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Ep 303: Understanding Enneagram with Ian Morgan Cron | Recap Episode

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 . And so, uh, anyways, Ian, welcome to the show.
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 that, uh, maybe going on in their interior world and to understand their God-given architecture. Right. Um, now what does, what, what sort of distinguishes the engram from these other tools? One is the engram just doesn’t tell you what you do. It tells you why you do it. Okay. So this is really important. It’s not enough to know just your characteristic traits. It’s important to know why those traits are in place, so that you’re getting, you begin to work with your strengths and your weaknesses at the level of the root system, right? You, you, you wanna understand what is it that’s making me be the way that I am in the world, how I show up for life. Secondly, um, one of the things the Ingram does is, you know, if you’re looking for flattery, the Enneagram is not the tool you wanna
RV (04:39):
Use. I love the, I know that there’s some, like, uh, one of the things that I, I thought was pretty entertaining was how they talk about at its extremes in the, in the negative direction. You know, it’s like the Hitler was this way, or like, you know, some, somebody like, uh, I thought that was kind of like, oh, that’s, it’s not flattering. Um, uh, always,
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 so, so the road back, like the road back to you was, is kind of like sets the founda. The, the foundation, I guess, is how, how I process it and think about it. And then the story of you is your newest book. So can you talk a little bit about why the new, why this, why this version of the book and this, this kind of angle?
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 so, uh, so for example, you could have, um, all kinds of business data.
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, who cares that you have all, all that information, right? Um, that’s not a perfect correlate, but it’s not bad either. Um, so this book was really about helping people understand that the engram just doesn’t describe nine personality types, but the nine stories, each of those types tell themselves and others about who they are, um, and how they think the world works. Because, you know, we all understand up we’re mutual friend, Don Miller knows this, um, who by the way, is featured in the book, uh, in one of the chapters, you know, we, we all know that we, uh, live inside. We, we experience our, our lives as being lived inside of a narrative inside of a story.
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 . And I think a lot of people listening to this would, would fall into that category just because it’s like, you know, they’ve many times when we meet people at brand builders group, it’s because they have, they have been at the top of their trade or their profession or their industry. And now they’ve already achieved that. It’s like, they’ve won all the trophies and the awards and now they’re going, okay. I wanna help other people do it. Um, so you know, the, and, and then also I think like the I’m too old, you don’t hear that as much, but I think it sort of shows up in ways like, well, I don’t understand social media or I don’t, you know, I don’t like that or I, you know, I’m just not good with technology or, um, those, those kinds of things. Um, so I, I mean, what is talk to us about rewriting the stories Ian, so like whatever they are or, or even identifying it. Like, I love how you said that. Okay, first you gotta like identify it and then we deconstruct it. Then we figure out which pieces that we want. What are the, are the, you have any tips for kind of identifying and going like, Ooh, here’s a mental trigger.
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. they gotta awaken to the fact that, you know, like when does that take and hold and rewrite the narrative of their company?
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. it will also make you not a very good person in your worst expression. It could make you someone who cuts corners and maybe becomes someone who’s so ambitious that you’re when willing to take credit for stuff that other people did of seeing that in corporate settings. Now that’s a unhealthy three, but you get the idea, right? It’s like, you have to wake up and realize I want to be a success, but do I wanna build myself esteem on success? I don’t think so.
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 yeah. Mm. Yeah. I mean, um, and so when you talk about the rewrite, okay, so you gave us, you gave a sore, you talk about rewriting. Tell us a little bit, tell us a little bit about that. Right? Cause it’s, it’s actually, to me, it, it’s not that hard to spot this in ourselves, if we’re just looking for it because you kind of go, well, what’s my greatest strength. That’s also probably my greatest weakness. Like what I do the most of it’s also probably something that’s harming me. And, and specifically you could just go, like, where am I? Where am I losing in life? Or where am I not experiencing life? The way I want it. And then kind of go on the, the co what’s the cause of that. The cause of that is, is some underlying message that I’ve told myself over and over again. And so on the rewriting part of it. So just to touch on it real quickly, I know we don’t have a ton of time, but like, is there anything specific you have to do to rewrite it? I mean, is it basically like you literally take out a pen or a blank piece of paper and you write and say, boom, this is, this is what I’m letting go of. And this is what I’m choosing to adopt for the future.
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 , I’m afraid of not looking as successful as I did. I’m afraid that my self esteem is gonna go down. Right. And you could write a whole list and then I could just say to you, okay. So let’s imagine that happened. Would that be the end of the world? Uh, would you, do you think it’s a permanent thing? If your business goes down by half, you see what I mean? Like you’re unearthing and, and sort challenging that this is gonna be the end of the world. Right?
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 for it to still drive you like that.
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. I mean, all the time, I mean, you know, I come into a company and someone go, this guy is, this woman is such a control freak. Like that’s typical of engram, one provers, right? Perfectionism. It’s like, they constantly are rewriting things. I write, uh, they assign me things and then they redo them. Um, they are highly controlling. They’re not very good at praise, right? They’re a little stingy with praise. Like they go on and on about this personality style. And you know, of course that’s gonna restrict, growth’s gonna restrict, as you said, scaling a business. Right. Because it’s gonna put it, it’s a, what I would call a drag coefficient. Right. It’s gonna, it’s gonna slow down the, the, the, the boat, right. It’s like having an anchor off the back
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. like just her willingness to share, you know, when they were, they struggled in their marriage, right? Like here, you’ve got one of the most prolific writers. One of the most prolific speakers in the, in the, in the world talks about positivity as one of the best selling books of all time and going like, yeah, we struggled in our own, our own home with this. And, and, and, and she was so open about that, which just gave me permission to just, you know, just chill out a little bit and, and, and find peace. And then she said, it all changed. When we said, God, we invite you into our marriage. We invite you into our family.
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):
wow. Yeah. So that’s, that’s powerful. Like you, it’s amazing how easy it is to live together with someone and not communicate like you talk, but so much of it is just like this survival mode right of going, oh my gosh, like you’ve got you know, the kids, you’ve got the laundry, you’ve got stuff breaking in the, with the house. You’ve got haircuts, buying clothes, groceries, dry cleaning, you know, like just getting your own personal care that children, schools travel Christmas presents, birthday presents like, like you have all this massive, never ending pile of just overwhelming stuff, which is before you even touch a business. Yeah. Like before you, even before you even touch, you know, like work there’s all this other work and then you have the money and like, okay, how are we paying the bills? And what are we doing for retirement?
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. it was the best year of my life, no matter what, and I didn’t abuse it, but I’m gonna tell you, so that year was a hard year with our kids. They were both in elite sports. I was running from one small town stand in hotels, but I would walk in the door and I would need help unloading the groceries or picking up lunch, meat, whatever it was.
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 that year of serving was an absolute game changer for our marriage. Cuz I think so many times it’s like we’re drowning and, and which one of us it who who’s more important? Well, wait a minute, John was out making the money money because I was home raising the children, but I’m raising champions for our future. You know, it was the struggle. So we really had to come from the mindset of we’re a team it’s we before me. Yeah,
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 because it’s like the world is coming at you and at some point you just are like so exhausted, so overwhelmed that you just kind of feel like everybody’s after you and anything that stands in your way. It’s like, you just don’t have any space for it. And I, you know, people, they turn, you mentioned the communication part. Yeah. Can I wanna, I wanna go back to that a little bit. What is it, what is it that you think spouses aren’t communicating with each other and short of being tired and exhausted? Why aren’t they communicating that thing?
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 so she’s not out in the world. Right? Her husband, he’s got a lot of business meetings. He’s got a lot of dinners after work and she would fight with him every time, you know, he came in the door and w what it really ended up being was that she, she was feeling jealous, right. She was feeling insignificant or insecure. And I asked her, I said, have you just shared that with him? You know, just really just said, Hey, you know, I’m just, you know, I’m not, I’m not out getting dressed up all the time. I’m, you know, you’re out with, you know, share what you’re feeling, be vulnerable. I, and a lot of times, I think, because of what you said before, because we’re in this, you know, and we’re both like fighting to, to get our stuff done and get our needs met. You, you shut that part of your vulnerability down because, you know, then you don’t want it to be used as a weapon. So if you can kind of flip that and start to really share what’s on your mind and communicate that. And along with that, I think it’s really important to know when to communicate. Yeah. Yeah.
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. that is something that I did wrong for so long. Whereas like, Hey, I need you to, to be better at blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, and then go, well, what I need you to do is like, not a no way, no, like doesn’t work out, doesn’t work out super well. I think that’s one of, one of my biggest issues is like defensiveness and just AU automatically responding, you know? Well, yeah, maybe. Yeah, me, but what about 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. , it’s about knowing when, when to communicate that. And, you know, John would walk in the door, he had been traveling like crazy. I of course had been, you know, home dealing with the kids. And I, like I said before, I would sometimes wanna just jump. And what I finally realized is he needs to go unwind, maybe eat something. And then when we would take a walk, we would take a walk and it would all come out. And I mean, sometimes we’d fight, you know, we’d fight on the walk, but by the end of the walk, I, I used to say, you have to, you have to walk it out to talk it out. Because for us, that seemed to be a really great time for us to communicate. And that’s not always easy when you have little kids. And I, I, I remember that. I mean, when the kids were young, you know, you are kind of stuck in the house. And so it’s about finding that time, that sweet spot and the way to communicate. Yeah.
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 . So, first off, I’m gonna tell you what I tell all parents that have young children like yours, you’re in it to win it. Like, if you can get through this phase as a partnership and as a team, you’re gonna be okay, cuz these are the hardest times. Yes, it does get easier. It gets easier in, in the, in the, in the way of time or in the way of, of being able to, to have a little bit more, you know, focus for yourself. Now I will say this, the line, little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems is true. , you know, my problems.
RV (18:19):
I’ve not heard, I’ve not heard that one before.
KG (18:21):
yeah. It’s different. You know, I mean, once the kids get to the age where you’re not worried about babysitters, you’re, you know, it, it does get easier in that way. Gosh. Especially when they start driving, of course that’s a whole other fear, right. So these are, these are the hardest times. Yeah. and this is, I’m telling you find ways to communicate, you know, in my book, relationship grit, there’s an action plan that you can, you can take, you can use. And there’s so many good things in there on how to strengthen your relationship during this time. And some of them are very basic, like asking AJ, AJ on a scale of one to 10, how well do I communicate? And then what would make it a 10 simple, simple things. And you’ll be surprised sometimes you’ll be surprised the answers that you get. So that would, might be a good thing to do. And I can offer that to your listeners. Maybe if you can put it in the show notes totally
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. yeah. I just I was typing, so I was like, I’m gonna text this to her right now.
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. Tuesday night. Yeah.
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 I can’t even imagine how much more difficult it is for AJ. I mean, she’s the CEO of our company. She’s working with clients, she’s speaking, she’s trying to do her personal brand. She’s doing the hiring, she’s managing the finances, she’s training the team. She’s creating the operational processes. She’s like developing our leaders. She’s gotta deal with me being gone, traveling here and there and two and fro she’s got the kids and then, and then she’s got all the mom stuff right on top of it. Like which school are they going to? And who’s the nanny, the, the child care, all of these things. Right. And you know, and unfortunately like one of my biggest weaknesses, like I’m worthless in the kitchen. Like I had never realized how important it is for a man to learn how to cook. Like if I could go back in my life and go, there’s one skill. I wish I would’ve learned that would’ve made me a better husband. That’s a tactical skills. Like I’m worthless in the kitchen. Right? So the, and food is a such a problem. Like it’s a massive project.
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 what can us husbands do better to support our wives? Like yes, we’re running and gunning, but there is also, there is also it’s, it’s a, there is an unfairness to this that I see. Right. Even in, as you described John as like, yes, it’s hard to be on the road, right. It is difficult. It is, it is not easy to, to perform at that level in the business. But you also get a lot of applause and a lot of praise. And you know, when you’re in a hotel room, you sleep through the night. Right. It’s not,
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):
yeah. John and I have had to do it. I mean, early on, you know, cuz I, I get to what work. Well, I don’t really believe that. Well, I think we need to ask someone else. So mm-hmm you know, it worked. Yeah.
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 so if there is a woman out there listening right now, who’s in that season where she is like doing so much and feeling so unseen, what would you say to her?
KG (35:03):
Mm, well, first I’d say pray, right? I really feel like my prayers and my connection with God has helped me a lot in trying to kind of pulls me outta myself and gives me some perspective. But the other thing I’m gonna say is, is nothing is forever and nothing is permanent. And remembering your why, you know, at the end of the day with my kids, when I would, you know, was running them around and you know, they were playing all these sports and I would, you know, sometimes get resentful. I started to realize like, you know what, I didn’t grow up having a, I had two alcoholic parents that had no interest in anything I was doing, and this was something I wanted to give back to my kids. And so I need to be doing that with love and knowing that one day they’re gonna grow up and one day I won’t have to do that. And so nothing’s permanent. Remember your why and pray?
RV (36:06):
I love it. Katherine Gordon, my friends, you see why we love her so much and make sure you follow her online and go check out her website and everything. Katherine, thank you so much. We wish you all the best. We’re praying for you and John and we’re excited to we’ll see you soon.
KG (36:23):
Thank you, Rory. Thanks for having me.

Ep 281: The Power of One More with Ed Mylett | Recap Episode

RV (00:03):
Wow. That conversation with Ed Mylett man, I am humbled. I don’t know if you picked it up, but the, what he said about working with us and our team man, that was, that was powerful and edifying to, for him to say those things about us and, and, you know, we really feel the same way about him. I mean, ed, I, I have really gotten to know ed. I mean, we have talked on, I, I mean a daily at least once a day for the last several months, like 6, 4, 4, 4 or five months at the time of this recording, like and I really love this guy and I believe in him and that’s part of why we have lent our like you know, time and our resources and our, our, you know, strategies to be a part of it.
RV (00:56):
And what just, what an amazing guy. And, and y’all it, it’s he’s he has, is operating a level of success. That’s just extraordinary. And it, it, I wanna share with you, of course, the three, the three big highlights or takeaways from the conversation from the inter from that interview specifically some point maybe I’ll do another training. That’s just like what I’ve learned from Ed Mylet over the last several months, cuz I’ve learned a ton from him also. I’ll keep this focused on just the interview, but one of the things that, you know, I want to start with that is encouraging to me is it’s it’s encouraging to see people like, you know, I think of like, you know, ed Mylett or you know, whoever Dave Ramsey, like these, these huge, very successful influential people and to realize how much of their life has been dedicated to personal development, not just teaching, but learning, not teaching.
RV (01:53):
I mean, learning it, I’m talking about the people you probably most respect a huge portion of their time is personal development. Like this stuff actually works. I mean, this stuff actually changes lives. And, and, and these people who are changing the world are living by the, by the principles that, that we teach and talk about collectively in this industry. And that’s why brand builders group exists is we want to help mission driven messengers, get their message out to the world because the world needs it. The world is desperate for this, for this help, for this encouragement, for this education about how to live a positive life, how to be successful, how to control your thoughts, your money, your time to have better relationships, better health, have more joy and peace. And it’s, you know, it’s age old principles, but they’re delivered through new modern day messengers.
RV (02:48):
And that’s what ed is. And that’s what we believe you are. And that’s why we believe that you’re listening. And that’s, you know, it’s super fun to work with people like ed. I mean, you, you, I mean I tell you, I don’t remember what the number was when we recorded the podcast, but right now, as I’m recording this we just hit 50,000 units. Pre-Sold of Ed’s book 50,000 when we still have a week before it launches like this is a massive, I mean, this is someone, you know, literally affecting millions of people, all the, all the people he’s reaching through his own platform. Plus all the people who are promoting it, this event that we’re doing with Eric Thomas and Mel Robbins you know, Jim quick, John Gord, Marie Forley Odine Graziosi. I mean Jenna Kucher and Rob Deard deck and Maria Manos.
RV (03:38):
I mean, the list goes on Andy fr like it’s gonna be this huge event and it’s reaching all these people. But I say all that to say, he’s a student of personal development, which, which, which tells me two things and hopefully tells you two things. One, you should be a student of personal development, right? Like you may not wanna own multiple private jets and own islands like ed does. But like, you know, maybe you, you wanna have money to give away, like you wanna do something, right? Like pretty much anything big in the world takes some money like, and, and, and, and impact and reach and go, man, I’ve reached a lot of people. Well, that means there’s you’re student of personal development. And the second thing is you should be a teacher of it because the world needs you. That’s why you’re here. Right. That’s why you’re listening. There’s there’s a calling in your life. There’s a prompting saying, you’ve got some message inside of you. And if you’re not doing it, my guess is it’s because there’s a, there’s another voice which I would call the devil who immediately follows up and says, yeah, but someone already said that, but like, who would listen to you?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Who would listen to ed mylett
RV (04:44):
Five years ago, ed Mylet
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Was posted. Did you hear this story about Tony Robinson? He was posting videos of hash
RV (04:50):
Brown. So
Speaker 2 (04:51):
My gosh, that video, that story of him with Tony Robbins on his backboards, he thought Tony Robbins said, you have to use hashtags. Ed thought. He said, hash Browns. You have to post pictures of hash Browns. Are you kidding me? Like what in the world? Like that is crazy. So, you know, nobody knew who he was even like five, seven years ago. So it like,
RV (05:18):
It just, it, I don’t know. That’s inspiring to me and I, how inspiring to me and the fact that I hope it inspires you and it inspires you to go, your voice matters. Like somebody else out there needs it. It may not be millions of people. It may be 10 people. It may be one person, but like, that’s a person that’s a life. So anyways, let’s get on with the three highlights. I I’m ranting I’m ranting cuz I just moved. Ed. Ed is in powerful, powerful dude. So my three biggest takeaways from the interview with ed Mylet all right. First, first one here is his premise of this book. All right. The book’s called the power of one more. The, the event’s called max out. So we, you know, we’re helping run the, the book launch the event, you know, Ed’s following our playbook by those, by the way, those of you that are brand builders. Like I said this in the interview, but like he is following our playbook to a T he’s executing it at a bigger scale because his platform, but I mean, he is following our playbook to a T is working. This is gonna be one of the biggest book launches of this year. Like it works and, and his premise of this book is you’re a lot closer to the dream life than you think you are.
RV (06:31):
That’s a powerful thought. You’re a lot closer to the dream life than you think you are. Right? The, the, the devil, the self doubt tells you you’re far away says this impossible says, okay, that could happen for ed, but not for me. That could happen for Rory, but not for me. That could happen for Marie or whoever, but not for me. Like, and Ed’s going, no, you’re closer to it than you think you’re one decision away. You’re one, you’re one piece of knowledge away. You’re one relationship away, you know, AJ and I had this conversation and, and, and I told her, I said, I don’t know this was, this was several months ago, right? When I first met ed. And I said, babe, I don’t know. But I feel God telling me that we’re supposed to go all in on helping add my lead. This is before he is a client.
RV (07:21):
This is like, right. I first met him like before any of this is taking shape. And I don’t, you know, even by the time you hear this, like there, the, the, the, the trajectory that this is on is becoming a really massive thing that he’s doing like, and, and going, I don’t know, but I, I feel like we’re supposed to go all in on this. It’s very possible that this one relationship with ed my lead is gonna change our whole life. It certainly did with Lewis, right? Like brand builders, droop would not exist if it were not for Lewis howes inspired this business, he asked for it. And then he’s the one who said, you guys need to create this. I know a whole bunch of people who need this, and I’m gonna help you meet ’em. I’m gonna light the spark to kick this thing off one relationship.
RV (08:02):
Now you might go, I don’t know, a Lewis Howes or ed mylett. It doesn’t every, but every relationship we met, like every relationship we had led us to the next one and the next one and the next one, you’re a lot closer to the dream life than you think you are like, it’s right there. Right? One relationship away. One moment away, one big shot. 1, 1, 1 missing piece of the puzzle of, of the knowledge you need. And you go, ah, it clicks, right? I’m I’m there licks right on, on there. It might be one video post, one podcast post, like, but we just don’t know when it’s gonna happen. And people give up too soon. That’s a powerful, powerful premise. And that’s this whole thing. The power of one more is like, you’re, you’re closer than you think. So do one more. Just like, if you just keep doing that, it’s it’s in the moment, it feels like you’re behind. But over course of your life, it’s like, you’re guaranteed. It’s the success is guaranteed. Like if you follow all these principles, it’s not like that are not gonna work. Like they’ve worked, you know, for millions and hundreds of millions of people to accumulate millions and billions of dollars. Like the principles of success are timeless. They work for, I like they work. Like there’s a reason why people teach them follow them and stick with it. Second big takeaway from ed was that identity is the thermostat of your life.
RV (09:27):
What you think you’re worth is what you’re going to get. So whatever the story is that you’re telling yourself about yourself is going to continue to be the true story for you. Right? If you’re telling yourself I’m a victim, I had it harder than everybody. O O other people have pushed me down. I’m not in control of my circumstances. I have it. I have it harder than everybody else. If that’s the story you’re telling yourself, then that is your certain future. Like, that’s what he’s saying. There is like, whatever is going on in your head, the story you’re telling yourself. If you know, if you say like, I’m the, you know, I’m an overcomer, like I’m, I rise above. I figure it out. I find a way, then that is your future. Like, it’s not just your present. That is your future. That is your identity, right? If you think I’m not good enough, nobody cares about me. I’m not smart enough. I’m stupid. I don’t have what it takes. That’s your future. Not just your present, that’s your future. And if you say, man, I’m loved. I’m a child of God, God creates. And so in me is the power to create, right? That God lives in me. He created the world. Then I too have the power in me to create things with my own breath, to speak creation in into reality.
RV (10:55):
Then that’s your future. So what is the story you’re telling yourself about yourself? You’ll never exceed your identity. You have to grow your identity. And I love how open that ed is about Jesus. Not that you know, you have to be believe in Jesus to be successful. There’s lots of successful people who don’t believe in Jesus. Ed happens to believe in Jesus. I happen to believe in Jesus, but what matters is even people who believe in Jesus, like what he was saying is they go to, they go to church on Sunday and they go, yeah, I believe in God. And then they go out in the, we work weekend, go, ah, I don’t, I don’t have what it takes. And it’s like, no, no. Like if, if you following scripture saying, God is in you, right? Like the holy spirit is with you inside of you, you have the ability to create, to make, to multiply.
RV (11:41):
And he and ed believes that like, he believes that about himself, which what’s funny is like, whether, whether it’s true or not, it’s true. Like it became true. Like whether it’s true or not, it becomes true because it is the story that you’re telling yourself. And, and, and, and if you stumble across success, if you happen to get to lucky break, you happen to get a big moment. But your identity is at odds with it. Then you’ll, you’ll turn the air conditioner on in terms of your thermostat. And, and you’ll, you’ll, you know, you’ll start heating up and getting success. And you’ll cool yourself off. You’ll self sabotage because that’s your identity. Your identity will say, ah, that was just luck. I didn’t deserve that. That lucky break. Right? Couldn’t do it again. Right. Anybody could do it once. Can’t do it twice. Like you’ll self sabotage.
RV (12:24):
And that’s why he’s saying like, you gotta understand your identity. You gotta rewrite your identity. You gotta be mindful of the story. You’re telling yourself about yourself. That’s what’s gonna change your life. And, and here’s, what’s crazy is like, whatever is your present story is your future story. But also whatever is your present self is your past story. Like in many ways, like mostly, I mean, there are circumstances, right? There are some things that happen to people that are unavoidable. Like I’m not, I’m not suggesting that you are making the horrible, every horrible thing that has happened in your life. But, but there is some truth to that to go, who I am today is in part the result of the story I’ve been telling myself about who I have been in the past and who I will become tomorrow is largely in part affected by the story. I tell myself today about who I am today.
RV (13:22):
And if you wanna change your life, rewrite your story. If you wanna change your life, rewrite your story. And then the third big takeaway from that conversation with ed for me, was just sort of the, the profound thought of, you know, this idea of one more, like, what if this is my last conversation, right? Like what if, what if this is, what if this is my last podcast? Like, what if this is the last podcast recap I ever do? What if this is the last, tonight’s the last date night I have with my wife? What is, what if, what if this is? What if this is my last shot to introduce myself to somebody who, you know, has the knowledge and the relationship to change in my life? What if this is my last shot to learn from somebody? Like, what if this is? What if this is my last shot?
RV (14:13):
Like, what if this is it? What if this is my last day? Am I living with it going like, man, what if, what if this is it? What if this is my last, my last moment? Am I capitalizing? Am I maximizing it? Am I even appreciating in a small minuscule percentage of how I would, if it were my last, because it could be our last, it could be my last, it could be your last, we don’t know. And this idea, the power, one more is going, look, I should be grateful because I got one more. I have one more day. I got one more breath. I got one more. I got at least one more podcast episode of me. I got one more, one more chance to meet somebody. I got one more opportunity to change somebody’s life. And if there’s a calling on your heart to go out and serve somebody and help them, it might be because there’s at least one more person out there
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Who still needs you
RV (15:07):
One more. And what if this is our last chance we would view it differently. We, we would think about it differently. We would act differently and, and we would be more grateful. I, I think I would, I would be more grateful. I’d be more thankful. I’d be more precise. I’d be more deliberate. I’d be more intentional. I, I I’d, I’d put more in, you can do that. You can do that sooner or later. That’s gonna be true. We don’t know when. So you might as well enjoy the richness and the fullness of life that is available to you right now by treating everyone as if it’s your last and just being grateful for the power of one more. So by Ed’s book everybody else’s, , it’s, it’s gonna be awesome. You know, spend time learning from this man. I am, I am having the time of my life learning from him.
RV (16:13):
I mean, it’s like you reminds me of the early days when I was learning from Zig Ziegler and like, man, this is an amazing, this is an amazing person. This is a world changer. You know, like a lot of our clients, I feel that way about Lewis. I’m like, man, this guy’s a world changer. Like that’s that powerful stuff. And we have other clients, some of them can’t tell you who they are, but like, I’ll go, man. They’re amazing. And all of our clients, I go to our events. Every time I go to one of our brand builders group events, I’m
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Like, gosh, I you’re amazing. You, people are amazing. You have so much more working for you than I did. Like you have so much more working for you than so many of the people that I have seen be successful in this industry that I’ve seen impact millions of lives. Like you have so much more going for you where you are at now than when, where they did when they were, where you are, but they, they, the difference is just
RV (17:09):
Believing it and telling yourself the story that it’s
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Possible instead of telling yourself the story that it’s not possible.
RV (17:24):
So I hope that this podcast and that brand builders group and that my life and AJ’s life and our team and our family and our kids, I hope this is a place you continue to hang out in because I hope we’re a people who help you believe what’s possible for you. I hope that everything you experience from us and our family and our team
Speaker 3 (17:48):
And our community helps you write the story that you were meant to write for your own life and thereby the lives of so many others. So keep coming back, we’ll catch you next week on the influential personal brand podcast.

Ep 280: The Power of One More with Ed Mylett

RV (00:00):
To one of the great honors of my life is getting to play a role behind the scenes for some of the most influential personal brands in the world. I’ve actually found it much more enriching and fulfilling to be behind the scenes and be a part of the team. That’s coordinating that for other people than I have, even for us building my personal brand in our company. And today is truly one of those moments for me. A few months ago, one of my O other mentors, John Gordon introduced me to a gentleman named ed Mylet, who you’ve probably heard of. And ed and I started talking and I found out he had a book launch and book launches is something that we know something about. And so ed and I became friends and it has been an absolute honor and privilege to work alongside of ed here for a few months now and a pretty close working relationship, helping him launch this book.
RV (00:56):
That’s coming out called the power of one more. And we’re gonna talk about the book, but if you don’t know, ed just really quick I’ve known ed, I’ve been following him for years. He’s one of my favorite people to follow online. He’s got over 3 million online followers at, at the time of this recording. He is in the Forbes fiftys wealthy under 50 years old. He’s the host of a podcast called the ed Mylet show, which has had, I mean, everybody Terrell Owens, Mel Robbins, Dabo Sweeney, John Maxwell, Jay Sheti. It goes on and on and on. Ed is one of the best speakers that I’ve ever seen. And I’ve personally learned so much from him. And he’s also the real deal. I mean, he has a, a net worth that is in the nine figures, which is not his focus by any means, but a Testament to the fact that he’s the real deal. It’s not, it’s not fake. And he loves Jesus. He’s humble. And man, what an honor to introduce you to my new friend, ed mullet,
EM (01:58):
Hey brother, Rory, great to be with you. And you’re understanding your involvement and role in my life now. You’re the centerpiece of this book launch. You’ve been leading it from the front the entire time and I’ve been in business for 30 years. I’ve never worked with anybody like you before you are remarkable. He is just so you all know his brilliance is only exceeded by his generosity. And he’s a remarkable man. I actually can’t even believe as I’m saying this, I’m getting a little bit emotional. I did not think I would, but I’m very grateful for you brother, grateful for your friendship and mentorship. Cause I’ve learned so much from you for the last 60 days. And I know it’s just the beginning of a lifelong friendship and, and also business relationship too, so great to be with you today.
RV (02:41):
Well, thank you, man. That means just so much coming from you and, and I want, I want people to hear your real story. Like your life story is tremendously inspiring. Thank you. Also, you know, I hope you don’t mind me sharing this, but like ed is working his butt off. I mean we are running him, we are running him ragged. He is following our, our, you know, bestseller launch plan, which we take our clients through. Can I share how many units we’ve pre-sold ed? Is that okay? Or,
EM (03:11):
Yeah, that’s fine. Sure.
RV (03:12):
40,000 units of this book have already been pre-sold and we have, at the time of this recording, we got about six weeks to go. We’re doing a huge event in Raleigh, but so ed, take us back to like, I wanna hear the story of how you started building your personal brand. You’ve got this great story as a kid. Yeah. You crushed it in business. You still crushed it in business. And, and just, but like, take us back to where do you, where do you demarcate the Genesis of you building your personal brand?
EM (03:43):
Yeah, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I, I had been an entrepreneur and a speaker for a number of years and I sort of resisted the, I wanted to stay private. I really, you know me well now, like I buy homes where I’m very private. It’s not that I don’t love people. I actually adore people, but I’m introverted. And so, and just exposing the, my life, I, most of my friends are famous, unfortunately. Right. And so I knew what came with that and I didn’t want all of it. And so I did it very reluctantly, but the encouragement of a lot of the people that I coach, some people like Tony Robbins also like, Hey man, you need to, you need to go out there and share what you know. And and so I made the decision. It was a really funny story.
EM (04:19):
I’ll tell you this, cuz you’ll laugh. Tony Robbins told me, Hey man, you need to, you need to get on social media and I’m I’m idiot and I’m not very good at posting. And he challenged me in a way that sort of made me want to do it. So we’re sitting on my balcony. My son was in the other room and he goes, I said, max, you’re now the head of my social media team. set me up. One of these accounts, he came back in, in like an hour and said, dad, you’re on Twitter and Instagram. I said, okay. And I, and Tony goes, make a video and post it. I go, okay, how long these videos I speak for an hour? How long can they be? He’s like 60 seconds. I go, dude, come on, man. I don’t clear my throat in 60 seconds. He goes, well, you need to figure out how, cause that’s how this stuff works. So I shoot the first video right there on my balcony. He’s standing right there next to me. I shoot it. Next day gets like four views and one like
RV (05:01):
Nice.
EM (05:01):
And I called Tony, I’m going, Hey, this stuff doesn’t work. And my son, like I thought you knew who you were doing four views. And only one of them even liked it. I, this is not for me. And this is what I hear Tony say, I Rory, I swear to you on our friendship. This is what I hear him say. He goes, dude, you gotta post at the right time of the day. You gotta post at breakfast time. So if you watch my social, I post every morning to this day at 7:30 AM. Yeah. Pacific time. Every day, every post on my main feed that’s cuz back in the day, Tony Robbins told me to post at breakfast time. This is what I think he says to me next worry. And by the way, you gotta post at breakfast time and you need to have hash Browns in the video.
EM (05:38):
This is what I hear him say hash brown. I’m like, and I don’t wanna sound stupid. I’m like really breakfast and hash Browns. All right. Okay dude, I’ll make another one. So I call max and go, Hey, I thought you knew about this stuff. Tony says it’s gotta be breakfast videos around breakfast table and there’s gonna be hash Browns in the video. Max is like, daddy, I don’t, why would there need to be a breakfast? I go, I don’t know. But that’s how this stuff works. So the next video you can go to my social media. It’s a video of me with a plate of eggs and hash Browns. And I make a video. I swear to you, you don’t know this story. And then, then that video gets like three views and no likes. And I tell Tony, I go, Hey man, I call him up. I go, this is crap. The hash brown thing tanked. He goes,
Speaker 3 (06:20):
He goes, what did you just say?
EM (06:22):
I go, I did the breakfast post with the hash Browns.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
He goes dummy. . I said, hash tags, not
EM (06:30):
Hash Browns.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
I said, well I
EM (06:32):
Heard hash and breakfast. He goes, no, it’s the time of the day with hash tags. I’m like what? The heck’s a hashtag. He goes, I don’t know. It’s like a pound sign with a word. And it helps him find your video. I go pound
Speaker 3 (06:43):
What? He goes. I, he goes, dude, just
EM (06:45):
Do the hashtag thing years and serious up. That was my start on social media. And I wake up like a year later cuz the content’s good. Right? I wake up a year later, I got a million followers on Instagram. You know, I’m getting, I’m growing like crazy. And I’ve ended up growing to these millions of people, man. And as you know, I’ve never run an ad. It’s completely, it’s completely authentic growth. Like it’s spiral can.
RV (07:06):
I’ve never, I need a, I need to say this right now because this is important. I’ve actually, I haven’t, I don’t think I’ve told this to you directly, but I’ve said this to several people since you know, working so closely with you, which is that one of the thing there’s so many things about you that amaze me. But one of the things that amazes me most is like everybody else out there in the space doing this, this is their full-time job. Right? They got teams, they’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s, it’s all they’re doing. And, and you, you don’t like you have a pretty thin team. This is like a side project, which it’s like almost a distraction for you, which makes me admire you. And it also really me off, like it really, really jealous, but like it, it
EM (07:53):
Is that’s where, that’s why you’ve come into my life. I mean, we’ve become one of the, you know I think influencer magazine named me the fastest growing businessman in the history of social media. And as you know, I have very few people on my team. It’s here’s the good news. It’s been content driven. And I don’t say that to brag. I just say that like my content’s good and in a diverse amount of content and that’s, what’s grown and now I’ve met a pro in fact, I’ve met the best in you. And so now between the book, the power of one more, that’s coming out, the event we’re doing with it that, you know, that’s pretty significant. And then what we’ll do with my social going forward, I actually feel like I’ve now met the best people in the world. It’s gonna get real scary. What’s gonna happen when you take the best content. Now married with the best team of people who know how to build a brand, which is you. And so I’m fired up, man. I cannot wait for this thing to explode even to another level.
RV (08:40):
Yeah, for sure. Well, I, I also, you know, another part of that little story is how coachable, I mean, for you to be somebody who’s incredibly successful. I mean, that’s a vast understatement to, to say Tony Robbins says post a video with hash Browns. And without even thinking about it, you just, you just do it. What year was that?
EM (09:02):
That was probably seven years ago.
RV (09:04):
That’s when I started. OK.
EM (09:06):
But by the way, you know me well enough now I’m still that way I’m coachable to you and other people look, I’ve built lots of wealth and lots of different businesses by knowing I’m not the smartest guy in the room. I know what I’m good at. In fact, I talk about this on the book, taking advantage of your giftedness and allowing the gifts of other people to flourish around you. I think what does strike people when they start to interact with me? I’m a confident dude. I’m an intense dude. Mm-Hmm I think you would tell people that I can get frustrated, but I’m, I’m ki I like to think that I have humility, which means I know what I don’t know. And I defer to experts and sometimes that’s disarming to people who are like, I thought he’d be more of a dominant presence when they’re with me.
EM (09:42):
Well, where I need to be, believe me, I’m dominant. And I assert myself, but I’m I’m. I just, I laugh at people who think they know everything. Look it, you are the, you’re the premier guy. What you do, I’m blessed to have you in my life. Why would I not let you do what you’re great at? And I’ll do what I’m great at. I’ve built and sold many, many different businesses on the premise that if you surround yourself with great people, take advantage of their giftedness, use your giftedness. You’re unstoppable. And that’s really the lot, which as you know, that’s, there’s a lot of that in the book and you’ve watched me do it with you. I’m like, Hey, I don’t know what should we do? And I listen. Now, if someone proves themselves consistently not to be equipped to do the job, that’s a different story altogether with me, I’ll make a switch. But until that time comes in your case, every single thing you basically told me to do is worked. And you’ve exceeded what you told me you were going to do when we first met one another. So why wouldn’t I give you more space to lead? I think that’s how you build something. Great.
RV (10:37):
Yeah. It’s, it’s an interesting dichotomy like ed, cuz it’s throwing me for a loop cuz you’re, you’re both physically intimidating. Like you are, you know a very behemoth of a man, your stature, but your reputation is huge. Your track record is huge you’re and you are very intense, but then you are very open and re and receptive to this. I mean it it’s, it’s really interesting. It, I, it actually inspired me to make a post recently about the difference between like confidence and pride. And I was just basically saying how you know, confidence is how you do something mm-hmm but pride is who you do it for. So you can be extremely confident, but totally humble because you’re doing it in service of others. You’re you’re not doing it just in service of yourself, which is how I think of pride. And you are extremely confident, extremely intense. And yet somehow very humble and coachable to the point where you’re you’re posting, you’re posting hash Browns. Yeah. But
EM (11:40):
I’m also doing what you’ve asked me to do on the book, different things. So my favorite people, Roy, I talk about this in the book and how to establish self confidence. The whole chapter on it’s pretty detailed. It’s not, this book is heavy. I mean, it’s a very heavy everyone who’s read it. That’s friends of mine’s like, whoa, this is there’s no breathing room. It’s cont I mean it’s specific stuff, but my favorite people have this nuance and it’s a very, very difficult line to nuance. In fact, the ultimate person who’s ever exemplified this is Jesus, but there’s this line of tremendous confidence combined with humility. So the people that I love most have a lot of self-confidence, but their humility, it causes ’em to be curious, kind, open grow. We all know people with tons of self-confidence have no humility. They, they, their, their egos outta control.
EM (12:25):
They eventually burn out. They eventually make a mistake. They eventually self-destruct. We also have friends with tons of humility with no self-confidence and you have to carry them through, like, you can do it, you can do it. So it’s the, it’s the, it’s the nuance of the two. Jesus knew who he was, but he was humble enough to present himself as a man. He was humble enough to submit. He was humble enough to feed the masses. He was humble enough to give his life for us. Talk about the ultimate level of sacrifice and humility yet at the same time simultaneously knowing who he really was. And so the, the best people that I know that I, I like to get close to. They tow that line. Sometimes you arrow one side or the other, but I’d love to. I hope that I continue to have a very level of, I know how to build self-confidence.
EM (13:07):
I detail that in the book, I know how to help you become self-confidence I’ve helped the top people in the world do that. I know how to do that. The humility part is a character of trait. You have to want to grow. You have to know that you, that for me, man, like it’s weird to write a book called the ultimate guide to happiness and success. And I give all these keys yet. At the same time, I have a whole chapter on faith. I also know that there’s many times in my life brother, where the truth is, I don’t know what happened. My reflections are vague. And the truth is all I conclude is that during those difficult times, the Lord just sort of picked me up and carried me for a while and then set me back down in a better place. And then I went to work and then he picked me back up and carried me for a while. And it’s why it makes me so emotional because it’s odd to write a book about here’s how you become happier or more successful, knowing that so much of it wasn’t me. And so much of it was, was God in my life was favor, was blessing. And so it’s, I’d be remiss if I said I have all these answers, cuz I, I actually know I don’t the older I get, the more I realize what I don’t know mm-hmm and that makes me humble and curious to want to know more including in my faith
RV (14:16):
To grow there. Well, your, your, your faith is another example of this humility, right? Like you’ve got the money, you’ve got the influence. You have the followers, you you’ve got the most famous people in your cell phone. Mm-Hmm and yet you willingly submit and surrender your life to Jesus. And you know, I told AJ we, we had a sermon. This was right, right. Shortly after I met you, we had a sermon in my pastor that he said, what do you feel God calling you to do? And I told AJ, I said, this is weird, but I feel God telling me to go all in on ed, my lead. Thank you. Wow. And wow. And, and, and I’ll tell you why, because it’s, you know, I was mentored personally by Zig Zigler and Zig at the end of his life. Got very, very bold about his faith.
RV (15:04):
And I see you doing that and it’s inspiring to me. It’s also impactful kingdom work. I mean, you’re a secular author. This is a business. This is a business book. But man, if ed, my let is, you know, if Jesus is good enough, like for an ed, my let or, you know, to hear somebody like you go, no, this is, this is what it’s really about. For me, it’s inspiring. And it also, it makes, it makes me more excited to be a part of what you’re doing, cuz you’re reaching a lot of people who would not hear that message.
EM (15:34):
I was just talking about this with a very, very, very, actually two of them, maybe the two most famous pastors in the world. I won’t say their names, but two of very famous guys. And I was talking about that. I said, listen, when they come listen to you, man, they know what they’re getting your pastor. What’s cool with me is they come for me for the jet or the island or the money or the other stuff. And they’re gonna get all that. I want them to have all that stuff, but then they’re gonna hear this other thing that they didn’t expect to hear. And I’m hoping that maybe that I can reach people to some extent that God’s using me to potentially reach people that maybe not everybody else can get to the other. You know? So that’s a, that’s a, you know, really significant thing in calling for me.
EM (16:10):
And I just, you know, I hope that I’m, I hope that I’m bold enough. I hope that I’m becoming more and more bold with it. It’s never that I’ve not been willing to be bold. It’s that I’ve sort of learned to express it more as I’ve gotten a little bit older and I just love the Lord man. Like you can’t, you have to conclude when you get to a certain point in your life like, Hey man, I’m not, this is not me. There’s no way this is me yet. I am. I here’s what I really think. I, I believe, you know, broader that I represent a little bit. I think there’s this notion in the world of faith world that you can’t believe in science or facts or details or strategies and still be a person of faith. And then I think secular people think that if you, if you believe in faith that you can’t believe in these other things, I believe in the brain, I believe in brain science.
EM (16:50):
I believe in neuroplasticity, I believe in the re particular activating system in the prefrontal cortex of your brain, brain and visualizations and neuroplasticity. And I believe in epigenetics, I believe in all these different things. I just happen to believe there’s a holy God in heaven that created all of it. I just happen to believe that I know where it comes from. And so I’m both a person of faith and a person of science. And by the way, oftentimes my faith confirms the science and my science confirms the faith. And so amen. Maybe that’s too deep, but I write about it in the book.
RV (17:20):
Yeah. So let let’s let’s talk about the book for a second. Y’all your story is moving ed. Like, can you take, just take us back to your dad? Yeah. Like the relationship you have with your father is like your earthly father I’m talking about is a important part of your life. It’s an important part of this book. And can you just talk about like where you started in your relationship with your dad and how that evolved and how did that influence the direction of the book?
EM (17:49):
Everything. And like most people were influenced by who raised us. Right? So I wrote the book after my dad died last year and it’s called the power of one more because my dad embodied this. My dad was an alcoholic. The first 15 years of my life was not living a great life. I believe so deeply that humans can change because I watched my hero do it. I watched my own father live, not as a great father or husband for the first 15 years of my life. And then I made, he made one decision and gave one more, try to get sober. Then my dad stayed sober the second half of his life and lived as magnificent of a life on earth as anybody I’ve ever watched in my entire 50 years on the planet. So I know humans can change because my dad made that one decision to get sober and everything that I am I’ve learned from my dad.
EM (18:33):
I really do believe the premise of the book is this. That you’re a lot closer to the dream life that you want than you think you are. And the fact that you think you’re so far away causes you to pace yourself like it and keeps it in the distance. But what if it’s true that you’re one decision, one relationship, the ultimate relationship is with your heavenly father. One thought one emotion, one meeting, one guy meet Rory. Rory meets me to completely changing your life. And then the question becomes if I’m right about that, and I know I’m right about that, then what are the two books I always carry with me are my book, the power of one more and think and grow rich think and grow rich is my second favorite book. Other than my scriptures. I love it. Having said that you don’t just think and get rich.
EM (19:14):
You have to do things. And so I wanted to write a book that told you what are the thoughts? And then what is the, the collective action that you do in congruency that create, change the thought. And then the action doing them together is what creates the change. I’m just tired of reading books, Rory, that it’s the same it’s think and grow rich, written a little bit differently. I wanted a book that’s modern and profound and links, faith, but also links the brain strategies you need in the techniques and the habits and the goal setting. How do you create standards? What’s equanimity, right? What’s the particular activating. What’s the matrix of your life? How do you build self confidence? What’s your identity, all these different things in the book. And I’ve done that because my dad, I learned these things from, and every day I believe in one more try. I believe in redemption. I believe that, you know, you’re saved. Not because you’re perfect, but because of God’s grace in your life and that no matter what age you are, what mistakes you’ve made or what baggage you’re carrying around, bankruptcy, divorce, a sin, you’ve had something you’re ashamed of. You can drop those bags at any moment in one decision in one moment and completely change your life. I watched my dad do it. The, if that’s true, then how do you, how do you, and that’s why I wrote the book is the, how do you,
RV (20:25):
Yeah, it, it, it is, it is fire. You know, I, I got obviously a little insider preview to a lot of this in these interviews, but you’re like the, the concept of identity mm-hmm is just, just one in and of itself of like what you believe, who you believe you are, has everything to do with like who, who you become. It’s just like, what you’re talking about is we go, if I feel like I’m an impossible distance away, I don’t even take a step. Yep. But if I believe that I am, I am one relationship away. And yeah, like I think that there’s a part of this that feels like I’m writing this story right now. Like John Gordon sent one email to say, ed, I, I don’t know why, but I think you should talk to Rory. And like, we’re not exactly sure how this is gonna play out. I mean, we know your book’s gonna crush it, but like, it feels like God is orchestrating something here and going like, man, that is one email and one relationship away that that has been our story with Lewis. I have never told you the full story about Lewis, but that one relationship change the trajectory of our, of our life. And so if I believe that now all of a sudden I can take that next step. Like just that premise alone is massive.
EM (21:37):
Well, the identity, part’s huge. It’s a, it’s the thermostat of your life. Your identity is sitting on the wall of your life and, and it it’s, it regulates everything. So it’s what you believe you’re worth. You’re going to get. This is a fact. So if you’re a 75 degree of wealth or happiness or faith and your results begin to exceed at 80 95, a hundred, you will find a way to subconsciously sabotage it and turn the air conditioner back down to get what you believe you’re worth. It’s a fact. I watch people, people think it’s coincident. Oh, I lost my money cuz of the market or my car broke down. I had to loan someone. Nope, not you turn the air conditioner on and you got it back to what you believe you deserve. So this identity thing is huge to heat up to 85, 90, a hundred, 120 degrees.
EM (22:15):
So that your results, your faith, your happiness, your abundance continues to grow. You will never exceed your identity ever, no matter what skill, what business, what real you gotta grow your identity. The question is, how do you do it? And in the book I go through detailed what I call the trilogy of identity. The first part of identity, believe it or not is faith. If I come from a all-knowing all loving God who made me in my image and likeness, aren’t I supposed to do something great with my life. There’s so many believers. They, they got God on Sunday. They got God on, you know, Bible study on Wednesdays. But when they walk into a boardroom or a sales call or a meeting, they’re alone, they forget all about it. Wow. And then their identity reduces. But if I’ve got Jesus with me right on my shoulder, he’s got my back.
EM (22:56):
Every single call, every single podcast, every single meeting, man, my identity, can’t be 75 with Jesus impossible. Second thing of your identity intention. You have to start to give yourself more credit for your intent. Too. Many of you are basing your identity on your ability or what you’ve achieved or who you are. And you’ll always be chasing it. In other words, it’ll never catch up. But what if you started to say, I intend to serve. I intend to do good. I intend to make a difference with this customer of mine or this client of mine or with my social media or with my brand. My intent is to serve right before we started. I swear to you. I say a quick prayer connect with my faith. Lord help me serve because I’m connecting to my intention, man. My identity goes through the roof cuz I know two things.
EM (23:34):
I know Jesus has my back. And number two, I know I intend to do well. I intend to serve third part of it is association. Who are you around? If you’re a 75 degree or, and you’re around somewhere 120 degrees of financial identity or faith, they will heat you up eventually through proximity to their thermostat setting. So if you combine faith intention and, and association, you can shift this identity and then your thermostat setting on your entire life. By the way you have a happiness thermostat too, you could start to achieve all the external stuff. You could even be a church going person or have all kinds of, but you’re just not any happier than you used to be. It’s because you’ve got a thermostat setting of happiness that was installed in you when you were a child at 75 degrees and you just reinforced it all your life with all these references. So I teach you how to change that in the book. So there’s all types of thermostat settings we have.
RV (24:24):
Yeah. I mean that is so huge. And, and what you hit on and I just want to Edify for everybody is this book strikes the balance of this thought and action. It’s the intersection of this high level sort of cerebral and science and visualization. And then also the practicality, the, the pragmatic nature it’s it’s palatable, right. Is to go, what do I do if I want to raise my identity, I need to remind myself of my faith and my creator. I need to remind myself and set the right intention. And I need to associate with the right people that takes such an obscure concept, like identity and makes it real. And that’s why y’all you, you need to go buy this book like, and, and buy the book now. I mean, you don’t get a chance to learn from somebody like ed and just even to pull out, like for someone like him to take a whole lifetime worth of lessons and, and dump it out. And I mean, the thing that blows me away is it’s like it’s 20 bucks or 25, 20 $8. It’s insane. Yeah.
EM (25:34):
It is brother and I wrote the book when my dad passed because you know, it dawned on me in that moment that I’m the next one, you know, I’m gonna pass someday. And I think, you know, Napoleon hill says in think and grow rich begin with the end in mind, you know what? That’s for a goal that’s true in life. Begin with the end in mind and work your way backwards. And so for me, I thought, you know what? I want my great grandkids to know what I thought about life. What I learned about success and happiness. And I wanna write about it until I’m dad and gone. And the truth is, if you wanna know the power of one more, let me take it from you. You wanna know the power of see the whole premises. If you’re gonna be in the gym, doing 10 reps, do 11, you’re gonna be 30 minutes on the treadmill.
EM (26:17):
Do one more. You’re gonna tell your sweet daughter. You love her. Tell her one more time a day, you start stacking up the one mores in your life, right? All of a sudden you’re a different human being. Self-Confidence is the process of keeping the promises you make to yourself. It’s a relationship with you. And when you have a reputation with yourself that you keep the promises you make to yourself, you are a self confident person, long term, but if you wanna be a world class achiever, build a relationship, a reputation with yourself where you do one more than you promise yourself. And all of a sudden you’re a monster of achievement, but you know what that power, my favorite thing to do, man, was play golf with my dad. And neither one of us are good golfers, but it was five hours with my hero and my best friend right next to me in the golf cart.
EM (27:01):
And we would talk deep about life and politics, which we disagreed on and all kinds of different stuff. Rory, do you know what I would give right now for one more round of golf with my dad? I can’t even tell you brother, one more conversation. I could hug my dad one more time and I can’t, but it shows you the power of how precious one more is. So if you do have someone you love here on earth, what if you started to look at her? Like what? This was my one last conversation with her. What if, when your wife walks in the room, what if, what, what was the last dance? What if was the last dinner? What if only had one more? What if you started to look at that call that sales call? What if this is my last shot? I only have one more.
EM (27:48):
When you begin to take the one more away, you start to understand the power of it. And so the power of it when it’s absence is magnified, the good news is we are still here. If you’ve had someone pass away and you can’t have that conversation, honor them with your life. But if they are here, make it more precious. It does matter. And I don’t know how many more you get to talk to your parents, but I know it’s not infinity. And so take advantage of the times that you have with the people that you love. Take advantage of the opportunities. Look for the relationships. Look for the decisions. Look for the thoughts. Look for the meanings. I just had to play golf, talking about money. I played golf two weeks ago. I’m talking about win one relationship in one decision away. I think I told you this, but again, here, the guy goes, Hey you’re gonna play golf with this guy.
EM (28:32):
Net worth are real similar. He did it in a really interesting way. So we first tee, I go, Hey man, I wanna know how you how’d. You build your fortune. He goes about 30 years ago, a guy asked me a $50,000 loan. He actually asked me and my other friend, I gave him the 50 grand. So did my friend, but my friend a week later asked for it back and he got the money back. I didn’t ask for the money back. He goes a 50 grand turn into about 700 million. Whoa. I went say that again. Cause he had about 700 million. I go, who’s the, who’s the guy you loan the money to. He goes some. Do we back in the day named Jeff Bezos I went, you gotta be flipping kidding me, man. That’s an extreme example of one relationship in one decision away from a different life.
EM (29:14):
But in some way, the small ones like that end up stacking up and you really are. Think about if you’re married, that one relationship, how much has changed your life? That one decision to ask her or him out that one decision to get married, that child, you have that one relationship, how much it changed your life. So this ISN’ up for debate. The question then is how do I foster these new relationships? How do I make these new decisions? How do I uncover these new emotions? What are the new thoughts I have to have? What’s the one more thing I gotta do. And if you read the book, you’ll know
RV (29:47):
Where do you want ’em to go? I, I have one last question for you before that though. Where, where do you want people to go? Ed let’s we practiced. We’ve practiced your call to action. Where do you want people to go by the book right now?
EM (29:59):
We, we want you to go to the power of one more.com. That’s where we want you to go, but you can get the book anywhere, but if you go to the power of one more.com, you’re gonna find some cool stuff there as well. And I gotta tell you that if, if I’ve ever believed more strongly in something, I don’t know what it is. I just feel very strongly. I’m convicted that it can make a difference in your life. Whether as a mother, a father, a business person, a leader, an athlete, just as a human being, I think you’ll find keys to becoming more successful and happier. That’s why I call it the ultimate guide to happiness and success. So go to the power of one more.com and get the book. Anywhere books are sold.
RV (30:37):
I love it. Guys, go get the book. I mean, seriously, this is it’s insane. $28 and $30 to have access to somebody like ed, my lead and what’s going on in his head is, is incredible. Ed. The last thing I wanna leave, I, I want to you to leave the audience with is you talk, you have this I don’t know if it’s like a game or, but there’s this thing that you do in your life, where you, you about meeting your potential mm-hmm and like meeting the one, the person one day. Yeah. can you just talk, talk about what that, that, that is. You know what I’m talking about? Yeah.
EM (31:12):
A hundred percent. I do for sure. It’s how I live every day. It’s my dominant thought. We all have a dominant thought. The dominant thought running through my mind is that, listen, I know that when I get to heaven someday, I, all I need is the Lord to go, Hey, well done, good and faithful servant. Get in here. That’s what I want. Right? But I have this hallucination that he made me as image and like this, and there’s a destiny version of me. And I have this feeling. At least I let myself have it that when I do die, you’re talking about beginning with the end in mind. This is what I meant. When I said this earlier, I believe I get to meet the destiny version of me. The man I was born to be the man. He made me to be the guy who had the contribution, the moments, the memories, the feelings, the emotions, the experiences, the difference he made in life. I get to meet that guy someday. And every decision I make as I go through my life, one more decision is to catch that guy. I wanna catch that dude. And when I die and get there, I want him to look back at me and go, Hey, man, I seen you’ve been chasing me all your life. You caught me. And I go, dang. It I’ve been after you forever. To me, heaven. Heaven is I meet the man. I was cable of becoming and we’re identical twins. That’s heaven.
EM (32:16):
Hell is we’re total strangers. And I can’t live with the idea that that might possibly happen. I don’t want that. I wanna meet the man. I was capable of becoming. And so when I’m thinking about making a decision or whether go for it or to have a new relationship, does it move me closer to heaven or not? And if it moves me to closer to heaven, then it’s a step I should take. And that’s why I live my life. Thinking that
RV (32:46):
Now follow ed, buy the book, listen to what this guy’s about. I’m telling you, we I’ve gotten the more I’ve gotten to know him. The more I’ve liked him. I’ve always been a fan. And the closer that we’ve gotten, the more that I’ve I have have developed a respect and a true admiration for this guy. I’m, I’m glad that he is out there in the world, doing what he’s doing, brother. We wish you the best of luck. Thank you for the compliment of being here. Thank you for the privilege of allowing us to play a tiny part in everything that you got going on. And we just wish you the
EM (33:17):
Best. Roy. It’s not tiny. The feelings are at least mutual and I love you. And I’m grateful for you, bro.

Ep 269: Turning Your Struggles into Your Story with Chris Norton | Recap Episode

RV (00:03):
Wow. You can only be more grateful when you hear stories like that, of Chris Norton and what an incredible story and a powerful interview and so many great reminders that extend, you know, far beyond, far beyond what we’re doing in terms of building a business and building a personal brand to just being grateful for life and, and being grateful for the ability to walk and put your clothes on and go for a run and throw your kids up in the air. And I just, I love, I love it’s. One of the things I love about this industry is that you meet so many people that are like that. I mean you know, we just, I have friends that have overcome so much you know, our friend Hal Elrod died one of our friends, Danny Bader, that is a brand builder member.
RV (00:57):
He, he died for a few minutes, like we’ve got you know, John O John O’Leary is one of my dearest friends. I just love that man. And he was burned on a hundred percent of his body and he just, you hear these amazing stories of people just overcoming and it’s just such great, great perspective on life and business, and, and then watching people of like that turn their, turn, their pain into purpose, right. Turn their struggle into their story. And what a beautiful moment to, to, you know, see someone like Chris, be able to go through something so hard and now know that he’s traveling the world, telling the story about how he overcame that. And through that he makes enough money to provide for seven children, six adopted and one foster at this point. But they’ve, they’ve did you catch that in the interview where he talked about, they have had 19 foster kids that, I mean, that’s incredible how that’s extraordinary and just super inspiring.
RV (02:07):
So if you didn’t listen to the, the interview about Chris, go back and, and, and listen to it, make sure you hear this story about how his life changed in a minute in a second, a split second. He got paralyzed in, in a football game and, and it changed his whole life. But for me I’ll just share my big highlights, some of the biggest reminders that really stuck out to me. First of all, th this one, you know, I grabbed, I, when I was taking notes, when I was listening, I, I didn’t realize that I would come back and, and grab this, but this was kind of a quick moment and a subtle moment when, and Chris was telling a story, but I looking back through my notes, I realized how monumental of a decision. This is in a split second.
RV (02:58):
And so happens is, you know, he, he gets paralyzed. He has a four hour surgery. The next day he wakes up, he’s coming out of you know, he’s basically coming back to consciousness and he asks the surgeon, am I ever gonna walk again? And the surgeon says, you know, you only have a 3% chance of even in being able to move, let alone walk, like being able to move a finger or an arm, let alone walk. And and the, the split second decision that he made, which he kind of buzzed right through when he was telling the story was, he said, you know, I decided that I was gonna do whatever it takes to be a part of that 3%. And, and he kind of just like tapped on that. But thinking about it after to me is like, that is that, that pivot point moment, right?
RV (03:54):
Where in, in it’s basically like his entire future was going to head in one of two directions based on basically a subconscious calculation, a subconscious decision that happens in this, this one moment of hopelessness to go either. I’m going to allow my nearly guaranteed fate to just take its course and be the 97% or to choose in a split. Second, I’m gonna be a part of the 3%. I am going to have a life that is different than most people in my situation, that I am going to find a way to do whatever it takes to become someone who achieves and has the thing that most people don’t have. And you might not ever be paralyzed. I hope you’re not. I hope you never find yourself in any kind of, you know, desperate and dire situation like that. But the thing that we all have in common with Chris is that all of us have to make those decisions.
RV (05:00):
We have to make that decision. At some point in our life, we have to make that decision to go. I don’t care what the statistics say. I don’t care what happens to the majority of people. I don’t care about how improbable or unlikely or impossible that this journey may be on. I’m going to do whatever it takes to be in that top 1%. I’m going to do whatever it takes to be the exception to the rule. I am willing to do whatever it takes to break free of the pack of the norm of the average of the statistics. And I will go out and achieve and, and, and, and have, and conquer the things that I feel called to have you made that decision, like listening right here right now, have you made that decision in your life?
RV (06:03):
Have you already come to the conclusion? Have you already arrived at the commitment to say, I don’t care what it takes? And I don’t, I don’t care what has happened to everybody else, whatever it takes is what I am willing to do, because that is a requirement of greatness. It’s a prerequisite of success. It is an absolute necessity. You can’t have it without that. Excellence is never an accident. It is always a decision. Have you made that decision? So that was a great reminder for me, the second thing. And he said this several times, which was just, you’ve heard this before. I’ve heard this before. I’ve said it before. You’ve probably said it before. But to, to reexperience this in the realness of the situation that Chris was in, is he talked about being focused on what you can do, not worrying about what you can’t do. And, and, and not just, not only worrying about what you can’t do, but not count don’t count what you can’t do. Don’t measure what you can’t do. Don’t all the things you can’t do. Don’t focus on the things you can’t do. Don’t don’t think about the things you can’t do. Don’t allow yourself to be consumed with what you can’t do, rather instead, focus on what you can do.
RV (07:43):
Think about what you can do, plan what you can do, appreciate what you can do. Take action on what you can do live in what you can do, appreciate what you can do. Sit in gratitude and revel in gratitude and revel in the marvelous wonder of everything that you can do. If you do that, you’ll be happy. You’ll be grateful, no matter what your situation is. And that hit me so much when he was saying, you know, people walk up to me on the street, you know, even now, and they just say, oh, I feel so, so sorry for you. And, and I would too. I do too. When I, I see people and, and he nailed it, right? It’s that happens because we’re projecting our fears are, we’re like our insecurities of what, how we would maybe respond in that situation. But I don’t get even a shred even, I don’t even get a sliver of sense that Chris is unhappy.
RV (08:50):
I mean, definitely was a dark road there, right? I mean, he talked about every bit of, it sounds like it took every bit of four years to, to get out of that, but like where he is today with kids and impacting lives and running a business and you know, married and getting to speak and do the things that he wants to do. I mean, I don’t get a, a sense of all that he’s unhappy and that’s because he’s focused, he focused on what he can do. He continues to focus on what he can do. He’s grateful for what he has. And that’s inspiring to me to go, how much should I, how much more in my life could I afford to be that way? Like, there’s so much that I have in my life that other people and have, and I so quickly and easily overlook them.
RV (09:41):
And, and there’s, there’s even so many things I have in my life today that were faint dreams of what I had when I was younger. That would be it, it would be impossible. Things that I never thought would become true that are my actual reality every day. And I step over them as if they were nothing. I look past them as if they weren’t even there. I don’t even stop for a second to say, thank you, God. Thank you, wife. Thank you friends. Thank you family. Thank you kids. Thank you. Business partners like you for what I have
RV (10:25):
And, and Chris does, and that’s, that’s what part of what makes him amazing and, and just extraordinary and inspiring. And so I hope you’re doing that. I hope you’re doing that. I hope you’re not stepping over those things and taking the smallest, the smallest, smallest things for granted. And and then the third thing, which again, is something you’ve heard before. Something you’ve probably said, certainly something I’ve heard something. I talk a lot about that. We talk a lot about at brand builders group, but it hits different in the context of a real life situation like this, which is the power of service, the power of service. There is something so deep and profound and, and powerful AB about a spirit of service. And when Chris shifted his conversation, like in his own mind, when he SHA changed his thoughts, when he started realizing that his actions and his behaviors were affecting other people that gave him the fuel to keep going.
RV (11:45):
And it is, I believe this is the well that we all want to be drawing from. This is the source that we want to pull, like, you know, our inspiration from, and that we wanna pour, pull our motivation from, because if it’s money, you’ll get some money and it’ll wear off. If it’s, if it’s fame, you’ll get some fame and you’ll realize it’s not that big of a deal. Like, but if, if you are J genuinely concerned about contributing to the betterment of humanity, if, if you are actually deeply aware of the impacts that your behaviors and your attitudes, even, and your thoughts but certainly your actions and your behaviors have on the people around you, it causes you to live differently, to live, to live more aware, to be more alive, to be more astute. And, and also to be more powerful, to be more commanding, to be, to be more bold, to be more confident, to have more perseverance or right.
RV (12:57):
It’s easy to let ourselves down. It’s tremendously difficult to let down somebody else it’s so much more inspiring and compelling to, to want to benefit other people. And so if you can find a way to live in that spirit of service every day for your life and for your business, you can overcome just about anything. Chris is a real life example of that, but when we’re burn out, when we’re scared, when we’re tired, when we are exhausted, when we’re overwhelmed, we’re only thinking about ourselves in those moments, we have completely lost sight of how our life has value in the con has the most value when it is placed in the context of another human life.
RV (13:52):
When we’re present to that, the pain, the challenges, the difficulties they wan, they, they, they start to lessen. They don’t go away, but they, they pale in comparison to the positive impact that we’re having on somebody else. As, as we say, around here a lot, there is no fear when the mission to serve is clear. So are you clear, are you clear on who you’re serving and not just, are you clear, but are you present to it? Are you mindful and conscientious and deliberate and intentional and aware and focused on who you are serving and realizing the,
RV (14:52):
The echo that your IM that your behaviors have on their life. Because if you are, then you’re probably operating from a place of endurance and perseverance and strength and persistence, because it’s not so easy to give up when, you know, there’s someone that’s to, depending on you. And so we gotta get present to that. We gotta get present to the idea, you know, these three ideas, we gotta get present to the idea that I’m going to commit to being different from the ordinary, that I am going to pay attention to what I can control and not worry about what I can’t control and that I am going to place my life in the context of others through the way of service in that these decisions will help me be more grateful. These decisions will give me more endurance. These decisions are the decisions that lead to success to achieve my it conquering, but even bigger than that, they li they lead to happiness and they lead to peace.
RV (16:04):
So I hope you were inspired as much as I was by the Chris Norton story. And by all the stories of all the great guests that we have here every single week, if you haven’t yet, please go leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher, wherever you listen. So that O other people know what they can experience, what they can expect to experience the kinds of amazing stories, just like this one that they will hear if they, to subscribe to this podcast and share this episode, like this episode, specifically share this with somebody the, who needs encouragement and inspiration and, and send this to them, and just either send them the link or go onto iTunes and, and copy the link from there and send them and say, listen to this episode. And this story about Chris Norton have a great one. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 268: Turning Your Struggles into Your Story with Chris Norton

RV (00:02):
Well, one of the joys of my life of being a speaker is that I get to see other speakers and my entire life I’ve come across speakers, who I’ve gotten to know personally who have climbed Mount Everest and walked out of the Andy’s mountains on barefoot and won, you know, national championships and world championships, Epson just overcome really amazing things. And today I feel like I’m, I’m meeting one of those people for the first time. You’re about to meet Chris Norton. We new friends, so we’ve never even talked. But I have been familiar with his story. He knows my friend Tyler Dickerhoof and you know, a lot of the same people and some of the same circles that we’ve been. We’ve been hanging out with David nurse. And I’ve heard really great things about Chris and he had a a spinal cord injury when he was playing college football and lost all feeling and movement from his neck down.
RV (01:02):
He was only given a three chance of ever really moving and walking again. And it was, you know, clearly a, a difficult and dark moment in his life. But with the support of his friends and family like you know, his, the love of his life, Emily Chris proved the Dr. Wrong. He walked across the stage at graduation and the video of that went viral like around, around the world. And later he walked his, his bride, Emily seven yards down the aisle at their wedding. So his story has been published in, in a book. It was been a documentary about his life story is out right now on Netflix and Amazon prime and apple TV. It’s called seven yards referring to the seven yards of Chris walking, his wife down the aisle, seven yards, the Chris Norton story. And he is a, a, a really fast rising speaker and just an awesome guy. It’s a Chris, it’s great to meet you. Welcome to the show.
CN (02:07):
Yeah. Thank you, Rory, for having me and for that great introduction. And it’s just an honor to talk with you and I’ve heard so many great things about yourself, so great to be here.
RV (02:17):
So tell me your, so tell me this story, man. So you are living the dream. You’re playing college. One, one moment. You’re playing college football and then in a second it changes.
CN (02:28):
Yeah, absolutely. So I’ll take you back. 11 years ago, freshman year Luther college in decor, Iowa live the dream. I had these big plans for myself, be this all American football player, meet the girl, my dreams. And then I was hoping to make enough money to on a lake house or better yet the girl of my dreams family already on lake house. But then you know, life happens and it was during the sixth game of my college football season, a third quarter were mounting a comeback. So I ran out to the field and a kickoff and the kicker huddles us up. He calls a play mortar kick, right. Which is simply a, a short, high arching kick to the right side of the field. And I don’t know why would, didn’t just call it kick, right? Because our kicker was so bad. Every kick was short and high arching, but yeah, anyway, you know, I’m pumped because I play on the right side of the field.
CN (03:23):
So it’s my opportunity to make an impact. That’s why I line up the boss kicked. I sprint down, feels hard as I possibly can go. I see an opening for me and my instincts are telling me that ball carrier, he’s in, try running through that gap. I gonna stop. I’m gonna drive my shoulder so hard through his legs. He’s gonna drop the ball. I go for it. I collide with him at full speed, full force, but I miss time my tackle by a split second, instead of getting my head in front of the ball, carry my head, cor collides, right with his knees in an instant, I was all feeling a movement for my I’m. Listening to the players, crashing to each other above me. Now the whistle blows, the pile clears off, but I can’t get up no matter how hard I try to push through my arms and onto the ground, nothing is working. I was completely conscious. Not in any pain, just couldn’t move. It felt like someone just flipped the power off to my body. And what I didn’t know at the time was I just suffered a severe spinal cord injury in my life was about to drastically change.
RV (04:39):
So the was the reason you weren’t any pain was just cuz you lost all feeling.
CN (04:46):
Yeah. So your spinal cord the, the nerve nervous system, it communicates with your brain. So pretty much it got almost completely severed where even all pain feeling, everything was disconnected temporarily from the neck down. So that’s why I couldn’t feel any pain, anything, no movement was because of the damage done to the spinal cord.
RV (05:11):
Wow. So, so what happens next? So they clearly, they wheel you off the field. You start going to doctors and getting tests and like when, when when’s the first time that you hear that you’re not gonna be able of the walk again.
CN (05:26):
Yeah. I’m flown out to Mayo clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Get x-ray all these tests done to get me ready for surgery. And it was right before surgery. I haven’t been asking questions. I’ve been too scared to ask, like what’s gonna happen because I wanted to make sure they had all their, all the information that they needed to give me the best answer possible. At least the most informed answer possible. And when I asked the surgeon right before I put the slate, you know, Hey, will I walk again? And in my mind that’s a huge compromise. I, I was, you know, praying and bargaining with God. Like, Hey, I will give up sports. I don’t need to play another sport in my life, which at the time, like that’s a huge deal. Like I, I was an athlete. That was my identity. I love competition.
CN (06:14):
I love competing and the weight room, everything involved with athletics. I love, and I could give that all up, but just let me walk. And when I ask him that I could just see in his face, the answer was no. And he just looks down at the ground and says, I don’t know. And then I’m put to sleep after that. And I, when he said that too, I just started crying. Like I lost it. I was like really holding it in trying to be tough, trying to be strong, trying to be optimistic that things are gonna be okay, it’s gonna work out because leading up to this point, everything always worked out for me. I never had gone through anything. Life altering, not even, not myself or even people close to me. It just wasn’t on my radar that something like this could happen to me. I thought it happened to people you read about in the newspaper, you watch on television, but not my life. I thought I was immune to that and it was just my world was just shattered in that moment. And then I wake up the next day blurry.
RV (07:17):
So how long were you, how long were you in surgery?
CN (07:21):
The surgery lasted about four hours. Wow. And then I, I wake up, you know, the next day, you know, groggy, blurry, eyed thinking. I just had the worst nightmare of my life. But then, you know, the surgeon comes in and confirms my worst nightmare is now my new reality. And he says, Chris, you have a 3% chance to ever move or feel below the neck. And that’s not a 3% chance to walk. That’s a 3% chance to move or to feel, to scratch and itch on your face to feed yourself. And it was just so surreal. I, I could hardly process it because yes, at this time I was walking now I was suiting up for my college football game. And then all of a sudden I’m lying in the hospital, paralyzed from my neck down with a 3% chance to ever move or feel again. And I’m.
RV (08:12):
And so you can’t move your, you can’t move your hands, your toes, you can’t raise your arm. You’re just completely still, but totally conscious and full mentally aware.
CN (08:22):
Yeah, completely. Wow. Like I know how to move my body. Like I know what it takes to, you know, move my hand in my face or to adjust my leg or pull the covers up. But like literally nothing would respond or work. I felt like I was ahead detached for my body and just looking at the rest of body, it was just a foreign object because I had no connection to it at all.
RV (08:48):
So the doctor tells you that. So that happens like within a day or two. And then, and then how long are you in the hospital? And like, when do you, when do you come home? Cuz I have to think it starts to really become real when you leave the hospital and like your whole life is different. I mean can’t shower, can’t eat, can’t get dressed.
CN (09:10):
Yeah. It was a, a slow than just kind of a grind from that moment on of I’m gonna do whatever it takes to get a little bit better. I’m gonna be part of that 3%. I won’t be that 97% who don’t recover from this. And so I just make that commitment of just understanding that, you know, your future will take care of itself when you take care of today. And I kept reminding myself that your future will take care of itself when you take care of today. And so I just kept trying to get a little bit better each and every day. And you know, by the, you know, grace of God and perseverance and grit, family and friends, I slowly started to make a recovery where I had some movement in my legs, some movement in my arms, unable to like walk independently or do much.
CN (09:55):
I depend independence wise. But I was inpatient for about four months outpatient for about three months. And that was all in Rochester, Minnesota, which is about three hours from my home. So when I officially made that move back home in Des Moines, Iowa, it was a huge transition like you’re suggesting going from, you know, your house, you know, my room was upstairs. So I I’ve never been back to my, my bedroom because I can’t it’s stairs. And just realizing all these obstacles that you have to navigate. And the way of life, you have to look at it from an accessibility mindset and of not just being able to breeze over opposite goals. So it was definitely a large change. But thankfully, you know, my parents were very encouraging. They, they pushed me to get outta my comfort zone and they weren’t gonna let me just, you know, stay home and you know, feel sorry for myself.
CN (10:50):
They got me out there and eventually I went back to college, actually the following fall and my buddies became my caregiver and my sister relocated to apartment just off campus to help with a huge transition. And then slowly started to kind of get my life back together. And, and that’s when I started to realize too, like, you know, happiness is not measured in steps, right there there’s people who can run, jump and swim who are unhappy. So, you know, clearly happiness has nothing to do with your fits strength or possession, everything to do with your mindset and your mental health. And I began to, to see those pieces as I kind of got my life back into a new routine.
RV (11:31):
How, how soon did you really embrace that? I mean like, I mean, there’s gotta be, I mean, have to feel like there’s that some there’s like this wave of hopelessness and despair, right. Has to be of like, oh my gosh, like I’m not gonna be running and jumping maybe ever again, maybe walking, never again to, to, to, to then going, well, that doesn’t mean I can’t be happy ever again. And realizing like what you just shared that like, there’s a lot of people who can do those things who are unhappy.
CN (12:05):
Absolutely. so it, wasn’t a flip of a switch. I’ll tell you that and know me talking about it might make it sound easy and it’s not for anybody who’s gone through something life altering, it, it takes time to kind of pick up the pieces and to learn a new, a new way of living and a new beginning really kind of restarting your life. And it, it took years actually for me to come to that conclusion that, you know, I can still live a meaningful life, you know, adversity and failure are a part of life. And if you try holding onto it, it’s gonna Rob you of your future. Now things will never be perfect, but just because you aren’t getting the results you want or living the life you dreamed of doesn’t mean you stop trying, or that’s not a life we’re living for.
CN (12:53):
And so by, you know, getting back out there, getting my education, being with my buddies, starting to date again, met Emily started my own foundation, started speaking. I began to see, you know, I could still live a meaningful life right from my wheelchair. And at first, when I was first injured and even those first couple years, I thought that would be impossible. Like for me to get my life back meant me getting back to walking on my own, no wheelchair. And so if I wasn’t gonna be walking, being in a wheelchair would mean failure. And that for some reason I thought that I would not be a good enough person or I would not be seen as valuable by being in a wheelchair. But I put in my self out there building friendships, relationships starting the business, getting back to others, serving others.
CN (13:42):
I begin to realize, you know, that’s, that was a lie. It’s not true. I was attached to this idea that you have to be walking to live a good life and it’s just not true. And I know it gets portrayed all the time though. I mean, I go out in public, I get P people all the time. I don’t hold it against them, but they’re always like, man, I feel so sorry for you. Oh my gosh, you’re in a wheelchair like, oh man, I, I can’t imagine like they’re, they’re very sympathetic. And I, cause they’re kind of projecting their own fears like onto me that I think about it all the time and that I’m miserable all the time and I’m not like I, I focus on what I can do and, and what people don’t fail to realize too, being in a wheelchair and having a spinal cord injury actually have some CRA perks to it.
CN (14:26):
And in fact, like a couple of my favorite perks is like, you can, there’s no standing in line. Like while people are waiting in line complaining that their feet hurt, their legs are tied. You know, I’m just chilling my chair. Like this is really, or like when you go somewhere, there’s a front row parking spot for like, you get the best parking now where I live in south Florida, it’s really competitive here for those parking spots. You, you hear little things like that and you can’t feel mosquito bytes. I can have 30 mosquitoes on my legs at a campfire now. I don’t feel a thing. It’s awesome. So there’s so many little things that you can find in your life to appreciate if you have the will. And that’s what I’ve really kind of develop the muscle for is focusing on what I can do.
CN (15:12):
Where are the areas that I can influence and make a change and, and not keep my attention on what I, I can’t control or what I, I can’t do. And that’s easier said than done. Obviously, like there are definitely moments where I’m just like, man, this sucks. Like I see my kids playing in the pool. I wanna jump in there. I wanna throw ’em around. I want to play catch with them with the baseball and teach. ’em How to swing a bat. There. There’s so many things, you know, like that are hard and frustrating, but I have to then just go back to okay, what kind of dad can I be? What, what kind of husband can I be? Not the one I wish I could be. You can still be a great dad, even though I’m, I’m not in the pool with him or I’m teaching, ’em how to throw a ball. And so there’s definitely things that you have to just embrace and accept, but that’s that’s life too, right there. There’s things that you have to just learn to let go of, if you wanna live a meaningful, purposeful life.
RV (16:08):
And you said that like the first year or so, was that, was it like a year or two to where you really started to come around? Cuz I can sense that just in talking to you that you, you know, you’re not unhappy, you’re really happy. You’ve got all these great friendships and you’ve got kids and a family, like you’re doing all these great things with your business. Is, is it, was it like a year or two to get to that point?
CN (16:30):
Yeah, it was, it was big, very gradual. You know, it is just little moments that just kept, you know, opening my eyes to that possibility of like, well maybe if I don’t walk, I’ll still be okay. And it takes time. It took, yeah, like I said, years, probably three or four years to really come to terms with that. Probably probably more like maybe four years to really come to terms with that like peacefully where I stopped holding onto this idea of, I must walk and cause I trained all the time I was putting in you know, even with full load of school credits, you know, sometimes six to eight hours of training on top of college and trying to do everything to live a college experience. Like I was obsessed with working out and trying to get my strength back and you know, I’m glad I did.
CN (17:28):
I’m glad I tried it cuz I can look back now and say, you know what? I gave it a try. I tried to get as much strength back as possible. And I, I brought myself a long ways, but it, it just wasn’t in the card. Like at some point you kind of realized Theios in the wall that you need to make a transition, right? You need to make a pivot. And that’s what I did. And I started to focus more on contributing back to others, serving others through my motivational speaking that I love to do. And through my foundation, the Chris Norton foundation, and then we, you know, began fostering and adopting. So I have a load of kids like seven kids right now, bro.
RV (18:03):
Wow, wow. Seven kids.
CN (18:05):
Yeah. And then like documentary and the books. And so I’m just trying to give back, serve others. I feel like I was called to do this and to use my story and my testimony to give people hope and to see the possibilities, even with the adversity that they’re facing, even when their lives have completely been flipped upside down, there is still a way forward. Even it’s not the way that you wanted to go.
RV (18:34):
Wow, man. What a, what an amazing perspective. Like, so, so walk us through like the, a little bit of your personal brand story. Like, so this happens to you. So like what year does this happen? And then is the first like real big development. They filmed you at graduation and that went viral. Was that kind of like the first like, whoa, my story is inspiring. A lot of other people,
CN (19:00):
It actually happened right when it took place with my injury. So my family when I was injured, a lot of people were messaging them. Like, what’s the updates? Like how, how Chris doing today? Like, is there any progress? And instead of messaging back individually, like a hundred people, they started what’s called like a caring bridge page. It’s pretty much just like an online blog set up for families who are updating others on a, when they’re in the hospital or something. So you don’t have to you know, like I said, message everyone individually. So they post updates on what I was doing, what the family was doing, the progress. And people began following that blog very closely. I think it had like 400,000 hits or something of people just following along this story and how people were inspired by my attitude that I was gonna beat the, and I was gonna get better and I wasn’t gonna quit.
CN (19:54):
And stop working and people were writing like, Hey, like I, I stopped going to church. I’m dealing with depression. And after, you know, hearing your story, it’s given the courage to, to get back out there to, to go back to church or to, to find a job or to pick up my, although it may feel broken at the moment. And so when you start reading these stories and you’re being told how, you know, just me trying to get better, I wasn’t trying to be an inspiration. I was just trying to get my life back. But when people are writing to you and saying like, they have a different perspective on life because of how you live yours, like, wow. Like that gave me motivation. That gave me more is cuz there were times when I wanted to give up on myself where I wanted to quit.
CN (20:37):
But when I thought about the other people who were looking to me for inspiration and hope, I didn’t want to give up on them. I, I wanted them to find their own courage through me. And so that’s why I kept going a lot of cases and why I keep even going today. Just feel like there’s an opportunity to inspire others. So that’s all to say that next year. Maybe like a small group, like an FCA group at a high school, like, Hey, can you share your testimony with us? Like how do you stay positive and get through your, your challenges? And so I started just sharing my story just very off hand, just from the hip and people were leaning in, they were listening. They, they wanted to know what I had to say about life and staying hopeful and how to get through adversity.
CN (21:24):
And I liked it. I liked the fact that they, they were leaning in, they wanted to know more and I could, you know, kind of captivate an audience and entertain them and, and give them the tools to, to improve their lives. And like this feels good. And then someone told me, Hey, you know, you can make money by being a motivational speaker. Like what you can get paid to just beat the people on a stage. I thought that was just like a, like an honor or like a privilege just to get up there. And it’s like a free thing. And like, no, like this is something people do for a living full time. And if it’s something you you want to do, you could, you should definitely pursue it. And ever since I heard that and I knew I could, you know, make a living from helping others and living out my purpose, like sign me up. And so I started just speaking everywhere. I could, I mean, anybody who would listen and doesn’t matter how small the group was or how far away I, I wanted to share my story and testimony and it just kind of snowballed into, you know, a business that can take care of my whole family and live comfortably.
RV (22:27):
So yeah. So is the, so with those fairly early speaking engagements, like you, you start out doing ’em for free. How many do you think you did before you started charging? And did you just kind of like, did most of the people find you just from hearing your story from other people and they came to you or did you have some way of contacting them and finding them?
CN (22:47):
Yeah, it’s a little bit of both. So some of it, it was like go for the low hanging fruit, like my old high school and elementary and middle school, like get to speak to them. That’s pretty easy entry point or just a local elementary or church group. I just tried to reach out to as many people that I knew who had a group and that who would want bring in speakers. I, I did a ton of rotary clubs cause I know they would bring in guests and I would say, you know, 95% of those were all free. Just I knew I needed the practice. I needed the at bats. It wasn’t something that just came natural to me. I felt comfortable on stage, but I didn’t have a, I just like charismatic, entertaining way of doing it unless I practiced and worked on it.
CN (23:35):
I started videotaping every single speech so I could go back and watch it as painfully as I was. I knew I had to watch the film and then I, you know, started hiring coaches and people that could help, you know, transform my message and get me even further. And when I realized that, you know, to get more speeches, you have to have a, a killer speech. Like that’s how you get more. It’s, it’s a referral business. And I didn’t wanna depend on my viral moments or my story to, to get me in the door. I wanted my presentation and the transformation that can occur from it to be what opens a door for places. And I knew that was gonna be what would sustain my business long term. So think I’ve gotten good advice, good people around me to kind of point in the right direction and to get it to where he is today. But I don’t wanna my story to be well, it is, you know, what definitely draws people in to wanna hire me. It’s not what lifts my business, it’s the, the presentation and the, the time I feel that I put into it to make it very entertaining and humorous and, and uplifting.
RV (24:50):
And, and so, so talk us through the how does the Netflix thing happen? How, like how, how does a documentary come about? Was that something that you kind of went out and, and were seeking or did somebody come to you and like, what are the mechanics of getting a documentary film and putting it together? And how long does that take? Like the whole, the whole thing?
CN (25:11):
Yeah, it was a long process. It was after my graduation walk, video went viral, a small production company at a Dallas. The photo philanthropy was the name and they loved sharing, uplifting, inspiring stories. Now first they just offered, Hey, we would love, love to give you a gift by just filming your wedding. We would come there, they have, you know, professional cameras and a crew and capture it, maybe put together like a little short, inspirational video for people, but then they just kind of snowballed from that to let’s do a full below documentary. They done two before, so this would be their third one. And it was just the right timing. And so we began, you know, filming, promoting it even before the walk actually. So we named the movie seven yards before I could even walk seven yards. That was a little scary.
RV (26:05):
Wow.
CN (26:06):
But I knew it, it gave me something you for gave me something to really work on. But yeah, it’s a lot of so they’re a small production house. It’s not like a big Hollywood thing where they have a bunch of funding and money to do this or that basically what we had to do. It was a nonprofit. So basically we’d have to fundraise then we’d film a little bit. And then once money ran out, we stopped, you know, try to get some fundraising, get some money. And then once we did, we go out and do some more filming, so really stop and go stop and go strung together over years, really. Wow. Filming in 2017 and the movie came out in 2021 to kind of give you an idea of four years in the making wow. Before it happened.
CN (26:54):
But so we, we kept shooting, kept filming. They put it together, found an agent that would, you know, get, be able to get in the doors of somewhere like a Netflix and apple TV and Amazon prime. And thankfully by the, you know, Chris of God that Netflix wanted it. And so we were able to get it in there. And then at first I’m thinking it’s not a Netflix original. So, you know, some tie titles on their platform have the, the end in the corner and that’s a Netflix original film. They, they give the most marketing and promotion and, and back backing. Well, so this one’s just an independent title. So my mind it’s gonna get on there. It’s gonna get buried. Netflix is loaded with films, docu memories, all these things like no one’s ever gonna see it. And then it just exploded. Like it was on trending and popular. It started to receive thousands of messages of just how encouraged inspired they were from this film. So I was so blown away by the response to that, that film. And I’m so glad that it could get out there and really make a difference to many people.
RV (28:10):
That’s so that’s really, really cool. How much does it cost to, like how much fundraising, like what does it cost to film a documentary? Is it like millions of dollars? Is it a couple hundred thousand dollars?
CN (28:21):
It, I mean, it kind of depends on what you’re using and the different elements to it, but this one would be like 250,000, I think all in when you pay all the people involved, the,
RV (28:35):
All the editing, the equipment, the rentals, the travel, like it’s a ton of stuff,
CN (28:40):
Ton of stuff. And they were able to get it like a 250,000, which is considering, is on Netflix or what’s out there. That is a very low budget film.
RV (28:51):
Wow. That’s really, really cool, man. So like so what now? So what, what next? So you have seven kids. So you normally got married. You’ve, you’ve adopted seven kids
CN (29:05):
Adopted six and then we’re fostering one right now. So we have fostered a total of 19 kids in all. Wow. So that’s something that was a, a passion of my wife that she then passed on to me and helped open my eyes to all the kids who don’t feel loved, who are coming from abusive homes. And they’re either put with a fam foster family, they’re put into group homes, which is, you know, they used to call it orphanages. And now it’s, they’re called group homes. And so we, we just breaks our heart and we hear these stories of these kids needing a home and a place to go. They don’t feel loved and wanted and like they belong. And so try to help them to see their value and how loved they are by by us and by God and everybody it’s been a really neat calling and it’s really made our lives just gives us more me, these kids.
CN (30:01):
And, you know, we kind of went into it. We’re, we’re gonna help them, but you know, they, they give just as much back to you just having them in your lives, they’re all very special and, and unique. So that’s been an incredible thing. That’s and then what’s next though. Yeah. Is sorry, add that too is yeah. Now I’m gonna do a an unscripted TV show now with Netflix of just how to help people find a way forward of how can you pick up the pieces of something life altering and continue down the road. So kind of like a, a fixer upper, but for the soul really is how we are calling it. So we’d like to get this show up and going and find a home for it. But that’s kind of my, my next project outside of speaking, like speaking’s always gonna be, I feel my number one thing. I love doing it, but I also want to get, do some more TV stuff and try to do something reality. TV wise, that’s meaningful and purposeful, and it’s gonna help people’s lives.
RV (31:06):
Yeah. I never, I guess I never even realized that that was how cuz that’s how the book business works. Right? You create a book proposal, get a literary agent, litera agent takes a proposal, shops it to publishers. They give you an advance and then you sell a bunch of copies are not your advance. And then you get royalties, I guess that that’s probably the same way a documentary is. They pay you some amount of money and then based on the streams or something, you get, you earn royalties after that.
CN (31:29):
There’s a lot of different ways to go about it. But that’s probably the basic way is you, you come up with a project and an idea, and then you hope that you get initial funding from like a big streaming platform, like a Netflix where they say, yeah, we want this. And then they’ll give you a budget. They’ll give you directors, producers, they’ll give you kind of a team of that. They kind of want you to work with, and then they let you kind of run with it or you come to them with a finished product. And you try to get that onto their, their platform with when when’s already finished. So there’s different ways to kind of go about it, but yeah, very similar to a book.
RV (32:11):
Yeah. Well that’s awesome, man. So you’re still like just speaking and, and maybe reality TV. Some, I love the fixer upper for your soul. Kind of an idea. I mean, there’s so many people that are hurting and broken and it just, it seems like you’re really just drawn to doing that work.
CN (32:31):
Yeah. I, like I told you about the kind of that transformation for me of thinking, oh my gosh, I’m in a wheelchair. Like my life is now over. I can’t do the things that I want to do. Like the fun has stopped. I’m not gonna be able to do anything exciting. Well, that’s not true. I, you know, I’ve been skiing and I’ve gone on jet skis and concerts and traveling what snorkeling and, you know, scuba diving and like there’s so many things, hiking, mountain climb, like there’s so many things I’ve been able to do and have a family and start a business. There’s that? I’m not like some I’m not cut from a different cloth. Like I’m just I’m from a small town in Iowa, just like, there’s nothing special about me other than just, I just try to focus on the possibilities to try to see way forward.
CN (33:19):
And, and thankfully too, I’ve had good people to help me too, kind of open my eyes to what is possible. And I want to help be that person for more people who feel like, oh my gosh, this life altering thing. Life is over. It stops now. Cause I’m not living the life that I pictured that it would look like. And so I want to break that bear for them and, and with a team of people to show them what is possible and empower them to, to continue to move forward. So that’s again a passion project now that I’m working on that there’s a lot of work ahead, but something that I’m hoping to get going,
RV (33:58):
Where do you want people to go, Chris, if they wanna connect with you and kind of follow your journey, like what’s the best place for them to, to keep up with you these days?
CN (34:05):
Yeah. I mean go to my website, Chris norton.org to learn even more about me and connect, but Instagram and Facebook are probably my two primary places that I update and, and share what’s going on.
RV (34:22):
Wow, man. It, it really is an inspiring story. And thank you for choosing to have that attitude and for continuing to see what’s possible. And cuz it is, it, it inspires me and I know it’s gonna inspire a ton of people, listen to this. And and I can sense you’re just getting started in the impact that you’re gonna have globally with, with sharing your story. So we’re, we’re grateful for, for you and your family and your wife and man, we just wish you the best stay, stay connected with us and, and let us know how we can help and just keep going, brother.
CN (34:59):
Yeah. Thank you. I really appreciate that RO and like I said, it’s be here. Talk with you. I’ve always followed you and looked up to you as a, as a man, as a, as a business owner, husband, father, all those things. And so it’s great to be able to speak with you today.

Ep 241: Beating Your Inner Critic with Dr. Margie Warrell | Recap Episode

RV (00:01):
We tend to fail more from fear and humidity than we do from over daring. That was one of my favorite lines from the interview that I did recently with Dr. Margie today I’m breaking down doing the podcast recap of that episode, sharing with you my top three highlights, um, for on that interview, which was powerful and it affected me. And so I’m excited to share that with you. And, uh, before I dive into that, I wanna let you know of a little bit of a, of a forthcoming change, a little modification that we’re making here with, um, the podcast. It, it’s gonna roll out here over a few weeks, but, um, I’m gonna be doing, uh, this recap by myself and then the next couple by myself, and then starting here in like four or five episodes what’s gonna happen is we’re still gonna do the podcast twice a week, but I will do an interview.
RV (00:54):
And then the, the recap of that interview will be on the same episode as that interview. And then our second episode, every we’ll be AJ doing an interview by herself, uh, with the guest and doing her own recap of her own interviews. So just wanted to let you know about that kind of exciting slight modification just to the way that the episodes are gonna be happening. And so for the next few weeks, you’re gonna see me, um, just by myself or be here in for me just by myself. So, um, on with the recap for this, uh, episode, this interview with Dr. Margie, um, I loved this. This was something that I personally needed and I, I had lots and lots of, of, of great takeaways. And the first takeaway is to what I was just talking about is you have to think of things as an experiment there, like your business is something that you have to view as an experiment instead of like it’s a success or a failure.
RV (01:55):
If you view it as an experiment, it, it puts you in this, this mindset kind of more of the right mindset that it takes to be successful because you go, oh, I’m gonna try things, knowing that some of the things aren’t gonna work and the reason, and knowing that that’s part, that’s part of the plan, like, you know, ahead of time, that it is by design, that you’re doing trial and error, and you’re figuring things out as you go versus this mindset, this mentality of living in this world of like, I have to be successful and everything I do has to work all the time. Otherwise it’s not gonna work. And it’s, it’s kind of this, this, this ultimatum like this, this very ultimate destination that we place ourselves in and this pressure that we put on onto ourselves and, and onto the people around us, like the people that work with us and the vendors and the contractors of like this must work or else, right?
RV (02:51):
Like, or else it’s over or else it’s done or else, you know, I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna be lost. I’m gonna fail. I’m going, I’m gonna let everybody down. And instead of kind of operating with, I, I guess that sort of definitive, it’s saying, Hey, let me view this as an experiment, I’m gonna constantly be iterating. I’m gonna constantly be adapting. I’m gonna be evolving. I’m gonna be trying things and seeing what works and then modifying from there. And that really hit me hard because especially if you’re a, if you’re a perfectionist, like, like I am and I’ll go ahead and claim AJS one too. Um, even though she’s not here, I, I, I feel pretty confident at this point, um, that I could say that comfortably with her and she wouldn’t take issue with it. So that if you’re a, if you’re a perfectionist, you are, are likely to be overly cautious because everything needs to be perfect.
RV (03:48):
Everything needs to be planned, everything. Um, you, you operate from this, this, this very calculated standpoint of like, I want all these things to work the, but, but to what Dr Margie’s point was in that interview, which really hit me, was most of us are, are overly cautious, right? Like the fear being an entrepreneur is, is even like, oh gosh, you know, I don’t know, like that seems like a big risk. And, and, and to some extent it is, uh, certainly riskier than maybe that you a more risk than the average, just the average citizen might take on. But the, that is what holds us back is is that just that kind of fear and that, that need for certainty and precision and accuracy, and for knowing what’s gonna happen before it happens. That is what holds a us back from being able to take the chances, take the risks, make the changes that are really going to, to unlock exponential growth.
RV (04:52):
And, you know, as, as she, she said, we fail far more from timid than we do from over daring. I think that line will stick with me personally from Dr. Margie and, you know, so treat it as an experiment, treat your business, your brand as, as an experiment, rather than like a test that you have to get, you have to get, right. And that there’s like a right or wrong answer. So I thought that was really good. Um, my second takeaway was something that we talked a lot about at brand builders, and it was edifying to me to hear her say the same thing. And this was what she said, you know, verbatim. I had to demonstrate my value before people would pay me. And so we were talking specif about how do you, how do you start your career as a speaker, right. Um, and we tell people all the time, whether you wanna be a professional speaker, like a paid speaker or not, it, it doesn’t matter.
RV (05:54):
Giving free presentations is a huge piece of marketing. It is the, it is the fastest way to take someone from a complete stranger to a lifelong fan is like this, this, you know, a presentation, a, a, a training class. And there’s different things that you call it. You could call it a, a podcast interview. You could call it a webinar. You could call it a video funnel of, you know, three short videos. You could call it a, a, a seven day challenge funnel and have, you know, 10, seven minute videos. Like there’s all these things that you could call it. But the fact of the matter is, is that that people have to have a chance to sample you. They have to have a chance to try you before they buy. They have to, they have to get exposed to you before they can feel comfortable purchasing from you.
RV (06:44):
If they don’t know you, if they don’t recognize you, if they’ve never heard of you. And the fact of, of the matters that most personal brands, like most of us, aren’t that well known. We’re, we’re not, you know, we’re not celebrities we’re, we don’t have millions. And, and the followers, like that’s rare that we’re working with somebody who is in that category. We do have a few clients that are that way, but, but for the vast majority of us, and, you know, perhaps for you is going, how do I give people a chance to sample me before they buy? I internally with all of our, our brand builders, monthly members, we talk about this, this concept that I call chicken on a stick, you know, it’s basically like, it’s exactly when you go to the food court. And you know, when you walk around the food quarter, if you go to whole foods or the grocery store or whatever, and there’s people sampling new food, and it’s always new food.
RV (07:35):
Why? Because you’ve because you don’t yet trust that you haven’t had friends tell you about it. You’ve never bought it. It’s new. And so what do they do? They give you a sample, a piece of chicken on a stick. They say, here, taste this. And, and they know that that is the, the most powerful mechanism that they can, they can leverage to take you from. I’ve never heard of you. I don’t know what this for brand is. I don’t know what this flavor is. I don’t know what this, what this style or this taste is, or, or this product at all to go, oh yeah. Okay. I’ll buy that because you have this meat experience. It is the exact same. It is the exact same thing with your personal brand. People have to have a chance to see ample you, they have to, they have to hear you talk, right?
RV (08:24):
The number one white people always go, well, how do I become a paid speaker, R hall of fame speaker? Like, how do you become a hall of fame speaker? Like, how do you get paid to speak? And the answer is you go speak for free until somebody walks up to you and says that wasn’t credible. I have an event coming up. What’s your fee. I would like you to have. I’d like to have you come speak at my event because they’re sampling you. They’re seeing you. They’re they’re. Um, and, and it’s the whole concept of content marketing in general, but this applies to speaking and it applies to whatever you’re selling. Like, you might be a doctor selling surgeries. You might, you, you might be a, a chiropractor. You, you might be a health food coach. You might be, you know, a consultant of any type, the whole value of social media and podcasting.
RV (09:10):
And all this digital marketing is for people to have a chance to sample you. How, how can you incorporate sample into your business? How can people sample you? And social media is, you know, that’s basically our entire social media strategy and it works right. Is you, you save the best for first. Like we say so often because I’m demonstrating my value so that people can have confidence, but four, they pay me and that’s a switch you have to flip, and you have to constantly remind yourself of as you’re, as you’re building your personal brand, and you’re building your business, uh, going how I have to give value. First, I have to give first, before they give to me, it, it’s not a chicken or the egg. It might feel like a chicken or the egg, but it’s not. It’s very clear people. You need to think of your customers as people who pay you in rears, right?
RV (10:02):
So there’s it. When it comes to paying your bills, you can, you can pay in forwards, or you can pay in rears. So you, you, you know, you pay to pay in forwards means you pay before the service comes to you and you pay ahead of time to pay in res is to say, you’re, you’re paying for a service that you have, you have already experienced. So when it comes to selling yourself, your business, your personal brand, however, you’re monetizing. The thing that you’re doing, you have to realize that people are always paying in res meaning you’re, they’re experiencing you first. And then they’re paying you after. Even if they’re technically paying you for a service that you haven’t yet delivered. It’s kinda like, even though people are hiring me for a, they’re hiring me to give a speech at a future event, they’re really paying after they’ve had some experience with me.
RV (10:59):
They’ve either read my book or they’ve seen my Ted talk, or they watch me most often. I mean, the number one way that people hire me is because they saw me speak at an event. They said that was incredible. That was, you know, worth the money. I’ll pay you to come. I want you to come do the things. So they’re, they’re paying in res demonstrate your value before you ask people to pay, how do you, how do you do this? And here’s the thing. Every company in the world, you know, right now is dealing with virtual and remote work. They need to train their people and motivate them and manage them. And they’re all like virtual or at least part Artley virtual. So they they’re all open to this idea of going, how can I inject training and wisdom and inspiration into my audience? Like, there’s never been a more ripe opportunity or ripe time for you to come infuse your inspiration, your education, your entertainment, your, your encouragement into companies in a way that they would, they will sample you for free.
RV (12:04):
And then from there, that is how they hire you. So just, you can never hear that enough. And, and you years, so many times, so many of our different guests have talked about it, but for Dr. Margie to just like nail that, you know, right between the eyes, as in terms of how she built her speaking career, I just thought was super relevant. And it applies to whether you’re a coach consultant or your professional service provider, or, you know, whatever. Even if you’re trying to just get yourself a raise at work, you have to go, let me volunteer for a project. Let me show you what I can do and earn my way into a promotion or earn my way into a raise, demonstrate the value the money comes after. And most people have that kind of, that totally flipped. Um, and then the third, the third big takeaway for me, which is another kind of fundamental reminder.
RV (12:54):
And it’s another thing you can just never hear enough, which is don’t lose to that little voice inside of your head. Don’t lose to that little voice that tells you you’re not good enough. You’re not smart enough. You, you’re not capable. You have to realize that little voice exists in all of us. And most people who lose in life, they don’t lose to the fact that they, they actually weren’t those things. They lose to the little voice who said they were those things before they ever even tried before they ever even gave it a shot before they ever even had in that bat or took the swing or took a shot. And they lost to the little voice. Most of us don’t lose to what happens in our life. We lose to the idea of what might happen before it ever even happens before it ever has a chance to succeed.
RV (13:52):
That little voice is holding people. Hostage. It is, is it is keeping them from shining their light as Dr. Margie said. And, and that that voice is, is just the voice of fear that, that, that voice was planted in you for protection to keep you safe from danger. But there’s a big difference between danger in fear. Danger is something that could actually threaten your livelihood, but the brain doesn’t delineate really so much that from fear, which is something that is new and uncertain and being successful is about stepping into things that are new and uncertain and outside of comfort. And so if you ever wanna to be successful at anything, you have to learn to conquer that little voice until you conquer that voice, you can’t do anything. You’ll be held hostage and captive to your imagination, working in the wrong direction, which is how I describe fear.
RV (14:54):
I say that fear is your creativity working in the wrong direction. And it doesn’t mean your, your, it doesn’t mean that your something is wrong with you. It means that you are perfectly functioning human, that your brain is trying to protect you from something that could be dangerous. But, but very few of the things that we are pursuing in terms of goal are, are dangerous. They’re just unknown. That’s mostly what fear is. It is, it is the unknown. It is the uncertain. And yet you have to learn to conquer that step. And if you can’t defeat that voice, you don’t have a cheat ants. You’re losing the battle before you, before you even step on the, on the field, right? Like, so we, we treat that, uh, I love what Dr. Margie said when she said, we treat that little voice as if it’s the truth, but it’s not the truth. It’s just your creativity working in the wrong direction. It’s just your brain’s defense mechanism to, you know, that is there appropriately to prevent you from danger, which is inappropriately preventing you from doing something new, and that is standing in your way, but to become successful in life, to achieve your goals, to change the world, to do the impossible, to have the thing you have never done will require you to decide and defeat that little voice over and over and over again.
RV (16:27):
Our hope is that one of the reasons that you come to this podcast every single week is to, to get that encouragement, to help you overcome that little voice, to get you that encouragement that says, Hey, you’ve got permission around here to experiment and to get that encouragement to go, Hey, you’ve you, you’ve got permission to go give value into the world before you ask people to pay. These are three of, of probably the most timeless tenants and, and most, most important principles of the, of all the kind of concepts that we talk around at brand builders captured right here in this interview with Dr. Margie, as a living example of someone who embodies these things. And, um, we’re honored to call her a friend and a client and to hold her up and say, you know, look, look what this woman has done. Like look at the career that she has built for herself all by, by treating it as an experiment, being willing to demonstrate her value first and learning to conquer that little voice of fear. Our invitation is for you to do the same. Hey, if you would share this podcast with somebody who you think needs to hear it and keep coming back week after week, we’re so excited that you’re here. We’ll catch you next time on the influential old, personal brand.

Ep 240: Beating Your Inner Critic with Dr. Margie Warrell

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):
I am always amazed at the people that we get a chance to meet at brand builders. And every once in a while, we just meet somebody who just kind of captures us and goes, wow, how do we not know each other? And how do we not know each other yet? And that is how I feel about Dr. Margie war, who you’re about to meet. So she is a five times bestselling author. She is a Forbes columnist. She’s a world renowned advisor on leadership and human potential. And she works with companies like NASA and Google and Deloitte and Berkshire Hathaway. And she’s a speaker. She does consulting and really has just spent 25 years doing research and kind of just working in the field to help people boost their, their courage and elevate performance and accelerate their growth. So she also lectures at Columbia and Georgetown, and she’s been on, you know, the New York times and several other success magazine today show and is, is just awesome. And we got a chance to meet here, not that long ago, visa brand builders group. And as I got to learn more about her, I felt like you needed to hear her story. So Dr. Margie to the show.
MW (02:03):
Rory it is awesome to be with you always .
RV (02:08):
So tell us your story about how you got started in, in this space. You know, I, I, and, and correct me if I’m wrong. So the way that we understand now is like a, a big part of your business model is from speaking and you know, driving revenue in the last several years from speaking, but you also traveled a bunch internationally. You were a mom, like you had a lot of things going on that I think people often would go if I had those things going on, I probably couldn’t build the kind of career that you’ve been able to build. So give us a little bit of that background.
MW (02:46):
Yeah, well, I, I, I think I, as you can probably tell from my accent, I’m from the deep, deep, deep, deep, deep south the land down under, so yeah, I, I grew up in Australia and I went off to university first in my family to do so studied business, started a corporate career and did a lot of backpacking, also in my twenties, but in my late twenties, while living in P and new Guinea and working there, I just, you know, numerous personal challenges, struggles trauma, cetera. I changed career path and decided I wanted to work in the field of helping people deal with the stuff that keeps us from really thriving and living the lives. We are born to live and becoming all that we are born to be. And, and so I went back to co I did psychology, and then someone said to me, you know, Margie, you’ve worked, you’ve done some consulting.
MW (03:44):
You’ve, you’ve worked in business. You, you should think about coaching. And I, I remember laughing and saying, oh my gosh, do you know how uncoordinated I am? It’s just, I’m so not athletic. I don’t know why you think I would be a good coach. and I mean, this was in the early days of coaching, but of course I found out what they were talking about was not, you know, being a a soccer coach. And I, I started while I moved to the United States in between all of this and having my four kids and living in Dallas, Texas, I started my own coaching business. But Rory, I , I realized very quickly that you can have a coaching business and no customers, if no one knows who you are. And I was new to America, I had zero, zero network besides a few moms in the neighborhood.
MW (04:31):
And so it was really, I was, everyone knew me as the stay at home mom with four kids. And for me, it was, how do I, how do I do what I really wanna do when no one knows who I am? And so that’s where actually I started speaking for free anywhere and everywhere that would have me, ah, to try and get some coaching clients. And and so I was just super excited if people would sign up for a free coaching session at the end of me giving a talk at like, you know, it could have been a club or it was American business women’s association, or companies would do free brown bag lunches, and I would speak anywhere and everywhere. And really over time, I, I came to realize the thread that was running through so much of what I would talk about.
MW (05:17):
And part of it was about balance and having difficult conversations and pursuing what lights you up and saying no to what doesn’t. And I realized the thread that was running through it all was, was having more courage and daring to be braver and take a risk and risk rejection and put ourselves out there. And so that led to my first book, which was called find your courage. And it was very much an act of courage for me at the time to write it. I had four kids, seven and under, and I, I wrote it in nap times in the afternoons. And and I had a huge voice in my head that was very loud often saying, who the hell do you think you are to write a book? You know, you’re just, you didn’t get a great education in rural Australia, et cetera. But it was really me, I guess, staring to make a bet on myself and, and, and thinking, you know, I don’t wanna look back one day and think I wished I’d been braver. So that’s kind of the, that was the start of the journey that love, that led me to where I am now.
RV (06:22):
I mean, with, I mean, and I think there’s lots of, I mean, lots of people have those kinds of things. And I mean, four kids is no joke. I mean, keeping, keeping track of four kids and be like, I’m gonna write a book in my spare time, which is nap time. Which, you know, if you have four kids getting a, all four of ’em asleep at the same time might last, you like 17 minutes, if you’re lucky. Oh,
MW (06:41):
No. I mean, it was threats and bribes. Can I just be clear, you stay in your room for one hour until the bell goes, you know, like .
RV (06:49):
Yeah. But so you started that now. I, I, I rarely wanted to highlight cuz this is, you know, part of what we teach at at brand builders, you know, is you gotta go speak for free. I mean, that like, that’s how it starts. You just gotta go speak for free and get people a chance to sample you. So that’s interesting to hear that part of your story. I mean, everybody, I know that is a successful speaker. Like that’s how they started, like you just out there speaking. So I wanna talk about, so you started as coaching business us then became an author and then leveraged off that to get your, your speaking gigs. Is that how you got your first speaking gigs too, was just speaking for free until someone asked you to, if you can
MW (07:27):
Hire you. Yeah. I mean the book, the book came later, honestly, I couldn’t even have con I mean, I think I, I really lack confidence. I had a lot of self-doubt. It’s probably why I spoken so much about self-doubt because I, I doubted myself so much. So the speaking was how I got coaching clients. The book definitely came afterward. But yeah, the speaking was really crucial part of that all. And I hear, sometimes people say, oh, never speak for free. And you know, if you’ve come from being in some big role, you’ve already got some stellar reputation and you are well, you’re already an established brand and entity. Okay. Maybe that will work for you and great, but I would never have got anywhere. Had I been waiting on someone to pay me from the beginning? Cuz no one was gonna pay me cuz no one knew the value that I had.
MW (08:18):
I had to demonstrate at value. And that came from speaking for free. One was demonstrating the insight I had as a coach. People could go, oh, you know what? She’s got some, she’s got some wisdom and some expertise and some ideas that will be valuable to me. And I, and I like her, you know, it’s like kind of establishing that like this is someone that I would trust. And then over time, obviously the more I spoke, I started to actually develop a skill in speaking and kind of tapped into a latent talent that I honestly a gift. I didn’t know I had to be to be truthful. And so
RV (08:53):
How did you get the first, like when you first got paid to speak, was that basically referrals from people who had seen you
MW (09:00):
Speak at that was so, I mean the first time I ever spoke was at my kids’ preschool and then, you know, I, I had a coach, I had a coach. Yeah. And like two people showed up. But the woman who ran the preschool and the cleaning lady, so it was it was very humble or beginning, but the first paid speaking engagement one of my early clients, very early clients and I, I didn’t charge a lot of money. She worked for a big consulting firm and she had said, would you come in and speak there as part of a brown bag lunch, which was free. So I went in there and I spoke to working moms on work, life balance, and someone there was from HR and they said, we’ve got an international women’s day event coming up. We’re looking for a speaker. We would love you to come. We’ve got a, you know, how much do you charge? And I had no idea about fees and I remember saying R how’s $200. Nice. And she was so quick to say, yeah, that sounds great. And I remember thinking, I think, I, I think I went too low
RV (10:03):
yeah, yep, yep. That that’s.
MW (10:07):
But then someone was there and then, you know, I mean, and, and I, all of the paid speaking came from all of the unpaid speaking and then us the book amplified it. And then a lot of media when my first book came out and then, you know, it’s a ripple effect. Right. And you can’t, it’s easy to go. Well, it was one thing I did, but it was, I wrote for a women’s magazine for free. And then someone there connected me into Forbes and I got my own and I started writing for Forbes. And then I ended up with my own column and then, you know, so, you know, it was, and then I landed on the today show and then it was one thing after another, but there wasn’t one clear recipe. I couldn’t say, do this, then do this. It was just continually doing things that I hoped would, you know, make an impact and over time sure enough, you know, all of those little things, those daily strokes of effort, bam, you know, you get to another level
RV (11:02):
Mm-Hmm . Yeah. And so now I wanna talk about your expertise now, cuz it’s like, you know, after that, like the last several years, you really have been very specifically focused on researching around courage and being brave. And that to me is a very relevant conversation here to anyone who’s an entrepreneur or an expert or someone building a personal brand because there’s so many things to be afraid of. Like, I don’t know how to write a book. I don’t know how to go live on social media. I don’t know how to build a funnel. I don’t know how to do a demo video. I don’t know how to reach out to a litera. You’re like, I don’t know any of these, these things. And you know, of course it’s a huge part of what we talk about and teach at brand builders group. But there’s another part of it, which is just straight up old fashioned, like fear mm-hmm what do we need to know about that and getting ourselves past that?
MW (12:00):
I think you’ve gotta give yourself permission not to get it perfectly right. And to take risks and to try things and not have them land brilliantly. You know, you, you don’t know where everything and you are going to iterate and you’re gonna learn and you’re gonna evolve as you go along. And I think a mistake I see people making is thinking that they have to have the perfect plan and the perfectly the perfect clarity even. And yes, it’s great having a lot of clarity and it’s great having some one like you and the brand builders group to provide a roadmap, but still what works for one person isn’t gonna work exa you can’t copy and paste everything. We we’re all different. We, we have different things that we are good at and that we like to do. And I think give yourself permission to experiment and to iterate and to evolve as you move forward, because you’re gonna learn, well, this works for me, but this doesn’t work and that might work for the Margie, but it’s, it’s just not me.
MW (13:02):
Not everyone. I started out coaching, as I said. And I I’ve got friends that have been coaching for 25 years and they’re like, Margie, I couldn’t think of anything worse than speaking. It’s just not my thing. and, and so we are all different. Not everyone wants to write a book. You know, like not everyone loves being on Instagram and doing Insta live, you know, so sure. I think we have to, there’s something things we need to do because they really make an impact. But also just, just also trust yourself and what feels right for you. I . And where do you kind of tend to have the most resonance too, because that’s gonna make an impact in how often you do it, how well you do it, how much you’re learning and, and how successful that is for you.
RV (13:46):
And just kind of the, I hear you saying kind of like the mindset of approaching it as like yeah. Who cares? What happens? Just an experiment, like just kind of like, let’s see, let’s just see what happens and kind of go from there versus all of the pressure of like, it has to be perfect and dialed in and, and if it doesn’t cuz then it’s like, if it doesn’t work, it’s never gonna work. Like I, I, I’m not gonna work cuz we’ve had so much pressure.
MW (14:08):
Yeah. It’s like pressure, you know what? I tried that and you know what, it didn’t land brilliantly, but what did you learn from it? You know, I always looking for, what is the learning? How do I take that learning? And you know, I remember early on Roy, I was living in, in Dallas, Texas and I met someone and she said, oh Margie, you should be the expatriate wife coach, cuz I was a foreigner living in the us and I could coach other women who are wives. And, and I remember thinking, she’s like, you need to find your niche. And I was like, it just didn’t feel right. So sometimes people are gonna tell you what you need to do. And you know, I say get lots of advice and get it from people who know their stuff. Like honestly you are, you’re a great example of that, but not all advice is gonna be the right advice for you. And and I think that’s important, but wait, wait,
RV (14:58):
You mean not all advice for me is gonna be the right advice for you. I I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding guys.
MW (15:05):
I’m arguing your advice. Rory is about as good as it gets, but I, and, and of course you, you do it with in a way that obviously allows people to make it feel congruent, but I tell you what, there are a lot of experts out there. I mean, when I, I, I do experts in that can kind of give you their five point plan and it might not be congruent for you. And I think I think just being authentic is really important. And I think today, I mean, you guys talk about trust a lot. We want to deal with people that we can trust and who are real and authentic and not some overly curated version veneer that you go, well, who is it? Who is that really that person? And I think being congruent is super important and just being real and and you know, people who are, can be overly polished sometimes I think it actually can almost work against them.
RV (15:59):
Mm-Hmm yeah. Yeah. I, I would say that. Yeah. That’s, that’s totally true. So I wanna talk about the word timid for a second. Mm-Hmm I, I, you know, I think that’s a, that’s a word that we’ve talked a lot about you and I have had some conversations around what is timid exactly is how is it different? How is it different from fear? What do we need to know about the way that it functions and operates and like why it such a, why is this such a big deal?
MW (16:36):
Well, all of us can be timid at times. Of course, all of us can be everything at times we can all be bold and brave and we can all be timid and overly cautious. And I believe that humidity is, is very prevalent in a, in the world in which we live because we live in a, in a, in a climate of fear, in a culture that actually sort of feeds and, and feeds on fear and fuels a lot of it and fuels a lot of self doubt and fuels a lot of timid and humidity drives people to hold back for our taking actions that would actually serve them that would help them to learn and to grow and to open new doors of opportunity and build new connections. And so we tend to fail far more from timidity than we do from over daring.
MW (17:33):
And timid in a sense is very much, much over caution. We’re being overly cautious, we’re holding back and you could say, oh, well, it’s a personality trait, but ultimately it is. It’s a decision that we make often unconsciously to, to not take an action because we are worried about the consequences of it. And often we discount the cost of timid. There’s a steep, hidden tax that comes with timid that we’re often not present to because it’s not immediate, it’s really dramatic or obvious, but we pay that tax over time in our lives because we don’t try things. We don’t experiment. We don’t put ourselves out there. We don’t try and write the book or approach someone and, or give the talk or, or whatever it is. And that really, we don’t know what doors didn’t open, but I, I really, the reason I have a passion for helping people overcome the bias toward timidity is because I see it holding potential hostage and keeping people from really, I mean, you could say shining their light, you know, really living the biggest lives, they’re capable of living. And, and ultimately a lot of people end up languishing. They kind of get stuck procrastinating. They get stuck making excuses and settling and selling themselves short. And not only do they miss out, but everyone misses out
RV (19:00):
Mm-Hmm . Yeah. I mean, it, it’s an interesting it’s it’s like a sobering thought to go. The reason I haven’t gotten certain things in my life, maybe that I wanna have is less because I’m not qualified to do it or able to do it, but that it’s just surely from the fact that I have convinced myself to not try. And mm-hmm to do it
MW (19:28):
A AB couldn’t. Yes, that is right. And it is funny. And I, and I shared with you how, for me even starting out, it was a little voice in my head saying, who do you think you are, was like to give a talk to start honestly, a coaching business. I was like, who am I to even have my own business? And who am I to write a book? Who am I to, you know, do television or know in the more recent years do my PhD, et cetera. And I’ve just learned to identify that voice as a voice. It’s not who I am. It’s just fear. And timidity is just one expression of fear and not to give it power. Cuz too often we give that voice of Tim power call the shots it’s it’s in the driver’s seat and it doesn’t have to be that way.
MW (20:16):
I mean, that’s where courage comes into it. Courage is the decision to take action in the presence of perceived or real risks. You might fail. You mightn’t write the most brilliant book that’s ever been written. You might give a spare each and it mightn’t be brilliant. You might try something and it mightn’t be the best investment, but how will you ever know if you don’t try and how will you ever get better at it? If you don’t give yourself permission to not be brilliant starting out. And I think to your point, Rory, it’s not the barriers, the external obstacles around us that hold us back. It is the belief systems that we are buying into and the ones that fuel that timidity. And so, you know, at the end of the day, there comes a moment of choice and go, who is it I choose to be and where am I letting, where am I letting my fear of not having what it takes, keep me from taking action. And that’s, that’s having the courage to take action despite our innate, you know, timid
RV (21:19):
Mm-Hmm . I mean, it’s interesting to hear you even talk about it as like timid is this voice. That’s not who I am like, like separating it. I, I think that’s probably half the battle here is separating it and realizing that it that’s not, you it’s, it’s like a different, it’s a different, you have the ability to exercise influencer control over that thing. It is separate and independent of you and what you want.
MW (21:46):
Yeah. You know, I often think give it a name, you know, and you know, you’re, you’re in a chicken little, right. You know, and in, in my book, you’ve got this, I, chapter two is doubt your doubts and, and doubt your doubts is really doubting that, that, that voice, that, that, that shows up and, and fuels that ity. And we treat those little negative noises and those doubting voices that in a chicken little as though it’s the truth and it’s not the truth, but we treat it as though it’s, it’s the truth. And I think learning to challenge what you’re telling yourself and there’s a real physical element to it too, like really stepping in and holding ourselves powerfully. Like how would, how do you, where do you need to connect to your own inner, a brave heart, hold yourself that way and embrace the discomfort that is a prerequisite for overcoming humidity and for being brave and for taking those actions.
MW (22:38):
And the more we embrace discomfort as part and parcel of what it takes to do, what it is we really need to do and want to do, like in our heart of hearts, then actually the better, more comfortable we, we become with doing uncomfortable things. And I think it was Tony Robbins that said years ago, you know, you know, our success is proportionate to how willing we are to be uncomfortable. And I, and I kind of absolutely couldn’t agree more with that. It is uncomfortable work, but I think being successful, however, you define success, that’s never gonna happen if you stay comfortable and, and humidity just drives us to stay in our comfort zone, but of course, comfort doesn’t stay comfortable forever. And our comfort zone shrinks. And over time we become more timid and less confident, you know, more scared, more doubtful, less brave and, and courageous.
MW (23:36):
So it really the co over the course of our lives, I think we have to continually be challenging ourselves. And so to anyone who’s listening, I know that you’ve got an, an incredible audience of people doing great things and who want to do more great things, but perhaps sometimes get in their own way because they’re afraid of falling short. And I would say, give yourself permission to fall short. And, and when that little voice of timid pipes up. So thank you very much. I know you’re trying to keep me safe now, shut up and, and step forward anyway.
RV (24:11):
Yeah. I mean, that, that is powerful. And so tactical, I think, and so, so useful where, where Dr. Margie, should people go to connect with you? I know obviously you’ve written for a long time for Forbes. So some of them are to be already reading your Forbes column, but like where where do you want people to go? If they wanna like, learn more about what Dr. Margie is doing?
MW (24:33):
Yeah. Look, I am on, I’m pretty much all social media to Insta Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Please connect with me. I’d love you to connect with me there, but you can also go to my website, Margie war.com. And if you type in slash live bravely, you can sign up for my free course on how you can be braver. It’s a four part video course that I created that is share some of my, some stories and some, and some really practical ways that you can step it up in your own life to overcome whatever fear is and is getting in your way.
RV (25:11):
I love it. Well, we’ll put links to that over in the show notes and Dr. Margie, thank you for this. I mean, this, I think just strikes right at the core of that, like that courage and, and winning that battle with that little voice. I mean, if you can, if you can beat that little voice every day than you, like pretty much can do just about anything.
MW (25:31):
Amen. Very true. Well, thank you so much for having me RO great to talk to you. All
RV (25:36):
Right. We wish you the best. We’ll follow your journey. Everyone. Go check out Dr. Margie and keep coming back. We’ll catch you next time. Bye-Bye

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