Ep 329: Authenticity as Your New Competitive Advantage with Erin Hatzikostas | Recap Episode
RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:54):
Hey, y’all and welcome to my recap episode on my conversation with Erin hatzicostas. Now she’s got me all triggered about how to say her last name, cuz I’ve been calling her Erin hot Costas for forever and then she said cost us. So now I’m all insecure about it. But seriously, if you did not listen to this interview, I really suggest that you go. And I don’t say that just because it’s an interview. I think you should listen to, even though it is that it’s, it just it’s really universal. And it, it touches the core of, I think of a lot of what of us, a lot of what we all struggle with, who you’ve ever thought, do I really deserve this? Or am I living some imposter life or I’m not good enough? Or I have to be something I’m not in order for people to like me or respect for, or respect me or follow me.
AJV (01:43):
This is the episode for you, cuz it’s all about using authenticity as a part of your leadership strategy. And I love it. I love her. I think she is authentic. I also think she’s just an awesome human being. It’s a really great interview. I really recommend that you go and listen to it. But with all that said here are four, four things that I took away from this conversation that I thought were really worthy to come back and recap in this conversation. I loved what she said. She said that, you know, when she left corporate America and she was a corporate CEO for years but when she left corporate America to like kind of go out on her own as a coach, speaker, consultant, entrepreneur, podcaster, author, all these things she, for a long time, didn’t want to be labeled as a coach or a trainer, a consultant or speaker because she had this like preconceived notion of what that was.
AJV (02:37):
And I loved what she said about it. And she said, it took me a long time to get here. But here’s what I would do today. Here’s the advice that I would give someone today. It’s don’t not do something because you hated the way that you saw someone else do it. And in the middle of that is you know, the foundation, the gen Genesis of some authenticity, it said don’t define what something is because of one way that you saw it done that you’re like, well, I don’t wanna do that. Or I don’t wanna be that. Well, it’s like, don’t,
AJV (03:28):
Oh my gosh. I thought that was so good because I can think of so many times or so many things where I haven’t done something because I was like, oh, I didn’t like that. Or I didn’t like the way they did. It’s like, so what do it differently? Or get it done by someone else? That doesn’t mean you don’t have to like the whole thing just because you didn’t like the way it was done by one particular person or company or organization, do it differently, be authentic and do it in the way that feels you. Then this was a second big highlight for me is we talked about, well, what is authenticity? Like, what’s your definition of authenticity? And I think this is really interesting because I think sometimes that word can be overused, but in a way where it’s not really explained very well, right.
AJV (04:14):
I hear the word, you know, be authentic and you know, show authenticity. But it’s like, what does that really mean? Because it’s like, there’s all different types of internal translations we can make with things like that. And it’s like, just do you be you? And I loved, oh my gosh, I love this so much. I literally have it written down. I’m gonna share the whole team. But on a PostIt note of my wall, I’m gonna do something with this. Cause she said, authenticity is exposing who you really are when people least expect it. That is authenticity. Oh my gosh. That is so good. Like exposing who you really are, the moment that people least expected, what an amazing definition of authenticity. And then she followed it up and she said, it’s not just being yourself. Sure. That’s a part of it. And it’s not just being transparent.
AJV (05:05):
Right? authenticity and transparency are two different things with two different definitions. You cannot be too authentic, but you can be too transparent. Right. I think that’s really an important distinction, right? Authenticity and transparency. They’re different things. Right? I thought the other thing that she said I thought was brilliant is that it’s not about you. It’s really not. It’s about creating trust with other people by being more vulnerable and humble and you in the moment. And I thought that was really good. It’s like authenticity. Isn’t about you just putting it all out there for the world to take it all in. Being authentic is about creating a trust, a trusted environment. An environment of intrigue and curiosity, even with other people, by being more vulnerable, by being more honest. And by being more humble in the moment, going back to her definition, which is authenticity is exposing who you really are when people least expected mind blown.
AJV (06:17):
I love that so much. And quite honestly, that allows me to attach a whole new meaning to authenticity and being authentic, being authentic. Isn’t just being me. No, it’s being more of me in the right moments where people least expect it. That allows me to show my humanity. And it also allows me to show my imperfections, right. I love what she said. Her son says that she’s a imperfection. And we all are. We are all imperfections. We are not perfect, but it allows me to be more imper, imperfect, which naturally should make me more human and more relatable and more personable to those around me. I need that. We all need that. So, so good. Then we followed it up with about authenticity is not a permission. It’s a power. And I think I often hear some people you know, kind of roll their eyes at authenticity as like, is this some woo woo female feminist crap.
AJV (07:17):
AJV (08:20):
And also the fact that we just were really blessed to have the opportunity to have this conversation on this show and, and use it in a way that will make us all feel more ourselves and more human when we’re looking at those around us. Right. and then the last thing we did was that we talked about this awesome study that she just did was like did this national research study on authenticity in the workplace. So cool. I love this idea. I love the results. I love this study. The data is so amazing and so helpful and empowering as a leader or a business owner. But also really empowering as a, as a teammate, as an employee, as someone who just has human relationships and, and deals with communication, which is all of us. But one of the things that I thought was really fascinating is one of the key takeaways was the parallel between authentic cultures and talent retention, which is just a really hot topic right now, right.
AJV (09:18):
Everyone is talking about how do I retain talent? How do I, you know, recruit and retain really good people. And there is a direct correlation with, do you have an authentic culture where people can be themselves in the moment where there is humility and vulnerability and the ability to just get it straight with no facades and no pretending. Is there that, and if there is you have a higher chance of talent retention versus is this a culture where we just don’t talk about those things, you know, don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t really ever get to know your leaders. Don’t ever really get to know your executives. And if you have that, you have a very high chance of quick turnover. So let that sit in for a minute. If you have any sort of employees or team members, or even even run a volunteer organization, it’s people don’t have to stay. There’s lots of options, especially right now where everyone is hiring. So how can you use authenticity as your main retention tool with your team? Y’all check out this interview check out Erin Hatzicostas you can go to B authentic, Inc. That’s just the letter B authentic ink.com. You can check her out, follow her, get this study. It’s amazing. Go listen to it, put it into practice and we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 328: Authenticity as Your New Competitive Advantage with Erin Hatzikostas
RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming, uh, at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:53):
Hey everyone. And welcome to another episode on the influential personal brand pod. This is AJ Vaden. I am one of your co-hosts here and I get the, uh, the honor and the privilege of getting to introduce you, uh, to a good friend of mine. Um, at Erin OSIS, you’re gonna get to learn all about her in just a few minutes and some really cool stuff that she’s got going on, and I will give her a formal introduction, but for all of you listening, uh, I want you to know why you need to stick around and listen to this episode. You know, we have had a mini guests on in the past that talk about research. Um, and today we’re gonna talk about not just research, but how research impacts you in your business right now today. Uh, we’re gonna be talking about the research on authenticity in the workplace.
AJV (01:45):
So to me it does not matter if you’re an employee, an employer, if you are so entrepreneur, entrepreneur, or anything in between, like this impacts you, right? We’ve heard it said before that, uh, data data is the real unique differentiator in the marketplace today. And I’m a big believer in that. I’m a big proponent in that it’s like data is the differentiator and Erin has gone out and done this amazing study on authenticity in the workplace. And I think that there’s some really interesting talk right now about the workplace and you know, what they’ve been calling the great resignation. Uh, and I don’t really know if that’s the right term, right? I don’t know if that’s the right term. I love what Ariana Huffington says. It’s not the great resignation is the great reevaluation. And I think looking at authenticity in the workplace and what does that even mean?
AJV (02:36):
And how does it, how does it impact our employees, our employers and the companies at large is a really important discussion to have. So again, it doesn’t matter if you are a staff of zero or a staff of 1000, this interview, this research, uh, this does pertain to you. So I hope you stick around, uh, and make it all the way to the end, because also Erin’s gonna give you a really cool link to download this data, to help you take that back to your everyday business. So without further ado, uh, I’ll give you just a quick highlight. Um, but Erin Hatzikostas is a former corporate CEO, turned professional pot stir in her own words. She is also the founder, uh, and CEO of be authentic, Inc. And as a bestselling author, she’s a TEDx speaker, she’s a podcast, a podcast host. And, uh, what she calls a, coachs a coach coach salted
EH (03:53):
Thank you so much. And like most people I have such a, I have such a girl crush on you, AJ. So it’s so jam out for a little bit, have you all to myself slash, you know, share you with thousands of people.
AJV (04:04):
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited to have this conversation. I really love having conversations with friends more than anything else, because I get to bring in like some of like the behind the scenes context of what makes you so awesome as a human being. And you don’t always get to do that when you have, you know, a quote unquote complete stranger on. Um, so it’s really always a treat when I get to, I have a friend on the show and, uh, talk about all the cool things you have going on, but then also just to help the audience, get to know the awesomeness that is, you know, these amazing people that we get to do life with. So I’m so excited. And so in an effort to help our audience get to know you just a little bit, can you give everyone a brief backstory of kinda how you got to where you are right from?
AJV (04:50):
You know, you’ve been a big corporate CEO and you’ve led teams of thousands of humans, and you’ve worked for really big corporations. And you’ve now been on the other side as a speaker and an entrepreneur and an author. Like we didn’t even have that in your bio. You’re the author of this awesome book. And you’ve got all these cool things going on, but those are like two pretty different lives. And so it’d be awesome to hear, like give us some context and some background of like this, you know, quote unquote, former life as this corporate CEO, why this shift and how did you end up here talking about authenticity in the workplace?
EH (05:27):
Oh, uh, I’d love to, and so first the first thing I have to say though, is, you know, quick story, my son, about six months ago, he was just like making a bagel in the kitchen and he is like, mom, do you know what a perfectionist is? And I was like, yeah. And he’s like, you’re an imperfection
EH (06:26):
Um, but the good news is it was a great company. It was a big company and, and much like a lot of your listeners, you know, I was able to sort of Bob and weave my way through some, some opportunities take on things I was highly unqualified to do. Um, but never once did I, you know, I have this career path, like I wanna be an executive or I wanna be a CEO. You know, I was small town girl, Northern Michigan, you know, got good grades, but didn’t know really much about, you know, running a company. Um, but, but I did find myself at one of the subsidiary companies that they had acquired and not found myself, I strategically went there and, um, was just lucky enough over the years, every time somebody would leave, they basically were like, look to their left and right.
EH (07:07):
And they’d be like, well, I guess we should give it to Erin. Um, and that happened all the way up till, you know, I took on the CEO position and, uh, I let a company, I was about a thousand people and we we’re kind of in the dumps, you know, financials had been flat for years. We were quite frankly, kind of the laughing stock of the company. It was a, it was an acquisition gone bad, a typical, like let’s bring in this great new sexy company and then give them, you know, no money and resources to do what they need to do to be successful. And, um, I took over in 2016 and I’m just really proud to say that in three years, uh, we took those flat earnings that we had been having and we tripled them and our employee employee engagement went up 12 percentage points.
EH (07:51):
Like we became kind of the darling actually of the parent company and all along the way as I was having success, I also would often think, I wonder what I’m gonna be found out. Hmm. And it, it wasn’t Asia. It, wasn’t your typical like imposter syndrome. Like I, I understood you kind of had to lean in a little further than you were comfortable. I understood the, you know, I, I, I felt like I had the intellectual chops. I had the relationships like, but it was more that I felt like I wasn’t sacrificing as much as my peers, you know, my, my other colleagues were traveling every week for, you know, client meetings. They were giving up vacations. They were, you know, I had one friend that moved her family like three times and like six years to sort of climb the ladder. And I thought, I don’t know how long my luck’s gonna run out with having this much success and not sacrificing as much as everybody else.
EH (08:45):
And, and so then, you know, I, I led the company for three years, decided I really was craving exponential growth that I couldn’t find there. And I didn’t think I would find it in the corporate world. And what happened was when I, when I announced my retirement, like 75% of the messages and conversations said the same thing they said, we’re gonna miss your authentic leadership. And I, it’s not that I was surprised like, Ooh, who me authentic, like it’s, but I hadn’t really been pinned with that badge before. And after all those messages, it was like, there was this moment where I was like, wait a minute. I’m not gonna be found out. I’ve been actually playing a different game than everybody else. And I started to realize that I had subconsciously, but pretty purposely used authenticities. And now what I actually have figured out how to teach, but I had used them to gain the best talent to, uh, negotiate deals, to stand out to the executives, you know, going to quarterly business reviews.
EH (09:50):
And everybody else was like giving the propaganda. And I was telling a story or I was telling them where we were, you know, pooping the bag and it really gained trust and St stood out. And so after stumbling my retirement, I went and did kind of something else, quote, unquote, started a software company, which I didn’t really build anything. But, um, and you know, I think this is really important. I had thought about doing the career and leadership space. I think this is actually really, really important for the audience. One of the buckets I considered was this career leadership space that I’m in, because I knew I had a lot to give and that I would do well, but I didn’t wanna do it. And here’s why, because in my head there were thousands of them and they were sort of a dime a dozen.
EH (10:32):
Right. And this is before I had heard of the concept of personal branding and doing, doing it differently. And so I actually avoided it until, you know, I started writing blogs. I would sit at hockey practice and I’m like, oh my God, I have so much to say. And I no longer have like lawyers won’t let me say stuff. And I was like puking out. Like I had, I remember having a word document, AJ and I, I never considered myself a writer. I was a math major, not a very good one, but a math major. I had 30, some pages of written blogs, just sitting up in like the metal benches at the hockey team. And what happened is I, two things happened, one, which I preach to people all the time. It’s like this lesson, I keep learning, but I also want other people to learn you shouldn’t not do something because you hate the way it was done before.
EH (11:21):
Hmm. Instead do it your own way. And so one, I was like, what do I hate about the career in leadership space? Well, it’s stuffy, it’s boring. It’s a bunch of HR people it’s blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I also listened to a podcast. And it wasn’t you guys yet, which I can tell about then hearing you guys and why it mattered so much more. I, I heard a podcast. Um, do you know, you remember the guy that has a podcast called, like Youpreneur I think, or so, yeah. Yeah. I can’t remember his name. Nice guy, but he’s a little bit like much a British guy, but I somehow stumbled upon it. And Aja was like, oh my God, this is what I wanna do. Like, I didn’t ever realize that, right. This concept. And you guys say it now a lot, you know, coaches, consultants, speakers, and authors, that there was a mechanism that there was an industry.
EH (12:08):
You know, all I had seen were these career leadership that were doing it, the old fashioned way, like go out and sell things and they didn’t have a brand. Right. And they, they weren’t speaking. And, and so when I realized that one, there was what you guys teach that is, so me, I love to speak, I love to do like the big things. Um, I loved the concept of personal branding and that I had also this message that to me, and, and what you said at the beginning was so right. Like I speak mostly to corporations, but I’m telling you authenticity always wins. And I’m learning that as an entrepreneur, right? Like the same things I did successfully as a, you know, a corporate nine to five executive are working here. And when I finally realized too, that it was teachable and that it was, you know, authenticity, isn’t this permission, it’s actually a power. It’s like something that can help you. It’s not just like, I was gonna give people permission to have a better career. Um, when I combined those two, that, that that’s when everything ignited and I got started on, on my path.
AJV (13:09):
Oh, that’s so good. And that you said something in there it’s like, authenticity is not of permission. It’s a power. Um, and I love that. And I, I wanna go back to two things that you said that you kind of skimmed over, but it’s interesting because, uh, prior to our call today, I was in my EO forum meeting. And so I’m a part of the entrepreneurs organization here in Nashville. And for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, um, you get paired in like these little small group forums. So there’s a group of seven of us, I guess, eight of us, including me. And we meet every single month for, you know, three to four hours talking about our businesses, helping each other grow. Um, and it was really fascinating that a lot of the discussion that my EO forum has had a lot of it by me is, you know, trying to figure out like, why is there such this culture of hustle and sacrifice?
AJV (13:54):
Like, why is it that, you know, in America and probably in many places all over the world, but I live here so I can speak to this more honestly. And authentic authentically is the more you sacrifice. Somehow the more successful you are, right? The more you hustle and grind and have no personal life and no family life, like the more quote unquote successful you are. And I heard you say that like you, and then it’s like, and if you don’t, you feel guilty. Right. And it’s, uh, it’s interesting. It’s like, I think about myself. I’m about to go on a, a very 10 day, a very, like a very, uh, like a very intentional 10 day vacation with my kids and my husband. And like what I asked my EO group to hold me accountable to is no work. And at the same time, I know that the reason I’m asking for accountability is because that’s gonna be freaking hard for me, because if I’m not, I feel like there’s shame and guilt tied to it. It’s like, oh gosh, my employees are working. I should be. And it’s like, if I’m not working, like where’s my worth then, like, what if I’m not valuable to the organization in 10 days, God forbid. And so I would love to hear from you both on the corporate side, and now on the other side, looking at the corporate side, where does that come from? Why is it there and how do we eradicate it?
EH (15:05):
It’s addiction. Uh, you know, I think Shonda rhymes, if you’ve never seen her Ted talk, remember the, um, the year of yes. You know, she talks about, I
AJV (15:13):
Haven’t seen her Ted talk, but I love,
EH (15:14):
Oh my gosh.
AJV (15:17):
It OK.
EH (15:17):
Yeah. So she talks about the hum and it’s very illiterate if it’s a beautiful, I mean, Shonda RHS powerhouse. Right. But she talks about the hum and getting addicted to the hum and it’s the hum and the hum. Right. You get, and, and, um, I think it’s really an addiction. Um, and what I always tell people when I talk about authenticity and part of this is, you know, I’m not a very disciplined person, you know, don’t tell Rory, like, I’m not a take the stairs kind of person. I just, that’s not how, you know, I’m a seven on the Enneagram. I’m a creative, but what I’ve found is the nice part is that what, what we teach in authenticity and, and to, to get to your point about like, why are we like that? I always tell people, I don’t change people. I change their addiction.
EH (16:03):
And there’s a detox period. Right. And so for, for example, in your example, change of addiction would be okay, you’re feeling like, okay, this anxiety, like I should be doing more, my team is, is working and I’m not. And if you start to experiment with, um, for example, you know, authenticity, one of my principles is model no better place to, to use the model principle than to go on vacation and model what you want for your employees. Yep. So many leaders would be like, take your vacation, da, da, and then they’re like, hypocrites, they’ll go. And then they’ll work. And what do you think the employees, what message do they get? They don’t listen. They don’t listen to you. They, they watch you. They told. And so a new addiction might be, you take this 10 day, you break free and you start to just, I want you just to observe what you see from your team.
EH (16:55):
For example, somebody that normally doesn’t get to do something, cuz usually you handle it and they step up and do it. And you see like the pride in their face or somebody that follows in your footsteps and says, oh, I noticed you weren’t checking in. I also didn’t check in. I so needed. I didn’t realize how burnt out I was. And, and so now it, you know, instead of being addicted to that ha like, I want you to start to get addicted to this new thing, which is leadership
AJV (17:33):
Hmm. That’s so good. Um, but yeah, I mean there’s so much, I totally agree. There’s an addiction to it. Um, and a really unhealthy one at that. Um, okay. And then the second thing, um, kind of leading into this, you said, uh, I’m learning that I can teach authenticity. So before we get to the study, which I am super intrigued about, and I think it is really interesting and compelling, uh, because I think it’s lacking. I think people struggle with this a lot for a lot of different reasons. So I want like, I want you to define authenticity to you.
EH (18:10):
Yeah. What
AJV (18:11):
Is authenticity?
EH (18:12):
Well, so the way I define it is it’s about exposing who you are when people least expect it.
AJV (18:18):
Hmm love.
EH (18:19):
And, and so what happened, you know, so I said, okay, I’m gonna go do this. I’m gonna go teach it. And then I was like, oh crap. Like, how do you teach something that’s so inherently personal and such, you know, sort of fluffy unicorn DDO. Like how, how can I teach that? Yeah. And, but, but I knew I’m like, wait, I didn’t walk into work. Like I would walk into if I went to your house for a pool party, right. Like I knew there was something more nuanced about me and, and about the people that I consider authentic as well. And actually the first spark was good. Old Google, good old Google. I like, what’s the root word? And the root word is authentic coast, a Greek word and authentic coast means to be genuine. But it also means to be original and authoritative. And so when I saw that, I was like, yes, like authenticity is this more nuanced definition?
EH (19:14):
So actually when I teach, what authenticity is that first thing I do actually is deprogram what? It’s not. So authenticity is not simply being yourself. Yeah. I know that might be depressing. I know that might take a little exorcism, but it is not simply, it’s not the same as being yourself. And it’s also not transparency. It’s not synonymous. People always ask me like, but Erin, is there ever a risk of being too authentic? And I’m like, no, but there’s a risk of being too transparent. They’re not the same word. They’re not the same word at all. And so what, what the most important thing I teach people too, is that authenticity done right in business, in work is actually not about you. Mm it’s. About creating connection, building trust, intrigue, by being, you know, exposing things of yourself, being more vulnerable, being more humbled, using the principles, telling stories, things that you do.
EH (20:13):
Not because it feels better for you, but because it feels better for the connection that you create with people. You know, for example, you know, my first principal, I teach humility, not as like some fluffy adjective, but like purposely use humility. Like I mentioned, like, I have to tell you, I was a complete failure in my first career. And the reason you do that is because what happens then? You’re like, oh, she’s just like me. Like I failed that, you know, chemistry class or, you know, or you also think like, okay, she did not need to tell me that. So I’m guessing she’s not hiding anything else. Like if she would just go and tell me that, you know, she’s spill stuff all over her shirt, you know, two minutes ago or whatever it is. And so if you can think about authenticity, not about you, but, but doing those things that kind of buck the norm that, uh, you know, show a little bit of who you are to benefit somebody else, the reality is it, what happens? It comes right back to you, right? So it’s, it’s not selflessness completely. But if you think first about how you do it for others, then the rewards come back to you almost immediately. Um, so that, that’s kind of how I define it. And then, you know, this, this company I work with called brand builders group taught me how to put some more definition and structure and framework around it, which I have as well.
AJV (21:21):
Well, you know, what’s interesting is, uh, hearing that definition and hearing that earlier, you said you even struggled for, from not maybe what most people would identify as imposter syndrome, but a form of imposter syndrome. And you and I have had those conversations before of you not wanting to feel like an imposter and you know, it’s it, it’s interesting because I feel like most people who self identify with imposter syndrome, it’s probably also much of it stems from being around a whole bunch of people who aren’t being authentic. We’re trying to live up, we’re trying to live up to the image. It’s something that is not real right. It’s like, I, I had to, I did this like a couple years ago. It’s like five years ago now maybe. But I went through my Instagram and I unfollowed every single person that made me feel bad about people.
AJV (22:15):
And not because they were doing anything was my own insecurities. Right. But it’s like, they didn’t do anything, but it was like, man, if I can tell that you’ve airbrushed your photos, it’s like, I’m trying to live up to something that I will never li be able to live up to because we’re human and no human looks like that. Right. That is an animated version of human reality. And I was like, my gosh, I’m like comparing myself to something that’s not actually real. Yeah. And that happens all the time. Right. Unintentionally accidentally or not. But it’s like, look at people’s, you know, picture perfect snapshots in a moment. But what’s missing is the real, crazy chaos that isn’t, that is life. And that, I think that’s what makes us feel like imposters is we look around and be like, everyone else has it together. I must not belong here.
EH (23:06):
Yep. And we all have this disease, this disease that thinks we are the only ones that want it. It’s so funny cuz I, you know, I do corporate workshops all the time. A lot of ’em with executives and, and uh, they’re sort of like, well, yeah, I want it. But I, you know, I, I did my town hall the normal way because I, I, I assumed everybody else wanted the normal structure and the da da, da, da. And um, you know, what I say is authenticity in business and work is sort of like, and you know, this you’re in the thick of this, you know, when you take the boys to a birthday party, one of those birthday parties where like they might do the bouncy house and then they, you know, they all all go do the pizza and then they do the cake. Right. And you’re all stand, you know, the parents are standing around the perimeter and they get done with the, you serving the kids, the cake who just like grab it and ask for another piece. And, and then they come around and they ask the parents, would you like a piece now? What do most parents say?
AJV (24:02):
Oh, no. Good. I’m good. Thank you.
EH (24:04):
What are most people think? Most parents thinking,
AJV (24:07):
Yeah. I ask some
EH (24:09):
AJV (25:17):
Oh my gosh,
EH (25:18):
That’s my kumbaya moment. Huh.
AJV (25:19):
Oh, but it’s so true. It’s true. I think we’re all in search and desire of a little bit more of that in our lives right now. And probably always, but I feel like there’s definitely an era. There’s an aura right around, at least in my circle of going, I need that. I want that. And I didn’t notice that five years ago, um, maybe it’s me. Right? Maybe it’s like, I’m just more in tune to it today than I was before. Cause it’s more important to me, but I do notice there’s this more trend of man. It’s like, you know, and I think this is a great transition to your study and what I, I don’t agree with that. There’s this great resignation I do agree with. There’s a great reevaluation. And I think a lot of that has to do with everyone, having a chance to step back and go, what am I doing and why am I doing it? And do I want to moving forward? Yeah. A lot of it has to do with who, not just what, and so I wanna know, like why did you go the research route? And then what did you find in this national research study when it comes to authenticity?
EH (26:23):
Yeah. So, you know, it went, the research were out for a few reasons. One, um, quite frankly, I always wanna be standing out and you know, I’m so glad I wrote my book. I love my book. People love my book. Everybody writes a book. Um, so part of of it was just strategic. Like not everybody does research, right. Let me do something that stands out. But I’d say just as much, if not more than that, you know, what I talk about is so impactful to people, but it, it can feel so much like fluffy unicorn voodoo, right. And, and, and nobody had really, you know, quantified it, a lot of the, you know, articles out there.
EH (27:13):
And I had pieced together and, you know, in my keynotes and things, I’d pieced together, different studies, right. Line of sight towards this data showed this, this data showed this and therefore right. Authenticity actually will get you more money is essentially the, the story. Um, but nobody had done that. And um, yeah, I mean, I, I laugh because you know what I talk about now, I’m like, you know, for three years I’ve been obsessed with authenticity, but I’ve, you know, largely been making this stuff up
AJV (27:56):
Yeah. I think it’s really powerful. Like one of the things that I, I get kind of like to what you said, and it’s the same reason we did research right. On personal branding. It’s like, man, we think all of this, but is it right? Is it true? And I think a lot of it isn’t like, wouldn’t have mattered to us because it’s like, but we still believe is still what we believe, but it was also just really amazing to go. We’re not the only ones, but then to also be pleasantly surprised about where we were potentially wrong or different. Right. Maybe wrong isn’t the right word. But it was like, it helped shape our perspective even on what we did and going, yeah. Like I do see that alternative and it allowed us to go really deep and an area that wasn’t even in our purview before.
AJV (28:42):
It’s like, I love data. I, I love, I’m such a nerd. Like this is like such my thing. Like that’s probably what one thing that people don’t know about me is like, I’m a real nerd. Like I love data. I love spreadsheets. I love geeky things. Um, my husband always says, that’s why you love me. And I’m like, yes, that’s why I love you. I love nerds. Um, it’s like nerd better for me. Um, and so I wanna know it’s like, if you had to like pick out like what were like the two or three biggest moments, ahas, whatever it was like, what were some of the biggest things that came outta the study that you feel like, I don’t care who you are. You need to know this.
EH (29:17):
Yeah. I would put them in a couple categories. Um, the first is there are a couple where the magnitude of confirming our theory or our thesis was kind of blew our mind. Uh, and those, you know, those were a couple of them, you know, you talk about the great resignation, but let, let’s just call it talent retention, which when I do corporate workshops, I always start, especially with the executives, you know, what’s the number one issue you’re facing. Cause I want them to know we’re solving issues. We’re not there doing fluff and it’s retention, retention, acquisition, talent, talent, talent, you know, and what was interesting. So I’ll tell you what we found. So we asked, um, one question, simple question. How much is authenticity practiced in your organization? And on that question, we did a Likert scale. So you know, all the time, you know, 5, 5, 5 scale liker, um, scale, and then like 10 questions later, we simply asked them, will you, do you think you’ll be working for your employer two years from now?
EH (30:15):
And then we pieced together those two questions. And we found that the people that scored the top of the Likert scale, like it’s always practice authenticity. So they have authentic culture were 92% likely to still be at their employer two years ago. And it literally drew a line like this, like 84%, 72%, 60 some percent, and then not practice at all. It was 40%. So the correlation between an authentic company, culture and employee retention was, you know, just perfect and magnified. Another one that the magnitude was, it was crazy. We asked people, um, is your leader authentic? Yes or no? Just a simple question. Yes or no. And then again, like eight questions later we asked, um, if your leader were, were to leave the organization, would you follow them? And people that said yes to the first question that their leader was authentic were four times more likely to follow them.
EH (31:11):
If they went somewhere else, 400%. And we found that correlation with trust. We also asked, you know, about the authenticity, the authentic culture. And then we looked at a statement that said, um, do you agree with this? There’s a high level of trust in our organization. And we found those with the, you know, the highest authentic culture. It was like, it was also a four times magnitude of trust. Um, so we saw, we saw, you know, basically our thesis was blown away in terms of the numbers. And then on the, the other category, I would say the surprising things, right? The things that we sort of didn’t expect, a couple things really stood out. Um, one were around executives. Um, so many people, right. Have this myth. It’s like, yeah, I wanna do authenticity or I wanna authentic culture, but right. The guy, you know, those dudes at the top, the people, you know, the executives at the top, they’re not authentic.
EH (32:02):
And it was interesting when we asked, for example, that simple question, is your leader authentic or not? When we looked at the three different job types. So we, we basically said, are you an executive leader? Are you an, an executive manager or something like that, a non-executive manager or a non-manager. So those three categories and the people that said yes, the most that their manager was authentic were the executives. And why that’s so important is that the people at the top are actually, as they’re hanging out, they’re having their one-on-ones, they’re having their meetings. They’re super authentic, right. They have these great relationships, but then as they face out to the organization, whether it’s through town halls, you know, part of the devil is the corporate com team
EH (32:58):
Yeah. Cause they have their scripts written for them. They have their handlers, they, you know, that they, they might feel like, you know, they have to Polish up or people won’t have confidence in them. And the reality is the executives are, are seeing their, their own bosses as the most authentic in the company. So that was interesting. And another surprising one was, um, that I was really curious about a sense of top sensitive topic, which is around, um, you know, black and other people of color, you know, this question. Yeah. But can they be authentic, right? Like there’s this, you know, feeling that it’s harder for them, uh, or it’s not as, as inter or as easy. And actually our data found that it was pretty much flat and there were a few places where there was not much of a statistical difference. Um, but we found in almost all of the questions, like, do you feel you can be authentic at work?
EH (33:52):
How important is authenticity at work? Um, et cetera, et cetera. It was about the same. And then the, the last thing around diversity, we found, we asked a question, um, if you’re looking for a new job, which of these factors are most important and we gave them eight factors and the top two were pay benefits, of course, and then flexibility, uh, which makes a lot of sense. The next two were authentic culture and authentic leader. And then what’s most important is what was below those below authenticity, quite significantly was the company has values that I believe in which we talk all the time about, right. Especially like the millennials and gen Z, they wanna work for a company has the same. That was actually lower. Um, getting the experience I need to build my resume, you know, basically was below that. Um, and then diversity of the company was actually last. And what I say about that is it’s not that diversity doesn’t matter, but it’s a great point. That diversity is all for. Not like if you check all the boxes, right. And you have all the percentages and numbers, if people can’t be themselves
AJV (34:58):
That’s right.
EH (34:59):
And so, you know, really authenticity in the terms of diversity, it’s, it’s the Trump card. Uh, and so that was, that was pretty interesting to see as well.
AJV (35:06):
Yeah. I think that speaks a lot too. It’s like, are you checking the diversity, uh, button versus is this an authentic, real part of our culture? Right. And it’s like, you know, even as a woman, it’s like, am I on this board because I’m checking your female card or is it because you generally want me here? And it’s like, I question that all the time. It’s like, I don’t wanna be your checkbox. Thanks. But no, thanks. Mm-hmm
EH (36:13):
Yeah, I mean, well, so, you know, I would not in the research, but I, what I would say it’s because people have four decades and decades, watch people not take the cake
AJV (36:23):
Yeah.
EH (36:24):
At the birthday party. And they’ve been so programmed that nobody wants the cake, or it’s not cool that they take the cake. And, you know, we just emulate what we see in front of us. It’s the same thing our kids do. Right. They, they emulate what we do, same thing in business. Like I always joke, like some dude in 1965 was really successful being stuffy and like having a process and people started to replicate it. Right. And it just regenerated. And then, you know, 30, 40 years later we’re like, oh crap, maybe that wasn’t the right formula. Um, but it’s, it’s about emulation because, because I know this because part of the reason I was able to start my experiments and get addicted and have that different game, that different path is because I had a father that I watched every day, come home and tell stories.
EH (37:09):
He was a teacher. And then, and then he retired and sold real estate. And he would tell story after story, basically of how, how incredibly authentic he was as a teacher and the funny things he had to do with the kids and the way he would discipline through a totally different manner. And so I got to see right people, I saw somebody eating the cake and then I was also very lucky, one of my first bosses, um, that took a big, uh, risk on me. She was the leader of our international division and she also demonstrated this authenticity. And again, it wasn’t just a permission cuz I didn’t just see her do it, but I saw her results. I, I ran her strategic planning. I knew our numbers every year we were growing the business. And so I got to tie together both the permission to be like that, but also that it created success.
EH (37:56):
And that’s why I’m out doing what I’m doing and trying to find as many people, right. To plant the seed because it’s simply that we have to start seeing something different to emulate that is not only more relieving and more fun, but you also are like, holy crap, look at the results they got. And I think you’re starting to, I, I, you know, it’s so funny in the entrepreneurial to, you know, kind of go to the entrepreneurial side of the house, you know, I, listen, I consume tons of stuff. Right. And part of brand builders is I listen to podcast. And so often I’ll hear people go, oh like, oh, this is such an interesting trend that I see. And they don’t call it authentic. And I sort of laugh and I’m like, like it’s authenticity. That’s why it’s working. Right. It’s you know, and people call it different things, but you’re seeing it all the time in the entrepreneurial world.
EH (38:44):
You’re seeing it LinkedIn, a huge trend. You know, I just listened to an episode of him, the LinkedIn guy that’s part of NSA. And he was like, yeah, she’s like stock photos. And um, you know, curated basically CAMBA picks don’t do well. It’s the, it’s the natural pictures. I was like, authenticity, you know? So I’ll hear things and I’m like, authenticity. I’m like, it, it works. It’s just about being aware of it, doing that experiment, collecting your own data for data geek. Like you, it literally is like collect the data to be like, Hmm. They open that email. Hmm. They listen to me when they normally are like distracted. Hmm. We sold more of this when we did this and then going, huh? Maybe if I do more than that, it’ll it’ll get better results.
AJV (39:28):
Oh, this is so good. I could literally talk about this for like three hours because I do think it’s something that we all so desperately need. And to me it doesn’t matter if you, again, I said this earlier, a manager or an owner, an executive, it’s like an employee, a, you know, part-time direct sales person, a retail shop employee. It does not matter. It’s like this impacts all of us. Like no matter what your role is, no matter what you’re doing, a parent, a teacher, um, it doesn’t matter a friend, a spouse, like
EH (40:32):
Yeah, you can go to be authentic ink.com. It’s just the letter B authentic inc.com/slash research. That’s a month.
AJV (40:47):
Show notes, but B authentic inc.com/research. And yes, we will put it in the show notes. And if Aaron, if people wanna just connect with you, um, to connect with your more authentic self, uh, all over online, where should they connect with you?
EH (41:02):
Yeah. I mean, you can go to my website and just check out all the things, but I, where I’m most active is LinkedIn. Um, I’d love to connect on LinkedIn. I am the only Aaron Hatti in the world. So if you can spell it, you can find me.
AJV (41:14):
Wow. That’s so funny because I’ve been saying Erin Hopsy for oh, oh,
EH (41:19):
That’s actually, that’s actually even better. Hoy Costa. You’re giving it the Mediterranean flare. I’m giving it the American, like you wanna try to spell it?
AJV (41:28):
I was like, that is like, you got it. I was like, Rory always tells me that he was like, they like, I don’t know what you hear, but you don’t hear the real words you just make. He’s like make up like all the words to songs. It goes, these are not the words. And I’m like, you’re not, I dunno what you hear, but it’s not what it is. Um, thank you so much for coming on. I love this. Thank you for bringing this topic to the table and also bringing in a way of like, how do we use this to better communication, better. Our leadership just better our relationships, right? It’s just like the more that you can be authentic, right? It’s like it has this domino effect of positivity and impact no matter where you go. And yes, that will lead to bigger, better jobs and more pay and stronger relationships and all the things. And thank you for bringing it to the table, but also in a light of like, how do we take this and apply it and see it in a different way where it’s not like you do you boo, but it’s like, Hey, like there is power in this. This is how you do it. I love this. I love you. Y’all got go check out this study, go follow Erin, go connect with her on LinkedIn. And then, uh, make sure you come back here next, uh, time on the influential personal brand. We’ll see you later.
Ep 325: Life Lessons of an Entrepreneur with Denise Villa | Recap Episode
AJV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:54):
Hey, AJ Vaden here. And here is the recap of my recent conversation with Denise via and I love conversations like this because they’re just real. And if you’re looking for a real conversation with a, a real entrepreneur, who’s not shy about telling you the ups downs, good, bad, ugly all of the in between then go check out the full episode on the influential personal brand podcast with Denise via lessons from a real life entrepreneur. But I’m gonna pick out a couple of them that I thought were really important for this recap episode that we’re gonna talk about right now. So one of the things that I think is pertinent that I’m gonna share just because it relates to me. And since I’m doing these recaps, I get to decide what to talk about. But I, I loved her take on what it’s like to work with your spouse.
AJV (01:50):
And I worked with my spouse have for a really long time, little known fact Rory Vaden and I were business partners before we were spouses. We were business partners before we fell in love and got married, we kind of broke that Cardinal rule. And we have a unique perspective that we’ve never not known each other as business partners. Whereas many couples who work together became couples before they started working together. And we don’t know what life looks like, not working together. And perhaps that’s God’s saving grace or us in our marriage as we don’t know any other way. But I, I loved a couple of things that she said I thought were really insightful. And what I loved most is that what often you hear people talking about are ways to make it work. Like how do you, you know, still find time for each other and not let work conveyed the off hours.
AJV (02:50):
And how do you divide and conquer and how do you stay in your own lane and how you not kill each other?
AJV (03:43):
AJV (04:30):
It is hard, there’s hard things about it. And there’s also really good things about it. We just choose to talk about the hard ones and we don’t often talk about like what a blessing and what a gift it is to get, to build something together with your spouse or your family to, to get to enjoy seeing each other’s gifts at work, however they can drive you crazy. And I think just making that decided choice up going, man, like what are the, the gifts, the blessings in this creates a heart change in me, at least that makes the more challenging parts, less challenging, because I get to take a, a, I get a front seat of seeing my partner, my husband, my, you know, my spouse, my friend live out his potential, live out these gifts that God has put in his life.
AJV (05:22):
And I’m really grateful for that. And I, I love that part of our conversation of it’s easy to talk about just like, oh, how do you make it work? How do you not kill each other? How do you like not let work take over? And I love that there’s also a piece of this, of like, how do you get to just sit back and revel and the awesomeness that is your, you know, dad, child, brother, sister, uncle, husband, wife and get to see them at work. And so I just love that perspective on that of working with your spouse. So that was the first thing second thing that I just kind of, of wanted to highlight but I thought was really fascinating is
AJV (06:08):
You are sitting with so many responsibilities and of which include taking out the trash to pay in the bills to, you know, sitting on boards, to writing checks, to being featured in media, to letting people go laying people off, hiring people, leading people, managing people. And I just don’t know if you know, the, the letter CEO, chief executive officer are all encompassing enough for what really happens on a daily life as an entrepreneur of a small business. Right. and I thought that was a really good take of going, like what it really means to be an entrepreneur is that you’re willing to do all of the things. And you’re not above any things. If you know the mate isn’t there, it’s you clean it up, right. Trashman, didn’t show up, you take it out, person, quit, you do the sales call, next person quits, you do this call.
AJV (07:08):
Right. And it’s, and I think a part of that is an ingrained feeling right. Of it’s a, this is mine and it’s whatever it takes, right. It’s like, I like so many things in my life today to parenting.
AJV (08:08):
And that includes our clients, our employees, our mission our, you know, our company is like another baby, right? It’s like a child. But we get to do all the things to take care of the thing that we love, that we have to do all the dirty work. And it’s so hard. Those things are true too, but it’s that, that slight perspective shift that again makes all the challenging things, just a little less challenging. All right. And then my third thing kind of on this same kind of same line, right? I, this, I love the kind of title of this, just lessons of a real life entrepreneur of what is it like to go through the different ebbs and flows, the peaks and valleys? The good and the bad of having an exclusively high growth company to, wow. Now we’re having to lay everyone off just to survive and then to come back and go, okay, now things are back again.
AJV (09:08):
And, and that’s an emotional roller coaster and like buckle up, hold on tight, cuz you just dunno how fast the drop’s gonna happen and then how fast it could pick back up again. And I loved what she said about like how do you create some consistency right. Both mentally, emotionally, even physically of making sure that your work, isn’t just the only thing in your life. And I think that’s the real takeaway for me is I think as American entrepreneurs and I can only say that because I am an American. But I’m sure this is true in most countries. Our identity gets tied up in our work and our identity is not what we do. Our identity is who we are. And if all we do, if the only thing we do is work, then we lose side of all of the other pieces of us.
AJV (10:05):
So to create more consistency, to create more stability, what we do is we have to have a little bit more diversity and all the things that we do, right. I can honestly say before I became a mother work was way more all consuming than I would care to admit today. But I think through becoming a parent, I realized it’s like, oh man, I had really put too much of my identity into one thing. And I wanted to be really careful not just to dump it into the next thing, which is motherhood of going well, where is my identity and who am I, if it’s not just, you know, being Jasper and Liam’s mom or doing this ex company or doing these ex services or whatever it may be. But it’s really making sure that it’s like, I have more diversity in my life of recommitting my life back to, to Christ and getting more involved in Bible studies and increasing a friend group.
AJV (11:08):
I didn’t have friends for a really long time work was everything. And it was creating, you know, routines and habits that’s that created some separation where everything, everything wasn’t centered on just this one thing. And I think that that’s necessary in my opinion, so that your identity doesn’t get just tied up in one thing because that isn’t your identity. That is a, a phase of your life. It is something that you’ve done, although it may be a large phase of your life, but it is not who you are. It is simply something that you have done for a period of time until you move on to the next thing. Y’all so many takeaways, those were just three highlights. They had a common central theme there. Loved this conversation, loved these takeaways. They were important to me. I hope they’re important to you. So stick around and we’ll see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 324: Life Lessons of an Entrepreneur with Denise Villa
RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:54):
Hey everybody. And welcome to another episode on the influential personal brand today is super, super special. Cuz I get to interview one of my very closest dearest, best friends, Denise Dorsey, Denise vi I, I know Rory’s like it’s via not Dorsey
AJV (01:54):
And I’m just gonna tell you guys why you need to listen if you are listening to this and you’re trying to decide if you should make the leap from what you’re doing to what you feel like God called you to do, you should listen to this episode. If you are a, a working mom, if you are trying to balance entrepreneurship, being a CEO, being an executive, being a leader, just being in the frigging workforce while also trying to balance being a mom and manage your family you should listen to this. If you’re trying to juggle multiple jobs all at once Denise is the CEO of the center for generational kinetics. She is still sitting as COO at a very amazing biomed company. She also runs a real estate development and investment group. Urban gravity’s, one of the fastest growing real estate developers in Austin, Texas.
AJV (02:47):
She is also an author of the economy. It’s like the list goes on and on. So it’s like, I often go, do you sleep? Like, do you like what? She’s also a marathon runner. It’s like, I’m like, I’m pretty sure I’m like way below standards when it comes to Denise and all of our accomplishments. But it’s like, you should listen. I’m going, man. Like what are the peaks and valleys of managing all the things because although they’re rewarding, they’re hard. Like let’s get real. They’re really hard. Also if you work with your spouse or you’re considering working with your spouse, you should listen to this episode. If you wanna write a book or you wanna go out and speak or think, think about this, not only working with your spouse, do you also wanna write, write a book with your spouse?
AJV (03:35):
Like these are all the things that are Denise villa Dorsey that you should stick around and listen to. And that is just really scratching. Really truly like barely scratching the surface of all things. Denise and I would say most importantly of all, I’m so excited for this interview. One, she didn’t wanna do it. She was super reluctant because she’s super humble. And doesn’t often put herself in the spotlight and so I’m genuinely excited to help the entire world get to know your brilliance and you’re, you’re so steady. Like you’re so consistent and calm and sometimes I’m sit at the dinner table with you and Jason and Rory and Jason is so animated and him and Rory are over there, scheming their ideas. And I’m like, people like, what are you talking about?
DV (04:44):
Aww, AJ, you’re so sweet. I think the podcast is over. I’m gonna take all these beautiful things you just said and I’m done
AJV (04:51):
DV (04:54):
And I’m excited to be here with you and thank you for having me really.
AJV (04:57):
Oh, I’m just so excited. And I’m honestly, I’m too, I’m so excited to get, to hear the parts of you and your message and these, these interesting parts of your life and your career that don’t get to come up in normal conversations where, when we’re with our kids or when our we’re and our husbands, or we don’t have extended amounts of time together for you guys listening. I live in Nashville, Tennessee, as you may know. But Denise lives in Austin. So our times are like far and through between. And so when there’s so much to catch up on like so many of these questions, I’m like, oh my gosh, I don’t know the answers to these. I’m so excited to see what you’re gonna say, but, okay. So we’re gonna start here of helping our audience get to know a little bit about you.
AJV (05:40):
And I think a part of your backstory is really unique and really important to the people who listen to our podcast. Because as I mentioned this to you, it’s like much of our audience are trying to make the decision of, do I stay where I am or do I go and do something different? Right. And there’s nothing wrong with where I am, but at the end of the day, I just feel like something’s missing. Right? Sure. Part of me that’s like, could I really do it? Or is there something bigger for me? It’s like, is this what God really intended for my life? And, and I think you’re one of those unique people in our life that it’s like, you made a really dramatic shift in your professional life because you were already so successful as a teacher and then a principal and in the world of education and academia.
AJV (06:32):
And that’s like, that’s a no joke job, a super underappreciated underpaid job, by the way. But you made a major decision of going, I’m going to leave, like what? I went to school for, what I thought I was gonna do my whole life, what you’ve been doing, what you’ve been very successful at doing to go out and go, I’m gonna, like, I’m gonna jump this ship and I’m going to join the crazy people on the world of entrepreneurship. And what I would love for the audience to hear is like, what’s a little bit of your backstory of like, where were you? What made you want to make that kind of jump? And ultimately, why did you do it?
DV (07:08):
Yeah, no, that’s a great question. And I’ve pondered that a lot, I wish I had like a, a straight answer and it was exactly at this point, but I think a lot of things happened and when I reflect back on it I wouldn’t have traded any of the experiences for it, but it was kind of the catalyst to move forward. So at the time I was a a principal at a, at a high school in Texas, a 2200 student, so very big 200 over 200 faculty. And things were going, you know, full, full on crazy times. Like just, you know, the amount of hours you put in. They need to, all those kids need to, you know, and it was my job to, to do that for everybody. And I loved it. It was fulfilling. It was really a great place to be.
DV (07:58):
I was also doing my PhD at night. So I was finishing my dissertation. I had also just finished and completed a year of, of an internship for super. So that was kind of my pathway. And I was on this pathway. I knew where I was going and my husband who’s been entrepreneur since he was 18 never known anything else. And was also traveling at that time. I probably 220 days out of the year. Wow. And you know, I just took a moment and we both did, and we’d had some really big life changes happen. Within that year as well. One of my best friends was diagnosed with stage four cancer. And one of my other best friends was gave birth and ended up being in the hospital with a hole in her heart and they weren’t sure she was gonna make it.
DV (08:52):
And there was just a lot of things going on. Quite honestly. And my husband said, you know, why don’t you take a moment, let’s just take a moment and breathe, finish your dissertation take a sabbatical and, and go back to education. And I said, no,
DV (09:50):
It wasn’t like a, you know, I had didn’t have a plan in place. It just, it just was. And basically once that opportunity happened, I just jumped both feet in and, and did it. And I love education. I love the kids, I, the parents, schools everything about it. But now that I’ve been an entrepreneur now for 15 years, I think, going on, no, actually going on 17 there’s no other better place in the world for me. I just enjoy so much and I still help people. I just help in a different way. And I think that’s why I enjoy it so much.
AJV (10:31):
I love that. And you know, it’s interesting, like this is like the third conversation I’ve had in a really short time period where I have talked to someone who had some sort of life event that occurred in one of these pivotal decisions that they’ve made. You know, I’ve, I’ve had those. And I was just talking to someone earlier today about that she left a very high paying corporate software job of, you know, what happened is her mom was diagnosed with cancer and she goes, man, is this how I wanna spend my days? Is this what I wanna be doing? And like, to hear you about a friend and then the daughter of another friend. And I know that these life events cause us to wake up, right? Like so evident, so many, right? So many of us, what I’m curious is just to hear your genuine opinion and your perspective of why does it take that sort of thing to actually cause us to do what we want? Like, what is it about us as humans, right? That’s like, I’ll stay on this path, even though I know there might be something more for me until we realize life is short. And it’s a lot shorter than I used to think yesterday, because today I have news I didn’t have yesterday. I’m just, I’m so curious, like, what is, is it that
DV (11:54):
I can’t speak for everyone, but I think for, for me I’m very goal oriented. So I mean, I’m still goal oriented and my husband does this too. People think we’re crazy about this point, but in my bathroom, I have a glass board, not a white board, a glass board, and it has all of our goals for the year so that we can see them every morning when we’re taking a shower, when not
AJV (12:16):
Taking a shower,
DV (12:17):
They’re just like right in front of me, there’s no reason not to pass it up. So I think for me as very goal oriented, I set these goals. I wanna be a principal by this age. I wanna be a superintendent by this age. I wanna do X by this age. And, and then life just continues happening. And, and then all of a sudden you’re given a moment of pause because of some life extraordinary event. That just for me, you know, just put everything else aside and, and gives you pause and thought and, and how, and what do I wanna do? I mean, I spent the last days of my friend’s life with her and I could not have done that as a teacher or as a principal. I just wouldn’t have allowed me to. So I wouldn’t change that transition for anything.
DV (13:07):
I mean, I was meant to be but I do think that you, people just go on this journey and it’s just so fast and furious you know, that we don’t take the time to, to stop for a second. And then we get the time and, and we think, is this where we’re supposed to be? I mean much like COVID yeah, COVID paused the world. And then so many people that came out of it were attorneys and now there’s screenwriters and moved to Costa Rica or, you know, people that were screenwriters who were like, I don’t wanna be this anymore. I wanna do this. I mean, and I just think that we don’t have enough pauses in our life.
AJV (13:46):
Oh, I love that. I’ve, I’ve shared this quote a few times now. But I was reading an article and that just like flashed across my screen one day. And it was from Ariana Huffington and she said, people have been calling this the great resignation, but I don’t think that’s what it is. I don’t think we have a great resignation. I think what we are experiencing is the great reevaluation yeah. Of what do we wanna do and how do we wanna do it? And what’s the in and what’s worth it. And is, is money really the answer to all the things. And many of us discovered, no, it’s not.
DV (14:21):
Yeah, exactly
AJV (14:23):
Not. And I think that’s a huge part of it’s like these life events cause us to reevaluate what we thought was important.
DV (14:29):
Mm-Hmm
AJV (15:52):
Is. And 30 age is just a number,
DV (15:55):
But it does. It gave me pause. Just thinking about where I wanna go.
AJV (16:00):
Yeah. I just, I sometimes, and I, I totally feel that and it’s like, you know, my husband, Roy’s turning 40 in just a few weeks and I’m not, I’m giving myself, I’ve got a full, like what, 22 more months before
AJV (16:16):
AJV (17:09):
So you also, you have an enormous entrepreneurial community. And one of the things that I think would be really interesting for our audience because it’s like what I tell people all the time, it’s like a personal brand should be treated like a business because it is one, it is one, right? It’s your reputation. It’s what people think of when they think of you. And regardless of what that looks like rather you are an executive or an employee or a salesperson, or you go out on your own as a solo entrepreneur or you build a company. It doesn’t matter anywhere in between. There are components of entrepreneurship that are present in everything that we do. And so what I would love to hear from you for our audience is what do you think are the necessary skills? And those could be mental, emotional, or tactical skills that it requires for someone to make it as an entrepreneur.
DV (18:05):
Oh, that’s a great question. So patience, I think is one. I have a lot of patience. Some entrepreneurs would disagree. They would say patience is not, is not a great one. And I would disagree with them back. There is so much patience needed in becoming an entrepreneur. It’s not overnight successes. All the overnight successes. Majority of them were never overnight. If you think 10 years is overnight, that’s their overnight success. Nobody ever talks about the 10 years before the overnight success. So I think patience is one tenacity. Tenacity is huge. You’re gonna get shot down. You’re gonna get said, be said, no, you’re gonna say, they’re gonna say that this is the worst they’ve ever seen, whatever. But if you truly believe in what you’re doing, then you, you you’ll keep going. You definitely just keep going. So it’s necessity would be another one. I think also being a listener, not just a communicator, not just being able to speak eloquently and, and cheer on the crowd, but to also be a good listener. Hear what people are saying, take that in, take the feedback, make the adjustments go back out there. I think those three are probably my top ones that I feel that are necessary to be a great entrepreneur. Other at least for me,
AJV (19:33):
Oh, I love that. And I think, you know, the patience one, I didn’t expect you to say that, but that is so true. Like when I said earlier, it’s like, you’re so steady. It’s like patient, would’ve been the other word. It’s like, you’re so patient like you are. And I think that’s like, I think that’s a really great reminder to everyone who’s listening today is yeah, there is no such thing as an overnight success like that does not exist. You see the success overnight, but there is no overnight success, right? It’s like, correct. Just cause you just learned about somebody doesn’t mean they hadn’t been hustling for years. Exactly. Get to that point. And I love, I love it when people say, oh man, they just came outta nowhere. And I’m like,
DV (20:11):
Really
AJV (20:13):
Thing. Like come outta nowhere that it’s like, you know, our awareness of someone is what makes us think like, oh man, they just blew up and it’s like, Mel, they didn’t blew up. Right. They’ve been building that engine for a really long time and then they just turned it on. Right. Exactly. That’s a great reminder to all of us, of man. It’s not gonna happen overnight.
DV (20:35):
You know, nothing ever does. And nothing that is worth really having at the end of it is ever just so quick. It’s not like a, it’s not like a light switch. And I also think the, the three that I mentioned are great. Especially if you have a partner that has the opposite of the three
AJV (21:23):
Oh, that’s such a great transition too. It’s like Jason and I share more of those personality traits and you, and yes
DV (21:29):
You do do
AJV (21:30):
AJV (22:28):
And so I, one I’d love to know it’s like, what have you seen both personally and just in the entrepreneurial community of what makes a successful partnership. And then the second thing is I wanna talk about, and then how do you work with your spouse? And you and I both sit in the boat and I, I share this with you often. It’s like, there are so few people that are at my life stage married to their business partner where we’re the sitting as the CEO of the company, we have young children, like it is a rare situation in most events. And it’s got amazing, beautiful components and really frigging hard ones. And I know a lot of people who get started, like they get started with their spouse cuz that’s who we can afford. Right.
DV (23:32):
Okay. No, that’s great. I think for me, number one is trust. You have to trust your partner, your business partner infinitely. If you do not or have reservations or even have like a little inkling that their trust isn’t there, it’s just not gonna work. It’s just, I can’t imagine going through every single day of what people do in a business and not completely 100% trust your partner that you’re working with. So that would be number one. Number two for me is figure out what you’re good at, figure out what your partner is good at and then stay out of each other’s way. We learned that the hard way working together. And I think the first year we really overstepped on Jason stepped over on my toes. I stepped on his and it wasn’t until we figured out our lanes and we stayed in ’em that we were able to grow and we were able to be successful in our partnership.
DV (24:35):
And, and even now, I mean, we’ve been doing this together, you know, almost 15 years and every once in a while we crossed lanes and we’re like, uhoh Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope. Let’s get back in our lane and I think that is very helpful for, for us and for other partners. And I think lastly, this has to really do, if you’re married to them, maybe not your, you weren’t married to them, but we really came up with rules around our household as well. Now I will not say that I follow every single role to a T. But I try. And the last thing we wanted in our relationship was our relationship to be all about work is so easy to all of a sudden all the conversations we’re having or about work or about your kids. And we just didn’t want that.
DV (25:27):
So we set boundaries on times a day that we can talk about our business on the weekends. You know, there’s no disgusting on Saturdays and on Sundays you can only get me until noon. Because if you’re my husband, he wakes up at 6:00 AM. He wakes me up at six 30. And the first thing you have is out of his mouth is, Hey, did you get this transaction done? Or, Hey, did you close this deal? And I’ve not even opened up my eyes for like two minutes yet. They’re like, can I brush my teeth first? So we really laid out boundaries around that. That was very helpful. And then, you know, finding people like you and Rory, I mean, you guys are amazing, but finding other like people that you can have the conversations with and talk to people, it’s a rarity of what you and I do with our husband and to have that back and forth with somebody to share it with is phenomenal. And that’s very helpful.
AJV (26:22):
Yeah. I think, you know, you said two things in there that I just wanna like pull out. Cause I think these are so significant is one of them is around the trust factor. It’s like, you’ve gotta give your partner. And you could say your partner is anywhere from a vendor to a contractor, to an employee. It’s like, I think this transcends just a business partnership, but you’ve gotta trust and give them the benefit of the doubt even when you’re not sure. And so my question to you in this is how do you build trust in business?
DV (26:52):
Oh, that’s a good one. So I’m all in or I’m all out. That’s my, so I in business, if I’ve decided that you’re my partner, whatever that is my salesperson you’re a partner in our business. You’re a vendor, anybody, anybody that we’ve touched, I’m a hundred percent in you’re on our team. I completely 100% trust. However, if that trust is broken is really hard for me to repair it. And that’s just me, myself. I’m a hundred percent in giving you everything, but if you break it I’m out. And I, I tell people that front I’m very open and honest without with anybody that I work with. Like you have everything, but you destroy it. And I walk away. Like I just, I just not worth my time nor can I do I wanna work on it to get it back. I just don’t.
AJV (27:50):
So I’m just writing this down cuz that’s like, I think so what I hear you saying and what I’m writing down is that it’s like, you have to make a choice to be all in. Yeah. Right. It’s not like, oh, it just happens. Right? It’s like, no, I’m choosing to be all in. And I’m choosing that. You’re my partner. I’m choosing to trust you.
DV (28:07):
Exactly. Exactly. No reservations, because if there’s any reservations, then there’s no reason for us to even be partners in anything.
AJV (28:17):
Okay. So that is so, so, so I guess one of the things that I’m hearing too is this has actually been a really recent conversation in our household and our business is Roy’s always telling me, babe, you’ve gotta give me the benefit of the doubt.
DV (29:09):
Right. Exactly. And for people listening I’m a lot like RRY so it doesn’t, we share a lot of the same characteristics. So surprised
AJV (29:21):
Patience is one of virtues. I have other gifts, other gifts. But it’s like, but it is, I think that’s like so important it’s like in any relationship is you’ve gotta make the choice to see the benefit of that. I have to make the choice to trust you. Because if not, then everything is filled with doubt.
DV (29:41):
Yeah. And, and then you’re going behind their, their, I wouldn’t say their backs, but you’re going behind and trying to double check the work. Did this get done? Did that get done? Did you know everything? You know, and it’s just, people make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes, we’re all human. And there’s a difference between like, oh, I messed up. That’s a mistake. And there’s a difference between a total mistrust of something that you did like that the, to me, those are very different.
AJV (30:10):
Okay. I’m,
DV (30:11):
It’s an error. I’m not forgiving when you deliberately, you know, right. Needed me to not trust me.
AJV (30:18):
Yeah. The same thing with like your kids, right. It’s like, yeah. You know, it’s so much of leadership of business is parallel to parenting. Being a parent has been the best leadership training on the planet.
DV (30:33):
AJV (30:34):
If you like, it’s like trying to get these two little humans to do something that I want them to do. And there’s no incentive. There’s no money. There’s no, like, it’s like, oh man, OK. I’ve gotta really get my negotiation skills to work with these two humans. But I think that’s like so true. It’s like, but it’s all in a choice of like, I’m choosing to say, you know, Jasper, I know that you wouldn’t intentionally knew such a thing, but that’s a choice because the other half of me is going you little rat. I know
DV (31:08):
AJV (31:08):
You know, and it’s like, that’s such a choice and it happens in business all the time. Right, right. It’s so easy to fill our mind with. Well, I mean, they’re just doing this because you know, it’s easier for them or I’m the one stuff doing all the really hard work they’re out there getting to do what they love and what they’re passionate about. And then I get stuck with everything they don’t want.
DV (31:26):
Mm-Hmm
AJV (31:27):
That’s really good. The second thing I wanna highlight is you talked about these rules. So can you give us an example of like, what’s a role that you guys have in your house to protect, you know, your personal relationship? So the business doesn’t take takeover?
DV (31:42):
Sure. So one big role is, like I said earlier about talking about business. So no talking about business on Saturdays and Sundays, we can start after 12. And so I will say, you know, Jason could talk about business 24 7. So you know, sometimes 1140, he’ll be like on a Sunday, Hey, I have 10 more minutes and then we can start talking
AJV (33:02):
So what do you guys talk about if you don’t talk about, if you don’t talk about at your daughter and if you don’t talk about work, what are you guys talking about?
DV (33:10):
Ah, what we talk about things we wanna do, where we wanna go, you know, places that maybe we wanna live. We talk about, you know, our families, our parents, maybe we, my husband travels quite a bit still now. And so there’s a lot of things in a week that transpire that I never get to even tell him about. I told him I’m a podcast with AJ. He’s like, there’s just like a lot of things that you have that you never get to share. And so we talk about things like that. And then we talk about I’m part of entrepreneur, you know organization here in town. I have a lot of entrepreneur, friends and things that are going on in their world and I wanna hear about his friends. And so that’s the, the timing that we use to celebrate those kind of experiences.
AJV (34:03):
Yeah. And I, I ask cause of genuine co you know, curiosity for my own marriage. But also because I think that’s really good for all of us to go, you know, this is like one of the big mantras. That’s in my life right now is that I want people to care much more about who I am than what I do. Yeah. I don’t wanna be defined by my work because that’s how I defined my own worth for a really long time. And I’m in recovery from finding all of my worth in my work. And what I have found is like in all general natural situations, it doesn’t matter if it’s with my husband or at a networking meeting or at my EO group or, well, a group of friends, like somehow it always transitions to, well, tell me more about what you do. And I’m like, it’s so hard to like pull out of that world and go, no, actually just wanna talk about I,
DV (34:59):
The best book you just read
AJV (35:01):
Or something. And it’s like, it’s like, it’s amazing. And I don’t know if it’s this way all around the world, but I know that it’s like this in the United States. It’s hi, here’s my name? And the next question is, so what do you do? Yeah. And it’s ingrained in this component of our lives. And it, it folds over into work is the majority of what our life is about. And I was so genuinely curious of not just for our own spouses but for each of us out there of like the thing that I love about personal branding and reputation is that it’s at the heart of who you are and who you are, has nothing to do with, with what you do. It’s a piece of it is not who you are and finding things to talk about that allow people to get to know more of who you are, I think is a kind of a novel idea, believe it or not. Well,
DV (35:51):
I also think that people have to be open to the discussion, right? I mean, in the United States and I, I I’ll say this just in the United States, you and I both travel a lot outside of the United States, but here, so many of the conversations when you meet someone are so superficial. Yeah. And they don’t go deep. And what I have found, you know, as being part of the EO community for the last 10 years, I mean, they really trained on like specific questions and to get deep and come vulnerable. And if you’re not gonna be that person, then we don’t need you in our community. Mm-Hmm
AJV (36:37):
If
DV (36:37):
You’re not gonna have a meaningful conversation with me, well, you know, there’s a hundred emails I could probably answer. And I really wanna spend the time with you and get to know you and learn, how did you become you? And I’d rather have that conversation than answer the hundred emails for sure. Oh
AJV (36:53):
Man, I’m gonna write this down. How did you become you? Not what do you do, but how did you become you? I’m always writing down what are good questions that I can ask that are not, so what do you do or tell me about your work or like that’s a really good one. So so do you, do you ask that to people?
DV (37:13):
I do. I do. I do ask that the, the first, the first glance, you know, especially if they’re outside kind of the entrepreneurial world, not heard about these things, they look at me going, excuse me. Oh, what, and, and so then it’s really probing. Like how did you become you? Where did you grow up?
AJV (37:33):
The first
DV (37:34):
Question you have, like, you know, just kind of going down the journey and then you see the person getting more comfortable. Cause at the end of the day, people like talking about themselves, they really do. It’s just, we’ve been trying to really, for a lot of people, we only speak about this and we don’t speak more about this and we do this and you’ve learned kind of these ways to put yourself out there. So that you’re, you’re captivated in the best light. And so when you kind of go in a different route, people are just more willing to have conversations. And then you’re able to share about you and your story and your authentic self of who you
AJV (38:11):
Are. Oh, I love that so much. Anything that helps me create stories around, tell me who you are not about what you do is like a big thing in my life right now, I was at a it was a charity event thing and I was standing outside, standing in line to get a glass of wine. And this young lady walks up to me. She just introduced herself. You were just like chit chatting. And she just says, well, what’s your name? How do you know the host? And she goes, how do you fill the hours of your week? And I was like, I’m sorry, what
DV (38:45):
A great question. I’m gonna write that.
AJV (38:49):
I stopped in my tracks. And I said, you mean like, what do I do for work? And this was like six months ago or something. This is like, kind of like triggered my own default to asking these silly questions. And she’s like, well, I mean, that could be a part of it, but you know, just how do you feel the hours of your day? And I was like, well, in the mornings started, I was like, well, in the mornings I have two toddlers. And so, and then I started like regurgitating my schedule. And she was like, that’s so fascinating.
DV (39:21):
AJV (39:22):
It was one of those things. I’m like, how do I spend hours? But it was like such a nice of, and then I said, are you intentionally trying not to ask like the people do for work? And she goes, yeah, it’s a really intentional effort of mine. And I said, I’m totally stealing this and I’m gonna
DV (39:52):
I love
AJV (39:54):
Very similar. It’s like, so tell me about how you became you. Right. I love that. I, I love that. And so, alright, so I’m gonna flip that on you. So Denise, how did you become you?
DV (40:06):
Oh, I should have never given it away.
AJV (40:12):
You
DV (40:12):
Know, I think our life is fools with, we talked about it, ups and ups and downs, right valleys. I’d say I became me starting with a very strong minded beautiful kind mom. I was very fortunate to have her in my life and, and to have her in my life. So my dad died and I was five. And my mom raised me as a single mom for wait till I was about 14 when she remarried. Luckily for me though, I have 52 first cousins and 32 aunts and uncles. So I always had family around. And I think, you know, they helped me become who I was. All those cousins all lived in the same city. So we were always at somebody’s house. I was always playing sports. I was mostly boy cousins for some reason we didn’t
DV (41:30):
I think it was probably one of the only lies that I’ve ever really told her, which at that time in my life, I really needed to get away. It was time for me to fly the co and she really wanted me to stay. And I graduated from high school, top 10% of my class, and I’m a first generation college graduate. My family didn’t know really the how to make the transition for me to go to college. And I said that UT Austin was the only college that accepted me and I wasn’t accepted anywhere else. And, and mind you, I did pay my own way. So this wasn’t a financial burden on my family, but I needed to go. And I left and I, that was probably a huge pivotal moment. So I went from this little pond of an all girls Catholic high school to all of a sudden 50,000 students at UT. And it was awesome. I loved UT
AJV (42:36):
DV (42:39):
Awesome. And then I just, I kept growing. I found my passion for teaching there and felt really fell in love with it. I really felt that was the right place to be. And I would not have found that without two things, one, my mom who gave me permission to look outside of making money and to really find something that I was good at. And then secondly, was an offsite internship I had to do at the school for the blind, visually impaired and the two together and the young boy that I was working with at the school paved my way for the next 14 years. And then you know, there was lots of movement and I think years later, about eight years after teaching six, six to eight years, I decided that I wanted to go in and get my master’s and then my PhD in education.
DV (43:34):
And I think for me that was also a big pivotal point. I think I realized that I could do something even more than just for me, it was helping my classroom than it was even more. If I could help the school, then it was even more I could help a district. And so I really wanted to expand that. You know, so I think that’s really, and then from there I came an entrepreneur and then that was, you know, that was crazy. I mean, our journey has been fascinating at our companies. I’ve worked with the largest brands in the United States. We’ve been truly blessed in so many ways. And I think all of those things made me mean
AJV (44:20):
I love that. And I, I think, you know, this whole thing is like building an influential personal brand. And I think the best way you can build influence is you just get to know someone that’s the best way to have influence it’s. If I don’t know, you, you have very little influence over my decisions day to day, but if I know you and I, I like you and I trust you, you have great influence over my daily decisions and behaviors. And I, I love that. And I think if we all need to be a little bit more focused on how did you become who you are not, tell me about how you did all these things you did. Right.
AJV (44:56):
And I, and it’s like, and I still, like, there’s still a huge part of teaching in you. Right. And for those of you listening you know that about a year ago, we talk about this all the time. We launched our, you know, national research study, the trends and personal branding you know, it’s Denise’s company, her and her husband’s company that fielded this research for us. And it’s like today, he’s like, you run a team of researchers, right? It’s like, there’s still that education component that has stayed with you, even through your entrepreneurial journey. It’s like, you are a research firm, right? It’s like, you’re doing research for books and you’re doing research for these huge brands, but there’s a seriously academic part of what you do that has made you so successful
DV (45:39):
Completely. And thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. Teaching is, is embedded in me. I love it. Sometimes I come off just as a teacher or my husband always gets mad at me. He’s like, don’t use your teacher voice on me. And I don’t mean to, but I, I love, I love getting educated. And so kind of my love language is to serve others in the, in that same way. So I really enjoy being part of those educational moments with our team and training our talent development programs that we do even like our talent acquisition and just teaching about the jobs. It it’s, it’s fascinating. And I get so much inspiration by seeing somebody’s face to slide up. I mean, I remember when I was younger, I started teaching when I was 22 and I remember thinking how that would never go away for me.
DV (46:36):
And you know, now I’m 50 and it still has never gone away for me. It’s, it’s almost amazing coupled with, and I will share this coupled with now, many of the students who I was in educational, like I said, for 14 years, just about so thousands of students that I’ve interacted with and I get every once in a while, somebody who pops up who comes up to me and says, are you miss be? And I say, yes. And, and they say something that just, you know, makes me smile. Like, I remember when you said this joke and I’ve always kept it with me, or I’ve had a couple of people say I became a science teacher because of you, those moments in time, you just they’re true blessings.
AJV (47:21):
Amazing. No, I’m not miss via I’m Dr. Via
AJV (47:25):
DV (48:52):
Okay, those are good questions. So why gen Z? So our company is really founded on separating generational myth from truth. So that’s the core. And it was founded because we were finding out that CEOs were using data and the data wasn’t matching what they were saying. So that’s kind of how our company really started is, well, if they’re taking this data and it’s not matching what they’re saying, there’s teaching element and saying, they’re not understanding the data for some reason, another, or the data is not being read in a way that shows the information correctly. So let’s just make our own research company, that one shares the data correctly and shares a story that goes with it. So gen Z is kind of that new generation. There were so many myths that came up with millennials and you guys did get a lot of hate.
AJV (49:52):
A lot of it.
DV (49:54):
And so of course, when gen Z started coming up, there was a great way to bring out what we were seeing with this generation. And we have been following them for probably a good seven years now. And what I love about this generation from the very beginning was really their, their money sets, which was huge, never saw it in any other generation except the baby boomers. And so that has been a huge part of them and their hard work and diligence which once again, was being portrayed in their earlier lives. And I think we’re seeing it again still into adulthood. So those are two of my favorite aspects about gen Z. I’d say the learning part of writing a book with your spouse. So this was two years of a labor of love. And I will say labor of love
DV (50:59):
I have come up through an academic work body of literature writing as you’re being published for different peer reviews, right? It’s a very different writing style than my husband who is a, you know, a, a published author multiple times over that has a very different voice and merging those two together. Oh my goodness gracious. That was probably the hardest things that we did. But at the end of the day, it worked, it took a lot of giving on my part and a lot of giving on his part. And there was many things if you get the book and you’ll notice, oh, Denise definitely wrote this. Because I channel data a little bit differently. Well, when my husband does so well, as he makes the everyday user read it and understand it instantly. And so we just, we really had to practice merging those two voices. And and so on top of doing the research, which took about a year to do then putting that together and merging the two voices, it was definitely almost as hard as having a shut
AJV (52:08):
It’s kinda like birthing a child of sorts. And I love the stories of anyone who has ever gone through the process of writing a book, you know, back like what we said. It’s like, nothing happens overnight.
AJV (52:21):
Neither does writing a book. Y’all it’s like, and I, we have so many people who enter into this very fortunate community. We’ve been able to help curate at brand builder’s group of going all right. My goal is the next 12 months is to write a book, get it published. And I’m like, we’re gonna need to adjust those goals.
AJV (53:03):
And Rory is very gray, right? He’s like, well, that’s the best part of this and the worst part. And I’m like, Nope, she’s this or this
DV (54:10):
Completely. And you have that backup to show you, Nope, this is what it said. And it’s statistically valid and we’ve done confidence in our roles and, and you can play up all the words and it’s, it’s valuable. And it also aligns with what you’re doing. It makes you feel like I’m doing this right. Or
AJV (54:59):
Yeah. You said something that just made me think about this is, you know I’m I’m, as you are. It’s like, I think feedback is one of the gifts that I didn’t always want. But I always need, and it’s like, I love getting feedback and input, and to me doing research was like another way of getting feedback. Yeah. It was, I can’t see what I can’t see. And sometimes I’m just, you know, the old saying I’m too close to the forest to see the trees. Yeah, exactly. Cause I need to get outta my own echo chamber. Right. Mm-hmm
AJV (55:44):
Like that was really good to go. You know, I think one of the big data points that came up to me, which I thought was so interesting to hear yours about gen Z was like mine about personal branding. Was that testimonials 62% of Americans say that testimonials is the number one most important factor when deciding whom to hire, not if you have a book or viral, Ted talk are large social media following none of those things, it was like at the very, very top of the list. And then 10 percentage points down was the next one, but 62%. Where do you have testimonials of other people validating that you are, who you say you are and you do what you say you’re gonna do. And for us, and the way that companies and people spend marketing dollars, I’m like, oh my gosh, this is the cheapest, fastest, easiest thing that you can do. It’s like you take that or it’s like, get on national media, create a viral Ted talk, get a New York times bestselling book. And I’m like, oh my gosh, like we’ve been, we’ve been putting all of our time energy resources into potentially the wrong avenue. It’s not that we shouldn’t do the other things, but it’s like, where should the majority of our intent go? It was so, so helpful.
DV (56:55):
And if you’re a gen Z, you’re gonna look at least 10 of ’em before you make a decision. I mean, you know, so there is some even way the different generations look at reviews who you’re trying to hit will give you some idea of what do these need to look like, or how many should I have up there, et cetera. Which I think is, is really helpful when you’re looking at your own personal brand or your company or anything, really people, people search those number one thing. And I, you know, I will say that we had so much fun working on your report. I just, I love working with friends because it gets me even closer into the mindset of what you do and what you and Rory do. And it was really neat working on that project.
AJV (57:39):
DV (58:28):
Aw, thank you, AJ. It was a pleasure. Thank you for having me really appreciate talking into doing it.
AJV (58:34):
Oh, this was so awesome. I love it. And for everyone listening make sure you stay tuned for the recap episode and we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand. See y’all.
Ep 323: High-Performance Secrets of NBA Superstars with Alan Stein Jr. | Recap Episode
RV (00:02):
High performance secrets from NBA superstars. What a fascinating conversation with Alan Stein. And man, I loved that more than I, more than I thought I would. You know, I’m just not, I’m not a huge sports guy anymore. Although I used to be, it was like my whole life growing up as a kid was Chicago
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Bulls.
RV (00:22):
But what a tremendous conversation, if you didn’t listen, go back and listen. It is fantastic. I’m gonna share with you some of my highlights. If you didn’t pick this up Alan was a skills trainer for NBA superstars and I’m talking superstars, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, step Curry. This guy was in the gym, working with them and you know, has written a book and started as a speaking career, sort of, sort of talking about it. And, and so I’m gonna share with you my three top takeaways from the interview of what hit me and also what I’ve been, what, you know, how I, how I interpret and internalize all these conversations. And the first one is really from Kobe Bryant. So it’s coming from Kobe Bryant by way of Allen,
Speaker 2 (01:07):
But Kobe said something so important. He said the best, never get bored with the basics. The best never get bored with the basics and from somebody that was so spectacular as a player,
RV (01:23):
As a performer, as Kobe Bryant,
Speaker 2 (01:25):
To
RV (01:25):
Hear him
RV (01:26):
Say that is, is moving to me and it’s inspiring to me and it’s validating for me and it’s edifying for me because I agree with that the best don’t get bored with the basics because the basics are what hold everything up. The, the really I would, I would say the, the people who are the best are the best, because they’re the best at the basics. They’re not the, they’re not the best at the exceptional. They’re not the best at the flashy. They’re not the best at the extraordinary. They’re brilliant at the basics. And that’s the thing to ask yourself, are you brilliant at the basics? Are you like, are you brilliant? Are you executing the fundamentals? Are you doing the things consistently that need to be done to grow your business? And, and when I think of like sales, right? I go, referrals are the basics.
RV (02:14):
It’s the fundamentals, but it’s the only thing you need. Like, are you asking for referrals in your business? If you are, you’re probably succeeding or you will be soon when, when you look at marketing and you go, are you putting out content consistently in many different places, right? Our content diamond formula that we teach are, are you following that? Are you doing it consistently? If you’re trying to be a speaker, are you speaking consistently? Are you, are you, are you on podcast interviews consistently? Are you, are you being brilliant at the basics? And personal branding is no different. Like these are the things every single weekend and week out, I gotta create a video. I gotta create a podcast. Our team’s gotta run a production
RV (02:53):
Schedule to just keep things going.
RV (02:55):
We gotta drive leads. Our sales team has to show up. They have to, you know, have conversations. They have to call follow up. They have to close. We have to onboard new people. Like we have to, we get to, we get to do all those things. And, and if, if the basics are good enough for Kobe Bryant, the basics are good enough for me. They should be good enough for you. And it’s, it’s the secret. It’s the truth. Like here’s the irony is I think people look at superstars and they go to superstars thinking if I could just get access to this superstar, then they’ll teach me the secrets. Then, then like, there’s, there’s some hidden playbook that we’re looking for. We, we convince ourselves that, that there’s something that they know that we don’t know. And if we could know what they know, then all of a sudden everything would be unlocked.
RV (03:44):
And there is a secret that they know that we don’t know the secret is there. Isn’t a secret. There isn’t a secret. The secret is to be brilliant at the basics, or as Kobe says the best don’t get bored with the basics. And so they’re not chasing flashy. They’re not chasing fancy. They’re not, they’re not chasing the spectacular they’re mastering, dominating and becoming brilliant at the basics. And so the question is, are you, am I, are we, what are the basics in your business? And are you dominating them? Are you mastering them? That was just so, so powerful for me. The second takeaway from that conversation with Alan was when he said these ultra performers, these superstar athletes have an amazing blend between confidence and humility, confidence, and humility. And I totally agree with that. I’ve seen the same thing over and over with ultra performers that I’ve been around in my life.
RV (04:52):
You know, and, and people think they, they get this mixed up. This is an important distinction. And it’s a balance that you need to understand that that confidence and humility are not at odds with one. Another confidence is not the opposite of humility. Pride is pride is the opposite of humility. Like being prideful is, is like, that’s more about who you’re doing it for, right? To me, confidence is the way you’re doing it, but pride is who you’re doing it for. And so when, when, when you have confidence, the way you’re, it’s the way you’re doing it, you’re doing it bold. You’re doing it aggressive. You’re doing it assertive. You’re, you’re, you’re doing it. You’re doing it with fire. You’re doing it with passion. You’re, you’re all in. You’re leaning into it. You are, you are, you are utilizing and accessing and withdrawing and leveraging and polling and investing every asset you have into to what you’re doing, the way you’re doing it and doing it well, pride is totally different. Pride is who you’re doing it for pride, prideful and
RV (05:56):
Being prideful is like, I’m doing it for me. I’m number one. I want everyone to see, you know, how great I am to me, that’s pride. And that’s the opposite of humility. But I think people, especially, if, if I may say, I think Christians are, are an interesting subgroup of people who struggle with this. At least I can speak for myself as a Christian, right? Because it’s like the meek inherit shall inherit the earth and, and humility is valued. And so it almost feels like if I’m being confident, I’m somehow being unholy, I’m being unspiritual or are I’m, you know, I’m, I’m not, I’m being less Christian, but I don’t see those at conflict at all. At least not now, I’ve been able to reconcile. I do see pride as being an issue because pride is doing it for me, showing the world, look at me, look how awesome I am.
RV (06:44):
Y’all need to respect me. And you bow down to me. And pride is a massive problem because it is in conflict with, you know, the first commandment of like no other God’s before me, where it’s like, humility is my life is in service of God. And my life is in service of the people around me. It’s not about elevating me so I can be humble and extraordinarily confident at the same time, I can be bold and humble. I can be confident and meek. I can be aggressive and assertive, assertive, and, and still be holy. But pride is different. Pride is like, I’m taking up the space of the most important of the most high, and that’s a problem. But and that’s different even than, than taking pride in your work. I think that’s different than being prideful. So these players, you know, probably take pride in their work, but they’re not prideful.
RV (07:38):
It’s not look at me. I’m the best. I’m the man y’all bow down. They’re they’re but they are extremely confident. I can take that shot. I’ve I’ve practiced this thousands of times. I loved, I loved when Alan said this in the interview, he said, if you hadn’t seen how many times Steph Curry had taken these millions of shots in an empty gym, you wouldn’t be as impressed when he makes 12 threes in a game. Right? It’s you know, for most of us like, oh my gosh, 12 threes, this is in a game. This is superhuman, but you go, nah, he’s like hitting 12 threes in an hour all the time, because he’s shooting millions and millions and millions of shots. It wouldn’t seem that like, you know, it just wouldn’t be that much of a superhero, cuz it’s like, it’s, it’s more like muscle memory.
RV (08:22):
And so I think that’s, what’s really cool is you can be confident and bold, but you can also have the humility to put in the work and, and focus on the basics and to keep practicing. And you know, I, I loved when he was telling the story about how Kobe was, you know, most players are working out once a day, the best are working out twice. Kobe’s working out three times a day, he’s leaving his first workout by the time people show up. And it’s like, he realized that if I do that every day, no one will ever catch me. Like over the course of a day, it doesn’t add up to much over the course of a, of a week. It doesn’t add up maybe to much, but over the course of a season, two seasons, five seasons, you know, a decade, it adds up so much.
RV (09:03):
So this blend of confidence and humility, you can have both, they’re not competing. They’re totally reconcilable. And you need both, at least, you know, this is a high performing secret of NBA superstars. According to Alan, which I concur with. And then the third one actually I thought was super relevant, especially for personal brands. Now at brand builders group, I think there’s sort of three core audiences that we serve. And, and I, I think of them as experts, entrepreneurs and executives. So experts are like speakers, coaches, trainers entrepreneurs are people who are more like professional service providers or direct sales people, or just, you know, they have some type of business and they’re, they’re not selling a product related to their expertise per se. They’re, they’re just driving leads for their existing product or their existing business. And then you have executives who are mostly on the hunt for a raise or promotion or maybe getting hired at some other company or, or just industry visibility.
RV (10:01):
But when I look at the expert portion of our audience, speakers, coaches, and coaches specifically, this was super relevant because, you know, I asked Alan, I said, you know, are you ever like insecure that, that you’re coaching the best players in the world? Like clearly they’re better than you are. And yet they’re receiving coaching from you. And I, I loved what he said, as he said, I knew they were better players than me. And they knew they were better players than me, but that doesn’t exclude them. That doesn’t exclude me from being able to add value to what they’re working on. Right? Like that doesn’t exclude me from being able to help them. And that was a really powerful and an important moment because you know, a lot of you, if you’re coaches or speakers, it’s like, you don’t necessarily have to have done something at the level or to the full extent that somebody else has.
RV (11:03):
You need to be an expert, you need to have results. You need to know what you’re doing, but you can still add tremendous value. So first of all, there’s, there’s that right? You can still add value, but the other part that hit me was going, there’s a big difference between being the world’s greatest player and being the world’s greatest coach. There’s a big difference between being the world’s greatest player and the world’s greatest coach. They’re not the same thing, many most nearly all of the world’s greatest players were never the world’s greatest coach. In fact, in all of professional sports, it’s extremely rare where a player wins a championship as both a player, and then goes on to win a championship as, as a head coach. Now, I, I look through this up a little bit and it’s, it actually has happened more often than I not specifically in basketball in football it’s like Mike, Mike DKA and Tom Flores.
RV (12:03):
And like Gary Koyak, there’s only a few in football where the, they won a super bowl as a player, but then also won a championship as a coach. And, and, you know, specifically as a superstar, like, I, I wouldn’t, I don’t, I hope he wouldn’t mind. I, I wouldn’t think of Gary Kubiak as a superstar player. He was a great player. I was Denver Broncos, right. I was Broncos fan. So I, I, I watched Kubiak, but a great coach and you know, an amazing hall of fame career. But my DKA, I would say was, you know, superstar and one as a coach, but that’s very, very rare now in the NBA. Steve Kerr did it you know, of course won championships with the bulls and then also won as a, as a coach. And Phil Jackson has done it, you know, but mostly as a coach, I think nine rings as a coach and two as a player.
RV (12:53):
And again, I wouldn’t think of him as a superstar player, but he is one of the greatest coaches of all time. And I didn’t know this, but Patrick Riley won a championship as a player. And then also, you know, as a, as a coach, but bill Russell was a superstar player and also won championships as a coach. But outside of like those, I, there weren’t a ton. Like it doesn’t happen that often. And, and, and even when it does it, doesn’t, it doesn’t exclude this point here. That there’s a difference between being the greatest player or one of the world’s greatest players and one of those greatest coaches. And it’s very rare and hard and not necessary to be both. And I think about this at brand builders group, right? Like, you know, we’re coaching many of the biggest personal brands in, in the world, right?
RV (13:36):
I I’m I’m or, or coaching advising, you know, being their strategist, I guess, is the technical term, but like ed, Mylet got way more followers than we do. He makes a lot more money than we do. He’s sold a lot more books than his launch than we did, but he’s humble enough to invite in somebody like, you know, us because we know something about it. And, you know, you, you, you take his reach his reputation. I mean, his, the success of his book launch is because of him. I mean, there was a whole team that helped him. We were part of that team, but it was really because of, of him, but yeah, our system helped. Yeah. We coached him through it. Yeah. We, we have a process that really made a difference and you know, of course he’s been super generous and, and grateful publicly about that.
RV (14:22):
And, and it just shows you that going, Hey, I’ve never performed in terms of, in some of those metrics as, as the way that he has. He allows me to speak into that Louis House, same thing, Eric Thomas Tom and Lisa BIU these, you know, we we’re, we’re getting more and more, we’re working with these very, very like high profile clients because we get really good results and we, you know, the word is spreading that what we do actually works and it’s ethical and it’s honest and all that stuff. So personally I experienced this now. I think I’ve performed in many ways. Like if you say personal branding, you know, speaking author, there’s many ways that I’ve I’ve been a great player. I don’t know if I would say superstar, I mean, a hall of fame speaking and, and New York times bestselling author are, I mean, I guess very legitimate things, but it doesn’t matter.
RV (15:12):
The point is for you, if, even if you’ve never been the greatest player, you’ve never been a superstar. You can still add value like Alan who, who was interviewing. He’s not gonna be in the NBA hall of fame yet. He’s coaching some of the best players in the history of the game, because he knew the game really well. And he was a great coach. And so I just hope if you ever have that, that sort of imposter syndrome of like, ah, you know, am I qualified to coach entrepreneurs who do better than me? You go, well, sh sure you might be, you might not be, but you might be, if you have legitimate insights that can help them, even if you’ve never been to that level yourself. Now that said, I really pride myself and AJ really prides herself. We pride ourself as a culture at brand builders group that we teach people to do things that we do and that we have done.
RV (16:04):
So, you know, we’re not teaching someone like ed, Mylet something that we haven’t done ourselves or tried out. It’s just, we’re teaching of something that we know that we know works. And then because of who he is and his reputation and his reach and his trust and all of his other relational capital and all the other assets that he has, it’s just, it, it’s a, a bigger result on a, on a grander scale. So, you know, it’s just kind of a balance, right? But like, don’t feel that imposter syndrome that just because someone’s older than you, or you know, maybe you think somehow smarter than you, or maybe they make more money than you, or they have a bigger business than you. It doesn’t exclude you from being able to add value to what they’re doing just in and of itself. And then also going well, yeah, the greatest players don’t hire the other greatest players to teach them.
RV (16:55):
They hire the greatest coaches. So you go, maybe I wasn’t, maybe I’m not the greatest player, but I’m gonna focus on being one of the greatest coaches who’s ever, you know, been in this profession. That’s awesome. Right. I mean, Phil Jackson has nine rings as a coach. I think it’s nine and two as a player. And it’s like, people think of him as a coach, one of the greatest coaches of all time, like he’s coaching Michael Jordan, you know, Kobe Shaq. Incredible. So just keep that in mind. And again, at this points to how insecurity and self-doubt is always, you only feel those things when you’re thinking about yourself, you don’t think about them when you’re, when you’re thinking about other people, when you’re just going, I’m here to help. I’m here to serve. I’m here to add value to you. I’m here to make a difference in, in your career, in your life.
RV (17:43):
I’m not worried about what you think of me or what my credentials are. I am here focused on you. I’m here to help you. That is a part of the essence of what makes a great coach even, and especially at the superstar level. So thank you for being here. Thank you for the honor of allowing us, me, AJ, our team at brand builders group to speak in your life. It it’s a, it it’s, you know, preaching to the choir here by, by definition, you’re here. Listening is a sign of, of humility and coachable coachability, and also hopefully confidence and boldness to go chase your dreams and knock ’em down and do the work it takes to make them a reality. So share this podcast with someone who, you know, who’s a sports fan. Who’s also thinking about building their business or they’re an entrepreneur or building their personal brand. This is a great one. Both the recap and the interview with Alan, make sure you go follow Alan on social and leave him a comment. Send him some love. Just say hi, let him know. You heard him here on the influential personal brand podcast. We’ll catch you next time.
Ep 322: High-Performance Secrets of NBA Superstars with Alan Stein Jr.
RV (00:02):
Well, it’s not every day that you get a chance to talk to somebody who worked closely for years and years and years with people like Kobe Bryant and Steph Curry and Kevin Duran and our guest today, Alan Stein Jr. Did exactly that. So for 15 years he worked as a, basically a, a high performance skills and mental training coach for NBA superstars and athletes. And in the last few years, he’s transitioned over into speaking and writing. He’s got a couple books out. His first book has done very, very well. It’s called raise your game, high performance secrets from the best of the best. And then he has a new book out called sustain your game. And I just saw him in person recently at the event that we had for ed my let’s book launch in North Carolina, and we sort of connected there. And then he was on ed my let’s podcast a couple weeks before I was. And anyways, I just, I really love Alan and what he’s about and the people he’s hanging out with and, and what he’s doing. And I just was sort of curious, like, man, I, I wanna know what’s going on behind the scenes with some of NBA superstars and to see if I can get a little free coaching for myself. So welcome to the stage a Stein Jr. What’s up, man.
ASJ (01:18):
Aw, man. It’s so great to be with you. I’m looking forward to a fun conversation and I’ll give you all the coaching you want my friend
RV (01:23):
ASJ (02:06):
Well, you know, I’ve never gone by or embraced the junior part of my name. And, and throughout my basketball training career, it was always just Alan Stein. And when I decided to make the distinct pivot outside of, you know, to leave the direct training space of basketball and inter corporate speaking when I went to get my website domain and social handles Alan Stein was taken so I, I wanted to try and figure out a way to keep that branding consistent. But I also wanted to find a way from a searchable and SEO standpoint to kind of differentiate my two professional lives. So if you, you Google Alan Stein, you’re probably gonna find a lot of stuff from my basketball days and training. But when I add the junior, now it’s a very distinct difference and that’s kind of the corporate keynote speaking. And in writing that I do, and it’s allowed me to have alanine jr.com and at alanine Jr. On all social platforms. So smart, there’s kind kind of a branding play and just a, a separator for sure.
RV (03:03):
Yeah. I love that. I mean, that’s really smart to have that consistency, like man, it’s so it’s so tricky when you’re like, how do I tag this person on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and it’s all different every time. Like I actually have some issues with that myself because when we sold our company, some of my profiles were caught up in that transaction. So, but anyways, so I wanna, I wanna talk to you about what you talk about and what a lot of people ask you about, which is like, what is it, what do you learn? What have you learned from coaching? I mean, you’re not just coaching professional athletes, you’re coaching or coached some of the most legendary players in the history of the game. I mean, Steph Curry, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, like these are, these are at the, the absolute peak of the peak of the peak of the peak performance in one of the most competitive games in the world. So I’m curious, you know, for both myself and for the person listening, how do, what can we take from the, the mindset it takes to operate at that level?
ASJ (04:09):
Three things jump out immediately. And, and my favorite part of these three things is they have such high utility. You know, they, they apply to every area of our lives. I mean, these three things allow me to be a better speaker and run a better speaking business. But they also allow me to be a better father. And I’ve, I’ve always been fascinated by principles and strategies that have that type of utility. The very first one is, is something that I learned from Kobe Bryant that changed my life forever when he said the best, never get bored with the basics and that if you want to be good at anything, you have to work towards mastery of the fundamentals relentlessly during the unseen hours. And you know, the very first thing I do with anyone that I work with is get them to identify what are the basic building blocks required to be good in this specific area of your life. You know, if, if you want to thriving in healthy marriage, what are the basics of having a thriving and healthy marriage? If you wanna run an elite speaking business, what are the fundamentals required of doing that? So getting clarity, and I know that’s what you all are all about getting clarity on the basics and the fundamentals, and then having the, the humility to stick to them on a daily basis was definitely the first lesson. The
RV (05:20):
Second was, let me hold on. I wanna stop there cuz I wanna dig in on, on, on, on this, like there’s, this is so true for us because Alan, you know, people come to us and they go, oh, I wanna become a New York times bestselling author. Like, so and so, or I wanna have a podcast like Lewis Houser, I wanna speak on stages. I wanna have, you know, have millions of people watch my videos like Eric Thomas. And then it’s like, okay. And we go, great. We’ve broken it down step by step systematically. There’s there is no question about if we can teach people to do all of those things, we are a hundred percent sure that it works, cuz we’re doing it ourselves in addition to like doing with, with other people, but nobody wants to do it. And it’s the same thing. Like when, when you think of you know, like you think of Kobe Bryant, you think of the game winning shot, you think of these epic highlight real dunks. Tell us, like, tell me a little bit about him in real life. Like to this point of never being bored with the basics and to the fundamentals, even when he was at his peak, was he doing that or did, was that just sort of like something he did to get to the NBA or like how long was that a part of what his philosophy was?
ASJ (06:29):
Such an insightful question and I’m glad you went in that direction. You know, continuing to work on and work towards mastery of the basics, remained a fundamental component throughout his entire career. And then he took that same mindset, you know, when, when he left basketball and re and retired and he had that same mindset in business. Now what’s important to, to have discernment is I’m not saying that he never graduated to more advanced techniques and more advanced skills and drills. He obviously did what I’m saying is he never left the basics behind. He realized that those were the foundation to which the rest of the house was built. So the very first time I had a chance to watch him work out in one of his private workouts. Back in 2007, he spent the first 45 minutes doing basic footwork, basic shooting mechanics, basic ball handling drills.
ASJ (07:18):
I mean to the tune of stuff that I had already taught those things to middle school, age players. And here you’re talking about, you know, arguably the best player of a generation, certainly the best player in 2007. And yet he still made the commitment to focusing on those fundamentals for the first portion of his workout. And then of course, again, he would matriculate up and graduate to more advanced techniques, but he would never leave them. And, and as I’ve been a part of and, or studied other thriving organizations, especially in sports, you know, a, a duke basketball or a new England Patriots back in their heyday, you know, it was the same thing. You know, their practices and their workouts were built on the fundamentals of the game. They never left those that wasn’t something they said, well, we’re gonna do these things until we get good and then we’ll just leave them behind.
ASJ (08:06):
They made sure those were a staple of everything they did moving forward. And, and I know in my own life, you know, anytime I don’t believe I’m getting the results that I, I think I’m capable of when I, I sit with some self-reflection and some introspection, I usually realize that I’ve, I’ve started to skip the basics. I’ve started to, to kind of, you know, move on to more advanced techniques and leave them behind. And as soon as I refocus that lens and get that required clarity and get back to the fundamentals, I see my performance escalate again. So it’s, it’s not about never moving past them is just about never leaving them behind
RV (08:42):
Mm-Hmm
ASJ (08:56):
Well, this is another part that kind of a part two to the story of when I saw him work out, that I thought was so cool was he had cuz the workout that I watched him do was really, really, really early in the morning. I mean at 3:30 AM type of work to some people that’s almost late cuz they’re considering it from the day before, but that was his first workout of the day. And, and he said to me at that time, cuz I asked him why he chose to get up that early. And he said even the most dedicated and determined NBA players in the off season, cuz this was an off season workout. He said the most D driven and ambitious NBA players will work out twice a day. They’ll work out for two to three hours mid-morning then they’ll take a little break and they’ll work out for two to three hours midafternoon and he said, if I only do what everybody else does, then I’ll only have what everyone else has.
ASJ (09:43):
I need to do more than they do. And this, this really parlays into, you know, ed my let’s concept of the power of one more. So Kobe said, if I can go in and get my first workout before they’re even awake and I’m leaving the gym from my first workout, as they’re coming to the gym for their first workout and then they’re coming home from their first workout and I’m heading in for my second workout, he said, I’ll always be a step ahead. And, and that might not matter over a couple of weeks or maybe a couple of months, but when you start to stack years and in his case decades, he said, no one will ever be able to catch me simply because I’m always doing one more than they are. And that was really kind of the, the cornerstone of his Mamba mentality.
ASJ (10:24):
And, and with that said, and I always make this disclaimer and I especially make it with younger players when I would work in that space. I don’t want everyone to think that the answer is always more as better. And that, you know, you know, if, if, if you’re working 12 hour days that working 16 hour days does not necessarily mean that that will improve your business. I mean, there’s, there’s a variety of, of different individual scenarios, but I just liked his mindset and his mindset was my edge is going to be my work ethic, my, my obsession towards mastering the fundamentals. And I’m always gonna do a little bit more than you’re going to do and you’ll never beat me. And I, I think that’s an incredible mindset to have.
RV (11:03):
Yeah. Well, I mean, I have to say like, you know, there’s a lot of this, like anti hu, like, you know, everyone was like, oh, the hustle culture. And then there’s like been this pendulum of like, oh, anti hustle. You don’t have to hustle. And you know, I’m not saying that you have to work your whole life. Like that’s all you do to be successful. But when I just look at the reality of the stories of the people who have become the elite in their profession, the volume of time spent matters tremendously. Like, and, and you know, I think, I think a lot of people would look at Kobe Bryant and go, oh, he is gifted. Right. Cause he was drafted straight outta the out of high school. Right. And go, oh yeah, totally gifted. Like just like wonder kin like the, the chosen one.
RV (11:49):
But then to hear this story of going that happened for decades and so people, they couldn’t catch him. And so it, it’s a different side of the story and it go, I’m not advocating for all we do is work, but I am, I, I can’t argue with the facts of the matter, which is that no, nobody gets to be at that level by just doing it. Part-Time like nobody. So that’s, that’s power, that’s powerful. And you’d say the same is true for Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, all the other teams in organizations you’re working with.
ASJ (12:23):
Absolutely. What, what most novice fans don’t see is that, that peak behind the curtain of the unseen hours, which I’ve been privy to. And you know, obviously this is during the NBA off season when we’re recording this, but let’s just say it was in the heart of the season. And, and Steph has one of his magical games where he knocks down 12 threes and scores, 60 points and people are mesmerized by that. And, and I certainly get that. It’s an incredible feat, but if they knew how much work he put in during the unseen hours and how many millions of shots he’s taken and Macon in empty gyms, when no one else is around, it actually becomes less spectacular. And I say that with a smile, cuz I’m not diminishing that type of feet, but when you shoot that many shots in an empty gym, when no one’s around, you’re supposed to make those shots.
ASJ (13:09):
When the lights come on and the cheerleaders start dancing and that’s how those guys look at it, you know, they’re never surprised by their unbelievable performances. It’s an expectation for them, but that’s because they’ve put in the work to deserve the right to, to perform that well. And that actually leads to the, the second lesson that I learned from those guys is they do a masterful job of blending confidence, which is what they earn through time in the unseen hours. They blend that with humility, which is what allows them to stay open to, to feedback is what allows them to stay open to being coached is what allows them to say, you know, you all might say I’m the best player in the NBA, but I’m not as good as I’m capable of becoming. So I’m gonna get back in the gym. You know, I mean, when, when I watched Kobe go through that workout, he was already an NBA champion already, an Allstar already, a multimillionaire, you know, 20 times over, already a surefire first ballot hall of Famer.
ASJ (14:04):
And he’s in the gym at three 30 in the morning working on his craft because he doesn’t believe he’s as good as he’s capable of. And when you can blend that type of confidence with humility, you get something really magical. And, and that’s something else that I’ve, I’ve tried to apply in my own life. I mean, I, I’m not anywhere on a performance level of a Kobe Bryant, but I wanna make sure that I am earning the right to hold someone’s attention when I’m on stage speaking, but I wanna stay open to being coached and, and to growing and, and developing and working on my craft. I mean, I, you know, my next speaking engagement, I aim to make the best one that I’ve ever done. But I also know that 10 years from now, if you have me back on your show, I will be a better speaker, 10 years from now than I am today because of my commitment to craft. And that’s, what’s most important to me.
RV (14:53):
Yeah. Yeah. I, we, we bumped up against this a lot because we have a fair number of like quasi celebrity or celebrity clients that we work with at brand builders group. And, you know, it’s, it’s a little bit amazing to be like, wow, we’re coaching, we’re coaching. We’re punching above our, our weight class here because like some of these people are, I mean, they’re real good and they’ve have, they’ve gotten, you know, had real success in real reach, but then, you know, so there’s like this initial part where you think, oh, that doesn’t make sense. Like why would somebody who’s the best in the world take coaching from somebody who has never even experienced that level personally. And it’s like, no, the reason they’re, they are the best in the world is because they take coaching from, from, from those people. Meanwhile, the people who you who need coaching are the ones who have no idea what they’re doing and they’re not good and they’re not starting and they’re set they’re, they’re not doing it cuz they think they’re above coaching and it’s, it’s not the weak or the, or the untalented or the UN gifted who get coaching.
RV (16:03):
Its the opposite. It’s the, it’s the, the elite highest performers on the, on the planet. And I think that’s amazing. So you talk about earning your confidence. So I like what you were saying there. So you’re so talk to talk to me a little bit more about that. You’re saying that they’re earning it through what they do in the, basically the unseen hours.
ASJ (16:26):
Yeah. They, they understand intimately that repetition is not punishment. Like that’s one of the lessons I teach my own children. Repetition is not punishment. Repetition is the oldest and most effective form of learning and skill acquisition on the planet. And that is never going to change. Even technology won’t change that you have to get in reps if you want to be good at anything. And, and they understand that and they’re willing to put in those reps to an unbelievable degree and you know, the reason Stephan Curry will go down in history as the greatest shooter the game has ever seen is not because he did a bunch of reps to get good. And now he just coast, he’s still in the gym working on his craft. He is still putting up shots, you know on off days and in the off season. Cuz that’s the repetition is what’s what’s required. And certainly it’s true in the speaking game. I mean the, how
RV (17:15):
Do you more reps
ASJ (17:17):
Get on stage the better you’ll be.
RV (17:18):
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. There’s, there’s no replacement for stage time and for sure. So when you, a lot of people listening are, you know, some type of a coach or a consultant or a leader, you know, kind of this experience like I’m presuming that you’re not, you, you’re not gonna be in the hall of fame, the NBA hall of fame as a player yourself. And so I think there’s a lot of people who end up sort of coaching above their weight class. Like I was talking about. Did, did you ever have insecurities or self doubt yourself? I mean standing on the court with these guys saying, Hey, do it this way. Not that way. Did you ever experience any of that? Like, well, who am I to tell, you know, Kevin Duran, like how to, how to whatever block somebody out or block a shot and how did you get past that?
ASJ (18:09):
Well, I, I got past it. One, by being honest, I mean I wasn’t trying to BS anybody. Those guys knew they were better players than I had ever dreamed of becoming, but they also knew that doesn’t exclude me from having certain expertise or experience that can still add value to what it is that they do. You know, a good portion of coaching comes from that, that intellectual knowledge from certain experiences from having a different vantage point from having different perspectives from shared experiences that you’ve had from other players. So I had to lean into that and say, yes, I realize that you are a better player than I ever. Would’ve been. However, I can still add to your game. You know, I can still give you things that will make you a better player. And with guys like that, you have to prove that very quickly, you know, the, the quickest way to get an elite level player to tune you out is the moment they don’t think you can make them better.
ASJ (19:04):
You know, I think that’s one of the reasons that coach Kay was so successful with, with the Olympic teams was because those guys, and then you’re talking about Kobe, LeBron, Steph Curry, KD, those guys knew that he still had something that could make them better. So they didn’t discount the fact that he was a college coach and they were pros. They realized that he could still make them better based on his experience and expertise. So to me that’s the most important part. I mean, if you look at, and, and I certainly wouldn’t want to go on a tangent of who’s the greatest player of all time, I’m, I’m still kind of in the Michael Jordan camp. And a lot of that is just based on my own age, but Michael Jordan is arguably the best player to ever play the game. So from that previous logic, he could never have a coach because no one is going to be better than him.
ASJ (19:51):
Right. Well, how foolish does that sound? Even me saying it out loud, you know, Phil Jackson was never as good of a player as Michael Jordan, but you better believe Phil Phil Jackson had a, a perspective and a philosophy and experience and expertise that he could use to help mentor and, and groom Michael Jordan to become the player he was. And, and, and I think all of those guys will acknowledge that. So to answer your question, yes, there were certainly moments of kind of that imposter syndrome. Oh my gosh, are they gonna listen to me? But I had to quickly move right through that, lean in with honesty and vulnerability and show them and prove to them that I have something that can make you better.
RV (20:29):
I love that. Okay, so you left us, hang in here, you got three, you covered to cover two of them. So I wanna, I wanna make sure that we have time to get into the third one.
ASJ (20:39):
The, the third is those guys were certainly driven by external results. They wanted to make Allstar teams. They wanted to win NBA championship rings. They wanted to win scoring titles. And, and those were often north stars that, that provided clarity and direction for where they were headed. But after that, they didn’t spend any time focused on results. They put all of their effort into the process. They put all of their effort into what are the habits I need to establish? What are the micro skills I need to develop? What are the behaviors that I need to exude on a, on a daily basis that will get me closer to that north star or that goal? So it wasn’t so much, you know, I want a championship ring as much as it was, what do I need to do today to give myself and my teammates the best opportunity to be a champion next season.
ASJ (21:27):
And they were very, very process driven. And when you can combine, you know, the, the humility and vulnerability, it takes to stick to the basics when you can earn your confidence in the unseen hours, but stay open to coaching and feedback, and you can stay focused on the steps and the processes and the habits you combine, those three things together. There’s really nothing that can stop you. And, and, and there’s no one arguing that the guys that, that we’ve been talking about were born with some physical predispositions that allowed them to be world class athletes. Sure. I mean, they’ll tell you, they were born with certain levels of athleticism, but so are a lot of people and they didn’t actualize it. And then of course, going back to what I said originally about these things, having high utility in the space that you and I play in, it doesn’t matter if you’re five feet tall or seven feet tall.
ASJ (22:13):
It doesn’t matter if you have a four inch vertical jump or a 40 inch vertical jump, the physicality is no longer relevant. So now these things actually are the separators and the difference makers in business or in entrepreneurship or in any of the, the playgrounds that we play in. So these are all things that are under our control, which goes back to your brilliant point, that you can lay out the blueprint of exactly what someone needs to do to reach a certain level of success. And it’s been proven, you guys have proven it with hundreds and hundreds of elite level clients. Problem is people just don’t stick to the script. They don’t execute the blueprint, they get bored with the basics, and then they try to do things their way, if they will follow your recipe, they will get unbelievable results.
RV (22:55):
Yeah, it’s funny. Like you know, I played basketball in high school was my whole big, you know, consuming focus. But when I, when I got to college, the, the way I was able to let go of the dream or what helped me let go of the dream was R realizing that I was competing. I know in, on something that I couldn’t control, which was the physicality part. And so I was like, well, if I’m always gonna be under massively under resourced in this area, I’m gonna quickly shift my attention into something where that is not a part of the game. And you know, that it actually was a pretty quick flip of the switch where it was like, it went from being my whole life to, I pretty much dropped it. You know, just because it was like, oh, I, this is I’m gonna go.
RV (23:46):
I’m gonna go basically find another game to, to play and to, to compete in, which is, which is really cool. So I mean, this is awesome, Alan. I, I, I think it’s, it’s, it’s amazing to me how, how consistent this story is. And, and people don’t necessarily want it to be that way and they try to rationalize it and popular culture tries to change it, but it’s like, this is the deal. And it’s super duper powerful to, to get to see it. So where do, where should we send people? All right. So we have, so your, your, your, you had raise your game, which was the first book, and then sustain your game, just came out. Where, where do you want people to go? If they wanna connect more with you and like, keep up with what you’re doing.
ASJ (24:31):
My primary speaking website is Alan Stein jr.com. And then I have a second,
RV (24:35):
Don’t forget the junior, don’t forget the junior
ASJ (24:38):
Don’t don’t ever forget that. And, and it’s a quick side note to that. Not implying that you ever would, but if you ever meet my father, he’ll tell you the biggest dad, joke of all time. He’ll say I’m Alan steins. I’m the original, he’s the carbon copy.
RV (24:53):
I think that’s funny.
ASJ (24:54):
Yeah, that’s good stuff. So Alan Stein jr.com is the speaking site, stronger team.com has info on my books podcast and online course, and some one-on-one coaching. And then I’m very easily found and very accessible and resp responsive on social media at Allen Stein Jr. On Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And then of course you can just search for the books on Amazon or audible or wherever you like to get your books or audio books.
RV (25:18):
I love it, man. Well, what a, what a cool glimpse into what it takes, and then to see you applying it in your own life, in your own business, what you’re doing now as a speaker is really, really cool. Like you can, you can see the, the trajectory of your career just shaping up nicely in terms of like your ability to apply this to other people and to companies and organizations to build stronger teams. It’s really, really inspiring brother. And you know, I’m very encouraged by that and inspired by you. So, so stay the course. We’re cheering for you.
ASJ (25:51):
Thank you.
Ep 303: Understanding Enneagram with Ian Morgan Cron | Recap Episode
RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
RV (00:53):
It is truly one of the joys of my career being a podcast host, and there’s many reasons why, but one of the reasons why is because of the fascinating people that I have gotten to meet over the years of, of hosting a podcast. And that was evidenced and, and a great example of it here was with this, this recent edition with Ian Morgan Cron, who is one of the world’s leading thinkers on the Enneagram, right? And he wrote the road back to you, very, very popular book. And you know, I’ve been hosting this podcast co-host of this podcast now for four years. I think about four years, three, three years, maybe three years, we started it. We started it a little bit late when we launched the company. And, and some of you don’t know, but when we sold our our last company that we had, I had been podcasting on that show, which was, had millions of downloads hundreds, hundreds of episodes.
RV (01:54):
And that was several years, maybe, maybe five years, something like that. So I, I have done a lot of interviews and I just, I absolutely love it. And if, if you are one of our mission driven messengers, like if you’re one of our members we always talk about this, that like, it’s, it’s the most amazing platform for meeting people. It’s, it’s like a free way to grow your own personal development. You get to interview these amazing people every, every single week. And it’s just, it’s the most incredible networking tool of all time. But anyways, I, I rant and say all that a little bit about the power of being a podcast host. And I guess just to take a minute and just to say, thank you like, thank, thank you for listening and I mean, thank you for the gift of your attention.
RV (02:36):
Like thank you for the compliment of being here. Thank you for downloading this. Or, you know, if you watch it on our YouTube channel or on our blog, or like wherever you’re listening, like just thank you. I mean, it’s, it’s the most, this is the most amazing, amazing, I mean, well, like getting to be a, I feel the same way about writing and speaking and, you know, my Instagram videos and I just, just think it’s, it’s, it’s the coolest thing ever. So you know, to get to it, to make sure we’re providing value to you. That’s why we’re here. I, I wanna dive into my three big takeaways from this interview with Ian Morgan, Cron which, you know, in a, in a weird way, I was like, ah, I think I should probably be more starstruck about meeting Ian than I am.
RV (03:19):
Cuz I just, I haven’t been a huge engram fan. Like I’m not, it’s not that I’m not a fan. I’m just not, I’m ignorant to it. We have some people internally Elizabeth on our team loves it and she’s really good with it and knows all about it. And you know, we, we took the test. She gave us the test for Christmas a couple years ago. And so it’s really cool. So like it’s a little bit of our culture, but I’ve always been more into like disk and Myers Briggs and KII temperament. And like I have done a bunch, a bunch of these types of things, but anyways really, really powerful insightful conversation with Ian and, and you know, here’s my, my top three takeaways. So number one, which I never really realized was such an important part of the premise of the ideogram was realizing that what is best about us is also what is worst about us?
RV (04:10):
What is best about us is also what is, is worst about us. It is our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness. Our greatest asset is also our greatest liability. The, the thing that we do extremely well is the thing that we can overdo, like we can overuse, right? And so I think I look at myself as an example and I go, okay, what are some of those things? And I, I think this would be the exercise for you, you’re listening and saying, okay, well, what are those things like? What is it about what is, what are the best things about me and how do those things become the worst things about me? And, you know, I think of discipline, which is like a core part of my, my, my personal philosophy, my personal brand, of course the centerpiece component of both my first book take the stairs.
RV (04:58):
And my second book about how to multiply time procrastinating on purpose is just like discipline. And you go, okay, discipline is how I’ve achieved. It’s how I’ve been successful. So that’s the best of me. How does that become the worst of me? Well, it, it makes me righteous. It makes me inflexible, you know, it, it probably makes me dogmatic to some extent and, and, you know, like one of the things I hate is being off schedule, like when there’s a, when there’s a routine and a rhythm and like it gets interrupted. I’m like, it, it, it throws my whole life outta whack. And so I, you know, I see that the other thing is, you know, I think if I had to summarize my entire body of work my entire career, you know, and if you said, what is Rory really an expert on? I would say the psychology of influence, moving people to action.
RV (05:45):
I would, that is what I would say. My, my expertise is the psychology of influence, which specifically stated is the psychology of moving people to action, including ourselves, which is where all the self development work comes from. But also my work in sales my work with leadership teams, and then of course, you know, our work, what we’re doing right now with brand builders, group, teaching people, how to become more influential. So I go, okay, well, what is it about influence? Like if I really understand the psychology of, of, of moving people to action, how does that show up as weakness? It, it shows up as weaknesses going, oh, I might be trying to, to, to move people in a direction that really isn’t fair or what they don’t want to go. And if you heard my last recap edition on, on, it was on the Catherine Gordon interview, Catherine who, John Gordon’s wife, John Gordon, longtime real close buddy of mine, author of the energy bus.
RV (06:43):
And then they wrote the book, relationship grit together, and they, you know, she came and did this whole amazing interview. If you didn’t listen to the episode with her about how to have a better marriage. I shared that in the recap edition that I think my greatest mistake as a husband or one of my greatest mistakes has been that I have not given AJ a safe place to share her feelings and emotions without trying to shape them. Right. Like she shares how she’s feeling. And I tell her why she shouldn’t feel that way. She shares how she’s feeling and I’m telling her why she should think about that different. She shares how she’s feeling and I’m telling her how I don’t really deserve to have her feel that way about something I said, or did gas, gas lighting is apparently is the term for that, which I was I’ve, I’m, that’s a term that I’m new to.
RV (07:39):
But yeah, I, I shared this, you know, pretty emotional moment for for me in, in that last recap edition, talking about that, and then listening to going back and listening to this, reviewing this interview with Ian and going, oh, where is my greatest strength? Also my greatest weakness, where is what is best about me also? What is worse about me? I go, ah, there it is, right? Like my ability to coach, to guide, to see things a different way to bring perspective to, to, to help do that for people is great, except in your marriage, in a moment of vulnerability where someone is sharing their heart and how they’re feeling and going, oh, let me, let me take your heart and tell you why that’s not right or change that that is terrible. Right? So anyways, if you wanna listen to me cry, you can go,
RV (08:38):
Right? So that’s the, the, to turn this to you, the question would be, what is your greatest strength? How might that be showing up also as your weakness and just being aware of that? So I thought that was, that was insightful for me. And the second thing, which is huge was that all of us have a false origin story. All of us have a false origin story, every single one of us, like we all have a story that we tell ourselves about who we are and why we are the way we are. And it is never true. It is always partially true. It is always based in some level of truth, but it is never accurate. Like it is never fully precise. It is a story. And, and it’s a story that we tell ourselves so many times that we believe it. And then the trick about this is like, this becomes our identity.
RV (09:32):
Our identity for the future is written by the story we tell ourselves about the past. Our identity for the future is written by the story we tell ourselves about our past. When we say the reason I am, why I am, is because of this happened. And because my parents were this way. And because I went to this school and my teacher said that, and the bully did this, and this happened in the economy and this happened in the world and this happened in politics. And like, I, I, I am, I am because of the neighborhood that I lived in and whatever, like that story that we look back and somebody says, how did you get to be how you are? That story is of, of our past is, becomes our identity for the future. And it’s never accurate. Like it’s never a hundred percent accurate.
RV (10:18):
It is always an interpretation of what happened. It is always based on a memory of what happened. It, it is always based upon a, a, a selective monitoring of key elements and components of a, of, of circumstances that we have crafted into a narrative that shapes our life. So why does this matter? It matters because if it’s not serving you, you can just drop it, right? Like, if, if, if you’ve been telling yourself your whole life, you’re not a smart person, because a teacher said that to you, when you were a kid. And most of these stories, we have most of this programming that we have was written when we were very young, like before we were even aware that our brain was a program that was being written, most of the program was written by other people and not by ourselves or, or by ourselves, but subconsciously, right.
RV (11:15):
And so you go, oh, okay, well, I thought I was dumb, or I thought I wasn’t smart. Or I thought I was gonna, you know, money doesn’t grow on trees, or, you know, you can’t, you can’t be successful in your career and have a great family or all of these things, which become, I’m not gonna call ’em limiting beliefs. I’m gonna call them confining beliefs. Right? A limiting belief is negative. I mean, it has the connotation of negative, but I wanna shift, I wanna shift the distinction here to say, it’s, they’re not all negative, but they’re confining. They shape the world in which we live. They sh they shape the world. As you see it, they shape what you believe to be true. Now, if it’s negative, that’s a limiting belief in some ways it’s positive, right? You might have said, man, I’m, I’m athletic.
RV (12:09):
I’m great at remembering people’s names, man. I’m good at sales. I’m good at speaking in front of an audience, I’m a great leader, right? Like there’s certain things that you have told yourself about yourself that are really positive. So they’re confining in a healthy way. Now there could be limitations to those, or there could be impacts on the people around you for those, because they’re the things that you believe to be true. Like we don’t actually believe what is true. We believe what we tell ourselves. Most often, we don’t actually believe what is true. We believe whatever we hear most often, whatever we say most often, whatever we tell ourselves most often, that is what we believe. Which means if, if your current identity stinks, like if your current current identity, isn’t a good one. If you’re not performing at the level, you think you’re capable of in your life or that you wanna perform at in your life, or if you’re not being the person, you know, you were meant to be, if, if you’re not operating at the potential of your, of your calling, if you’re not operating at the potential of your purpose, if you’re not operating at the potential of what you think God made you to be.
RV (13:17):
It’s because you have a negative story from the past that you are carrying into your identity for the future, and you need to drop it. You need to stop it. You need to cut it. You need to leave it and create a new one. You create a new one. All of us have a false origin story. So to the extent that it is serving you keep it to the extent that it is not write yourself a new one, write yourself a new one, write yourself a new one, sister, like get you a new program, get you a new story, tell yourself something different. Say I was this way, but now I’m this way. Proclaim that, repeat it and say it over and over until you believe it because we don’t believe what is true. We believe whatever we tell ourselves most often get yourself a new story.
RV (14:19):
My third takeaway was just his little tip for identifying these negative stories. And this was super practical, super helpful, like super insightful. This was just like so specific. So easy. So clear, just like, oh, you go. Where? Where, how do I identify the negative stories? How do I identify the, the places that I’m not serving myself with my own belief system? It says, it’s simple. Wherever your fears are disproportionate, wherever your fear is disproportionate disproportionate. That’s where you struggle. That’s that’s where there’s the, the, the glitch in your program. That’s where there’s the air in your system is whenever you’re experiencing fear, right? You’re experiencing fear. And it’s, you know, this old saying fear is an acronym. F E a R. It stands for false evidence appearing real. That is what what’s happening, right? Like, think about it this way. Two, two people stand on stage.
RV (15:20):
One person looks out and says, oh my gosh, I’m terrified. I’m not good at speaking. The other person stands on stage and looks out and goes, oh my gosh, this is the greatest moment in my life. Here. I am standing in front of a bunch of people. They’re both true, right? They’re both true for that person. Neither of them are true inherently of the situation. What is true is whatever we tell ourselves most often, what, whatever we’re saying inside of our own head is what’s true. Our own brain is its own echo chamber. And so you go, where are you experiencing fear? Where where is your creativity working in the wrong direction? That’s how I describe fear in my take the stairs book. Fear is your creativity working in the wrong direction. So you’re, you’re going, oh, this isn’t gonna work out. This is gonna fall apart. I don’t like this. I’m not good at this. I can’t do that. I’m not capable of this, blah, blah, blah. Like wherever you at that train is running. That’s where you got a crappy story. That’s where you got a, a broken program. That’s where you got err, bug in your system and you gotta capture that thing. You gotta squash it and you gotta just rewrite a new one. You just gotta rewrite a new one. So wherever you’re experiencing fear, that is where you have an ineffective story.
RV (16:42):
And yet all of us, every single one of us have the opportunity each and every day to rewrite our story, to rewrite our story of the past, to change the narrative that we tell ourselves about why we are the way we are, and also to change the narrative of our future, to tell ourselves what is going to come of us. That is one of the greatest sources of power and also the greatest sources of weakness that all of us have in our own life. You take agency over that. I promise, you’ll see your life. Start to change. I hope this podcast. I hope my, my blogs are our podcasts, our blogs, our free trainings. Our Instagrams are tweets, our Facebooks. I hope they are things that you find encouraging to you to help you write a better program so that you can have a better life. Thanks for being here. We’ll get you next time.
Ep 302: Understanding Enneagram with Ian Morgan Cron
RV (00:02):
Such an honor to introduce to you somebody who is a friend of several friends of mine, Ian Morgan Cron, I’ve, I’ve heard so many things about him. He lives in Nashville. Um, so we hang out with a lot of the same, uh, circles, Donald Miller, Michael Hyat, John AK, et cetera. It’s kind of the Nashville posse around here. And, um, but we’ve never actually met. And so, uh, we got, I, I forgot who connected us recently and said, Hey, you guys really need to know one another. And so it just made sense to bring him on the podcast. So you you’ve probably heard of his podcast. He has a podcast called typology, which has over 17 million downloads. He he’s the author of several books, um, including kind of the Enneagram primer, which was, is called the road back to you. And then he released a, uh, another book recently called the story of you in Igram journey to becoming your true self. And that’s a big part of what we’re gonna talk about today, but, uh, you know, he works with companies like Warner, brother music and Chick-fil-A, and, uh, we have all these, all these similar friends and, uh, anyways, I wanted you to, to hear it. And I know probably half of you have never heard of Anya Graham and the other half of you just are die hard and just know it’s such a powerful tool. And like you just run your whole life by
IMC (01:29):
Thanks . It’s great to be here.
RV (01:31):
So, um, let’s do start with the people who are not the, the, the super engram people. Um, you know, I think people hear it and they go, oh, is that like a disk thing? Right. And, uh, it’s not, there’s, there’s, there’s nine different types, but anyways, can you just kind of give us like the high level overview of it?
IMC (01:53):
Sure. Well, the Enneagram is an ancient personality typing system. It teaches that there are nine basic personality types in the world. One of which we, uh, gravitate toward an adopting childhood as a way to cope, to protect ourselves and to navigate the new world, uh, of relationships in which we find ourselves. Um, there are nine distinct types and each of them has an underlying unconscious motivation that powerfully influences how that type habitually and predictably acts things and feels from moment to moment. Uh, it’s a great tool. I’ve worked with disk, Hogan, Colby, uh, strength, binder. I love Myers Briggs. Obviously they are all great tools, but in my experience, as a therapist, as a corporate presenter and consultant, I really don’t know a better instrument for helping people develop the kind of self-awareness that not only improves the quality of their personal lives, but tremendously accelerates their success in their professional lives.
RV (03:06):
Mm that’s interesting. What, what, like, what do you think is the big, that’s a big statement, right? Those are big Myers Briggs, and, uh, you know, obviously disks and strength finders. Like, um, we we’ve, we had Tom we’ve had Tom Rath on the show. He’s a good friend. Like these are really, really powerful. So, um, what do you think really is the, is kind of the defining or the, you know, the big distinction between any Agram and you know, some of these other tools maybe that people have heard of.
IMC (03:33):
So to be clear again, I love any tool that helps people develop self-awareness I love it when I hear people tapping into multiple tools, uh, so that they get a sort of a 360 eye on everything. Mm-hmm
RV (04:39):
Use.
IMC (05:02):
So, you know, the Ingram does teach us that what’s best about us is also what’s worst about us. And what’s worst about us is also what’s best about us. Our strength is our weakness. Our weakness is our strength, right? And so, um, you know, in the beginning of the journey of understanding who you are and developing self-awareness, you are gonna have to confront those parts of your personality that are, uh, in direct opposition opposition to the person that you want to become, right? Like, like we all, we all should wanna know what is it that stands between me and the person who I want to become. And so, you know, that, that requires looking at the shadow aspect of our personality that said the Enneagram also will tell you what’s most wonderful about who you are, but you do have to kind of slog through the not so great stuff before you get to realizing, oh my gosh, at my core, uh, I have all kinds of competencies and, uh, personality traits that are wonderful and needed at the table of life.
RV (06:11):
Mm-hmm
IMC (06:39):
So, yeah, I mean, the road back to you was a remarkable, you know, at the risk of sounding self congratulatory, but I’m as surprised by it as anybody. So don’t, don’t hear it as me bragging, you know, it was a tremendous success that I could not have predicted. Right? Mm. Um, and the road back to you for me, was more of a book about, okay, so I have information. So now how do I begin to activate transformation? Like information is not growth, right? You can know everything there is to know about you. And if you don’t have a, a formula for transformation, it just doesn’t make any difference. Right now you’re just armed with data, but data doesn’t mean anything unless somebody can analyze it and then make decisions based on that new information. Right. Mm-hmm
IMC (07:36):
You know, this, uh, you may understand your email list. You may understand who your customer is. You may have done all the, gotten all the metrics, but if you don’t act on those and know how to act on those who cares,
IMC (08:34):
But what if the story that you picked up as a little kid is wrong? Like, what if the story you picked up as a little person and now have dragged into adulthood is frustrating your ability to live a, a happy, productive life. And I’ve as a therapist, you know, as a person who works in that call it the self development space, right? It’s like, if you don’t unearth and examine the narrative in which you live your life, it will govern your life negatively from the shadows. You won’t even know it’s running. Right. Uh, it’s just kind of like, you know, like a system back here that’s running. And if you don’t confront that old story, then you will continue to live by its dictates. Um, this is why I think sometimes, you know, it’s interesting in my conversations with people, if I use the word stuck, nobody has once asked me to define what I mean by the word stuck. Mm. They, they just know it right away. Right. It’s just like, oh yeah, I’m stuck. Well, what is the reason for people’s experience of stuckness? Usually it’s because they’re living by an old narrative that no longer works for them. And I wanna free people from that narrative. And that’s what the book, the story of you describes.
RV (09:56):
So here’s what I wanna ask you about is I wanna try to like tie this together. The, yeah. The people listening here are, are, we would describe them as mission driven messengers. So they are experts who in some way they serve the world typically as an expert. And, um, you know, you, you, you said something earlier about your first book, you said, I, I had, I couldn’t have predicted its success. And I think it’s really, really true about, uh, in life. But even as, as a personal brand, we all have a, we live inside of a story. That’s subconscious, like it’s there. And it came from wherever it came from. Um, and it governs what, how successful maybe we allow ourselves to become, or it limits us in terms of, you know, maybe we’re not, we don’t wanna be self promotional or et cetera, et cetera.
RV (10:50):
What do you think are some of the stories that people who are on a mission sort of struggle with, or, um, you know, could be just entrepreneurs or just anybody who’s an author or a speaker, just having been that path, you know, both as, as the counselor and understanding engram, but also as an author who has built this tremendously successful and well respected, um, brand and reputation for such a, a very specific space. I mean, you, you have accomplished several of the things that we talk about and Def define and describe and try to provide training for. So I’m just curious, what do you think are some of those stories that you think we all have to overcome in our journey as an expert entrepreneur, author, speaker type?
IMC (11:38):
Well, there are some obvious ones. Um, you know, how many times have you heard people say, or you can vaguely pick up in your conversation with them? Something like, um, I’m not smart enough to do this. That’s a, that’s a broken story, right? Uh, or how about I’m too old to start a new business? Mm that’s a, that’s a broken story. Um, you know, you might hear, uh, someone say, man, if I, I had to do this perfectly or not at all right, that’s an old story from childhood, you know, that’s the Enneagram one story it’s sort of like you are raised with this belief that the world only rewards, good people and judges, bad people. And therefore you have to do everything perfectly. You have to perfect yourself, others in the world and you, uh, you can’t make mistakes. You, you, um, uh, have to live up to these high rigid, uh, internal standards that are impossible to meet.
IMC (12:40):
Now you wanna talk about something frustrating, the development of a business, try perfectionism. Right. I remember Mike Hyat saying to me once, and it was really revelatory. Cause I do have a little bit of a perfectionist street. And he said to me once, uh, Ian, don’t wait till it’s perfect to put it out there, do the best. You can throw it out, uh, fix it as you go, but don’t wait for anything to be perfect in life. Just get a product out there and see how it goes. And that was like so liberating for me. And it went against an old story. I’ve been telling myself about how the world works, you know, and about myself. Like I don’t have any value unless I’m perfect. Is that true? Now that’s an old story. Like now Mike is an engram three, that’s called the, the performer or the achiever.
IMC (13:25):
The performer believes that the world only values others for what they accomplish and achieve in life, but not for who they are inside. So therefore they become addicted and driven to succeed, to appear successful to other people and to avoid failure at all costs. Now that’s a, that story may have helped Mike or other threes as little people to kind of find their way in the world and make sense of their experiences. But that’ll kill you in business. That’ll kill you in your personal life, right? How many workaholics do you know who live by that story? Right? Or, um, people that, you know, become risk averse, cuz they just they’re afraid of not appearing successful. So again, I could go through all nine types. It would take too much time, but I, I think you get the idea here, right? You gotta see the story, you gotta deconstruct the story. You gotta take it apart. You gotta interrogate and challenge it and then decide, I want a new story. I, I want a story that’s gonna lead to a life that is genuinely happy, satisfying, you know, has fulfillment and you know, opens the door for the kind of success I had never thought I could achieve.
RV (14:34):
And yeah. And you mentioned the three, uh, which is like the, the achiever, right. Or the performer mm-hmm
RV (15:51):
I am recognizing in a split second that I’m operating according to a belief that was set in place at some point in my past, maybe unintentionally, like how do we first identify? Cuz it feels like that’s half the battle here.
IMC (16:09):
Yes. So lemme just, uh, back up just for a second, because I want, I want to add something to this that I think that your audience would be interested in.
RV (16:17):
Yeah.
IMC (16:17):
So years ago, uh, Cornell business school, um, did a study of 72 high performing CEOs, leading companies in value, let’s say from 50 million to 5 billion. Okay. And what they wanted to determine is what specific trait accounted for their unusual success, right? And so they expected it to be grit, determination of strategic planning, charisma, you know, the typical things we read about in business books all the time here was the exact quote from the end of the study, the key determinant of success in, in leadership or executive among executives is self-awareness now that that stunned the researchers. Right? And I, this is why I get invited to companies all over the world. It’s because they’re looking around and saying, well, we got all these skills, these hard skills, but we don’t have the self knowledge and the self-awareness. And that makes us bad leaders that makes us bad entrepreneurs. Right. Because you know, you can have all those hard skills, but if you don’t have the ability to relate to the world in other people in healthy ways, you’re kind of screwed honestly. Right. You’re kind, you’re being held back in dramatic ways. I, I mean, I, I spend so much time coming in and doing cleanup it’s, you know, people save me all the time. I wish you’d been here five years ago. Would’ve saved me a lot of time. Right. Okay. So how do you go about identifying and
RV (17:52):
Well, and so to that, to that point, before you go into that, so is it, is it usually, if you, if you’re not self-aware are you just, are you delusional? Like you just, you think you’re something you’re not, or are you just completely like unaware and you’re just sort of like cranking along. I mean, is it basically one of those two, two things?
IMC (18:13):
Uh, it’s actually both of those things among others, right. I mean, on one level, you know, there’s a lot of people, you know, um, you have a lot of three sevens and eights in your audience, I guarantee you for sure. Right. There’s the three most assertive, aggressive types on the anti angiogram. Um, and,
RV (18:30):
And I’m a, if I remember right, I think I’m a three. And then what do you call it? A wing? I think I’m a three wing eight.
IMC (18:38):
Well, you can’t be an eight. You’d have to be a, your wing could only be a two or a four if you’re a three. Ah,
RV (18:42):
So
IMC (18:43):
It’s the two numbers adjacent to yours. It’s the only options
RV (18:46):
For wings. Oh, I got you on either side. Okay. But I’m, I’m pretty sure I’m a three.
IMC (18:51):
Yeah, I would imagine. So. Um, and uh, I actually could have guessed that in the beginning of our call. It it’s interesting if you, once you get to know the angiogram pretty well, you can, with a pretty high degree of accuracy, start to pick out where other types
RV (19:06):
Are. I peg people pretty quickly.
IMC (19:08):
Yeah. I mean, I could pick it up from your clothes, from your background, uh, from what you do for a living. I could pick it up from, um, the kinds of things that matter to you, your priorities. Um, so anyway, that’s one of the benefits. Once you’re able to start doing that, talk about knowing how to relate to customers and your staff is, you know, it’s a tremendous advantage that said, you know, um, I think that self-awareness is important because if you do not have the capacity to step back and self observe in the moment, like in every interaction, right. Able to observe yourself and you can tell, oh my gosh, I have slipped back into an old rotten story. And, and I need to make new decisions in this moment to live into the story that I believe is true. Right? It’s like, you have a true story, you have a false story.
IMC (20:08):
It’s usually one, we call it an origin story. You have a false origin story and that’s gotta go. Right. And the way we do that, I use the acronym. So S O a R. So the first step is you gotta see the story. Right. And that’s just a matter of looking into the past and saying, okay, where did this story come from? What is it? And what, you know, like what, where did it come from? So that’s where we start. Then we go to the second step, which is you gotta own the story, which is to say it’s a little bit like, um, you know, looking at the effects, living in that story have had on your life, how has it affected your marriage, how it, you know, affected your relationship with your children, uh, your career, your dreams, you know, I, you know, part of that is if you don’t own it, there’s, there’s, there’s not much impetus to go forward, right?
IMC (21:01):
Like you’ve just gotta say, yep, this is what it’s cost me. And you can also say, and this is how it’s helped me, but how it’s helped me is, uh, not nearly as powerful as how it’s negatively affected my life. Right. Mm. The, the third step is to awaken. So that, that is really to say, okay, um, how do I now in the present begin to recognize when that old story has taken the wheel again, and, and then also make new choices like, oh, I don’t have to do that anymore. Like, like I can live in a new way that are, that’s aligned with my values, with my goals, with my dreams. Right. And then the last step is to rewrite. And that’s also a very conscious exercise. Like what is the story now in the future that I want to live in? So it really does cover the past, the present and the future, um, and gives you, uh, you know, sort of a great 50,000 foot view of your life.
IMC (21:56):
Right. Um, and the book, the story of you, you know, I go through all four stages and detail and show people how to do it. You know, obviously we can’t go into the, the, the granular detail right now, but, and you know, what’s interesting, Laurie, and we don’t, I don’t want to go necessarily down this wormhole, but you know, companies tell themselves stories about who they are and how they think the world works that are not true. Right. Yeah. I always, I always think about Dunder Mifflin. You know, if you, if you were really to have a corporate retreat with all the people there, they might say that the story that der Mifflin tells itself about who they are and how they think the world works is we’re the crappy paper company. Like we sell crappy paper. Now they gotta see that they gotta own that.
RV (22:49):
And you see that like all, basically most of these stories, they come, they go all the way back to childhood and it was some moments. So like, you know, I, I think you’re right, that there’s a lot of threes. I mean, in, in our audience, at some point you felt outcast or something, I, as a child or you didn’t experience love or whatever. And so you resolved to basically go, I’m gonna achieve my way into being important. Like that kind of a thing
IMC (23:20):
That could be one of many stories that might produce a three, um, you know, a classic three story. I actually was interviewing a three, the, oh, you know him, um, it was, uh, oh gosh, my brain just went dead. The only name that’s coming to me right now is Jay Sheti, but it is not Jay Sheti it’s it’s, uh,
RV (23:43):
Lewis. Was it Lewis house?
IMC (23:45):
No, it was a good friend of Michael’s and, um, others. And he’s a brand, uh, guy anyway, it’ll come back to me. He’s a three. And, um, what he said was, you know, I was a kid and, uh, if I brought home a paper that was a 97, my father, the first words outta my father’s mouth was where’s the other 3%.
IMC (24:05):
And, you know, the message he got, uh, from, as a kid was, uh, love is predicated on your achievement. So it’s like, if you carry that message into adulthood, you’re gonna continue to believe that success equals love. I mean, you know, it’s like, if I don’t succeed, no one will value me. No one’s gonna see me. No, one’s gonna appreciate me. And you know, part of the journey is you gotta see that story and realize, you know, I guess on one level, that story could produce success, right? It’ll also make you miserable.
RV (25:11):
And so you, you, you basically just have to become aware of it. Like you just have to recognize, oh, whatever, like we’re, I think work AISM is a good example of going all I’m doing. And I think there’s a lot of people doing that. And obviously working from home makes that E easier probably than ever before is just going, why am I doing this? This is connected somehow to a story. I once told myself this old program that’s still there.
IMC (25:40):
And then, and what, and maybe part of what you want to confront is the first objection a person might have is. Yeah. But if I don’t keep doing this, I won’t be successful anymore. And what I would say is, well, that’s gonna cost you a lot. That’s gonna cost you relationships with children. It’s gonna, you know, it’s, it’s restricting you from living a full life. Now, the old part of the old story you have to confront is, uh, that I won’t be successful unless I continue to live by those rules. That’s a lie. You can continue to be successful and productive and not live by those rules and live with more freedom and happiness, you know, can you imagine how great it is to be successful and enjoy, you know, product, you know, being a productive person without having to build your self esteem on it. I mean, that’s a great feeling of freedom and that’s what I want people to experience.
RV (26:36):
Mm-hmm
IMC (27:48):
Absolutely. It’s not that hard in exercise. I mean, you could do it 350 words, that’s one page, right. Or you could begin there, right. It doesn’t have to be, oh my gosh, I gotta write a novel here. You know? Um, and also I would say, if you do the SOA part, you see it, you own it. You awaken to it as passive as it, as it sounds, you will have cleared away enough to bring at that point, that the story you wanna live will begin to emerge on its own. You know what I mean? It just starts to come up like green shoes. Okay. And you just begin to enjoy it. What you just described is in part self-awareness, I’m able to see when the old story is taking place. I then start making new decisions, like pause and people who don’t have, self-awareness worry.
IMC (28:32):
Here’s what they do. They bang guardrail to guardrail through other people’s lives. They’re on autopilot. They don’t even know their, why they’re doing the things they do. And they don’t know why they continue to do things they don’t wanna do. And they continue to do things. Uh, they don’t continue not to do things they do want to do. Right. It’s like, they’re like stuck in ground high bay, but once you get self-awareness, you’re able to say, you know, and you’ve done the exercise of saying, sitting down and going, well, what’s the life I wanna live. What am I afraid of? Uh, are those fears justified? Like, let me ask you as a three, right? Imagine if I said to you roaring next year, um, what would happen if your business went down 50% and you say I’m terrified of that idea. And I said to you, okay, well just tell me five reasons why you’re scared.
IMC (29:24):
And you might say, well, if I was honest, I’m afraid of reputation loss. I’m afraid of maybe people not respecting me as much as they used to. Mm-hmm
RV (29:55):
You kinda walk in that for a minute and realize it’s not as bad as you think. Yeah. I was, I was actually having this conversation with Louis House once, because I was saying, you know, I grew up with so little that my mind immediately goes back to, we’re gonna be broke living on the streets. Like it’s like, we’re so far away from that ever being a reality. And we have so many skills and relationships that it’s, you know, it’s pretty near impossible that that situation would ever happen. But it’s almost like I’m running at times from, uh, that extreme of a fear, because it was so deep rooted in who I was growing up and how little we had. And it’s like, what a silly thing to be running away from when you’re, when you’re like, you know, light years away. Like
IMC (30:48):
Yeah. And, but it’s, but at the same time, it’s really understandable. So, you know, be kind, I tell this all the time, be kind, there’s a reason that fear is in place. You you’ll know you’re in an old story. You just described it too. If your fears are disproportionate, right. It’s like, wait a minute. That is an over the top fear. It’s like, that is not true. But you know, what’s happening is literally your little brain is lighting up like it did when you were a kid. And you’re like, you know, well, of course it does. It doesn’t mean you have to continue to live by the rules, but of that. But you know, you have to have a little self compassion and say, look, I know where this comes from, but I also don’t need to live in the old story that that’s gonna be the end of the world. It’s all gonna be okay. I got a great wife, she’ll be there. I got great kids. They’ll be there. I got, you know, I’m a really smart person, you know, I’ll be able
RV (31:37):
To, you have God. I mean, you have faith. I mean, when you have faith and it’s like, you you’ve got everything. The other story that I would, I would say, Ian, that, that I see a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with is, um, they can’t delegate things because they are stuck in that perfectionism. They really believe the only person who can do it is me. If other people do it, they won’t do it as well as me. Uh, I have to do this myself. I’m the only one who knows how to do it. That story, maybe more than any other is the one that I can, like, I, I see it every day. It, it exists as a reality in their mind. And it, it is a prison sentence of their own construction. If they ever want to scale the business or grow a company or have a team, or just have a life because it traps you to doing everything yourself, um, you, you come across that one ever,
IMC (32:39):
Oh my gosh.
RV (33:27):
Of the boat. That’s a good way of thinking about it.
IMC (33:29):
So, you know, um, that is an old story it’s based on, you know, some, you know, for example, I meet a lot of ones that grew up in families where they, you know, either got explicitly, someone told them you have to be perfect and, you know, always good and never make mistakes, or you’ll be punished in some way, you’ll be shamed or you’ll be, you know, told you’re not a good person or whatever. And so that story has to be looked at, or, you know, sometimes they, they had to fill a role of a parent, you know, because, uh, some parent was absent. They had to become an adult way too fast, you know, and step in and take care of his sisters and brothers. And there were no rules. And so they had to come up with the rules for themselves, you know? Um, and so, you know, we have to see that we gotta own it.
IMC (34:14):
We gotta awaken to when it’s coming online. And then we gotta rewrite a new story that says, I don’t have not, everything has to get done perfectly. I can’t keep hiring people and then not using them and trusting them. Right. Uh, I have to be okay with other people and myself making mistakes. That’s part of the journey. In fact, mistakes can be a great asset if I approach them wisely. So again, you know, um, these are the kinds of things I want to, and, you know, in the story of you, my goal was how do I help people break out of the prisons? They don’t even know they’re in, because that’s when those, when you don’t know where you’re in a prison, that’s the most secure prison in the world, right? Is the one you don’t know you’re in. And so, you know, I want people to experience freedom in their work life and their personal lives. Um, I want them to not only enjoy success, let’s say in business, I want them to have happier lives. I want them to have better marriages, better friendships, uh, with their kids, with their, you know, their peers, you know, I want, I don’t want them just to be successful in business, man. I want them to be successful in every area of their lives and to experience the joy of fulfillment.
RV (35:30):
Yeah. I love that. I, I, AJ read a book recently by Craig Rochelle called winning the war in your mind. And, uh, she told me, she said, one, one of the quotes in there was that the devil’s greatest victory is, is convincing the world. He doesn’t exist. It makes me think of like what you’re talking about. It’s a prison you live in. You don’t even realize that it’s there is guiding your life. Um, you’re stuck doing things that you don’t wanna do when you, uh, and not doing the things you do wanna do really, really powerful stuff. Ian. So, um, the, the, the book, everybody. Okay. So the book is called the story of you, um, the podcast typology, where else do you want people to go, Ian, if you want them to like, learn more about, you get connected to you, like what’s the, what’s the best place,
IMC (36:17):
Right? So, um, obviously the road back to you and the story of you are both, uh, great assets. They can go to my website. I a N M O R G a N C R O N. And there, they can learn about courses. They can learn about, uh, you know, my Enneagram assessment. We’re just coming out now with a, in fact it may be available when, by the time that you, uh, you know, broadcast this, uh, this interview is called the I E Q nine couples report. So you could actually, you know, you’re an engram three, I don’t know what your wife is. Um, but let’s say she’s a six, I’m making this up. You would get a report that shows how three sixes get along, what their challenges are, what their assets are. And it, it’s a, you know, it’s like a 40 page report, so it’s not, you know, something that’s, uh, it’s robust, right. Um, they can learn about all kinds of, you know, my speaking, you know, op you know, options there. And of course, on social it’s at Ian Morgan PRN across all the channels. And, um, yeah, I think that, that, uh, that probably covers most of it
RV (37:26):
Really, really cool Ian. Well, um, I think what a great, what, what, what a great cause to dedicate your time and career to self-awareness and, and so clear and specific and actionable about the work you’re doing there and the power and the impact that it’s having. So there’s it, you know, it makes a lot of sense to me why it’s, it’s spreading. And, um, that makes me happy because it’s, it’s, it’s really, really great work. So thank you for making time to be here. We wish you all the best. We’ll continue to follow your journey and, uh, just, just keep helping people, my friend,
IMC (38:00):
Thanks B. This was a delight.
Ep 297: Methods for a Better Marriage with Kathryn Gordon | Recap Episode
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you. Soon
Speaker 2 (00:54):
For years, Jon Gordon has been a friend, a colleague, a mentor of mine, and what an absolute delight and treat to get to sit down with his wife who is also his co-author of the book, relationship grit, Kathryn. Kathryn has become a quick friend of the family and really a quick friend of AJ’s, which is you know, kind of unexpected, unusual for AJ to become so close with somebody so quickly. And they have really hit it off. And man, this was a powerful, a powerful lesson. And I mean, of all the podcasts we’ve had, this one really, really hit me hard personally. And so we were talking about, you know, methods for a better marriage, especially for entrepreneurial couples. And I think you know, I wanna share my takeaways here in just a second, my, my top three highlights, but what a great just opportunity to get to hear from people who have built something really big in the world, right between Jon and, and Kathryn.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
And of course, if you’re not familiar with Jon, he is the best selling author of the energy bus. He, he’s one of the, the, the most well known speakers, motivational speakers in the world, and he’s written several, several books and you know, I’ve just always known him really well. And just only gotten to know Katherine more recently, but just, I think it’s rare to even have a chance to talk with other entrepreneurs about how they hold it together. And one of the best parts of this, this whole interview was just hearing the story honestly, of how they struggled about how hard it was on their, their marriage, about their kids, about even being separated for a while. Like that it’s that, that permission to know that it’s okay. And that permission to hear that marriage is hard. Like a great marriage is takes a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
It’s very, very difficult because because life is difficult and kids are difficult and building businesses and doing meaningful and significant things in the world is difficult. And so to just have that opportunity to, to talk with her and hear some of their story from some people who are, you know, had a chance to walk this path a little longer than we have was, was super inspiring and, and, and helpful for me in an extremely practical way. And I’m, I’m gonna share with you, like, I would say these are three of maybe the most intimate things that I’ve ever shared in a recap, because marriage is intimate, right. And, and you know, my, my life priorities are, are, are, are very clear, right? It’s like, it is God, then it is AJ. Then it is the kids. And then it, then, you know, it is family and then it is work like that is the order of, of the priorities in my life.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And so, you know, this is, this is intimate stuff talking about, you know, marriage. So the first, my first big takeaway was around vulnerability. Now I have to tell you, and maybe you have this response too, but when I hear the word vulnerability, like it’s been thrown around so much in the last few years that there’s a little bit of me that kind of wants to gag, like, oh, you know, more like, here we go again, like vulnerability, you know? And, and like, what even does that mean vulnerability? And, and it’s just, it’s just becomes this word that people like use so much, but I love the way that Kathryn described it in such a practical nature. Right. And, and this, this is what I wrote down at least. And like when I was reviewing my notes and I guess I’ve just never heard it shared in such a simple way.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
And that hit me as really powerful. And this is the way that she described it. She said, vulnerability is simple. It’s simply sharing what you are, feeling, sharing what you are feeling. And that really hit me hard because it’s like, oh, okay, now I get why it’s so hard, right? Because telling someone how you are feeling is risky. It’s, there’s, it is intimate because it’s, it’s risky. It’s giving you access into something that nobody else knows, except for me. Right? Like, you know, you, you can see how a person looks, you can know about what a person does, but in order to know what somebody’s feeling there is this invitation for you to come inside my, my mind inside my heart and inside my body and, and really know what’s going on. And it’s, and it’s risky because that’s, that’s a very private, and it’s also sort of scary to think that someone else might judge me for the way I’m feeling.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
They might, they, they, they might not agree with how I’m feeling. They, they might think I’m wrong for feeling the way that I am. And also there is also a risk that I might offend another person by telling them how I’m feeling that I might hurt them. I might anger them. I might push them away by sharing how I am feeling. And, and that’s the risk of vulnerability, but that’s the power in vulnerability. It is, it is intimacy. It is into you. I see, right? Like that is, is like the meaning of the word into you. I see giving me access into how you’re feeling, giving you access into how I’m feeling. And if there is one relationship on this earth that you must be able to do that with, it must be your spouse. It has to be like it has to be the person because that’s the person you’re doing life with all of the highs, all of the lows, all of the challenges, the obstacles, the difficulties, as well as the wins, the celebrations, the ambitions, the dreams, all of those things are shared most closely.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
And in most proximity with your spouse, it doesn’t matter how close you are to your, your, your best friend or to your other family members. It is, it is your spouse that you’re walking most closely with. And if you are not able to share how you are feeling then with that person, then who else are you able to do that with? And, and, and how lonely, how lonely to go through life, not having that opportunity and yet terrifying to do it, scary to do it, gut wrenching, you know, to, to, to, to take that risk. But that is marriage, right? It is, it is this choice, this one relationship that you choose to say, I’m gonna go there with you. I’m gonna, I’m gonna give you access into every part of my life into how I live and how I sleep and what I wear and what I say and what I do and how I spend my money and, and what I say about other people and what I think, and also how I feel.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And so there, that was powerful for me. I don’t know why it was just something about the way that Kathryn said it. That was like, that’s so actionable and so practical, right? Share how you are feeling, share what you are feeling that was like, oh, I get it. Like, I really, I really, really, I really get it. And I think part of the risk here for me was, or not the risk, but another, another part of this that was, was an insight for me, was allowing other people to share how they’re feeling with you without getting defensive. And I think if there’s a place that I have failed in my marriage, it’s been here. I don’t think I have done a great job in my, you know, now 12 years of, of marriage with AJ giving her a space and a place and an opportunity to share how she is feeling without her having to be worried about me, judging it, commenting on it, correcting it.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I mean, I, I actually think, I, I really only learned of this term gas lighting here fairly recently. And I think that I have done that a lot to AJ, more than anybody, which is that I’ve tried to convince her to feel a different way. I’ve tried to tell her why her feelings are, are wrong, or why maybe she isn’t viewing things. Right. And that I think has probably been the single biggest gap in our marriage, right? Like that there’s, there’s many things that I do wrong, but in a real significant way, in, in a, in a way that’s really risk risky of, of, you know, what has caused real damage, that would be something that I would look back to and go, man. I hope my boys one day for their wives would give them a safer space to share their feelings with, with their wife than I have with AJ.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
And that’s a hard, that’s a hard thing to admit, but also something that I’m very grateful for that I’ve gotten that clarity. And, and, you know, I, I think that that’s been a journey that we’ve, we’ve, we’ve been on for some of you that, you know, have known us for years and years who have followed us, like you know, we went through a hard time, pretty hard time, few years ago. And I think I was trying to convince AJ about certain things that she should feel. And, and she turned out to be right. I was the one that was wrong. And that just makes it harder. But anyways, I think the practical point for all of us is share what we are feeling and allow someone else to share what they are feeling without judgment, without correction, without coaching, without, you know, alt altering.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
And I think, you know, the natural coach in me, I think that, you know, looking back would be, is probably one of the things that’s probably had to be most difficult for AJ being, being, being married to me and you know, something I’m embarrassed about and, and ashamed of, and but grateful to have been, become aware of it here, especially in like the last couple years. And so that was power. I mean, like that’s a life changing moment, right? Like life changing moment. And Katherine, you know, just sort of sharpened that, that for me with a lot of clarity. So that was, that was really huge. The second big takeaway for me, and this helped me a lot when Kathryn said it, because I feel this way, like, I, I feel this way where she said, look, ultimately the workload is not going to change.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Ultimately it falls on mom. Like mom has to figure it out because she is the ultimate decision maker on everything related to the kids. And so there is just an imbalance of workload as it relates to children. Like even though I try to do as much as I can do, like I try to go, how can I be useful, AJ? Like, how can I help? What, what, what can I do to support here at the end of the day, there’s an imbalance of the workload in raising the kids. At least it is in the Vaden household. And, and I don’t think it’s cuz I’m a lazy dad. I’m certainly not like an absent dad. Like the, you know, I grew up without a father, a father for, you know, the first 10 years of my life. So I, I didn’t have much to model, but like I’m here and I’m trying, and yet it’s difficult.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Like raising, like having kids has been very hard, not because there’s anything wrong with our kids. They’re beautiful. They’re amazing. They’re, they’re perfect. It’s because of my own self-centeredness and not being used to having to modify every, every single part of my life to, to make an allowance for somebody else’s needs to come first. Right. Like marriage is one level of that. Kids is a whole nother level. And so I think, you know, I’ve I’ve, and then I struggle with that being like, man, AJ’s just, she’s just carrying the workload here and it feels unfair. And so there was something about when Kathryn was like, yeah, that is how it is. I don’t know. Just the, the way that her sort of, matter of fact tone it, it, in, in a way gave me permission to not feel wrong and to not feel bad, which I think I was looking, I, I guess, deep down looking for, because it was just like, no, that that is how it is. And then yet going, and, and then, and then what is my role like then, then what can I do? And this is what she said, and I have to tell you, like, it’s this for the last several weeks I have been thinking about this on a regular basis is, is Kathryn said again, so practical, like so profound, but so practical. She said, Rory, if you go back and listen to the interview, she said, all you, I, if there’s one thing you can do, just acknowledge to a J for a J how hard it is.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
And I was like, oh man, that’s so good. That’s so simple. That’s so doable. And why haven’t I done a better job of that? Right. Like I think, you know, my default is to be defensive is, is, is, is to go, well, yeah, you’re doing all this, but, but I’m also doing this. Right. And I am, and it’s like very difficult for me. Like, I’m going, like, I’m over here dying to myself. And I’m, that’s been a difficult journey for me, especially somebody who’s like this self-motivated independent, ambitious achiever, my whole life. Like pre-marriage, it was just like, I just ran a sprint and then, you know, marriage was like, oh, okay. Like now, but now it was more like I had a partner and then kids came and it was like, whoa, like this yanked my whole universe. But, but you know, I, I tend to be more of like, well, yeah, but I’m doing this and yeah, but I’m doing that.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
And for Kathryn to just so clearly, and so simply say, just acknowledge for AJ how hard it is that has been so helpful for me. And so practical. And frankly, it’s been transformational for our marriage in a, in a matter of a few weeks. So both kind of acknowledging in that receive, receiving that, being okay with it, not making myself wrong for it and not feeling like I have to justify the imbalance, but just acknowledge the imbalance. What a, what a release of pressure from me. And apparently exactly. Kathryn’s exactly right. I feel like I should send Kathryn a check for some marriage counseling, cuz that’s what I got like on this episode. Like if you didn’t listen to this interview, like if you were struggling in your marriage at all, or if you ever have, or you know, someone who is, which we all do, like listen to this episode just, and then just acknowledge how hard it is.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
And I think that extends beyond marriage and beyond parenting, right? Specifically, this is like a parenting piece of the conversation, but like what a gift to anyone in their life to just acknowledge how hard it is, acknowledge how hard it is, acknowledge how difficult it is or what they’re going through. Like take a second to go. I see you. I, I support you. I, I, I, I, I, I am aware of what you’re doing and, and you know, I just wanna let you know that I see you. And I think so many people just wanna be seen. They just wanna go, man, does this matter? Is anyone even noticing? And, and what an, what a simple practical thing to be able to do to acknowledge how difficult this is? Honestly, I think that’s one of the biggest things that our members, you know, the people who, who become members at brand builders group, we have now almost 400 of them.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Right. And we see them several of them every month at our events. And you know, and the virtual trainings and stuff is like, they get, they get behind the scenes and we’re showing ’em behind the scenes of, of, you know, how we do things and all these things we learn with all the personal brands we, we work with and all this stuff. And they go, oh man, this is hard. Like, it’s not easy. It’s so difficult. But there is a system and there is, is a process. So who in your life can you do this for today? Who in your life can you acknowledge? And just say, Hey, you’re hand, you’re carrying a ton. And I just want you to know, like, I see it. You’re doing so much. Thank you for how much you’re doing. It’s, it’s so much, it’s so hard and you’re doing it like a champ.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
My guess is there’s somebody in your life. You need to say that to right. Maybe yourself, maybe yourself and, and definitely somebody else. And then the third, the third part of this you know, when Kathryn was sharing the story about them being separated, which I was like kind of shocked that she was just, you know, here she is just sort of openly telling, tell, you know, it’s like between me and you, Kathryn, and you know, a, yeah. A few million podcast listeners.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
God, we invite you into our lives. And I don’t know where you’re at on your spiritual journey or what you think and all that, right? Like I’m not a pastor, but is there a place in your life right now that you might need to invite God into? And here’s the hint, it’s the place where everything’s fallen apart. It’s the place where you’ve tried everything and nothing works. It’s the place where you’re most frustrated. You have the most despair. You, you are, you are the most exhausted. The most discouraged, the most beat up the most beat down the most, the closest to giving up. Where in your life are you the closest to giving up? Where in your life are you ready to throw in the towel? Are you ready to quit? Are you at the end of your rope? Are you struggling? Are you mad? Are you frustrating? Are you said like where in your life is that that is where you want to invite God into.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And look, there’s a whole lot of discussion around, you know, historical accuracy and evidence for God. But I’m telling you in my life clearly in Kathryn’s life, in the life of the people that I know the best, the proof of God is to invite God into your darkest moments. Invite God into your darkest places. Invite God into your deepest struggles. Invite God into your greatest concerns. Invite God into your greatest worries. Invite God in, invite him in invite him. And look, if you, if you’re really struggling spiritually and you go, I don’t even know if there is God I’ve been there. Like I been there, I’ve been there many times. Here’s the good thing about God. God’s not afraid of being questions. God is not afraid of being challenged like that. Doesn’t intimidate God whatsoever. And I would say, invite him in and, and see if he shows up, invite him in and see if you feel his presence, invite him in and see if something, something happens, invite him in and see if something changes. But if you’re struggling, if you’re defeated, if you’re wounded, if you’re hurt, if you’re angry, if you’re sad, if you are experiencing sorrow, if you’re feeling lost and you don’t invite him in you’re on your own, not because of him because of you, because that’s a choice that’s you are making with your life. That’s not his decision, that’s yours. So if you are not sure, if he’s there, ask him, invite him and see if he shows up. And I will tell you, he never has. Not. For me.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
He never has not for AJ. He never has not for many of the people that I love most dearly in my life that I, I have the most intimate relationships with that. I know the best personally. He often shows up in ways that are different than we expect, but he never doesn’t show up, but you have to invite him in. He, he doesn’t just come breaking down the walls. Like you have to invite him in. There is no obedience. Otherwise there is no demonstration of faith otherwise, right? If he just forces himself upon you, then there’s, that’s not, there’s not belief. There’s not relationship. Right? You have to invite him, invite him in. So where in your life do you need to do these things? Who in your life do you need to share what you’re feeling with? Who in your life do you have to acknowledge and speak and see and tell them that you see how hard it is that what they’re going through and where in your life do you need to invite God in? That’s it for this week’s edition of the influential personal brand podcast. I love you. We’ll catch you next time. Bye. Bye.
Ep 296: Methods for a Better Marriage with Kathryn Gordon
RV (00:02):
What an absolute honor to get to interview one of our best friends. Kathryn Gordon first, and, and foremost is a, is become a really close friend of my wife, AJ Vaden. Of course, our CEO, my business partner. They have quickly become close friends. I have been close friends with her husband, John Gordon for years. And Catherine is extraordinary. So she is a mother. She’s a business woman. She’s a movie producer, she’s the best selling author of a book called relationship grit. And she’s the host of a podcast called Catherine for real podcast. As she won AJ over just kind of with like her spirit of honesty and authenticity and transparency and it just makes me so, so happy. And so John has been a mentor of mine for years. Obviously him and Catherine have been together for a very long time. They’ve built this whole business where they built John’s personal brand. They built an amazing family and then they built they launched a book together and now Catherine has been really developing her own personal brand here recently. And so we just wanna hear about that journey and basically I thought I could get some free relationship and marriage advice from Catherine Gordon to better understand my wife. And so anyways, Catherine, welcome to the show.
KG (01:28):
Oh Rory, thank you so much for having me. I love AJ. It’s like, it’s been an honor just to work with her recently trying to help me figure out my brand, but I love her as a human being. She is so authentic and so real and I just, you guys are both awesome and John of course thinks the world of you. So thanks for having me on.
RV (01:52):
Yeah. Well, thank you. So one of the, one of the things that doesn’t happen that often is finding entrepreneur couples, where they both work in the business, like both in inside of personal branding, where they both have personal brands. And I think, you know, that’s something that we have done and there’s a few others. Sometimes they’ll work together and, and one person has more of the personal brand and the other person is more like kind of behind the scenes, but you and John both have these external facing these great personal brands, you wrote the book together. And so I, I thought we would start with the book. So relationship grit comes out. It’s a best seller. You guys did this. So tell me about that book. Why did you write that book? And let’s kind of start, start with what that’s all about.
KG (02:50):
All right. So, you know, it’s funny because you were talking about couples having their own personal brand and early on when John was just starting. Well, we actually started or started with a FRA franchise called Mo Southwest grill and we brought it down to Florida and we worked side by side. John was in the restaurant doing his thing and I would, would be at home the waiting for the kids to get off the bus, but also doing the bookkeeping and payroll. And, you know, John would come home. I was trying to book him to speak while we were running this restaurant, cuz he really wanted to, you know, get out there and start speaking. And he would come home after I had done like 45 things and he would ask me if I had done the 46 thing. So I wanted to kill him.
KG (03:40):
So it wasn’t always that we did this together. Okay. It was so funny because you know, one night after he had done this, he actually, you know, wanted to be, my husband like wanted to be intimate. I’m like, I don’t even like you. And he said, I think I might need to fire you. I think you, and I thought that’s a good idea. So, you know, we kind of rode this wave and, and, and John Rose up in the speaking. And then once I had raised our children, we had raised our children. I started to run into women at the grocery store or, you know, at the shopping mall and they would just open up to me and complain or pine or tell me, you know, things that were going on in their own marriage. And several of them were, were headed for divorce.
KG (04:33):
And the more I started talking to them, the more I realized I started to see a pattern. And it, it was really simple things because the one question I seemed to always ask when these women would, would tell me what was going on was, have you shared that with him? Did you communicate with that with him and nine times outta 10? No. And so I was really shocked to find that so many couples are married, but they don’t communicate. So I went home to John and the more I started talking about this, I said, I really feel like we need to write a book because our book is not a book about, oh my gosh, look at us. Our marriage is so great. Look what we did. Here’s all the great things about our marriage. Our book is about here is what we went through.
KG (05:25):
We went through the trenches. I mean, we went through some really, really hard times. I was very, very sick early on. There was some infidelity, there’s been some substance abuse. I mean, we’ve really ran the gamut. And so I really felt like if we could, if we could, if we could make it, anybody could. And so I wanted to write this book to, to try and save marriages. And so in the book, the way we wrote it, and even the way we wrote, it’s very symbiotic of our relationship. I would sit down and write a chapter and, and, and get up. John would sit down, edit what I wrote and then write his own and vice versa. I’d edit him and he’d edit me. But it was a back and forth. Our book is a back and forth. It’s the it’s Catherine said and it’s John said. And so that was the reason we, we wanted to write this book and it was, I think no coincidence that it ended up coming out right before the pandemic, because I have to tell you, there were times during the pandemic, John Gordon was home 24 hours a
RV (06:36):
KG (06:37):
Now listen, Laurie.
RV (06:39):
After years of being gone. Yes.
KG (06:41):
For, for the year before he had done 85 speaking engagements on the road, all of a sudden he was like, literally with me nonstop. So definitely there were times we had to open up the book and, and take some of our own advice.
RV (06:56):
RV (08:12):
And how are we saving for the kids? This are we’re going on vacation. We need a new car and da, da, da, da. And then it’s like, you get to the end of the day. And you’re like, I’m exhausted. Like, I, I don’t wanna think, I, I, I can’t think like I don’t, I don’t have anything left. And so you go by the time the kids go to sleep and everything is quiet and you’ve eaten dinner and you’ve cleaned up and it’s like, you got, you got nothing left. So is that kind of what y’all were going through? Cuz I I’m describing, I’m not describing my life. I’m describing other people’s lives, but I’ve heard that other people have this, this scenario.
KG (08:47):
Well, Rory, you just described our life. I mean, yes, it was, it was hard. And so what I tell couples, because I actually hear exactly what you just said all the time. We all, I think struggle with that to one degree or another. I think at the end of the day, you need to realize that you’re a team and it’s it’s we, not me. What are the things that we found that was, was really helpful for us is going the extra mile. It’s that little thing. And trust me, John would come in, he had been traveling nonstop. I wanted to pounce on him to rather share, you know, a good or bad situation with one of our kids. So I had to figure out, you know what, I need to give John this buffer zone. And so we need to give each other buffer zones.
KG (09:41):
And then after that, really, even though what you really wanna do is look after yourself, try to give a little bit of time what, whatever it is, you know, go out and help, help your wife unload the groceries. Just really try to, to, to give, even though you feel like you’re, you’re about, you know, you’ve, you’ve reached your limit. What we started to find John’s word one year was oh my gosh, I gotta make sure I say it, say it right. It was serve. And it was the best year of my life.
KG (10:40):
And that’s the last thing John wanted to do, but he did it. And I gotta tell you by the end of that year and it wasn’t just him giving, of course it was me and F you know, whatever we needed at the time. Mm-Hmm
RV (11:23):
Yeah. That it’s, it’s also a, it’s also shockingly scary how quickly you can turn against each other. Mm-Hmm
KG (12:11):
I think it’s different things they’re not communicating, but just in general, just say let me give you an example. Well, I’m trying to think a girlfriend the other day was just saying something she’s home. She’s taking care of the kids. Mm-Hmm
RV (13:48):
John, let me, let me tell you, I know I have figured out through an, an unfortunate repeated occurrence of doing this at the wrong time. I know one time you should not communicate you should not give feedback to your spouse in response to them giving feedback to you.
KG (14:36):
A hundred percent? It’s funny you say that John Gordon used to do the same thing. And with us, it used to be really more related to the kids. Also, you know, where, you know, I’d say, well, he’d say, well, you really need to be doing this. Or, you know, and I’d say, well, you need to be doing this. Yeah. That doesn’t serve anybody. So you’re right.
RV (15:50):
I wanna ask you about the little kids, right? So Jasper just turned five. Our oldest and then Liam is a, a, just a couple months here, away from being three. And I was having this conversation with a friend because I’m like these last few years with kids have been some of the most beautiful and fun and joyous. And also for me personally, probably the most difficult years that I’ve ever had. And I was telling them, like, not only is it kids, we also are in year four of a startup. And we already did this once before, like we already went through the pains of a startup once and we’re having to do it again. And then we had COVID and then it’s like in the middle of COVID. And like, when it, with the kids specifically, like in my mind, I have a little bit of a proof of concept with COVID because, you know, when we were building our first business, we started in 2006, but sort of the height of it really happened around 2008, 2010.
RV (16:56):
And that was right in the middle of the GE C the global economic crisis, like the mortgage, you know, all of the mortgages collapsed and all that stuff. And, you know, it was like, that was a, a hard season, but we came out of it and we came out of it really strong. We’ve also had the startup thing before with children. People say it gets easier over time. So like, I know that it gets easier with the business, like a little bit. But is if someone has young kids right now, is that really true? I mean, like, do you really think, Hey, those early years are different or is it always kind of just, this is just the new normal
KG (17:35):
Mm-Hmm
RV (18:19):
I’ve not heard, I’ve not heard that one before.
KG (18:21):
RV (19:21):
It’s
KG (19:21):
Relationship, grit, book.com. And there’s an action plan in there.
RV (19:27):
I just texted her that question. So I’m gonna see what she says. Yeah.
KG (19:35):
Yeah. But I’ll tell you yeah.
RV (19:37):
Relation, sorry. Relationship grit,
KG (19:40):
Relationship grit, book,
RV (19:44):
Book.Com.Com. Okay. Yeah, we’ll put it.
KG (19:46):
I have to make sure and ask Daniel if it’s back slash action plan, but
RV (19:51):
Yeah. Daniel Decker, didn’t you meet Daniel Decker at most. Isn’t that how you guys met back to Mo that was,
KG (19:56):
Can you believe this was so long ago? I mean, this was 21 years ago that these guys have been together ride in this energy bus wave that they’ve done. Yeah, I think so. I think he brought his kids in for kitty, the clown night.
RV (20:17):
Well, I I’ll, I, I love that. Shout out to Daniel Decker. I’m we’ve been working closely together on ed by let’s book launch. So I’ve got to know, know him a lot more here recently, but the, okay, so you gotta find ways to communicate. So, so this is the hardest times, little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems. That makes, makes sense. When does it start to turn? Like what you say that like with kids, Hey, these are the, the hardest times like, cuz I think what makes it so hard is like, I never knew how self-centered I was until I had kids. Like even when I, we got married, I realized, oh, like I’m, you know, I’ve never had to worry about anyone else, but me, but, but when we had kids, it went to a whole nother level where it’s like, I don’t get to sleep.
RV (21:04):
I don’t get to eat. I don’t get to go to the bathroom alone. Like I don’t get to read a book on the weekend. I don’t get to lay on the beach. Like the beach is not a relaxing experience whatsoever with children. Like it, it is, it is the weekends. I’m more physically exhausted on the weekends than I am during the week. And also the battle of, you know, having toddlers and like just trying to communicate with them. So at some point that starts to turn and that’s encouraging to me to hear you say like, look, these are the toughest times. If you can get through this as a team, like you’ll make it through anything. What is that? I kind of feel like that’s happened with Jasper at like four or five years old. It kind of feels like it’s starting to turn the corner a bit.
KG (21:49):
Yeah. You know, I gotta tell you those when they were little. Woo. I’ll never forget a life changing moment for me was the day I was able to sit in the, at the beach in a chair and not have to run after the kids in the water. You know, I, there were little milestones where I’m like, oh my gosh, I can actually sit here. So yes, it just continually continually will improve. But like I said, you know, then you’ll start doing, if they’re in sports, it’s who’s gonna drive them. And the other thing I wanna say, Rory is, you know, you’re two professionals, so you and AJ are both, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re running this company and I have found, I’m gonna say this for the women in general. And I understand why, but a lot more does fall on the mom. It does.
KG (22:44):
It does, even though John was very involved with the kids in a lot of ways, ultimately it’s mom. And so it’s about having that grace for mom. And I always tell this story too. I think it’s really important to compliment, you know, your spouse and just lift them up. So I tell this story that one year when we were really in it, like I, like I say, it was very stressful. John was traveling all the times time. Both the kids were in elite sports and I was traveling all over the place, my kids and I have celiac disease. So we can’t just go to a drive through a McDonald’s and eat. I had to prepare
RV (23:30):
All of you have Celiac’s disease. Yeah.
KG (23:34):
Yeah. Whoa.
RV (23:35):
So
KG (23:35):
It was, it was really hard and I will never forget one day John coming in and he, he was getting ready to head out, you know, on another flight. And he was, had this suit on, he was all clean. He looked so handsome and Rory, I, my hair was disheveled. I’m, you know, trying to get the kids lunches. And I looked over at him and I wanted to cut him down so bad, but I didn’t, I, I, right then I realized it’s because I, I felt bad about myself, but I just thought, you know what? I turned, I looked at him. I said, you look so handsome in that suit and just complimented his face, just lit up. And I, I made a decision from that point on that I was going to compliment him and lift him up Mo at most, when I was feeling the lowest and just do this little test for myself and I’m gotta tell you, it really changed things for me. And so now I always tell couple couples compliment each other. You know, even though you probably wanna kill ’em compliment, ’em, you’ll be surprised how it changes the energy and the dynamic in your relationship together. Yeah. So Rory, you gotta stick it out. You gotta stick it out. It’s hard during these times. So like I said, one of the things is when, when, when they get outta diapers, that’s a big one is Japer outta diapers is Japer your youngest.
RV (25:04):
Liam is our youngest and, and he is out of diapers right now. We happen to be in overnight potty training. So we are waking up, he potty training in the middle of, so during the day, like, it’s, it is mostly he’s good, but we have to get up in the middle of the night to take him to the bathroom and sometimes, you know, change the sheets and all that stuff. But mostly if we wake up in the middle of the night, he’s fine. So like, we’re, we’re getting closer to that. The other thing is like, we went to a hockey game the other night and it was, it was, we got to watch like two thirds of the game before they started going crazy and running around the hallways. But it was like, oh, we’re almost, we can almost watch a whole movie. We can almost watch a whole game.
RV (25:45):
But you know, you, you, I wanna ask you this, Catherine, you mentioned the grace part cuz cuz yeah, it’s been hard on me. Mm-Hmm
KG (26:53):
RV (26:54):
So, so anyways, I, I say all that to say this, you mentioned, you know, give mom grace mm-hmm
KG (27:34):
I, I can’t tell you how many times I would be on the phone at night and you know, you know, complaining dumping on John. And then I’d say, let me guess you’ve got the TV on and you can watch whatever you want right now. Right. I mean, it was hard. I
RV (27:51):
Think. How do we support our wives better in that, in that season?
KG (27:55):
I think exactly by what you just said, supporting your wives, meaning saying exactly the things that you’re saying to me right now and acknowledging to AJ, AJ, I know this is hard for you, you know, I know and acknowledging sometimes, and I’m, I can share this about John and I, John would almost wanna play it down because he, he was almost afraid if he really acknowledged how hard it was that it was gonna somehow change what he was doing. Does that make sense until he realized by actually acknowledging how hard it was for me and asking me, how can I support you? It, it really helped us. And then it didn’t make me look over at him with such, you know, resentment. I was able to, I felt acknowledged. I felt appreciated. Right? And then at the end of the day, I had to say to myself, of course I love my kids.
KG (28:56):
This is what I wanna do for my kids. So it kind of changed, you know, it’s the thing that John always says, like it’s the, the, the get to versus the have to, but it’s the same thing. You know, it kind of changed my paradigm to say, I get to do this, but let me tell you when, when, when you’re getting beaten down, you know, as I think moms do more than, but I hear what you’re saying. When you say Rory, I mean, it’s hard for both of you, but yeah. I think you need to support her number one, by just acknowledging that it is hard
RV (29:29):
And that yeah. I,
KG (29:30):
And that you see her
RV (29:31):
And it’s like the, the, the, the, the dads, at least I could tell her to, let me just speak for myself, but we get beat down too. The difference is we get a break in between the action. Like mom gets no break. It, it is nonstop even in the middle of the night, even if the kids are fine, she’s still waking up, worrying about them and like getting up and having to like, deal with stuff like the laundry, what they’re gonna wear, like whatever, having a, having a fit. You know, I, I think you know, that is, that is helpful about just going, Hey, acknowledge what I hear you saying is just going, like, acknowledge that it’s difficult because it’s, it’s not, it’s not so much that she wants you to do it. She just wants someone to see that she’s doing it.
KG (30:20):
Yeah. It’s not gonna change tho that workload is not gonna change. I mean, yes, you can hire different things, but ultimately it is mom. I mean, it is, mom is, is gonna figure it all out, but it’s really about acknowledging how hard it is. And then how can I support you now? I’m gonna tell you, I encourage couples. If you do have a hard time communicating, if you are hitting a brick wall in some area, there’s nothing wrong with getting some outside help. Sometimes it does take somebody outside of the relationship to coach, you know, coach and help get, get you all to a place of where, you know, you’re, you’re operating smoothly, cuz sometimes, you know, maybe you are so beaten down or, you know, you’re not able to hear it. You’re too defensive. Right. You’ve got the point where you’re, you’re too defensive. So in that case, you know, I highly recommend some coaching or some therapy
RV (31:24):
Mm-Hmm
KG (31:24):
RV (31:36):
Yeah, no, I, I love that. It’s I think it’s super helpful to, for people just almost as a permission thing to be like, Hey, it doesn’t mean you’re failing or that you screwed up or that there’s something wrong with you to get outside. Help. I also love what Jack Canfield says where he says if you do it before, there’s, if you do it before like before there’s an explosion, it’s called coaching. If you do it after there’s an explosion, it’s called therapy, but they’re the same thing. And if you, you know, you probably want to catch it on the front end as much as you can to avoid the it avoid the, the big explosion. Yeah. Kathryn, I love this. This has been so, so helpful. I have one, one last question I wanna ask you before that, where again, where should people go to find you and connect up with what you’re doing and like all, all of this stuff that you’re working on in your personal brand these days? Well,
KG (32:31):
And I also have a podcast called Catherine for real. And you can hear that on Spotify or apple. And my podcast is basically me interviewing people and I’m, I’m getting real. And AJ, your one wonderful wife has really helped me to, to, to clarify more of what I want to give and the type of people I wanna interview going forward. So check that out, Katherine, for real, and you can reach [email protected]. That’s my website. And on the website, you can access my my podcast. You can find me on Instagram, through there at Katherine Gordon. You can email me to reach out and there’s a link to order my book. And I’m gonna tell you something, I’m not just saying this because I wrote the book. I promise you read my book. It’s a quick, easy read, you know, follow the tips in the back, John and I both give 11 tips each on ways to improve your marriage and do the action plan. I, I get so many testimonials all the time from people to tell me it, it saved their marriage. So I’m, I’m not just saying that. I really believe it. If you, if you can, can check that out, read the book. I think it will help. So Rory, I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be questioning you. I want you to know that
RV (33:57):
I love it. I love it. So we’ll put links up to Kathryn for real.com. The relationship grit book, the Kathryn for real podcast will link all that in the show notes for y’all. Last question for you, Kathryn. You know, like I think of my mom who was a single mom, which is insane. I mean, she had two of us, two of us that were five years, two boys, five years apart. And how many times she must have felt unseen and like having to, you know, forego her personal dreams and visions and freedom and re relaxation. And now watching AJ do that as a mother, hearing your story. Like I just, I have a, a heartbreak for women who are doing so much and feeling so unseen mm-hmm
KG (35:03):
Mm, well, first I’d say pray, right? I really feel like my prayers and my connection with God has helped me a lot in trying to kind of pulls me outta myself and gives me some perspective. But the other thing I’m gonna say is, is nothing is forever and nothing is permanent. And remembering your why, you know, at the end of the day with my kids, when I would, you know, was running them around and you know, they were playing all these sports and I would, you know, sometimes get resentful. I started to realize like, you know what, I didn’t grow up having a, I had two alcoholic parents that had no interest in anything I was doing, and this was something I wanted to give back to my kids. And so I need to be doing that with love and knowing that one day they’re gonna grow up and one day I won’t have to do that. And so nothing’s permanent. Remember your why and pray?
RV (36:06):
I love it. Katherine Gordon, my friends, you see why we love her so much and make sure you follow her online and go check out her website and everything. Katherine, thank you so much. We wish you all the best. We’re praying for you and John and we’re excited to we’ll see you soon.
KG (36:23):
Thank you, Rory. Thanks for having me.