Ep 415: Questions to Ask to Help You Find Your Why | Bianca Olthoff Episode Recap
RV (00:03):
Resilience, grit, determination, perseverance. Why do some people have it? And some people don’t. Why is it that some people can barrel through walls and overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and other people can’t get the motivation to get outta bed or keep going Sometimes? What is the difference? And that is what we’re gonna be talking about on today’s episode. I’m gonna share three ideas to help you be more resilient. And this was inspired from my conversation with Bianca just here recently about adding more grit to your life and how personal brands can develop that kind of grit and perseverance. And Bianca’s a new friend of mine, she’s Jasmine Star’s sister. We got to meet through Jasmine. And I’ve really enjoyed meeting her. And just the conversation inspired me to, to, to stop and say, I wanna put together specifically one tactical tool right here, right now that would help you immediately become more resilient, immediately become more perseverant.
RV (01:11):
And I call this first technique, or this is gonna be the, the main technique of this lesson is 30. What questions to help you find your why 30, what questions to help you find your why. So we all know that having a why is really important in an episode not that long ago. I talked about kind of a refresher of something I said in the Take the Stairs book, which is that discipline becomes dormant in the absence of a dream. Discipline becomes dormant in the absence of a dream that we, we wanna leverage long-term vision to endure short-term sacrifices. So the amount of our endurance, our perseverance, our resilience, our grit, whatever word you wanna use for this is directly proportional to it, to the clarity of our vision, the, and the clarity of our why. And one technique is to get really clear on, on the vision of what you want, which is actually to create a picture.
RV (02:12):
And I’ve talked about that before, but today I wanna talk about finding your why specifically. And I’m gonna give you 30 what questions to find your why. Because what I have found is over the course of my life and my career, that a lot of people struggle to find their why, so to speak. They, they struggle to boil it down. And yet when we give them these specific tactical, what questions, like when you answer these, what questions, all these questions start with what? Then once you go through and you answer all of these, your why sort of gets revealed out of that. So I’m just gonna run through this list, okay? These are 30 what questions to help you find your why. Number one, what issues are you most passionate about solving for the world? So just you, you answer that. What, what issues are you most passionate about solving for the world? Number two, what problems are you most capable of solving for other people? What problems are you most capable of solving for other people?
RV (03:19):
That leads to question number three, which is kind of related, but a little bit different. What type of person can you serve in the deepest way? So you just think of like all the different types of people out the world, and you go, what type of person? What are the makeups of the, the specific characteristics of somebody that I can serve in the deepest way? Number four, what are the biggest challenges that you have overcome? We’ve talked about this a lot in brand builders group where we say that you’re, you’re your most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. So what challenge have you conquered? What obstacle have you overcome? What setback have you survived? What tragedies have you triumphed over? That all comes into what are the biggest challenges you’ve overcome? Number five, what practical skill sets do you have that you wanna develop more of?
RV (04:18):
What practical skill sets do you have or do you want to develop more of? So what, what things do you actually wanna learn that is a hint at your why? Number six, what skills do you want to learn and master that you don’t have? So this kind of goes in tandem with the previous one. So what, what are skills that you, you don’t yet have, but that you wanna learn and master? Number seven, what would you do if you knew you could not fail? What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? I first heard Brian Tracy ask that question years ago. That’s been a great one to think about. Number eight, what do you feel called to, what do you feel called to, like, what do you feel called to do? Number nine, what places in the world do you wanna visit?
RV (05:08):
So now we’re starting to get into the more tangible things which often help clarify and, and, and help us codify like a big part of our why. So that’s what this next little section is all about. What places in the world do you wanna visit? Number 10, what type of family do you wanna have? So just like, when you think ahead 10 years from now, what type of family, like how many people do you see in the family? What, what type of family? Anything you can describe about that. Number 11, what physical attributes do you want to exhibit in your body, right? What physical things do you want to maybe change or highlight or, you know, modify in your body? Number 12, what type of job title do you want to have?
RV (05:57):
Like, what would your ideal job title be? Number 13, what type of clients would you most enjoy working with? What type of clients would you most enjoy working with? So if you had your pick of the litter and the whole world, and you said, this is the, the the specific type of person that I wanna work with what would that be? That that’s gonna, that’s gonna give you a hint as to what your purpose is, right? Like, we believe that all of these things are hints and clues as to what you’re calling is. There’s a reason why God made you in the way that he made you. There’s a reason why you are drawn to the answers to these things. These are not bad things, they’re not selfish things. They shouldn’t become idols in your life, right? They shouldn’t take the place of God.
RV (06:48):
They shouldn’t be the most important thing, but they’re good things. They’re beautiful things, and we believe that they are, they are there for a reason and they guide you in the, in the way that you should go. Number 14, what amount of vacation would you like to take each year? What about a vacation would you like to take each year? You might think, oh, I want permanent vacation. But the the, the reality is that you probably don’t. I mean, if you’ve ever been on vacation longer than seven days, it actually gets boring pretty quick. I mean, you can only go out to eat at like so many restaurants and sit around on the beach all day and do nothing. Like there’s so many, so many days and, and I know you’re probably listening and you’re like, try me, right? I’d like to, I’d like to have that problem, right?
RV (07:30):
Where I was bored of too much vacation. So maybe you need to do that and experience that and, and realize, no, I, I wanna have work. We were designed to work, right? God created work in the garden before the fall of original sin. So regardless of what your spiritual beliefs are, you know, for me that is the source of truth is biblically speaking work is not a part of the, the, the curse work existed before the curse work gives us purpose. So what amount of vacation would you like to take each year? Number 15, what type of house do you wanna live in, right? Like when you, when you think of your house, I mean, of course maybe you have some dream mansion or something, and that’s fine. Like if, if that’s it. But, but realistically go, gosh, like how much space do I really need?
RV (08:15):
What would I, what features would I really love to have? What type of house do you wanna live in? 16. What city and state would you wanna live in? If you could live in any city and any state, where would you wanna live? Or what city? Just sticking with the what theme, number 17. What type of neighborhood do you wanna live in? So is it a cult sack? Is it, you know, the, the mountains? Are you by yourself? Are there people near you? Can you see your neighbors? Can you not? Like, is it really tight and close-knit? Is it gated? Is it like, you know, is it just a big open area? Can you walk to the grocery store? What, what type of neighborhood do you wanna live in? Number 18, what type of car do you wanna have? What type of car do you wanna have?
RV (08:56):
And I know some of these might seem shallow in terms of like, you know, or superficial, but I don’t believe they are. I think that, that these physical things give you a lot of clues and a lot of insight into the type of lifestyle that you want to have, right? Believe it or not, not everybody wants a Rolls-Royce, right? Not everybody wants a Ferrari. Like I don’t want a Ferrari. The the, now I would have another Bentley, like I, I do, I do some days Miss Mile Bentley that I sold when we started brand builders group. But like the, you know, what, what type of car would you have? Those give you clues and hints and insight into the type of maybe job you want to create or the way that you need to plan and save money. And, and you can reverse engineer that into the type of career, the type of work or the type of client you wanna work with.
RV (09:40):
So I think these are, you know, worthwhile questions. Number 19, what do you want your ideal daily schedule to look like? What do you want your ideal dream daily schedule to look like? So if you could like, plan the perfect week and just plot it out on a calendar, here’s what I would do on Monday morning and Monday afternoon and Monday night and Tuesday. And, and not just like a vacation. I mean, you could have a dream vacation, but this is more of like, if, if this was a week that you lived on repeat, right? Going back to what I said earlier about vacation, I believe it or not, I think a lot of people don’t want permanent vacation. I, I, I have a lot of friends who have sold their businesses and it, you know, of course it’s fun for a while be like, oh my gosh, I don’t have to work again or whatever.
RV (10:26):
But a lot of ’em go into a deep depression and they really struggle to find purpose because it’s like they’ve had this, this focus and then once it’s gone, cuz work is good. Work is a good thing, it shouldn’t be an ultimate thing, but work is a good thing. So, you know, what would, what would your ideal weekly schedule look like? Number 20, what amount of money will you need to fund the type of lifestyle that you wanna have during your retirement? If you’re gonna take a retirement, right, or you know, what, what amount of money would you need to have to just live your dream lifestyle might be a better way if you go, no, I’m not gonna work forever and then just retire and do nothing. But if I wanted to sort of like, paste it out a little bit, what amount of money do you need to to fund that?
RV (11:09):
Number 21, what do you want your taxable income to be? What do you want your taxable income to be? Number 22, what activities do you love that are life giving? Life giving? What are the activities that just, they just make you happy for no reason? And you go, you know what, maybe I shouldn’t love mowing the lawn, but I do. Now I do not, right? That is not one of mine, but like, maybe it is for you or maybe it’s cooking or sewing or, or reading it. Reading is is mine, right? I could sit and just read for hours. It’s just completely life giving to me. So what are the activities that are like life giving number 23 is the opposite of that question. What activities do you hate doing that are life taking? And
RV (11:52):
You’re not exactly sure why. And maybe some people love ’em, right? I mean, one mine is landscaping and gardening, right? I know some people love it, it’s their thing. For me, I’m like, this is is prison. Like, I’m miserable. I do not wanna be outside in the hot sun sweating, like bent over getting dirty and all. It’s just like, it’s just not my jam. So what are the activities that you don’t like doing or the things that are life taking? Number 24. This is a good one, okay? This is where we start to get into the type of person you need to become to have all these things that we just talked about in the last section. So I would, I would classify these 30 questions. It’s not equal 10, 10, and 10, but the first 10 questions are really about like, what’s your purpose and your calling in life.
RV (12:37):
The second 10 or, or the middle part, they’re not exactly the second 10. The middle part are really questions around what type of lifestyle do you wanna lead and do you wanna have? And then this, these last ones are kind of more about what type of characteristics do you need to develop as an individual. So number 24 would be is what would the self-talk be of someone who had already achieved all of these things? What would the self-talk be? What would the, the mind of someone who had already achieved all of these things that you just listed out, what are the things that they would say to themselves? Because whatever those things are, are things that you can and mean should and need to say to yourself before they happen, right? Self-Talk should happen in reverse. The your self-talk happens first. This is the creation principle of integrity chapter from my take the stairs book that you think it, you speak it, you act, and then it happens.
RV (13:33):
So first you think it and then you speak it. So what would your self-talk be? If you had already achieved all these things, number 25, what would you have to learn to achieve the things on this list? What are the things that you would have to learn? Number 26. What person or people do you know who have already achieved the things that you wanna achieve? So what person or what people do you know of who have already achieved the things that you wanna achieve? What people already have, the things you wanna have. Those people are the people who have the answers for you, right? So just identifying them. Number 27, which is a little bit related. What type of coaches would you need to help you to get to where you want to go? What type of coaches would you need to help get you to where you want to go?
RV (14:31):
Right? I mean, Michael Jordan has a coach. The greatest actors in the world, they have coaches like the, the, the elite highest performing athletes and entertainers and musicians. They all have coaches. The best authors in the world have coaches. We coach a lot of ’em. The, the best speakers in the world, right? We coach a lot of ’em. Like there there is, everybody needs a coach, like, and can benefit from a coach. So what type of coach would you need to or coach would you need to get to where you want to go? Number 28, what behaviors do you need to stop doing in your life? You don’t even have to. You just go, these are things I’m doing, I just need to stop doing these. What behaviors do you need to stop doing? You know, things that have shown up for me over the years has been like drinking alcohol eating sugar you know, staying up late.
RV (15:20):
Like these are, these are things as I’ve gotten older, it’s like, I just need to stop. Like, I just need to stop doing this. So what are they for you? Number 29. What behaviors do you need to start doing? What do you just need to start doing? And you go, you know what, like plain and simple. I, this is, I need to just start doing this. I know for whatever reason I know that this is a, a behavior I need to start doing. And then question number 30, and this is a big one, okay, what would you be willing to give up if you knew you could have all of these things?
RV (15:56):
Like what would you be willing to trade? What would you be willing to give up if you knew you could have all of these things? Those are 30 what questions to help you find your why. Those are questions that anybody can ask themselves to immediately get clear on what your, get clearer on what your why is, what your real purpose is, what your real driver is. And I obviously if you’re watching this or you’re listening to this, I know you probably didn’t capture all that. The good news, if you go to rory vaden blog.com, we will list, we’ve got these all listed out on my blog. So you can go get the full list there if you want to download it or screenshot it or whatever or just, you know, play this, play this back and you can listen over and over.
RV (16:42):
So that is the theme of today, 30 what questions to Find Your Why. And and when I talked about the three ideas to help you be more resilient, it’s really those three sections, right? It’s, it’s the first section of questions is all about understanding what purpose do I feel called to The second set of questions is really what are the things that I want to have or do or achieve? And then the third set of questions are really about what is the type of person that I need to become? And if you are clear on those three things, those three sets of questions, then inside of that, i, I, as a result of that, as the the byproduct of that, you’ll develop more resilience, you’ll develop more grit, you’ll develop more determination. Because now all of a sudden your brain is set on something that it wants, and now it has a reason to go out and achieve it and acquire it and make it happen. So get clear on these 30 what questions and you will find your why. And as you find your why, you will find the ability and the drive to be more resilient and more perseverant. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it and we’ll catch you next time.
Ep 414: How Personal Brands can Develop More Grit and Perseverance with Bianca Olthoff
RV (00:02):
Oh my gosh, Bianca Olthoff is fire. You are about to experience fire, and I’m so excited about it. So I met Bianca, honestly, we shared the stage together at this event called the Global Leadership Summit, which is probably the biggest speaking event in the world. And I saw her and I was like, gosh, she looks a lot like Jasmine Starr. And I was like, I swear they look a lot alike
RV (00:49):
And now I’m following Bianca. And I just, I love Bianca’s content. And she has a book coming out called Grit Don’t Quit. And we’re gonna talk about this today. This is the topic of perseverance. Now this is Bianca’s third traditionally published book. Her first two books have done great. And she is a bestselling author. She is also a lead pastor of a church. So we’re gonna hear probably a little bit about that, maybe a little bit about speaking in the kind of the Christian circuit and Christian conferences. But mostly I want her to talk about how do we persevere and how do we overcome when we wanna quit? And anyways, we just become friends and I feel like she’s family even though we’re really technically meeting for the first time. So, Bianca, welcome to the show.
BO (01:35):
I am so excited. And with that introduction, I mean, I’m ready to throw some fire here. I mean, en Fugo. All right, we’re gonna have some fun. I’m gonna light some stuff up.
RV (01:44):
So, all right. So tell me, let’s talk about perseverance and grit, I guess, and walk me through what, walk me through your definition of what is grit? Why are you writing this book? How did this all come about?
BO (02:01):
So let’s start from the nitty gritty, if you will. I think over the last couple years, I have seen so many friends and so many people that are in the same field or people of faith that have just given up. And it’s so easy in our culture and society right now to throw in the tell, if you will. And I didn’t realize how pervasive the message was until I came to some really hard blows the last couple years. And I was having a conversation with a friend and she was going through a divorce, and I’m looking at her and I’m wa we’re walking through this really dark valley, if you will. And sure. She looked at me from across the coffee table and she said, well, I’m just not like you. I go, what do you mean? She’s like, well, because of your life and your background, like you just were forced to be resilient.
BO (02:48):
Like, I’m not born like that. And then I was hit with the reality that I think people think that resilience and grit is something that you’re born with, not something that you build. Hmm. And so a little bit of context. I know that you’re a good friend with Jasmine, and you know a little bit about this, but for those that are listening to the podcast, and I am new to them, new friend my background is peppered. I am a daughter of immigrants, and we are a large Hispanic family on one income, a dire straits being raised in urban environments. I like to say like we put the urban in suburban and our family was raised in East Los Angeles. See, west LA is where all the fancy bougie people were. We’re in East la. So Jasmine and I, I don’t know if you even know this, but Jasmine and I struggled academically to read right and spell.
BO (03:36):
We were I litter at the age of 12. I th Oh, and couple this with being obese and homeschooled and people of faith living in a non-faith culture. Mm-Hmm.
BO (04:21):
And I’ve read so many books. I mean, Dr. Angela Duckworth’s book Grit was phenomenal. I loved it. It was amazing. Changed my life. It came out like 66, 7 years ago. But one of the things that when I closed the book, I realized, okay, so she defined grit, but she didn’t teach me necessarily how to build it. And she gave so many different examples of people that were like gritty. And she gave medical analysis and, and, and psychological understanding. But I left the book feeling very inspired, but I didn’t have practical handles. I’m the girl that likes to put the cookies on the lower shelf
RV (05:25):
Yeah. And and personal brands is something you, you, you understand, you know, this intersection, right? Like, talk to me about some of the endurance that you’ve had to have to build your personal brand. I mean, you’ve got so many file followers online. You’ve got this thriving church, this thriving community. You’ve got three books. You self-published a book and then, and then two books that you wrote, and now this is your third. Like, how do you think this applies specifically to the personal brand journey?
BO (06:03):
You know I never set out to try to build something, and the least of that was to build a brand for myself. However, I have a wonderful sister who was like, Bianca, it’s you. You are building something. You are building. I am a woman of faith. And so forever out there that may not share that I, I totally understand it, but this is my journey, so I’m gonna give you a little peek. So I started teaching bible studies and my sister was like, Bianca, I really do think that you need a website cuz you’re basically like that person that’s selling fake rolexes, like a fx in an alleyway out of the trunk of a car. Like you have to legitimize yourself. And that simple conversation really sent me on this journey to be like, you know what? I am very proud of the abilities and the skills that I’m cultivating been given and are wanting to increase and get better.
BO (06:49):
So like, why not put intention behind everything that goes out there? Not just my words, but also what’s associated with that. And so it’s been wildly, wildly important. I think for those that are not familiar with the faith space it’s been largely dominated by men and largely dominated by a certain type of men. And so for me to come in it, I, I kind of stick out like a sore thumb. But that’s actually worked in my favor now because in building a brand, I realize that not everyone likes vanilla ice cream. Not everyone likes chocolate ice cream. Some people like cookie crunch, malted cookie crunch, and some people like bubble gum ice cream. Some people like Get ready pistachio ice cream. I just realize that I might not be everyone’s flavor, but the people who are out there that like my favor, they will love this ice cream.
BO (07:31):
So I’m going to build a brand, whether that is in visual assets, digital assets, audio assets or, or biblical assets. I want it to reflect a person, the person who I am in the best form. And again, if I like putting things on the lower shelf, the cookies on the lower shelf I wanna make, whether it’s brand building or biblical principles as easy for people to understand. So I’m passionate about it, I love it. And also my background is in art. So when she started talking about brand building, I kind of viewed it as like painting a portrait. And any portrait that lasts is gonna have a je eso underneath that is like a primer. And I think that brand building needs to have that brand building is the primer. If you want something to last, you need a good primer. If you want your business to grow, you have to have a good brand. So I view it like that.
RV (08:14):
Yeah. Well, and I just, I think people don’t realize how much the road to building a personal brand is just littered with rejection and self-doubt and going, you know, you get turned down for this speaking gig and this, this literary agent tells you your idea will never sell. And this publisher says the book is no good. And you know, you do this email campaign and nobody buys and you, you know, spend your, all your money on a website and then like it doesn’t work. And there’s just, there’s just, to me, this is such a, such a walk of perseverance and grit just to even be in the game, right? Like just to, even to just to even have a chance. You, you, you have to go. So I, I know you talk a little bit about neuroscience specifically and the connection to grit. Can you take us, take us a little bit into that, cuz I kind of feel this as like, you, you mentioned Angela Duckworth as sort of like the handoff of going, you know, there’s this academic piece of grit and, and then, you know, we’re gonna talk about, I wanna talk about the three piece of perseverance and all that, but there’s sort of like this, this piece of neuroscience. And tell me about how the neuroscience of our brain connects into us being gritty.
BO (09:34):
Okay, so you said before we went live on this podcast, you said that you were a nerd and I am a nerd. So from one nerd to a nerd. Nice. We’re gonna nerd move about for a second.
RV (09:43):
Nice
BO (09:43):
Neuroscience in the study of the brain and neuropathy is something that’s becoming more on the forefront of everyday nomenclature, language vocabulary. Like we’re understanding it more. And so for those not familiar with it, the, the easiest way to kind of break it down is neuropathy is this study of like our, the brain grooves. The grain brain pathways. And so in taking a little bit of neuroscience background and applying it to the idea of grit is that no matter what failure comes our way, we get to determine what we tell ourselves about that failure is that, do we say our failure is final or failure is part of the process. And every time that we choose a different narrative, one that is life giving one that is believing that the best is yet to come, as cliche as that sounds, we’re actually building neuro pathways in our brain that can actually rewire our brain to have us view situations like perceived failure or maybe being dismissed by somebody or being rejected or not g getting the job.
BO (10:44):
We can rewire our brain with truth when we tell ourselves, this is not the end of me. Mm. When we tell ourselves that this is actually strengthening me. And when we do that, it’s not. And this is the difference between just so you know, like, oh, positive confession, I’m just gonna will myself to think this. It’s actually knowing that there is a purpose for this failure. I mean, this goes into, I think when we talk about perseverance, when we talk about grit, it feels very nebulous. Like what does that really even mean? And I love some science that’s coming out of Harvard right now. Actually it’s, it’s act probably about a decade old, but I think it’s just gaining popularity that when we try to talk about the word resilience, what are the components of resilience? You had mentioned the three Ps and we can talk about that in a second.
BO (11:30):
But I think that’s been really pivotal in like how I understand failure because it’s perspective, it’s the ability to pivot and then there’s the purpose component. That has been wildly just fascinating to me because it’s changing the way that I think. And by changing the way that I think it changes the way that I live by changing the way that I live, it changes how I lead. And so I think all of it is interconnected and it begins with this rewiring of the brain. And that’s been really fascinating to, to un uncover. And I go a little bit into it. It’s only one chapter that I talk about that I talk about it in the book, but I think it’s so important, the power of what we’re thinking, the power of what we’re saying, the power of what we’re believing about, what perceived failure actually means in our life.
RV (12:13):
Yeah. I think that and that it was empowering for me to sort of wake up and realize this idea that it is up to me to define the way I think about what has happened to me. Right? You don’t always get to cho choose what happens, but you get to choose how you respond to it. And, and more specifically how you process it, how you, the, the story you tell yourself about what happened. One alternative is, man, I’m a total failure
RV (13:20):
Like this is making me so resilient cuz there’s so much, so much rejection. So let’s do, let’s walk through the, the three piece cuz I know that there’s people out there, whether it’s an author, you know, who feels hopeless about how do I get this book out into the world or the attention of a publisher or an aspiring speaker or a lot of, you know, maybe it’s coaches going, how do I just, I I need more clients and I feel like I I I don’t know where they’re gonna come from. Or we also have, you know, a lot of professional service providers that are, you know, part of this community of lawyers and accountants and doctors and things where they might just be feeling burnt out. Right? I’m just going like, I don’t wanna keep going. Like I’m already, I’ve been going for so long and I’m burnt out. So walk us, walk us through the three P’s.
BO (14:08):
Okay. So before we dive into that, you had said something that was so impactful and I don’t want someone to miss this. It’s like the podcasters flipping it on the podcaster, but you said something so good that I think people need to hold onto. You had 20,000 doors that you knocked on and you had so many nos and so many slammed doors in your face. Uhhuh
RV (14:34):
I cried every freaking day, every day I cried
BO (14:54):
That resistance is the thing that builds resilience. And so I think that the door slammed in our faces mm-hmm.
BO (15:38):
And so again, cookies on the lower shelf friend, I made them all start with P because I was raised on Sesame Street and p is the letter for the day. Okay? So of the first P of resilience is the understanding of perspective. So perspective is, and this is where we get into like the neuro pathways and what so perspective would pause and say, okay, even though this is bad, whatever the bad is, you didn’t get the job, the pitch in the boardroom epically failed. The C-suite that you wanted was taken by someone who everyone thought was more qualified. Whatever your perceived failures, your perspective is like your per your chosen perspective. You can walk in and say though that it’s not now that doesn’t mean that it’s not e never your perspective will shift and say, what are areas of growth in my life that I maybe don’t see?
BO (16:24):
Your perspective would say, Hey, this is resurrecting something in me that I would like to work, work through with a trained professional. I’m gonna go see a therapist perspective is saying, what am I not saying? And then perspective allows you to pivot the who are, what’s the characteristics of people who are resilient. Not only do they have a healthy perspective of life and themselves, they have the wild ability to pivot to say though this is not working. I am going to turn and I’m gonna go in a different direction and I’m gonna make this work when life gives me lemonade. Life can me lemons. It’s not just for lemonade. It’s so that I could save the seeds and plant these seeds in the future for trees that will produce more lemons in my life. This is the ability to pivot. The French word is brico.
BO (17:03):
Most people are familiar with like collage, but brico is when we’re taking different strands of different things and we’re making something beautiful. This is the lemons to lemonade. Those resilient people will just, will have an ability not only to have clear perspective, but the ability to pivot. And then last and finally is an understanding of purpose. So if you’re familiar with the Austrian psychiatrist out of Auschwitz that survived the Holocaust, oh my gosh, why am I blanking on his name? Please help me. Rory. Do you know what I’m talking about? It’s brilliant.
RV (17:34):
Victor Frankl. Victor
BO (17:37):
Frankel. See, I knew what you came through. You are, come on homie. You are a homie. Who is
RV (17:40):
Vic? Who is Victor Frankel for 500. Yes.
BO (17:44):
Yes. Well done. You’ll win Jeopardy. You’ll be my phone a friend. Okay. So Vi Frankl really helped frame this understanding of acar pain having purpose. Nobody wants to say that. And again, it sounds so cliche, but what he did is he found that people that understood that their pain actually produced a purpose in their life. That they went on to live not only more fulfilled lives, but more successful lives. And I think wow, if we’re giving people handles on how to be resilient, it’s those that have a healthy, healthy perspective on self and life, have the ability to pivot and then can see a greater purpose beyond whatever trauma trial or tribulation has faced them. That’s what makes me passionate and that’s what makes me so excited. I’m like, wait, there’s actual he handles to build this for our lives.
RV (18:27):
Yeah. And these, these are so good because I you know, like with perspective, part of how I’ve always thought about it is like if you have a flat tire, that seems like an awful event. But one day when you go to heaven, if you real, if you learn back and you go, oh, that flat tire actually prevented you from a fatal car accident mm-hmm.
RV (19:03):
All that has changed is your perspective. Mm-Hmm.
BO (19:47):
Unan answer prayers
RV (19:48):
Thank you Jesus.
BO (20:08):
All things work together for good
RV (20:10):
In all things. Yeah. God wor things work together, together for good, for those who love God and called his purposes or something close to that. There’s is that you can choose to go, even though this awful thing has happened. Yeah. There’s gotta be some payoff as to why. And, and, and it is always the way, right? Like you can look back on things that happened 20 years and go, man, I actually am quite thankful that I got fired from that job. Like mm-hmm.
BO (20:51):
All, first of all, you are taking us to church today. Okay. I’m about to bring my podcast Oh yeah.
RV (21:24):
Oh, you’re talking to me? Yeah. Oh. Well, I, it’s funny. I would, my honest answer to that would be programming. It would be programming going back to the, to the, to the neuroscience neuro
BO (21:37):
Pathways.
RV (21:37):
Yeah. We, we, we used to, they, they taught us to say this, this phrase, the answers behind the next door, the answers behind the next door, the answers, the answer to every problem is behind the next door. And they like beat it into our heads. Whoa. And I, I actually would say it out loud between houses, the answers behind the next door, a always. And so I would say it was less of a feeling. I never felt like going to the next door. It was more of realizing, okay, my brain is a computer system, it’s going to do whatever it’s trained to do, and I need to program my brain that whenever something bad happens, the answer is behind the next door. So to just keep going. And, you know, I I would also say, you know, to that person that’s listening right now going, if, if they’re sitting there thinking, oh yeah, you know, this is all nice and tidy, wrapped up in a bow, like your pain turns into purpose and perspective, what I would say is just create an alternative version of how the story could end, right?
RV (22:38):
So if you’re sit, if you’re sitting on the corner with a flat tire right now, it, it, it, it feels awful, right? Like, I’m not telling people to fake their emotions. Like, it sucks when someone slams the door on your face. It sucks when you have a flat tire. It sucks when somebody dies. It sucks when you get fired. But, and this is part of where, for me, I think faith comes into it, which is in all things God works for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose is to go. I am consciously choosing to believe that even though I can’t see it, even though I don’t understand it, even though I don’t feel it right now, what is a potential explanation for how this could be used for good? Or even just having the thought that it could somehow be used for good, I think gives you enough to go to, to go to the next door to go, yeah, I don’t understand it, but I’m just gonna keep going versus otherwise, I’m, I’m just searching for an explanation. And the explanation is, oh, I suck. I’m not worth it. I’ll never succeed. You know, I have bad luck. So I, I love what you’re saying there about perspective and purpose and I mean, those, those tie together really, really, really well. Well,
BO (23:50):
Thank you for knocking on the 20,000 doors because I think that what you’ve learned in that, in that season has equipped you to help so many other people in their season of not wanting to knock on the next door.
RV (24:02):
Well, thanks, Bianca. I mean, I think I, I think this is the not, I think I’m a hundred percent certain. I, you know, I’ve now interviewed thousands of people between my various podcasts over the years. This is a hundred percent the story of success there. I have not found one person who has been extremely successful who doesn’t have some version of that story. In fact, in your book you talk about Paul from the Bible, and this is, I know it’s a, I mean, hey, you’re a pastor, like, there’s gonna be a few biblical references. So
RV (25:04):
So can you like describe why you chose Paul as an example of this?
BO (25:09):
Well, I refer to Paul as my Bible boyfriend. I just feel like there is no one else and the page. And yes, my husband is aware that I have a crush on a
RV (26:07):
And before this, he’s a murderer. He’s a, he’s a, he is murdering Christians, persecuting them. Mm-Hmm.
BO (26:30):
So he’s the prosecutor and the prosecutor against people of the way as in those following Jesus. So he is on his way, he’s breathing hot threats down the neck of believers, and he’s stopped, he’s halted on the Damascus road in the desert, dusty, dirty road. And he has an encounter that really changes his life. And suffice it to say you can read his story all throughout the pages of scriptures, but the man goes on to Penn, two thirds of the noon testament, and the one who was a prosecutor and the prosecutor against the people that were people of faith. He becomes one of the, if not the chief crafter of our theology that we understand today. Now that sounds lovely. When we say theology, we think of like an ivory tower. No, this man was beaten. This man was stoned. This man was imprisoned multiple times.
BO (27:19):
This man had allegations come up against him. And there’s this one one specific account where he is just falsely charged. He’s put in a boat, he’s sent over on his way to Rome, their ship wrecked, their ship runs runs afloat against an an island called Malta. They finally make it through this storm that’s supposed to take their life. And as he’s there, they’re trying to drive themselves off and warm themselves off, and they build a fire. And as they’re building a fire, he picks up pieces of wood to start the fire. And then out comes a, a snake that bites him and everyone’s expecting him to die. And he doesn’t die. He doesn’t die. In fact, the hand that is bitten soon will be the hand that he lays on people that will experience supernatural miraculous healing. I mean, this man’s story is absolutely insane, and he has such a conviction about what he’s called to do, that it’s nothing can stop him.
BO (28:09):
I’m not saying that he walks, you know, skipping along and desires to eat bomb bonds on a beach. No, the man endures so much, and yet it did not stop him from doing what he was called to do. So the reason why so much of this book is framed upon the life, if, if there’s a through line in this book, it’s the life of Paul the Apostle where we are all gonna have this arresting moment. No, there’s not gonna be a, a light that shines down from heaven and a voice that’s like, why are you persecuting me? But there’s kind kinda a moment in our life and maybe even multiple times in our life where we’re stopped and we’re arrested and asked, what are we doing? And it’s those moments that I kinda wanted us to pause and take a take a a, a a, a pulse check, if you will.
BO (28:48):
What am I doing? What am I doing? Because there’s going to be resistance that comes along with the way when we are pursuing the call that’s upon our lives, whether that is sitting in a medical practice or whether that’s going to law school, or whether that is being a stay-at-home mom who is an entrepreneur running a business out of her kitchen. I, there’s going to be resistance. And the reason why I’m absolutely beaded with this man named Paul, is that nothing stopped him and thwarted him from not just pursuing the call upon his life, but encouraging others to do the same. So I look at Paul’s, which is the end of his life, he says, I poured myself out like a drink offering. Now this is very poetic. But he was also speaking to the philosophy during that time that during that time in ancient Greco-Roman culture, they would pour out their wine to the gods as a sacrifice. And he is saying, I am pouring myself out for the benefit and the sacrifice. Sacrifice unto the Lord, be benefit of you. And I wanna get to the end of my life and say, I have fought the good fight. I have poured myself out like a drink offering, not only pursuing the God call that he’s put on my life, but inspiring others to do the same no matter what comes my way.
RV (29:53):
Amen. I love it. Bianca, where should people go if they wanna learn about this book or connect with you, like see all the things that you are up to?
BO (30:03):
Absolutely. I’m so excited about the project and it launches August 28th. People can pre-order and get a bunch of amazing gifts and incentives and resources, not just stuff that’s gonna sit on a desk, but resources that will enable people to build resilience and grit and perseverance. So they can go to bianca ov.com/gdq for grit, don’t Quit, and also at Bianca ov on all social media platforms,
RV (30:27):
Grit, don’t quit, bianca ov.com/gdq. We’ll put a link to that in the bio as well. And I would encourage you to follow her online. I mean, I follow her on Instagram and I just, I love it. It’s just encouraging, encouraging words. So thank you for your encouragement, friend. Thank you for your example. Thank you. Thank you for boldly pursuing your calling and, and what you’re doing, and we just we’re praying for you and, and we are pulling for you. And we, we wish you the best. Thank
BO (30:55):
You. Appreciate you.
Ep 411: Eternal Life Part 1 | Strategy for Defeating Death
RV (00:00:03):
What is your strategy against death? I mean that seriously. What is your strategy for dealing with defeating or overcoming death? What is your philosophy about death? What do you believe about what happens after death? Ironically, this is probably one of the most important, if perhaps not the single most important questions for you to answer during your life. And yet, many of us speaking, at least for myself, my friends, my family, many of the people that I know and interface with, many of us spend a shockingly little amount of time thinking about or answering or even having any crafted philosophy at all about what happens after we die. And to me, from a logical standpoint, you put all religion and spiritual spirituality and, and, you know, theism, aside from a purely logical standpoint, this seems like an important question, one that we should spend a little bit of time thinking about, because one thing that I know is that 100% of humans that have ever lived have also died.
RV (00:01:36):
RV (00:02:42):
Do you believe in reincarnation? Maybe you do. If you do, though, why? Like, what evidence is there for reincarnation? What, what logical or academic or scientific support beyond just your own personal convictions, beyond your own feelings, beyond your own instincts, beyond your own emotions, what evidence is there to support that? That’s real. I’m not saying that you have to have evidence for that. All of us, of course, you, myself included, we are all welcome to have whatever beliefs that we choose. But for me, as an analytic, not somebody who’s a pastor, but as someone who is a critical thinker, someone who is logical, someone who is systematic and pragmatic and practical, I just am curious to know, is there any evidence for what you believe? And what is the evidence for what you believe? Maybe you believe in heaven. So what evidence is there for that?
RV (00:03:45):
And how do you get into heaven? And is heaven really real? And if there, if there is a heaven, how confident are you that you are going to get in
Ep 410: Hugs Help: How to Support People Who Are Grieving with Randy Stocker
RV (00:02):
Hey, I am gonna introduce you to a new friend of mine. His name is Randy Stalker, and I am having Randy on the show because of a few reasons. So first of all, I met Randy at the National Speakers Association, which has been a big part of my life, all the way from back from the time when I was like 20 years old. We met at a recent meeting and I always, always love meeting fellow NS AERs. But specifically it’s because of Randy’s topic. Now his topic is not one that is so hyper specific to personal branding and, you know, the things that we often talk about. But, you know, occasionally on this show, I will share personal development content. I’ve talked about how and why I stopped drinking, and I’ve shared some spiritual episodes and things. I’ve also had a lot of my, my friends, ed, mylett, and Jamie Kern Lima, etc, talk just more about like entrepreneurial stories.
RV (00:55):
But Randy is someone who has an expertise on helping people to deal with grief and loss. And he is the survivor on of a a pretty massive tragedy. And we’re gonna hear the story of that. He lost some family members that he’s gonna, I’m gonna let him tell the story, but what he’s done is he has turned it into a personal brand and he’s turned it into a career and he’s turned it into a message and a mission to help people figure out how to overcome loss brief you know, survival and, and really just he’s helped start a number of bereavement groups and you know, he’s just a, a good listener and, and a support. And so that’s something that I always struggle with which we’ll talk about. But anyways, Randy, welcome to the show.
RS (01:52):
Thank you, Rory. I appreciate the opportunity. So,
RV (01:55):
So tell me the story your story. I’d love, I’d, I’d love to, I’d love to start there. I know it’s, it’s probably something you’ve shared many times and I’m sure it’s painful, but I I think it’s a pretty, a pretty key part of, of the jumping off point of all this.
RS (02:09):
Absolutely. So on July 22nd, 2003, my two daughters, Janelle, who’s age 19 and Amy age nine, went to visit their grandpa and Grandma Stalker in Gibson City, Illinois. They spent the time back to school shopping with grandma, called my wife Shar, and said how much fun they were having all the money grandma spent on them. And then they were driving back home when a guy driving a fully loaded semi-truck speeding and reading a book broadsided the car where Janelle and Amy were sitting killing all three immediately.
RV (02:50):
So you lost your two daughters and your, was it your mom and my
RS (02:54):
And my mother? Yes.
RV (02:56):
Wow. All in all in one moment. Just like that.
RS (02:59):
Yeah. Janelle had just finished her freshman year of college at Dur Dury University in Springfield, Missouri. She asked me if she could spend time with grandpa and grandma before she went back for her sophomore year, which I thought was wonderful. Her 19 year old girl to ask that. Unfortunately, Rory, I made our nine year old daughter Amy go with her. Huh? I thought it would be good quality time for the two. I knew grandpa and grandma would love seeing them both, and so I made Amy go, which I regret to this day. But I always asked myself the question, was it the right thing to do? And the answer always yes.
RV (03:37):
What makes you say that? Like, how do you, how do you, how have you come around to, to that viewpoint?
RS (03:49):
Well, it’s, it’s always good for kids to spend time with their grandparents. Number one, you don’t anticipate your daughters are gonna get killed by a semi-truck, or they’re making a, about a three hour trip to see grandpa and grandma. The girls needed to spend more time together cuz Janelle’s going back to college. So I just said, Amy, you need to go and it’ll be good for you,
RV (04:13):
Uhhuh,
RS (04:26):
There’s guilt for 19 years for doing that, but I always ask the same question, was it the right thing to do? And the answer’s always, yes, it was the right thing to do. Mm-Hmm.
RV (04:34):
RS (04:35):
So just because we do the right thing doesn’t mean we have the right results. And this was a terrible instance of that. So,
RV (04:44):
Yeah. So I thank you for sharing that. You know, I got two kids, I got two boys now, and it’s a different, you know, it’s a different way of seeing the world as a parent and I so I struggle with what to say, right? And, and I struggle with what to do. We had less than three miles from our house here where we live in Nashville just recently was a school shooting at the Covenant School. And we knew 11 children at that school two of which are our next door neighbors. One of ’em, which was in Bible study. Thankfully none of the kids we knew were kids that were injured. I mean, minor injuries, but no, no, no, no gunshot wounds. And, and nobody, no one that we knew died that day. But that was a massive, massive tragedy right down the street.
RV (05:47):
You know, I was in, I was in high school in Colorado the year that Columbine shooting happened. And you know, there there’s, there’s some of these just extraordinary tragedies, nine 11 tsunamis. And, and then there are the, the kind of more personal and private ones of, you know, I, I had a friend lose her husband unexpectedly a few weeks ago, and like a pretty good friend you know, people who lose a child and you just go like, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I, I don’t want to say nothing, but I don’t, I really don’t wanna say the wrong thing. And so sometimes I say nothing like, can you help? Like what? Like what, what, what do we, what, what do we, what’s,
RS (06:36):
Yeah, what’s the you’re, you’re like most people and just like I was before I lost my daughter’s Roy. It’s not untypical. So lot of people start out by saying the wrong thing because we think, cuz we’ve heard it before, things like, I know exactly how you feel. You don’t wanna say that cuz you never know exactly how I feel or how that person’s feeling. You never say, call me if you need anything because I don’t, if I didn’t call you to mow my yard or shovel my snow beforehand, I’m not gonna call you now. So what you do say is, I miss him or her, him or her too. I cannot understand your pain. Just know that I am here for you. Or if you’ve experienced loss yourself having experienced loss, my self, my heart truly, truly goes out for you and your family. Always and your family in there. Okay. The simple, simple thing to say is, I am so, so sorry for your loss
RV (07:45):
And you don’t, I
RS (07:45):
Never tried to assume that you know what they’re going through because you don’t.
RV (07:51):
And do you not get, I mean the, you know, I’ve lost my grandparents never, like someone in my immediate family I mean, I’m a biological father died, but I, I didn’t really know him af I only knew him until I was like six months old. And so, like, I never really knew him. And like I have to think that you, you know, you have funerals and you’ve got insurance companies and you’ve got, you know, just so many things are going off it. And it’s, it is helpful to hear those things. I’m so, so sorry. Even though you hear it over and over from everybody else and it, it’s still just, that’s the, that’s still helpful to hear.
RS (08:37):
Yeah. Even better than that, don’t give the per person permission to grieve when you’re sitting down with somebody just to, just to talk to them doing a one-to-one. You only need to give them permission to grieve or to get mad to get with you. Huh? It helps ’em a lot cuz they’re trying to hold it in cuz they don’t wanna burst out and start crying in front of their good friend. Number two, shut up and let them talk.
RV (09:07):
Hmm.
RS (09:08):
Sometimes we try to solve problems, we try to find solutions. Guys, you can fix a broken arm or a cut finger. You can’t fix grief. You can’t cure grief When you lose somebody that you loved for a long time. It, it’s always gonna be right here. So the only thing that can cure that is that person comes back from the dead and that’s not gonna happen. So a lot of times we try to fix something that’s unfixable.
RV (09:41):
I mean I think that’s a good reminder of like, and I don’t know if that’s more of like a male brain issue or just everybody, but like, there’s a part of me that just wants to do something. It’s almost like I feel like if I were, if I were a good friend and if I cared, I would do something and I don’t know what to do. And so I try to like do something and say stupid stuff. And you’re, what I hear you saying is like listening is doing something and listening, giving them permission to listen or, or listening and giving them permission to experience whatever they need to experience is doing something.
RS (10:22):
Yeah. A lot of people walk away from this situation cuz they’re so uncomfortable with themselves.
RV (10:28):
Yeah.
RS (10:29):
Okay. My advice is to just be there. If it’s a good friend or a family member, you don’t have to say anything. Just sit beside ’em and hold their hand or give ’em a hug. Just being there means so much. Some of the cliches we heard and still hear, I’m heals all wounds. What the heck does that mean? Hear it all the time. They are in a better place. So many people said that to me and I said, you know, I’m sure heaven’s a lot better place than this stupid earth we live on, but my daughters are doing pretty good with us in Quincy, Illinois. But we also heard God never gives you more than you can than you can handle. And God really tested me by taking my mom and my two daughters at once. It’s a true saying, but did I wanna hear it? Absolutely not
RV (11:21):
Mm-Hmm.
RS (11:34):
Even
RV (11:34):
If it’s, even if it’s true, it’s not helpful. It’s
RS (11:37):
True and it’s hurtful.
RV (11:40):
Mm-Hmm.
RS (11:41):
RV (12:05):
Mm-Hmm.
RS (12:06):
Number one, please be patient and understanding with me.
RV (12:13):
Hmm.
RS (12:13):
Patient being a key word. Number two, please let me grieve in my own way and in my own time. Don’t tell me how to grieve. Don’t tell me when to grieve. Don’t tell me when to start grieving and stop grieving.
RV (12:29):
Hold on. And I wanna, so I wanna go back to the patient one for a second. So when you say, please be patient and understanding with me, that means like, don’t pressure me to do stuff. Be okay if I’m unresponsive for a while. Like if I disappear for if I disappear for a little bit, I’m not at the parties, I’m not whatever. I mean, I if if it’s an employee, it’s, I may be not coming back at work or colleague. I mean, is that, are those all the things when you say like, be patient with me? Yeah.
RS (12:58):
Be patient means I am not the same person I was yesterday. Okay. I mean, once my daughters were killed and my mom were killed, I, I changed from the Randy stalker that was fun-loving and happy and liked to drink a beer with the guys. I go to a bible studying or something to this angry, frustrated person that couldn’t understand why his daughters weren’t there. And every time he saw other girls their age got mad, got angry, got frustrated. So a a person who’s grieving is not the same buddy I had yesterday. So be patient with them because they will get to the point, maybe they’ll be close to that same person, but maybe not.
RV (13:48):
Yeah.
RS (13:48):
How about the things,
RV (13:50):
I can’t imagine what that would be like to see kids your same, that were the age of your kids.
RS (13:57):
Yeah. Please forgive me if I say something stupid insensitive. Okay. When you’re grieving your mind’s not the same. You say a lot of dumb things and I upset so many people, they were trying to comfort me. Oh, they were having fun with their kids and I would get mad. So I was just a totally different person. So you just gotta understand that
RV (14:20):
Is that, that’s number three you’re talking about there?
RS (14:24):
It’s number four. Yeah.
RV (14:24):
Number four. Yeah. And when you say let, let me grieve in my own way, like, you know, I just wanna spend like a minute on each one of these. Oh, you bet. And, and y’all, and I don’t, I didn’t mention this, but Randy has a book called Hugs Help. Our story of tragic loss, survival and helping others as you can tell, it’s, you know, it’s very practical. I mean emotional but very practical and like these things that we’re, we’re running through right now. And, and so grieving in my own way, I feel like that comes back to what you said a little bit earlier of the things not to say as like, oh, you should grieve like this, or I understand what it feels like, or God won’t give you more than you can handle or any, anything that sort of leads lets on in a presumptuous way that like, I know what you’re going through or I know what is best for you. It’s actually way better to just sit and go, I have nothing for you. Like, I don’t know what to do. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling. I be
RS (15:26):
Honest. Yes. I
RV (15:27):
Have no recommendation. I don’t even know what to say. I just want you to know that I care and I’m here, basically. Yeah.
RS (15:33):
Be a supporter of somebody who’s grieving. Don’t be a comforter, be a supporter.
RV (15:38):
What’s the
RS (15:38):
Difference? Wherever you can help them get around. Help ’em with their kids, mow their yard, whatever it takes. Just help take some of the additional stresses away so they can concentrate on their grief and surviving their grief and getting through their grief.
RV (15:55):
Ah, so when you say that really
RS (15:56):
On, on the fringes, help ’em on the fringes to take some of the stress away.
RV (16:00):
Yeah. So when you say be a supporter, you’re saying like, take care of the practical things. Don’t try to like do the emotional things.
RS (16:07):
Yes.
RV (16:09):
Yeah. That’s interesting. I feel that way about like having a baby like that, having, having kids rocked my world and I’m just like, I was just not prepared emotionally for what being a dad would be like and how difficult the whole thing was. Yeah. And like what helped so much was people bringing dinner, which it was like, never in my life could, I imagine for one moment that like bringing someone bringing dinner would make such a huge difference as when we had our first kid and, and our second kid of just like, there’s so much going on. Just getting dinner together is a massive feat. So that’s interesting. That’s the connection I make there. When you you’re, that’s like what you’re talking about.
RS (16:49):
Yeah. Tie that into a funeral though. In the funeral you have their visitation, you have people bringing all kinds of casseroles and food and drinks to your house once a funeral’s over the house is empty. I mean, we had hundreds of people, thousands to come to the visitation, hundreds come to the house and all of a sudden it was just haw and I and nothing left. That’s when you really need to step up as a friend. Okay. When it gets really quiet and don’t, don’t ever think you are bothering them cuz they’re thinking, why hasn’t Rory called me? Why hasn’t AJ stopped by my house? Don’t they like me anymore? That’s where I need to step up and start helping people.
RV (17:32):
Yeah. That and then I think it’s, it’s, it’s just, it’s just so ironic because it’s sort of like miscommunication. Like the definition of miscommunication where you go somebody is maybe not calling or not stopping by because they’re so afraid they’re gonna say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. And yet you’re saying all you, all you have to do is be there and don’t do anything else or just be there and help with the basics. Like, and it’s so, it’s so simple. It’s just, you know,
RS (18:02):
We try to do more than we’re, than we should be doing.
RV (18:04):
Yeah, totally. Totally. so you said please forgive me if I’m, I’m you know, if I say something silly or insensitive what else, what, what are some of the others? These are so help, this is so helpful, Randy.
RS (18:18):
Yeah. The, the fifth one is a lot of people are scared to bring up the name of the deceased. They, they think it’s going to make us start crying or get angry. Like we’ve, for like, I’d forgotten my mom and my two daughters were killed.
RV (18:33):
Totally.
RS (18:33):
Okay. That is, that’s a fear we shouldn’t have because people who are grieving want to hear the names of their loved ones. They want to hear stories, really
RV (18:44):
Pictures.
RS (18:45):
Oh, absolutely. I run a big Facebook site and to a t people want to hear stories about their loved one because we never want them to ever be forgotten. Ever. So proactively say, bring up a story or show a picture. If you
RV (19:03):
Really not
RS (19:04):
Comfortable, if you’re not comfortable doing that, say, Hey, I remembered a great story about your dad. It made me laugh this morning. Can I share it with you? So ask for permission.
RV (19:17):
Okay. Yeah. That is, I am exactly the opposite of that. I feel, I feel like, oh my gosh, I just, I don’t want to tiptoe into anything that’s gonna make them sad. It’s really sad. I worry less about making ’em angry. I worry about going, here we are having a beautiful day and now I’m gonna bring up something. You know, like AJ’s mom died when she was 15 and sometimes I’m just like, I can’t imagine how sad to grow up and to get married and to have kids and not have your mom there. And so it’s like I sometimes am afraid to even say something about my mom because I’m so, I just feel like it’s gonna make her feel bad. You know? Like, so that’s super helpful. I would not have guessed that at all.
RS (20:01):
Roy, ask her, ask her to tell you a story about her mom when she was 12. Okay. Proactively ask her. I mean, she would love to talk about her mom, but she’s not gonna bring it up cuz you don’t bring it up. Okay. I, 19 years later, I still love hearing stories about mom and Janelle. Naomi don’t hear ’em very often. Sometimes it brings a tear to my eye. Nothing wrong with that. Same with you. For all the people you’ve lost or anybody’s lost out there who actively share a story with them.
RV (20:32):
Yeah. That’s powerful.
RS (20:35):
Okay. Number eight, never stop calling me. Sometimes we think, well we’re, we’re not gonna call today because all their other friends are calling. Well, all the friends are saying, well, we’re not gonna call today because all their friends are, are calling a graver is waiting in hope. And that phone rings for somebody just to say, Hey, I’m thinking about you today. Okay. So never stop that calling and it’s just not on the date of death. You gotta kick in mind the secondary losses. I didn’t just lose my mom and my two daughters. I had lost college graduations. I had lost walking my daughters down the aisle. Uhhuh
RV (21:27):
Yeah. I heard, and I once heard I had a good, I had a good friend who lost her dad. And I remember her telling me that the entire first year that somebody’s gone, every single holiday, every single annual event, whether it’s Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Halloween, summer vacation, their birthday, like, it’s like they experienced the grief over and over again. Like the whole year of, she used to call it, it was the, she called it the year of firsts. And she was like, when somebody dies, it’s like the, it’s not just the day. It’s like there’s this whole year of first and every time, it’s like the first Christmas with Adam, the first vacation with Adam, em, the first time at home with without em the first, the first the the, the first time we go back to the golf course that we used to go to. Like, and that really hit me of like, wow, that, that means you’re at least for a year, it’s like pretty intense. Not just, oh this happened. There’s a funeral and like we all are all moving on now.
RS (22:39):
Yeah. One thing to keep in mind too, it’s not just the actual day. Grief builds up, it builds up inside of a body. Okay. Father’s Day, I hate the most cause I don’t have two of my daughters or Father’s Day. So three or four or five days before Father’s Day, I can feel the grief starting on my gut and working its toy up. And this gotta to explode. So the best time to call people is two or three or four days before those key events say, Hey, I’m thinking about you, I’m praying for you. I’m here to help. Okay.
RV (23:15):
Is that, let’s
RS (23:15):
Say get to the actual day, it’s, the buildup is worse than the actual day.
RV (23:21):
Ah,
RS (23:22):
Today is another day in their life, but the buildup anticipating thickness is gonna be a terrible day is a lot worse than the actual day.
RV (23:30):
Wow. Yeah. That’s insightful to just go like, yeah. I mean I guess I imagine you never have another Father’s Day where you don’t, you just never have another Father’s Day where you don’t think about it. And so you’re leading up, up to that moment. Can can I ask you about like the you know, spiritually, so I I’m a hardcore Bible thumping Jesus freak. We, we are, we, we, we
RS (23:53):
Hardcore Bible thumping Jesus freak. Okay. Jesus
RV (23:56):
Freak. Yeah. So, you know, we’re, we’re Christians. We believe in heaven. In fact, in fact, I am, I haven’t shared this publicly anywhere, but for the last several months I’ve actually been working on something that I’m, I I’m, it’s a, it’s called Getting into Heaven. And it’s, it’s seven, it’s seven questions that I think every intelligent skeptic should ask about Jesus. And I’m not really doing it. The, the, the reason I’m putting it together is for my sons, for Jasper and Liam. It’s gonna be dedicated to them. And I want them to know, I want them to know why daddy believes in the logical reasons of miracles, a resurrection and Jesus. So that’s a very personal and powerful thing for me and our family. Separate if whether or not somebody is a Christian or believes in heaven or is an atheist or whatever, when somebody loses somebody, especially when you don’t know what their faith is like, it’s one thing if I go, I know you’re a Christian, we go to church, we have the same beliefs.
RV (25:10):
I, you know, I can send them a Bible verse, I can send ’em something. If there’s somebody who I don’t know if they’re a Christian or I know they’re of a different religious faith and I don’t know much about that faith or like, you know, whatever, like a, you know, it’s not, we don’t have a shared spiritual belief system. Or, or I know they actively don’t have a faith. Like how much does the, you know, does it help this, like you, you already said they’re in a better place. Like, that’s not a good thing to say. That doesn’t really, even if it’s true, it doesn’t help. Is there anything else around the spiritual conversation, you know, like, I’m praying for you as a good example too, cuz I go like, that’s gotta be another thing that everybody says. And, and first of all it’s like, are they really, you know, like, you know, so, so what are some things around that?
RS (26:04):
Okay. That that’s, that’s a fair question. Yeah. We are we’re good Catholics. Okay. We live in Quincy, Illinois. When this happened part of my presentation about everybody grieves differently. Okay. My wife and I had been married 21 years. When the girls were killed, she would be in church every single day. She felt more comfortable in church, closer to God and closer to her church friends. I tried, I would go to mass every single Sunday. I would sit about halfway through mass and I’d start crying and I’d cry because why am I worshiping this God that took my daughters up to heaven? Yeah, I know they’re in heaven. I know I’m gonna see them again, but why would God take them away from me? One day I left mass, I went out to the cemetery. I was yelling and kicking and screaming and crying.
RS (26:57):
Somebody walked up behind me, Roy and put their hands on my shoulders and he said, son, what’s, you know, what’s the matter? I explained that I was so frustrated with God for not protecting my family. My prayer every night is take care of my family, take care of my wife, my kids, and grandkids, yours, his well. And this guy explained free will to me. And he basically said that God gives us all the free will to make our own decisions good, bad, right or wrong. And God didn’t take my daughters to heaven. God gave this truck driver free will, like he gives it to you. And me and the truck driver made some stupid, stupid, stupid mistakes. So after, instead of blaming God or taking Janelle naming mom to heaven, I started thanking God Rory for the 19 years I had with Janelle. And for the nine years I had with Amy.
RS (27:55):
And that changed my life. So instead of hating God, which I hate you worse hate, but that’s how I felt for a long time. I started thanking him cuz I didn’t really have to have them, he didn’t have to give ’em to me at all. I had 19 years with one and nine with the other. As far as your question, I think you need to stick with your faith. Okay. If you’re talking to somebody that has different faith, doesn’t matter. Use what you want to say. It’s gotta come from the heart. And if it doesn’t come from the heart, it’s not near as meaningful. Mm-Hmm.
RV (28:43):
Yeah. That feels like your
RV (28:44):
Question. It’s, that feels totally, and that feels like a hopeful thing for, that feels like a hopeful thing, just no matter what the scenario is. Like I’ll get to see him again someday. Like that’s a Absolutely. That’s, that’s a very hopeful yeah, that’s a, that’s, that’s a really hopeful thing. So I want to, so that’s super helpful. So can we talk about the truck driver for a minute? Because on the one hand you have to, I mean, like, there’s so much, I mean, your story just makes me cry, Randy, because it’s just, it’s just, it’s just so, it makes me so sad. And I know there’s people listening that are going through it right now, right? Like they’re going through it right now and
RS (29:27):
Presentations bring out a lot of, lot of tears. Roy,
RV (29:30):
I, I’ve, I can’t imagine tears
RS (29:32):
Are okay. It means you care, it means you love somebody.
RV (29:35):
I c I can’t hardly talk, talk to you right now. They’re, but you know, it’s like, first of all, you have to reconcile the loss of somebody, then you have to reconcile your life without that person. Then you have to reconcile with God. And then in your case, you have to reconcile with this other person. Maybe not reconcile with them directly or, but like, there’s a, that doesn’t just go away, right? Like there’s, there are, there’s feelings and emotions around that person.
RS (30:13):
Yeah.
RV (30:14):
Can you like, talk through that a little bit?
RS (30:16):
I, I can. He was a truck driver. His name is ran my, my same name unfortunately. After the death, the state of Illinois charged him with involuntary manslaughter. We went to court in Bloomington, Illinois. The judge asked a few questions and then the judge asked me to stand up and he said, I’m sorry Mr. Stocker, but I cannot charge this guy with anything. He didn’t mean to kill your family. This is before distracted driving was the terminology it is now. But I think you’re getting to the point, did I forgive that driver or not? And I get this question asked pretty much every presentation I do. And I say, I, I forgive the driver. I know he didn’t kill them on purpose, but I have not yet forgiven his stupidity. Okay. It was stupid, stupid thing he did to read a book while driving a truck. So I forgive the driver, but not his stupidity. What are your thoughts there?
RV (31:28):
W well, I guess I just took
RS (31:29):
Me a while to get to that. So,
RV (31:30):
Yeah, I mean my, how long did it take to, to get to that point?
RS (31:35):
After that trial, I actually actually asked to speak to the truck driver and his wife. And they put us in a small room at the courthouse and she said they were so sorry and gave me a big hug, but he didn’t even get out of his truck to see if my family was alive or not. Roy, he sat in his cabin and called somebody didn’t even check. So that, that part really hurt me, him not even looking to see if they were alive or needed help or anything. So it took a long time, but probably two or three years after they were killed, they started answering that way. I forgive the driver, but not a stupidity.
RV (32:20):
Yeah. I mean,
RV (32:22):
What the, whatever the, there’s, there’s always a scenario around how it happened. You know, why it happened. I, I’m a big, I’m a, I’m, I’m a big believer that forgiveness is really, you know, it, it sets, it sets you free as the one who was harmed more, more than it has anything to do with setting them free. But anyways, it’s just, I I I, I I can’t imagine. So buddy, I, I, I want to point people towards the book Hugs help our story of tragic loss, survival and helping others. And then, you know, tell me about the hugs part of it. You know, where does the, where does the, the title come from? Because we haven’t, we haven’t talked about it, but as soon as, as soon as I saw it, I was like, man, I really even just love the title of this because it, it feels, I guess this whole, this whole topic of just death.
RV (33:23):
You know, and I, I firmly believe in heaven. Like I am absolutely convicted in, you know, what are my beliefs? And, and I’ve re researched them at length over the course of my life, both from a spiritual and emotional perspective, but especially from a logical and rational and archeological perspective. And no matter, no matter what, it still feels so hopeless. It still feels so desperate. Like, you know if I lost my kids or my wife, like, it’s like I just, I have no control over this. And, you know, this is going to happen in some way to one of us, some someday. And I think there’s so much about what you talk about Randy, that’s just tactical and practical and you know, the, the hug especially of everything somehow is ma is, it feels magical to me as like the thing. So can you just tell us like, where, where, where’s the fir first of all, tell us where, where do you want people to go to get the book or to connect with you or like learn about, you know, having you speak and then, and then I wanna hear the story of the, the title.
RS (34:34):
Okay, good. The book’s on amazon.com, just write in Hugs, help Randy Stalker. If you want to, a lot of people like autograph copy, so they can go to my website hugs help.org, and they can order an autograph copy and I’ll send it right from here. Venmo is the only way I take payment for that, but if they have Venmo does it that way. I’ve, I presented about 35 times my first year since the book has released mm-hmm.
RV (35:18):
Indeed.
RS (35:19):
Cuz we all need to understand grief. We need to understand how to help those that are grieving. So I’m looking for the opportunity to talk to as many people as I can. As you can tell, I’m very open with my presentation. Sometimes I shed a tear while I’m speaking. They need to understand that about half the time it’s
RV (35:40):
RS (35:43):
And then as far as the Hugs help, I, I wrote the book in eight months, during October. It was released May 23rd. Actually a year ago today it was released. Okay. It didn’t have a title. So I went to see my dad in Gibson City, Illinois. Had a nice couple days with him. He is a big brood of a guy, Uhhuh
RV (36:38):
Yeah.
RS (36:38):
That’s where it came from. I’m proud of the title. It’s getting a pretty good name out there. So
RV (36:44):
It is the, you know, the other, the other thing I love about hugs, I mean, it’s so helpful to know what, what, not to say, what to say and all this, you know, but I think, you know, one of the things that really sticks with me, I, from, from what you’ve said and talk about is just being there. Like, literally just being there. You don’t have to say anything. And in order to give a hug, you have to be there.
RS (37:13):
Yep.
RV (37:14):
Like, and that’s, I, that’s why I was like, man, this really is the perfect, the perfect title. It’s memorable, it’s clear, it’s what people want. It, it, it’s what the grieving person wants. And it’s also to me what the, what the people surrounding the situation want, which is a clear answer for how can I help, what can I do? And just knowing like it’s, you know, hugs is a great way to do it. You’re not, you’re just there. You’re not saying anything. You’re not fixing anything. You’re not coaching anybody on how they should feel.
RS (37:54):
Just there.
RV (37:55):
You’re just there and you’re just holding them. Yeah. And well, I’d
RS (37:59):
Like to share five takeaways with people. Do we have time for that? Sure. Okay. Number one, always remember that everybody grieves differently. My wife and I were night and day grieving. She didn’t cry for four months after our daughters were killed.
RV (38:14):
Wow.
RS (38:15):
Four months. And I was just a, just a ball baby every single day. So when you’re trying to help people understand that husband may grieve differently than the wife and the kids and everybody else, number two, you cannot grieve wrong. Don’t ever let anybody tell you how to grieve, when to grieve or when to stop grieving. If you feel like crying cry. If you feel like screaming scream, you cannot grieve wrong. Number three, always try to accept a griever for who they are. Now, I’m never gonna be the Randy stalker before July 22nd, 2003. He’s long gone. I’m a new person. Everybody that goes through tragedy is a new person, not a better person, not a worse person, just a different person. Number four, try to really hard to understand the grieving process. We share nine steps there with you. Just a lot of times people won’t say what’s on their mind. They can tell you how to help ’em, but they won’t. So if you understand what they’re going through, it will help them. And number five, what you just said, just be there for them. You can’t fix it. Nothing you can do to just be there. That’s what a graver needs And hugs do help Roy.
RV (39:41):
Yeah. Amen. Well, Randy, thank you for the courage and the boldness of sharing your story. I I’m convinced it’s gonna help a whole bunch, a whole bunch of people, and I’m, I’m very grateful to have met you and to have had this encounter and this opportunity to get this instruction from you. It gives me a lot more confidence in, you know, approaching this situation in a way of being able, being able to be helpful to, to people going through a hard time. And so again, you know, you guys can go to hu Hugs help dot org Right? Is the website. And you can, or you can grab the book Hugs, help on Amazon and walk you through this. Randy I really wish you the best man. I, I’m, I’m praying for your message to get out there to, to help a lot of people. I know there’s a lot of people who struggle with grief and struggle with how to support a griever. And there’s, you know, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of death and tragedy and heartbreak going on in the world. And so I think this is a really, really needed message. So we love you. We’re cheering for you. We’re grateful for you. Keep on going, my friend.
RS (40:53):
Take care, Rory. Thank you. Okay.
Ep 389: 3 Elements of Mental Toughness | Todd Durkin Episode Recap
RV (00:02):
Huh. I love the fire that Todd Durkin brings to the microphone and to the camera, man. I’m a, I’m a fan. This guy’s enthusiasm and, and positivity and his energy that he brings, it is contagious. And as a friend, as a client, as a colleague, I am I really have enjoyed my time around Todd Durkin and I, the interview that we did. If you didn’t get a chance to listen to it, go back and listen to it yourself. You’ll catch a bit of his energy and just his intensity, which I, I really, really loved. And you know, as always, what I’m, what I’m doing is I’m, I’m taking these interviews and sharing back with you things that I’m being reminded of, things that I’m learning myself, the ways that I’m internalizing or processing what has just happened during that interview. And today’s no different.
RV (00:58):
This is inspired, you know, by all this, this conversation with Todd. But I boiled this down to what I wanna share with you are three elements of mental toughness. These are three kind of pieces of your, these are three parts of your mindset that you have to get right, if you’re ever going to really be mentally tough. And I think these are three things that people don’t actually do very well. Like, these are three very rare things. These are three things that are unfortunately uncommon amongst most people in the world, but among the elite, among the top one percenters among what we would call the ultra performers. I refer to them and take the stairs in my first book as ultra performers, or in my second book procrastinate on purpose. We call ’em multipliers. You know, today, we might just call them like mega influencers.
RV (01:55):
But these ultra performers, there’s, the thing you gotta understand is that it is their mind. That is the, the magic is in the mind, right? It’s not their skills so much. And, and it’s, it’s that there’s mental conditioning. It’s like that story I shared about Navy Seal, Joe, the, the human body can take near anything. It’s the mind that needs conditioning. So here’s three elements of mental toughness. First one, something that you need to understand if you’re going to be successful in anything, is that the intensity of your discipline needs to match the magnitude of your dream. The intensity of your discipline needs to match the magnitude of your dream. This is one of the biggest problems we have in the world today, is there’s people, you, you see all these dreams and like people, all these fake flus online who are showing like, oh, these cars and these private
RV (02:58):
Jets in these homes. And so it’s like, oh, we all have these dreams and we have this huge dream, and yet we have this weak level of discipline that is a recipe for failure, right? That’s a recipe for disaster. Or it’s at least a recipe for a broken heart or unmet expectations. You can’t have a huge dream and very weak discipline. The intensity of your discipline needs to match the magnitude of your dream. Big goals are for people with big work habits, right? Right. I’m all about having big goals. I’m all about dreaming big. I’m all about, you know, achieving the impossible. I’m all about going for the thing that no one else says you can do, but you better show up and put in the work. Like you better show up and be ready to play. You better show up and say, I am willing to do what no one else is willing to do, so that I can have what no one else is going to have.
RV (03:51):
That’s the mindset of an ultra performer. I’m not saying you have to like it, I’m not saying it’s fun. I’m certainly not saying it’s easy. I’m saying that’s what it takes. That’s how it is, right? Also, I would say, and I’ve, I’ve said this several times before, discipline becomes dormant in the absence of a dream. Discipline becomes dormant in the absence of a dream. So part of increasing your discipline is increasing your dream. Because if you don’t have a clear dream, if you don’t have a clear picture, then there is no reason for you to make the sacrifice. And so the human brain left to its own default, to its own design, will naturally gravitate towards the path of lease resistance. This is escalator mentality thinking, which is where the title of the Take the Stairs book my first book even comes from, right? So you have to, if you wanna increase your discipline, one of the ways to increase your discipline is to increase the dream.
RV (04:50):
Because then you go, ah, now I have a reason to do it. Now I have a reason to make the sacrifice. But discipline goes dormant in the absence of a dream. So if you’re struggling with discipline, it might just be you don’t have a big enough dream. But so step one is like, have the dream, but then step two is make sure that the level of your discipline matches the magnitude of your dream. That is a connection that ultra performers understand. Most people do not. Most people will never get it. I mean, literally go to the mall, walk around, you can look at world or look, go to a stadium. Look at most of the people there are never going to make the connection that I am talking about that I just shared with you. But a 100%, 100% of the world’s wealthiest people, most successful people, highest performing people, top achievers, top athletes, top actors, top singers, 100% of those people will have made that connection.
RV (05:46):
So if you wanna be one of those people, I recommend you understand that and you make that connection. Number two, the power of community. I loved what Todd was saying when he said, hire an appointment with a trainer, right? Like, hire a trainer if for no other reason than to create the accountability in your life to show up and exercise, to show up and work out. If you don’t have the self-discipline to get up and exercise and do what you need to do, then hire a trainer for no other reason than to, to make sure you show up, right? Like there is power in accountability, there’s power in community. And if you’re not where you wanna be in your business, if you’re not where you wanna be in your personal brand, if you’re not, if, if you’re not achieving the things that you want to be achieving, one of the first things you have to do is look at who you’re spending your time with, right?
RV (06:47):
Who are the people around you? I can guarantee you that the people you’re spending time with are not people who have achieved those things. If you’re spending time with people who have achieved those things, you will become that person. You will. It, it happens by default because you, you absorb their mindsets, you absorb their tactics, their beliefs, their relationships, their, their, their, the things they focus on. You absorb those things. So you have to curate your own community. You have to curate your own community for your life. You have to hand select deliberately. Choose intentional in intentionally pick who you’re spending time with. And that’s another reason why. I mean, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, if you’re not yet a member of Brand Builders Group, I’m going, the amount of money you have to invest to become one of our members is so minuscule.
RV (07:44):
Not only compared to what you’ll learn, and, and not only compared to what you’ll earn as a result from what you’ll, but it’s so small just compared to the power of the network, of the people you would meet. Like, if you learned nothing from us, if you never implemented anything from us, the r o ROI you would receive just from being in the room with the people who are at our events, right? And who are on our virtual trainings and who are in our Facebook group, is so tremendously powerful. Like, it’s huge because it’s a community. It’s a community of mission driven messengers. It’s a group. This is something we never anticipated when we started. The company, never even thought about. It was like, wow, if we’re successful, what will happen as a byproduct is we will have hundreds of people who are world changers, all who coalesce, like, who all assemble in the same area.
RV (08:41):
And it is incredible. Our members are incredible. Like the people we see in our Facebook group and, and our community group and on, on our virtual trainings and at our live events and on our virtual events, I mean, mean, it blows my mind, the stories. I mean, our members are amazing. So you need to curate that community. And if you’re trying to build your personal brand and you’re trying to like, use your personal brand to grow your business, then I, I cannot recommend enough going to free brand call.com/podcast, request a call and find out how you can join our community, right? We have all different investment levels, right? Even we, we, we’ve designed this to be affordable for people who are even starting out in the very, very beginning. Cuz that, that was me one day. That was us one day, right? So we have a heart for that, for that early messenger.
RV (09:27):
But like, if you’re serious, like get serious and take that step. Request the call, show up for the call, find out what the investment is, figure out what the right level is for you, and get your butt to the community. Like, get plugged in. If it’s not with us, that’s fine. Whatever your goal is though, whatever your dream is, whatever your mission is, whatever, whatever is the thing you’re wanting to achieve or accomplish or do or become, you have to surround yourself with other people who are trying to achieve or do or become those same things. The power of community. And this last one, this last one is, I’m gonna name this concept. I’ve never named this concept before, but I came up with a name for this. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve thought about this a lot and I’ve talked about it some, but I’m gonna officially give it a name right now.
RV (10:24):
This is a, this is a, so officially a new concept that I’m introducing formally is the concept of something that I’m going to call standup speed. Standup speed. What is standup speed? Simple. Your standup speed is how fast do you stand up after you got knocked down? That’s it. That’s standup speed. How fast can you stand up after you get knocked down? How fast do you bounce back after you have failed? How fast do you make the next call after the last sales call rejected you? How fast do you post the next video after the last video flopped? How fast do you get on the next stage after your last stage bombed? Like, how fast do you publish the next episode after the previous episode? Nobody listened to like, that is standup speed. And those are practical, physical, external expressions of standup speed, right?
RV (11:31):
Those are behavioral things that you could, that you could notice and you could see and you could actually measure. But really where standup speed really starts is in your mind. It’s in your mind. It’s going, how long are you going to let something negative affect you before moving on from it? That’s your standup speed. Like, literally, think about this. You go, there are things that happen every day that, that suck, right? Or aren’t good. Like, or, or, or with some regularity. There are things that happen all the time, right? We, we have stuff right now. We have, we have this leak in the house. You know, we have a seven year old brand new house, like a very like pretty nice house, right? Custom-Built home. We have this huge leak that is like destroying a wall inside of the house that we are like, okay, now we have to get this repaired.
RV (12:27):
And you go, we did nothing to do that. Like, it, it, it was completely out of our control. Like, we did nothing to deserve that, I don’t think, right? Unless it’s God or the universe going, you know, some, some, some version of, you know, like what goes around comes around karma like coming back to us, but like we have this huge leak and you go, if you have a huge leak in your home, you know, we had a gas leak not too long ago and I go, oh, you have a gas leak. Oh you have we had a flat tire. I had a flat tire not that long ago. Had a flat tire, right? Or you lose a customer or you lose an important engagement or you lose a team member, which is, to me, one of the most devastating things is when I is, when when we lose team members, that’s like really devastating, right? You know, you go, okay, something negative happens.
RV (13:18):
What your standup speed is, what is the distance between, or the amount of time that passes between when the negative thing happens and you go, ah, this sucks. How much time passes between that and where you go, all right, I, all I can do is all I can do is control what I can control and move on to the next thing. Whatever that distance is there, that’s your standup speed, right? That whatever that time lapse is that that span between something bad happened and I’m immediately going into action mode about doing something about it. And not only going into action mode about doing something about it, but I’m letting go of the negative thoughts and the negative energy that surrounded that event. What is that distance? That is your standup speed. And most people’s standup speed is so slow. It’s so slow. We think the reason we’re not more successful in life is cuz like, we can’t go zero to 60.
RV (14:18):
Like, man, if that, the key to being successful in life is like, if I could start a business in 90 days, or I could make a million dollars in 90 days, that would make me successful. That’s not the speed that matters. You can crawl like a turtle, you know, in that race and eventually win. That’s all about consistency. The speed that matters. Where speed matters when it comes to success is your standup speed. It’s going, I got punched in the face. How fast did I punch back? Right? I got knocked down. How fast did I stand back up? I got rejected, I got doors, slammed my face. How fast did I knock on another door? How fast did I make another phone call? That’s the standup speed. And, and, and not just the behavior, but how quickly were you able to let go of, to release, to lose to, to shed the negative energy, the negative thoughts, the negative patterns, the whoa is me. Why did this happen to me? This is so terrible. This is so expensive. I’ll never break free of this. All of the victim mentality that shows up, which is not unwarranted, right? I’m not saying you’re weak for having those thoughts, you’re human for having those thoughts. Those are normal things. But where your strength comes from is realizing that those negative thoughts don’t serve you at all.
RV (15:40):
Having the thoughts helps you zero. In fact, it makes it worse. There is nothing about a negative thought. There’s nothing about negative energy, nothing about stewing, nothing about sulking, nothing about soaking inside of excuses or rationalizations or justifications or just things that, that you did nothing to deserve, but were bad. There is nothing about sitting in that place of negativity that does anything to serve you, that does anything to help you achieve your goals. That does anything to help anyone else. It doesn’t help you be successful. It doesn’t help you make more money. It doesn’t help you make more impact. It does nothing. All it does is keep you stuck and making you feel sorry for yourself. It’s a victimhood. It is a victim mindset in going, how long am I going to allow something that happened to me in the past? How many days am I gonna carry that forward?
RV (16:37):
How many times am I gonna take what was in the past and project it into my future? For how many minutes or, or moments? For how many moments or how many minutes or how many hours or how many days or how many years or how many decades are you going to carry that negative energy forward? Just answer the question, not to me, to yourself. How long are you going to allow that negative energy from that past situation claw at your future and pull you back? That’s your standup speed. Because what do ultra performers do? They fail and forget. Fail and forget. Fail and forget. Fail and forget tragedy and forget set back and forget somebody hurts them, forgive ’em and forget, forgive ’em and forget, forgive them and forget, fail and forget. Like their standup speed is like instantaneously, like instant. Their, their standup speed is instantaneous.
RV (17:38):
He go flat tire. That sucks. Call a tow truck, pick up the spare, get an Uber, buy a new car, whatever it is. But you immediately go into action mode. And, and I’m not saying that is the life isn’t hard. I’m not saying that things aren’t unfair. I’m saying life is hard. I’m saying life is unfair always for everyone. Is it more unfair for some people than others? Sure. Maybe. I, I, yeah, I mean, probably so. I would, I would buy into that. But is that what determines your success in life? No, I would, I would, I would rarely, on very rare occasion, I, I might, I might accept or acquiesce to that. But, but typically, no. I go, I know people who have, I know people who have overcome every setback. I know people who have been raped. I know people who have had family members murdered.
RV (18:26):
I know people who have been spit on. I know people who’ve been called racial slurs. I know people who have gone bankrupt. I know people who have been homeless. I know people who never had a formal education. I know people who have been burned, have been, who are quadriplegics, who grew up without a mom or a dad. Like I know people like from almost every horrible situation you could think of. I know personally these type of people who have overcome it and been successful anyways, who have overcome it and survived, not just survived, but they have thrived anyways. Not just thrive, but become world changers, multipliers, ultra performers. In spite of the fact of these setbacks, because they have extraordinary standup speed, they quickly engage with what is proactive, productive, and positive. So what is your standup speed?
RV (19:24):
How long are you gonna let the negative things of the past affect you? How many times are you gonna complain that you have too much work to do? How, I mean, how many years have to go by of you feeling busy before you stop telling people you’re busy? How many you know days do you have to live feeling overwhelmed, bef before you finally just go, I’m not overwhelmed. That just is what it is. And I’m gonna do, I’m gonna do my thing and I’m gonna go as fast as I can. Like, how long are you going to allow negative energy to hold you back? Standup speed. You need a faster standup speed. I need a faster standup speed. So much of my life, I can look back as going. It has been, my mental toughness has been about this conditioning. This one skill is what is my standup speed? How fast can I go from a negative thing happened into productive positive action And not just action. Action is huge, right? But also shedding myself of the resentment, of the worry of the fear of the heartbreak, of the sadness of the, of, of this thing and going it because it does nothing to serve me. Now, grief would be one exception. I think there is a time for grief that grief should happen when you experience loss and you go,
RV (20:46):
Yes, I’m gonna grieve. I think that’s a part of the healing process. But even that, at some point, you have to move on from, I mean, what are you gonna do? Spend the rest of your life grieving about something you lost or someone you lost? I don’t mean any disrespect to anyone who has lost someone. We’ve all lost people. But I think in many cases the way to honor that person is to move forward and do something significant, maybe in their memory, in their honor. But I do think there’s a, a, a, there is, you know, a psychological place and a necessity for grief, but not forever. Right? Now, how long? I don’t know you decide, but I go, how long is it really serving you? How long is it really serving you? I, I, that’s for you to figure out, right? I’m not telling you when or what’s the right amount of speed, but I’m telling you, when it comes to generally being successful in life, increasing your standup speed will radically transform the probability of you achieving the things that you want most in your life. This is not something in your d n a, this is something in your character. This is something you develop. This is something you code. This is something you drive with your own discipline. It’s a decision you make. I am no longer going to allow myself to be affected by negative energy and negative things that happened in the past. I’m not gonna allow myself to say I’m overwhelmed. I’m busy, I’m stressed, I’m frustrated, I’m tired. I, i like, it doesn’t serve you.
RV (22:21):
If it doesn’t serve you, don’t let it stay with you. If it doesn’t serve you, don’t let it stay with you. Stand up speed. Do it, my friend. That’s all we got for this episode of the Influential Personal Brand podcast. That was my rant. And I love you. And I’m talking to myself, right? I’m talking to myself going, Rory, you need to pick it up, Rory. You need to get, you need to get up faster. You need to bounce back faster. You need to quit complaining. You need to quit sulking. You need to quit soaking. You need to quit whining about this or that, or whatever. Just respond. Just re just respond to it, deal with it, and, and focus on the things that, that make a difference. So I’m on this journey with you and I’m grateful for that and I’m, I’m grateful for you being here. I hope you find it encouraging, encouraging enough to share this with somebody who needs it. Share this with someone who, a team of people who you know are going through something tough. And keep coming back, will ya? I appreciate it. Hey, leave us a review and a comment if you can at some point. We’d love to hear your thoughts and we’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand Podcast.
Ep 388: Having a High-Performance Mindset with Todd Durkin
RV (00:02):
Well, one of my favorite quotes is from a Navy Seal. My friend Navy Seal Joe, and he said, Rory, the human body can take near anything. Hmm. It’s the mind that needs conditioning. And today I’m gonna introduce you to someone who is a new friend of mine, a client of ours and an expert on high performance mindset. His name is Todd Durkin, and when I say he’s an expert on high performance mindset, we’re gonna hear some of his story. But just to give you a frame of reference, he has been part of the mental and conditioning coach for people like Aaron Rodgers, drew Brees, and U F C Champion, Mike Chandler. So we’re talking some of the premier athletes in the world. Todd is also the author of the book called Get Your Mind Right. And that’s why I brought him here today. He’s gonna help us get our mind right and stay in that high performance mindset. So brother, welcome to the show,
TD (00:56):
Man. Roy, thank you for that introduction. Great to be here.
RV (00:59):
Yeah. And I can’t, it would, it would be, it would be wrong not to give a shout out to our man, Bob Wheatley, who is one of our clients and one of our team members and one of my favorite humans who I really respect. And that’s obviously how we met. Met you, you were his coach, right?
TD (01:13):
Yeah, B Bob used to come down and train in San Diego at my gym, fitness Quest 10 when he was a pitcher at U S C. And every year he and his brother Brent would come down and train with me in preparation for his season. And then ultimately Bob became a professional pitcher. But the Wheatley family is an amazing family. And when Bob reconnected a few years ago after his professional career, he said, Hey, I’m working with this guy Rory Vaden and Brand Builders Group. And I’m like, what’s that? Bob came on my podcast, we talked about you. And I’m like, I gotta meet this guy at Rory. And that’s how we got connected, Rory.
RV (01:49):
I love it. I love it. Well, so I wanna hear, I, I wanna hear about what it takes to have the kind of mental conditioning at at this, you know, elite, athlete level elite entrepreneurs. I know you also coach entrepreneurs, especially now in recent years. But like, tell us a little bit about the backstory first. So you mentioned, you mentioned your gym. Sure. How did you, how did you kind of get into where you’re at now?
TD (02:13):
Yeah. Well, one thing I always say, and I’ve said for 23 years in working with those athletes and entrepreneurs is this, get your mind right. Get your mind right. Get your mind right. But the reason I say that is because I wanna know how you get your mind right when your mind’s not right when you’re struggling or when you’re down, or let’s say you used, you know, you’re a high performer, but maybe you’re, you’re overwhelmed or you’re stressed, or you’re depressed or you’re down, or life through your curve ball. I’ve really set my life to be one where I was the underdog, right? Growing up, youngest of eight kids, parents were divorced earned a college football scholarship. And when I went overseas to play professional football in the World League, I hurt my back and three herniated discs, spinal stenosis, degenerative back disease. And at the age of 25, my dream of playing in the N F L was shot.
TD (03:02):
I’m like, what do I do now? Cuz from five to 25, I wanted to be a pro n f l quarterback. And I did a lot of soul searching. I had to heal my back pain without surgery, ideally, which I did. And I was like, man, what am I gonna do next? And that led me down this five year circuitous route to ultimately open my own gym. And being from the east coast, I was born and raised in New Jersey and moved to San Diego. After living in 13 cities in five years to heal my back, I opened my gym with no clients, no money and no business plan. Not a good way to start
RV (04:04):
Uhhuh
TD (04:10):
Right? So what happened was, I started working with everybody, didn’t matter who, like, it wasn’t athletes. I did not work with athletes. It was anyone who would come in. Cause I had to pay the bills. And I’d laugh now because I was working with people from teens on up, the people in their seventies, obese non-athletes, tennis players, you name it. I worked with them. But in through a fortuitous or not moment, I, I met a guy named Vaughn Parker. Vaughn Parker was the starting left tackle for the then San Diego Chargers. And I actually did body work and massage therapy and waling along with training. Vaughn had a bad back. So when I worked with Vaughn, session number one, I’ve got him on this table and doing all this hit rotator release technique. And you know, he had just signed a 20 million y year deal, which was a lot of money.
TD (05:02):
It’s a lot of money now. It was a lot of money in year 20 2002. Well, the table, Rory, when I was working with him, broke in half with him lying on the table, 310 pound left tackle for the single chargers. It breaks in half. Like, my gosh, my gosh, my first pro athlete table breaks in half. He’s lying on the, on the floor saying what just happened? I’m like, I’m not sure. But I had just watched this v h s tape on time massage. So I br I take off my shoes. I start doing this time massage work because what do you do? You bootstrap it, you figure out what to do. And he’s like, this is amazing. This is wonderful. How long you’ve been doing this work? I’m like, this is like the first session I’ve ever done with time massage. But I had a, a background in body work.
TD (05:46):
Well, Vaughn, after that session was like, that was the most amazing work. The San Diego Chargers, we, we’d love to have you come down and, and do some work in, in the team room after the games to stretch us out, do body work. And lo and behold, I become the, the, the sports therapist for the San Diego Chargers. I met LaDainian Tomlinson, the first round pick for the Chargers, drew Brees. That’s how they ultimately became clients of mine because one guy named Vaughn Parker brought me to the Chargers for two years. I trained those guys and, and did all their body work. Ladainian came into my gym, he brought Drew into the gym. I’d been training Drew now for 22 years. And the rest is history. Cuz in the athlete world, it’s all word of mouth. And in 23 years of my career in the fitness world, a lot of doors have opened up.
TD (06:33):
But it was my pain back in my back injury that all of a sudden these guys would come in like, man, I got a bad back, my bad back. And that was my vehicle to change lives. And for the better part of two decades, what I’ve learned is that physical pain often perceives your deepest purpose. And even the last three years of the pandemic, I can tell you what in, in doing a lot of depth work in helping people overcome the mindset aspect of, you know, being down and out. Ladainian wrote the forward to my first book, the Impact Body Plan. Drew wrote the Forward to I Get Your Mind Right book because I don’t care if you’re a high level, you know, athlete or you’re an entrepreneur, you, you have a successful business or not. Mindset is everything. Energy is everything. And what I’ve learned is my gift is in mindset and helping people get their minds right, especially when their minds aren’t right. Because I’ve been down that road multiple times of how you gotta fight for your mindset, your heart set and your soul set.
RV (07:31):
Yeah. So I want to, let’s, I wanna talk about that cuz I mean obviously you mentioned Covid, like it’s been a heavy, it’s been a heavy last few years for the whole world. And you know, in the United States, we got a lot of political divide. We got, you know, covid and controversy of our vaccines and, and you know, all this George Floyd and all of these, you know, massive external things that are happening. But then it’s like alcohol is, you know, through the roof anxiety and depression and all that sort of stuff. So like, talk us through that. If your mind’s not right, like what’s the, what’s the first step that you do? Like when you say get your mind right, and you go, okay, how, walk me through, how do I get myself out of that spot?
TD (08:16):
I want to get deep on you for a moment because I believe everyone’s got a struggle. I think everyone has a struggle. Even the most successful athletes and entrepreneurs in the world have a, have a struggle. And the last few years there’s been a struggle on some level, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. There’s, there’s a struggle. And a lot of times a struggles, especially amongst men. We don’t talk about it many times, but I know in a lot of the people who I’ve been working with there’s a struggle, mentally mindset, overwhelmed, maybe anxiety, maybe depression, maybe they feel like they’re off their north star. And, and, and man, I used to be, everything was flowing and now everything’s a push. And I’m like, brother sis, I, I feel you. I know because Rory, the back pain I had 25 years ago, for me, it resurfaced in the middle of the pandemic.
TD (09:09):
Why? Well, because I have the mentality of I’m gonna save the world. This isn’t a good thing, by the way, because I took on the onus of I’m gonna save all the people I work with in my coaching groups. I’m gonna save all the gyms in the world. I’m gonna save my own gym. And I literally said this, get on my back. Get on my back. We got this, we got this. Well, my body broke nine months into the pandemic. My knee started hurting. I had a second knee replacement, 52 years old, knee replacement. Six weeks after that, my back starts killing me. I spent all of 2021 in debilitating back pain where they told me I needed a massive fusion of my back. Here I am Rory, I I I’m a coach, I’m a trainer. I I I’ve had all this success in the fitness world and I’m, I’m breaking physically and mentally.
TD (10:03):
Cuz when you’re in pain, you, it’s all consuming in your head and you, you can’t get outta your own head. And here I am, I just wrote a book, June of 2020, it came out. Get your mind right. And here I am the Wright maniac guy. In my mind, I’m like, I am practicing everything I say in the book. And I’m like, God, why are you putting this on my plate? Why are you putting this on my plate? So when I say, you know, how do you get your mind right when your mind ain’t right? There were a time, even the last couple years, I had to fight like mad to get my mind right myself personally. And what I found was, the more I shared that, the more people were opening up and like, they’d be DMing me or hitting me up like, Hey Todd, like, man, if they only knew, like my marriage is good, my family’s good, you know, business is good, but let me tell you, I I am really struggling right now.
TD (10:51):
I’m like, okay, where are we at? Like, number one, like, I wanna make sure you don’t do anything stupid for yourself personally, but I wanna make sure that, you know, you start to feel an alignment again. And when you say, where do you start? For me, this is me personally. I’m a man of faith. We gotta look at all your core values and are you, are you living in alignment with that? Because let’s face it when you look back at your struggles, it’s always the struggles that ultimately allow us to go to that place that allow us to grow. But none of us love pain. None of us love struggle. But in the last three years, it’s those struggles that ultimately allow us to find what we’re all searching for, fulfillment, joy, peace, happiness, harmony in our lives. These are the things that we truly want.
TD (11:35):
And where do we start? I think it’s with a lot of tapping into the whispers. I call it my book, tapping into the whispers is what’s God revealing to you? Where do you need to go? Do you need to slow down? You need to speed up. Do you need to spend more time with your, your kids and become a better father or mother? And to me it starts with a lot of, of internal doing the work and, and talking to a coach or someone, a therapist, or even a doctor about where it’s at is how do you get your mind right? You, you, you, you do that soul searching, it takes. Now I can tell you all the things you need, okay? You need to be working out. Well, what if you can’t work out? I I couldn’t work out with my back in knee.
TD (12:12):
Were all jacked up. I mean, I’m crawling in my backyard thinking I gotta get my mind right. I know movement’s a key part of it. I talk about it all the time. But what if you’re so in pain, you’re debilitating and you’re on a couch and, and you’re like, man, I I I need to take a nap all the time. I’m exhausted because pain is killing me. So to me it’s like, you gotta fight. Like Madden have other people around you. I call ’em fire breathing dragons. How do you surround yourself with fire breathing dragons that’ll say, you know what? Get your tail up, get your booty up and move. I don’t care if you take a five minute walk, you listen to a great podcast like yours, Rory. You listen to some, some great music and whether that be gospel music or old school music, hip-hop music, you move your body, you listen to the right messaging, you listen to that message is gonna really heighten your vibration so you can operate a different level and you fight light mad for your identity.
RV (13:00):
Well, and I, I mean, I I pick up the move your body thing, which is, which is really huge. But I, well, I heard you before that when you’re talking about like listening to the whispers, it almost, it’s, it almost seems like you’re, you know, there’s like a part of like listening to your body, listening to your soul, listening to God, listening to what, whatever term you want to use of interpreting that signal about what needs to happen and what, what do you need to do? Like how do you tap into that?
TD (13:30):
You develop a routine in the morning, in the quiet time where you sit there in silence. See, silence is the hardest exercise you’ll ever do. Be like, Hey, what’s the hardest exercise you do with the, the guys in the gym? I’m like, it’s called meditation or prayer. And you just sit there and silence and you listen. I used to think prayer was, you know, talking to God and you’re praying like, dear God, can you please bless all my problems? And I got these challenges and through a lot of work with my pastor and and mentor a lot of prayer is actually listening and listening and tapping in and tapping in the whispers means this, I believe that when you hear shouts, it’s ego. And when you hear whispers, it’s God. So if there’s these shouts going on all the time, it’s probably your ego saying, I need to do this or I need to do that.
TD (14:18):
But if you consistently journal your, your whispers and day after day after day, it’s saying, what I was writing down in 20 20, 20 21 is slow down, slow down, slow down, slow down. For months I was journaling the same thing. Slow down. How do you slow down when the world is so fast? Or when you’re trying to figure things out, your mind is racing and it, it, it, it creates anxiety. How do you slow down? And one thing I’ve always said, and I’ve watched some of the best athletes in the world do this, and I’ve come up with the good ones could speed a game up and the great ones can slow it down. The good ones could speed a game up. The great ones.
RV (15:01):
What do you mean by that?
TD (15:02):
What I mean by this is this. If it’s I’m an athlete, I’m a coach. As a coach, you look at the world’s best athlete, think about a two minute drill. A two minute drill is if you were to watch a quarterback go down the field in a two minute drill, while it’s really happening fast, everything is beautifully slow and he’s in control of the rhythm of a game. Life is the same way. It’s really fast right now. There’s a lot of things going on. A lot of decisions have to be made. You’re trying to juggle your family and all of the things with your business and revenue and payroll and the team and leadership. And it could be overwhelming. But when you can slow the insides down where you can actually control and not get anxiousness or anxiety, or you’re constantly just reacting to everything, I believe the best entrepreneurs and business folk in the world actually operate slowly and that’s hard to do.
TD (16:01):
So I liken the, the athlete to the successful businessman or businesswoman who can slow things down, at least in my world the last several years is when oper, when I’m operating at my best, the insides are actually slowed down. Despite everything on the, on the outside world is really, really fast. When I react to the speed on the outside, all of a sudden now my anxiety will start to heighten. I feel overwhelmed. I feel like, man, I’ve got 50 things going on and I need to really reduce this. And Rory, we talked about this on my podcast cuz you talked about what you, you shared with, with Lewis. How’s going from 17 to three? It’s how do we simplify? You know, it’s, it’s this, it’s this simplification process is really complex, but for me it’s how you slow things down early in the morning before people get up.
TD (16:51):
You sit down and if you open up a blank notebook or a journal and you just sit there and listen for a minimum of five minutes and then start to write, that’s part of your morning routine. And you, and yes, exercise and movement is, is a part of that. But if you can tap into the whispers and slow things down and really listen, whether you call it meditation, whether you call it prayer, whether you call it quiet time, I believe that is going to allow you to give, get you some inner peace and to really tap into the profound wisdom that’s already there versus just reacting to the day, boom, boom, boom, boom.
RV (17:29):
You think that like, you know, like I’m thinking about Mike Chandler, so I’m not, I don’t follow UFC that close, but like I know he’s, you said he’s fighting Connor McGregor coming up and like, yep, that’s, that’s the real deal. Like how do, how, how does somebody like that incorporate Wyatt time or slowing down their mind? Is it something that happens before a match? Is it, is it, does it happen during a match also somehow?
TD (18:00):
Yep. Yeah, that’s a good question. Let’s, let’s face it, if you’re a UFC fighter, you gotta train like mad because it is me metabolically one of the hardest things you’ll ever get. Those
RV (18:10):
Guys are, I’m in there insane, insane,
TD (18:13):
Insane. But let me, let me, let me liken it to this. All of us should be training with that same intensity. We should all be training with that same intensity. Now, it might not replicate, you know what Mike Chandler, who, who is, who is prepping for Conor McGregor as we speak right now, but that intensity when training and if you’re a a, a 40 or 50 or a 60 year old man or woman, you have to be training with the intensity that is going to allow you to release all of the, the, the angst and anxiety and stuff on the inside so that when you feel, when you’re done with your workout, you feel more at peace. And now you’re not being run over by overwhelm or anxiety. That’s the first aspect.
RV (18:59):
You say training with the intensity you’re talking about physical, like physically,
TD (19:02):
I’m talking physical, working out,
RV (19:03):
Physically moving in in a way that’s comparable to release the internal turmoil.
TD (19:09):
100% interesting. Now, when that’s done, the best time like Mike would do is then when you’re, you’ve got all the junk out of the trunk as I would call it now tap in and take 5, 10, 15 minutes of quiet time to reflect on the inside because Mike, who is tr is in in great shape, in great condition like an N F L athlete would be as well. Then it’s, Mike is a man of faith. Mike’s gonna be in prayer. Mike in the locker room is gonna be very calm prior to that, that fight. Now in the cage, you’re gonna be a little, you know, you’re gonna unleash it a little bit, but if you get too hyped up, you start what hyperventilating you get short of breath and breath. What I would say is this, I said this to Drew Bre, I asked him this question, when you’re coming out in front of a a 70, 80,000 people, are you hyperventilating and you’re stressed or are you relaxed?
TD (20:03):
He said, well, a little bit of both because I know that someone’s trying to kill me. So if you realize that every one of us has 18 to 22,000 breaths a day, if you take a deep breath right now, you have 18 to 22,000 breaths a day. How can you slow your breath down to number one, be thankful and grateful for breath and realize that if you can slow your breath down in the midst of a fire, in the midst of a fight, in the midst of chaos and turmoil, then you can operate more functionally. So to answer your question, Mike is in tremendous physical shape, but he’s also going to be tremendously disciplined in the practice of prayer and quiet time as well. In the mental preparation, the mental preparation for that fight is visualization. Can you can you envision the game a thousand times before you play the game?
TD (20:55):
I would tell a high school athlete, like I would tell an entrepreneur before going to a big meeting or like, Mike’s gonna fight Connor. You’re gonna fight that fight a thousand times before you fight that fight. Because mentally you’ve gotta make sure that you can visualize, you’ve gotta smell what you’re gonna smell in the ring, in the cage. You’re gonna smell it, you’re gonna visualize it, you’re gonna see it when you’re walking out. You’re gonna feel the music, you’re gonna feel it. So you can be relaxed in that situation. The power of the mind is amazing. So if you can use that visualization every single day to manifest what you wanna manifest, that’s the power of, for anyone who might be listening, like, man, I lost myself. I used to, I used to have the edge, I used to have the mojo and I’ve gotten my butt kicked, my tails between my legs, fear or not my, my friend.
TD (21:38):
You can get it back. You just gotta get aligned with those habits, those values, and make sure that we can recapture that mojo and that edge. Just as Mike Chandler would do, a Drew Brees would do an entrepreneur would do is get it back. Cuz we don’t wanna be that p i p that previously important person. We wanna be that v i p that we have it, but like that self-talk, oh man, I don’t know. Am I too old? Man? I’m getting my butt kicked. I, I don’t know if I still got that edge. I don’t have the energy levels. Like stop, stop telling yourself these things because the self-talk gets ingrained and gets wired in your brain. Just as someone that’s at the elite level, at 25 to 35 years old, physically performing at their best, stop telling yourself what you can’t do and start using positive self-talk that will allow you to operate back in the, in the position that you used to be.
RV (22:28):
I wanna talk about TT talk about, talk about the difference, right? So you, when you think about a Drew Brees and Aaron Rogers, you know, these are the premier performers. Ladainian Tomlinson in his, in his time was, you know, one of the greats.
TD (22:46):
Oh my God,
RV (22:46):
What, what, what is separating them from everyone else? Because you go, I mean, to get to the N F L, don’t you have to do all these things? I mean, to even to even be there, don’t you have to have self-talk and you have to be training hard and you have to have visualization. You, you know, I don’t know how many of ’em do quiet time or journaling, but, but certainly controlling your breath, I mean, certainly the physical regimen, I think. Yeah, but then you go, you know, to me those things don’t even represent, like to me those are almost like the price of admission to getting to the league. It’s not, you know, like what separates Drew Brees from, you know, any other N f l quarterback? I mean, or, or do you think it does, do you go No, there’s quarterbacks in the N F L that are not, they’re not doing that kind of routine with their, their mental conditioning like they are with their physical conditioning.
TD (23:43):
The, there are, there are quarterbacks that aren’t, there are some that aren’t, but I’m talking absolutely. Okay. I’m talking Rory about the elite of the elite. How do you become elite? And I would say there’s two things. One is extreme discipline. And now that sounds rhetorical, but when I say extreme discipline in nine years of training, LaDainian thomason, I can’t count on one hand the times that he was late or ever missed a session ever in nine years, he’d be un early, he’d be doing his mobility work, he’d warm up on the treadmill, he could see him prepping if he wore that little headband. I knew he was being serious that day, but he always showed up. Now were there times where he didn’t feel like it 100%, but he also told me, Hey, I wanna be better than Emmett and Walter and I’m gonna train to be the best to ever play the game.
TD (24:33):
Now whether he’s the best to ever play the game or not, it’s not important. What’s important was his desire matched his discipline, right? And he did that. Drew Brees people will tell you when you, when you were around Drew in, in the 20 years that he was playing and training here with Darren Sproles and, and all the guys he trained with you know, everyone from, you know, chase Daniel and, and Zack Erz and Gerald McCoy and Srosy, all these guys. Drew made everyone better. Why? People say, why do those guys come to you? Do, what do you do that’s different? I believe the best of the best needs someone to hold them accountable and get their mind right, because who’s gonna call people out when you’re at the top of the game? I didn’t understand in 2006 when LaDainian won the MVP and he said this to me, what’s next?
TD (25:26):
What’s next? It made me think like Rocky four, when, you know, you know, you lose your passion, you take all your passion and you lose it. And, and that like, what’s next? Like, what do you mean we do it again? I didn’t understand that when I was in my early thirties of like, what’s next? Just let’s run it batten lt. But what he was saying was, I need a bigger dream. I need something to keep me fueled up. Because when you have reached what you may have believed is your pinnacle of your career, and maybe you’ve tapped out at a certain financial level or you don’t know how to continue to operate year after year after year at the highest level what I have learned is it’s mindset. So when I say extreme discipline and mindset of the two things that separate all of the world class high performers I’ve ever worked with, it’s one thing to get to the top and I love the climb, but man, oh man, it is a far different thing to stay at the top knowing that man, I gotta recreate and reinvent myself to get to another dream.
TD (26:22):
You know, pastor Jeremiah, he’s not an athlete, but let me tell you, at 80, 82 years old, I’ve had the opportunity to train this guy for seven years. This guy inspires me. He’s always like, how do I get to the next level? I’m like, doc, you’re, you’re one of the top the top pastors in the world and have a huge following. H how do you get to, like, how do you do that extreme discipline and mindset at 82 years old to say, we ain’t done yet. The best is yet to come. I’m like, man, I I gotta pick up my game. That’s when you talk about iron sharpens iron. You put yourself on other coaches or, or entrepreneurs or other mission driven messengers, as you would say, Rory, man, now you get inspired when you go to a live event and I’ve been at your live event. I’m like, dang, Gabrielle, like, fires me up, Ryan fires me up. Right? All, all the, when you’re around other people who fire you up, your mind all of a sudden like, man, I gotta pick it up. We all need that.
RV (27:17):
Mm-Hmm.
TD (27:19):
String discipline, extreme discipline and mindset. The mindset of, I ain’t done yet. I gotta find something to go deeper. I need a coach to take me there. I need, I need, I need someone to, to sharpen my sword or call me out like I call drew out or LaDainian out or any of my, any of these guys that aren’t doing the things the way they need to, I’ll call ’em out. Most people wont call people out. If you’re, if you’re already successful, they’ll kiss your tail. We don’t need more tail kissers. We need people that are gonna call us out and, and say, Hey, you got more in the tank, but you need to pick it up and stop drinking the way you’re drinking. And you alluded to that. Or Hey, why are you doing that stupid habit? It’s all about habits. So what, what do you, why are you not taking your quiet time?
TD (28:00):
Or why not working out the way you, you need to work out. Like when you get some serious accountability in your life and you’re like, Hey, let’s pick it up because you got more in the tank versus settling for mediocrity because now it’s like we just kind of like settle. It’s nothing worse than settling for mediocrity. I hate it. I hate it myself. If I’ve ever been stuck, I’m like, man, I gotta pick it up. I gotta do something. Go to a personal growth workshop, hire a coach, read a great book. Like do get around people that are actually inspiring you. Make sure you’re going to the gym and working out, getting into an environment. These are things that you know and you gotta stop doing. The stupid habits that get you in trouble. Eating like garbage drinking, too much alcohol, doing other knucklehead things that, that we sometimes, as as humans do recalibrate, reignite and reinspire.
RV (28:50):
Mm-Hmm.
TD (28:56):
Up.
RV (28:57):
So don’t even, just don’t even just don’t even worry about it. Go, just go,
TD (29:01):
Go just sh go The heaviest way in the, in the gym is the front door. Or if you’re really like, man, I’m real. I, I I know that but I’m not doing it. I’m weak in the flesh. Then hire an appointment with a trainer where I come from the background. I’ve been in the training world for 20, almost 25 years and my, my gym for this question, it’s, it’s built on accountability. Now I’m doing less training these days and focusing on, you know, the entrepreneurs and athletes that I wanna work with. But the bottom line is this, if you really wanna show up, then set an appointment with your trainer in your respective community. And I’ve got folks, if you don’t like, I don’t know any good trainers, then reach out to me and I’ll set you up with a trainer in your community. Cause I know I’m worldwide. And watch what happens when you have a session once or three times a week at 6:00 AM 12 noon, 6:00 PM whenever you don’t show up because it’s in your calendar. Pastor Jeremiah three times a week is with me. He, he makes it 12 noon. I’m like, why 12 noon document Murray workday. He like, cuz it’s not convenient
RV (29:59):
TD (30:01):
He’s like, I need to have the discipline to do the things that are most important because I know that my physical strength and energy that I get from the gym and you are going to allow me to write the prolific work that I wanna write. So I’m gonna schedule it in the worst part of my day. 12 noon. I’m like, that’s pretty brilliant. That’s an 82 year old man who is trying to change the world. And he does it Roy, I have a nutritionist myself. Wait, you’re a coach, you’re a trainer, you’re a speaker. All the, yeah, I need the accountability. I need to have my meals delivered because if I don’t, I don’t eat lunch cause I get too busy. So it’s the accountability. So how do you do it if you’re, if you like show up, well, I’m not showing up then hire, hire a coach or a trainer or an accountability coach like myself to say, get your boot to the gym.
TD (30:49):
I’m gonna follow up with a text. And did you get there? You either did it or you didn’t. And if you want to, if you wanna perform at the level you say you want to, then you better show up. I have a guy I once train named Jacque Suze. He came with me the first year, a small college division three. He said, man, I wanna make it one year in the N F L. I said, that’s all we gotta do. Jacques show up every day for the next three months. Jacques is there, made it in his first season. Jacques played 12 more season in the nfl. He’s now coaching in the N F nfl. But it’s like the extreme discipline to show up and you don’t feel like showing up. And if you don’t, I’m gonna text you. I’ll come get you outta bed. If I have to like show up and do the things that you say you wanna do because there’s nothing worse, then you tell me you wanna be great.
TD (31:28):
It’s like I tell my kids I got three kids. Don’t tell me you wanna be great. Like do the work, show up and do that. Because the last I check is that you know, a lot of people have talent, but not everyone wants to work for that. So they always say that hard work beats talent with talent don’t work. A lot of talented people out there. If you can match talent with hard work, watch out. You can do whatever you want. You can take your business to the next level. You can recapture the essence of of you, you can get your edge back in life. So to me, what I’m finding is a lot of 40, 50, 60 somethings right now that have lost that edge. I’m like, get your edge back. Get your life back. Cuz man, if you feel like you’re drowning or you’re struggling, you’re overwhelmed, you’re burnt out, man. Now’s the time to reset, recalibrate.
RV (32:15):
Mm-Hmm.
TD (32:21):
Website’s probably the easiest way. Todd durkin.com. Todd durkin.com. I got all, everything that we do is on the website. I’ve got a podcast, the Todd Durkin impact show. It’s my way of of getting people to get fired up. Cuz the motivational aspect is one thing. And I’m on social media, Rory, I love Instagram. I love Instagram. I’m, I’m on that all the time. You can always DM me, but my website has all the opportunities. Bottom line is this motivation’s in the in the head, inspiration in the heart. So motivation dries up if you don’t constantly feed your mind, you know, fertilizer and get that mind right by listening to good message and listening to pods and getting your workouts in. You gotta protect your dome. You gotta protect your dome. And if you don’t, you’re gonna slowly follow down the abyss of depression and and anxiety and you feel like everything is like caving in on you. That doesn’t have to be the case. And I say get your mind right. Get your mind right. Get your mind right. Change it today, change it today and make it make it part of your mission. We talk about a meaningful mission is make it your mission to get your mind right, get your heart rate, get your soul right. And when you get all those things aligned, then you can recapture the essence in the mojo that maybe you’re really striving to do.
RV (33:35):
Yeah. Well, brother, I appreciate the, the, the inspiration and the injection. I feel like you fired me up and I lo I love that you’re helping people get their mind right. Thanks for sharing a little bit of that with us and we wish you the best. Good luck to you, man.
TD (33:51):
Thank you. You as well. Thanks so much.
Ep 377: 3 Sources of Inspiration to Help You Outlast Difficulty | Dr. Mariel Buqué Episode Recap
RV (00:02):
Well, I’m breaking down the interview with one of my newer friends, Dr. Mariel Buque who is brilliant and genius, and I actually love her work. And it was so fun to get to hear the behind the scenes story of, you know, how she goes from being this, this doctor, right? This clinician, this, this woman who’s teaching at Columbia University Medical center or working at, and, and is a professor to becoming one of the most powerful, or one of the most prestigious online influencers in that community in the world. And what I wanna break down for you is there was just, there was one specific line that she said that really got me thinking, which is what I want to, I want to talk about. And she said look,
RV (00:47):
For seven years, I had a steady flow of information. We were just putting information out for seven Years.
RV (00:58):
And I think it’s easy to look at somebody like her and go, oh my gosh, like she got lucky. She has a hot topic. She’s whatever the For some reason, the world fell in love with her The, you know,
RV (01:14):
She’s a doctor. She has, she must have connections with all of this and to overlook the truth, which is that for seven years she put out a steady flow of information. Seven years. Let me ask you, how many years has it been since you have steadily, consistently been putting out information? Not sporadically, not once in a while. For how many years have you consistently been putting out information that helps the world at large that helps your audience? Because if it’s not at least five, you got nothing to complain about, right? I don’t wanna hear about the algorithm, I don’t wanna hear about the topic. I don’t wanna hear about shadow banning. I don’t want to hear about too much noise. I don’t want to hear about only this type of political agenda or that type of political agenda, or only cute puppy dogs or hilarious comedians or, or, you know, silly entertainment stuff.
RV (02:18):
I don’t wanna hear about any of that stuff. Like, if you haven’t been putting out content consistently, it’s on you, right? You can’t blame anyone else. It’s on you. The tools of the day exist. They’re more accessible than ever before. It’s cheaper than ever before. It’s faster, it’s easier. And so the question is, are you showing up? Are you showing up? Are you doing your part? Are you adding value? And, and this part frustrates me a little bit because it’s easy to say, oh, I’m not that smart. I’m not a doctor, I don’t have famous connections. I’m not rich, I don’t have private jets, right? I don’t have a huge podcast. I don’t have friends that have huge podcasts, right? It’s so easy to point to all these things. And you go, yeah, those things can help, but are you doing your part? Like, are you doing the thing that’s in your control?
RV (03:13):
What’s in your control is adding value to people’s lives day in and day out, over and over, consistently, constantly never ending. And so I think a big part of, of what we undervalue, and it’s, it’s because it’s because of virality. And we sort of assume, oh, these people with all these followers that must have gone viral and like they blew up. And it’s like, no, it’s consistency. And so I think a lot of this comes down to just being able to outlast, outlast your competition, right? And when I say competition, I don’t really mean like other people. I mean, can you outlast your fear? Can you outlast your self-doubt? Can you outlast your insecurities? Can you outlast the inconvenience of having to figure out technology? Can you, can you outlast the pain it is and the challenges and the difficulties that come along with getting your message out to the world?
RV (04:12):
If you are a mission-driven messenger, you gotta outlast all those things. It’s not, and, and, and, and if you’re not seeing the success that you want, don’t look back and say, oh, the algorithm, or, oh, I don’t have the right topic, or, oh, nobody cares about this. Or, you know, I, I don’t look this way or that way, or I don’t have this, don’t you? Like, all of those are excuses. And here’s the thing. If you set out on this journey, you said you wanted to change lives, well, you can change lives at any given moment. No one is stopping you from changing lives, right? Making money is a different thing. You may or may not make money. It may, may take, may take time, but if you wanna change lives, you can push a button and publish. You can push a button and record.
RV (04:54):
You, you, you are one button away from literally broadcasting to the entire world. Like, are you doing your part? And if you’re not, at some point, you just gotta reconcile the reality. Like, you gotta go look snowflake. It’s, it’s not that you’re unlucky, it’s not that you’re not knowledgeable. It, it’s that you’re not showing up, you’re not outlasting, you’re not doing the work. And so I’m gonna give you three strategies, three tips, three techniques, three sources of inspiration that I think will help you outlast the competition. And by competition, again, I’m not so much saying other people who do what you do, although you could, you could think of it that way. I just think it’s, it’s outlasting your own fear, your own self-doubt, your own inconvenience, your own insecurity, outlasting, all of the excuses that will come up on this journey, cuz they will, I’m living them.
RV (05:52):
I face them every day, right? Like, I still carry this chip on my shoulder of going, man, I would be so much further ahead if I didn’t have to start over five years ago. Like, I was so much further down the road, I had to start completely over, right? So I know what that feels like, and here’s three things that I want to remind you of and e equip you with that I think will help. So these are three sources of inspiration to help you outlast the inconvenience. Number one is vision. Vision. This comes right outta my first book. Take the Stairs, which still to this day is selling like hotcakes. If you’ve not ever read it, it’s a life-changing book. Like, if you haven’t read, take the Stairs. I don’t know how you’re surviving. Like, it, it’s, it is a, it, it is a quick read.
RV (06:41):
It has got so many powerful fundamental truths about success in general, and it shows up here and it applies to personal brands. Why? Because one of the things that we talk about in there is that the amount of our endurance is directly proportionate to the clarity of our vision. The amount of your endurance is directly proportionate to the clarity of your vision. When you can see something clearly that you want, when you can see it, when you think about it, when you can taste it, when it’s visceral, when you, you dream about it and you focus on it and, and you go, this is something I want in my life, for my life, for my career. When you can see it, then that creates a naturally strong connection to how the sacrifices you’re asking yourself to make today forward you towards that pursuit. It creates a context for action to take place.
RV (07:35):
And so your discipline engages automatically. You become motivated, you become inspired, you become alive, you become activated, right? But discipline becomes dormant in the absence of a dream. Discipline becomes dormant in the absence of a dream. If you’re not dreaming or you don’t have a dream, or you don’t dream that often, or you don’t dream that clearly, or you’re not spending time thinking about it, then there is no reason to make the sacrifice. There is no reason to bear the inconvenience. There’s no reason to endure the pain, to navigate the difficulties, right? To to to survive the setbacks, to conquer the challenges. If there is no vision, there’s no reason. That’s why the Bible says if without vision, people perish because it literally dies you, there’s no reason to put in that effort, that energy, that work because there’s no payoff at the end. But that payoff is something that exists in your mind.
RV (08:30):
The powerful part is not achieving it in real life. The powerful part is having it exist in your mind, which is something you can create and access today and it will use, and in your mind will use that to activate your discipline. So what is your vision and do you spend time thinking about it? And, and when you, when we talk about vision, we mean think of a picture, a moment in your life that you wanna live in the future, right? I i, I tell the story often of like walking through the airport and seeing my book on the bookshelf in the airport with the New York Times bestseller logo, like burst on the cover, right? Or, or being on stage at, in, in front of a huge arena or our house that we live in, right? It was years that I was visualizing this house that I, I wanted to have and, and, and, and not so much because I manifested it, right?
RV (09:19):
It’s because I saw it and I worked my butt off and we worked our butts off to where it became real. But I held it out there. So that, I mean, yes, I’d like to believe that it’s moving towards me, but I was moving towards it, right? And maybe you meet somewhere in the middle, I don’t know, maybe you did manifest it, but I’ve never manifested anything without working my freaking butt off. Like I have never thought about something and had it just like something huge, something significant and just had it show up. Other than one time I did manifest 1 million followers because I went to bed thinking I’m gonna get a million followers, I’m gonna get a million followers. And the next day someone dropped off at my house, a book called 1 million Followers
RV (10:10):
It was a book called 1 million Followers by Brendan Kane, which is actually a really good book. I really, I really like it. We’ve had Brendan Kane on the podcast and so, but you gotta have a vision, right? You gotta have something you can see that you’re moving towards. The second thing is you gotta have some good old fashioned commitment, good old fashioned commitment get this also is in take the stairs, we call it the buy-in principle of commitment. And it says the more you have invested into something, the less likely you are to let it fail.
RV (10:50):
The more you have invested into something, the less likely you are to let it fail. That means you should increase your investment, increase your expenditure of time, money, prayer, thoughts, resources, attention, like you should increase your investment. Because when it’s difficult, you’re gonna tend to run away. That’s the, that’s the natural default and design of the human brain to keep you safe. Which means to run away from pain, to run away from fear, to do what everyone else does, which is to avoid the inconvenient and chase the convenient chase the easy escalator, right? And what you gotta do is you gotta be a take the stairs person. You gotta be someone that says, no, I’m, I’m not gonna be like everybody, I’m not gonna run away from the pain. I’m not gonna run away from the fear. I’m not gonna run away from the inconvenience.
RV (11:39):
I’m gonna run towards it. I’m gonna run into it, I’m going to conquer it. I’m gonna be the buffalo. If you’ve ever heard me tell this my Buffalo story, which now is like, you know, going all over the internet which we’ve been talking about for my entire career, being the buffalo charging the storm. That is what it takes is straight up commitment. Because the more money you invest into your dream, the less likely you are just to walk away, right? The more time you’ve got into it, you’re like, I can’t just walk away from this. Like, I’m not just gonna leave this here. I poured my life into this thing. Like I poured my life into pursuing it. And that’s what it takes is to set a goal that matters to you so much that when you go all in, the reason it works is not so much because like you get lucky cuz you went all in or or cuz you figure it out just cuz you went all in.
RV (12:26):
It’s because you, there wasn’t any other option. And so you do it until you find a way. And there’s always a way, a lot of times it takes a long time to find the way, but eventually you find the way, if you stay committed and you stay committed by increasing the investment, right? You do more, you spend more time. One of my mentors early on in my career was a guy named Randy Gage and he said this, and I’ve always loved this, he said, you should always be the number one investor in your own dream. You should be the number one investor in your own dream. You should be investing. Not your boss, not your investors, not the bank, not your rich uncle. You, it’s your dream. If you want it bad enough, you put your money on the table, you put your time on the table, you come to the playing field and you put your heart on the field and you say, this is what I want. This is what I’m after and I’m all in.
RV (13:24):
And if you don’t do that, then don’t be surprised when it doesn’t work out. Like, don’t be shocked when you fail. Don’t be surprised that you, you end give up or you get distracted. And what most people do is they don’t get, they don’t quit, they get distracted and then they quit inadvertently, right? Accidentally. And it’s some good old-fashioned commitment. And that leads me to number three. So the number three, the number three force here that you can use, the number three source of inspiration to help you outlast the challenges is service. Service. To me, service is the greatest and most powerful inspiring force there is.
RV (14:07):
It is getting outside of ourself and what we want and saying, regardless of what I want, regardless of what I care about, regardless of what I like, regardless of what is convenient for me, I’m going to do whatever I have to do to be of value to somebody else, to enhance their life, to improve their life, to, to help their situation. My inconvenience is irrelevant. The fact that it is difficult is not a, not something that factors into the consideration. It’s not a characteristic of the equation. Because what matters is helping other people and making a difference and making an impact. And so honestly, my wellbeing in that is sort of ancillary. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s irrelevant. It’s, it’s not a part of what matters. When you are living in service and there is no fear, once the mission to serve becomes clear, there is no fear, there is no self-doubt.
RV (15:05):
You’re not worried about it cuz you’re not thinking about yourself. You’re thinking about the person out there who needs you. That is what I want you to do. That is how you a last your competition. You’re focused on others and you’re going, yeah, this is difficult. Yeah, I don’t feel like doing this today. Yeah, I don’t like it. Yeah, I don’t like the technology. Yeah, this annoys me. Yeah, it’s hard. Yeah. I’m spending, investing more money into my business. Yeah, but it matters because it matters to someone else. And your message matters. Your message matters to someone else.
RV (15:44):
Your work matters to someone else. Your life matters to someone else. When you get fully present to that. And then you won’t abandon ship, you won’t change course, you won’t alter the destination. You’ll stay focused, you’ll stay on target, you’ll stay committed, you’ll stay disciplined, you’ll stay activated and you will outlast all the fears and inconveniences that show up and you will conquer it and you will do something great. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it and keep coming back every single week on the Influential Personal Brand podcast. Thanks for being here.
Ep 375: What Is Imposter Syndrome and Do I Have It | Michelle Chalfant Episode Recap
AJV (00:03):
Hey, allI don’t even know if I can talk, I just had one of the most insightful and enlightening conversations about what it means to be an emotionally healthy adult. And I need that. Like, I need that. And it was like such a really great conversation about as adults, do we make time and space to feel the feelings that we have? And then to actually sit down and talk about where did those feelings come from? Are they true, are they not true? And what do we do about these? And how are these feelings causing success or problems in our lives? Or, you know, and, and some of these, it’s like, how are they affecting our relationships or how are they causing havoc in our relationships because we don’t even realize what they are? And so as a part of this conversation the question came up, what is imposter syndrome and how do you know if you have it right?
AJV (01:09):
So I thought this was really good because a part of being around tons of people who are creating content and building businesses and doing things that are exceptionally important to their lives, and they believe in them deeply, that also comes with some insecurity, right? Because the more willing that you are to put yourself out there, the more, the more vulnerable you have to be and the more vulnerable you are to negative commentary which can cause problems on your mental wellbeing your state of emotional health it, it just doesn’t feel good to go, Hey, that sucks. You suck. I don’t like that. Though nobody likes that. So what, what do we do about it? And so I, I love this conversation. They said that imposter syndrome, I simply believing that you are a fraud. That you are ill-equipped to do the job or task at hand, although, right, and this isn’t a part of any formal definition, although you have the necessary expertise, experience, credentials to do exactly what you’re doing.
AJV (02:24):
You, you are capable of doing it, but you have feelings of like, I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough, I don’t know enough, I don’t have enough experience. I don’t have enough time. I I, whatever it is, it’s you allow yourself to believe that you are fraud even when you’re not. And so we talked about, well, where does that come from? Where do these feelings come from? And then how do we overcome them? And a huge part of it is just recognizing your own limiting beliefs of what are the things that I actually believe to be true that are not true? They are not true. And so I’m just gonna pause for a second introspection moment here and go, what do you tell yourself? What do you allow yourself to believe about yourself? That is blatantly not true.
AJV (03:28):
Just gonna sit in this awkward silence for just a minute. What lie do you believe about yourself that maybe you’re not even aware of? That’s a limiting belief. And through this conversation I shared that over the last several weeks that I have really been struggling with like, am I capable of doing the job at hand that I have as c e o and co-founder of Brand Builders Group? Am I capable of doing that and being a great mom to two toddlers and being a good wife to my husband and being a good friend and dedicating enough time to the Lord as I walk in my Christian faith? And do I, does that leave any time for me? It’s like, can I do the job and not work 80 hours a week? And where does that leave me? Because the truth is I’ve been struggling with that.
AJV (04:22):
I had a recent emergency surgery and I have not been able to get back to my normal workplace, which has caused my, caused my workload to grow and grow and grow. And my time is less and less and it makes me feel like I’m not equipped to do the job. It makes me feel like I’m incapable of, somehow I’m different than I was six weeks ago. Or something has changed in me that doesn’t have have it in me anymore. And I had not really paused and taken the time to go where this is coming from. And what lies am I saying? What lies am I believing? And I think a part of this conversation really comes down to it’s like, do you even recognize the lies that you believe? Do you even recognize that you have limiting beliefs that you say to yourself and you literally speak out into the world without even realizing?
AJV (05:15):
It is a limiting belief. It is a lie that you have allowed yourself to believe and it is holding you back. And I think awareness, consciousness of this is the first step of, of overcoming these limiting beliefs, which ultimately can result in imposter syndrome, right? It’s like I’m sitting here as the c e o of Brand builders group. I’m going like, can I imposter? Like, am I equipped for this? Like, can I do this? Deep down knowing I was built for this, I’ve been training and working my whole life for this. Like everything leading up to this is, is God preparing me to do the work that he has for me? And also knowing that I’m not doing this alone God is working through this and I have an amazing husband and a partner and a staff and a team and coaches and mentors.
AJV (06:02):
I am not doing this on my own. So where is this nonsense coming from? And here’s what I can just tell you in my own journey through this conversation, and not just one conversation. But it’s, I have literally said out loud, I don’t know a hundred times over the last six weeks, I just don’t have enough time. I don’t have enough time. That is my limiting belief. And until I took a moment to have a conversation about what was going on, I did not even realize that I was literally suffering from imposter syndrome, allowing myself to believe I’m a fraud. That I’m incapable of doing something that I’m fully capable of doing while simultaneously allowing and even repeating it out loud, a limiting belief, speaking it into the world, letting it control my life and my thoughts and feeling more ill-equipped every single time I say it.
AJV (06:57):
I don’t have enough time. That’s not true.
AJV (07:54):
And we just can’t work ourself into that because you already are right? There’s nothing that you can do to make yourself more valuable than you already are. I am just as worthy and just as valuable. If I work 80 hours a week or eight hours a week or zero
AJV (08:45):
And so maybe this podcast interview that I did with Michelle Shon was really just for me. And the interesting thing, and I didn’t tell her this, but I’ll tell everyone else who’s listening. I almost canceled it today because I have a, a sick baby at home and I’m so behind and I’m like, I just need to postpone it. I just need to reschedule. I don’t have time for this. But I didn’t, I don’t know why, but I didn’t. Mainly cuz I’m looking at my calendar going, what am I, where am I gonna move this to? And I I’m so glad,
AJV (09:26):
To feel the feelings that you have to recognize what is true and what is not. And then to speak truth to the lie, which is what I got to do on my own podcast interview with Michelle
AJV (10:34):
There was 24 hours, then there’s 24 hours. Now that’s not new and different. I have the same team, the same staff. Everything else is the same, but my feeling about it has changed. And that’s what I can control. That’s what I can own. That’s what I can write down. I can think about it, I can speak truth to it. I can write down the evidence to it. I can make a plan and I can move forward. We can all do that. But it takes time and it takes space and it takes desire and intention. What it doesn’t take is you vegging out and going, I don’t wanna talk about it. I’m just so tired. I’m gonna go, go get a glass of wine and I’m gonna pop on the TV and I’m gonna watch a show. How about instead of doing that, we take these five minutes and we go, what is true? What is a lie? And what is factual evidence of truth in my life when it comes to this certain thing? So I hope right now you’ll just give yourself five minutes. Anything that is calling your attention will be there in five minutes. But give yourself five minutes right now to go, what is a limiting belief in my life that I’m allowing to wreak havoc on my belief in myself and my relationships and everything around me? And start making a change about it right now?
AJV (11:53):
Cuz it really could only be five minutes. Awareness is the first step. So take five minutes and see where it gets you. We’ll see you next time.
Ep 374: How Believing In Yourself Can Grow Your Business with Michelle Chalfant
AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode on the Influential Personal Brand Podcast. As you know, I say this every time, and I genuinely mean it every single time, but I am so excited to have my friend and our, our guest on the show today, Michelle Chalfant. And there’s a couple of things that I think you need to know. So, before you settle in and go, is this the episode for me? I’m just gonna go ahead and tell you it is this is an episode for you. Because we’re not talking about unique or specific business tactics today. However, what we’re gonna talk about today is one of the most common and universal things that you require to be successful in business and in life. And it’s self-worth, it’s self-confidence. It’s the belief in yourself that you can do what you were put on this planet to do, what you were set out to do, most likely, whatever it is you’re doing which is why you’re listening to this podcast in the first place.
AJV (01:03):
So it is, I’m, I’m gonna say it’s like it’s not a traditional business tactic, but it’s one that is absolutely necessary in the space that we’re in. Building your reputation, building your personal brand, and doing it with authority and authenticity. So it is for you. So now you know this is the episode for you. So stay tuned and listen to the whole thing. I promise it’s going to be worth your time. Now, before we get started, let me just do a quick formal bio of Michelle, and then I will also give her a chance to introduce herself a little bit more casually. But she is a licensed therapist, a master life coach, and the founder and c e o of the Michelle Shon Company. She also leads this wickedly awesome podcast called The Adult Chair Podcast, which blends psychology and spirituality together, which is probably to me, one of the most foundational important things in all of our lives is how we’re connected spiritually, which drives all of our, our business decisions and life decisions.
AJV (02:05):
It also is globally recognized. It’s got millions and millions of downloads. We’ll put links to it, but you definitely wanna check it out. She also runs these amazing events. She’s got courses she does coaching. I could go on and on and on, but I think the, one of the reasons that’s so relevant to everyone who is listening is because these are the same things that you are doing. These are the same things that you wanna do. And so how do you go from not doing those things to doing those things? So, Michelle, welcome to the show.
MC (02:35):
Thank you so much, aj. That was such a warm welcome. I loved it. I feel like I’m joining a party. I’m like, oh,
AJV (02:43):
That’s how we should feel. That’s
MC (02:45):
Fun,
AJV (02:47):
Alright, so help our audience get to know you a little bit. Like how did you get into this space of coaching and events and content creation and courses? Because being a licensed therapist and doing all these things, I kind of find is a little bit unique. Yeah. And you didn’t always do these things. So how’d you get into this?
MC (03:08):
Oh my gosh. Okay. So I was a licensed, I still am a licensed therapist for about 20 years, but about, gosh, 10 or 15 years in, actually moved to Nashville in oh seven and had to start my practice all over again because nobody knew me in Nashville,
AJV (04:20):
Almost 10 years ago? Yeah.
MC (04:22):
Yeah. It’s, and I said, okay, I don’t know. So he kind of hounded me for like a year. So the end of 2014, I said, fine, I’m doing it. So we launched the Adult Share podcast. And the podcast is all about teaching people how to be emotionally healthy adults. Hmm. It’s stuff I love to talk about. So it is, it’s a lot of self-worth. It’s how to have healthy relationship. It’s how to work through your fears, your codependency, whatever the heck, anything at all. That is what I used to what I talk about. So that happened the end of 2014. I did not even pay attention to the stats. I didn’t care about them, you know, I was like, oh, this is good. You know, I didn’t really wanna do it. I was like, I’ll do it for my clients. So it was fun to say to my clients like, Hey, you wanna learn how to set a boundary?
MC (05:08):
Go listen to number 15. You know, I just did a podcast on it. So anyway, that was the end of 2014. By 2018, 19, it’s really, you know, then the podcast rule is really growing and it’s taking off. It’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And I realized I’m like, I, I gotta, I need to do more. Because what was happening was my business that was already full-time. I was getting people all around the world hitting me up for sessions. Cuz I was also a coach at that time. I became a coach, I think sometime like maybe 2010, something like that. So I did that to my, to my trainings so I could see clients anywhere in the world. So I was getting reached out to, you know, from Germany to San Francisco to China. You know, people were like, Hey, can you, I wanna see you as a, as can I see you as a coach?
MC (05:54):
Well, I couldn’t cuz I was already full-time. So I said, let me create something for them that will appease them. Right? So I did a membership, I started a membership in 2019. I kept getting hit up. They’re like, well, we want more. We wanna, we want people that know how to talk about what you do
MC (06:39):
So now we have this global, you know, people from all over the world are taking our certification program. We are now, this is the year. So we’ve run it since in the middle of Covid is when we launched it. If you can imagine, we launch it in September of 2020. We’re now in our third year now we do two pro programs a year. So we’re launching our next one this June in 2023. And it’s just, it’s such an incredible way cuz my mission is to bring healing into this world. Mm-Hmm. So I have this vision for creating this army of light workers, like these army of coaches that can go out into the world and really multiply what I’m doing. And again, it’s not all about me. I’m not the only person doing this work, of course in the world, but I love that we’re able to reach more people through our coaches. So that is where I, that is where I am today. So I’ve got a book, I’ve got, I’ve got another book coming out. I just gave it to my agent the other day. Congrats.
AJV (07:30):
Yeah. So when did, when did your first book come out?
MC (07:34):
Oh gosh, 2018. Yeah, so, so the first book really outlines the adult chair model. And then again, I do the live teachings, I’ve got the podcasts, and now the coaching program is, are really the biggest thing right now.
AJV (07:48):
And you have a new book coming out?
MC (07:51):
I don’t know one, I just gave it to him. He is looking at it. So I’m, I’m the beginning stages of that, probably am gonna say in the next nine months or so to a year.
AJV (07:59):
Okay. So I think one of the things I was trying to do as you were talking because a lot of people, what I have found, which will be very relevant to our conversation today, and I think this is really important because I see this no matter who you are, no matter what your business is, is we compare our step one to someone else’s step 1000. Yep. And we go, well this just isn’t working and you’ve been doing it all of six months. Or you think it needs to be happening faster, but yet
MC (08:28):
Yeah,
AJV (08:28):
Good things just don’t happen fast often. It takes time and work. So I was trying to capture this and I built a little timeline. I think this is important. So tell me if I missed anything, but I was trying to capture this. So one, you’ve been a therapist for 20 years, so let’s just pause for a second. Go
AJV (09:26):
This is so important for everyone
AJV (10:25):
Mm-Hmm.
AJV (11:09):
And I was like, take the stairs. When we launched that in 2010, this was a grassroots hiding away in our closets into the wee hours of the morning
MC (11:52):
For sure. People, people absolutely look at the 1% that are making it and doing so well and making the millions and millions of dollars. And they think it’s so easy and they don’t see all the struggles. In 2018, if I can tell you a little side story here about one of my biggest struggles probably was when, again, the podcast is taken off. I mean, I’m getting hit up constantly. Like, can I work with you? Can I work with you? Can you come to this country? Can you come to this? Like, I was like, I I can’t do it all. I need to hire a marketing firm really to help me. Mm-Hmm.
MC (12:34):
I don’t wanna learn how to build a website. I don’t wanna learn how to build an online course. I don’t wanna learn how to build a membership. I don’t know how to do that. I’m not a tech person, but I can get up on stage and I can talk and I can write books and I can do all that. I’m gonna do what I’m great at. So anyway, I researched marketing firms and I said, okay, I need to hire a company. They can help me really launch this thing big time. And the one that I hired in August of 2018, I, I signed a contract with her and shortly thereafter I knew it. I was like, this was a big mistake. And I mean, it was horrible emails that went out. I had given her a membership. I said, these are the thing, these are the ones that I really like.
MC (13:13):
Well, she took one of them and copycatted it almost exactly like I looked at it when it was done and I said, this is someone else’s. I’ll get sued for the, like it was, I can go on and on. I’m not gonna go into it. But it was one thing after the next I’d signed a contract. I was stuck with her for six months. A hundred thousand dollars I spent on her. It was one debacle after the next, after the next, after the next, after the next. So that was from August through, I think it was December some or July through Dec. It was December 3rd is when it ended. I can tell you that’s branded in my mind. But I remember the day I was done with her, I was like, I am done. I’m not only done with this, I’m done with everything. She had just fried me out.
MC (13:56):
I had lost all this money that I had saved that I was so ready to launch my company. And I actually went out with one of my husband’s mentors that lives in Nashville. And I went out to breakfast with him and I looked at him, I was in tears all the time. I was like, I don’t wanna do co this business. I don’t wanna be an entrepreneur. It fried me out. I mean, I was done. And I went out with Richard and he looked across the table from me. He’s a guy that goes into companies. He’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And he looked at me across the table and he goes, Michelle, what’s going on? And I told him my whole story and he said, I said, Richard, I just lost a hundred thousand dollars. I am fried. I don’t wanna do this anymore. And he goes, so you lost a hundred thousand dollars? And I said, yeah. And he goes, so what? He looks at me, he said it as if I dropped $5 out in the parking lot, like I had lost $5. And I was like, what
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Do you, you hear what I said?
MC (14:51):
Like, that’s a ton of money. Goes are you’re an entrepreneur. Do you expect not to lose anything? And I said, yeah, you know, I researched her, other people I know used her and I, but I found out that the other people that had used her also dropped her. And I was like, I don’t know how I made such a bad mistake. I’m so intuitive. What’s wrong with me? And he goes, how do you know that you didn’t learn from it. Mm-Hmm. It wasn’t a mistake. And he made it sound like it was so not a big deal. He completely reframed my whole drama. You know, I was quitting my company. He goes, you can quit if you want, but I think you’re stupid. I was like, no, I’m stupid. I said, okay. So I left breakfast and that was when I got back on the horse and I was really done.
MC (15:34):
I mean, aj I was done and I spent the rest of that month. I remember I went through Christmas and I said, okay, what am I gonna do? Am I gonna stay or go? And I made the decision. I said, okay, I’m going to do this and I’m gonna do it in my own way and a different way. And that was then when I hired one of the best hired as I’ve ever hired, which I still working with her now. She’s my c o o and I hired her January 7th. And it has been full steam ahead ever since. But I’ve still made a lot of mistakes along the way though I’ve still lost money. Not a hundred thousand, thank God, but
AJV (16:09):
I think that’s, that’s such a good reminder. And I’m actually, I’m pulling up something because I, I have like recently even been in the season, so I think you know this cuz we had to reschedule this podcast, but just five weeks ago to the day I had emergency gallbladder surgery, rush to the ER said, you’re not leaving here until this comes out. It was somewhat of a, a life or death situation. And I came out of that and I think part of it is like, it was a really big wake up call for me of like, whatever I think is big is not big when it’s compared to this mm-hmm.
AJV (16:59):
We have lots of teams that have two young babies. Mm-Hmm. Just a very busy season. And I feel like over the last six weeks I have been dropping balls left and right. I can’t catch a break in terms of, and it’s, and I think, it’s not that I can’t catch a break, it’s God trying to slow me down. He’s like, woman
AJV (17:43):
And I thought I was like, this was like very, very similar to that of going, man, it’s, it’s my own perspective. It’s my own perception of my situation. And when we’re too close to it, we can’t even see what’s happening. And I, I literally popped it up and this is the very first thing I saw on my phone. And this was just like last week, like super relevant to what you were just saying. And it says, God is saying to you today, you have been questioning yourself lately and wondering if you are really strong enough or good enough to do what I have placed in your heart to do. But let me remind you that you can do all things through me. Don’t let fear talk you out of your dream. And remember I am with you and you will make it. You can do this. And it’s so similar to like those breakfast conversations when I think we, we just give up too soon. We give up too easy because it’s hard. Running a business, pursuing a dream life is hard.
MC (18:38):
It’s hard. It’s really hard. And, you know, so we certify coaches now. Like that is a big part of what I do. And it’s so interesting cuz people get so excited about becoming a coach. I’m like, all right, now let’s, let’s talk about going out and building your business, you know, and let’s go get some clients and let’s go talk to people about what you do. And people are like, can you help me?
AJV (19:21):
So, so let’s talk about this for a minute. Cause I think this is a good transition because one thing I know is true, it’s like you wouldn’t still be in business if you weren’t going, I’m gonna tell people about this. And it’s like, yeah. The way that it has iterated and grown and evolved just p it, I love it because it’s organic and it’s like, I’ll do what my audience tells me they want from me. Right. Yeah. That feels true
MC (19:45):
To me. Yeah.
AJV (19:46):
However, a lot of people want to be coaches. A lot of people are coaches, wanna be authors, wanna be speakers, and a lot who are but I thought this was an interesting statistic is that the coaching industry is the second fastest growing industry in the world right now. It’s expected more than 20 billion in the United States. Just the United States this year. There’s more than I think 1.4 million people with coaches their title just on LinkedIn alone. There’s so many indicators of going, man, there is a deep desire, a deep longing for someone to be like, help me
MC (20:35):
Yeah.
AJV (20:36):
Yet they can’t get clients. Mm-Hmm.
MC (20:56):
I really, again, I followed what the audience wanted from me. So I, people started asking me, is there a book on this? Is there a book on this? Is there a book on this? I’m like, sure I can create a book. So I wrote the book, you know, is there a live event? Can you do a live event? I love doing live event. Sure. I’ll do a live event. So I’d put together what the audience was asking me to do. But when you talk about like, how do you overcome that fear? I mean, I moved to Nashville and I didn’t know any, I knew nobody. And I had a a, a shingle. I, I could hang a shingle as a therapist. I had a private practice, I had a license, I could do it. But it’s like, I don’t know anybody here. There was no social, like, maybe, I don’t even remember when Facebook, I think Facebook might have been coming up, but it’s not anything like it was now. And it’s funny because I didn’t think twice about it. I really didn’t, I didn’t think it would be hard. I was like, all right, well I’m gonna go out and talk about what I enjoy talking about. I’m gonna go out and talk about again, like how do you have a healthy relationship with, with self and others? You know, how do you, how do you build self-worth? How do you love yourself? I’m just gonna go out and talk about that. How do you build a business? I would just go out And where
AJV (22:03):
Would you go? Yeah. Where would
MC (22:07):
Went to I, I and I, I went to the Brentwood Library, that was one of the first places I went. I hit up yoga studios. I was like, Hey, do you want a speaker to come in? Like I’d love to come and talk to you about this. I remember different schools would say, Hey, will you come in? Oh, I like what you’re doing. Can you come talk to my, we’ve got a classroom full of parents, or I’ve got a classroom full of, so I got a classroom full of so-and-so will you come talk to my mothers about this? Sure. I’d go to like the doctor’s office and I’d bring my business cards and I’d go, Hey, if you have anyone that needs any help at all, this is what I do. And I give them my cards. You just can’t be afraid to put yourself out there in that way.
MC (22:46):
And y it’s not like you’re asking for money in that moment, but you, this is where the self-worth comes in. You’ve got to believe in yourself in what you’re putting out there. And you need to believe that you have value. And I knew what I was doing was different for me. And I can say this cuz I’m a therapist. I think therapy is outdated. It’s a little archaic. And not to say that, hear me now, there are a lot of great therapists out there, but it’s interesting and I have heard that coaching is really taking off. But when I started my coaching program, I didn’t even know that. I was like, this is just what I wanna do. I wanna create something that’s really a crossbreed between both that has the best of both worlds coming together. And honestly, it’s more of like a consulting coaching kind of thing.
MC (23:31):
But anyway, you’ve gotta believe in what you’re doing. Hmm. And the way that I teach my coaches, like, they have such great success when they’re in the practicum hour part of it. They’re like, I really st I’m believing in what I can do do. Like, they’re walking away saying how great I am. So for anyone listening, you’ve got to believe in what you’re putting out in the world. You have to believe in that. Like what are you putting out there? If you believe in it, then, then, then when you talk about it, there’s an energy that you portray out into the world. And yeah. So,
AJV (24:03):
You know, it’s, I’m so glad that you said that because I, we all know this, we’ve all met, let’s just call ’em salespeople, right? Yeah. Because at the end of the day, we got a little bit of salespeople in all of us. Yeah. We need to. But it’s like, you know what it’s like to talk to someone who’s like, man, even if I don’t buy this, they, you are so passionate about this, I’m just like, totally, I wanna help you even though I’m not gonna buy it. It’s like, who can help? Yes. Who can I tell? Because you can feel it. It is, it’s an energy. It’s no, it’s an energy. But I think a lot of that just stems from one, they believe in it. Two, they’ve, they’re confident. Right. The, the confidence. Totally. You can, you can feel when someone is confident, even if they don’t know what the heck they’re talking about.
AJV (24:48):
It’s like when you say it like you do, it’s just so funny because I was just talking to my husband in the car driving home somewhere the other night, and I’m trying to remember what the word is, but I completely made up a word. And as soon as it came outta my mouth, it was like I was trying to say a very normal basic word. And then I got like tongue twisted in my head and I said the word, and then I was like thinking like, wait, that’s not a word. And I looked at Rory and I said, did you just let me say that? And he goes, babe, like you said it so confidently, I was wondering if I’d never heard this word before
AJV (25:23):
I believe in what this is. And so I’m, I think this is like two things. I think a really important one is I wanna talk about how do you build that level of self-belief? Yeah. How do you build that level of self-worth where, you know, you are a little bit rejection proof. Yeah. And you don’t let the external things in this world impact you. So you give up on your dream. Mm-Hmm.
MC (25:53):
Oh
AJV (25:53):
Yeah. I wanna recap. If you do not write this down and humble yourself to the point of, if I really wanna do this, if I really wanna be this bus and be in this business, I’m going to have to show up at the Brentwood library. Yep. At the local yoga studio with sweaty people and yoga clothes. Yep. At schools with parents. Yep. At doctor’s offices who were like, I thought there was a no station slot on the door. Right. It’s like, but you gotta be able to go like the, anywhere I go, there is an audience. If you believe
MC (26:27):
Always
AJV (26:28):
What you do, and I’m imagining a lot of those were not paid
MC (26:33):
In the very beginning. I’m gonna say probably the first two that I did were not paid. And, but very quickly, again, there’s an energy, like I love showing up and speak. I, I get, I’m very excited when I speak. I’m like, oh, we’re so excited to be here. And then people would say, when are you doing this again? I’m gonna come back. I go, oh. So I always had the next one ready mm-hmm.
AJV (27:19):
And, and a little bit of it’s a plan, right? It’s like what? And a plan. Yeah. A plan, right? It’s like you gotta show up prepared. Absolutely. It’s, it’s, you gotta show up with the belief that they’re gonna wanna come back. Yes. That they’re gonna want more. So you better be ready and prepared. And how are you gonna give it to ’em? But stems from self-belief,
MC (27:39):
You have to show up. Like, they’d be crazy not to work with you
AJV (27:44):
Like, have you
MC (27:52):
That’s it.
AJV (27:53):
MC (27:54):
It’s not arrogant though, it’s just believing in yourself. It’s believing in what you’re putting out into the world
AJV (27:59):
And believing what you do can actually help the end user. Right? And,
MC (28:04):
And yes. And you’re gonna have people that are gonna be like, well that’s too much money. Or why would I do that? And that’s okay. That’s okay. Because there’re for, for those few people, there are like a hundred or thousands more that really want to work with you mm-hmm.
AJV (28:38):
Not
MC (28:38):
For you. Not everyone is gonna be for us. Right? Like, not everybody is, and that’s okay.
AJV (28:43):
Yeah. This is so, such a good reminder. So for, again, I don’t wanna recap, just if you didn’t catch it for the second time, one more time.
MC (29:57):
Imposter syndrome is when we feel like we’re a fraud, it feels like we are not capable of doing what we are doing. It feels like I’m, I’m giving you all the ideas. You might have the, like you need more education, you need more training, you’re not good enough. There are people that are better than you out there. You shouldn’t be doing this until you reach this level, which the level keeps going up and up. There’s a never ending point to that. So yeah, really it’s feeling like a fraud. Like you shouldn’t be doing or offering what you are offering in the world. That’s what it is.
AJV (30:30):
Where does that come from?
MC (30:32):
You know what I had, you know who Stephen Pres Presfield is the war of art.
AJV (30:36):
Oh, yes, yes.
MC (30:38):
So great. Okay. So something that he said, which I love, and the war of art is all about resistance. And I had him on the show and he said to me, when you meet resistance, you know you’re moving in the right direction. That’s how you know, because that part of there we, we are, we are human beings that are filled with parts. So even though there’s one Michelle sitting here and filled with hundreds and hundreds of different parts of self, we’ve got a victim, we’ve got an inner critic, we’ve got a fraud, we’ve got an inner child, we’ve got all of these parts, right? So we all have it. And the more exposed we are and the more we put ourselves out there in the world, the greater the chance that we are gonna get judged or criticized for what we’re doing. So there’s that inner part of all of us that we have this fraud or this inner this or inner critic or this imposter that will say, don’t do that.
MC (31:35):
Get small, stay small. Don’t put yourself out there. So the way that you can turn that around is you look at and examine the thoughts or the beliefs that are coming up around this imposter syndrome or the fraud statements that you’re getting, all of the limiting beliefs. So you might hear things like, you’ll never be good enough. You are a loser. I’m not, I’m not lovable. You don’t matter. You know, whatever it might be that you’re saying to yourself. You look at those statements and those are the statements that you wanna go after. And you examine, you say, thank you so much, I appreciate it, but here really is what’s true. Mm-Hmm.
MC (32:27):
Well, those beliefs don’t go away by numbing them out. It’s like putting a bandaid on something. You’ve gotta invite those beliefs in and get to know them. And when you get to know those beliefs, that’s how, how you then transform those beliefs. You can’t transform them until you get to know them. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (33:21):
Definitely not, definitely not right.
MC (33:23):
People think, oh, this is just me. It’s like, no, you know, I have one that that says continue to get better, more trained. Like mine was like, you’re not trained enough. I mean, I have so many certifications, it’s ridiculous.
MC (34:09):
So they’re coming up saying, you’re bad, you’re not worthy, you’re not good enough. And it’s like, well wait a minute, what’s the evidence of that? Is that true today? 2023 in this moment? It’s like, well, you know, I guess it’s not because this person likes me and this person loves me. And you know, you kind of, you challenge it, but you don’t fight with it. You have a conversation with it. And that’s how you start to morph and change that belief. And then it gets quiet and then when it rears up again, you go, I hear you. Thank you for, for that. I hear you. I know you think that I’m not good enough. I know you want me to not move forward, but I’m gonna move forward. We’re okay. And then it gets quiet.
AJV (34:48):
So I mean, it’s like just even being cognizant and aware and conscious of these is life altering. Totally. It really is. Like, as you’re talking, I was thinking about the last six weeks in my own brain of going like, man, why was I feeling that way? Like, what was the limiting belief that I keep saying to myself? Or I keep saying out loud. And it was like, as soon as you were talking, I was like, oh, I don’t exactly what it is. I have caught myself saying, I just don’t have enough time. Oh. Like a hundred times in the last six weeks because I’ve been healing and things are piling up and I haven’t been able to work at normal capacity and all these things. And I have allowed myself to go. It’s like I literally let this idea of, because I don’t ha I’m not working a full work schedule. I’m not capable of being the c e o.
MC (35:40):
Oh
AJV (35:41):
Yeah. And it’s like, but just even allowing yourself to go, let’s pause for a second and go, why am I feeling this way? It’s life altering. Cause the truth is, it’s like I have just as much time today as I did before. The days, like the hours of the day haven’t changed. What’s happening in those hours have changed. But it’s like a funny thing that if you don’t watch it and you don’t, you don’t stay on top of it. It’s like that will turn you upside down so fast.
MC (36:08):
Yes. These beliefs come in and instead of witnessing them, they, they kind of take us over and we get lost in them and we start spiraling down and we make decisions based on those limiting beliefs. And all of a sudden, you know, we’re not in a good place where if we can witness it and see it as a part almost external to self, so we can go, oh, there it is, there’s my fraud again, you can even give your fraud like a visual. Like you can see it as, you know, a little person or a little, little mony guy or whatever you, however you wanna see it. A blue blob, it doesn’t matter. But when it comes back, you can go there. You are, what do you want me to know? All that it’s coming in to do is to protect you. Like it’s intentions. Very good. Trying to keep you safe, trying to keep you from getting criticized and judged. You can go, thank you so much for being here. I’ve got this, I appreciate you being here, but really it’s okay, but you don’t let it take you over. You witness it and talk to it in that way. And that’s how you change it.
AJV (37:07):
And this right here is why the coaching industry is exploding. Yeah. Right? Because yeah, we need these reminders. We need to vocalize them, verbalize them, tear them down, figure out how to conquer. Yes. A lot of our own mindset. And I don’t think that’s new. I just think that, like, I know when we started our first coaching business in 2000 and oh my gosh, what year was that? 2006. wow. A long time ago. I just remember it was like the idea of having a coach was like in a very, they were very niche industries where it was widely accepted. I remember this is one of the most significant I memories I have from my late twenties. And I was at a b and I networking meeting, I don’t even know anymore. But I was at one of those and they were, you know, like networking hour, whatever. And they were going around and saying, you know, what do you do? And I said, Hey, my name is AJ Vaden, I’m a consultant and I remember this one guy looks me dead in the eye, laughs in my face and says, oh, you mean you’re unemployed?
MC (38:08):
Oh my gosh.
AJV (38:09):
And I was like, no, I mean, I’m a consultant. And he goes like, for real, like, you actually have paying clients. And it was like such a taboo thing of, oh, if you’re a coach, that means you don’t have a job. Like, I remember that. But like today, if you don’t have a coach, I’m wondering why not? I don’t know anyone totally doesn’t have one or who isn’t looking for one.
MC (38:30):
Yep.
AJV (38:30):
You know, and it’s, it’s completely different just 15 years later. So, okay, so on that note of like this whole thing of, because I really do think this lack of self-belief is the number one I believe regardless of what anyone else does, I believe, and I see it with my own eyes, it’s the number one reason and my personal experiences of why your business fails.
MC (38:54):
Yep.
AJV (38:55):
Because you stop.
MC (38:56):
Yeah. You
AJV (38:57):
Could. And a lot of that has to do with, are you going to be willing, confident enough to go and ask people for the business, even if they tell you no. So how do you build self-belief and self-worth? And I will just tell our audience right now before we get into this conversation, because this’ll probably be a part of us wrapping up because I’m a chatty Kathy and I could talk about this stuff for the next three hours, have to watch the clock. I’m like, oh,
MC (39:22):
Countdown,
AJV (39:23):
MC (40:11):
Yeah. So, oh my goodness. So again, with self-worth, we wanna notice when we don’t feel good about ourselves, we wanna start slowing down and paying attention to the thoughts that we’re having. I love journaling and writing them down because, you know, we try to like master these things in our mind. So it’s like, okay, well I don’t wanna think that thought, I’m just not gonna think it anymore. No, that does not work.
MC (40:59):
So it’s hard to go from, I hate myself, do I love myself? But can you go from, I hate myself to, I like who I am today or I’m starting to like myself. So you wanna build that bridge to where you wanna go. So find beliefs that feel right for you today, and you start saying those to yourself. You look in the mirror and you say those back and forth to yourself. I like myself, I’m beginning to like myself more and look at it and then feel it in the body. When we feel these beliefs in the body, we’re anchoring them in. That’s what happens is again, we try to, to do this mental ping pong. It’s like, I don’t wanna think this thought. I’m gonna stop. I’m gonna have wine, I’m gonna watch Netflix, I’m gonna do, it just numbs us out temporarily because the beliefs are there until we really look at them and work with them.
MC (41:46):
Meditation is wonderful and this and this self-worth bundle that I put that I’m offering for you guys is for meditations. Mm-Hmm. And one of them is on limiting beliefs, is journaling prompts, all of those things. So you can re and it’s not gonna, does not take a lot of time, but it really is a way to get you started, to start changing your self worth so you can feel really solid about who you are. Because again, if you don’t feel Val valuable, then what you’re putting out in the world is gonna fe other people will feel that lack of value in what you are putting out. It comes from you, it comes from inside. So again, examine the beliefs that you’re having now that are in conflict with you and how you want to feel. Write them down, challenge them, figure out what’s true today. And positive affirmations are huge, especially looking in the mirror. That’s a great place to start for sure.
AJV (42:38):
So good. For sure. That’s one of the things that I wrote down that I heard in my brain that you said is, you know, it’s like what we really do instead of dealing with this stuff is we distract ourselves. Oh yeah. Right. It’s like we grab, grab the glass of wine, say, I don’t wanna talk about it right now, we turn on a show and we veg out. Yep. We just smacked ourselves and all the while we’re just pushing all this stuff down and never actually going. I should probably address that. Should probably figure out why that’s happening. Yep. And so I love this and I love that you’ve provided some frameworks and meditations to like, help people do some additional exercises. So y’all please go grab the self-worth bundle. We’ll make sure the link is in the show notes on this same topic.
MC (43:23):
Yeah.
AJV (43:24):
Kind of tied to business development because I think for any coach or any entrepreneur for that matter but I’ll, I’ll target this to the coaches right now. It’s like how, how do you get someone to be confident enough to go, I’m gonna go sell what I do, I’m gonna go ask somebody to pay me money to be their coach.
MC (43:43):
Mm-Hmm.
MC (44:34):
People have it backwards. You know, people ask me all the time too, like, how do I set a boundary? Can you give me the words? I’m like, no, I can’t give you the words because you won’t set a boundary until you feel worthy. Yeah. And you feel value. It’s, it’s a, you gotta go inside first. So no matter what job, no matter what business you have, you’ve gotta believe in it. You’ve gotta remember what’s your why, why are you doing what you’re doing? When you believe it and you believe that what you’re doing is really important in the world, not to everybody, but to, there are, there’s a target audience that really wants to hear from you. When you believe that that is how then you can go out and sell yourself. And again, challenge the thoughts that will come up and say, you’re not good enough though.
MC (45:18):
You, it’s alwa for me, it’s always about looking at the thoughts. What are the thoughts that are coming up? The thoughts are gonna come up to trip you up. It’s just is every human has these thoughts that try to stop us, get in touch with those. But again, more importantly, what’s your value? What’s your why? What’s your reason for doing what you’re doing? For me, it’s like my north star is I’m here to bring healing into this world. Everything I do is about bringing healing and to every human I can touch on this planet. That’s my thing. That is what I’m here to do and nothing’s gonna stop me, but I believe that for myself. So that’s what others have to do for their own business as well.
AJV (45:56):
Yeah. It’s like you gotta find that, that deep resonating belief of like, yep, I don’t care if you pay me or not, I’d still be doing this, totally doing this for the next six months. I’m gonna be doing this for the next 60 years. Totally. But you gotta kinda have that like longevity perspective in it. I love that. I think that’s, it is true. It’s like you gotta know your why and then you gotta know your who. Like who are you doing this for? Right? Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s so, so good. Okay, so two last quick things. And this can be rapid fire. We don’t have to like go into like deep dialogue if we don’t have time, but I, I think these are two really just quick things. Do. You mentioned earlier it’s like way in beginning and the early of the conversation of like, I just learned it’s like I have to do what I am best at and that’s not everything. Mm-Hmm.
MC (46:54):
Yes. So this, again, I I, I go back to my body as a barometer or what that tells me. I’m very in tune with what I feel. And again, it goes back to energy. So if I am cha, if someone says to me, and let me give you an example, Wayne. In the beginning way, in the beginning in 2000, whatever it was 14, 15, I remember I was working with a guy that started the podcast with me and he goes, you need to start doing social media posts. And I was like, okay. And he sat down with me and he did a tutorial for me. Like he could do it in two minutes. I sat there, I remember like checking out
MC (47:37):
Mm-Hmm. So there’s resistance from fear and there’s resistance because it’s just not my thing. I wasn’t afraid to do it. I was resistant because it’s not my thing. Like if you said to me, go write four meditations and start writing a book, I’d be so happy. Right?
MC (48:24):
I’m like, it took me an hour and a half and I go done. So look for that resistance. When you feel resistance, you’re not meant to do it. And I talk to a lot of people that’ll say to me, I’m gonna design my new website. I’m like, are you outta your mind? Hire, go to Upwork. Like, hire someone to do that. Do, do you wanna do websites, you know, for a living? They’re like, no, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m gonna take a tutorial on YouTube. I’m like, you’re insane. Like, resistance. You hire it up. Upwork is my friend. So
AJV (48:51):
Yes, I love it. I think that’s like such a good reminder to all of us. It’s like, there are, there are so few things that only you can do, right? Totally do those things. Do those things. There’s a whole world of people who can do other things that you not do. So, all right, last question. We talked about this just a little bit, but you had mentioned a, a key part of what you do and all the things that you do is just teaching people how to be an emotionally healthy adult, right? Yeah. Yeah. So in as few words, as quickly as you can of going, I wanna be an emotionally healthy adult
MC (49:35):
Okay? The whole model is based on five tenets. I’m just gonna give you the five tenets, right? You gotta own your reality. That means get radically honest with yourself. What do you, what’s going on in your life that you’re not owning? Like, are you drinking too much? Are you in a marriage that you’re not happy in? Are you in a relationship you’re not happy in? So own your reality and live responsibly. Number two, you’ve got to learn how to feel your emotions. Because if we don’t, we project. If we don’t know how to do that, we numb out. So you’ve got to feel your emotions. Number three, we’ve gotta manage our triggers. We don’t project our pain on other people. When you’re triggered, here’s the key. When we’re triggered, it means that there’s an unconscious limiting belief that belongs to us, that’s rising up for us. It’s a belief that belongs to us. Yet what what we do is we get mad at others. Right? Stop it. Look at yourself. It’s a limiting belief. It’s a gift, honestly, that’s what I say. Triggers are a gift. So we gotta manage our triggers. Number four, build self-worth. Number five, you’ve got to learn how to set healthy boundaries for yourself. That’s it.
AJV (50:45):
Where do people go? Where do people go? How do they work with you? If they’re going, whoa, what you just said is what I need, where do you wanna go?
MC (50:54):
Yeah. Yep. You go to the adult chair.com, I’ve got the podcast. I talk about all this on the podcast. I have guests on. This is what I teach my coaches how to do. This is how I teach my coaches to work with other people, though, doing this exact thing.
AJV (51:07):
So, oh, Michelle, so much wisdom. This is, thank you. This is so awesome. So, I mean, I, I’m literally like taking notes both for all of you, for the show notes, but then for myself, right? It’s like this, this is what we need, right? This is what everyone needs, and that’s why I started this podcast. I saying, this isn’t a business tactics episode, but this is a necessary and required, universally applicable conversation that we all need to help succeed in what we’re doing, whatever that is. And then also to get your message out to the world. You don’t wanna be the world’s best kept secret. That’s not what we’re doing this for. We wanna get it out there. So Michelle, thank you so, so much for this gem of a conversation. Thank you. I will put all of these links in the show notes. And for everyone listening, don’t forget to grab the self-worth bundle and we will see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 373: 3 Hidden Traits of Successful People | Carey Nieuwhof Episode Recap
RV (00:02):
Well, I absolutely adored my conversation with Carrie Nieuwhof, and as often happens, he inspired me. Some of the things that he was talking about, I guess, you know, set me on a path of thinking about things that are important for, for my life. And, you know, even though we were sort of talking about how pastors can build their personal brand, it really, it was him sharing a lot about how his speaking career got started. And so if you’re interested in, in hearing that story about, you know, how did he build his speaking career? And, and, and how did he, how did he start from scratch? I think that’s super powerful. And so I was thinking this was related to that. And then the more I kept processing on it, I realized no, what it reminded me of are three hidden traits of successful people. And so I’m gonna walk you through, through these because I think these, these are, when I say they’re hidden traits, I mean, these are three things that make successful people successful that I don’t know that we hear enough about, or that we maybe we take for granted, or we’re not sure that they, they are really there.
RV (01:11):
And so as I was listening to Carrie’s story and also thinking back on my own life, and then thinking about so many of our successful clients and where also where we’re going, these, these three things really jumped out to me to go, you know, if you want to be a successful person, these are three things that I think you really need to commit to. And you need to ask yourself on the front end, am I willing to commit to these things? Because if you’re not, no matter how skilled you are, no matter how talented you are, no how much, no matter how much head knowledge you have, I think these are the things that are, are more invisible, they’re more hidden, that really hold people back from success. And so the first one is to crush it where you are at. And this is one we definitely don’t hear enough about when it comes to success.
RV (02:04):
Everybody talks about like, Hey, start the side hustle. Hey, do the next thing. Hey, you, you know, figure out what your vision is. And all of those things are good. And I think too many times we overlook the importance of being successful, not just successful, but being very successful at the thing that is right in front of us. Meaning the best way to set yourself up for success in the next thing is to be successful doing the thing that you’re doing right now. Let me say that again. The best way to set yourself up for being successful at the next thing is to be successful at doing the thing that you’re doing right now. And I think that many of us embrace this lie. We live in this fantasy land
RV (02:59):
That once I’m doing the thing I want to do, then I will suddenly make the sacrifices it takes to be successful. Once it’s my business, then I would, then I would pay the price, then I would put in the work. Or once, once we get past, you know, once I get this certification or that certification or, or once I got a new boss, or once I got promoted, or once I made this much money or, or once I had kids, or once I didn’t have kids, you know, like once they were growing and out of the house, like we are so often convince ourselves that we will really turn it on. We’ll really pay the price, we’ll really put in the work. Like we’ll really show up and do what it takes to be successful when the external circumstances change. And that is a lie.
RV (03:49):
I mean, if you can’t turn it on now, if you can’t pay the price, if you can’t make a sacrifice, if you can’t endure some short-term pain to be successful at the thing you’re doing now, why do you suddenly think you would be willing to in a different situation? And I guess there’s times where maybe that is true, right? Where you go, man, I hate my job, I hate my boss. I’m not given this company one lick of more effort. You know, I’m gonna work just hard enough not to get fired. And maybe that is true, that if it was your own thing, maybe, maybe you would. But I think we overestimate how easy that is. The reality is that, like Vince Lombardi said, winning is a habit. Being a winner is something in your character, right? People who are winners win at everything. Like they win at all the things they pursue, not just winning on the scoreboard, are not just beating other people, but, but creating excellence, doing excellent work, showing up powerfully, serving people, making a difference, making an impact, right?
RV (04:53):
Making contributions to the teams they are a part of. That’s not something you do once in a while. That is not something you do when the conditions are perfect. That is a character trait that you have to decide and commit to embracing that I am a winner because I’m always a winner and I’m gonna succeed because I, I, that’s what I do. I succeed. We’re gonna be excellent cuz that’s what we do around here. We, we make excellent things and yeah, it’s hard at times. Yeah, it’s inconvenient. Yeah, it’s painful. But that is the price of admission to being excellent. That is the price of admission for being great. That’s the price of admission for doing anything that matters. And so if you wanna be successful at your next thing, don’t wait to start developing the success habits until you’re doing those things. Start developing them now.
RV (05:47):
And in my life, you know, there, there’s been a couple times where my life direction has abruptly changed very and, and, and, and a couple times very unexpectedly. And I think the reason why we were able to pivot so quickly to the next thing was because we had done everything in our power to make the current thing succeed. And it’s sort of like, you know, it’s like jumping from the top of one mountain to the top of another mountain versus having like to be on the, if you’re on the, if you’re, if you’re halfway up a mountain or you’re on the bottom of a mountain, you have to like go down that mountain and then go up the bottom of the next mountain. But if you’re on the top of a mountain, you just jump from the top of one mountain to the top of the next, to the top of the next, you know, maybe not from top to top, but you know, near the top.
RV (06:31):
And then you climb back up to the top. And this is what successful people do, right? They’re successful in everything. So don’t convince yourself, don’t lie to yourself that, oh, I would really be successful, you know, if I had a different this or that or whatever. Maybe that’s true. But, but the reality is that most of success comes down to you making that decision to be successful regardless of your circumstances. So do that now. Crush it where you are at. And that is concept right out of take the stairs, you know, from years and years ago. Hasn’t changed. Second thing, second thing that I don’t think people talk enough about when it comes to being successful, specifically at generating revenue, right? So when specifically at, you know, building your personal brand or selling your course or selling your keynote or getting a promotion or, you know, let’s, let’s just say sales in general, generating revenue.
RV (07:30):
I think what we don’t hear enough about is that when somebody succeeds at something, a lot of times, like most of the time it’s because they have banked up all of this trust first, right? So when, and I’ll, I’ll I’ll use this. I think this is a great example. You know, we, we were fortunate to, to be a, a very significant part of Ed Millet’s book launch in 2022. And we made a major contribution. We did a lot, we worked very closely with Ed, and we brought the best that we had to offer in terms of strategy and relationships and you know, we did what we did. But, you know, and we helped Ed pre-sell 117,000 copies of his book. You know, and just recently we, we, we helped Louis House and Amy Porterfield both and, and they both became New York Times bestsellers.
RV (08:24):
All in all, we’ve now helped 13 different clients become New York Times, wall Street Journal, U s USA Today bestsellers. But with Ed, you know, he pre-sold 117,000 copies of his book. Did we have a lot to do with it? Sure, we had a lot, we had something to do with it, right? We, we helped Ed, we helped Ed. The reality is we get far more credit than we deserve. The reality is Ed had banked up so much trust with his audience, so much reputation, right? Did some of our stuff help? I, I hope so. I like to think so. Ed is very gracious in saying that it did. But the reality is that we taught Ed the same thing. We teach all of our clients, right? It wasn’t like we gave him some secret that we didn’t give anybody else the difference in his results, right?
RV (09:11):
The difference in what Ed, ed Mylet experience was not because we did a better job with him or because we taught him something, we don’t teach everybody else. It’s, it’s case in point that what happened was it was his trust that was banked with his audience before he asked them to buy. Trust must always take place before there’s a transaction. Trust must take place before there’s a transaction. When Ed did his book launch, he had years and years of trust banked up. Now we showed up, we were lucky enough to get introduced to him. We were one part of a team of people that were all working together to support him. And we might have helped him maybe, you know, optimize efficiently the, the, the quote unquote extraction of that trust in the form of book sales. But he was the one that banked the trust.
RV (09:58):
And so when we get extraordinary results with clients, you know, I don’t think we could take, like, we cannot take all the credit for it by any means. Even when they follow our formulas, even when they use our ex exact stuff. And similarly, when clients don’t succeed, it’s not because of us, it’s because of them, right? We know our formulas work. They’ve worked for us. They’re working for lots of other clients, the biggest personal brands in the world, all the way down to intermediate and novice people who are just starting out getting extraordinary results. We know what we do works. The difference is you, the difference is how much are you willing? How hard are you willing to work? And how much trust have you banked with your audience? Trust must take place before there’s a transaction. And too many people want to come out and just sell right away.
RV (10:45):
Too many people want to come out and just like, oh, I’m gonna launch something and go, I just wanna sell to a bunch of random strangers on the internet. Well, it’s not bad to do that. It’s not necessarily wrong to do that. But I think the reason that people struggle to succeed right away is because they think, oh, there’s some technique that I need to develop. There is, there’s some strategy. And if it didn’t work, it’s cuz oh, I got bad advice from, you know, this person or that person, or brand builders group, or this course didn’t teach me. And the reality is, it’s because you didn’t have enough trust banked up with your audience. You have to build trust before people are willing to buy. You have to build trust with people. You have to add value, you have to give first. You have to help them.
RV (11:27):
You have to pour into them. And so if your launch failed, it doesn’t mean you failed. It doesn’t mean you got horrible advice. It doesn’t mean that the thing that you’re doing is bad. It doesn’t mean that people won’t ever buy it. It probably means more often. It means that you’re just too early, meaning you are trying to extract revenue before you have deposited trust. So I don’t, don’t think we hear enough about that. And I think, you know, I think people like us, you know, wanna take credit because we do. We, we wanna, we wanna have a part of people’s success. We work really, really hard for it. And you know, sometimes you’re hard on yourself when you don’t succeed or you’re hard on the people around you. And the, the fact of the matter is, a lot of success has to do with trust.
RV (12:13):
And trust comes from adding value to people in your life that they see you, they learn from you, they know you. You’re giving to them, you’re teaching them. And that’s why our entire content marketing strategy, right? Everything we teach, which, you know, can get very sophisticated, but it all boils down to like our entire content marketing strategy is this simple, teach everything you know, for free, but in small bite size chunks and all random miscellaneous order. That’s how we do our whole, our whole content strategy for podcasting, for YouTube, for social media, right? Like, I mean, we’re teaching everything we know for free, but in small bite size chunks, in all random order because we, there’s two things we believe. First of all, we believe that people don’t pay for information. People pay for application. People don’t pay for information, they pay for organization and they pay for application.
RV (13:06):
So even if you teach everything, you know, what they’re gonna hire you to do is they’re not gonna hire you for the knowledge. They’re gonna help, they’re gonna hire you to help them apply the knowledge to their own life and their own business and their own situation. But the second reason why we do that is because we’re automating trust. What are we doing here on this podcast? We’re automating trust. That’s what we’re trying to do. What are we doing on my blog? We’re, you know, you rory vaden blog.com. I’ve, I mean, I feel like I’ve given away a master’s degree in free content on my blog, like for free. Like if you actually sat and went and read all the hundreds of articles, it’s like equivalent to a master’s degree, like probably better in some ways in terms of the ability to help you generate more income for your life immediately.
RV (13:52):
And it’s all there for free because we’re automating trust. We want, we want to add value to people before we need something, right? We we’re, you know, we don’t particularly need anything. Now, what we do hope you do at some point is you, as you go to free brand call.com/podcast and you say, you know what, I like these guys. I like what they’re about. I like their style, I like their guests, I like their information, I like their knowledge, and I think they could help me take my small business to the next level. I think they could help me grow my reach, grow my revenue, increase my sales build my personal brand, build my audience, build my impact, and I wanna talk to them, right? So that’s why we do the podcast for free. That’s why we work so hard at it. We’re automating trust.
RV (14:35):
That’s what we’re trying to do. You can do the same thing. That’s what we’re doing on social automating trust. Teach everything you know, for free, but in one small bite size chunk in an all random miscellaneous order, all right? That accounts for a lot of your success, like more than you realize. So if your last launch failed, give yourself a break, right? Like, if your revenue’s not climbing as fast as you want it, welcome to the club, right? If your audience isn’t taken off and you’re not getting the kind of reach that you want, welcome to the club, right? That doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong, it means you’re just early on the journey. That’s it. And that leads me to the third thing. The third thing that I don’t think we hear enough about when it comes to success. I mean, you do hear about this some, but I don’t think that we index it enough.
RV (15:28):
I don’t think we appropriately wait this enough. And that is simply that you have to make a decision to stick with it most of succeeding in the personal brand space. Okay? So if you wanna become a, a bestselling author, a world renowned speaker, if you wanna become a world renowned coach, a high paid consultant, if you wanna just make it in this space, in this business, a huge part. Like most of it, probably 80% of it is just sticking around
RV (16:22):
And so they give up, or you know, sometimes they have to, right? Something changes and they’re, they run out of, you know, money or somebody gets hurt in their life, they gotta take care of ’em or you know, whatever, whatever. Like, there’s life situation, but they, but they of ultimately, they just, they, they quit. They, they, because either they choose to or they have to, they stop pursuing the dream. And I think 80% of achieving a dream is just not giving up on it. Like 80% of you achieving your wildest dream is just not giving up on it. It’s just pursuing it is sticking with it. And, and the reason why I think this matters, especially for small business owners, especially for entrepreneurs and especially for personal brands, but I think this, I would round this out and say that this applies to all small business owners, right?
RV (17:05):
Because this is, here’s what it means to be an entrepreneur. Like, ultimately people think what are, what’s the criteria that it takes to be a successful entrepreneur? We think, oh, we gotta have a great product, or we gotta be good at sales, or we gotta have the gift of gab. We gotta be good with people, or we gotta have, you know, good time management, or we have to have, you know, good systems or good at marketing, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. None of that. I mean, all of those things help. None of them are the predominant criteria for a success. Successful entrepreneur. You wanna know what the number one most predominant criteria for a successful entrepreneur is. I’ll tell you, I’m a hundred percent convicted that this is the number one most important criteria for being a successful entrepreneur.
RV (17:50):
You have to be willing to get kicked in the face over and over and over every day and keep coming back for more. That’s it. Like, you have to get punched, you have to get kicked, you have to get hit, you have to get beat down and be willing to come back for more. If you wanna be a successful entrepreneur. That’s the job. That’s the job. It’s not secret strategies, it’s not mentorship, it’s not this personal development book, that coaching program, the perfect product, customer experience sales. It is that it is going, what is your appetite? What is, what is your threshold for getting kicked in the face? Forgetting, beat down for having problem after problem, rejection after rejection, set back after setback in your personal life, your professional life, people quitting on you, losing clients, thought you had the gig and you didn’t getting zing with a, a tax bill from the government.
RV (18:46):
You weren’t expecting the product breaking down that you thought was perfect. The marketing thing busted. Having people run off with your money. Like it’s, it’s, and then it’s, it’s managing all that, right? While in your personal life, you have chaos going on. This is the story of our life, like in the last few weeks, right? We’ve had unexpected surgeries, we have kids throwing up in the middle of the night, someone drove into our fence, right? On accident, we, we knocked over our fence. We’ve had people bump into the car. We have had gas leaks in our house where we had to tear open the walls. We have so many things, kids riding on the walls with markers like the, the kids’ teachers getting sick and now the kids are home. Like all of that is normal. That’s the job, right? So you go, can you manage all of that simultaneously while getting kicked in the face simultaneously, while trying to like, make an impact in the world? That is what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur. What is your threshold for getting beat up? What is your threshold for, for getting hit? How hard can you get hit and keep coming back for more? How many times can you be told no? How many times can someone let you down? How many times can you be taken advantage of? H how many times do you have to fail? But w and but you’re willing to iterate and keep coming back. That is what it takes.
RV (20:16):
That’s what it takes. So if you’re going, if you’re having a hard day, if you’re having a hard day, don’t, I, I feel for you, right? I don’t mean to be too hard on you. I know it’s freaking hard. It’s hard. And if you have kids, you have young kids, it’s freaking hard. And if you have a team and you’re managing people and you’re dealing with the gossip and the relationships and their personal life and their, you know, traveling in this and what, and they let somebody down and they didn’t show up, right? I, it’s hard. And I know you don’t have the, you don’t have as much money to hire the vendors and you hire and then you hire a vendor and they let you down or they don’t do a good job or they ghost on you. We had a vendor ghost on us recently.
RV (21:02):
$6,000. We paid them. They disappeared. $6,000 gone disappeared. I know it’s hard, but that’s the job. Like, that’s the price of admission for success in this business, in this game of entrepreneurship, of being a small business owner, of being a world changer. Do you think things were easy for Martin Luther King Jr? Do you think things were easy for Mother Teresa? Like, do you think things are easy for the people who change the world? Like if you wanna change the world, that’s the job. You wanna own your own business, that’s the job you wanna make. Unlimited income, that’s the job you want freedom. That’s the job. You wanna be well-known. That’s the job. You wanna make more money than anyone in your family has ever made. That is the job. What is your appetite for getting kicked in the face?
RV (22:00):
I’m not saying I like it, I’m just saying that’s the job. So if today’s a hard day, welcome to the club. You’re on the right track, right? These are the things we don’t hear enough about, but they are the truth. In order for you to succeed at launching your next thing, you need to crush it. Where you crush it with the thing you’re doing now, crush it where you’re at. In order to succeed and make money and generate sales, you have to bank trust first. Trust must take place before a transaction. And if you’re gonna succeed as an entrepreneur, as a small business owner, as a personal brand, or as anything else, you just gotta increase your threshold for getting kicked in the face and keep coming back for more because that’s what it takes. But if you’re here listening now, if you’re still listening by this point, if you found your way here to us and you found your way to this episode and you’ve found your way to this moment and you’re still here, here’s what I believe.
RV (23:17):
I believe you have what it takes. I believe you have what it takes. I believe that there’s a calling on your life to do something so big in the world that that calling will outweigh the, the, the pain that you have to go through. That, that long-term calling that purpose for your life is to make such a positive impact for other people that you will be willing to endure the pain. So you’re on the right track. It’s okay to have hard days. Just realize that’s the job. Keep going and keep coming back for more. We’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand podcast.