’re hiding, it’s probably somehow connected to some self-doubt that you have about yourself. And so, can we talk about, just for a quick sec, and I know that we’re coming up on our time, but what, what are some shifts that need to go from, you know, the self-doubt mentality to a self-belief mentality, but specifically around this idea of playing small, which in my opinion and from a lot of people in our audience really has to do with saying yes to anything that comes their way versus discerning what’s the right.
AJV (37:35):
Yes. And so they end up doing a whole bunch, but it’s all real small and it’s really all centered in, well, I don’t know if I can do more than this. I don’t know if I can do bigger than this, so I’ll just do whatever comes at me. And thus, they’re so busy they can’t do the bigger things that they really want and feel called to.
MED (37:52):
Yeah. So belief is such a powerful thing. And when you talk about going from kind of doubt to belief or insecurity to feeling confident or what I would call even God fit, there’s two voices that I talk about. These, this battle for your destiny, this battle for your mind. And really it’s a battle for your belief. You know, I say the, the brain is an organ, but God showed me that the mind is an organization the difference. And there’s these two forces that show up as two voices that are battling for your belief and your voice and your identity. The first voice is called little me. And this is the vo voice of doubt that causes you to shrink. And the purpose of little me is to keep you small, to keep you settling and second guessing. And we’ll use scripture to do it.
MED (38:42):
We’ll use convention, protocol, gender, all the things that are appropriate. This is where we as women get should it on. Here’s what you should do, here’s what you shouldn’t do. And you’re asking these questions through a lens. And Little Me also is a great tape recorder. Little Me has kept track of every single thing that has been said to you, that has created the seeds of insecurity and then waters them and replaced them. Okay? So Little Me’s job is to keep you small, because little me knows that if you dare to believe in who you actually are in your own supernatural greatness that was created at the same time that God breathed, left breathe life into the world, if you were just ha if you were to step into that and breathe that kind of air, and Little Me ceases to exist, so little me holds on for survival.
MED (39:29):
But on the other side of little me is this other voice called Future me and future me conspires with the Holy Spirit. Whereas little me conspires with the enemy, the enemy’s job is to come still, to kill and to destroy you. And we’ll do it by keeping you busy. We’ll do it by getting you to be self-righteous or in a place of doubt or in a place of whatever it takes to keep you out of alignment with the fullness of your assignment. And he don’t even make you rich to keep you out of significance. Oh, that’s bad. But future me knows who you are, knows your destiny is speaking to you from the future about your future. Future me is the one who says, yes, daughter, you yes. Start that. Step into that, raise that price. Put your face on the cover. God crafted it.
MED (40:18):
Right. Future me is the one that knows who you are, but future me is the voice we least listened to and comes to us like a whisper as opposed to the lion ness. Not just this lion, but like this lions boldness with this assured yet quiet, yet fearless confidence that is the voice of future me and future me is pulling us into that. And here’s the thing about mentorship is that really great mentorship should be speaking to your future without utilizing little me to get you to move. Mm-Hmm.
MED (41:19):
You lean into that. And that is that that’s what alignment is. And so when you’re looking at your belief, and all of us have garbage flowing through our minds that we have to bathe and clean out daily there are some resources, I think believe bigger, a hundred days of living bigger help you with that. The best resource I believe that you anchor and build your life around is the Bible. You wanna be around great mentors, but really pay attention to how people talk to you. And then how do you talk to yourself? And it is a lot of, there is mind training, but there’s also spiritual training that you need, I think to have longevity. If you are called to leave, you lead, you gotta deepen your own roots. And so when you, when you, the biggest thing to shift is number one, getting dec deciding about what do I no longer wanna stew on in my mind?
MED (42:12):
What littleness, what smallness, what insecurity am I going to now actively, actively target as the enemy against me that may be within me. Like this is what I’m going to, whether it’s therapy, whether it’s the food, whatev, what is it that might be biologically, chemically, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, environmentally? What is creating this? Because I’m here for a reason. I have been called for such a time as this. You have been called for such a time as this. So the enemy is not around you. It’s often within you. The Bible even says, you know, rescue me from my enemies. Who owns their enemies? Your enemy is often the enemy. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (43:23):
Mm. I love that. So, so good. And and just truthful. It’s just truthful and, you know, it’s I love
MED (43:31):
Hot on that
AJV (43:33):
Yeah. I mean that’s, I mean, that’s just, it’s just truth. I mean, and I think that’s in a lot of, in a lot of places right now. And I think where, where we have opportunity is to actually seek truth, not a truth, but the truth. Not our version of the truth, but the truth. Mm-Hmm.
MED (44:10):
Yeah. It’s,
AJV (44:11):
It’s for a reason. So for each of you who have chosen to stick around to the end not only in what just Marshawn just said, but also I’ve just going like, why was I called to this episode, to this test, to this person? Why did I stick around? And what does that mean for me when this episode is over? Because there’s, is, there is that timing for all of us. And so I just, I wanted to have you on the show ’cause I just, it’s been so impactful in my life of just back, you know what it is, it is connecting the faith element to the success element, to the personal branding and the identity and, and the voice. Right? There’s one part of your devotional where it’s like you, your message is a voice and Mm-Hmm.
MED (45:08):
So funny ’cause that was my devotional yesterday was You are a Message
AJV (45:57):
Yeah, y’all, if you’re asking that question, what next? There’s a couple of places I wanna send you. First of all you should just follow Marshawn. It’s at Marshawn’s at Marshawn Evans. That’s her handle on all the different favorite social media platforms. But also go to believe bigger.com, get the book, get the devotional, get all the things. But then if you go to marshawn.com/start-here, which I’ll put in the show notes, but marshawn.com/start-here, there’s also a really cool free gift you wanna share just a quick few seconds about what they’re gonna get at start here.
MED (46:36):
Yeah. So it’s a class called Manifest Miracles. And you know, that word manifest is, is an interesting word nowadays, but I believe that the goal, the intention of our lives is to make manifest the glory of God. And that we do that in highly impactful ways and practical ways. I work with Office Depot Arts and Young Delta Airlines, Cisco HP tenure contract with them. I work with the biggest companies in the world. I’ve, but I also believe that this is what it means to manifest miracles, to birth babies, to work for there to be no limits to your life. And so just to have training around what that looks like and what that requires.
AJV (47:15):
So y’all, if you’re ready to believe bigger, there are so many tools and just words at your disposal to give you the inspiration. And also the next steps to do so. So, follow Marshawn visit, believe Bigger, then go to marshan.com/start-here. And get this on the go. Marshan, thank you so much for your time today and for everyone else, stay tuned. The recap episode will be coming next, and we’ll see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 539: 5 Keys to Being Financially Secure as an Entrepreneur | Markus Kaulius Episode Recap
RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. I wanted to share with you as part of that go, I just wanted to off the top of my head, grab five keys to being financially secure as an entrepreneur. So as I look back over like my career and mine and AJ’s journey as entrepreneurs to go, what are some things that have, have really led to our financial security, at least to the level that we have at now?
RV (01:04):
And I just thought, man, let’s rattle these off ’cause these are good. And, and, and I would’ve wanted to have known these or, or heard them over and over again as an entrepreneur. So here they are, five keys to being financially secure as an entrepreneur. Number one, get debt free to own your freedom. Get debt free to own your freedom. And this is one that I just, I will be forever grateful to Dave Ramsey because he has the program that teaches people how to get debt free. And we followed that thing to a t Now, I don’t know, it was coming up on 20 years ago when I went through financial peace, but those principles became a part of my financial psyche that I adapted and adopted that are ingrained still to me today that have, I think, set me up in a completely different financial capacity from several of my friends and colleagues and clients and, you know, even mentors and people I look up to.
RV (02:06):
And a huge part of it is just being debt free, because people try to make mathematical arguments for why maybe you shouldn’t be debt free, right? They try to make mathematic mathematical arguments for like, well, think of all the money you have tied up in your house, right? And going, if you took that money out of your house and instead had a, you know, debt on your house, you could be investing that money in other places and making more money. And sometimes, and in some markets, that’s sometimes true. But here’s what’s always true. When you don’t have debt, you are free. I mean, the Bible says this, right? The borrower is slave to the lender. And what’s, what is more powerful in your life than having millions of dollars is just being free to do whatever you want to do. And that comes, that’s a mental thing.
RV (03:07):
And it’s a spirit that’s a spiritual condition. And that has more to do with not owing people money than it does to do with how much you make. And one of the things that you’ll realize as you make more money, and hopefully you realize this, this is one of the things that AJ and I learned over the years, is that we don’t need more money. We need less stress. We don’t need more money. We need less, less complexity. Peace is the new profit. It’s not about going, oh, I have some number in my account. And then that number’s bigger and bigger and bigger. Like it’s just a number in an account. What really matters is your peace of mind. How, how are you feeling? How secure are you? How stable are you? Versus how worried are you that if a change in the interest rates in the are, are gonna completely, you know, tank your business?
RV (04:01):
Or are you worried that if you don’t get a customer to pay in time, you’re not gonna have a chance to pay your vendor and you won’t make payroll. And like all of the stress that comes from leverage, which is like basically playing arbitrage with money, that is risky business. And it’s not that it can’t ever work, sometimes it does, but more often than not, it all nets out to be about the same as just doing it the simple way anyways. And regardless of it, it’s just when you come to a decision to go, I don’t need more money, I just need less stress. That is powerful. And that’s buying your own freedom. When you, when you’re debt free to go, once you’re debt free, you can buy whatever you want as long as you can pay cash for it. Like it, everything becomes simple.
RV (04:48):
But when you’ve got multiple investments in multiple, you, you know, loans from different people at different rates, and some are variable and some are fixed, and like, it’s all of this stress to manage, even if you’re healthy, it’s like you have to keep an eye on all of these different things. Stressful. So get debt free and buy your own freedom. And I just go start small. Be willing to go start small and be willing to go slow. And over time, it adds up to be something that will be far more than you ever need and you won’t have the stress along the way. So that’s number one. Number two is invest in yourself First. Invest in yourself first. If there are, when, when you, when people think of investments, what they, they tend to think of like, ooh, buy real estate or invest in the market, or maybe do non-traditional investments, right?
RV (05:37):
Like, you know, artwork or crypto or you know, wine or like whatever. There’s all these different things. You, you, you can, you know, currencies, there’s all these things you can invest your money into, but the number one thing you should invest your money into is yourself, your own mind, your own personal development. The, the, the greatest return on your money that you will ever get is strengthening your mind, your education, your knowledge, your, your mental capacity, and just you’re building your own confidence and your own strength and your ability to create wealth and create opportunity for yourself and those around you. And we just don’t hear about it. And people don’t think about investing in themself in enough of a literal way of like, if I could put money into the stock market that might grow at, you know, maybe 7%, maybe 8%, maybe 10% over years.
RV (06:30):
But if I put that money into myself, I go, I could grow my income exponentially over time, like in a, in a short order. If, if I learn how to do it and I learn and I’m, and I’m, I get in environments where I’m around other successful people. So invest in yourself first. Then the second thing I would invest in is invest in your business, right? Before I’d be looking at investing in the markets and all these things that you may or may not understand, and maybe you understand ’em better than I do. Like, you know, I consider myself reasonably smart, but there’s a whole lot of investment stuff that I don’t understand. I don’t understand all these fancy terms. And I have an MBA, like I have a, I have an MBA from a private university like I was a millionaire by the time I was 30 years old.
RV (07:13):
I have, I have, you know, been the, an entrepreneur now for a couple decades and there’s a whole bunch of this like speak this, this financial speak, I don’t understand. And all these, you know, you know, just weird terms. And I go, when I look around the people who have a lot of wealth and a lot of security, the big, the best investment is into yourself and then into your business. Because if you think about, like, you know, even trying to find, try to find a company that is gonna give you a 20% return, would, would be outrageous to be so difficult. But if you can grow your profit margin as a business to 20% of profits a year, then that means every dollar you invest in that business is gonna give you back 20 cents. So if you can build your own business, that can, that can, can, can grow over time.
RV (07:59):
And maybe it’s, you know, it’s not a lot at first. You might, you know, break even, hopefully and make a little bit of money, 1%, 3%, 5%. But that business starts to grow. You inch it up and you’re gonna start, you build a business that clocks 15% a year, 20% a year, every single year for the rest of your life. Like you’ve built the greatest investment machine you have for yourself. Now, you don’t wanna have all your wealth tied up in your business ’cause then you don’t have diversity. ’cause If something happens and you get sick or you lose key employees or customers or vendors, or the market changes or regulation or competitor kills you, like, there’s, there’s risk right there. But, but a lot of that risk is a much more in your control than investing in some other asset that you have nothing to do with it’s performance.
RV (08:43):
So I always, you know, think, invest in yourself, invest in your business, then invest in your retirement. So that’s how I would think about investing. And I would go, okay, I wanna get debt free first. That’s simple. Then I wanna invest, but I wanna invest in myself and then I wanna invest in my own business, the things that I’m controlling. Like if I have, if I have a choice between place and money with some outside person or entity or real estate investment or some project or investing into the business that I run and operate and control every day, I’m gonna invest in that one, the one that I have control over, the one that I understand, the one that I can influence, the one that I can shape. And so we just don’t think of investing enough with just invest in yourself, invest in your own business.
RV (09:26):
So that’s investment number three. Okay, so talking about real investments. I’m gonna just say this and, and you know, maybe some of y’all will disagree. Have a boring investment strategy, have a boring investment strategy. You know, you heard Rob talk about buy, buy boring businesses. You know, Cody Sanchez is one of my favorite people to follow online. I’ve developed a little relationship with her recently and that she talks about buying boring businesses all the time. Like, your investment strategy should be boring. And I don’t, I think buying businesses is not boring. I think buying businesses is like scary and risky. And half the time that go, more than half the time that investment probably goes to zero. You know, just doing single, like, you know, investing in startups and stuff is that is not for the faint of heart. That is, that is, you know, typically very risky.
RV (10:18):
I’m talking about growth stock mutual funds like the, the, the s and p 500 in here in the us. These are, you know, the, the big large, stable enterprises that they’re not gonna make you a millionaire overnight, but they’re gonna grow steady and consistently. And if something happens to those, if those all go under, that means the world is like, the world is in such dire straits. It doesn’t matter what your money is because you’re probably like you, you know, fighting for candles and, and water and stuff. Like these companies, the big companies, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’ve been around a long time. They’re stable. They’re not typically going anywhere. Y you know, they’re not going anywhere anytime soon or easily, right? And so it’s a boring investment strategy if you, if you don’t understand the investments, don’t make them. And, and if it feels like a lot of work to understand what it is, again, I would say don’t make it if it, if it, if it seems complicated or complex.
RV (11:17):
Like if you can’t explain what it is to someone else, don’t do it. And you know, if, if you’re doing it just because you saw someone on the internet telling you it was a good idea, man, be careful. I mean, just be careful. The, the people that I know that are the most happy, right? If peace is the new prophet, that’s something I’ve been saying so much lately. Peace is the new prophet. The people who are peaceful are not the people I know that make a a the most money. I know lots of people who make lots of money that aren’t peaceful, they’re constantly stressed because they’re constantly managing chaos. The people who I know are the most peaceful have simple plans, simple strategies, simple savings is they do simple things that they can understand and explain and, and that make sense to them. And they don’t do things because they wanna look smart or look sophisticated or to feel like they’re caught up with the crowd.
RV (12:17):
They, they do things that they actually understand. So have a boring investment strategy. Number four, choose abundance over scarcity. Choose abundance over scarcity. I think one of the most costly things that we have in the world today is a scarcity mentality. Simply stated. I think a scarcity mentality is, is often like an is is an an an either or thing. Either you can win or I can win. Abundance is going, we can both win, right? Abundance is going, there’s a, there’s a way to figure it out where everybody wins. Scarcity make feels like, well, if, if I help this person, that’s gonna take, if I help this person succeed, it’s gonna take something away from me. Abundance is thinking as I, if I help this person succeed, it’s gonna come back to me. And I think that too many people hold on too tightly to their money because they have scarcity.
RV (13:23):
They’re afraid that if they let that money go, it won’t come back to ’em. And so they don’t invest it, right? So what they do is they just hang on it and, and they go, I don’t want anyone to steal it. I don’t wanna do anything with it. I just have to hold onto it. ’cause I’m not a, I’m afraid if I let it go, it won’t ever come back. Well, one of the things that wealthy people do is, is they’re using their money. See, ironically, I think a lot of times people think that rich people have, are, are, are overly focused on money, or they’re like overly like, consumed with money and they go, oh, that’s why they have money, is because they just, all, they, they must love money. And that’s like their whole life. It’s their whole focus. That’s what people think.
RV (14:03):
That’s what I used to think, right? Coming up from, you know, a lower class family financially and, and not having much financial education until I self-educated in, in like my, you know, late teens and early twenties. What I have actually learned is that wealthy people, not all of ’em, right? Some wealthy people are not this way, but most of the wealthy people I know, they actually have the most healthy detachment from money because they know if they lose it, they’ll get it back. They’re not, they, they’re, they’re not hanging onto it for their, their own survival. They’re not so scared that going, oh, all of my security is in money. They’re going, no, I’m gonna invest in myself. I’m gonna invest in my business. I’m gonna invest in growth. I’m, I’m willing to take risks. I’m, I’m willing to. And, and I’m willing to invest in investments, whether it be real estate or it be the stock market or, you know, I I, there’s not that many non-traditional investments that I am a fan of, at least unless you’re, unless you’re like a professional investor and investing’s all you do all the time and it’s all you think about and talk about.
RV (15:02):
But you, you have to be willing to think of money as a tool, right? The, the analogy I use is don’t think of your money as like a shield. Think of it as a tool. Like, like, don’t, don’t, don’t think of it as like, don’t depend on it, just for your safety. Think of it as like something you use to build something with. And that’s abundance is going. I, I I I use money to, to make money. I mean, one of the things that we’ve done our whole life, we hire people to do everything. Like the number, probably the number one thing we spend money on even more than ourselves per se, is hiring other people around us to help us. We have lots of work that we need done. We need lots of help and going, part of why we do that is we don’t even make a lot of money, but we get more peace back because all the stuff there is to do, we hire, help people to help us do it.
RV (15:55):
And so even if we make no money, we go, well, at least we have help and we don’t have stress. And that’s the idea is, is is being willing to choose abundance over scarcity and, and be willing to invest. And, and by the way, that’s the risk of being an entrepreneur, right? Is you pay yourself last, right? The, the potential upside is one day you would make a lot of money, but it’s, it’s like we always pay ourselves last. Everyone else on our team gets paid whether there’s a good month or not. Like we have to pay them. That’s the commitment. And so that’s the risk. But you go, gosh, if we have, you know, there’s good months and bad months, and even if there’s bad months, I trust that like over time it’s gonna work out. That’s abundance, right? And it’s, it’s, it’s thinking long term.
RV (16:37):
And then number five this is another thing that I think this is related to abundance, and I don’t think enough people talk about this. And I think this is something that’s like maybe is kind of rare about me and aj. And I think this is something, I think part of what, how God blesses people with money. And part of how I think part of how other people bless people with their money and they wanna see people succeed is because of this. So number five is become great at helping other people make money, become great at helping other people make money. If you become great at helping other people make money, you will make a lot of money because people love being around people who help them make a lot of money. Like, and this is just something we do like, again, in the abundance mindset, our goal is to, is our goal is never to pay people the least amount possible.
RV (17:36):
Our goal is to pay people as much as we can. We wanna always pay at the top of the market. We don’t always have the money to do that, especially when we’re starting something new, right? So Brand builders group is still only five years old. Like we’ve, we’re still, you know, we just coming outta startup mode. But like over time, we want to pay more money. We wanna pay our, our team the most we want. We wanna help make money for our clients. We wanna help our clients succeed. Why? Not because we need their money, but because we want to help them make money. We know if we help them make money, they’ll return it, they’ll help us make money. We, we really focus on trying to help our affiliates make more money to go, ah, how can we help our affiliates make more money?
RV (18:14):
If our affiliates make more money, they’re gonna wanna help us make more money. But I think if you focus on just going, how can I make more money for myself and all I care about is how do I make more money, then it’s like you’re taking money from other people. And so other people close off to you. But if you figure out how can I help the people around me make more money, then you’re opening, you’re like opening the door, you’re opening a relationship, a connection between people to help you make more money. And you know, a lot of the people who are around who have been around us, they make more money because it’s a rising tide raises all ships, is we try to help them make more money. They’re working hard to take stuff off of our plate and make us free us up to be more productive and more efficient.
RV (19:00):
As we’re more productive and more efficient, we make more money and then we share that back with them. So this is, this again, is, is a difference in mentality. Most people are thinking just about themselves, how do I make more money? You know, who could I find that would just pay me the most? Versus going, what can I do to help the people around me make more money or help them have more time so that they can be more efficient, so that they can make more money trusting that it will flow back to them. And that’s what happens is I think money cascades down to the people who, who help. And, and that always happens. You know, and they say proximity is power. I would also say proximity is profit. I’m sure you’ve heard that before, right? Proximity is power. I, I think Tony Robbins said that.
RV (19:41):
I mean, I, that’s who I heard say it that lots of people have said it, but that’s who I think it was like the original source of it. I don’t know if it was him or not, but that proximity is power. But I would, I would adapt that to say proximity isn’t just power. Proximity is profit, right? And if you’re around, if you are literally in proximity to people who have the ability to create income and create revenue and build businesses, I promise you if you help those people succeed, it will cascade back to you. We always want to reward the people who are helping us grow, right? And, and I’m saying that we like in a general sense and in a and in a literal sense of like me and aj, I mean, wouldn’t you right where you go, aren’t you going to reward the people who are most critical to like helping you grow?
RV (20:29):
Yes. If, if they’re really helping you and they really, you really have that mindset of like, it’s an effort, it’s a partnership, it’s a collaboration. We’re growing together. And so I’m constantly trying to find my, I’m constantly trying to find ways to add value to the people around me. I mean, just today, so I was on a call, I was on two different calls today with Ed Millet, some of you know, ed Millet you know, he’s, he’s one of our, our more well-known clients. And we’ve gotta know Ed a lot over the last few years. ’cause We helped him with his book launch and we’ve done a number of things together. He’s one of our top affiliates. And I’m trying to figure out ways to make Ed more money, not just with us, but this other deal. And, and I brought Ed an opportunity that this is a, is an equity opportunity.
RV (21:11):
And I’m going, I mean, ed makes lots of money, right? But I’m going, how can I help him make more money knowing that if I can add value to Ed’s life, there’s a good chance that some of that value rolls back to me somehow. And I don’t always have to know how. I just have to trust that if, if I become great at helping other people make money, they’re gonna want to help me make money, they’re gonna want to reward me back. And, and, and that is true. I have found that to be true. And you, you align with people who are that way. And I know that’s true about me. If there’s, if there’s people around me who are helping me make money, I want to return and go as I make more money, I want to return it back to them. It’s a rising tide raises all ships.
RV (21:54):
And so proximity isn’t just power, proximity is profit. So pay attention to the people you’re around in your life to go, who, who has a capacity here to make a lot of money and how can I support them and, you know, be around them and partner with them and, and, you know, serve them and align with them and add value to their life. You’re likely going to win because of that. I mean, I have been the, the, the, the beneficiary of that, the recipient of that, and the benefactor of that also to other people. So there you have it. Five keys to being financially secure as an entrepreneur. First of all, get debt free to buy your own freedom. Number two, invest in yourself and your business first before you invest in other stuff. Number three, when it comes to inve outside investments, have a boring investment strategy.
RV (22:43):
Number four, choose abundance over scarcity. And number five, become great at helping other people make money. And you will make money with all of that. Just remember, peace is the new profit. You don’t need more money. You need less stress. You don’t need more money. You need as much as you need less complexity. I mean, we do want more money. You do, you, you should go for more money. You’re creating wealth for the people around you. But in reality, for most of us, we don’t need more money as much as we need less stress. And as we don’t need more money, as much as we need less complexity.
Ep 538: Play a Bigger Game with Markus Kaulius
RV (00:01):
I have an exciting announcement to make the man you’re about to meet. Marcus Kaulius is not only a friend not only a brand builders group client, but today, this morning we found out that his book Play A Bigger Game is officially a USA Today national bestselling book. We just found out early this morning and we met Marcus a year ago, I dunno, over a year ago. We’re gonna talk about that here. And we had no idea when we scheduled this interview that we would, we would do the interview on the day that we would find out that the, the vision and the dream that he once had when he became a client would actually come true on the same day. So let me tell you the rest of his story a little bit, or tell you his bio, and then you’ll get to meet him.
RV (00:54):
So he’s a serial entrepreneur, and one of the things I love about Marcus is he has built multiple eight and nine figure businesses. So he’s a real entrepreneur. He has a supplement company that he took from startup to $170 million, which I want to know about. That is so impressive and inspiring to me. He helped people worldwide lu like lose, like a cu a cumulative 3 million pounds, which is really cool. He’s been featured in Fox News on Apple tv, CNN. He’s a Guinness World Record book holder. He’s got several hundred thousand people who follow him online. And then as of today, he’s Canadian, who is a USA today national bestselling author. So, Marcus, congratulations brother. We’re so excited to celebrate with you. Welcome to the show, man.
MK (01:52):
Oh, Rory, this what an intro. Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for everything you and brand builders are doing, man, it is awesome. You already know how much I love you guys. And now to put me on that list, it’s just crazy. It is absolutely surreal. If anybody is watching this podcast, listening to this podcast, and I seem a little nuts at times, just know I’m riding a bit of a high
RV (02:24):
Yeah. So, so when did you is this apropos the timing of this? So when did you first hear, hear about Brand Builders Group and, you know, you started this journey of like, building the personal brand and then the book, and then meet us, and then like, here, here we are, like, you know, hitting, hitting a, a really great high highlight moment in your career. So like, tell me the story of how you found us and all, all of that.
MK (02:50):
I I remembered this story this morning ’cause I think I’ve only given you glimpses of it, but what a god led moment. I was writing my book, and I am not somebody, by the way, as people get to know me, you’re gonna find out, like I, I’m not a guy who’s like, oh, I’ve always wanted to write a book. I, I felt called to write this book and God just really wrote through through me. And he put this book together. And as I’m getting towards the end, I start going, oh God. Like I don’t, I don’t know any publishers. I don’t know any agents. I know nothing about, nothing over here. Mm. I was going into deep prayer. I’m like, Lord, I need you to step in. Like you told me to write this, but I don’t know what to do with it. Like, you just want me to pick up the phone a hundred times.
MK (03:30):
I’ll, I’ll do it. You know, I will. That day, that day that I was deep in that prayer, a Christian buddy of mine who we don’t even con connect that often, he reaches out and he goes, Hey, do you know who Rory Vaden is? And I, I think you’re writing your book right now. You need to meet Rory Christian Guy and just, he gives you, gives me this resume. And I’m like, are you serious right now? And I’m looking up like, God, you are awesome. And boom, texts go back and forth. You and I are connected that day and you sent me this beautiful text, and then you sent me the links to, to podcast, and you’ve been on with Ed, my lead and Louis House, and I’m watching these. And by the way, Rory, those were works of art. They were stunning. Like every, like, you could have scripted it better for how those went.
MK (04:23):
And I was like, it, you know, you know, any good God-given moment where it’s just like my screen was lit up in a special way. I’m like, oh, this is the guy. This is the guy who I am supposed to work with. And from day one, I’ve just, I loved who you’ve put together. You have an amazing team. I love you and aj, I love the, I love your marriage. I love the way you guys treat each other, the way you talk about each other. And then of course, I love how niche you guys are. You guys have figured out this system in this lane, and you stick to your lane and you guys kill it in your lane. And I think I’m a great example of that because again, people listening, I am not some like of course I got a bestselling book, of course,
RV (05:29):
Saying, when was that? When, when was it like a, it was like a y was it like a year ago? That was we first, it was like a year ago. Right? Man, I love how God moves like that and just go like, you know, and also it’s, it’s such a, it’s such an example of a story where it’s like God will show you the second step after you take the first step. And it’s like, you go, Hey, I feel prompted to write this book, but I don’t know what to do with it. But it’s like, well write the book and then I’ll show you, right? Like, write the book and then I’ll open the door. And I think that’s a really big part of how God moves, is like, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll show you the second step. You know, I think about like, the story of Moses, right? And, and, and God never said, you know, here’s what’s gonna, here’s how you’re gonna move through the desert. He just said, go tell Farrah to let my people go. Like, doesn’t explain how, doesn’t explain like what’s gonna happen. Just like, go do this. So I love that. The, the other thing, brother,
MK (06:27):
Definitely lemme jump in real quick because I love what you just said and I so agree with you. But I also see this is one of the biggest issues with humanity today. We go, okay, I know this first step I’m supposed to take, whether God gave it to me or not. I know I’m supposed to do this, but I’m not gonna move until I know the next 10 steps. And I think that’s what just freezes people. And that’s why so many people get so stuck where they are. They’re like, well, I know I should do this, but I wanna know exactly what’s coming. I think the most successful people and the people who get really good results in life, and, and this is a great example of it today, is I knew only the first step in front of me, and God only lit up this one step.
MK (07:10):
And I said, okay, I’ll do it. I don’t need to know what’s next. I have enough faith and have enough trust. And again, you don’t have to have God for this part, although it’s really good if you do
RV (07:54):
Totally different outcome. Yeah, I mean that such a great example. So I wanna hear about the company because you know, I, I, I mean we love personal brands, clearly this is what we do. But I but also are entrepreneurs and you know, we, we think of like real entrepreneurs as like people who like built a widget, a a a a product or system that’s not like based on them as a, as an individual. And you’ve done that. And I wanna hear, was that a similar kind of thing? Was it like, oh my gosh, I have no idea what’s gonna happen. I’ll just take the first step and then see what happens after that? And then, and then did you guys grow all the way to $170 million a year in revenue?
MK (08:34):
Well, I, I won’t get too deep into, okay, let’s, let’s jump right in, let’s start with this. Yes. It was another situation of, I know the first step, and it was January 17th, 2005. God spoke to me and said, I want you to have your own bread. I was already selling supplements. I had three supplement stores at the time, and we can rewind further. And I went from tiny business to a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger. And then it was this moment and God said, I want you to have your own brand. And of course, I don’t know, holy smokes, I probably didn’t know 1% of 1% of 1% of what I needed to know, but I knew enough to take the first step and I started to create my own supplements. And as a Christian man who had really devoted his life to God saying, God, I won’t make decisions without you.
MK (09:22):
I won’t make moves without you because I don’t wanna do that ever again. And I know the piece that comes with having God on your team. I mean, that’s the best business partner there is. And we just made little steps, little steps. I, I’m not the Instagram business that oh my goodness, I was doing a million after two weeks. And if you’re not doing it this way, you’re doing it wrong. Oh my goodness, man. I was, I was eating craft dinner for years into this, and my wife and I loved talking about this. You know, the first five years at Magnum, five years, I didn’t take a salary. Mm. I just knew we were doing well. Like by the fifth year we were, we were in the millions, but I knew where I wanted it to go and where God had shown me where it was gonna go.
MK (10:07):
And I knew that if I started pulling money too early, if I started driving a Ferrari or a Range Rover too early, it was all gonna crash down. So I just kept moving in faith and taking those steps forward. And he kept opening doors. And last year we were in over a hundred countries worldwide. Wow. I’ve learned so much over the almost 20 years that I ran that business. And then God called me one day and said, now I want you to sell it. And then he sold it
RV (11:20):
That’s really cool, man. Can you just, like, that road I think is so important for entrepreneurs to know because it’s like, you know, you see someone, you see all the people with the Ferraris and the private jets or whatever. I think it’s like entrepreneurship is so glamorized today. And it’s just like, the reality though is like, it is a massive grind for at least like five years. And then I think you feel like you’re failing if you’re not like, you know, living this up. And it’s like, that’s not the story. I mean, that’s how it ends maybe for a very small few. So how, like, how many years did it take you to get to seven figures and then to eight figures, and then to nine figures? Like, just, just roughly like, do you kind of remember what the arc, because you said it was like 20 years between when you started it and you sold it, so we know it, like basically went from like zero to one 70 in 20 years, right?
MK (12:22):
Yep. I grew anywhere from 22% to 56% per year, year over year. Okay. And you know, the funny stuff that, like you talked about, all we see is the stuff on social media, the, the stuff that’s never talked about. Do you know what was the most uncomfortable year, the 56% growth? It was nuts. Like the amount, and we were in inventory business. So it’s so different for someone who doesn’t carry inventory. But when you’re an inventory business, 56% growth means I had to have like, almost double the inventory. It was nuts. But here’s one of the other things I wanna say about something you just said. And I, and I love that you’re bringing this up. I think there’s so many people, especially when we see social media and we’re trying to copy what we think we’re seeing. Mm-Hmm.
MK (13:13):
And we get so tied to the outcome. And this is such a dangerous thing for entrepreneurs who are, who are watching this stuff and going, well, I’m not gonna be successful until I’m driving the Ferrari. I’m on the private jet, I’m this and this and this. So I’d love to give just a little bit of the other side of this coin. Number one, if you get too tied to the outcome and you think that that success, I wanna also mention to you, everyone who I’ve ever met who achieved that stuff, everyone I’ve met was grossly unfulfilled. Mm. Like horrendously like some of the most unhappy people, especially backed with the fact that I’m supposed to be living my dream. I thought this was my dream. If, if this isn’t my dream, what what is life all about? And that what a horrifying reality. So my encouragement to everybody who is an entrepreneur is enjoy the journey, find ways to enjoy the journey. Don’t just tie it to a end result. Enjoy the journey, because it is likely gonna take you way longer than you think it will. Yes. Social media goes, yeah. If you’re not super successful in three years, you’ve blown it. I don’t know if I’ve actually met a human being, and I’ve met a lot of very successful people who became radically successful in three years.
RV (14:33):
Yeah. And I, I would echo that. I mean, when you say grossly unfulfilling my friend network of people who have sold companies, many of them are not just unfulfilled. They go into a stark depression. It’s, it’s, it, it’s like you’ve spent your whole life working, you achieve this thing, the high lasts, you know, a few weeks. And then it’s like, wait, this is supposed to be the pinnacle. And, and, and what is it? And that’s a really, it’s it, it’s hard to explain, right? Because, because
RV (15:28):
So enjoying the journey, I think is is, is a really big part. And the, the other, the other thing about that enjoying the journey is like, you know, there, I think there’s a, there’s an element of truth to the hustle and the grind. Like, I don’t know someone who’s built a successful company that didn’t have some level of sacrifice, you know, for a season. But I think it’s also risky to say, man, I’m gonna do nothing for 10, or, you know, for 20 years of my life other than work. Because you go at the end, even if it does pay off, and a lot of times it doesn’t, you know, have the huge payday. But even if it does, you look back and you go, well, that wasn’t worth losing 20 years of like seeing my kids or seeing the world or like getting in shape, like losing my fit and my health or whatever. So that’s, that’s awesome to have your in insight on that.
MK (16:21):
Oh, thank you brother. And you know what, you’re so right. And I, I work with a lot of guys these days who’ve had exits, and you’re absolutely right, man, the amount of depression and just loss of identity, because we tie our identity up so much in our, in our business. Like yeah, Marcus was the Magnum guy. I was so blessed because I was called to leave it. I was called to sell it. So I didn’t have to struggle with that piece. But man, did I have my eyes open going, oh yeah, this was a moment, this moment right here. Like, I’ll never forget having to pack up my nice big, beautiful office. I mean, I had this thing designed for me. It had all the beauty, all the, the, the beautiful desk and the this and that. I had a slide that left my office and went into, it was a secret slide against a secret wall. It was so cool. I had to pack it up one day to give it to the new owner, and I had to move into the tiny office next door. And I’m sitting there going, this is a moment, this is a moment where most men or women who sell the business are gonna go, what have I done?
RV (17:23):
What have I
MK (17:24):
Done? Can’t go in the small office. I’m not the small office guy. I’m the big office guy.
MK (18:08):
Like, if you’re punching a clock for 40 years, it’s like anything but punching the clock. And I’ll be happy. And I see that. But for an entrepreneur who, who actually puts their heart and soul into something and uses their mind and their energy every single day, and then to go from that to just like, okay, I’m gonna swing a club for a few hours every day. Oh man, that, that, it’s, it’s not what you think It’s Mm-Hmm. So again, enjoying the journey will help you realize what you’re really all about. And you’ll develop relationships, you’ll keep growing. And I think growth is a huge part of enjoying your journey.
RV (18:44):
Yeah. I want to talk to you, I want to talk to you about that. ’cause That’s another thing that just year after year after year, this amazes me. You know, when, when I first heard about personal development and going to conferences and seminars and getting coaching, I remember so many people going, that’s such a waste of time. Those are people taking advantage of weak people who are desperate, who, you know, just, you know, they’re needy people. And like, but yet I, yet I would read a book and I was like, that’s not at all what this is. This is amazing. This is, and, and now I become more and more convicted that it’s like every time, it’s not this the desperate needy people who are at the con personal development conferences and in the coaching programs, it’s the people like you. It’s the, it’s the go-getters.
RV (19:33):
It’s, it’s the world changers. It’s the, the mission-driven messengers. It’s the’s the people that you go, like, of all the people you wouldn’t think would, hi, join Brand Builders group and say, I’m, I just sold a company for a, you know, a $170 million company and now I’m gonna go pay somebody else to be in their coaching program. And yet it’s always that way. It’s like, and, and I know you were in Tony, you were in Tony Robbins platinum thing. So te tell me a little bit about your philosophy on growth and personal development, because it’s like, you seem to very much be a product of that, of, and someone who’s really bought into that, you know, for, for not just brand builders group, but lots of, lots of people.
MK (20:17):
Yeah. Oh, thank you. I love where you’re leading this, by the way. So my life is one of these timelines where it’s all about the personal growth. I also, like you grew up really poor. And the first 15 years of my life, I was so stuck in that mindset and like, I’m not gonna make anything. I can’t because of where I come from, because of what I’ve already experienced. I no chance for me. Hmm. I’m so blessed. I got Tony Robbins cassette tapes when I was 15 years old, and there was just something about the way that guy spoke. It might be his Tony Robbins big voice
MK (21:08):
I’m in control. You’re taking control of your life. And if you do it for a long enough time, you are gonna recognize that everything in your life changed. And when you talk about these conferences, you talk about being in these rooms and who are in these rooms at the very basic, just think about if you surround yourself with a whole bunch of go-getters who are doing big things, who have already achieved big things, of course that’s gonna have a massive impact on you. It’s going to change how you view success, what you think you are capable of. And you listen to these stories and you, you talk with guys like Rory and you’re like, wait, you grew up poor. I thought because I grew up poor, I couldn’t do anything. And it’s like, who told you that? Those are limiting beliefs. And soon you just break down these limiting beliefs.
MK (21:55):
And it’s amazing how many we have. It’s amazing how many things we set in stone in our minds. Totally. When we were 6, 7, 8 years old. And when you peel them back, it’s like, oh my goodness, that that’s not even remotely true. But my 7-year-old self who’s still in there, said, no, no, no, no. Hey, hey, you can’t do that ’cause of this man. It is wild. And then essentially you’re taking control of your life. You have the reigns of your life. Isn’t that exciting? And by the way, any Christians listening to this, because I know there’s a lot of Christians listening to this. Remember, you have God inside you. You are a co-creator of your life. You are co-author of your life. God did not create you with all the blessings He’s given you all the talents he’s given you to live some crappy life on the couch. If you do, he has mercy for you. I have mercy for you. He still loves you. It’s not about that. But he’s going, what do you wanna do? You could do anything.
RV (22:51):
Yeah. That’s, that’s, that’s an inspiring thought. And I think it’s, it’s easy to lose sight of that as Christians was just like, literally the Holy Spirit dwells in us going the creator of the universe and all of its magnitude and power is like inside of you to do exactly that. It’s, it’s very easy to overlook that. It’s very easy to take that for granted and, you know, and to underestimate what’s possible. Like, it’s so easy to underestimate what’s possible. You know, I, I’ve been talking a lot to our team at BBG, right? So we, we had eight figures last year was our fifth year in the business. And it’s like,
MK (23:36):
Congratulations brother.
RV (23:38):
Thank you, thank you. But like, when AJ and I started BBG coming out of the former company, our vision was 1000 messengers. We’re like, one day we’re gonna get to a thousand messengers, a thousand personal brands that we’re, we’re, we’re, we know in a meaningful way we’re serving in like an in, you know, in an in intimate relationship. And we thought, well, gosh, if you, if we had a thousand people at a thousand dollars a month, that’d be 1.2 million a month that that’d be a figure business. That was like our, that was like our 30 year, you know, like in my mind I’m like, oh, that’s like our 20 year, 30 year vision. And it’s like, God made it happen in five years. And now you go, whoa. Like if, if we could go from zero to that in five years, what could we do between year five and 10 or five and 20?
RV (24:26):
And it’s like, I don’t even wanna put a re it’s like, I almost even wanna put a goal around it because I’m like, man, the, if, if you apply that same or just the same order of magnitude to what happened, go like, like God can multiply. I mean, he’s a, he’s a multiplier. Like, it, it’s not, it’s not hard for him to multiply things. He just needs a willing vessel who wants to participate and co-create in it, and then go like, look what I will do through you as, as long as you’re willing to invite me in, and as long as you’re willing to like, share, share in the credit with me. Like, you know, I just go, it’s, it’s, it’s so magnificent. Easy to, easy to overlook.
MK (25:14):
Oh, so good. And Rory, by the way, I so see this in you and aj and that’s one of the reasons I’m so drawn to you guys. And I love you guys. I love what you’re doing and I’m so excited to watch what happens for the next five to 10 years. And, you know, I’m gonna be on that, on that sideline cheering you guys on and on the bench whenever you want to call me in, I’ll be going in. But I think one of the key things that I wanna bring up here is this is where a lot of entrepreneurs mess up is, and even Christian entrepreneurs. Mm. You get to a certain level of success and maybe it’s a level of success that you’re like, I don’t know how I got here. I’m shocked. But then we start going, well, you know, I am pretty awesome and you know, I do deserve this, this, this, and this, and what happens?
MK (25:58):
And you just said it, which I love how you said it. Even if you just applied the same principles, the same standards, and just kept doing the same thing, you’ll grow incredible. But we don’t even do that. We take our foot off the gas, we stop doing all the things that made us successful. And like you said, and I totally agree with you, you stop involving God, you stop going. Well, let me tell you why. I’m like, that’s why I’m here. That’s the only reason I have this book. That’s the only reason anything you call success in my life is a hundred percent him. If you see anything negative or embarrassing, oh, that’s Marcos, I, I’ll take credit for that stuff.
RV (26:34):
MK (26:35):
Everything else is him. So if I remove him from the equation, all I have left is the embarrassment, and I am am confident, I’ll go to zero pretty quick. And I’ll be like, how did that happen? Oh, I’ll tell you exactly how. So that’s my encouragement to any entrepreneur who reaches any level of success. It’s, there’s not a specific number because it has to do with what you believe That number is where you are shocked that you got there. It could be 1 million, it could be 10 million, it could be a hundred million. And then you just go, I made it. It’s over. I did this. This is incredible. I don’t need to even do whatever I was doing. And everything starts to change for the negative.
RV (27:13):
Mm-Hmm,
RV (27:53):
I need to learn, I need to study, I need to optimize. I need to use data. I need to build a team, whether it’s for me or God. It’s like in order for it to, to to be good, like I have to do the same activities either way. And then I, I guess I just, I felt like God saying to me, the only way you know is, is to wake up every day and to dedicate it to me and to wake up every day and to just keep giving it to me. And is, it really is a matter of an intention of just being like, okay, this is yours. Because the, it’s, the behaviors are the same. The intentions are what’s different. And hopefully that never changes. And I, I do, I I think it, it can change that. And that’s why I think, frankly, there’s so much conversation in the Bible about money and the, the risks of money and the danger of money.
RV (28:40):
It’s not that rich people are evil. It’s that rich people can reach a point where they start to become less dependent on God because their worldly needs are met. And that is what opens the door for evil to kind of like come into their life. You know, David was very wealthy. Solomon was very wealthy. Jeremiah was very wealthy. Like there’s a lot of very wealthy people in, in, in, in scripture. But it’s, it’s never a, it, it’s, it’s never a self-reliance. It’s always a God reliance. So anyways, it’s, it’s powerful to, to, to to see that happen. So just real quick, so I know we’re wrapping up, but I wanna remind everybody. So the book is called Play A Bigger Game, which I love, right? You could see Marcus has been playing a bigger game. He’s got strategies for stepping into this. The book is seven principles, seven Universal Principles to Experience True Fulfillment, which is what we’re talking about and how to really, really win at life. First of all, all Marcus, where do you want people to go to, to get copies of the book if they wanna like read more about this and, and what you have to share?
MK (29:50):
They can go anywhere. Great books are sold. You know, go to Amazon, go to Barnes and Noble, go to any of those great places.
RV (29:56):
Don’t go to anywhere where crappy books are sold. That’s, you won’t find this one. If they sell crappy books,
MK (30:06):
And I, I wanna encourage you, everybody, if you’re gonna take, if you’re gonna grab a copy of my book and the Audible is coming out any day right now, which I was really excited to do because I love that stuff, but I want to tell you this, you must take action. Don’t just read the book. And one of the great things I love about what God gave me to put in this book, constant challenges and advanced challenges, because you have to put the book down and actually do something with it. We can consume every book on the planet, and if we do nothing with it, nothing will change. But if you take action, you can actually start to see your life change right away. It’s just perspective shifts. You just look at things differently. And so that’s what my book is all about. And I would love to hear, if you read my book, if you listen to the audio book, will you reach out to me? Tell me what was your takeaway? I would love to hear that. I will personally respond because I love hearing that from people. It’s my favorite thing to get messages from people I do not know from wherever in the world. And they’re telling me they read their book, and this was the impact that made that would light me up.
RV (31:12):
Yeah, man, I, I love it. And I love seeing a, a Christian entrepreneur that’s had the level of success that you’ve had who has not at all lost their reliance on God, but only leaned more into God. That, that’s inspiring to me and something I think worth aspiring to. And also, I mean, you’re still growing and still doing personal development and still like, I mean I, I, I just, I love your zest for life and your zest for the Lord and and your zest for service. And I think that really comes through in this book and, and the movement and all the things you are. So we’re so proud to, you know, be a small part of your success story and this book and everything that’s going on, and you represent very much the things that we want to be associated with.
RV (32:03):
And I think, you know, so many times people hear Brand Builders Group and they think, oh, Louis Howes and Eric Thomas and, and, and Ed Mylet and Amy Porterfield and all these amazing people, which is great. We love them too, but it’s, it’s like, I, I think people maybe don’t realize how much there’s a whole monster future generation of, of inspirers and thought leaders and messengers who are like literally rising up and you’re in that group. And we’re so honored to be a part of that brother. So keep it going, keep serving and we wish you all the best.
MK (32:40):
Rory, thank you for everything you’re doing. Thank you for the beautiful company you guys are running and for being so obedient the way you are. I love you guys, and God bless you, man.
RV (32:50):
God bless you, brother.
Ep 535: 3 Ways Your Faith Affects Your Profits | Graham Cochrane Episode Recap
RV (00:03):
So many entrepreneurs underestimate the role and the power that faith plays in their business. And that’s part of what I want to talk to you about today is three ways that you may not even realize that faith is shaping your future profits. And three, sort of exercises and demonstrations of faith that are really, really important for you growing your business. So the first thing is you need to understand what’s working against you. And you need to understand that there is biblically there is a spiritual battle going on, that there are things going on in the heavenly realms that surround this world that we don’t know about. Now, that can be one of those things that feels hard to believe for people. And if it is, I get that. I kind of go, well, that feels, you know, wild to me sometimes. And you can go really deep on, on that.
RV (01:03):
But even if you can’t get your mind wrapped around the idea that like there is, you know, a spiritual battle going on all around us at all times, what you should be able to understand concisely and quickly and see for yourself is that even inside of your own head, there is a battle of doing what you know you should be doing and doing what you feel called to do versus being pulled back into doing what is safe and doing what is convenient and doing what is comfortable. And what I want you to know is that if there is a devil, okay, so let’s just say it, let’s just say it that way. If there is a devil, the devil, if the devil can stop you from dreaming, he will stop you from doing so. If the devil can convince you to not dream, then automatically you will not do.
RV (02:09):
Here’s the other thing that you should know about the devil, right? Part of the devil’s greatest victory if there is a devil, would be convincing people that the devil is not real, right? So part of his great victory would to go, oh, that’s crazy. That’s made up the devil. I’m not real. The devil’s not real. Like, and, and, and, and if that were true, then he would be completely free to operate in silence, to create chaos, to to shape the world without the world even being aware of the fact that he is there and that he really is, you know, an ultimate enemy. Now, that alone doesn’t just prove that the devil is real, but either way, whether the the devil is real and is, and wins by making you think he’s not real. And so he gets to operate freely. Or if the devil is real and you believe that he is real or even if it’s not the devil, if it’s just your own voice inside of your head that says, don’t dream.
RV (03:13):
You could never do that. You could never win. Sure. So-and-so could do it, but that’s not you. You don’t have their resources. You, you’re not as smart as them, you’re not as talented. You don’t have as much money, you don’t have the, the relationships, you don’t have the connections, you don’t have the education, whatever it is, even if you wouldn’t call that the devil spiritually, in all three of those scenarios, whether the devil is real and you believe it, whether the devil is real and you don’t believe it, or whether the devil isn’t real, but something inside of you still convinces you to stop dreaming the devil wins or somebody other than you wins. Because if the devil can stop you from dreaming, he automatically stops you from doing. And so you gotta combat that. How do you combat that? You combat that by dreaming.
RV (04:03):
You combat that. You combat that by first giving yourself permission to dream by first even allowing yourself to go suspend, bend, suspend the necessity for it to be realistic, right? No one said it had to be realistic. It doesn’t have to feel real realistic. It doesn’t have to feel possible. It doesn’t mean that someone else has to have done it. Chances are whatever dream you’re having, somebody has done it. So it is possible. But even if you can’t get your mind wrapped around it, I would just say when you’re dreaming, the first rule is give yourself permission to dream. And the way you do that is by suspending the requirement for realism, suspend the requirement for realism. Allow yourself to dream without it having to be realistic. You go, that’s right. I’m not having a realistic picture in my mind, that’s not what I’m trying to do.
RV (04:56):
I’m, I’m trying to dream something in my mind. Let’s suspend realism, at least temporarily. We can always bring realism back later. But if you don’t allow yourself to dream, you won’t allow yourself to do. And if the devil is real, and I believe the devil is real, ’cause I believe that is I believe in scripture. And I, I believe that that’s, there’s evidence and proof of that. As you probably have heard, if you’ve listened to my Eternal Life podcast where I go through, you know, 15 hours of evidence that supports scripture in the life of Jesus on my other free podcast the, if the devil stops you from dreaming, he automatically stops you from doing. And many of us are blind to that. Many of us go, man, that’s a battle that I’m losing before, before the war even begins. That prevents, prevents me from even having a chance.
RV (05:46):
So you gotta be aware that your faith comes into play from the moment you have a dream or an idea. The second thing, the second place that faith comes into business that you may not realize how important faith is, is you gotta understand that very often it is our broken dreams that lead to our beautiful dreams. Very often, our most broken dreams are the things that lead to and plant the seeds for what becomes our most beautiful dreams. The very things that we thought were just like, were devastated. ’cause We go, how could this happen? Why would this be years later, you look back and you often go, oh, now I can see how God worked that out in, in my favor, in my good. You know, I I think of like the high school reunion, right? This is classic where you go, man, there was this, you know, this, this, this boy or this like, you know, this girl or this boy that I had a crush on in high school.
RV (06:52):
And then you go back in your high school reunion 20 years later and you go, holy moly, am I glad I didn’t end up with that person. Like they went in a completely, you know, different direction than I would’ve ever gone in. You, you know, like that is not how I would’ve wanted my life to end up. Yet in that moment when they didn’t choose me in that moment when, when they didn’t show me love in that moment, when they didn’t come back after me, I was devastated. My dream was broken, I was, I was heartbroken. But yet that that not happening actually created the environment for the life that I have. Now, the reason this is important is because if you don’t consciously realize that when you have broken dreams, when things don’t work out for you, you automatically default to God is against me, or this wasn’t meant to be, or this isn’t in my destiny, or this isn’t fate.
RV (07:47):
And when you beli, when you beli, when you adopt that mentality, you often give up those broken dreams. Go, see, I tried, it didn’t work out, I’m finished. But the perspective principle of faith, so this is, this is actually in chapter six of Take the Stairs. The perspective principle of faith says that faith is consciously choosing to believe that what is happening now is somehow for your good later on. That actually ties back to a verse in scripture, Romans 8 28, which says, in all things God works for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose. Not in some things, not some of the time in all things. What it doesn’t say is you’re gonna feel good all the time. Life is gonna be easy, it’s gonna be evident to you. It’s gonna be obvious what God is doing.
RV (08:44):
No, it just says in all things God is working for good. And so we can have faith in that. But, but that’s a conscious choice. You have to, you have to make inside of a heartbroken moment. Like if you’re, if you’re having a heartbroken moment, it’s easy to go. Where is God? There is no God or or if there is a God, why would God be letting this happen to me? Right? That and that’s where it stops. And that’s a lack of faith. That is that faith is choosing a long-term perspective, right? Faith is believing in, in a, in a future, but faith is having hope for what you cannot see. Faith, faith is more than just what is happening to me right here, right now in this moment. And if you’re not consciously aware of that, then when you have heartbreak and you will have heartbreak, right?
RV (09:33):
Faith doesn’t mean you won’t have heartbreak. Jesus himself says, in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world. But he says, in this world you will have trouble. So it’s a validation of faith to say you’re gonna have problems. We know the problems are coming. You don’t get a choice about whether or not you’re gonna have problems. You’re gonna have problems. I promise you’re gonna have problems. Anybody who’s been successful will tell you problems are on the way, right? Like you, you’re gonna have problems. The question is not whether or not you have problems. The question is how you respond to those problems and how you respond to those problems has a lot to do with how you process those problems and the meaning that you assign to those problems. And if you don’t have faith, when you have problems, when you have broken dreams, the default is to assign it to, oh, I was, I’m destined for failure, or God doesn’t love me, or God doesn’t care about me, or this isn’t meant to be, or I’m not smart enough.
RV (10:35):
But when you have faith, you Romans 8 28, faith, you know, in all things God is working for good faith is choosing to believe that what is happening now is somehow for a greater glory Later on. And I see this pattern again and again and again in the mindset of the ultra performers. And even if you can’t get your mind wrapped around the idea that this is God, hopefully you can get your i your mind wrapped around the idea of perseverance to go. It would be naive to think you could achieve anything meaningful without enduring heartbreak, without enduring some failure. You know, that’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen. So what is necessary is perseverance. And to be able to persist through that, well then that means the way that you process that failure matters a lot. And if you think that heartbreak means you’re gonna fail and you, then you’re just gonna give up.
RV (11:28):
So, but if you have faith, then you go, I trust that God’s gonna weave together this beautiful tapestry somehow. The third way that you may not realize your faith is affecting your prophets is realizing that overwork is a sign of under faith. Overwork is a sign of under faith. If I overwork, then what, what I’m, what I’m demonstrating, what I’m saying with my actions is if it’s to be, it’s only up to me. It’s not up to anyone else. It’s not up like it’s not up to God. I’m in this alone and it’s on me a hundred percent. I must take control, full control of my success. It’s only up to me in general. I’m a fan of agency, I’m a fan of accountability. But spiritually we are co-creators with God, right? We, we, he created us, right? We’re not the creators of all things.
RV (12:31):
We are the created. And as the created, we get a chance to co-create with him. So there is this, you know, from the time Adam exists in the garden, there’s a co-creation mechanism that is reinforced biblically. Now, again, if you can’t get your, if you, if you can’t get your mind wrapped around that or you don’t understand that, it’s not necessarily, it’s, it’s not really nec, it’s not necessarily a necessity that you do. But what is is to go, when I’m overworking, I’m saying it’s only up to me. It, there is a level of faith required to tap the amount of work that you put in. And this is one thing that’s different about brand builders group from the company agent and I built before in the company we built before, we just worked like crazy nonstop. There wasn’t margin for God. We didn’t leave margin for a miracle.
RV (13:26):
You, there’s no, there’s no space that you’re inviting God to show up to fill you. You, if you wanna see a miracle, you have to leave margin for a miracle. You, you, you have to go, I’m gonna do my part and I’m going to, I’m gonna use my talents, but at some point I’m releasing control to say what happens here is, is out of my control. It’s, it’s in your hands. So I will show up with what I have, which is little right, which is humane. It is not much. I I don’t have supernatural powers, but I will use the skills and the talents and the resources you’ve given me, and then I will give it back to you and I will trust you to do it. That’s a sign of faith. And a lot of people don’t equate the idea that overworking is a sign of under faith is to go, oh, I have to work constantly because I, I don’t trust that God will fill in the gap. But having faith means I’m leaving margin for a miracle. I’m allowing God to fill in the gap. I’m, I’m contributing to the extent that I can, but then I’m surrendering, surrendering ultimately to his control. And these are three parts of your faith that influence your prophets.
RV (14:41):
The devil can stop you from dreaming. He’ll stop you from dream doing if you gotta realize that broken dreams lead to our most beautiful dreams, and that
RV (14:50):
Overwork is a sign of under faith. All of this points to an idea that if you increase your faith, you will increase your profits. That’s the challenge I wanna welcome you to and invite you to take in the next stage of your business.
Ep 534: How to Find Yourself and Your Own Vision with Graham Cochrane
RV (00:02):
Well, I can’t wait to let you hear and listen in on this conversation with my good buddy, Graham Cochrane. So, Graham is a BBG client, and he represents, in my eyes, much of why we started the company, to find good people with real expertise, who are helping people and care about making a difference in the world, using their skills and talents to make the world a better place. He is a mission-driven messenger who has real expertise and a really impressive track record. So Graham is a seven figure entrepreneur. He has a podcast that reaches over 80,000 people every month. So he’s in the top 0.5% of all podcasters. He has over 700,000 YouTube subscribers, which is super impressive. I’m super jealous of that. And he does all of it in minimal number of hours per week. He’s been a Ted speaker, he’s a keynote speaker.
RV (00:56):
I know he’s speaking at some of my friends events, and I’m starting to see him more and more. We’re also in a Christian entrepreneur’s mastermind together. His wife and AJ are in an actual mastermind together. And so just an amazing guy and he’s got a new book coming out called Rebel. Find Yourself by Not Following The Crowd, and we’re gonna talk a little bit about that and how to just, you know, make money doing what you do and getting paid for what you know, which was kind of like more of his first book. So, Graham, welcome to the show, man. Good to have you
GC (01:28):
Dude. Pumped to have the conversation, man. It’s been fun to see our, our world collide over the last 12 months. A little bit more love what you guys are doing at Brand Builders. It is literally the best. Like literally, if you’re not in brand builders, you need to join. ’cause It’s the best program for getting your message out there holistically and building a business around it. It’s so well done, bro.
RV (01:46):
Man, thank you for that. I mean, that’s a powerful testimonial and, and to get it from someone like you who’s already, you know, doing a great job of it before we found you. I love that. And, and I just, I, I love your heart for what you’re doing. Everyone listening already knows I’m a hardcore bible thumping Jesus freak, and AJ is you are, and your, your, your wife is, and, and we got a chance to meet your family and that whole thing. But talk to me about Rebel, the title Rebel, and specifically the subtitle to me really spoke to me when I, I saw it said, find yourself by not following the crowd. So why is not following the crowd important? And I feel like we live in a world where people are constantly following the crowd and like looking at what other people are doing. And I feel like your book is like a very distinctively, diametrically kind of opposed message to that. So tell us about that.
GC (02:47):
Yeah, I mean, I think people are ultimately looking for fulfillment. You know, if you’re a personal brand or business owner, you want to be fulfilled in your business. And, and I have some thoughts on what leads to fulfillment, but t typically what we do is we almost abdicate the path to fulfillment by just looking at what everyone else is doing and saying, well, he looks happy. She looks happy. That’s how she’s running her business. That’s how he’s showing up online, that’s how they’re raising their kids. That’s how they’re thinking about handling their money. And so we just sort of copy what we see ’cause it’s easier. The, there’s already a flow. There’s already like a current of culture, of conformity moving in a direction. So the easiest path is the path of just doing what everyone else is doing. And the problem is, is that you’ll never find fulfillment by following the crowd because it’s gonna pull you further away from the way you were designed.
GC (03:36):
So we believe in a great designer and you, you know, this is true intuitively because you know what it feels like to feel out of alignment and then when you’re like in the zone or in your sweet spot, and it’s a lot easier to live in alignment. And I just think we’re afraid to a figure out what does alignment mean for us? Like, who, how are we designed? The late Dan Miller who was like, I, I had him on my podcast and he endorsed my first book and had a brief interactions with him before we lost him. But the two questions he always says that you need to answer are, who am I? And why am I here? And I, I, I agree with him on that, that we don’t know who we are. But even, but if we did the small but important work of finding out more about the way God designed us, the way we’re wired, man, we’d flourish in business. We’d flourish in parenting and marriage. We’d flourish in our relationships with money and people and spirituality. So it’s, to me, this book is a book about alignment and identity. But once you figure that out, man, you’re gonna be more successful. You’re gonna be more satisfied, you’re gonna be of more service to other people. And I think those are three things everybody wants.
RV (04:39):
So, yeah. And I think, you know, you used that word abdicate, which I really love. ’cause I think that it’s, it’s like this energy of almost like a a default mode. And I do think people basically like live, live their life in that way of like, I’m just sort of default. And I think probably at least the way I view it is few people wake up and go, yeah, I wanna do what everyone else does, and I’m just gonna follow the crowd. But it seems more of like, they struggle to figure out, how do I know, who am I? How do I know why I am here? How, how, how, how do I find that? So what insights do you have there? If someone’s like, well, I just don’t really feel like I’m that clear on that, what are the steps that they can take to sort of like, get clear on some of those things?
GC (05:28):
Yeah, exactly. So there’s a lot of ways to do this. The way I teach in the book, it, it is a, an acronym, rebel is an acronym. It’s a five part framework. And the, the r the beginning of it, it starts with resolving to dream again. So the R stands for resolve to resolve to dream. Again, my theory, my premise is that joy and dreaming and desires that I think are put there by God are the starting point to figuring out who you are. Mm-Hmm. The point of thinking about dreaming, the point of thinking about what fires you up, what you would love to, you know, in Tim Ferriss’s language dream of doing, being or having, like he says, like, if you’re the smartest person in the world and there was, it was impossible to fail, what would you dream of doing? Being or having, I, that type of questioning is a starting point for figuring out your identity.
GC (06:19):
Not the end, but the starting point. ’cause My my theory is that dreams are clues as to the way God designed us. We dream. We might have collective dreams that are similar for all people, but I think there’s a lot of uniqueness to the things you want to do, want to have people, the person you want to be, that are a, a, a clue to, maybe I should pull on that thread a little bit more, but the problem is, is like, as adults, I think that’s just beat out of us. Like, as a kid, this was so natural. Like we grew up dreaming. We knew what we wanted as kids. And then either culture at large culture, like in your home or whatever, told you this is the, the way, you know, sort of mandalorian star Wars. Like this is the way you have to follow it.
GC (07:01):
And very few people dream anymore when they grow up. And so they, they no longer know who they are. They’ve lost sort of themselves, and they, they’ve conformed. And I really think there’s a difference between the path of conformity and then the beginning of getting off of that path is dreaming again. And it’s really hard to do. ’cause We feel like dreaming is pointless. It’s childish. It’s my dream didn’t work out for me very well. I got burned by dreaming. There’s disappointment there. So it’s a very tender place, but that’s my theory. You start with dreaming again, 30,000 foot view might seem impossible. I don’t know what I’m gonna do with this dream, but it starts to tell you a little bit about the way you’re wired.
RV (07:34):
Yeah, that’s good. Brother and I, I mean, just as you were talking, I was, you know, sort of processing what you were saying and it, it dawns on me that like, you know, God puts a dream in your heart. If you, if you look at the inverse of that, the devil, if the devil stops you from dreaming, then the devil stops you from doing, right? Like, if you never allow yourself to have the dream, then the likelihood of that thing ever coming true, it basically becomes non-existent. And so the devil doesn’t even have to stop you from doing, if he can just stop you from dreaming, then it’s like, it’s like a seed that never gets watered. It never gets birthed. And so then it’s like the devil wins by default in terms of a spiritual battle. And just thinking about like a spiritual enemy of you know, and I think of that, you know, that’s what the scripture says, that, you know, the devil is a liar. I mean, that’s, he, he, he’s he’s a liar. He comes to kill and steal and destroy. And you go, if he plants a lie, like if God plants a dream, you should go do this. And then the level the devil shows up and just plants a lie on top of it, you could never do this then like you lose. So it’s like, which voice are you gonna listen to?
GC (08:43):
Oh, that’s so good. And there’s different lies. It’s either for some people he knows what’s, like, if we’re gonna talk spiritually, the devil knows what’s effective for each of us. So it might be, you know, you you’ll never be able to do this. The other lie could be if this won’t work out, and you’ll be incredibly disappointed. And there could be a huge fear of disappointment, especially if you had a dream that did die in the past. Something we, we talked about, about a year ago, I was doing a session with you. We talked about this identity crisis intersection about like, and I wrote about this in the book about when you have a dream, we all have had a dream. It could be a financial dream or a career ambition, or a relationship dream. Like, I wanna get married, I wanna have kids.
GC (09:21):
And then what happens when that dream dies? Well, we’re at this identity crisis intersection because our dreams are not compartmentalized. They’re part of, our identity is attached to our dreams. That’s why they hurt so much when we lose them. And that’s why they feel so good when we gain them. And so part of you dies with that dream. And so what most people do is they say, forget this. I’m gonna choose the path at this intersection. There’s two choices. I’m gonna choose the conformity path, put my head back down, be like everybody else, and say, Hey, dreamings for other people that didn’t work out for me. There’s no way I’m gonna do the opposite. Which is the other choice, which is to dream again. You know, maybe the, the divorce happened, you could choose to pursue another relationship and dream again. But most people are like, I don’t want to be hurt again.
GC (10:00):
I don’t wanna be disappointed. Again, it’s a tender spot. So we, we gave dreaming a shot once or twice, and then that was it. And I think I was just talking about this with Chris Cook on the Win Today podcast of like the people that seem younger as they get older and seem more full of joy in life are the people that continually let themselves dream again, dream new dreams. Maybe that dream didn’t work out, but what’s a different version of that dream? I could dream, you know, my first dream was to be a rockstar. Like literally try to get a record deal that fell through. I had to make some tough choices. But in a roundabout way, God put new versions of that dream in my heart, where now I’m in front of tens of thousands, if not millions of people regularly performing, sharing, creating, doing creative work.
GC (10:44):
I just didn’t wanna sit at a cubicle all day. And God gave me another way to do that. It was through YouTube, which didn’t exist when I was in college. You know, it was through podcasting, it was through books, it was through all this stuff. And so I never could have even imagined. But I think, yeah, there’s that lie of you’ll be disappointed if the dream doesn’t work out. It’s impossible. Dreaming is selfish. Depending on your, your origin story, your parents might have said, we don’t get to do what we want. We do what’s responsible we do with the families, businesses, we do. You’re gonna go to college, you’re gonna do this. So a lot of times dreaming feels selfish. So everyone’s story is gonna be a little different. But this is where, why I start with dreaming. ’cause It’s like so useful if you let yourself do it. But so many people have mental blocks around it.
RV (11:23):
Mm-Hmm.
GC (12:44):
Yes. Right. Because to do anything great, let’s talk about personal brands. Like to build a personal brand takes risk. Like anyone who thinks you can build a business without risk is, is not in the right mind. It takes risk. And so some people get scared away. But I think, and that was me when I thought about entrepreneurship, I never wanted to start a business ’cause it seemed risky. Mm-Hmm.
GC (13:21):
And so once I saw a vision of like, well, I, it’d be so fun to help musicians be so fun to be able to talk about music. And I was a freelancer at the time and do a little bit of everything. That was a big enough desire that made me want to take the risk. ’cause I had no idea what the business model was. I didn’t know who Amy Porterfield was. I didn’t know any, I didn’t know what a course was. This is 2009. You know, I’m like starting out in the dark ages and like trying to figure this out. But I think desire gets you past the risk. So if you’re gonna build a personal brand, don’t build the brand that you think you should build or someone else is building or build the business model the way you think. You, you’ve gotta really be excited about the thing you’re building to get you to take the risks necessary. And like you said, like horse correct along the way to get anywhere meaningful. And without that, I just don’t think we’re gonna take the risk. Mm-Hmm.
RV (14:07):
GC (14:15):
The e is to establish the outcomes you want in life. So if we’re resolving to dream again at the beginning, big picture dreams. I walk people through a 50 dreams exercise in the book. The E is to establish the outcome. So now we get clear on vision, right? And this is more of, okay, what what do I specifically want my life to look like? And I love, I kind of stole this question from Rich Lipin which is this just the simple scenario of imagine it’s three years from today, and I bump into you Rory, and I’m like, Rory, I haven’t seen you in three years. How the heck are you buddy? And you’re like, Graham, it has been the best three years of my life. I’m like, oh my gosh, that’s amazing. Let’s grab a coffee. Sit down. Tell me, tell me about that.
GC (15:00):
What would you be telling me about what would have to be true for you to say to me? It’s been the best three years of my life. And what I like about this journal prompt or thought exercise is two things. One, it’s open-ended. ’cause It’s not business related. It could be, it could be your family, it could be your finances, it could be whatever. But also it’s the timeframe of three years. Like, I’m not, like, I’m a big planner on the strength finders. I’m high on futuristic. I live in the future to my detriment a lot of times at the expense of the present. But 10 years, like people having a 10 year plan, it’s really, really hard because 10 years is so far down the road. I’m either gonna be highly unmotivated to take action today. Totally. It’s a decade away or I don’t know who I’m gonna be in 10 years.
GC (15:43):
10 years ago I was a totally different person. And so it’s just a tough thing to project one year. Like I, I kind of like New Year’s resolutions ’cause they give you a lot of urgency to like, let’s freaking go. And I like the, the boost of adrenaline, but then it’s hard to change your life in a year. And so you get discouraged and you give up three years, you’re close enough to who you kind of can project who you’re gonna be and what season of life you’re gonna be. And you can look at your kids, you can look at your life and go, I can kind of see in three years where I might be. So that’s, it’s reasonable to assume some things. And yet I think you and I both know that we can do a lot of damage in 36 months. Like we could change our body in 36 months. I could change my marriage in 36 months. I could transform my business in 36 months. And so that three year question allows people to go from dreaming big picture to man, what do I really care about that I would say it’s been the best three years of my life. What would have to be true? And now I have some specific outcomes I wanna move towards.
RV (16:39):
Mm-Hmm.
GC (18:01):
Yeah. You start to journal it out. There’s some sub-questions you can ask yourself. Like once you see that vision, like what are the opportunities in front of me right now that could get me to that vision that are just low hanging fruit? And then the opposite, what are the obstacles that I could foresee, external obstacles, internal obstacles that would prohibit me from making that vision come a reality. But the reason we do all this stuff, right, is like, and, and I have this with clients who come to me and say, Graham, I wanna, I wanna make a hundred thousand dollars a year in my business. And, and I’m like, Hey, go, go do this exercise. Go do the three-year vision. They come back and what it does is it exposes what they uniquely want. And I had a client who wanted a hundred thousand dollars a year in his business.
GC (18:42):
He wanted me to help him scale up. But when he came back from this exercise, what he discovered was actually what I want is to move to Florida and live closer to the beach so I can ride my bike or walk on the beach every day with my wife. I want to be able to have my wife stay home with our kids and work with me in the business. So my four kids, me and my wife are all at home together. We have more time together and we’re getting to work on something together. I want to be able to travel a little bit more and I want to be able to replace my car. Like he had very specific things and he was like, I wanna be working out every day. Like he had mapped all this out and he realized I don’t need a hundred thousand dollars a year, a month in my business to create that vision.
GC (19:20):
‘Cause The money is where as I coach business owners a lot, that’s where their minds go is a a dollar amount. But I’m like, the money is a just a vehicle. You really have a business to create the life you want and serve your life, not have your life serve your business. So like what, what kinda life do you want? And that’s gonna be different for Rory and me and my clients. Like, you’ve gotta get clear on what you uniquely want. And the reason why as a business owner, if you’re a personal brand, is that well then now you’ve got a much clearer vision to give yourself permission to not do what she’s doing, what he’s doing, what the trends say to do if it’s not in alignment with your vision. So if your vision is to work less than than 20 hours a week in your business, you probably shouldn’t be taking on a, a model of business that requires you to pump out content all day, every day.
GC (20:06):
And you’re a slave to the business. ’cause You’re now sacrificing your vision for making money. What if it got you to be curious about, is there another way to make money but have my vision of working less than 20 hours a week if that was part of your vision. So that’s where it starts to get more personalized to you so you know how to design your life and not just float. ’cause In personal branding, you’re gonna, everyone’s gonna copy everyone, but you’ve got some of the biggest clients in the world and everyone sees them, the Ed Millets and the Amy’s and all these people and be like, oh, I should just do what they’re doing. But maybe that’s not best for you and your personal brand. Mm-Hmm. Or your season of life or your unique challenges or your special needs child or your whatever. You gotta really get clear on what you want to do and make your business fit. That, that’s part of my heartbeat when it comes to business owners specifically.
RV (20:50):
Mm-Hmm.
RV (21:39):
I mean, like, it, it was hard. And, and I was thinking about that to myself and I was going, you know, people don’t give themselves enough grace for the season they’re in. Right? It’s like you’re looking at someone online who’s blowing up and it’s like if you got newborn kids, like you’re living in a completely different universe. Like you’re, you’re not even, you’re not even in the same game, the same league. Certainly not the same field. Like you’re in a completely different universe. And just having that, you know, both the dreams for your own life, but also the grace of failure of like, if it’s not happening so fast, it’s like, dude, there’s, you know, and, and having kids not having kids, it’s like, it’s two different universe, I mean, happening on this planet. Like they, they they’re completely different. Yeah. And each one has different, you know, things that come along with that.
RV (22:31):
And so I love that. And, and so, so the acronym y’all, R-E-B-E-L. If you want to know the rest of the acronym, you need to go get the book. Okay. So the book is called Rebel. By the time you’re hearing this, the book is out or really close to being out. So you need, you can, you can go get Gram’s book. I, I have one more thing I want ask you about before I let you go Graham, but like, but before I do that, where should people go if they wanna like get the book, learn about you, you know, stay in touch, et cetera?
GC (23:02):
Yeah, the rebel book.com will get you directly to the book. And if it’s before it comes out, there’s some pre-order bonuses there. But graham cochrane.com, the Graham Cochrane show, or on Instagram, the only place I hang out online is at the Graham Cochrane.
RV (23:17):
Cool. cool brother. So the last thing I always wanted to hear your thoughts on a little bit is how you build a business not working a hundred hour a week. I know this is something that you have made a focus in your life. I know that this is something that you have done. I know this is something that you have coached and advise people on. I would love to just hear a few of your tips or pointers around that and going like, I think a lot of people do think, I mean, entrepreneurship is hard. I mean, let’s, let’s be real. It’s, it’s like, I think there’s a, a lot of truth sometimes to that whole, like, you know, you quit a job working 40 hours a week for someone so you can go work 80 hours a week for yourself.
RV (24:03):
And a lot of times that is pretty, and then my experience has been that that is often true, especially like the first couple years. But like, you also have the freedom to design a business differently. So how do we design a business that works that way? The other thing I’ll say about you is I love meeting your family and I really learn a lot and like all I need to know about a person by meeting their family just to go like, you know, is this someone who’s just trading what’s happening at home for something else? Which is not necessarily good, bad, right or wrong, it’s not. It’s just, but I, I’m always very curious, especially of like people’s kids and things like that. And yours are so wonderful and your wife is so wonderful. So it’s, it’s powerful to me to to to go, alright, here’s someone who’s who’s doing this. And, and while, while they’re able to have this like really wonderful, beautiful family. So talk to about, talk to us about that a little bit.
GC (25:01):
Oh, thank you so much, man. And likewise, your family is a, is a, a, a treat to meet them and see them. And AJ is such a classy, classy person, and Shay’s really loved getting to know her. And I think they’re trying to stick together in their little small group inside this mastermind. But looking forward to doing more life with you guys. Man, I think we, we want the same things, right? Which is you really care about your family and you care about your faith and you care about other people and probably your community. And those are all things that are a time commitment. And so from day one, when I started my business, I was on food stamps. I was newly married, new baby planning a church. I was like a volunteer worship leader. Like I, I was like, I know God’s telling me to start a business, but there’s no way it can be a hundred hour a week business.
GC (25:48):
It just can’t. ’cause I, I am volunteering 20 hours a week at this startup church. I’m trying to become a dad for the first time. I’m, I’m still a couple years into marriage. So it has, I had parameters from day one that had to fit in. And so that was my set of circumstances, which I’m really grateful for because it taught me to understand something that’s just so simple, but it takes effort on the front end to do, which most business owners don’t do, which is really do the hard work of, of an 80 20 analysis on your business. Like I think people hustle because they’re lazy. I think hustle is just a, a form of laziness in disguise because people are, haven’t done the hard work of sitting down and slowing down and saying, what of the tasks I’m doing in my day, week, month, what of the offers I have, what are the lead gen strategies I have really are the, the 20% of the things I’m doing that are generating 80% of the results I need?
GC (26:40):
And that changes from season to season in business business. And I’m constantly putting everything under the gun, so to speak, of, prove to me that this task is worth it. Prove to me that that offer is worth it and I’m willing to let things go. Or I’m willing to not have the most perfect system as long as it gets me most of the results so I can do it in a minimal amount of time. And I became like a weirdo bro every year. I was like, I made it a game every January. How can I work fewer hours in my business this next year while increasing my income this year and just see what’s possible? And I haven’t always done it perfectly and economies change, things change. I’ve started a second business. That’s what I’m doing now. Now I’m writing and speaking and things are changing again.
GC (27:21):
But that’s always a mantra I have is I have to prove to myself that this task is worth it. I just think most business owners are doing a lot of activity and most of it isn’t moving the needle forward. It feels important, it might even look important, but I’m willing to not look as important. I’m willing to not look as active on social media or other places to have more of my time back and have the income and lifestyle I want. So it’s just a, it’s just a decision to analyze things and put it under the gun.
RV (27:50):
Yeah. That’s cool. I love that. I love that question. How can I work fewer hours this year while still growing the business? You know, that’s a AJ and I put constraints and parameters around our stuff. Like, you know, we’ve always said like, brand builders group cannot be more than 50 employees because then you get into all these other, like, it just becomes more complicated. There’s all these HR policies and like all these other things that come, come into play and it’s like, so what’s the most impact we can create with 50 employees? And it’s like, you have to go, what’s the impact per employee? What’s the revenue per employee? And it’s been really fun to, to fund to do that. We, we also, you know, we worked a hundred hour work weeks and the first business and brand builders, we said, we’ll work from nine to five and outside of that it’s up to God.
RV (28:36):
Like we, and so it’s like, how can I build a business? And this is the constraint. In, in AJ’s case, there’s two days a week and she, you know, she, she’d been trimming back more and more ever since we started to, to be, have more time with the kids. So I think it’s good to give yourself those types of parameters, those types of boundaries, those those types of challenge questions to go, how can I do this? Because if you ask the question how your brain will figure out the answer, it’ll start to cut what’s irrelevant. But if you don’t ask that, it’ll just fill the space with whatever shows up. So I really love that, Graham, I’m so excited about you and the book and just the, the future. I just, again, you know, we’re so proud of the people we get to work with as clients and just be a part of their journey and proud to hold people up and say like, look at, like these are the people who, who we get a chance to work with.
RV (29:31):
A lot of what I think we do that’s really brilliant at Brand Builders Group is we pick people who are gonna be successful with or without us and then we work with them right before they blow up