Ep 325: Life Lessons of an Entrepreneur with Denise Villa | Recap Episode
AJV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:54):
Hey, AJ Vaden here. And here is the recap of my recent conversation with Denise via and I love conversations like this because they’re just real. And if you’re looking for a real conversation with a, a real entrepreneur, who’s not shy about telling you the ups downs, good, bad, ugly all of the in between then go check out the full episode on the influential personal brand podcast with Denise via lessons from a real life entrepreneur. But I’m gonna pick out a couple of them that I thought were really important for this recap episode that we’re gonna talk about right now. So one of the things that I think is pertinent that I’m gonna share just because it relates to me. And since I’m doing these recaps, I get to decide what to talk about. But I, I loved her take on what it’s like to work with your spouse.
AJV (01:50):
And I worked with my spouse have for a really long time, little known fact Rory Vaden and I were business partners before we were spouses. We were business partners before we fell in love and got married, we kind of broke that Cardinal rule. And we have a unique perspective that we’ve never not known each other as business partners. Whereas many couples who work together became couples before they started working together. And we don’t know what life looks like, not working together. And perhaps that’s God’s saving grace or us in our marriage as we don’t know any other way. But I, I loved a couple of things that she said I thought were really insightful. And what I loved most is that what often you hear people talking about are ways to make it work. Like how do you, you know, still find time for each other and not let work conveyed the off hours.
AJV (02:50):
And how do you divide and conquer and how do you stay in your own lane and how you not kill each other?
AJV (03:43):
AJV (04:30):
It is hard, there’s hard things about it. And there’s also really good things about it. We just choose to talk about the hard ones and we don’t often talk about like what a blessing and what a gift it is to get, to build something together with your spouse or your family to, to get to enjoy seeing each other’s gifts at work, however they can drive you crazy. And I think just making that decided choice up going, man, like what are the, the gifts, the blessings in this creates a heart change in me, at least that makes the more challenging parts, less challenging, because I get to take a, a, I get a front seat of seeing my partner, my husband, my, you know, my spouse, my friend live out his potential, live out these gifts that God has put in his life.
AJV (05:22):
And I’m really grateful for that. And I, I love that part of our conversation of it’s easy to talk about just like, oh, how do you make it work? How do you not kill each other? How do you like not let work take over? And I love that there’s also a piece of this, of like, how do you get to just sit back and revel and the awesomeness that is your, you know, dad, child, brother, sister, uncle, husband, wife and get to see them at work. And so I just love that perspective on that of working with your spouse. So that was the first thing second thing that I just kind of, of wanted to highlight but I thought was really fascinating is
AJV (06:08):
You are sitting with so many responsibilities and of which include taking out the trash to pay in the bills to, you know, sitting on boards, to writing checks, to being featured in media, to letting people go laying people off, hiring people, leading people, managing people. And I just don’t know if you know, the, the letter CEO, chief executive officer are all encompassing enough for what really happens on a daily life as an entrepreneur of a small business. Right. and I thought that was a really good take of going, like what it really means to be an entrepreneur is that you’re willing to do all of the things. And you’re not above any things. If you know the mate isn’t there, it’s you clean it up, right. Trashman, didn’t show up, you take it out, person, quit, you do the sales call, next person quits, you do this call.
AJV (07:08):
Right. And it’s, and I think a part of that is an ingrained feeling right. Of it’s a, this is mine and it’s whatever it takes, right. It’s like, I like so many things in my life today to parenting.
AJV (08:08):
And that includes our clients, our employees, our mission our, you know, our company is like another baby, right? It’s like a child. But we get to do all the things to take care of the thing that we love, that we have to do all the dirty work. And it’s so hard. Those things are true too, but it’s that, that slight perspective shift that again makes all the challenging things, just a little less challenging. All right. And then my third thing kind of on this same kind of same line, right? I, this, I love the kind of title of this, just lessons of a real life entrepreneur of what is it like to go through the different ebbs and flows, the peaks and valleys? The good and the bad of having an exclusively high growth company to, wow. Now we’re having to lay everyone off just to survive and then to come back and go, okay, now things are back again.
AJV (09:08):
And, and that’s an emotional roller coaster and like buckle up, hold on tight, cuz you just dunno how fast the drop’s gonna happen and then how fast it could pick back up again. And I loved what she said about like how do you create some consistency right. Both mentally, emotionally, even physically of making sure that your work, isn’t just the only thing in your life. And I think that’s the real takeaway for me is I think as American entrepreneurs and I can only say that because I am an American. But I’m sure this is true in most countries. Our identity gets tied up in our work and our identity is not what we do. Our identity is who we are. And if all we do, if the only thing we do is work, then we lose side of all of the other pieces of us.
AJV (10:05):
So to create more consistency, to create more stability, what we do is we have to have a little bit more diversity and all the things that we do, right. I can honestly say before I became a mother work was way more all consuming than I would care to admit today. But I think through becoming a parent, I realized it’s like, oh man, I had really put too much of my identity into one thing. And I wanted to be really careful not just to dump it into the next thing, which is motherhood of going well, where is my identity and who am I, if it’s not just, you know, being Jasper and Liam’s mom or doing this ex company or doing these ex services or whatever it may be. But it’s really making sure that it’s like, I have more diversity in my life of recommitting my life back to, to Christ and getting more involved in Bible studies and increasing a friend group.
AJV (11:08):
I didn’t have friends for a really long time work was everything. And it was creating, you know, routines and habits that’s that created some separation where everything, everything wasn’t centered on just this one thing. And I think that that’s necessary in my opinion, so that your identity doesn’t get just tied up in one thing because that isn’t your identity. That is a, a phase of your life. It is something that you’ve done, although it may be a large phase of your life, but it is not who you are. It is simply something that you have done for a period of time until you move on to the next thing. Y’all so many takeaways, those were just three highlights. They had a common central theme there. Loved this conversation, loved these takeaways. They were important to me. I hope they’re important to you. So stick around and we’ll see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 324: Life Lessons of an Entrepreneur with Denise Villa
RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:54):
Hey everybody. And welcome to another episode on the influential personal brand today is super, super special. Cuz I get to interview one of my very closest dearest, best friends, Denise Dorsey, Denise vi I, I know Rory’s like it’s via not Dorsey
AJV (01:54):
And I’m just gonna tell you guys why you need to listen if you are listening to this and you’re trying to decide if you should make the leap from what you’re doing to what you feel like God called you to do, you should listen to this episode. If you are a, a working mom, if you are trying to balance entrepreneurship, being a CEO, being an executive, being a leader, just being in the frigging workforce while also trying to balance being a mom and manage your family you should listen to this. If you’re trying to juggle multiple jobs all at once Denise is the CEO of the center for generational kinetics. She is still sitting as COO at a very amazing biomed company. She also runs a real estate development and investment group. Urban gravity’s, one of the fastest growing real estate developers in Austin, Texas.
AJV (02:47):
She is also an author of the economy. It’s like the list goes on and on. So it’s like, I often go, do you sleep? Like, do you like what? She’s also a marathon runner. It’s like, I’m like, I’m pretty sure I’m like way below standards when it comes to Denise and all of our accomplishments. But it’s like, you should listen. I’m going, man. Like what are the peaks and valleys of managing all the things because although they’re rewarding, they’re hard. Like let’s get real. They’re really hard. Also if you work with your spouse or you’re considering working with your spouse, you should listen to this episode. If you wanna write a book or you wanna go out and speak or think, think about this, not only working with your spouse, do you also wanna write, write a book with your spouse?
AJV (03:35):
Like these are all the things that are Denise villa Dorsey that you should stick around and listen to. And that is just really scratching. Really truly like barely scratching the surface of all things. Denise and I would say most importantly of all, I’m so excited for this interview. One, she didn’t wanna do it. She was super reluctant because she’s super humble. And doesn’t often put herself in the spotlight and so I’m genuinely excited to help the entire world get to know your brilliance and you’re, you’re so steady. Like you’re so consistent and calm and sometimes I’m sit at the dinner table with you and Jason and Rory and Jason is so animated and him and Rory are over there, scheming their ideas. And I’m like, people like, what are you talking about?
DV (04:44):
Aww, AJ, you’re so sweet. I think the podcast is over. I’m gonna take all these beautiful things you just said and I’m done
AJV (04:51):
DV (04:54):
And I’m excited to be here with you and thank you for having me really.
AJV (04:57):
Oh, I’m just so excited. And I’m honestly, I’m too, I’m so excited to get, to hear the parts of you and your message and these, these interesting parts of your life and your career that don’t get to come up in normal conversations where, when we’re with our kids or when our we’re and our husbands, or we don’t have extended amounts of time together for you guys listening. I live in Nashville, Tennessee, as you may know. But Denise lives in Austin. So our times are like far and through between. And so when there’s so much to catch up on like so many of these questions, I’m like, oh my gosh, I don’t know the answers to these. I’m so excited to see what you’re gonna say, but, okay. So we’re gonna start here of helping our audience get to know a little bit about you.
AJV (05:40):
And I think a part of your backstory is really unique and really important to the people who listen to our podcast. Because as I mentioned this to you, it’s like much of our audience are trying to make the decision of, do I stay where I am or do I go and do something different? Right. And there’s nothing wrong with where I am, but at the end of the day, I just feel like something’s missing. Right? Sure. Part of me that’s like, could I really do it? Or is there something bigger for me? It’s like, is this what God really intended for my life? And, and I think you’re one of those unique people in our life that it’s like, you made a really dramatic shift in your professional life because you were already so successful as a teacher and then a principal and in the world of education and academia.
AJV (06:32):
And that’s like, that’s a no joke job, a super underappreciated underpaid job, by the way. But you made a major decision of going, I’m going to leave, like what? I went to school for, what I thought I was gonna do my whole life, what you’ve been doing, what you’ve been very successful at doing to go out and go, I’m gonna, like, I’m gonna jump this ship and I’m going to join the crazy people on the world of entrepreneurship. And what I would love for the audience to hear is like, what’s a little bit of your backstory of like, where were you? What made you want to make that kind of jump? And ultimately, why did you do it?
DV (07:08):
Yeah, no, that’s a great question. And I’ve pondered that a lot, I wish I had like a, a straight answer and it was exactly at this point, but I think a lot of things happened and when I reflect back on it I wouldn’t have traded any of the experiences for it, but it was kind of the catalyst to move forward. So at the time I was a a principal at a, at a high school in Texas, a 2200 student, so very big 200 over 200 faculty. And things were going, you know, full, full on crazy times. Like just, you know, the amount of hours you put in. They need to, all those kids need to, you know, and it was my job to, to do that for everybody. And I loved it. It was fulfilling. It was really a great place to be.
DV (07:58):
I was also doing my PhD at night. So I was finishing my dissertation. I had also just finished and completed a year of, of an internship for super. So that was kind of my pathway. And I was on this pathway. I knew where I was going and my husband who’s been entrepreneur since he was 18 never known anything else. And was also traveling at that time. I probably 220 days out of the year. Wow. And you know, I just took a moment and we both did, and we’d had some really big life changes happen. Within that year as well. One of my best friends was diagnosed with stage four cancer. And one of my other best friends was gave birth and ended up being in the hospital with a hole in her heart and they weren’t sure she was gonna make it.
DV (08:52):
And there was just a lot of things going on. Quite honestly. And my husband said, you know, why don’t you take a moment, let’s just take a moment and breathe, finish your dissertation take a sabbatical and, and go back to education. And I said, no,
DV (09:50):
It wasn’t like a, you know, I had didn’t have a plan in place. It just, it just was. And basically once that opportunity happened, I just jumped both feet in and, and did it. And I love education. I love the kids, I, the parents, schools everything about it. But now that I’ve been an entrepreneur now for 15 years, I think, going on, no, actually going on 17 there’s no other better place in the world for me. I just enjoy so much and I still help people. I just help in a different way. And I think that’s why I enjoy it so much.
AJV (10:31):
I love that. And you know, it’s interesting, like this is like the third conversation I’ve had in a really short time period where I have talked to someone who had some sort of life event that occurred in one of these pivotal decisions that they’ve made. You know, I’ve, I’ve had those. And I was just talking to someone earlier today about that she left a very high paying corporate software job of, you know, what happened is her mom was diagnosed with cancer and she goes, man, is this how I wanna spend my days? Is this what I wanna be doing? And like, to hear you about a friend and then the daughter of another friend. And I know that these life events cause us to wake up, right? Like so evident, so many, right? So many of us, what I’m curious is just to hear your genuine opinion and your perspective of why does it take that sort of thing to actually cause us to do what we want? Like, what is it about us as humans, right? That’s like, I’ll stay on this path, even though I know there might be something more for me until we realize life is short. And it’s a lot shorter than I used to think yesterday, because today I have news I didn’t have yesterday. I’m just, I’m so curious, like, what is, is it that
DV (11:54):
I can’t speak for everyone, but I think for, for me I’m very goal oriented. So I mean, I’m still goal oriented and my husband does this too. People think we’re crazy about this point, but in my bathroom, I have a glass board, not a white board, a glass board, and it has all of our goals for the year so that we can see them every morning when we’re taking a shower, when not
AJV (12:16):
Taking a shower,
DV (12:17):
They’re just like right in front of me, there’s no reason not to pass it up. So I think for me as very goal oriented, I set these goals. I wanna be a principal by this age. I wanna be a superintendent by this age. I wanna do X by this age. And, and then life just continues happening. And, and then all of a sudden you’re given a moment of pause because of some life extraordinary event. That just for me, you know, just put everything else aside and, and gives you pause and thought and, and how, and what do I wanna do? I mean, I spent the last days of my friend’s life with her and I could not have done that as a teacher or as a principal. I just wouldn’t have allowed me to. So I wouldn’t change that transition for anything.
DV (13:07):
I mean, I was meant to be but I do think that you, people just go on this journey and it’s just so fast and furious you know, that we don’t take the time to, to stop for a second. And then we get the time and, and we think, is this where we’re supposed to be? I mean much like COVID yeah, COVID paused the world. And then so many people that came out of it were attorneys and now there’s screenwriters and moved to Costa Rica or, you know, people that were screenwriters who were like, I don’t wanna be this anymore. I wanna do this. I mean, and I just think that we don’t have enough pauses in our life.
AJV (13:46):
Oh, I love that. I’ve, I’ve shared this quote a few times now. But I was reading an article and that just like flashed across my screen one day. And it was from Ariana Huffington and she said, people have been calling this the great resignation, but I don’t think that’s what it is. I don’t think we have a great resignation. I think what we are experiencing is the great reevaluation yeah. Of what do we wanna do and how do we wanna do it? And what’s the in and what’s worth it. And is, is money really the answer to all the things. And many of us discovered, no, it’s not.
DV (14:21):
Yeah, exactly
AJV (14:23):
Not. And I think that’s a huge part of it’s like these life events cause us to reevaluate what we thought was important.
DV (14:29):
Mm-Hmm
AJV (15:52):
Is. And 30 age is just a number,
DV (15:55):
But it does. It gave me pause. Just thinking about where I wanna go.
AJV (16:00):
Yeah. I just, I sometimes, and I, I totally feel that and it’s like, you know, my husband, Roy’s turning 40 in just a few weeks and I’m not, I’m giving myself, I’ve got a full, like what, 22 more months before
AJV (16:16):
AJV (17:09):
So you also, you have an enormous entrepreneurial community. And one of the things that I think would be really interesting for our audience because it’s like what I tell people all the time, it’s like a personal brand should be treated like a business because it is one, it is one, right? It’s your reputation. It’s what people think of when they think of you. And regardless of what that looks like rather you are an executive or an employee or a salesperson, or you go out on your own as a solo entrepreneur or you build a company. It doesn’t matter anywhere in between. There are components of entrepreneurship that are present in everything that we do. And so what I would love to hear from you for our audience is what do you think are the necessary skills? And those could be mental, emotional, or tactical skills that it requires for someone to make it as an entrepreneur.
DV (18:05):
Oh, that’s a great question. So patience, I think is one. I have a lot of patience. Some entrepreneurs would disagree. They would say patience is not, is not a great one. And I would disagree with them back. There is so much patience needed in becoming an entrepreneur. It’s not overnight successes. All the overnight successes. Majority of them were never overnight. If you think 10 years is overnight, that’s their overnight success. Nobody ever talks about the 10 years before the overnight success. So I think patience is one tenacity. Tenacity is huge. You’re gonna get shot down. You’re gonna get said, be said, no, you’re gonna say, they’re gonna say that this is the worst they’ve ever seen, whatever. But if you truly believe in what you’re doing, then you, you you’ll keep going. You definitely just keep going. So it’s necessity would be another one. I think also being a listener, not just a communicator, not just being able to speak eloquently and, and cheer on the crowd, but to also be a good listener. Hear what people are saying, take that in, take the feedback, make the adjustments go back out there. I think those three are probably my top ones that I feel that are necessary to be a great entrepreneur. Other at least for me,
AJV (19:33):
Oh, I love that. And I think, you know, the patience one, I didn’t expect you to say that, but that is so true. Like when I said earlier, it’s like, you’re so steady. It’s like patient, would’ve been the other word. It’s like, you’re so patient like you are. And I think that’s like, I think that’s a really great reminder to everyone who’s listening today is yeah, there is no such thing as an overnight success like that does not exist. You see the success overnight, but there is no overnight success, right? It’s like, correct. Just cause you just learned about somebody doesn’t mean they hadn’t been hustling for years. Exactly. Get to that point. And I love, I love it when people say, oh man, they just came outta nowhere. And I’m like,
DV (20:11):
Really
AJV (20:13):
Thing. Like come outta nowhere that it’s like, you know, our awareness of someone is what makes us think like, oh man, they just blew up and it’s like, Mel, they didn’t blew up. Right. They’ve been building that engine for a really long time and then they just turned it on. Right. Exactly. That’s a great reminder to all of us, of man. It’s not gonna happen overnight.
DV (20:35):
You know, nothing ever does. And nothing that is worth really having at the end of it is ever just so quick. It’s not like a, it’s not like a light switch. And I also think the, the three that I mentioned are great. Especially if you have a partner that has the opposite of the three
AJV (21:23):
Oh, that’s such a great transition too. It’s like Jason and I share more of those personality traits and you, and yes
DV (21:29):
You do do
AJV (21:30):
AJV (22:28):
And so I, one I’d love to know it’s like, what have you seen both personally and just in the entrepreneurial community of what makes a successful partnership. And then the second thing is I wanna talk about, and then how do you work with your spouse? And you and I both sit in the boat and I, I share this with you often. It’s like, there are so few people that are at my life stage married to their business partner where we’re the sitting as the CEO of the company, we have young children, like it is a rare situation in most events. And it’s got amazing, beautiful components and really frigging hard ones. And I know a lot of people who get started, like they get started with their spouse cuz that’s who we can afford. Right.
DV (23:32):
Okay. No, that’s great. I think for me, number one is trust. You have to trust your partner, your business partner infinitely. If you do not or have reservations or even have like a little inkling that their trust isn’t there, it’s just not gonna work. It’s just, I can’t imagine going through every single day of what people do in a business and not completely 100% trust your partner that you’re working with. So that would be number one. Number two for me is figure out what you’re good at, figure out what your partner is good at and then stay out of each other’s way. We learned that the hard way working together. And I think the first year we really overstepped on Jason stepped over on my toes. I stepped on his and it wasn’t until we figured out our lanes and we stayed in ’em that we were able to grow and we were able to be successful in our partnership.
DV (24:35):
And, and even now, I mean, we’ve been doing this together, you know, almost 15 years and every once in a while we crossed lanes and we’re like, uhoh Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope. Let’s get back in our lane and I think that is very helpful for, for us and for other partners. And I think lastly, this has to really do, if you’re married to them, maybe not your, you weren’t married to them, but we really came up with rules around our household as well. Now I will not say that I follow every single role to a T. But I try. And the last thing we wanted in our relationship was our relationship to be all about work is so easy to all of a sudden all the conversations we’re having or about work or about your kids. And we just didn’t want that.
DV (25:27):
So we set boundaries on times a day that we can talk about our business on the weekends. You know, there’s no disgusting on Saturdays and on Sundays you can only get me until noon. Because if you’re my husband, he wakes up at 6:00 AM. He wakes me up at six 30. And the first thing you have is out of his mouth is, Hey, did you get this transaction done? Or, Hey, did you close this deal? And I’ve not even opened up my eyes for like two minutes yet. They’re like, can I brush my teeth first? So we really laid out boundaries around that. That was very helpful. And then, you know, finding people like you and Rory, I mean, you guys are amazing, but finding other like people that you can have the conversations with and talk to people, it’s a rarity of what you and I do with our husband and to have that back and forth with somebody to share it with is phenomenal. And that’s very helpful.
AJV (26:22):
Yeah. I think, you know, you said two things in there that I just wanna like pull out. Cause I think these are so significant is one of them is around the trust factor. It’s like, you’ve gotta give your partner. And you could say your partner is anywhere from a vendor to a contractor, to an employee. It’s like, I think this transcends just a business partnership, but you’ve gotta trust and give them the benefit of the doubt even when you’re not sure. And so my question to you in this is how do you build trust in business?
DV (26:52):
Oh, that’s a good one. So I’m all in or I’m all out. That’s my, so I in business, if I’ve decided that you’re my partner, whatever that is my salesperson you’re a partner in our business. You’re a vendor, anybody, anybody that we’ve touched, I’m a hundred percent in you’re on our team. I completely 100% trust. However, if that trust is broken is really hard for me to repair it. And that’s just me, myself. I’m a hundred percent in giving you everything, but if you break it I’m out. And I, I tell people that front I’m very open and honest without with anybody that I work with. Like you have everything, but you destroy it. And I walk away. Like I just, I just not worth my time nor can I do I wanna work on it to get it back. I just don’t.
AJV (27:50):
So I’m just writing this down cuz that’s like, I think so what I hear you saying and what I’m writing down is that it’s like, you have to make a choice to be all in. Yeah. Right. It’s not like, oh, it just happens. Right? It’s like, no, I’m choosing to be all in. And I’m choosing that. You’re my partner. I’m choosing to trust you.
DV (28:07):
Exactly. Exactly. No reservations, because if there’s any reservations, then there’s no reason for us to even be partners in anything.
AJV (28:17):
Okay. So that is so, so, so I guess one of the things that I’m hearing too is this has actually been a really recent conversation in our household and our business is Roy’s always telling me, babe, you’ve gotta give me the benefit of the doubt.
DV (29:09):
Right. Exactly. And for people listening I’m a lot like RRY so it doesn’t, we share a lot of the same characteristics. So surprised
AJV (29:21):
Patience is one of virtues. I have other gifts, other gifts. But it’s like, but it is, I think that’s like so important it’s like in any relationship is you’ve gotta make the choice to see the benefit of that. I have to make the choice to trust you. Because if not, then everything is filled with doubt.
DV (29:41):
Yeah. And, and then you’re going behind their, their, I wouldn’t say their backs, but you’re going behind and trying to double check the work. Did this get done? Did that get done? Did you know everything? You know, and it’s just, people make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes, we’re all human. And there’s a difference between like, oh, I messed up. That’s a mistake. And there’s a difference between a total mistrust of something that you did like that the, to me, those are very different.
AJV (30:10):
Okay. I’m,
DV (30:11):
It’s an error. I’m not forgiving when you deliberately, you know, right. Needed me to not trust me.
AJV (30:18):
Yeah. The same thing with like your kids, right. It’s like, yeah. You know, it’s so much of leadership of business is parallel to parenting. Being a parent has been the best leadership training on the planet.
DV (30:33):
AJV (30:34):
If you like, it’s like trying to get these two little humans to do something that I want them to do. And there’s no incentive. There’s no money. There’s no, like, it’s like, oh man, OK. I’ve gotta really get my negotiation skills to work with these two humans. But I think that’s like so true. It’s like, but it’s all in a choice of like, I’m choosing to say, you know, Jasper, I know that you wouldn’t intentionally knew such a thing, but that’s a choice because the other half of me is going you little rat. I know
DV (31:08):
AJV (31:08):
You know, and it’s like, that’s such a choice and it happens in business all the time. Right, right. It’s so easy to fill our mind with. Well, I mean, they’re just doing this because you know, it’s easier for them or I’m the one stuff doing all the really hard work they’re out there getting to do what they love and what they’re passionate about. And then I get stuck with everything they don’t want.
DV (31:26):
Mm-Hmm
AJV (31:27):
That’s really good. The second thing I wanna highlight is you talked about these rules. So can you give us an example of like, what’s a role that you guys have in your house to protect, you know, your personal relationship? So the business doesn’t take takeover?
DV (31:42):
Sure. So one big role is, like I said earlier about talking about business. So no talking about business on Saturdays and Sundays, we can start after 12. And so I will say, you know, Jason could talk about business 24 7. So you know, sometimes 1140, he’ll be like on a Sunday, Hey, I have 10 more minutes and then we can start talking
AJV (33:02):
So what do you guys talk about if you don’t talk about, if you don’t talk about at your daughter and if you don’t talk about work, what are you guys talking about?
DV (33:10):
Ah, what we talk about things we wanna do, where we wanna go, you know, places that maybe we wanna live. We talk about, you know, our families, our parents, maybe we, my husband travels quite a bit still now. And so there’s a lot of things in a week that transpire that I never get to even tell him about. I told him I’m a podcast with AJ. He’s like, there’s just like a lot of things that you have that you never get to share. And so we talk about things like that. And then we talk about I’m part of entrepreneur, you know organization here in town. I have a lot of entrepreneur, friends and things that are going on in their world and I wanna hear about his friends. And so that’s the, the timing that we use to celebrate those kind of experiences.
AJV (34:03):
Yeah. And I, I ask cause of genuine co you know, curiosity for my own marriage. But also because I think that’s really good for all of us to go, you know, this is like one of the big mantras. That’s in my life right now is that I want people to care much more about who I am than what I do. Yeah. I don’t wanna be defined by my work because that’s how I defined my own worth for a really long time. And I’m in recovery from finding all of my worth in my work. And what I have found is like in all general natural situations, it doesn’t matter if it’s with my husband or at a networking meeting or at my EO group or, well, a group of friends, like somehow it always transitions to, well, tell me more about what you do. And I’m like, it’s so hard to like pull out of that world and go, no, actually just wanna talk about I,
DV (34:59):
The best book you just read
AJV (35:01):
Or something. And it’s like, it’s like, it’s amazing. And I don’t know if it’s this way all around the world, but I know that it’s like this in the United States. It’s hi, here’s my name? And the next question is, so what do you do? Yeah. And it’s ingrained in this component of our lives. And it, it folds over into work is the majority of what our life is about. And I was so genuinely curious of not just for our own spouses but for each of us out there of like the thing that I love about personal branding and reputation is that it’s at the heart of who you are and who you are, has nothing to do with, with what you do. It’s a piece of it is not who you are and finding things to talk about that allow people to get to know more of who you are, I think is a kind of a novel idea, believe it or not. Well,
DV (35:51):
I also think that people have to be open to the discussion, right? I mean, in the United States and I, I I’ll say this just in the United States, you and I both travel a lot outside of the United States, but here, so many of the conversations when you meet someone are so superficial. Yeah. And they don’t go deep. And what I have found, you know, as being part of the EO community for the last 10 years, I mean, they really trained on like specific questions and to get deep and come vulnerable. And if you’re not gonna be that person, then we don’t need you in our community. Mm-Hmm
AJV (36:37):
If
DV (36:37):
You’re not gonna have a meaningful conversation with me, well, you know, there’s a hundred emails I could probably answer. And I really wanna spend the time with you and get to know you and learn, how did you become you? And I’d rather have that conversation than answer the hundred emails for sure. Oh
AJV (36:53):
Man, I’m gonna write this down. How did you become you? Not what do you do, but how did you become you? I’m always writing down what are good questions that I can ask that are not, so what do you do or tell me about your work or like that’s a really good one. So so do you, do you ask that to people?
DV (37:13):
I do. I do. I do ask that the, the first, the first glance, you know, especially if they’re outside kind of the entrepreneurial world, not heard about these things, they look at me going, excuse me. Oh, what, and, and so then it’s really probing. Like how did you become you? Where did you grow up?
AJV (37:33):
The first
DV (37:34):
Question you have, like, you know, just kind of going down the journey and then you see the person getting more comfortable. Cause at the end of the day, people like talking about themselves, they really do. It’s just, we’ve been trying to really, for a lot of people, we only speak about this and we don’t speak more about this and we do this and you’ve learned kind of these ways to put yourself out there. So that you’re, you’re captivated in the best light. And so when you kind of go in a different route, people are just more willing to have conversations. And then you’re able to share about you and your story and your authentic self of who you
AJV (38:11):
Are. Oh, I love that so much. Anything that helps me create stories around, tell me who you are not about what you do is like a big thing in my life right now, I was at a it was a charity event thing and I was standing outside, standing in line to get a glass of wine. And this young lady walks up to me. She just introduced herself. You were just like chit chatting. And she just says, well, what’s your name? How do you know the host? And she goes, how do you fill the hours of your week? And I was like, I’m sorry, what
DV (38:45):
A great question. I’m gonna write that.
AJV (38:49):
I stopped in my tracks. And I said, you mean like, what do I do for work? And this was like six months ago or something. This is like, kind of like triggered my own default to asking these silly questions. And she’s like, well, I mean, that could be a part of it, but you know, just how do you feel the hours of your day? And I was like, well, in the mornings started, I was like, well, in the mornings I have two toddlers. And so, and then I started like regurgitating my schedule. And she was like, that’s so fascinating.
DV (39:21):
AJV (39:22):
It was one of those things. I’m like, how do I spend hours? But it was like such a nice of, and then I said, are you intentionally trying not to ask like the people do for work? And she goes, yeah, it’s a really intentional effort of mine. And I said, I’m totally stealing this and I’m gonna
DV (39:52):
I love
AJV (39:54):
Very similar. It’s like, so tell me about how you became you. Right. I love that. I, I love that. And so, alright, so I’m gonna flip that on you. So Denise, how did you become you?
DV (40:06):
Oh, I should have never given it away.
AJV (40:12):
You
DV (40:12):
Know, I think our life is fools with, we talked about it, ups and ups and downs, right valleys. I’d say I became me starting with a very strong minded beautiful kind mom. I was very fortunate to have her in my life and, and to have her in my life. So my dad died and I was five. And my mom raised me as a single mom for wait till I was about 14 when she remarried. Luckily for me though, I have 52 first cousins and 32 aunts and uncles. So I always had family around. And I think, you know, they helped me become who I was. All those cousins all lived in the same city. So we were always at somebody’s house. I was always playing sports. I was mostly boy cousins for some reason we didn’t
DV (41:30):
I think it was probably one of the only lies that I’ve ever really told her, which at that time in my life, I really needed to get away. It was time for me to fly the co and she really wanted me to stay. And I graduated from high school, top 10% of my class, and I’m a first generation college graduate. My family didn’t know really the how to make the transition for me to go to college. And I said that UT Austin was the only college that accepted me and I wasn’t accepted anywhere else. And, and mind you, I did pay my own way. So this wasn’t a financial burden on my family, but I needed to go. And I left and I, that was probably a huge pivotal moment. So I went from this little pond of an all girls Catholic high school to all of a sudden 50,000 students at UT. And it was awesome. I loved UT
AJV (42:36):
DV (42:39):
Awesome. And then I just, I kept growing. I found my passion for teaching there and felt really fell in love with it. I really felt that was the right place to be. And I would not have found that without two things, one, my mom who gave me permission to look outside of making money and to really find something that I was good at. And then secondly, was an offsite internship I had to do at the school for the blind, visually impaired and the two together and the young boy that I was working with at the school paved my way for the next 14 years. And then you know, there was lots of movement and I think years later, about eight years after teaching six, six to eight years, I decided that I wanted to go in and get my master’s and then my PhD in education.
DV (43:34):
And I think for me that was also a big pivotal point. I think I realized that I could do something even more than just for me, it was helping my classroom than it was even more. If I could help the school, then it was even more I could help a district. And so I really wanted to expand that. You know, so I think that’s really, and then from there I came an entrepreneur and then that was, you know, that was crazy. I mean, our journey has been fascinating at our companies. I’ve worked with the largest brands in the United States. We’ve been truly blessed in so many ways. And I think all of those things made me mean
AJV (44:20):
I love that. And I, I think, you know, this whole thing is like building an influential personal brand. And I think the best way you can build influence is you just get to know someone that’s the best way to have influence it’s. If I don’t know, you, you have very little influence over my decisions day to day, but if I know you and I, I like you and I trust you, you have great influence over my daily decisions and behaviors. And I, I love that. And I think if we all need to be a little bit more focused on how did you become who you are not, tell me about how you did all these things you did. Right.
AJV (44:56):
And I, and it’s like, and I still, like, there’s still a huge part of teaching in you. Right. And for those of you listening you know that about a year ago, we talk about this all the time. We launched our, you know, national research study, the trends and personal branding you know, it’s Denise’s company, her and her husband’s company that fielded this research for us. And it’s like today, he’s like, you run a team of researchers, right? It’s like, there’s still that education component that has stayed with you, even through your entrepreneurial journey. It’s like, you are a research firm, right? It’s like, you’re doing research for books and you’re doing research for these huge brands, but there’s a seriously academic part of what you do that has made you so successful
DV (45:39):
Completely. And thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. Teaching is, is embedded in me. I love it. Sometimes I come off just as a teacher or my husband always gets mad at me. He’s like, don’t use your teacher voice on me. And I don’t mean to, but I, I love, I love getting educated. And so kind of my love language is to serve others in the, in that same way. So I really enjoy being part of those educational moments with our team and training our talent development programs that we do even like our talent acquisition and just teaching about the jobs. It it’s, it’s fascinating. And I get so much inspiration by seeing somebody’s face to slide up. I mean, I remember when I was younger, I started teaching when I was 22 and I remember thinking how that would never go away for me.
DV (46:36):
And you know, now I’m 50 and it still has never gone away for me. It’s, it’s almost amazing coupled with, and I will share this coupled with now, many of the students who I was in educational, like I said, for 14 years, just about so thousands of students that I’ve interacted with and I get every once in a while, somebody who pops up who comes up to me and says, are you miss be? And I say, yes. And, and they say something that just, you know, makes me smile. Like, I remember when you said this joke and I’ve always kept it with me, or I’ve had a couple of people say I became a science teacher because of you, those moments in time, you just they’re true blessings.
AJV (47:21):
Amazing. No, I’m not miss via I’m Dr. Via
AJV (47:25):
DV (48:52):
Okay, those are good questions. So why gen Z? So our company is really founded on separating generational myth from truth. So that’s the core. And it was founded because we were finding out that CEOs were using data and the data wasn’t matching what they were saying. So that’s kind of how our company really started is, well, if they’re taking this data and it’s not matching what they’re saying, there’s teaching element and saying, they’re not understanding the data for some reason, another, or the data is not being read in a way that shows the information correctly. So let’s just make our own research company, that one shares the data correctly and shares a story that goes with it. So gen Z is kind of that new generation. There were so many myths that came up with millennials and you guys did get a lot of hate.
AJV (49:52):
A lot of it.
DV (49:54):
And so of course, when gen Z started coming up, there was a great way to bring out what we were seeing with this generation. And we have been following them for probably a good seven years now. And what I love about this generation from the very beginning was really their, their money sets, which was huge, never saw it in any other generation except the baby boomers. And so that has been a huge part of them and their hard work and diligence which once again, was being portrayed in their earlier lives. And I think we’re seeing it again still into adulthood. So those are two of my favorite aspects about gen Z. I’d say the learning part of writing a book with your spouse. So this was two years of a labor of love. And I will say labor of love
DV (50:59):
I have come up through an academic work body of literature writing as you’re being published for different peer reviews, right? It’s a very different writing style than my husband who is a, you know, a, a published author multiple times over that has a very different voice and merging those two together. Oh my goodness gracious. That was probably the hardest things that we did. But at the end of the day, it worked, it took a lot of giving on my part and a lot of giving on his part. And there was many things if you get the book and you’ll notice, oh, Denise definitely wrote this. Because I channel data a little bit differently. Well, when my husband does so well, as he makes the everyday user read it and understand it instantly. And so we just, we really had to practice merging those two voices. And and so on top of doing the research, which took about a year to do then putting that together and merging the two voices, it was definitely almost as hard as having a shut
AJV (52:08):
It’s kinda like birthing a child of sorts. And I love the stories of anyone who has ever gone through the process of writing a book, you know, back like what we said. It’s like, nothing happens overnight.
AJV (52:21):
Neither does writing a book. Y’all it’s like, and I, we have so many people who enter into this very fortunate community. We’ve been able to help curate at brand builder’s group of going all right. My goal is the next 12 months is to write a book, get it published. And I’m like, we’re gonna need to adjust those goals.
AJV (53:03):
And Rory is very gray, right? He’s like, well, that’s the best part of this and the worst part. And I’m like, Nope, she’s this or this
DV (54:10):
Completely. And you have that backup to show you, Nope, this is what it said. And it’s statistically valid and we’ve done confidence in our roles and, and you can play up all the words and it’s, it’s valuable. And it also aligns with what you’re doing. It makes you feel like I’m doing this right. Or
AJV (54:59):
Yeah. You said something that just made me think about this is, you know I’m I’m, as you are. It’s like, I think feedback is one of the gifts that I didn’t always want. But I always need, and it’s like, I love getting feedback and input, and to me doing research was like another way of getting feedback. Yeah. It was, I can’t see what I can’t see. And sometimes I’m just, you know, the old saying I’m too close to the forest to see the trees. Yeah, exactly. Cause I need to get outta my own echo chamber. Right. Mm-hmm
AJV (55:44):
Like that was really good to go. You know, I think one of the big data points that came up to me, which I thought was so interesting to hear yours about gen Z was like mine about personal branding. Was that testimonials 62% of Americans say that testimonials is the number one most important factor when deciding whom to hire, not if you have a book or viral, Ted talk are large social media following none of those things, it was like at the very, very top of the list. And then 10 percentage points down was the next one, but 62%. Where do you have testimonials of other people validating that you are, who you say you are and you do what you say you’re gonna do. And for us, and the way that companies and people spend marketing dollars, I’m like, oh my gosh, this is the cheapest, fastest, easiest thing that you can do. It’s like you take that or it’s like, get on national media, create a viral Ted talk, get a New York times bestselling book. And I’m like, oh my gosh, like we’ve been, we’ve been putting all of our time energy resources into potentially the wrong avenue. It’s not that we shouldn’t do the other things, but it’s like, where should the majority of our intent go? It was so, so helpful.
DV (56:55):
And if you’re a gen Z, you’re gonna look at least 10 of ’em before you make a decision. I mean, you know, so there is some even way the different generations look at reviews who you’re trying to hit will give you some idea of what do these need to look like, or how many should I have up there, et cetera. Which I think is, is really helpful when you’re looking at your own personal brand or your company or anything, really people, people search those number one thing. And I, you know, I will say that we had so much fun working on your report. I just, I love working with friends because it gets me even closer into the mindset of what you do and what you and Rory do. And it was really neat working on that project.
AJV (57:39):
DV (58:28):
Aw, thank you, AJ. It was a pleasure. Thank you for having me really appreciate talking into doing it.
AJV (58:34):
Oh, this was so awesome. I love it. And for everyone listening make sure you stay tuned for the recap episode and we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand. See y’all.
Ep 323: High-Performance Secrets of NBA Superstars with Alan Stein Jr. | Recap Episode
RV (00:02):
High performance secrets from NBA superstars. What a fascinating conversation with Alan Stein. And man, I loved that more than I, more than I thought I would. You know, I’m just not, I’m not a huge sports guy anymore. Although I used to be, it was like my whole life growing up as a kid was Chicago
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Bulls.
RV (00:22):
But what a tremendous conversation, if you didn’t listen, go back and listen. It is fantastic. I’m gonna share with you some of my highlights. If you didn’t pick this up Alan was a skills trainer for NBA superstars and I’m talking superstars, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, step Curry. This guy was in the gym, working with them and you know, has written a book and started as a speaking career, sort of, sort of talking about it. And, and so I’m gonna share with you my three top takeaways from the interview of what hit me and also what I’ve been, what, you know, how I, how I interpret and internalize all these conversations. And the first one is really from Kobe Bryant. So it’s coming from Kobe Bryant by way of Allen,
Speaker 2 (01:07):
But Kobe said something so important. He said the best, never get bored with the basics. The best never get bored with the basics and from somebody that was so spectacular as a player,
RV (01:23):
As a performer, as Kobe Bryant,
Speaker 2 (01:25):
To
RV (01:25):
Hear him
RV (01:26):
Say that is, is moving to me and it’s inspiring to me and it’s validating for me and it’s edifying for me because I agree with that the best don’t get bored with the basics because the basics are what hold everything up. The, the really I would, I would say the, the people who are the best are the best, because they’re the best at the basics. They’re not the, they’re not the best at the exceptional. They’re not the best at the flashy. They’re not the best at the extraordinary. They’re brilliant at the basics. And that’s the thing to ask yourself, are you brilliant at the basics? Are you like, are you brilliant? Are you executing the fundamentals? Are you doing the things consistently that need to be done to grow your business? And, and when I think of like sales, right? I go, referrals are the basics.
RV (02:14):
It’s the fundamentals, but it’s the only thing you need. Like, are you asking for referrals in your business? If you are, you’re probably succeeding or you will be soon when, when you look at marketing and you go, are you putting out content consistently in many different places, right? Our content diamond formula that we teach are, are you following that? Are you doing it consistently? If you’re trying to be a speaker, are you speaking consistently? Are you, are you, are you on podcast interviews consistently? Are you, are you being brilliant at the basics? And personal branding is no different. Like these are the things every single weekend and week out, I gotta create a video. I gotta create a podcast. Our team’s gotta run a production
RV (02:53):
Schedule to just keep things going.
RV (02:55):
We gotta drive leads. Our sales team has to show up. They have to, you know, have conversations. They have to call follow up. They have to close. We have to onboard new people. Like we have to, we get to, we get to do all those things. And, and if, if the basics are good enough for Kobe Bryant, the basics are good enough for me. They should be good enough for you. And it’s, it’s the secret. It’s the truth. Like here’s the irony is I think people look at superstars and they go to superstars thinking if I could just get access to this superstar, then they’ll teach me the secrets. Then, then like, there’s, there’s some hidden playbook that we’re looking for. We, we convince ourselves that, that there’s something that they know that we don’t know. And if we could know what they know, then all of a sudden everything would be unlocked.
RV (03:44):
And there is a secret that they know that we don’t know the secret is there. Isn’t a secret. There isn’t a secret. The secret is to be brilliant at the basics, or as Kobe says the best don’t get bored with the basics. And so they’re not chasing flashy. They’re not chasing fancy. They’re not, they’re not chasing the spectacular they’re mastering, dominating and becoming brilliant at the basics. And so the question is, are you, am I, are we, what are the basics in your business? And are you dominating them? Are you mastering them? That was just so, so powerful for me. The second takeaway from that conversation with Alan was when he said these ultra performers, these superstar athletes have an amazing blend between confidence and humility, confidence, and humility. And I totally agree with that. I’ve seen the same thing over and over with ultra performers that I’ve been around in my life.
RV (04:52):
You know, and, and people think they, they get this mixed up. This is an important distinction. And it’s a balance that you need to understand that that confidence and humility are not at odds with one. Another confidence is not the opposite of humility. Pride is pride is the opposite of humility. Like being prideful is, is like, that’s more about who you’re doing it for, right? To me, confidence is the way you’re doing it, but pride is who you’re doing it for. And so when, when, when you have confidence, the way you’re, it’s the way you’re doing it, you’re doing it bold. You’re doing it aggressive. You’re doing it assertive. You’re, you’re, you’re doing it. You’re doing it with fire. You’re doing it with passion. You’re, you’re all in. You’re leaning into it. You are, you are, you are utilizing and accessing and withdrawing and leveraging and polling and investing every asset you have into to what you’re doing, the way you’re doing it and doing it well, pride is totally different. Pride is who you’re doing it for pride, prideful and
RV (05:56):
Being prideful is like, I’m doing it for me. I’m number one. I want everyone to see, you know, how great I am to me, that’s pride. And that’s the opposite of humility. But I think people, especially, if, if I may say, I think Christians are, are an interesting subgroup of people who struggle with this. At least I can speak for myself as a Christian, right? Because it’s like the meek inherit shall inherit the earth and, and humility is valued. And so it almost feels like if I’m being confident, I’m somehow being unholy, I’m being unspiritual or are I’m, you know, I’m, I’m not, I’m being less Christian, but I don’t see those at conflict at all. At least not now, I’ve been able to reconcile. I do see pride as being an issue because pride is doing it for me, showing the world, look at me, look how awesome I am.
RV (06:44):
Y’all need to respect me. And you bow down to me. And pride is a massive problem because it is in conflict with, you know, the first commandment of like no other God’s before me, where it’s like, humility is my life is in service of God. And my life is in service of the people around me. It’s not about elevating me so I can be humble and extraordinarily confident at the same time, I can be bold and humble. I can be confident and meek. I can be aggressive and assertive, assertive, and, and still be holy. But pride is different. Pride is like, I’m taking up the space of the most important of the most high, and that’s a problem. But and that’s different even than, than taking pride in your work. I think that’s different than being prideful. So these players, you know, probably take pride in their work, but they’re not prideful.
RV (07:38):
It’s not look at me. I’m the best. I’m the man y’all bow down. They’re they’re but they are extremely confident. I can take that shot. I’ve I’ve practiced this thousands of times. I loved, I loved when Alan said this in the interview, he said, if you hadn’t seen how many times Steph Curry had taken these millions of shots in an empty gym, you wouldn’t be as impressed when he makes 12 threes in a game. Right? It’s you know, for most of us like, oh my gosh, 12 threes, this is in a game. This is superhuman, but you go, nah, he’s like hitting 12 threes in an hour all the time, because he’s shooting millions and millions and millions of shots. It wouldn’t seem that like, you know, it just wouldn’t be that much of a superhero, cuz it’s like, it’s, it’s more like muscle memory.
RV (08:22):
And so I think that’s, what’s really cool is you can be confident and bold, but you can also have the humility to put in the work and, and focus on the basics and to keep practicing. And you know, I, I loved when he was telling the story about how Kobe was, you know, most players are working out once a day, the best are working out twice. Kobe’s working out three times a day, he’s leaving his first workout by the time people show up. And it’s like, he realized that if I do that every day, no one will ever catch me. Like over the course of a day, it doesn’t add up to much over the course of a, of a week. It doesn’t add up maybe to much, but over the course of a season, two seasons, five seasons, you know, a decade, it adds up so much.
RV (09:03):
So this blend of confidence and humility, you can have both, they’re not competing. They’re totally reconcilable. And you need both, at least, you know, this is a high performing secret of NBA superstars. According to Alan, which I concur with. And then the third one actually I thought was super relevant, especially for personal brands. Now at brand builders group, I think there’s sort of three core audiences that we serve. And, and I, I think of them as experts, entrepreneurs and executives. So experts are like speakers, coaches, trainers entrepreneurs are people who are more like professional service providers or direct sales people, or just, you know, they have some type of business and they’re, they’re not selling a product related to their expertise per se. They’re, they’re just driving leads for their existing product or their existing business. And then you have executives who are mostly on the hunt for a raise or promotion or maybe getting hired at some other company or, or just industry visibility.
RV (10:01):
But when I look at the expert portion of our audience, speakers, coaches, and coaches specifically, this was super relevant because, you know, I asked Alan, I said, you know, are you ever like insecure that, that you’re coaching the best players in the world? Like clearly they’re better than you are. And yet they’re receiving coaching from you. And I, I loved what he said, as he said, I knew they were better players than me. And they knew they were better players than me, but that doesn’t exclude them. That doesn’t exclude me from being able to add value to what they’re working on. Right? Like that doesn’t exclude me from being able to help them. And that was a really powerful and an important moment because you know, a lot of you, if you’re coaches or speakers, it’s like, you don’t necessarily have to have done something at the level or to the full extent that somebody else has.
RV (11:03):
You need to be an expert, you need to have results. You need to know what you’re doing, but you can still add tremendous value. So first of all, there’s, there’s that right? You can still add value, but the other part that hit me was going, there’s a big difference between being the world’s greatest player and being the world’s greatest coach. There’s a big difference between being the world’s greatest player and the world’s greatest coach. They’re not the same thing, many most nearly all of the world’s greatest players were never the world’s greatest coach. In fact, in all of professional sports, it’s extremely rare where a player wins a championship as both a player, and then goes on to win a championship as, as a head coach. Now, I, I look through this up a little bit and it’s, it actually has happened more often than I not specifically in basketball in football it’s like Mike, Mike DKA and Tom Flores.
RV (12:03):
And like Gary Koyak, there’s only a few in football where the, they won a super bowl as a player, but then also won a championship as a coach. And, and, you know, specifically as a superstar, like, I, I wouldn’t, I don’t, I hope he wouldn’t mind. I, I wouldn’t think of Gary Kubiak as a superstar player. He was a great player. I was Denver Broncos, right. I was Broncos fan. So I, I, I watched Kubiak, but a great coach and you know, an amazing hall of fame career. But my DKA, I would say was, you know, superstar and one as a coach, but that’s very, very rare now in the NBA. Steve Kerr did it you know, of course won championships with the bulls and then also won as a, as a coach. And Phil Jackson has done it, you know, but mostly as a coach, I think nine rings as a coach and two as a player.
RV (12:53):
And again, I wouldn’t think of him as a superstar player, but he is one of the greatest coaches of all time. And I didn’t know this, but Patrick Riley won a championship as a player. And then also, you know, as a, as a coach, but bill Russell was a superstar player and also won championships as a coach. But outside of like those, I, there weren’t a ton. Like it doesn’t happen that often. And, and, and even when it does it, doesn’t, it doesn’t exclude this point here. That there’s a difference between being the greatest player or one of the world’s greatest players and one of those greatest coaches. And it’s very rare and hard and not necessary to be both. And I think about this at brand builders group, right? Like, you know, we’re coaching many of the biggest personal brands in, in the world, right?
RV (13:36):
I I’m I’m or, or coaching advising, you know, being their strategist, I guess, is the technical term, but like ed, Mylet got way more followers than we do. He makes a lot more money than we do. He’s sold a lot more books than his launch than we did, but he’s humble enough to invite in somebody like, you know, us because we know something about it. And, you know, you, you, you take his reach his reputation. I mean, his, the success of his book launch is because of him. I mean, there was a whole team that helped him. We were part of that team, but it was really because of, of him, but yeah, our system helped. Yeah. We coached him through it. Yeah. We, we have a process that really made a difference and you know, of course he’s been super generous and, and grateful publicly about that.
RV (14:22):
And, and it just shows you that going, Hey, I’ve never performed in terms of, in some of those metrics as, as the way that he has. He allows me to speak into that Louis House, same thing, Eric Thomas Tom and Lisa BIU these, you know, we we’re, we’re getting more and more, we’re working with these very, very like high profile clients because we get really good results and we, you know, the word is spreading that what we do actually works and it’s ethical and it’s honest and all that stuff. So personally I experienced this now. I think I’ve performed in many ways. Like if you say personal branding, you know, speaking author, there’s many ways that I’ve I’ve been a great player. I don’t know if I would say superstar, I mean, a hall of fame speaking and, and New York times bestselling author are, I mean, I guess very legitimate things, but it doesn’t matter.
RV (15:12):
The point is for you, if, even if you’ve never been the greatest player, you’ve never been a superstar. You can still add value like Alan who, who was interviewing. He’s not gonna be in the NBA hall of fame yet. He’s coaching some of the best players in the history of the game, because he knew the game really well. And he was a great coach. And so I just hope if you ever have that, that sort of imposter syndrome of like, ah, you know, am I qualified to coach entrepreneurs who do better than me? You go, well, sh sure you might be, you might not be, but you might be, if you have legitimate insights that can help them, even if you’ve never been to that level yourself. Now that said, I really pride myself and AJ really prides herself. We pride ourself as a culture at brand builders group that we teach people to do things that we do and that we have done.
RV (16:04):
So, you know, we’re not teaching someone like ed, Mylet something that we haven’t done ourselves or tried out. It’s just, we’re teaching of something that we know that we know works. And then because of who he is and his reputation and his reach and his trust and all of his other relational capital and all the other assets that he has, it’s just, it, it’s a, a bigger result on a, on a grander scale. So, you know, it’s just kind of a balance, right? But like, don’t feel that imposter syndrome that just because someone’s older than you, or you know, maybe you think somehow smarter than you, or maybe they make more money than you, or they have a bigger business than you. It doesn’t exclude you from being able to add value to what they’re doing just in and of itself. And then also going well, yeah, the greatest players don’t hire the other greatest players to teach them.
RV (16:55):
They hire the greatest coaches. So you go, maybe I wasn’t, maybe I’m not the greatest player, but I’m gonna focus on being one of the greatest coaches who’s ever, you know, been in this profession. That’s awesome. Right. I mean, Phil Jackson has nine rings as a coach. I think it’s nine and two as a player. And it’s like, people think of him as a coach, one of the greatest coaches of all time, like he’s coaching Michael Jordan, you know, Kobe Shaq. Incredible. So just keep that in mind. And again, at this points to how insecurity and self-doubt is always, you only feel those things when you’re thinking about yourself, you don’t think about them when you’re, when you’re thinking about other people, when you’re just going, I’m here to help. I’m here to serve. I’m here to add value to you. I’m here to make a difference in, in your career, in your life.
RV (17:43):
I’m not worried about what you think of me or what my credentials are. I am here focused on you. I’m here to help you. That is a part of the essence of what makes a great coach even, and especially at the superstar level. So thank you for being here. Thank you for the honor of allowing us, me, AJ, our team at brand builders group to speak in your life. It it’s a, it it’s, you know, preaching to the choir here by, by definition, you’re here. Listening is a sign of, of humility and coachable coachability, and also hopefully confidence and boldness to go chase your dreams and knock ’em down and do the work it takes to make them a reality. So share this podcast with someone who, you know, who’s a sports fan. Who’s also thinking about building their business or they’re an entrepreneur or building their personal brand. This is a great one. Both the recap and the interview with Alan, make sure you go follow Alan on social and leave him a comment. Send him some love. Just say hi, let him know. You heard him here on the influential personal brand podcast. We’ll catch you next time.
Ep 322: High-Performance Secrets of NBA Superstars with Alan Stein Jr.
RV (00:02):
Well, it’s not every day that you get a chance to talk to somebody who worked closely for years and years and years with people like Kobe Bryant and Steph Curry and Kevin Duran and our guest today, Alan Stein Jr. Did exactly that. So for 15 years he worked as a, basically a, a high performance skills and mental training coach for NBA superstars and athletes. And in the last few years, he’s transitioned over into speaking and writing. He’s got a couple books out. His first book has done very, very well. It’s called raise your game, high performance secrets from the best of the best. And then he has a new book out called sustain your game. And I just saw him in person recently at the event that we had for ed my let’s book launch in North Carolina, and we sort of connected there. And then he was on ed my let’s podcast a couple weeks before I was. And anyways, I just, I really love Alan and what he’s about and the people he’s hanging out with and, and what he’s doing. And I just was sort of curious, like, man, I, I wanna know what’s going on behind the scenes with some of NBA superstars and to see if I can get a little free coaching for myself. So welcome to the stage a Stein Jr. What’s up, man.
ASJ (01:18):
Aw, man. It’s so great to be with you. I’m looking forward to a fun conversation and I’ll give you all the coaching you want my friend
RV (01:23):
ASJ (02:06):
Well, you know, I’ve never gone by or embraced the junior part of my name. And, and throughout my basketball training career, it was always just Alan Stein. And when I decided to make the distinct pivot outside of, you know, to leave the direct training space of basketball and inter corporate speaking when I went to get my website domain and social handles Alan Stein was taken so I, I wanted to try and figure out a way to keep that branding consistent. But I also wanted to find a way from a searchable and SEO standpoint to kind of differentiate my two professional lives. So if you, you Google Alan Stein, you’re probably gonna find a lot of stuff from my basketball days and training. But when I add the junior, now it’s a very distinct difference and that’s kind of the corporate keynote speaking. And in writing that I do, and it’s allowed me to have alanine jr.com and at alanine Jr. On all social platforms. So smart, there’s kind kind of a branding play and just a, a separator for sure.
RV (03:03):
Yeah. I love that. I mean, that’s really smart to have that consistency, like man, it’s so it’s so tricky when you’re like, how do I tag this person on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and it’s all different every time. Like I actually have some issues with that myself because when we sold our company, some of my profiles were caught up in that transaction. So, but anyways, so I wanna, I wanna talk to you about what you talk about and what a lot of people ask you about, which is like, what is it, what do you learn? What have you learned from coaching? I mean, you’re not just coaching professional athletes, you’re coaching or coached some of the most legendary players in the history of the game. I mean, Steph Curry, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, like these are, these are at the, the absolute peak of the peak of the peak of the peak performance in one of the most competitive games in the world. So I’m curious, you know, for both myself and for the person listening, how do, what can we take from the, the mindset it takes to operate at that level?
ASJ (04:09):
Three things jump out immediately. And, and my favorite part of these three things is they have such high utility. You know, they, they apply to every area of our lives. I mean, these three things allow me to be a better speaker and run a better speaking business. But they also allow me to be a better father. And I’ve, I’ve always been fascinated by principles and strategies that have that type of utility. The very first one is, is something that I learned from Kobe Bryant that changed my life forever when he said the best, never get bored with the basics and that if you want to be good at anything, you have to work towards mastery of the fundamentals relentlessly during the unseen hours. And you know, the very first thing I do with anyone that I work with is get them to identify what are the basic building blocks required to be good in this specific area of your life. You know, if, if you want to thriving in healthy marriage, what are the basics of having a thriving and healthy marriage? If you wanna run an elite speaking business, what are the fundamentals required of doing that? So getting clarity, and I know that’s what you all are all about getting clarity on the basics and the fundamentals, and then having the, the humility to stick to them on a daily basis was definitely the first lesson. The
RV (05:20):
Second was, let me hold on. I wanna stop there cuz I wanna dig in on, on, on, on this, like there’s, this is so true for us because Alan, you know, people come to us and they go, oh, I wanna become a New York times bestselling author. Like, so and so, or I wanna have a podcast like Lewis Houser, I wanna speak on stages. I wanna have, you know, have millions of people watch my videos like Eric Thomas. And then it’s like, okay. And we go, great. We’ve broken it down step by step systematically. There’s there is no question about if we can teach people to do all of those things, we are a hundred percent sure that it works, cuz we’re doing it ourselves in addition to like doing with, with other people, but nobody wants to do it. And it’s the same thing. Like when, when you think of you know, like you think of Kobe Bryant, you think of the game winning shot, you think of these epic highlight real dunks. Tell us, like, tell me a little bit about him in real life. Like to this point of never being bored with the basics and to the fundamentals, even when he was at his peak, was he doing that or did, was that just sort of like something he did to get to the NBA or like how long was that a part of what his philosophy was?
ASJ (06:29):
Such an insightful question and I’m glad you went in that direction. You know, continuing to work on and work towards mastery of the basics, remained a fundamental component throughout his entire career. And then he took that same mindset, you know, when, when he left basketball and re and retired and he had that same mindset in business. Now what’s important to, to have discernment is I’m not saying that he never graduated to more advanced techniques and more advanced skills and drills. He obviously did what I’m saying is he never left the basics behind. He realized that those were the foundation to which the rest of the house was built. So the very first time I had a chance to watch him work out in one of his private workouts. Back in 2007, he spent the first 45 minutes doing basic footwork, basic shooting mechanics, basic ball handling drills.
ASJ (07:18):
I mean to the tune of stuff that I had already taught those things to middle school, age players. And here you’re talking about, you know, arguably the best player of a generation, certainly the best player in 2007. And yet he still made the commitment to focusing on those fundamentals for the first portion of his workout. And then of course, again, he would matriculate up and graduate to more advanced techniques, but he would never leave them. And, and as I’ve been a part of and, or studied other thriving organizations, especially in sports, you know, a, a duke basketball or a new England Patriots back in their heyday, you know, it was the same thing. You know, their practices and their workouts were built on the fundamentals of the game. They never left those that wasn’t something they said, well, we’re gonna do these things until we get good and then we’ll just leave them behind.
ASJ (08:06):
They made sure those were a staple of everything they did moving forward. And, and I know in my own life, you know, anytime I don’t believe I’m getting the results that I, I think I’m capable of when I, I sit with some self-reflection and some introspection, I usually realize that I’ve, I’ve started to skip the basics. I’ve started to, to kind of, you know, move on to more advanced techniques and leave them behind. And as soon as I refocus that lens and get that required clarity and get back to the fundamentals, I see my performance escalate again. So it’s, it’s not about never moving past them is just about never leaving them behind
RV (08:42):
Mm-Hmm
ASJ (08:56):
Well, this is another part that kind of a part two to the story of when I saw him work out, that I thought was so cool was he had cuz the workout that I watched him do was really, really, really early in the morning. I mean at 3:30 AM type of work to some people that’s almost late cuz they’re considering it from the day before, but that was his first workout of the day. And, and he said to me at that time, cuz I asked him why he chose to get up that early. And he said even the most dedicated and determined NBA players in the off season, cuz this was an off season workout. He said the most D driven and ambitious NBA players will work out twice a day. They’ll work out for two to three hours mid-morning then they’ll take a little break and they’ll work out for two to three hours midafternoon and he said, if I only do what everybody else does, then I’ll only have what everyone else has.
ASJ (09:43):
I need to do more than they do. And this, this really parlays into, you know, ed my let’s concept of the power of one more. So Kobe said, if I can go in and get my first workout before they’re even awake and I’m leaving the gym from my first workout, as they’re coming to the gym for their first workout and then they’re coming home from their first workout and I’m heading in for my second workout, he said, I’ll always be a step ahead. And, and that might not matter over a couple of weeks or maybe a couple of months, but when you start to stack years and in his case decades, he said, no one will ever be able to catch me simply because I’m always doing one more than they are. And that was really kind of the, the cornerstone of his Mamba mentality.
ASJ (10:24):
And, and with that said, and I always make this disclaimer and I especially make it with younger players when I would work in that space. I don’t want everyone to think that the answer is always more as better. And that, you know, you know, if, if, if you’re working 12 hour days that working 16 hour days does not necessarily mean that that will improve your business. I mean, there’s, there’s a variety of, of different individual scenarios, but I just liked his mindset and his mindset was my edge is going to be my work ethic, my, my obsession towards mastering the fundamentals. And I’m always gonna do a little bit more than you’re going to do and you’ll never beat me. And I, I think that’s an incredible mindset to have.
RV (11:03):
Yeah. Well, I mean, I have to say like, you know, there’s a lot of this, like anti hu, like, you know, everyone was like, oh, the hustle culture. And then there’s like been this pendulum of like, oh, anti hustle. You don’t have to hustle. And you know, I’m not saying that you have to work your whole life. Like that’s all you do to be successful. But when I just look at the reality of the stories of the people who have become the elite in their profession, the volume of time spent matters tremendously. Like, and, and you know, I think, I think a lot of people would look at Kobe Bryant and go, oh, he is gifted. Right. Cause he was drafted straight outta the out of high school. Right. And go, oh yeah, totally gifted. Like just like wonder kin like the, the chosen one.
RV (11:49):
But then to hear this story of going that happened for decades and so people, they couldn’t catch him. And so it, it’s a different side of the story and it go, I’m not advocating for all we do is work, but I am, I, I can’t argue with the facts of the matter, which is that no, nobody gets to be at that level by just doing it. Part-Time like nobody. So that’s, that’s power, that’s powerful. And you’d say the same is true for Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, all the other teams in organizations you’re working with.
ASJ (12:23):
Absolutely. What, what most novice fans don’t see is that, that peak behind the curtain of the unseen hours, which I’ve been privy to. And you know, obviously this is during the NBA off season when we’re recording this, but let’s just say it was in the heart of the season. And, and Steph has one of his magical games where he knocks down 12 threes and scores, 60 points and people are mesmerized by that. And, and I certainly get that. It’s an incredible feat, but if they knew how much work he put in during the unseen hours and how many millions of shots he’s taken and Macon in empty gyms, when no one else is around, it actually becomes less spectacular. And I say that with a smile, cuz I’m not diminishing that type of feet, but when you shoot that many shots in an empty gym, when no one’s around, you’re supposed to make those shots.
ASJ (13:09):
When the lights come on and the cheerleaders start dancing and that’s how those guys look at it, you know, they’re never surprised by their unbelievable performances. It’s an expectation for them, but that’s because they’ve put in the work to deserve the right to, to perform that well. And that actually leads to the, the second lesson that I learned from those guys is they do a masterful job of blending confidence, which is what they earn through time in the unseen hours. They blend that with humility, which is what allows them to stay open to, to feedback is what allows them to stay open to being coached is what allows them to say, you know, you all might say I’m the best player in the NBA, but I’m not as good as I’m capable of becoming. So I’m gonna get back in the gym. You know, I mean, when, when I watched Kobe go through that workout, he was already an NBA champion already, an Allstar already, a multimillionaire, you know, 20 times over, already a surefire first ballot hall of Famer.
ASJ (14:04):
And he’s in the gym at three 30 in the morning working on his craft because he doesn’t believe he’s as good as he’s capable of. And when you can blend that type of confidence with humility, you get something really magical. And, and that’s something else that I’ve, I’ve tried to apply in my own life. I mean, I, I’m not anywhere on a performance level of a Kobe Bryant, but I wanna make sure that I am earning the right to hold someone’s attention when I’m on stage speaking, but I wanna stay open to being coached and, and to growing and, and developing and working on my craft. I mean, I, you know, my next speaking engagement, I aim to make the best one that I’ve ever done. But I also know that 10 years from now, if you have me back on your show, I will be a better speaker, 10 years from now than I am today because of my commitment to craft. And that’s, what’s most important to me.
RV (14:53):
Yeah. Yeah. I, we, we bumped up against this a lot because we have a fair number of like quasi celebrity or celebrity clients that we work with at brand builders group. And, you know, it’s, it’s a little bit amazing to be like, wow, we’re coaching, we’re coaching. We’re punching above our, our weight class here because like some of these people are, I mean, they’re real good and they’ve have, they’ve gotten, you know, had real success in real reach, but then, you know, so there’s like this initial part where you think, oh, that doesn’t make sense. Like why would somebody who’s the best in the world take coaching from somebody who has never even experienced that level personally. And it’s like, no, the reason they’re, they are the best in the world is because they take coaching from, from, from those people. Meanwhile, the people who you who need coaching are the ones who have no idea what they’re doing and they’re not good and they’re not starting and they’re set they’re, they’re not doing it cuz they think they’re above coaching and it’s, it’s not the weak or the, or the untalented or the UN gifted who get coaching.
RV (16:03):
Its the opposite. It’s the, it’s the, the elite highest performers on the, on the planet. And I think that’s amazing. So you talk about earning your confidence. So I like what you were saying there. So you’re so talk to talk to me a little bit more about that. You’re saying that they’re earning it through what they do in the, basically the unseen hours.
ASJ (16:26):
Yeah. They, they understand intimately that repetition is not punishment. Like that’s one of the lessons I teach my own children. Repetition is not punishment. Repetition is the oldest and most effective form of learning and skill acquisition on the planet. And that is never going to change. Even technology won’t change that you have to get in reps if you want to be good at anything. And, and they understand that and they’re willing to put in those reps to an unbelievable degree and you know, the reason Stephan Curry will go down in history as the greatest shooter the game has ever seen is not because he did a bunch of reps to get good. And now he just coast, he’s still in the gym working on his craft. He is still putting up shots, you know on off days and in the off season. Cuz that’s the repetition is what’s what’s required. And certainly it’s true in the speaking game. I mean the, how
RV (17:15):
Do you more reps
ASJ (17:17):
Get on stage the better you’ll be.
RV (17:18):
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. There’s, there’s no replacement for stage time and for sure. So when you, a lot of people listening are, you know, some type of a coach or a consultant or a leader, you know, kind of this experience like I’m presuming that you’re not, you, you’re not gonna be in the hall of fame, the NBA hall of fame as a player yourself. And so I think there’s a lot of people who end up sort of coaching above their weight class. Like I was talking about. Did, did you ever have insecurities or self doubt yourself? I mean standing on the court with these guys saying, Hey, do it this way. Not that way. Did you ever experience any of that? Like, well, who am I to tell, you know, Kevin Duran, like how to, how to whatever block somebody out or block a shot and how did you get past that?
ASJ (18:09):
Well, I, I got past it. One, by being honest, I mean I wasn’t trying to BS anybody. Those guys knew they were better players than I had ever dreamed of becoming, but they also knew that doesn’t exclude me from having certain expertise or experience that can still add value to what it is that they do. You know, a good portion of coaching comes from that, that intellectual knowledge from certain experiences from having a different vantage point from having different perspectives from shared experiences that you’ve had from other players. So I had to lean into that and say, yes, I realize that you are a better player than I ever. Would’ve been. However, I can still add to your game. You know, I can still give you things that will make you a better player. And with guys like that, you have to prove that very quickly, you know, the, the quickest way to get an elite level player to tune you out is the moment they don’t think you can make them better.
ASJ (19:04):
You know, I think that’s one of the reasons that coach Kay was so successful with, with the Olympic teams was because those guys, and then you’re talking about Kobe, LeBron, Steph Curry, KD, those guys knew that he still had something that could make them better. So they didn’t discount the fact that he was a college coach and they were pros. They realized that he could still make them better based on his experience and expertise. So to me that’s the most important part. I mean, if you look at, and, and I certainly wouldn’t want to go on a tangent of who’s the greatest player of all time, I’m, I’m still kind of in the Michael Jordan camp. And a lot of that is just based on my own age, but Michael Jordan is arguably the best player to ever play the game. So from that previous logic, he could never have a coach because no one is going to be better than him.
ASJ (19:51):
Right. Well, how foolish does that sound? Even me saying it out loud, you know, Phil Jackson was never as good of a player as Michael Jordan, but you better believe Phil Phil Jackson had a, a perspective and a philosophy and experience and expertise that he could use to help mentor and, and groom Michael Jordan to become the player he was. And, and, and I think all of those guys will acknowledge that. So to answer your question, yes, there were certainly moments of kind of that imposter syndrome. Oh my gosh, are they gonna listen to me? But I had to quickly move right through that, lean in with honesty and vulnerability and show them and prove to them that I have something that can make you better.
RV (20:29):
I love that. Okay, so you left us, hang in here, you got three, you covered to cover two of them. So I wanna, I wanna make sure that we have time to get into the third one.
ASJ (20:39):
The, the third is those guys were certainly driven by external results. They wanted to make Allstar teams. They wanted to win NBA championship rings. They wanted to win scoring titles. And, and those were often north stars that, that provided clarity and direction for where they were headed. But after that, they didn’t spend any time focused on results. They put all of their effort into the process. They put all of their effort into what are the habits I need to establish? What are the micro skills I need to develop? What are the behaviors that I need to exude on a, on a daily basis that will get me closer to that north star or that goal? So it wasn’t so much, you know, I want a championship ring as much as it was, what do I need to do today to give myself and my teammates the best opportunity to be a champion next season.
ASJ (21:27):
And they were very, very process driven. And when you can combine, you know, the, the humility and vulnerability, it takes to stick to the basics when you can earn your confidence in the unseen hours, but stay open to coaching and feedback, and you can stay focused on the steps and the processes and the habits you combine, those three things together. There’s really nothing that can stop you. And, and, and there’s no one arguing that the guys that, that we’ve been talking about were born with some physical predispositions that allowed them to be world class athletes. Sure. I mean, they’ll tell you, they were born with certain levels of athleticism, but so are a lot of people and they didn’t actualize it. And then of course, going back to what I said originally about these things, having high utility in the space that you and I play in, it doesn’t matter if you’re five feet tall or seven feet tall.
ASJ (22:13):
It doesn’t matter if you have a four inch vertical jump or a 40 inch vertical jump, the physicality is no longer relevant. So now these things actually are the separators and the difference makers in business or in entrepreneurship or in any of the, the playgrounds that we play in. So these are all things that are under our control, which goes back to your brilliant point, that you can lay out the blueprint of exactly what someone needs to do to reach a certain level of success. And it’s been proven, you guys have proven it with hundreds and hundreds of elite level clients. Problem is people just don’t stick to the script. They don’t execute the blueprint, they get bored with the basics, and then they try to do things their way, if they will follow your recipe, they will get unbelievable results.
RV (22:55):
Yeah, it’s funny. Like you know, I played basketball in high school was my whole big, you know, consuming focus. But when I, when I got to college, the, the way I was able to let go of the dream or what helped me let go of the dream was R realizing that I was competing. I know in, on something that I couldn’t control, which was the physicality part. And so I was like, well, if I’m always gonna be under massively under resourced in this area, I’m gonna quickly shift my attention into something where that is not a part of the game. And you know, that it actually was a pretty quick flip of the switch where it was like, it went from being my whole life to, I pretty much dropped it. You know, just because it was like, oh, I, this is I’m gonna go.
RV (23:46):
I’m gonna go basically find another game to, to play and to, to compete in, which is, which is really cool. So I mean, this is awesome, Alan. I, I, I think it’s, it’s, it’s amazing to me how, how consistent this story is. And, and people don’t necessarily want it to be that way and they try to rationalize it and popular culture tries to change it, but it’s like, this is the deal. And it’s super duper powerful to, to get to see it. So where do, where should we send people? All right. So we have, so your, your, your, you had raise your game, which was the first book, and then sustain your game, just came out. Where, where do you want people to go? If they wanna connect more with you and like, keep up with what you’re doing.
ASJ (24:31):
My primary speaking website is Alan Stein jr.com. And then I have a second,
RV (24:35):
Don’t forget the junior, don’t forget the junior
ASJ (24:38):
Don’t don’t ever forget that. And, and it’s a quick side note to that. Not implying that you ever would, but if you ever meet my father, he’ll tell you the biggest dad, joke of all time. He’ll say I’m Alan steins. I’m the original, he’s the carbon copy.
RV (24:53):
I think that’s funny.
ASJ (24:54):
Yeah, that’s good stuff. So Alan Stein jr.com is the speaking site, stronger team.com has info on my books podcast and online course, and some one-on-one coaching. And then I’m very easily found and very accessible and resp responsive on social media at Allen Stein Jr. On Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And then of course you can just search for the books on Amazon or audible or wherever you like to get your books or audio books.
RV (25:18):
I love it, man. Well, what a, what a cool glimpse into what it takes, and then to see you applying it in your own life, in your own business, what you’re doing now as a speaker is really, really cool. Like you can, you can see the, the trajectory of your career just shaping up nicely in terms of like your ability to apply this to other people and to companies and organizations to build stronger teams. It’s really, really inspiring brother. And you know, I’m very encouraged by that and inspired by you. So, so stay the course. We’re cheering for you.
ASJ (25:51):
Thank you.
Ep 303: Understanding Enneagram with Ian Morgan Cron | Recap Episode
RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
RV (00:53):
It is truly one of the joys of my career being a podcast host, and there’s many reasons why, but one of the reasons why is because of the fascinating people that I have gotten to meet over the years of, of hosting a podcast. And that was evidenced and, and a great example of it here was with this, this recent edition with Ian Morgan Cron, who is one of the world’s leading thinkers on the Enneagram, right? And he wrote the road back to you, very, very popular book. And you know, I’ve been hosting this podcast co-host of this podcast now for four years. I think about four years, three, three years, maybe three years, we started it. We started it a little bit late when we launched the company. And, and some of you don’t know, but when we sold our our last company that we had, I had been podcasting on that show, which was, had millions of downloads hundreds, hundreds of episodes.
RV (01:54):
And that was several years, maybe, maybe five years, something like that. So I, I have done a lot of interviews and I just, I absolutely love it. And if, if you are one of our mission driven messengers, like if you’re one of our members we always talk about this, that like, it’s, it’s the most amazing platform for meeting people. It’s, it’s like a free way to grow your own personal development. You get to interview these amazing people every, every single week. And it’s just, it’s the most incredible networking tool of all time. But anyways, I, I rant and say all that a little bit about the power of being a podcast host. And I guess just to take a minute and just to say, thank you like, thank, thank you for listening and I mean, thank you for the gift of your attention.
RV (02:36):
Like thank you for the compliment of being here. Thank you for downloading this. Or, you know, if you watch it on our YouTube channel or on our blog, or like wherever you’re listening, like just thank you. I mean, it’s, it’s the most, this is the most amazing, amazing, I mean, well, like getting to be a, I feel the same way about writing and speaking and, you know, my Instagram videos and I just, just think it’s, it’s, it’s the coolest thing ever. So you know, to get to it, to make sure we’re providing value to you. That’s why we’re here. I, I wanna dive into my three big takeaways from this interview with Ian Morgan, Cron which, you know, in a, in a weird way, I was like, ah, I think I should probably be more starstruck about meeting Ian than I am.
RV (03:19):
Cuz I just, I haven’t been a huge engram fan. Like I’m not, it’s not that I’m not a fan. I’m just not, I’m ignorant to it. We have some people internally Elizabeth on our team loves it and she’s really good with it and knows all about it. And you know, we, we took the test. She gave us the test for Christmas a couple years ago. And so it’s really cool. So like it’s a little bit of our culture, but I’ve always been more into like disk and Myers Briggs and KII temperament. And like I have done a bunch, a bunch of these types of things, but anyways really, really powerful insightful conversation with Ian and, and you know, here’s my, my top three takeaways. So number one, which I never really realized was such an important part of the premise of the ideogram was realizing that what is best about us is also what is worst about us?
RV (04:10):
What is best about us is also what is, is worst about us. It is our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness. Our greatest asset is also our greatest liability. The, the thing that we do extremely well is the thing that we can overdo, like we can overuse, right? And so I think I look at myself as an example and I go, okay, what are some of those things? And I, I think this would be the exercise for you, you’re listening and saying, okay, well, what are those things like? What is it about what is, what are the best things about me and how do those things become the worst things about me? And, you know, I think of discipline, which is like a core part of my, my, my personal philosophy, my personal brand, of course the centerpiece component of both my first book take the stairs.
RV (04:58):
And my second book about how to multiply time procrastinating on purpose is just like discipline. And you go, okay, discipline is how I’ve achieved. It’s how I’ve been successful. So that’s the best of me. How does that become the worst of me? Well, it, it makes me righteous. It makes me inflexible, you know, it, it probably makes me dogmatic to some extent and, and, you know, like one of the things I hate is being off schedule, like when there’s a, when there’s a routine and a rhythm and like it gets interrupted. I’m like, it, it, it throws my whole life outta whack. And so I, you know, I see that the other thing is, you know, I think if I had to summarize my entire body of work my entire career, you know, and if you said, what is Rory really an expert on? I would say the psychology of influence, moving people to action.
RV (05:45):
I would, that is what I would say. My, my expertise is the psychology of influence, which specifically stated is the psychology of moving people to action, including ourselves, which is where all the self development work comes from. But also my work in sales my work with leadership teams, and then of course, you know, our work, what we’re doing right now with brand builders, group, teaching people, how to become more influential. So I go, okay, well, what is it about influence? Like if I really understand the psychology of, of, of moving people to action, how does that show up as weakness? It, it shows up as weaknesses going, oh, I might be trying to, to, to move people in a direction that really isn’t fair or what they don’t want to go. And if you heard my last recap edition on, on, it was on the Catherine Gordon interview, Catherine who, John Gordon’s wife, John Gordon, longtime real close buddy of mine, author of the energy bus.
RV (06:43):
And then they wrote the book, relationship grit together, and they, you know, she came and did this whole amazing interview. If you didn’t listen to the episode with her about how to have a better marriage. I shared that in the recap edition that I think my greatest mistake as a husband or one of my greatest mistakes has been that I have not given AJ a safe place to share her feelings and emotions without trying to shape them. Right. Like she shares how she’s feeling. And I tell her why she shouldn’t feel that way. She shares how she’s feeling and I’m telling her why she should think about that different. She shares how she’s feeling and I’m telling her how I don’t really deserve to have her feel that way about something I said, or did gas, gas lighting is apparently is the term for that, which I was I’ve, I’m, that’s a term that I’m new to.
RV (07:39):
But yeah, I, I shared this, you know, pretty emotional moment for for me in, in that last recap edition, talking about that, and then listening to going back and listening to this, reviewing this interview with Ian and going, oh, where is my greatest strength? Also my greatest weakness, where is what is best about me also? What is worse about me? I go, ah, there it is, right? Like my ability to coach, to guide, to see things a different way to bring perspective to, to, to help do that for people is great, except in your marriage, in a moment of vulnerability where someone is sharing their heart and how they’re feeling and going, oh, let me, let me take your heart and tell you why that’s not right or change that that is terrible. Right? So anyways, if you wanna listen to me cry, you can go,
RV (08:38):
Right? So that’s the, the, to turn this to you, the question would be, what is your greatest strength? How might that be showing up also as your weakness and just being aware of that? So I thought that was, that was insightful for me. And the second thing, which is huge was that all of us have a false origin story. All of us have a false origin story, every single one of us, like we all have a story that we tell ourselves about who we are and why we are the way we are. And it is never true. It is always partially true. It is always based in some level of truth, but it is never accurate. Like it is never fully precise. It is a story. And, and it’s a story that we tell ourselves so many times that we believe it. And then the trick about this is like, this becomes our identity.
RV (09:32):
Our identity for the future is written by the story we tell ourselves about the past. Our identity for the future is written by the story we tell ourselves about our past. When we say the reason I am, why I am, is because of this happened. And because my parents were this way. And because I went to this school and my teacher said that, and the bully did this, and this happened in the economy and this happened in the world and this happened in politics. And like, I, I, I am, I am because of the neighborhood that I lived in and whatever, like that story that we look back and somebody says, how did you get to be how you are? That story is of, of our past is, becomes our identity for the future. And it’s never accurate. Like it’s never a hundred percent accurate.
RV (10:18):
It is always an interpretation of what happened. It is always based on a memory of what happened. It, it is always based upon a, a, a selective monitoring of key elements and components of a, of, of circumstances that we have crafted into a narrative that shapes our life. So why does this matter? It matters because if it’s not serving you, you can just drop it, right? Like, if, if, if you’ve been telling yourself your whole life, you’re not a smart person, because a teacher said that to you, when you were a kid. And most of these stories, we have most of this programming that we have was written when we were very young, like before we were even aware that our brain was a program that was being written, most of the program was written by other people and not by ourselves or, or by ourselves, but subconsciously, right.
RV (11:15):
And so you go, oh, okay, well, I thought I was dumb, or I thought I wasn’t smart. Or I thought I was gonna, you know, money doesn’t grow on trees, or, you know, you can’t, you can’t be successful in your career and have a great family or all of these things, which become, I’m not gonna call ’em limiting beliefs. I’m gonna call them confining beliefs. Right? A limiting belief is negative. I mean, it has the connotation of negative, but I wanna shift, I wanna shift the distinction here to say, it’s, they’re not all negative, but they’re confining. They shape the world in which we live. They sh they shape the world. As you see it, they shape what you believe to be true. Now, if it’s negative, that’s a limiting belief in some ways it’s positive, right? You might have said, man, I’m, I’m athletic.
RV (12:09):
I’m great at remembering people’s names, man. I’m good at sales. I’m good at speaking in front of an audience, I’m a great leader, right? Like there’s certain things that you have told yourself about yourself that are really positive. So they’re confining in a healthy way. Now there could be limitations to those, or there could be impacts on the people around you for those, because they’re the things that you believe to be true. Like we don’t actually believe what is true. We believe what we tell ourselves. Most often, we don’t actually believe what is true. We believe whatever we hear most often, whatever we say most often, whatever we tell ourselves most often, that is what we believe. Which means if, if your current identity stinks, like if your current current identity, isn’t a good one. If you’re not performing at the level, you think you’re capable of in your life or that you wanna perform at in your life, or if you’re not being the person, you know, you were meant to be, if, if you’re not operating at the potential of your, of your calling, if you’re not operating at the potential of your purpose, if you’re not operating at the potential of what you think God made you to be.
RV (13:17):
It’s because you have a negative story from the past that you are carrying into your identity for the future, and you need to drop it. You need to stop it. You need to cut it. You need to leave it and create a new one. You create a new one. All of us have a false origin story. So to the extent that it is serving you keep it to the extent that it is not write yourself a new one, write yourself a new one, write yourself a new one, sister, like get you a new program, get you a new story, tell yourself something different. Say I was this way, but now I’m this way. Proclaim that, repeat it and say it over and over until you believe it because we don’t believe what is true. We believe whatever we tell ourselves most often get yourself a new story.
RV (14:19):
My third takeaway was just his little tip for identifying these negative stories. And this was super practical, super helpful, like super insightful. This was just like so specific. So easy. So clear, just like, oh, you go. Where? Where, how do I identify the negative stories? How do I identify the, the places that I’m not serving myself with my own belief system? It says, it’s simple. Wherever your fears are disproportionate, wherever your fear is disproportionate disproportionate. That’s where you struggle. That’s that’s where there’s the, the, the glitch in your program. That’s where there’s the air in your system is whenever you’re experiencing fear, right? You’re experiencing fear. And it’s, you know, this old saying fear is an acronym. F E a R. It stands for false evidence appearing real. That is what what’s happening, right? Like, think about it this way. Two, two people stand on stage.
RV (15:20):
One person looks out and says, oh my gosh, I’m terrified. I’m not good at speaking. The other person stands on stage and looks out and goes, oh my gosh, this is the greatest moment in my life. Here. I am standing in front of a bunch of people. They’re both true, right? They’re both true for that person. Neither of them are true inherently of the situation. What is true is whatever we tell ourselves most often, what, whatever we’re saying inside of our own head is what’s true. Our own brain is its own echo chamber. And so you go, where are you experiencing fear? Where where is your creativity working in the wrong direction? That’s how I describe fear in my take the stairs book. Fear is your creativity working in the wrong direction. So you’re, you’re going, oh, this isn’t gonna work out. This is gonna fall apart. I don’t like this. I’m not good at this. I can’t do that. I’m not capable of this, blah, blah, blah. Like wherever you at that train is running. That’s where you got a crappy story. That’s where you got a, a broken program. That’s where you got err, bug in your system and you gotta capture that thing. You gotta squash it and you gotta just rewrite a new one. You just gotta rewrite a new one. So wherever you’re experiencing fear, that is where you have an ineffective story.
RV (16:42):
And yet all of us, every single one of us have the opportunity each and every day to rewrite our story, to rewrite our story of the past, to change the narrative that we tell ourselves about why we are the way we are, and also to change the narrative of our future, to tell ourselves what is going to come of us. That is one of the greatest sources of power and also the greatest sources of weakness that all of us have in our own life. You take agency over that. I promise, you’ll see your life. Start to change. I hope this podcast. I hope my, my blogs are our podcasts, our blogs, our free trainings. Our Instagrams are tweets, our Facebooks. I hope they are things that you find encouraging to you to help you write a better program so that you can have a better life. Thanks for being here. We’ll get you next time.
Ep 302: Understanding Enneagram with Ian Morgan Cron
RV (00:02):
Such an honor to introduce to you somebody who is a friend of several friends of mine, Ian Morgan Cron, I’ve, I’ve heard so many things about him. He lives in Nashville. Um, so we hang out with a lot of the same, uh, circles, Donald Miller, Michael Hyat, John AK, et cetera. It’s kind of the Nashville posse around here. And, um, but we’ve never actually met. And so, uh, we got, I, I forgot who connected us recently and said, Hey, you guys really need to know one another. And so it just made sense to bring him on the podcast. So you you’ve probably heard of his podcast. He has a podcast called typology, which has over 17 million downloads. He he’s the author of several books, um, including kind of the Enneagram primer, which was, is called the road back to you. And then he released a, uh, another book recently called the story of you in Igram journey to becoming your true self. And that’s a big part of what we’re gonna talk about today, but, uh, you know, he works with companies like Warner, brother music and Chick-fil-A, and, uh, we have all these, all these similar friends and, uh, anyways, I wanted you to, to hear it. And I know probably half of you have never heard of Anya Graham and the other half of you just are die hard and just know it’s such a powerful tool. And like you just run your whole life by
IMC (01:29):
Thanks . It’s great to be here.
RV (01:31):
So, um, let’s do start with the people who are not the, the, the super engram people. Um, you know, I think people hear it and they go, oh, is that like a disk thing? Right. And, uh, it’s not, there’s, there’s, there’s nine different types, but anyways, can you just kind of give us like the high level overview of it?
IMC (01:53):
Sure. Well, the Enneagram is an ancient personality typing system. It teaches that there are nine basic personality types in the world. One of which we, uh, gravitate toward an adopting childhood as a way to cope, to protect ourselves and to navigate the new world, uh, of relationships in which we find ourselves. Um, there are nine distinct types and each of them has an underlying unconscious motivation that powerfully influences how that type habitually and predictably acts things and feels from moment to moment. Uh, it’s a great tool. I’ve worked with disk, Hogan, Colby, uh, strength, binder. I love Myers Briggs. Obviously they are all great tools, but in my experience, as a therapist, as a corporate presenter and consultant, I really don’t know a better instrument for helping people develop the kind of self-awareness that not only improves the quality of their personal lives, but tremendously accelerates their success in their professional lives.
RV (03:06):
Mm that’s interesting. What, what, like, what do you think is the big, that’s a big statement, right? Those are big Myers Briggs, and, uh, you know, obviously disks and strength finders. Like, um, we we’ve, we had Tom we’ve had Tom Rath on the show. He’s a good friend. Like these are really, really powerful. So, um, what do you think really is the, is kind of the defining or the, you know, the big distinction between any Agram and you know, some of these other tools maybe that people have heard of.
IMC (03:33):
So to be clear again, I love any tool that helps people develop self-awareness I love it when I hear people tapping into multiple tools, uh, so that they get a sort of a 360 eye on everything. Mm-hmm
RV (04:39):
Use.
IMC (05:02):
So, you know, the Ingram does teach us that what’s best about us is also what’s worst about us. And what’s worst about us is also what’s best about us. Our strength is our weakness. Our weakness is our strength, right? And so, um, you know, in the beginning of the journey of understanding who you are and developing self-awareness, you are gonna have to confront those parts of your personality that are, uh, in direct opposition opposition to the person that you want to become, right? Like, like we all, we all should wanna know what is it that stands between me and the person who I want to become. And so, you know, that, that requires looking at the shadow aspect of our personality that said the Enneagram also will tell you what’s most wonderful about who you are, but you do have to kind of slog through the not so great stuff before you get to realizing, oh my gosh, at my core, uh, I have all kinds of competencies and, uh, personality traits that are wonderful and needed at the table of life.
RV (06:11):
Mm-hmm
IMC (06:39):
So, yeah, I mean, the road back to you was a remarkable, you know, at the risk of sounding self congratulatory, but I’m as surprised by it as anybody. So don’t, don’t hear it as me bragging, you know, it was a tremendous success that I could not have predicted. Right? Mm. Um, and the road back to you for me, was more of a book about, okay, so I have information. So now how do I begin to activate transformation? Like information is not growth, right? You can know everything there is to know about you. And if you don’t have a, a formula for transformation, it just doesn’t make any difference. Right now you’re just armed with data, but data doesn’t mean anything unless somebody can analyze it and then make decisions based on that new information. Right. Mm-hmm
IMC (07:36):
You know, this, uh, you may understand your email list. You may understand who your customer is. You may have done all the, gotten all the metrics, but if you don’t act on those and know how to act on those who cares,
IMC (08:34):
But what if the story that you picked up as a little kid is wrong? Like, what if the story you picked up as a little person and now have dragged into adulthood is frustrating your ability to live a, a happy, productive life. And I’ve as a therapist, you know, as a person who works in that call it the self development space, right? It’s like, if you don’t unearth and examine the narrative in which you live your life, it will govern your life negatively from the shadows. You won’t even know it’s running. Right. Uh, it’s just kind of like, you know, like a system back here that’s running. And if you don’t confront that old story, then you will continue to live by its dictates. Um, this is why I think sometimes, you know, it’s interesting in my conversations with people, if I use the word stuck, nobody has once asked me to define what I mean by the word stuck. Mm. They, they just know it right away. Right. It’s just like, oh yeah, I’m stuck. Well, what is the reason for people’s experience of stuckness? Usually it’s because they’re living by an old narrative that no longer works for them. And I wanna free people from that narrative. And that’s what the book, the story of you describes.
RV (09:56):
So here’s what I wanna ask you about is I wanna try to like tie this together. The, yeah. The people listening here are, are, we would describe them as mission driven messengers. So they are experts who in some way they serve the world typically as an expert. And, um, you know, you, you, you said something earlier about your first book, you said, I, I had, I couldn’t have predicted its success. And I think it’s really, really true about, uh, in life. But even as, as a personal brand, we all have a, we live inside of a story. That’s subconscious, like it’s there. And it came from wherever it came from. Um, and it governs what, how successful maybe we allow ourselves to become, or it limits us in terms of, you know, maybe we’re not, we don’t wanna be self promotional or et cetera, et cetera.
RV (10:50):
What do you think are some of the stories that people who are on a mission sort of struggle with, or, um, you know, could be just entrepreneurs or just anybody who’s an author or a speaker, just having been that path, you know, both as, as the counselor and understanding engram, but also as an author who has built this tremendously successful and well respected, um, brand and reputation for such a, a very specific space. I mean, you, you have accomplished several of the things that we talk about and Def define and describe and try to provide training for. So I’m just curious, what do you think are some of those stories that you think we all have to overcome in our journey as an expert entrepreneur, author, speaker type?
IMC (11:38):
Well, there are some obvious ones. Um, you know, how many times have you heard people say, or you can vaguely pick up in your conversation with them? Something like, um, I’m not smart enough to do this. That’s a, that’s a broken story, right? Uh, or how about I’m too old to start a new business? Mm that’s a, that’s a broken story. Um, you know, you might hear, uh, someone say, man, if I, I had to do this perfectly or not at all right, that’s an old story from childhood, you know, that’s the Enneagram one story it’s sort of like you are raised with this belief that the world only rewards, good people and judges, bad people. And therefore you have to do everything perfectly. You have to perfect yourself, others in the world and you, uh, you can’t make mistakes. You, you, um, uh, have to live up to these high rigid, uh, internal standards that are impossible to meet.
IMC (12:40):
Now you wanna talk about something frustrating, the development of a business, try perfectionism. Right. I remember Mike Hyat saying to me once, and it was really revelatory. Cause I do have a little bit of a perfectionist street. And he said to me once, uh, Ian, don’t wait till it’s perfect to put it out there, do the best. You can throw it out, uh, fix it as you go, but don’t wait for anything to be perfect in life. Just get a product out there and see how it goes. And that was like so liberating for me. And it went against an old story. I’ve been telling myself about how the world works, you know, and about myself. Like I don’t have any value unless I’m perfect. Is that true? Now that’s an old story. Like now Mike is an engram three, that’s called the, the performer or the achiever.
IMC (13:25):
The performer believes that the world only values others for what they accomplish and achieve in life, but not for who they are inside. So therefore they become addicted and driven to succeed, to appear successful to other people and to avoid failure at all costs. Now that’s a, that story may have helped Mike or other threes as little people to kind of find their way in the world and make sense of their experiences. But that’ll kill you in business. That’ll kill you in your personal life, right? How many workaholics do you know who live by that story? Right? Or, um, people that, you know, become risk averse, cuz they just they’re afraid of not appearing successful. So again, I could go through all nine types. It would take too much time, but I, I think you get the idea here, right? You gotta see the story, you gotta deconstruct the story. You gotta take it apart. You gotta interrogate and challenge it and then decide, I want a new story. I, I want a story that’s gonna lead to a life that is genuinely happy, satisfying, you know, has fulfillment and you know, opens the door for the kind of success I had never thought I could achieve.
RV (14:34):
And yeah. And you mentioned the three, uh, which is like the, the achiever, right. Or the performer mm-hmm
RV (15:51):
I am recognizing in a split second that I’m operating according to a belief that was set in place at some point in my past, maybe unintentionally, like how do we first identify? Cuz it feels like that’s half the battle here.
IMC (16:09):
Yes. So lemme just, uh, back up just for a second, because I want, I want to add something to this that I think that your audience would be interested in.
RV (16:17):
Yeah.
IMC (16:17):
So years ago, uh, Cornell business school, um, did a study of 72 high performing CEOs, leading companies in value, let’s say from 50 million to 5 billion. Okay. And what they wanted to determine is what specific trait accounted for their unusual success, right? And so they expected it to be grit, determination of strategic planning, charisma, you know, the typical things we read about in business books all the time here was the exact quote from the end of the study, the key determinant of success in, in leadership or executive among executives is self-awareness now that that stunned the researchers. Right? And I, this is why I get invited to companies all over the world. It’s because they’re looking around and saying, well, we got all these skills, these hard skills, but we don’t have the self knowledge and the self-awareness. And that makes us bad leaders that makes us bad entrepreneurs. Right. Because you know, you can have all those hard skills, but if you don’t have the ability to relate to the world in other people in healthy ways, you’re kind of screwed honestly. Right. You’re kind, you’re being held back in dramatic ways. I, I mean, I, I spend so much time coming in and doing cleanup it’s, you know, people save me all the time. I wish you’d been here five years ago. Would’ve saved me a lot of time. Right. Okay. So how do you go about identifying and
RV (17:52):
Well, and so to that, to that point, before you go into that, so is it, is it usually, if you, if you’re not self-aware are you just, are you delusional? Like you just, you think you’re something you’re not, or are you just completely like unaware and you’re just sort of like cranking along. I mean, is it basically one of those two, two things?
IMC (18:13):
Uh, it’s actually both of those things among others, right. I mean, on one level, you know, there’s a lot of people, you know, um, you have a lot of three sevens and eights in your audience, I guarantee you for sure. Right. There’s the three most assertive, aggressive types on the anti angiogram. Um, and,
RV (18:30):
And I’m a, if I remember right, I think I’m a three. And then what do you call it? A wing? I think I’m a three wing eight.
IMC (18:38):
Well, you can’t be an eight. You’d have to be a, your wing could only be a two or a four if you’re a three. Ah,
RV (18:42):
So
IMC (18:43):
It’s the two numbers adjacent to yours. It’s the only options
RV (18:46):
For wings. Oh, I got you on either side. Okay. But I’m, I’m pretty sure I’m a three.
IMC (18:51):
Yeah, I would imagine. So. Um, and uh, I actually could have guessed that in the beginning of our call. It it’s interesting if you, once you get to know the angiogram pretty well, you can, with a pretty high degree of accuracy, start to pick out where other types
RV (19:06):
Are. I peg people pretty quickly.
IMC (19:08):
Yeah. I mean, I could pick it up from your clothes, from your background, uh, from what you do for a living. I could pick it up from, um, the kinds of things that matter to you, your priorities. Um, so anyway, that’s one of the benefits. Once you’re able to start doing that, talk about knowing how to relate to customers and your staff is, you know, it’s a tremendous advantage that said, you know, um, I think that self-awareness is important because if you do not have the capacity to step back and self observe in the moment, like in every interaction, right. Able to observe yourself and you can tell, oh my gosh, I have slipped back into an old rotten story. And, and I need to make new decisions in this moment to live into the story that I believe is true. Right? It’s like, you have a true story, you have a false story.
IMC (20:08):
It’s usually one, we call it an origin story. You have a false origin story and that’s gotta go. Right. And the way we do that, I use the acronym. So S O a R. So the first step is you gotta see the story. Right. And that’s just a matter of looking into the past and saying, okay, where did this story come from? What is it? And what, you know, like what, where did it come from? So that’s where we start. Then we go to the second step, which is you gotta own the story, which is to say it’s a little bit like, um, you know, looking at the effects, living in that story have had on your life, how has it affected your marriage, how it, you know, affected your relationship with your children, uh, your career, your dreams, you know, I, you know, part of that is if you don’t own it, there’s, there’s, there’s not much impetus to go forward, right?
IMC (21:01):
Like you’ve just gotta say, yep, this is what it’s cost me. And you can also say, and this is how it’s helped me, but how it’s helped me is, uh, not nearly as powerful as how it’s negatively affected my life. Right. Mm. The, the third step is to awaken. So that, that is really to say, okay, um, how do I now in the present begin to recognize when that old story has taken the wheel again, and, and then also make new choices like, oh, I don’t have to do that anymore. Like, like I can live in a new way that are, that’s aligned with my values, with my goals, with my dreams. Right. And then the last step is to rewrite. And that’s also a very conscious exercise. Like what is the story now in the future that I want to live in? So it really does cover the past, the present and the future, um, and gives you, uh, you know, sort of a great 50,000 foot view of your life.
IMC (21:56):
Right. Um, and the book, the story of you, you know, I go through all four stages and detail and show people how to do it. You know, obviously we can’t go into the, the, the granular detail right now, but, and you know, what’s interesting, Laurie, and we don’t, I don’t want to go necessarily down this wormhole, but you know, companies tell themselves stories about who they are and how they think the world works that are not true. Right. Yeah. I always, I always think about Dunder Mifflin. You know, if you, if you were really to have a corporate retreat with all the people there, they might say that the story that der Mifflin tells itself about who they are and how they think the world works is we’re the crappy paper company. Like we sell crappy paper. Now they gotta see that they gotta own that.
RV (22:49):
And you see that like all, basically most of these stories, they come, they go all the way back to childhood and it was some moments. So like, you know, I, I think you’re right, that there’s a lot of threes. I mean, in, in our audience, at some point you felt outcast or something, I, as a child or you didn’t experience love or whatever. And so you resolved to basically go, I’m gonna achieve my way into being important. Like that kind of a thing
IMC (23:20):
That could be one of many stories that might produce a three, um, you know, a classic three story. I actually was interviewing a three, the, oh, you know him, um, it was, uh, oh gosh, my brain just went dead. The only name that’s coming to me right now is Jay Sheti, but it is not Jay Sheti it’s it’s, uh,
RV (23:43):
Lewis. Was it Lewis house?
IMC (23:45):
No, it was a good friend of Michael’s and, um, others. And he’s a brand, uh, guy anyway, it’ll come back to me. He’s a three. And, um, what he said was, you know, I was a kid and, uh, if I brought home a paper that was a 97, my father, the first words outta my father’s mouth was where’s the other 3%.
IMC (24:05):
And, you know, the message he got, uh, from, as a kid was, uh, love is predicated on your achievement. So it’s like, if you carry that message into adulthood, you’re gonna continue to believe that success equals love. I mean, you know, it’s like, if I don’t succeed, no one will value me. No one’s gonna see me. No, one’s gonna appreciate me. And you know, part of the journey is you gotta see that story and realize, you know, I guess on one level, that story could produce success, right? It’ll also make you miserable.
RV (25:11):
And so you, you, you basically just have to become aware of it. Like you just have to recognize, oh, whatever, like we’re, I think work AISM is a good example of going all I’m doing. And I think there’s a lot of people doing that. And obviously working from home makes that E easier probably than ever before is just going, why am I doing this? This is connected somehow to a story. I once told myself this old program that’s still there.
IMC (25:40):
And then, and what, and maybe part of what you want to confront is the first objection a person might have is. Yeah. But if I don’t keep doing this, I won’t be successful anymore. And what I would say is, well, that’s gonna cost you a lot. That’s gonna cost you relationships with children. It’s gonna, you know, it’s, it’s restricting you from living a full life. Now, the old part of the old story you have to confront is, uh, that I won’t be successful unless I continue to live by those rules. That’s a lie. You can continue to be successful and productive and not live by those rules and live with more freedom and happiness, you know, can you imagine how great it is to be successful and enjoy, you know, product, you know, being a productive person without having to build your self esteem on it. I mean, that’s a great feeling of freedom and that’s what I want people to experience.
RV (26:36):
Mm-hmm
IMC (27:48):
Absolutely. It’s not that hard in exercise. I mean, you could do it 350 words, that’s one page, right. Or you could begin there, right. It doesn’t have to be, oh my gosh, I gotta write a novel here. You know? Um, and also I would say, if you do the SOA part, you see it, you own it. You awaken to it as passive as it, as it sounds, you will have cleared away enough to bring at that point, that the story you wanna live will begin to emerge on its own. You know what I mean? It just starts to come up like green shoes. Okay. And you just begin to enjoy it. What you just described is in part self-awareness, I’m able to see when the old story is taking place. I then start making new decisions, like pause and people who don’t have, self-awareness worry.
IMC (28:32):
Here’s what they do. They bang guardrail to guardrail through other people’s lives. They’re on autopilot. They don’t even know their, why they’re doing the things they do. And they don’t know why they continue to do things they don’t wanna do. And they continue to do things. Uh, they don’t continue not to do things they do want to do. Right. It’s like, they’re like stuck in ground high bay, but once you get self-awareness, you’re able to say, you know, and you’ve done the exercise of saying, sitting down and going, well, what’s the life I wanna live. What am I afraid of? Uh, are those fears justified? Like, let me ask you as a three, right? Imagine if I said to you roaring next year, um, what would happen if your business went down 50% and you say I’m terrified of that idea. And I said to you, okay, well just tell me five reasons why you’re scared.
IMC (29:24):
And you might say, well, if I was honest, I’m afraid of reputation loss. I’m afraid of maybe people not respecting me as much as they used to. Mm-hmm
RV (29:55):
You kinda walk in that for a minute and realize it’s not as bad as you think. Yeah. I was, I was actually having this conversation with Louis House once, because I was saying, you know, I grew up with so little that my mind immediately goes back to, we’re gonna be broke living on the streets. Like it’s like, we’re so far away from that ever being a reality. And we have so many skills and relationships that it’s, you know, it’s pretty near impossible that that situation would ever happen. But it’s almost like I’m running at times from, uh, that extreme of a fear, because it was so deep rooted in who I was growing up and how little we had. And it’s like, what a silly thing to be running away from when you’re, when you’re like, you know, light years away. Like
IMC (30:48):
Yeah. And, but it’s, but at the same time, it’s really understandable. So, you know, be kind, I tell this all the time, be kind, there’s a reason that fear is in place. You you’ll know you’re in an old story. You just described it too. If your fears are disproportionate, right. It’s like, wait a minute. That is an over the top fear. It’s like, that is not true. But you know, what’s happening is literally your little brain is lighting up like it did when you were a kid. And you’re like, you know, well, of course it does. It doesn’t mean you have to continue to live by the rules, but of that. But you know, you have to have a little self compassion and say, look, I know where this comes from, but I also don’t need to live in the old story that that’s gonna be the end of the world. It’s all gonna be okay. I got a great wife, she’ll be there. I got great kids. They’ll be there. I got, you know, I’m a really smart person, you know, I’ll be able
RV (31:37):
To, you have God. I mean, you have faith. I mean, when you have faith and it’s like, you you’ve got everything. The other story that I would, I would say, Ian, that, that I see a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with is, um, they can’t delegate things because they are stuck in that perfectionism. They really believe the only person who can do it is me. If other people do it, they won’t do it as well as me. Uh, I have to do this myself. I’m the only one who knows how to do it. That story, maybe more than any other is the one that I can, like, I, I see it every day. It, it exists as a reality in their mind. And it, it is a prison sentence of their own construction. If they ever want to scale the business or grow a company or have a team, or just have a life because it traps you to doing everything yourself, um, you, you come across that one ever,
IMC (32:39):
Oh my gosh.
RV (33:27):
Of the boat. That’s a good way of thinking about it.
IMC (33:29):
So, you know, um, that is an old story it’s based on, you know, some, you know, for example, I meet a lot of ones that grew up in families where they, you know, either got explicitly, someone told them you have to be perfect and, you know, always good and never make mistakes, or you’ll be punished in some way, you’ll be shamed or you’ll be, you know, told you’re not a good person or whatever. And so that story has to be looked at, or, you know, sometimes they, they had to fill a role of a parent, you know, because, uh, some parent was absent. They had to become an adult way too fast, you know, and step in and take care of his sisters and brothers. And there were no rules. And so they had to come up with the rules for themselves, you know? Um, and so, you know, we have to see that we gotta own it.
IMC (34:14):
We gotta awaken to when it’s coming online. And then we gotta rewrite a new story that says, I don’t have not, everything has to get done perfectly. I can’t keep hiring people and then not using them and trusting them. Right. Uh, I have to be okay with other people and myself making mistakes. That’s part of the journey. In fact, mistakes can be a great asset if I approach them wisely. So again, you know, um, these are the kinds of things I want to, and, you know, in the story of you, my goal was how do I help people break out of the prisons? They don’t even know they’re in, because that’s when those, when you don’t know where you’re in a prison, that’s the most secure prison in the world, right? Is the one you don’t know you’re in. And so, you know, I want people to experience freedom in their work life and their personal lives. Um, I want them to not only enjoy success, let’s say in business, I want them to have happier lives. I want them to have better marriages, better friendships, uh, with their kids, with their, you know, their peers, you know, I want, I don’t want them just to be successful in business, man. I want them to be successful in every area of their lives and to experience the joy of fulfillment.
RV (35:30):
Yeah. I love that. I, I, AJ read a book recently by Craig Rochelle called winning the war in your mind. And, uh, she told me, she said, one, one of the quotes in there was that the devil’s greatest victory is, is convincing the world. He doesn’t exist. It makes me think of like what you’re talking about. It’s a prison you live in. You don’t even realize that it’s there is guiding your life. Um, you’re stuck doing things that you don’t wanna do when you, uh, and not doing the things you do wanna do really, really powerful stuff. Ian. So, um, the, the, the book, everybody. Okay. So the book is called the story of you, um, the podcast typology, where else do you want people to go, Ian, if you want them to like, learn more about, you get connected to you, like what’s the, what’s the best place,
IMC (36:17):
Right? So, um, obviously the road back to you and the story of you are both, uh, great assets. They can go to my website. I a N M O R G a N C R O N. And there, they can learn about courses. They can learn about, uh, you know, my Enneagram assessment. We’re just coming out now with a, in fact it may be available when, by the time that you, uh, you know, broadcast this, uh, this interview is called the I E Q nine couples report. So you could actually, you know, you’re an engram three, I don’t know what your wife is. Um, but let’s say she’s a six, I’m making this up. You would get a report that shows how three sixes get along, what their challenges are, what their assets are. And it, it’s a, you know, it’s like a 40 page report, so it’s not, you know, something that’s, uh, it’s robust, right. Um, they can learn about all kinds of, you know, my speaking, you know, op you know, options there. And of course, on social it’s at Ian Morgan PRN across all the channels. And, um, yeah, I think that, that, uh, that probably covers most of it
RV (37:26):
Really, really cool Ian. Well, um, I think what a great, what, what, what a great cause to dedicate your time and career to self-awareness and, and so clear and specific and actionable about the work you’re doing there and the power and the impact that it’s having. So there’s it, you know, it makes a lot of sense to me why it’s, it’s spreading. And, um, that makes me happy because it’s, it’s, it’s really, really great work. So thank you for making time to be here. We wish you all the best. We’ll continue to follow your journey and, uh, just, just keep helping people, my friend,
IMC (38:00):
Thanks B. This was a delight.
Ep 297: Methods for a Better Marriage with Kathryn Gordon | Recap Episode
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you. Soon
Speaker 2 (00:54):
For years, Jon Gordon has been a friend, a colleague, a mentor of mine, and what an absolute delight and treat to get to sit down with his wife who is also his co-author of the book, relationship grit, Kathryn. Kathryn has become a quick friend of the family and really a quick friend of AJ’s, which is you know, kind of unexpected, unusual for AJ to become so close with somebody so quickly. And they have really hit it off. And man, this was a powerful, a powerful lesson. And I mean, of all the podcasts we’ve had, this one really, really hit me hard personally. And so we were talking about, you know, methods for a better marriage, especially for entrepreneurial couples. And I think you know, I wanna share my takeaways here in just a second, my, my top three highlights, but what a great just opportunity to get to hear from people who have built something really big in the world, right between Jon and, and Kathryn.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
And of course, if you’re not familiar with Jon, he is the best selling author of the energy bus. He, he’s one of the, the, the most well known speakers, motivational speakers in the world, and he’s written several, several books and you know, I’ve just always known him really well. And just only gotten to know Katherine more recently, but just, I think it’s rare to even have a chance to talk with other entrepreneurs about how they hold it together. And one of the best parts of this, this whole interview was just hearing the story honestly, of how they struggled about how hard it was on their, their marriage, about their kids, about even being separated for a while. Like that it’s that, that permission to know that it’s okay. And that permission to hear that marriage is hard. Like a great marriage is takes a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
It’s very, very difficult because because life is difficult and kids are difficult and building businesses and doing meaningful and significant things in the world is difficult. And so to just have that opportunity to, to talk with her and hear some of their story from some people who are, you know, had a chance to walk this path a little longer than we have was, was super inspiring and, and, and helpful for me in an extremely practical way. And I’m, I’m gonna share with you, like, I would say these are three of maybe the most intimate things that I’ve ever shared in a recap, because marriage is intimate, right. And, and you know, my, my life priorities are, are, are, are very clear, right? It’s like, it is God, then it is AJ. Then it is the kids. And then it, then, you know, it is family and then it is work like that is the order of, of the priorities in my life.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And so, you know, this is, this is intimate stuff talking about, you know, marriage. So the first, my first big takeaway was around vulnerability. Now I have to tell you, and maybe you have this response too, but when I hear the word vulnerability, like it’s been thrown around so much in the last few years that there’s a little bit of me that kind of wants to gag, like, oh, you know, more like, here we go again, like vulnerability, you know? And, and like, what even does that mean vulnerability? And, and it’s just, it’s just becomes this word that people like use so much, but I love the way that Kathryn described it in such a practical nature. Right. And, and this, this is what I wrote down at least. And like when I was reviewing my notes and I guess I’ve just never heard it shared in such a simple way.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
And that hit me as really powerful. And this is the way that she described it. She said, vulnerability is simple. It’s simply sharing what you are, feeling, sharing what you are feeling. And that really hit me hard because it’s like, oh, okay, now I get why it’s so hard, right? Because telling someone how you are feeling is risky. It’s, there’s, it is intimate because it’s, it’s risky. It’s giving you access into something that nobody else knows, except for me. Right? Like, you know, you, you can see how a person looks, you can know about what a person does, but in order to know what somebody’s feeling there is this invitation for you to come inside my, my mind inside my heart and inside my body and, and really know what’s going on. And it’s, and it’s risky because that’s, that’s a very private, and it’s also sort of scary to think that someone else might judge me for the way I’m feeling.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
They might, they, they, they might not agree with how I’m feeling. They, they might think I’m wrong for feeling the way that I am. And also there is also a risk that I might offend another person by telling them how I’m feeling that I might hurt them. I might anger them. I might push them away by sharing how I am feeling. And, and that’s the risk of vulnerability, but that’s the power in vulnerability. It is, it is intimacy. It is into you. I see, right? Like that is, is like the meaning of the word into you. I see giving me access into how you’re feeling, giving you access into how I’m feeling. And if there is one relationship on this earth that you must be able to do that with, it must be your spouse. It has to be like it has to be the person because that’s the person you’re doing life with all of the highs, all of the lows, all of the challenges, the obstacles, the difficulties, as well as the wins, the celebrations, the ambitions, the dreams, all of those things are shared most closely.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
And in most proximity with your spouse, it doesn’t matter how close you are to your, your, your best friend or to your other family members. It is, it is your spouse that you’re walking most closely with. And if you are not able to share how you are feeling then with that person, then who else are you able to do that with? And, and, and how lonely, how lonely to go through life, not having that opportunity and yet terrifying to do it, scary to do it, gut wrenching, you know, to, to, to, to take that risk. But that is marriage, right? It is, it is this choice, this one relationship that you choose to say, I’m gonna go there with you. I’m gonna, I’m gonna give you access into every part of my life into how I live and how I sleep and what I wear and what I say and what I do and how I spend my money and, and what I say about other people and what I think, and also how I feel.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And so there, that was powerful for me. I don’t know why it was just something about the way that Kathryn said it. That was like, that’s so actionable and so practical, right? Share how you are feeling, share what you are feeling that was like, oh, I get it. Like, I really, I really, really, I really get it. And I think part of the risk here for me was, or not the risk, but another, another part of this that was, was an insight for me, was allowing other people to share how they’re feeling with you without getting defensive. And I think if there’s a place that I have failed in my marriage, it’s been here. I don’t think I have done a great job in my, you know, now 12 years of, of marriage with AJ giving her a space and a place and an opportunity to share how she is feeling without her having to be worried about me, judging it, commenting on it, correcting it.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I mean, I, I actually think, I, I really only learned of this term gas lighting here fairly recently. And I think that I have done that a lot to AJ, more than anybody, which is that I’ve tried to convince her to feel a different way. I’ve tried to tell her why her feelings are, are wrong, or why maybe she isn’t viewing things. Right. And that I think has probably been the single biggest gap in our marriage, right? Like that there’s, there’s many things that I do wrong, but in a real significant way, in, in a, in a way that’s really risk risky of, of, you know, what has caused real damage, that would be something that I would look back to and go, man. I hope my boys one day for their wives would give them a safer space to share their feelings with, with their wife than I have with AJ.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
And that’s a hard, that’s a hard thing to admit, but also something that I’m very grateful for that I’ve gotten that clarity. And, and, you know, I, I think that that’s been a journey that we’ve, we’ve, we’ve been on for some of you that, you know, have known us for years and years who have followed us, like you know, we went through a hard time, pretty hard time, few years ago. And I think I was trying to convince AJ about certain things that she should feel. And, and she turned out to be right. I was the one that was wrong. And that just makes it harder. But anyways, I think the practical point for all of us is share what we are feeling and allow someone else to share what they are feeling without judgment, without correction, without coaching, without, you know, alt altering.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
And I think, you know, the natural coach in me, I think that, you know, looking back would be, is probably one of the things that’s probably had to be most difficult for AJ being, being, being married to me and you know, something I’m embarrassed about and, and ashamed of, and but grateful to have been, become aware of it here, especially in like the last couple years. And so that was power. I mean, like that’s a life changing moment, right? Like life changing moment. And Katherine, you know, just sort of sharpened that, that for me with a lot of clarity. So that was, that was really huge. The second big takeaway for me, and this helped me a lot when Kathryn said it, because I feel this way, like, I, I feel this way where she said, look, ultimately the workload is not going to change.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Ultimately it falls on mom. Like mom has to figure it out because she is the ultimate decision maker on everything related to the kids. And so there is just an imbalance of workload as it relates to children. Like even though I try to do as much as I can do, like I try to go, how can I be useful, AJ? Like, how can I help? What, what, what can I do to support here at the end of the day, there’s an imbalance of the workload in raising the kids. At least it is in the Vaden household. And, and I don’t think it’s cuz I’m a lazy dad. I’m certainly not like an absent dad. Like the, you know, I grew up without a father, a father for, you know, the first 10 years of my life. So I, I didn’t have much to model, but like I’m here and I’m trying, and yet it’s difficult.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Like raising, like having kids has been very hard, not because there’s anything wrong with our kids. They’re beautiful. They’re amazing. They’re, they’re perfect. It’s because of my own self-centeredness and not being used to having to modify every, every single part of my life to, to make an allowance for somebody else’s needs to come first. Right. Like marriage is one level of that. Kids is a whole nother level. And so I think, you know, I’ve I’ve, and then I struggle with that being like, man, AJ’s just, she’s just carrying the workload here and it feels unfair. And so there was something about when Kathryn was like, yeah, that is how it is. I don’t know. Just the, the way that her sort of, matter of fact tone it, it, in, in a way gave me permission to not feel wrong and to not feel bad, which I think I was looking, I, I guess, deep down looking for, because it was just like, no, that that is how it is. And then yet going, and, and then, and then what is my role like then, then what can I do? And this is what she said, and I have to tell you, like, it’s this for the last several weeks I have been thinking about this on a regular basis is, is Kathryn said again, so practical, like so profound, but so practical. She said, Rory, if you go back and listen to the interview, she said, all you, I, if there’s one thing you can do, just acknowledge to a J for a J how hard it is.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
And I was like, oh man, that’s so good. That’s so simple. That’s so doable. And why haven’t I done a better job of that? Right. Like I think, you know, my default is to be defensive is, is, is, is to go, well, yeah, you’re doing all this, but, but I’m also doing this. Right. And I am, and it’s like very difficult for me. Like, I’m going, like, I’m over here dying to myself. And I’m, that’s been a difficult journey for me, especially somebody who’s like this self-motivated independent, ambitious achiever, my whole life. Like pre-marriage, it was just like, I just ran a sprint and then, you know, marriage was like, oh, okay. Like now, but now it was more like I had a partner and then kids came and it was like, whoa, like this yanked my whole universe. But, but you know, I, I tend to be more of like, well, yeah, but I’m doing this and yeah, but I’m doing that.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
And for Kathryn to just so clearly, and so simply say, just acknowledge for AJ how hard it is that has been so helpful for me. And so practical. And frankly, it’s been transformational for our marriage in a, in a matter of a few weeks. So both kind of acknowledging in that receive, receiving that, being okay with it, not making myself wrong for it and not feeling like I have to justify the imbalance, but just acknowledge the imbalance. What a, what a release of pressure from me. And apparently exactly. Kathryn’s exactly right. I feel like I should send Kathryn a check for some marriage counseling, cuz that’s what I got like on this episode. Like if you didn’t listen to this interview, like if you were struggling in your marriage at all, or if you ever have, or you know, someone who is, which we all do, like listen to this episode just, and then just acknowledge how hard it is.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
And I think that extends beyond marriage and beyond parenting, right? Specifically, this is like a parenting piece of the conversation, but like what a gift to anyone in their life to just acknowledge how hard it is, acknowledge how hard it is, acknowledge how difficult it is or what they’re going through. Like take a second to go. I see you. I, I support you. I, I, I, I, I, I am aware of what you’re doing and, and you know, I just wanna let you know that I see you. And I think so many people just wanna be seen. They just wanna go, man, does this matter? Is anyone even noticing? And, and what an, what a simple practical thing to be able to do to acknowledge how difficult this is? Honestly, I think that’s one of the biggest things that our members, you know, the people who, who become members at brand builders group, we have now almost 400 of them.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Right. And we see them several of them every month at our events. And you know, and the virtual trainings and stuff is like, they get, they get behind the scenes and we’re showing ’em behind the scenes of, of, you know, how we do things and all these things we learn with all the personal brands we, we work with and all this stuff. And they go, oh man, this is hard. Like, it’s not easy. It’s so difficult. But there is a system and there is, is a process. So who in your life can you do this for today? Who in your life can you acknowledge? And just say, Hey, you’re hand, you’re carrying a ton. And I just want you to know, like, I see it. You’re doing so much. Thank you for how much you’re doing. It’s, it’s so much, it’s so hard and you’re doing it like a champ.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
My guess is there’s somebody in your life. You need to say that to right. Maybe yourself, maybe yourself and, and definitely somebody else. And then the third, the third part of this you know, when Kathryn was sharing the story about them being separated, which I was like kind of shocked that she was just, you know, here she is just sort of openly telling, tell, you know, it’s like between me and you, Kathryn, and you know, a, yeah. A few million podcast listeners.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
God, we invite you into our lives. And I don’t know where you’re at on your spiritual journey or what you think and all that, right? Like I’m not a pastor, but is there a place in your life right now that you might need to invite God into? And here’s the hint, it’s the place where everything’s fallen apart. It’s the place where you’ve tried everything and nothing works. It’s the place where you’re most frustrated. You have the most despair. You, you are, you are the most exhausted. The most discouraged, the most beat up the most beat down the most, the closest to giving up. Where in your life are you the closest to giving up? Where in your life are you ready to throw in the towel? Are you ready to quit? Are you at the end of your rope? Are you struggling? Are you mad? Are you frustrating? Are you said like where in your life is that that is where you want to invite God into.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And look, there’s a whole lot of discussion around, you know, historical accuracy and evidence for God. But I’m telling you in my life clearly in Kathryn’s life, in the life of the people that I know the best, the proof of God is to invite God into your darkest moments. Invite God into your darkest places. Invite God into your deepest struggles. Invite God into your greatest concerns. Invite God into your greatest worries. Invite God in, invite him in invite him. And look, if you, if you’re really struggling spiritually and you go, I don’t even know if there is God I’ve been there. Like I been there, I’ve been there many times. Here’s the good thing about God. God’s not afraid of being questions. God is not afraid of being challenged like that. Doesn’t intimidate God whatsoever. And I would say, invite him in and, and see if he shows up, invite him in and see if you feel his presence, invite him in and see if something, something happens, invite him in and see if something changes. But if you’re struggling, if you’re defeated, if you’re wounded, if you’re hurt, if you’re angry, if you’re sad, if you are experiencing sorrow, if you’re feeling lost and you don’t invite him in you’re on your own, not because of him because of you, because that’s a choice that’s you are making with your life. That’s not his decision, that’s yours. So if you are not sure, if he’s there, ask him, invite him and see if he shows up. And I will tell you, he never has. Not. For me.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
He never has not for AJ. He never has not for many of the people that I love most dearly in my life that I, I have the most intimate relationships with that. I know the best personally. He often shows up in ways that are different than we expect, but he never doesn’t show up, but you have to invite him in. He, he doesn’t just come breaking down the walls. Like you have to invite him in. There is no obedience. Otherwise there is no demonstration of faith otherwise, right? If he just forces himself upon you, then there’s, that’s not, there’s not belief. There’s not relationship. Right? You have to invite him, invite him in. So where in your life do you need to do these things? Who in your life do you need to share what you’re feeling with? Who in your life do you have to acknowledge and speak and see and tell them that you see how hard it is that what they’re going through and where in your life do you need to invite God in? That’s it for this week’s edition of the influential personal brand podcast. I love you. We’ll catch you next time. Bye. Bye.
Ep 296: Methods for a Better Marriage with Kathryn Gordon
RV (00:02):
What an absolute honor to get to interview one of our best friends. Kathryn Gordon first, and, and foremost is a, is become a really close friend of my wife, AJ Vaden. Of course, our CEO, my business partner. They have quickly become close friends. I have been close friends with her husband, John Gordon for years. And Catherine is extraordinary. So she is a mother. She’s a business woman. She’s a movie producer, she’s the best selling author of a book called relationship grit. And she’s the host of a podcast called Catherine for real podcast. As she won AJ over just kind of with like her spirit of honesty and authenticity and transparency and it just makes me so, so happy. And so John has been a mentor of mine for years. Obviously him and Catherine have been together for a very long time. They’ve built this whole business where they built John’s personal brand. They built an amazing family and then they built they launched a book together and now Catherine has been really developing her own personal brand here recently. And so we just wanna hear about that journey and basically I thought I could get some free relationship and marriage advice from Catherine Gordon to better understand my wife. And so anyways, Catherine, welcome to the show.
KG (01:28):
Oh Rory, thank you so much for having me. I love AJ. It’s like, it’s been an honor just to work with her recently trying to help me figure out my brand, but I love her as a human being. She is so authentic and so real and I just, you guys are both awesome and John of course thinks the world of you. So thanks for having me on.
RV (01:52):
Yeah. Well, thank you. So one of the, one of the things that doesn’t happen that often is finding entrepreneur couples, where they both work in the business, like both in inside of personal branding, where they both have personal brands. And I think, you know, that’s something that we have done and there’s a few others. Sometimes they’ll work together and, and one person has more of the personal brand and the other person is more like kind of behind the scenes, but you and John both have these external facing these great personal brands, you wrote the book together. And so I, I thought we would start with the book. So relationship grit comes out. It’s a best seller. You guys did this. So tell me about that book. Why did you write that book? And let’s kind of start, start with what that’s all about.
KG (02:50):
All right. So, you know, it’s funny because you were talking about couples having their own personal brand and early on when John was just starting. Well, we actually started or started with a FRA franchise called Mo Southwest grill and we brought it down to Florida and we worked side by side. John was in the restaurant doing his thing and I would, would be at home the waiting for the kids to get off the bus, but also doing the bookkeeping and payroll. And, you know, John would come home. I was trying to book him to speak while we were running this restaurant, cuz he really wanted to, you know, get out there and start speaking. And he would come home after I had done like 45 things and he would ask me if I had done the 46 thing. So I wanted to kill him.
KG (03:40):
So it wasn’t always that we did this together. Okay. It was so funny because you know, one night after he had done this, he actually, you know, wanted to be, my husband like wanted to be intimate. I’m like, I don’t even like you. And he said, I think I might need to fire you. I think you, and I thought that’s a good idea. So, you know, we kind of rode this wave and, and, and John Rose up in the speaking. And then once I had raised our children, we had raised our children. I started to run into women at the grocery store or, you know, at the shopping mall and they would just open up to me and complain or pine or tell me, you know, things that were going on in their own marriage. And several of them were, were headed for divorce.
KG (04:33):
And the more I started talking to them, the more I realized I started to see a pattern. And it, it was really simple things because the one question I seemed to always ask when these women would, would tell me what was going on was, have you shared that with him? Did you communicate with that with him and nine times outta 10? No. And so I was really shocked to find that so many couples are married, but they don’t communicate. So I went home to John and the more I started talking about this, I said, I really feel like we need to write a book because our book is not a book about, oh my gosh, look at us. Our marriage is so great. Look what we did. Here’s all the great things about our marriage. Our book is about here is what we went through.
KG (05:25):
We went through the trenches. I mean, we went through some really, really hard times. I was very, very sick early on. There was some infidelity, there’s been some substance abuse. I mean, we’ve really ran the gamut. And so I really felt like if we could, if we could, if we could make it, anybody could. And so I wanted to write this book to, to try and save marriages. And so in the book, the way we wrote it, and even the way we wrote, it’s very symbiotic of our relationship. I would sit down and write a chapter and, and, and get up. John would sit down, edit what I wrote and then write his own and vice versa. I’d edit him and he’d edit me. But it was a back and forth. Our book is a back and forth. It’s the it’s Catherine said and it’s John said. And so that was the reason we, we wanted to write this book and it was, I think no coincidence that it ended up coming out right before the pandemic, because I have to tell you, there were times during the pandemic, John Gordon was home 24 hours a
RV (06:36):
KG (06:37):
Now listen, Laurie.
RV (06:39):
After years of being gone. Yes.
KG (06:41):
For, for the year before he had done 85 speaking engagements on the road, all of a sudden he was like, literally with me nonstop. So definitely there were times we had to open up the book and, and take some of our own advice.
RV (06:56):
RV (08:12):
And how are we saving for the kids? This are we’re going on vacation. We need a new car and da, da, da, da. And then it’s like, you get to the end of the day. And you’re like, I’m exhausted. Like, I, I don’t wanna think, I, I, I can’t think like I don’t, I don’t have anything left. And so you go by the time the kids go to sleep and everything is quiet and you’ve eaten dinner and you’ve cleaned up and it’s like, you got, you got nothing left. So is that kind of what y’all were going through? Cuz I I’m describing, I’m not describing my life. I’m describing other people’s lives, but I’ve heard that other people have this, this scenario.
KG (08:47):
Well, Rory, you just described our life. I mean, yes, it was, it was hard. And so what I tell couples, because I actually hear exactly what you just said all the time. We all, I think struggle with that to one degree or another. I think at the end of the day, you need to realize that you’re a team and it’s it’s we, not me. What are the things that we found that was, was really helpful for us is going the extra mile. It’s that little thing. And trust me, John would come in, he had been traveling nonstop. I wanted to pounce on him to rather share, you know, a good or bad situation with one of our kids. So I had to figure out, you know what, I need to give John this buffer zone. And so we need to give each other buffer zones.
KG (09:41):
And then after that, really, even though what you really wanna do is look after yourself, try to give a little bit of time what, whatever it is, you know, go out and help, help your wife unload the groceries. Just really try to, to, to give, even though you feel like you’re, you’re about, you know, you’ve, you’ve reached your limit. What we started to find John’s word one year was oh my gosh, I gotta make sure I say it, say it right. It was serve. And it was the best year of my life.
KG (10:40):
And that’s the last thing John wanted to do, but he did it. And I gotta tell you by the end of that year and it wasn’t just him giving, of course it was me and F you know, whatever we needed at the time. Mm-Hmm
RV (11:23):
Yeah. That it’s, it’s also a, it’s also shockingly scary how quickly you can turn against each other. Mm-Hmm
KG (12:11):
I think it’s different things they’re not communicating, but just in general, just say let me give you an example. Well, I’m trying to think a girlfriend the other day was just saying something she’s home. She’s taking care of the kids. Mm-Hmm
RV (13:48):
John, let me, let me tell you, I know I have figured out through an, an unfortunate repeated occurrence of doing this at the wrong time. I know one time you should not communicate you should not give feedback to your spouse in response to them giving feedback to you.
KG (14:36):
A hundred percent? It’s funny you say that John Gordon used to do the same thing. And with us, it used to be really more related to the kids. Also, you know, where, you know, I’d say, well, he’d say, well, you really need to be doing this. Or, you know, and I’d say, well, you need to be doing this. Yeah. That doesn’t serve anybody. So you’re right.
RV (15:50):
I wanna ask you about the little kids, right? So Jasper just turned five. Our oldest and then Liam is a, a, just a couple months here, away from being three. And I was having this conversation with a friend because I’m like these last few years with kids have been some of the most beautiful and fun and joyous. And also for me personally, probably the most difficult years that I’ve ever had. And I was telling them, like, not only is it kids, we also are in year four of a startup. And we already did this once before, like we already went through the pains of a startup once and we’re having to do it again. And then we had COVID and then it’s like in the middle of COVID. And like, when it, with the kids specifically, like in my mind, I have a little bit of a proof of concept with COVID because, you know, when we were building our first business, we started in 2006, but sort of the height of it really happened around 2008, 2010.
RV (16:56):
And that was right in the middle of the GE C the global economic crisis, like the mortgage, you know, all of the mortgages collapsed and all that stuff. And, you know, it was like, that was a, a hard season, but we came out of it and we came out of it really strong. We’ve also had the startup thing before with children. People say it gets easier over time. So like, I know that it gets easier with the business, like a little bit. But is if someone has young kids right now, is that really true? I mean, like, do you really think, Hey, those early years are different or is it always kind of just, this is just the new normal
KG (17:35):
Mm-Hmm
RV (18:19):
I’ve not heard, I’ve not heard that one before.
KG (18:21):
RV (19:21):
It’s
KG (19:21):
Relationship, grit, book.com. And there’s an action plan in there.
RV (19:27):
I just texted her that question. So I’m gonna see what she says. Yeah.
KG (19:35):
Yeah. But I’ll tell you yeah.
RV (19:37):
Relation, sorry. Relationship grit,
KG (19:40):
Relationship grit, book,
RV (19:44):
Book.Com.Com. Okay. Yeah, we’ll put it.
KG (19:46):
I have to make sure and ask Daniel if it’s back slash action plan, but
RV (19:51):
Yeah. Daniel Decker, didn’t you meet Daniel Decker at most. Isn’t that how you guys met back to Mo that was,
KG (19:56):
Can you believe this was so long ago? I mean, this was 21 years ago that these guys have been together ride in this energy bus wave that they’ve done. Yeah, I think so. I think he brought his kids in for kitty, the clown night.
RV (20:17):
Well, I I’ll, I, I love that. Shout out to Daniel Decker. I’m we’ve been working closely together on ed by let’s book launch. So I’ve got to know, know him a lot more here recently, but the, okay, so you gotta find ways to communicate. So, so this is the hardest times, little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems. That makes, makes sense. When does it start to turn? Like what you say that like with kids, Hey, these are the, the hardest times like, cuz I think what makes it so hard is like, I never knew how self-centered I was until I had kids. Like even when I, we got married, I realized, oh, like I’m, you know, I’ve never had to worry about anyone else, but me, but, but when we had kids, it went to a whole nother level where it’s like, I don’t get to sleep.
RV (21:04):
I don’t get to eat. I don’t get to go to the bathroom alone. Like I don’t get to read a book on the weekend. I don’t get to lay on the beach. Like the beach is not a relaxing experience whatsoever with children. Like it, it is, it is the weekends. I’m more physically exhausted on the weekends than I am during the week. And also the battle of, you know, having toddlers and like just trying to communicate with them. So at some point that starts to turn and that’s encouraging to me to hear you say like, look, these are the toughest times. If you can get through this as a team, like you’ll make it through anything. What is that? I kind of feel like that’s happened with Jasper at like four or five years old. It kind of feels like it’s starting to turn the corner a bit.
KG (21:49):
Yeah. You know, I gotta tell you those when they were little. Woo. I’ll never forget a life changing moment for me was the day I was able to sit in the, at the beach in a chair and not have to run after the kids in the water. You know, I, there were little milestones where I’m like, oh my gosh, I can actually sit here. So yes, it just continually continually will improve. But like I said, you know, then you’ll start doing, if they’re in sports, it’s who’s gonna drive them. And the other thing I wanna say, Rory is, you know, you’re two professionals, so you and AJ are both, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re running this company and I have found, I’m gonna say this for the women in general. And I understand why, but a lot more does fall on the mom. It does.
KG (22:44):
It does, even though John was very involved with the kids in a lot of ways, ultimately it’s mom. And so it’s about having that grace for mom. And I always tell this story too. I think it’s really important to compliment, you know, your spouse and just lift them up. So I tell this story that one year when we were really in it, like I, like I say, it was very stressful. John was traveling all the times time. Both the kids were in elite sports and I was traveling all over the place, my kids and I have celiac disease. So we can’t just go to a drive through a McDonald’s and eat. I had to prepare
RV (23:30):
All of you have Celiac’s disease. Yeah.
KG (23:34):
Yeah. Whoa.
RV (23:35):
So
KG (23:35):
It was, it was really hard and I will never forget one day John coming in and he, he was getting ready to head out, you know, on another flight. And he was, had this suit on, he was all clean. He looked so handsome and Rory, I, my hair was disheveled. I’m, you know, trying to get the kids lunches. And I looked over at him and I wanted to cut him down so bad, but I didn’t, I, I, right then I realized it’s because I, I felt bad about myself, but I just thought, you know what? I turned, I looked at him. I said, you look so handsome in that suit and just complimented his face, just lit up. And I, I made a decision from that point on that I was going to compliment him and lift him up Mo at most, when I was feeling the lowest and just do this little test for myself and I’m gotta tell you, it really changed things for me. And so now I always tell couple couples compliment each other. You know, even though you probably wanna kill ’em compliment, ’em, you’ll be surprised how it changes the energy and the dynamic in your relationship together. Yeah. So Rory, you gotta stick it out. You gotta stick it out. It’s hard during these times. So like I said, one of the things is when, when, when they get outta diapers, that’s a big one is Japer outta diapers is Japer your youngest.
RV (25:04):
Liam is our youngest and, and he is out of diapers right now. We happen to be in overnight potty training. So we are waking up, he potty training in the middle of, so during the day, like, it’s, it is mostly he’s good, but we have to get up in the middle of the night to take him to the bathroom and sometimes, you know, change the sheets and all that stuff. But mostly if we wake up in the middle of the night, he’s fine. So like, we’re, we’re getting closer to that. The other thing is like, we went to a hockey game the other night and it was, it was, we got to watch like two thirds of the game before they started going crazy and running around the hallways. But it was like, oh, we’re almost, we can almost watch a whole movie. We can almost watch a whole game.
RV (25:45):
But you know, you, you, I wanna ask you this, Catherine, you mentioned the grace part cuz cuz yeah, it’s been hard on me. Mm-Hmm
KG (26:53):
RV (26:54):
So, so anyways, I, I say all that to say this, you mentioned, you know, give mom grace mm-hmm
KG (27:34):
I, I can’t tell you how many times I would be on the phone at night and you know, you know, complaining dumping on John. And then I’d say, let me guess you’ve got the TV on and you can watch whatever you want right now. Right. I mean, it was hard. I
RV (27:51):
Think. How do we support our wives better in that, in that season?
KG (27:55):
I think exactly by what you just said, supporting your wives, meaning saying exactly the things that you’re saying to me right now and acknowledging to AJ, AJ, I know this is hard for you, you know, I know and acknowledging sometimes, and I’m, I can share this about John and I, John would almost wanna play it down because he, he was almost afraid if he really acknowledged how hard it was that it was gonna somehow change what he was doing. Does that make sense until he realized by actually acknowledging how hard it was for me and asking me, how can I support you? It, it really helped us. And then it didn’t make me look over at him with such, you know, resentment. I was able to, I felt acknowledged. I felt appreciated. Right? And then at the end of the day, I had to say to myself, of course I love my kids.
KG (28:56):
This is what I wanna do for my kids. So it kind of changed, you know, it’s the thing that John always says, like it’s the, the, the get to versus the have to, but it’s the same thing. You know, it kind of changed my paradigm to say, I get to do this, but let me tell you when, when, when you’re getting beaten down, you know, as I think moms do more than, but I hear what you’re saying. When you say Rory, I mean, it’s hard for both of you, but yeah. I think you need to support her number one, by just acknowledging that it is hard
RV (29:29):
And that yeah. I,
KG (29:30):
And that you see her
RV (29:31):
And it’s like the, the, the, the, the dads, at least I could tell her to, let me just speak for myself, but we get beat down too. The difference is we get a break in between the action. Like mom gets no break. It, it is nonstop even in the middle of the night, even if the kids are fine, she’s still waking up, worrying about them and like getting up and having to like, deal with stuff like the laundry, what they’re gonna wear, like whatever, having a, having a fit. You know, I, I think you know, that is, that is helpful about just going, Hey, acknowledge what I hear you saying is just going, like, acknowledge that it’s difficult because it’s, it’s not, it’s not so much that she wants you to do it. She just wants someone to see that she’s doing it.
KG (30:20):
Yeah. It’s not gonna change tho that workload is not gonna change. I mean, yes, you can hire different things, but ultimately it is mom. I mean, it is, mom is, is gonna figure it all out, but it’s really about acknowledging how hard it is. And then how can I support you now? I’m gonna tell you, I encourage couples. If you do have a hard time communicating, if you are hitting a brick wall in some area, there’s nothing wrong with getting some outside help. Sometimes it does take somebody outside of the relationship to coach, you know, coach and help get, get you all to a place of where, you know, you’re, you’re operating smoothly, cuz sometimes, you know, maybe you are so beaten down or, you know, you’re not able to hear it. You’re too defensive. Right. You’ve got the point where you’re, you’re too defensive. So in that case, you know, I highly recommend some coaching or some therapy
RV (31:24):
Mm-Hmm
KG (31:24):
RV (31:36):
Yeah, no, I, I love that. It’s I think it’s super helpful to, for people just almost as a permission thing to be like, Hey, it doesn’t mean you’re failing or that you screwed up or that there’s something wrong with you to get outside. Help. I also love what Jack Canfield says where he says if you do it before, there’s, if you do it before like before there’s an explosion, it’s called coaching. If you do it after there’s an explosion, it’s called therapy, but they’re the same thing. And if you, you know, you probably want to catch it on the front end as much as you can to avoid the it avoid the, the big explosion. Yeah. Kathryn, I love this. This has been so, so helpful. I have one, one last question I wanna ask you before that, where again, where should people go to find you and connect up with what you’re doing and like all, all of this stuff that you’re working on in your personal brand these days? Well,
KG (32:31):
And I also have a podcast called Catherine for real. And you can hear that on Spotify or apple. And my podcast is basically me interviewing people and I’m, I’m getting real. And AJ, your one wonderful wife has really helped me to, to, to clarify more of what I want to give and the type of people I wanna interview going forward. So check that out, Katherine, for real, and you can reach [email protected]. That’s my website. And on the website, you can access my my podcast. You can find me on Instagram, through there at Katherine Gordon. You can email me to reach out and there’s a link to order my book. And I’m gonna tell you something, I’m not just saying this because I wrote the book. I promise you read my book. It’s a quick, easy read, you know, follow the tips in the back, John and I both give 11 tips each on ways to improve your marriage and do the action plan. I, I get so many testimonials all the time from people to tell me it, it saved their marriage. So I’m, I’m not just saying that. I really believe it. If you, if you can, can check that out, read the book. I think it will help. So Rory, I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be questioning you. I want you to know that
RV (33:57):
I love it. I love it. So we’ll put links up to Kathryn for real.com. The relationship grit book, the Kathryn for real podcast will link all that in the show notes for y’all. Last question for you, Kathryn. You know, like I think of my mom who was a single mom, which is insane. I mean, she had two of us, two of us that were five years, two boys, five years apart. And how many times she must have felt unseen and like having to, you know, forego her personal dreams and visions and freedom and re relaxation. And now watching AJ do that as a mother, hearing your story. Like I just, I have a, a heartbreak for women who are doing so much and feeling so unseen mm-hmm
KG (35:03):
Mm, well, first I’d say pray, right? I really feel like my prayers and my connection with God has helped me a lot in trying to kind of pulls me outta myself and gives me some perspective. But the other thing I’m gonna say is, is nothing is forever and nothing is permanent. And remembering your why, you know, at the end of the day with my kids, when I would, you know, was running them around and you know, they were playing all these sports and I would, you know, sometimes get resentful. I started to realize like, you know what, I didn’t grow up having a, I had two alcoholic parents that had no interest in anything I was doing, and this was something I wanted to give back to my kids. And so I need to be doing that with love and knowing that one day they’re gonna grow up and one day I won’t have to do that. And so nothing’s permanent. Remember your why and pray?
RV (36:06):
I love it. Katherine Gordon, my friends, you see why we love her so much and make sure you follow her online and go check out her website and everything. Katherine, thank you so much. We wish you all the best. We’re praying for you and John and we’re excited to we’ll see you soon.
KG (36:23):
Thank you, Rory. Thanks for having me.
Ep 281: The Power of One More with Ed Mylett | Recap Episode
RV (00:03):
Wow. That conversation with Ed Mylett man, I am humbled. I don’t know if you picked it up, but the, what he said about working with us and our team man, that was, that was powerful and edifying to, for him to say those things about us and, and, you know, we really feel the same way about him. I mean, ed, I, I have really gotten to know ed. I mean, we have talked on, I, I mean a daily at least once a day for the last several months, like 6, 4, 4, 4 or five months at the time of this recording, like and I really love this guy and I believe in him and that’s part of why we have lent our like you know, time and our resources and our, our, you know, strategies to be a part of it.
RV (00:56):
And what just, what an amazing guy. And, and y’all it, it’s he’s he has, is operating a level of success. That’s just extraordinary. And it, it, I wanna share with you, of course, the three, the three big highlights or takeaways from the conversation from the inter from that interview specifically some point maybe I’ll do another training. That’s just like what I’ve learned from Ed Mylet over the last several months, cuz I’ve learned a ton from him also. I’ll keep this focused on just the interview, but one of the things that, you know, I want to start with that is encouraging to me is it’s it’s encouraging to see people like, you know, I think of like, you know, ed Mylett or you know, whoever Dave Ramsey, like these, these huge, very successful influential people and to realize how much of their life has been dedicated to personal development, not just teaching, but learning, not teaching.
RV (01:53):
I mean, learning it, I’m talking about the people you probably most respect a huge portion of their time is personal development. Like this stuff actually works. I mean, this stuff actually changes lives. And, and, and these people who are changing the world are living by the, by the principles that, that we teach and talk about collectively in this industry. And that’s why brand builders group exists is we want to help mission driven messengers, get their message out to the world because the world needs it. The world is desperate for this, for this help, for this encouragement, for this education about how to live a positive life, how to be successful, how to control your thoughts, your money, your time to have better relationships, better health, have more joy and peace. And it’s, you know, it’s age old principles, but they’re delivered through new modern day messengers.
RV (02:48):
And that’s what ed is. And that’s what we believe you are. And that’s why we believe that you’re listening. And that’s, you know, it’s super fun to work with people like ed. I mean, you, you, I mean I tell you, I don’t remember what the number was when we recorded the podcast, but right now, as I’m recording this we just hit 50,000 units. Pre-Sold of Ed’s book 50,000 when we still have a week before it launches like this is a massive, I mean, this is someone, you know, literally affecting millions of people, all the, all the people he’s reaching through his own platform. Plus all the people who are promoting it, this event that we’re doing with Eric Thomas and Mel Robbins you know, Jim quick, John Gord, Marie Forley Odine Graziosi. I mean Jenna Kucher and Rob Deard deck and Maria Manos.
RV (03:38):
I mean, the list goes on Andy fr like it’s gonna be this huge event and it’s reaching all these people. But I say all that to say, he’s a student of personal development, which, which, which tells me two things and hopefully tells you two things. One, you should be a student of personal development, right? Like you may not wanna own multiple private jets and own islands like ed does. But like, you know, maybe you, you wanna have money to give away, like you wanna do something, right? Like pretty much anything big in the world takes some money like, and, and, and, and impact and reach and go, man, I’ve reached a lot of people. Well, that means there’s you’re student of personal development. And the second thing is you should be a teacher of it because the world needs you. That’s why you’re here. Right. That’s why you’re listening. There’s there’s a calling in your life. There’s a prompting saying, you’ve got some message inside of you. And if you’re not doing it, my guess is it’s because there’s a, there’s another voice which I would call the devil who immediately follows up and says, yeah, but someone already said that, but like, who would listen to you?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Who would listen to ed mylett
RV (04:44):
Five years ago, ed Mylet
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Was posted. Did you hear this story about Tony Robinson? He was posting videos of hash
RV (04:50):
Brown. So
Speaker 2 (04:51):
My gosh, that video, that story of him with Tony Robbins on his backboards, he thought Tony Robbins said, you have to use hashtags. Ed thought. He said, hash Browns. You have to post pictures of hash Browns. Are you kidding me? Like what in the world? Like that is crazy. So, you know, nobody knew who he was even like five, seven years ago. So it like,
RV (05:18):
It just, it, I don’t know. That’s inspiring to me and I, how inspiring to me and the fact that I hope it inspires you and it inspires you to go, your voice matters. Like somebody else out there needs it. It may not be millions of people. It may be 10 people. It may be one person, but like, that’s a person that’s a life. So anyways, let’s get on with the three highlights. I I’m ranting I’m ranting cuz I just moved. Ed. Ed is in powerful, powerful dude. So my three biggest takeaways from the interview with ed Mylet all right. First, first one here is his premise of this book. All right. The book’s called the power of one more. The, the event’s called max out. So we, you know, we’re helping run the, the book launch the event, you know, Ed’s following our playbook by those, by the way, those of you that are brand builders. Like I said this in the interview, but like he is following our playbook to a T he’s executing it at a bigger scale because his platform, but I mean, he is following our playbook to a T is working. This is gonna be one of the biggest book launches of this year. Like it works and, and his premise of this book is you’re a lot closer to the dream life than you think you are.
RV (06:31):
That’s a powerful thought. You’re a lot closer to the dream life than you think you are. Right? The, the, the devil, the self doubt tells you you’re far away says this impossible says, okay, that could happen for ed, but not for me. That could happen for Rory, but not for me. That could happen for Marie or whoever, but not for me. Like, and Ed’s going, no, you’re closer to it than you think you’re one decision away. You’re one, you’re one piece of knowledge away. You’re one relationship away, you know, AJ and I had this conversation and, and, and I told her, I said, I don’t know this was, this was several months ago, right? When I first met ed. And I said, babe, I don’t know. But I feel God telling me that we’re supposed to go all in on helping add my lead. This is before he is a client.
RV (07:21):
This is like, right. I first met him like before any of this is taking shape. And I don’t, you know, even by the time you hear this, like there, the, the, the, the trajectory that this is on is becoming a really massive thing that he’s doing like, and, and going, I don’t know, but I, I feel like we’re supposed to go all in on this. It’s very possible that this one relationship with ed my lead is gonna change our whole life. It certainly did with Lewis, right? Like brand builders, droop would not exist if it were not for Lewis howes inspired this business, he asked for it. And then he’s the one who said, you guys need to create this. I know a whole bunch of people who need this, and I’m gonna help you meet ’em. I’m gonna light the spark to kick this thing off one relationship.
RV (08:02):
Now you might go, I don’t know, a Lewis Howes or ed mylett. It doesn’t every, but every relationship we met, like every relationship we had led us to the next one and the next one and the next one, you’re a lot closer to the dream life than you think you are like, it’s right there. Right? One relationship away. One moment away, one big shot. 1, 1, 1 missing piece of the puzzle of, of the knowledge you need. And you go, ah, it clicks, right? I’m I’m there licks right on, on there. It might be one video post, one podcast post, like, but we just don’t know when it’s gonna happen. And people give up too soon. That’s a powerful, powerful premise. And that’s this whole thing. The power of one more is like, you’re, you’re closer than you think. So do one more. Just like, if you just keep doing that, it’s it’s in the moment, it feels like you’re behind. But over course of your life, it’s like, you’re guaranteed. It’s the success is guaranteed. Like if you follow all these principles, it’s not like that are not gonna work. Like they’ve worked, you know, for millions and hundreds of millions of people to accumulate millions and billions of dollars. Like the principles of success are timeless. They work for, I like they work. Like there’s a reason why people teach them follow them and stick with it. Second big takeaway from ed was that identity is the thermostat of your life.
RV (09:27):
What you think you’re worth is what you’re going to get. So whatever the story is that you’re telling yourself about yourself is going to continue to be the true story for you. Right? If you’re telling yourself I’m a victim, I had it harder than everybody. O O other people have pushed me down. I’m not in control of my circumstances. I have it. I have it harder than everybody else. If that’s the story you’re telling yourself, then that is your certain future. Like, that’s what he’s saying. There is like, whatever is going on in your head, the story you’re telling yourself. If you know, if you say like, I’m the, you know, I’m an overcomer, like I’m, I rise above. I figure it out. I find a way, then that is your future. Like, it’s not just your present. That is your future. That is your identity, right? If you think I’m not good enough, nobody cares about me. I’m not smart enough. I’m stupid. I don’t have what it takes. That’s your future. Not just your present, that’s your future. And if you say, man, I’m loved. I’m a child of God, God creates. And so in me is the power to create, right? That God lives in me. He created the world. Then I too have the power in me to create things with my own breath, to speak creation in into reality.
RV (10:55):
Then that’s your future. So what is the story you’re telling yourself about yourself? You’ll never exceed your identity. You have to grow your identity. And I love how open that ed is about Jesus. Not that you know, you have to be believe in Jesus to be successful. There’s lots of successful people who don’t believe in Jesus. Ed happens to believe in Jesus. I happen to believe in Jesus, but what matters is even people who believe in Jesus, like what he was saying is they go to, they go to church on Sunday and they go, yeah, I believe in God. And then they go out in the, we work weekend, go, ah, I don’t, I don’t have what it takes. And it’s like, no, no. Like if, if you following scripture saying, God is in you, right? Like the holy spirit is with you inside of you, you have the ability to create, to make, to multiply.
RV (11:41):
And he and ed believes that like, he believes that about himself, which what’s funny is like, whether, whether it’s true or not, it’s true. Like it became true. Like whether it’s true or not, it becomes true because it is the story that you’re telling yourself. And, and, and, and if you stumble across success, if you happen to get to lucky break, you happen to get a big moment. But your identity is at odds with it. Then you’ll, you’ll turn the air conditioner on in terms of your thermostat. And, and you’ll, you’ll, you know, you’ll start heating up and getting success. And you’ll cool yourself off. You’ll self sabotage because that’s your identity. Your identity will say, ah, that was just luck. I didn’t deserve that. That lucky break. Right? Couldn’t do it again. Right. Anybody could do it once. Can’t do it twice. Like you’ll self sabotage.
RV (12:24):
And that’s why he’s saying like, you gotta understand your identity. You gotta rewrite your identity. You gotta be mindful of the story. You’re telling yourself about yourself. That’s what’s gonna change your life. And, and here’s, what’s crazy is like, whatever is your present story is your future story. But also whatever is your present self is your past story. Like in many ways, like mostly, I mean, there are circumstances, right? There are some things that happen to people that are unavoidable. Like I’m not, I’m not suggesting that you are making the horrible, every horrible thing that has happened in your life. But, but there is some truth to that to go, who I am today is in part the result of the story I’ve been telling myself about who I have been in the past and who I will become tomorrow is largely in part affected by the story. I tell myself today about who I am today.
RV (13:22):
And if you wanna change your life, rewrite your story. If you wanna change your life, rewrite your story. And then the third big takeaway from that conversation with ed for me, was just sort of the, the profound thought of, you know, this idea of one more, like, what if this is my last conversation, right? Like what if, what if this is, what if this is my last podcast? Like, what if this is the last podcast recap I ever do? What if this is the last, tonight’s the last date night I have with my wife? What is, what if, what if this is? What if this is my last shot to introduce myself to somebody who, you know, has the knowledge and the relationship to change in my life? What if this is my last shot to learn from somebody? Like, what if this is? What if this is my last shot?
RV (14:13):
Like, what if this is it? What if this is my last day? Am I living with it going like, man, what if, what if this is it? What if this is my last, my last moment? Am I capitalizing? Am I maximizing it? Am I even appreciating in a small minuscule percentage of how I would, if it were my last, because it could be our last, it could be my last, it could be your last, we don’t know. And this idea, the power, one more is going, look, I should be grateful because I got one more. I have one more day. I got one more breath. I got one more. I got at least one more podcast episode of me. I got one more, one more chance to meet somebody. I got one more opportunity to change somebody’s life. And if there’s a calling on your heart to go out and serve somebody and help them, it might be because there’s at least one more person out there
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Who still needs you
RV (15:07):
One more. And what if this is our last chance we would view it differently. We, we would think about it differently. We would act differently and, and we would be more grateful. I, I think I would, I would be more grateful. I’d be more thankful. I’d be more precise. I’d be more deliberate. I’d be more intentional. I, I I’d, I’d put more in, you can do that. You can do that sooner or later. That’s gonna be true. We don’t know when. So you might as well enjoy the richness and the fullness of life that is available to you right now by treating everyone as if it’s your last and just being grateful for the power of one more. So by Ed’s book everybody else’s,
RV (16:13):
I mean, it’s like you reminds me of the early days when I was learning from Zig Ziegler and like, man, this is an amazing, this is an amazing person. This is a world changer. You know, like a lot of our clients, I feel that way about Lewis. I’m like, man, this guy’s a world changer. Like that’s that powerful stuff. And we have other clients, some of them can’t tell you who they are, but like, I’ll go, man. They’re amazing. And all of our clients, I go to our events. Every time I go to one of our brand builders group events, I’m
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Like, gosh, I you’re amazing. You, people are amazing. You have so much more working for you than I did. Like you have so much more working for you than so many of the people that I have seen be successful in this industry that I’ve seen impact millions of lives. Like you have so much more going for you where you are at now than when, where they did when they were, where you are, but they, they, the difference is just
RV (17:09):
Believing it and telling yourself the story that it’s
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Possible instead of telling yourself the story that it’s not possible.
RV (17:24):
So I hope that this podcast and that brand builders group and that my life and AJ’s life and our team and our family and our kids, I hope this is a place you continue to hang out in because I hope we’re a people who help you believe what’s possible for you. I hope that everything you experience from us and our family and our team
Speaker 3 (17:48):
And our community helps you write the story that you were meant to write for your own life and thereby the lives of so many others. So keep coming back, we’ll catch you next week on the influential personal brand podcast.
Ep 280: The Power of One More with Ed Mylett
RV (00:00):
To one of the great honors of my life is getting to play a role behind the scenes for some of the most influential personal brands in the world. I’ve actually found it much more enriching and fulfilling to be behind the scenes and be a part of the team. That’s coordinating that for other people than I have, even for us building my personal brand in our company. And today is truly one of those moments for me. A few months ago, one of my O other mentors, John Gordon introduced me to a gentleman named ed Mylet, who you’ve probably heard of. And ed and I started talking and I found out he had a book launch and book launches is something that we know something about. And so ed and I became friends and it has been an absolute honor and privilege to work alongside of ed here for a few months now and a pretty close working relationship, helping him launch this book.
RV (00:56):
That’s coming out called the power of one more. And we’re gonna talk about the book, but if you don’t know, ed just really quick I’ve known ed, I’ve been following him for years. He’s one of my favorite people to follow online. He’s got over 3 million online followers at, at the time of this recording. He is in the Forbes fiftys wealthy under 50 years old. He’s the host of a podcast called the ed Mylet show, which has had, I mean, everybody Terrell Owens, Mel Robbins, Dabo Sweeney, John Maxwell, Jay Sheti. It goes on and on and on. Ed is one of the best speakers that I’ve ever seen. And I’ve personally learned so much from him. And he’s also the real deal. I mean, he has a, a net worth that is in the nine figures, which is not his focus by any means, but a Testament to the fact that he’s the real deal. It’s not, it’s not fake. And he loves Jesus. He’s humble. And man, what an honor to introduce you to my new friend, ed mullet,
EM (01:58):
Hey brother, Rory, great to be with you. And you’re understanding your involvement and role in my life now. You’re the centerpiece of this book launch. You’ve been leading it from the front the entire time and I’ve been in business for 30 years. I’ve never worked with anybody like you before you are remarkable. He is just so you all know his brilliance is only exceeded by his generosity. And he’s a remarkable man. I actually can’t even believe as I’m saying this, I’m getting a little bit emotional. I did not think I would, but I’m very grateful for you brother, grateful for your friendship and mentorship. Cause I’ve learned so much from you for the last 60 days. And I know it’s just the beginning of a lifelong friendship and, and also business relationship too, so great to be with you today.
RV (02:41):
Well, thank you, man. That means just so much coming from you and, and I want, I want people to hear your real story. Like your life story is tremendously inspiring. Thank you. Also, you know, I hope you don’t mind me sharing this, but like ed is working his butt off. I mean we are running him, we are running him ragged. He is following our, our, you know, bestseller launch plan, which we take our clients through. Can I share how many units we’ve pre-sold ed? Is that okay? Or,
EM (03:11):
Yeah, that’s fine. Sure.
RV (03:12):
40,000 units of this book have already been pre-sold and we have, at the time of this recording, we got about six weeks to go. We’re doing a huge event in Raleigh, but so ed, take us back to like, I wanna hear the story of how you started building your personal brand. You’ve got this great story as a kid. Yeah. You crushed it in business. You still crushed it in business. And, and just, but like, take us back to where do you, where do you demarcate the Genesis of you building your personal brand?
EM (03:43):
Yeah, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I, I had been an entrepreneur and a speaker for a number of years and I sort of resisted the, I wanted to stay private. I really, you know me well now, like I buy homes where I’m very private. It’s not that I don’t love people. I actually adore people, but I’m introverted. And so, and just exposing the, my life, I, most of my friends are famous, unfortunately. Right. And so I knew what came with that and I didn’t want all of it. And so I did it very reluctantly, but the encouragement of a lot of the people that I coach, some people like Tony Robbins also like, Hey man, you need to, you need to go out there and share what you know. And and so I made the decision. It was a really funny story.
EM (04:19):
I’ll tell you this, cuz you’ll laugh. Tony Robbins told me, Hey man, you need to, you need to get on social media and I’m I’m idiot and I’m not very good at posting. And he challenged me in a way that sort of made me want to do it. So we’re sitting on my balcony. My son was in the other room and he goes, I said, max, you’re now the head of my social media team.
RV (05:01):
Nice.
EM (05:01):
And I called Tony, I’m going, Hey, this stuff doesn’t work. And my son, like I thought you knew who you were doing four views. And only one of them even liked it. I, this is not for me. And this is what I hear Tony say, I Rory, I swear to you on our friendship. This is what I hear him say. He goes, dude, you gotta post at the right time of the day. You gotta post at breakfast time. So if you watch my social, I post every morning to this day at 7:30 AM. Yeah. Pacific time. Every day, every post on my main feed that’s cuz back in the day, Tony Robbins told me to post at breakfast time. This is what I think he says to me next worry. And by the way, you gotta post at breakfast time and you need to have hash Browns in the video.
EM (05:38):
This is what I hear him say hash brown. I’m like, and I don’t wanna sound stupid. I’m like really breakfast and hash Browns. All right. Okay dude, I’ll make another one. So I call max and go, Hey, I thought you knew about this stuff. Tony says it’s gotta be breakfast videos around breakfast table and there’s gonna be hash Browns in the video. Max is like, daddy, I don’t, why would there need to be a breakfast? I go, I don’t know. But that’s how this stuff works. So the next video you can go to my social media. It’s a video of me with a plate of eggs and hash Browns. And I make a video. I swear to you, you don’t know this story. And then, then that video gets like three views and no likes. And I tell Tony, I go, Hey man, I call him up. I go, this is crap. The hash brown thing tanked. He goes,
Speaker 3 (06:20):
He goes, what did you just say?
EM (06:22):
I go, I did the breakfast post with the hash Browns.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
He goes dummy.
EM (06:30):
Hash Browns.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
I said, well I
EM (06:32):
Heard hash and breakfast. He goes, no, it’s the time of the day with hash tags. I’m like what? The heck’s a hashtag. He goes, I don’t know. It’s like a pound sign with a word. And it helps him find your video. I go pound
Speaker 3 (06:43):
What? He goes. I, he goes, dude, just
EM (06:45):
Do the hashtag thing years and serious up. That was my start on social media. And I wake up like a year later cuz the content’s good. Right? I wake up a year later, I got a million followers on Instagram. You know, I’m getting, I’m growing like crazy. And I’ve ended up growing to these millions of people, man. And as you know, I’ve never run an ad. It’s completely, it’s completely authentic growth. Like it’s spiral can.
RV (07:06):
I’ve never, I need a, I need to say this right now because this is important. I’ve actually, I haven’t, I don’t think I’ve told this to you directly, but I’ve said this to several people since you know, working so closely with you, which is that one of the thing there’s so many things about you that amaze me. But one of the things that amazes me most is like everybody else out there in the space doing this, this is their full-time job. Right? They got teams, they’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s, it’s all they’re doing. And, and you, you don’t like you have a pretty thin team. This is like a side project, which it’s like almost a distraction for you, which makes me admire you. And it also really me off, like it really, really jealous, but like it, it
EM (07:53):
Is that’s where, that’s why you’ve come into my life. I mean, we’ve become one of the, you know I think influencer magazine named me the fastest growing businessman in the history of social media. And as you know, I have very few people on my team. It’s here’s the good news. It’s been content driven. And I don’t say that to brag. I just say that like my content’s good and in a diverse amount of content and that’s, what’s grown and now I’ve met a pro in fact, I’ve met the best in you. And so now between the book, the power of one more, that’s coming out, the event we’re doing with it that, you know, that’s pretty significant. And then what we’ll do with my social going forward, I actually feel like I’ve now met the best people in the world. It’s gonna get real scary. What’s gonna happen when you take the best content. Now married with the best team of people who know how to build a brand, which is you. And so I’m fired up, man. I cannot wait for this thing to explode even to another level.
RV (08:40):
Yeah, for sure. Well, I, I also, you know, another part of that little story is how coachable, I mean, for you to be somebody who’s incredibly successful. I mean, that’s a vast understatement to, to say Tony Robbins says post a video with hash Browns. And without even thinking about it, you just, you just do it. What year was that?
EM (09:02):
That was probably seven years ago.
RV (09:04):
That’s when I started. OK.
EM (09:06):
But by the way, you know me well enough now I’m still that way I’m coachable to you and other people look, I’ve built lots of wealth and lots of different businesses by knowing I’m not the smartest guy in the room. I know what I’m good at. In fact, I talk about this on the book, taking advantage of your giftedness and allowing the gifts of other people to flourish around you. I think what does strike people when they start to interact with me? I’m a confident dude. I’m an intense dude. Mm-Hmm
EM (09:42):
Well, where I need to be, believe me, I’m dominant. And I assert myself, but I’m I’m. I just, I laugh at people who think they know everything. Look it, you are the, you’re the premier guy. What you do, I’m blessed to have you in my life. Why would I not let you do what you’re great at? And I’ll do what I’m great at. I’ve built and sold many, many different businesses on the premise that if you surround yourself with great people, take advantage of their giftedness, use your giftedness. You’re unstoppable. And that’s really the lot, which as you know, that’s, there’s a lot of that in the book and you’ve watched me do it with you. I’m like, Hey, I don’t know what should we do? And I listen. Now, if someone proves themselves consistently not to be equipped to do the job, that’s a different story altogether with me, I’ll make a switch. But until that time comes in your case, every single thing you basically told me to do is worked. And you’ve exceeded what you told me you were going to do when we first met one another. So why wouldn’t I give you more space to lead? I think that’s how you build something. Great.
RV (10:37):
Yeah. It’s, it’s an interesting dichotomy like ed, cuz it’s throwing me for a loop cuz you’re, you’re both physically intimidating. Like you are, you know a very behemoth of a man, your stature, but your reputation is huge. Your track record is huge you’re and you are very intense, but then you are very open and re and receptive to this. I mean it it’s, it’s really interesting. It, I, it actually inspired me to make a post recently about the difference between like confidence and pride. And I was just basically saying how you know, confidence is how you do something mm-hmm
EM (11:40):
I’m also doing what you’ve asked me to do on the book, different things. So my favorite people, Roy, I talk about this in the book and how to establish self confidence. The whole chapter on it’s pretty detailed. It’s not, this book is heavy. I mean, it’s a very heavy everyone who’s read it. That’s friends of mine’s like, whoa, this is there’s no breathing room. It’s cont I mean it’s specific stuff, but my favorite people have this nuance and it’s a very, very difficult line to nuance. In fact, the ultimate person who’s ever exemplified this is Jesus, but there’s this line of tremendous confidence combined with humility. So the people that I love most have a lot of self-confidence, but their humility, it causes ’em to be curious, kind, open grow. We all know people with tons of self-confidence have no humility. They, they, their, their egos outta control.
EM (12:25):
They eventually burn out. They eventually make a mistake. They eventually self-destruct. We also have friends with tons of humility with no self-confidence and you have to carry them through, like, you can do it, you can do it. So it’s the, it’s the, it’s the nuance of the two. Jesus knew who he was, but he was humble enough to present himself as a man. He was humble enough to submit. He was humble enough to feed the masses. He was humble enough to give his life for us. Talk about the ultimate level of sacrifice and humility yet at the same time simultaneously knowing who he really was. And so the, the best people that I know that I, I like to get close to. They tow that line. Sometimes you arrow one side or the other, but I’d love to. I hope that I continue to have a very level of, I know how to build self-confidence.
EM (13:07):
I detail that in the book, I know how to help you become self-confidence I’ve helped the top people in the world do that. I know how to do that. The humility part is a character of trait. You have to want to grow. You have to know that you, that for me, man, like it’s weird to write a book called the ultimate guide to happiness and success. And I give all these keys yet. At the same time, I have a whole chapter on faith. I also know that there’s many times in my life brother, where the truth is, I don’t know what happened. My reflections are vague. And the truth is all I conclude is that during those difficult times, the Lord just sort of picked me up and carried me for a while and then set me back down in a better place. And then I went to work and then he picked me back up and carried me for a while. And it’s why it makes me so emotional because it’s odd to write a book about here’s how you become happier or more successful, knowing that so much of it wasn’t me. And so much of it was, was God in my life was favor, was blessing. And so it’s, I’d be remiss if I said I have all these answers, cuz I, I actually know I don’t the older I get, the more I realize what I don’t know mm-hmm
RV (14:16):
To grow there. Well, your, your, your faith is another example of this humility, right? Like you’ve got the money, you’ve got the influence. You have the followers, you you’ve got the most famous people in your cell phone. Mm-Hmm
RV (15:04):
And I see you doing that and it’s inspiring to me. It’s also impactful kingdom work. I mean, you’re a secular author. This is a business. This is a business book. But man, if ed, my let is, you know, if Jesus is good enough, like for an ed, my let or, you know, to hear somebody like you go, no, this is, this is what it’s really about. For me, it’s inspiring. And it also, it makes, it makes me more excited to be a part of what you’re doing, cuz you’re reaching a lot of people who would not hear that message.
EM (15:34):
I was just talking about this with a very, very, very, actually two of them, maybe the two most famous pastors in the world. I won’t say their names, but two of very famous guys. And I was talking about that. I said, listen, when they come listen to you, man, they know what they’re getting your pastor. What’s cool with me is they come for me for the jet or the island or the money or the other stuff. And they’re gonna get all that. I want them to have all that stuff, but then they’re gonna hear this other thing that they didn’t expect to hear. And I’m hoping that maybe that I can reach people to some extent that God’s using me to potentially reach people that maybe not everybody else can get to the other. You know? So that’s a, that’s a, you know, really significant thing in calling for me.
EM (16:10):
And I just, you know, I hope that I’m, I hope that I’m bold enough. I hope that I’m becoming more and more bold with it. It’s never that I’ve not been willing to be bold. It’s that I’ve sort of learned to express it more as I’ve gotten a little bit older and I just love the Lord man. Like you can’t, you have to conclude when you get to a certain point in your life like, Hey man, I’m not, this is not me. There’s no way this is me yet. I am. I here’s what I really think. I, I believe, you know, broader that I represent a little bit. I think there’s this notion in the world of faith world that you can’t believe in science or facts or details or strategies and still be a person of faith. And then I think secular people think that if you, if you believe in faith that you can’t believe in these other things, I believe in the brain, I believe in brain science.
EM (16:50):
I believe in neuroplasticity, I believe in the re particular activating system in the prefrontal cortex of your brain, brain and visualizations and neuroplasticity. And I believe in epigenetics, I believe in all these different things. I just happen to believe there’s a holy God in heaven that created all of it. I just happen to believe that I know where it comes from. And so I’m both a person of faith and a person of science. And by the way, oftentimes my faith confirms the science and my science confirms the faith. And so amen. Maybe that’s too deep, but I write about it in the book.
RV (17:20):
Yeah. So let let’s let’s talk about the book for a second. Y’all your story is moving ed. Like, can you take, just take us back to your dad? Yeah. Like the relationship you have with your father is like your earthly father I’m talking about is a important part of your life. It’s an important part of this book. And can you just talk about like where you started in your relationship with your dad and how that evolved and how did that influence the direction of the book?
EM (17:49):
Everything. And like most people were influenced by who raised us. Right? So I wrote the book after my dad died last year and it’s called the power of one more because my dad embodied this. My dad was an alcoholic. The first 15 years of my life was not living a great life. I believe so deeply that humans can change because I watched my hero do it. I watched my own father live, not as a great father or husband for the first 15 years of my life. And then I made, he made one decision and gave one more, try to get sober. Then my dad stayed sober the second half of his life and lived as magnificent of a life on earth as anybody I’ve ever watched in my entire 50 years on the planet. So I know humans can change because my dad made that one decision to get sober and everything that I am I’ve learned from my dad.
EM (18:33):
I really do believe the premise of the book is this. That you’re a lot closer to the dream life that you want than you think you are. And the fact that you think you’re so far away causes you to pace yourself like it and keeps it in the distance. But what if it’s true that you’re one decision, one relationship, the ultimate relationship is with your heavenly father. One thought one emotion, one meeting, one guy meet Rory. Rory meets me to completely changing your life. And then the question becomes if I’m right about that, and I know I’m right about that, then what are the two books I always carry with me are my book, the power of one more and think and grow rich think and grow rich is my second favorite book. Other than my scriptures. I love it. Having said that you don’t just think and get rich.
EM (19:14):
You have to do things. And so I wanted to write a book that told you what are the thoughts? And then what is the, the collective action that you do in congruency that create, change the thought. And then the action doing them together is what creates the change. I’m just tired of reading books, Rory, that it’s the same it’s think and grow rich, written a little bit differently. I wanted a book that’s modern and profound and links, faith, but also links the brain strategies you need in the techniques and the habits and the goal setting. How do you create standards? What’s equanimity, right? What’s the particular activating. What’s the matrix of your life? How do you build self confidence? What’s your identity, all these different things in the book. And I’ve done that because my dad, I learned these things from, and every day I believe in one more try. I believe in redemption. I believe that, you know, you’re saved. Not because you’re perfect, but because of God’s grace in your life and that no matter what age you are, what mistakes you’ve made or what baggage you’re carrying around, bankruptcy, divorce, a sin, you’ve had something you’re ashamed of. You can drop those bags at any moment in one decision in one moment and completely change your life. I watched my dad do it. The, if that’s true, then how do you, how do you, and that’s why I wrote the book is the, how do you,
RV (20:25):
Yeah, it, it, it is, it is fire. You know, I, I got obviously a little insider preview to a lot of this in these interviews, but you’re like the, the concept of identity mm-hmm
EM (21:37):
Well, the identity, part’s huge. It’s a, it’s the thermostat of your life. Your identity is sitting on the wall of your life and, and it it’s, it regulates everything. So it’s what you believe you’re worth. You’re going to get. This is a fact. So if you’re a 75 degree of wealth or happiness or faith and your results begin to exceed at 80 95, a hundred, you will find a way to subconsciously sabotage it and turn the air conditioner back down to get what you believe you’re worth. It’s a fact. I watch people, people think it’s coincident. Oh, I lost my money cuz of the market or my car broke down. I had to loan someone. Nope, not you turn the air conditioner on and you got it back to what you believe you deserve. So this identity thing is huge to heat up to 85, 90, a hundred, 120 degrees.
EM (22:15):
So that your results, your faith, your happiness, your abundance continues to grow. You will never exceed your identity ever, no matter what skill, what business, what real you gotta grow your identity. The question is, how do you do it? And in the book I go through detailed what I call the trilogy of identity. The first part of identity, believe it or not is faith. If I come from a all-knowing all loving God who made me in my image and likeness, aren’t I supposed to do something great with my life. There’s so many believers. They, they got God on Sunday. They got God on, you know, Bible study on Wednesdays. But when they walk into a boardroom or a sales call or a meeting, they’re alone, they forget all about it. Wow. And then their identity reduces. But if I’ve got Jesus with me right on my shoulder, he’s got my back.
EM (22:56):
Every single call, every single podcast, every single meeting, man, my identity, can’t be 75 with Jesus impossible. Second thing of your identity intention. You have to start to give yourself more credit for your intent. Too. Many of you are basing your identity on your ability or what you’ve achieved or who you are. And you’ll always be chasing it. In other words, it’ll never catch up. But what if you started to say, I intend to serve. I intend to do good. I intend to make a difference with this customer of mine or this client of mine or with my social media or with my brand. My intent is to serve right before we started. I swear to you. I say a quick prayer connect with my faith. Lord help me serve because I’m connecting to my intention, man. My identity goes through the roof cuz I know two things.
EM (23:34):
I know Jesus has my back. And number two, I know I intend to do well. I intend to serve third part of it is association. Who are you around? If you’re a 75 degree or, and you’re around somewhere 120 degrees of financial identity or faith, they will heat you up eventually through proximity to their thermostat setting. So if you combine faith intention and, and association, you can shift this identity and then your thermostat setting on your entire life. By the way you have a happiness thermostat too, you could start to achieve all the external stuff. You could even be a church going person or have all kinds of, but you’re just not any happier than you used to be. It’s because you’ve got a thermostat setting of happiness that was installed in you when you were a child at 75 degrees and you just reinforced it all your life with all these references. So I teach you how to change that in the book. So there’s all types of thermostat settings we have.
RV (24:24):
Yeah. I mean that is so huge. And, and what you hit on and I just want to Edify for everybody is this book strikes the balance of this thought and action. It’s the intersection of this high level sort of cerebral and science and visualization. And then also the practicality, the, the pragmatic nature it’s it’s palatable, right. Is to go, what do I do if I want to raise my identity, I need to remind myself of my faith and my creator. I need to remind myself and set the right intention. And I need to associate with the right people that takes such an obscure concept, like identity and makes it real. And that’s why y’all you, you need to go buy this book like, and, and buy the book now. I mean, you don’t get a chance to learn from somebody like ed and just even to pull out, like for someone like him to take a whole lifetime worth of lessons and, and dump it out. And I mean, the thing that blows me away is it’s like it’s 20 bucks or 25, 20 $8. It’s insane. Yeah.
EM (25:34):
It is brother and I wrote the book when my dad passed because you know, it dawned on me in that moment that I’m the next one, you know, I’m gonna pass someday. And I think, you know, Napoleon hill says in think and grow rich begin with the end in mind, you know what? That’s for a goal that’s true in life. Begin with the end in mind and work your way backwards. And so for me, I thought, you know what? I want my great grandkids to know what I thought about life. What I learned about success and happiness. And I wanna write about it until I’m dad and gone. And the truth is, if you wanna know the power of one more, let me take it from you. You wanna know the power of see the whole premises. If you’re gonna be in the gym, doing 10 reps, do 11, you’re gonna be 30 minutes on the treadmill.
EM (26:17):
Do one more. You’re gonna tell your sweet daughter. You love her. Tell her one more time a day, you start stacking up the one mores in your life, right? All of a sudden you’re a different human being. Self-Confidence is the process of keeping the promises you make to yourself. It’s a relationship with you. And when you have a reputation with yourself that you keep the promises you make to yourself, you are a self confident person, long term, but if you wanna be a world class achiever, build a relationship, a reputation with yourself where you do one more than you promise yourself. And all of a sudden you’re a monster of achievement, but you know what that power, my favorite thing to do, man, was play golf with my dad. And neither one of us are good golfers, but it was five hours with my hero and my best friend right next to me in the golf cart.
EM (27:01):
And we would talk deep about life and politics, which we disagreed on and all kinds of different stuff. Rory, do you know what I would give right now for one more round of golf with my dad? I can’t even tell you brother, one more conversation. I could hug my dad one more time and I can’t, but it shows you the power of how precious one more is. So if you do have someone you love here on earth, what if you started to look at her? Like what? This was my one last conversation with her. What if, when your wife walks in the room, what if, what, what was the last dance? What if was the last dinner? What if only had one more? What if you started to look at that call that sales call? What if this is my last shot? I only have one more.
EM (27:48):
When you begin to take the one more away, you start to understand the power of it. And so the power of it when it’s absence is magnified, the good news is we are still here. If you’ve had someone pass away and you can’t have that conversation, honor them with your life. But if they are here, make it more precious. It does matter. And I don’t know how many more you get to talk to your parents, but I know it’s not infinity. And so take advantage of the times that you have with the people that you love. Take advantage of the opportunities. Look for the relationships. Look for the decisions. Look for the thoughts. Look for the meanings. I just had to play golf, talking about money. I played golf two weeks ago. I’m talking about win one relationship in one decision away. I think I told you this, but again, here, the guy goes, Hey you’re gonna play golf with this guy.
EM (28:32):
Net worth are real similar. He did it in a really interesting way. So we first tee, I go, Hey man, I wanna know how you how’d. You build your fortune. He goes about 30 years ago, a guy asked me a $50,000 loan. He actually asked me and my other friend, I gave him the 50 grand. So did my friend, but my friend a week later asked for it back and he got the money back. I didn’t ask for the money back. He goes a 50 grand turn into about 700 million. Whoa. I went say that again. Cause he had about 700 million. I go, who’s the, who’s the guy you loan the money to. He goes some. Do we back in the day named Jeff Bezos
EM (29:14):
But in some way, the small ones like that end up stacking up and you really are. Think about if you’re married, that one relationship, how much has changed your life? That one decision to ask her or him out that one decision to get married, that child, you have that one relationship, how much it changed your life. So this ISN’ up for debate. The question then is how do I foster these new relationships? How do I make these new decisions? How do I uncover these new emotions? What are the new thoughts I have to have? What’s the one more thing I gotta do. And if you read the book, you’ll know
RV (29:47):
Where do you want ’em to go? I, I have one last question for you before that though. Where, where do you want people to go? Ed let’s we practiced. We’ve practiced your call to action. Where do you want people to go by the book right now?
EM (29:59):
We, we want you to go to the power of one more.com. That’s where we want you to go, but you can get the book anywhere, but if you go to the power of one more.com, you’re gonna find some cool stuff there as well. And I gotta tell you that if, if I’ve ever believed more strongly in something, I don’t know what it is. I just feel very strongly. I’m convicted that it can make a difference in your life. Whether as a mother, a father, a business person, a leader, an athlete, just as a human being, I think you’ll find keys to becoming more successful and happier. That’s why I call it the ultimate guide to happiness and success. So go to the power of one more.com and get the book. Anywhere books are sold.
RV (30:37):
I love it. Guys, go get the book. I mean, seriously, this is it’s insane. $28 and $30 to have access to somebody like ed, my lead and what’s going on in his head is, is incredible. Ed. The last thing I wanna leave, I, I want to you to leave the audience with is you talk, you have this I don’t know if it’s like a game or, but there’s this thing that you do in your life, where you, you about meeting your potential mm-hmm
EM (31:12):
A hundred percent. I do for sure. It’s how I live every day. It’s my dominant thought. We all have a dominant thought. The dominant thought running through my mind is that, listen, I know that when I get to heaven someday, I, all I need is the Lord to go, Hey, well done, good and faithful servant. Get in here. That’s what I want. Right? But I have this hallucination that he made me as image and like this, and there’s a destiny version of me. And I have this feeling. At least I let myself have it that when I do die, you’re talking about beginning with the end in mind. This is what I meant. When I said this earlier, I believe I get to meet the destiny version of me. The man I was born to be the man. He made me to be the guy who had the contribution, the moments, the memories, the feelings, the emotions, the experiences, the difference he made in life. I get to meet that guy someday. And every decision I make as I go through my life, one more decision is to catch that guy. I wanna catch that dude. And when I die and get there, I want him to look back at me and go, Hey, man, I seen you’ve been chasing me all your life. You caught me. And I go, dang. It I’ve been after you forever. To me, heaven. Heaven is I meet the man. I was cable of becoming and we’re identical twins. That’s heaven.
EM (32:16):
Hell is we’re total strangers. And I can’t live with the idea that that might possibly happen. I don’t want that. I wanna meet the man. I was capable of becoming. And so when I’m thinking about making a decision or whether go for it or to have a new relationship, does it move me closer to heaven or not? And if it moves me to closer to heaven, then it’s a step I should take. And that’s why I live my life. Thinking that
RV (32:46):
Now follow ed, buy the book, listen to what this guy’s about. I’m telling you, we I’ve gotten the more I’ve gotten to know him. The more I’ve liked him. I’ve always been a fan. And the closer that we’ve gotten, the more that I’ve I have have developed a respect and a true admiration for this guy. I’m, I’m glad that he is out there in the world, doing what he’s doing, brother. We wish you the best of luck. Thank you for the compliment of being here. Thank you for the privilege of allowing us to play a tiny part in everything that you got going on. And we just wish you the
EM (33:17):
Best. Roy. It’s not tiny. The feelings are at least mutual and I love you. And I’m grateful for you, bro.