TSP033 | Todd Herman – Transcription

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TSP034 | David Howitt – Transcription
TSP032 | Charles Michael Yim – Transcription

John Livesay:

Welcome to The Successful Pitch podcast. Today’s guest is Todd Herman who literally has the Spanish royal family and billionaires as clients. He sold and exited successfully from two businesses and now has an incredible 90 Day Year program for entrepreneurs. He’s also a coach for professional and Olympic athletes and he compares being an Olympic athlete to being an entrepreneur.

He said, “You really have to have an alter ego so that you are at your heighten version of yourself and that what allows you to perform better.” He says, “Get rid of worry about your potential and focus on execution. That is the key to being a top performer.” He won the top salesperson of the world in 2010 at the International Ad Festival and tells us the pitches that he gave to win that award. It’s a fascinating story that you won’t want to miss.

Welcome to The Successful Pitch podcast. Today’s guest is Todd Herman who has so many credentials I don’t know where to story. He has a very successful 90 Day Year program. You’ve heard of the four hour week, now you’re going to hear about the 90 Day Year. Todd is also a performance coach for professional and Olympic athletes. He has clients like the Spanish royal family and billionaire clients. What impressed me also was he won greatest salesperson in 2010 for the International Ad Festival in France, so we’re certainty going to ask him to talk about that and more. Todd, welcome to the show.

Todd Herman:

John, it’s a pleasure to be here.

John:

Todd, I love that you are such an expert on what it takes to become an Olympian or professional athlete, because our listeners on The Successful Pitch podcast are all about learning how to pitch to get investors to say fast and there are so many similarities between being an entrepreneur and being professional athlete and I think when you frame pitching to investor as the Superbowl of meetings that you are the expert to talk about that.

Todd:

Yeah. There was a study that just came out a little while ago that my wife shared with me and it’s all about risk tolerance and they found that of groups of people that are out there, no two groups have a high threshold for risk tolerance than entrepreneurs and athletes. It’s two groups. It’s funny because I think the threshold tolerance was like 79-82%, something like that.

The only group that actually rate just slightly higher than them were general in the military, which fair enough, okay. We’ll all bow down to them, but for me, because I really dance between those two worlds of going back and forth between working with entrepreneurs on high performance and how you can actually get the maximum of value that stored up inside of you to show up on the field of play.

Everyone uses the world potential and in my world, in my business, that was word is not allowed to be used, because I don’t believe in potential. Potential I think is a crutch that a lot of people like to lean on to basically excuse away a lot of their bad habits or poor behaviors. What I look at and the other thing really an investor is going to look at as well when they’re taking a look at a successful pitch is, okay, even if you watch on Shark Tank, people like, okay, well, we like the grand idea that you have there. That would be considered potential, but what’s the real performance. Tell me the numbers.

So, even with athletes, I want to know, well, what are your numbers? Don’t tell me about what you think you can do. I want to know what’s showing up on the court, on the field of play, and so the great thing about dancing between these roles of athletes and entrepreneurs is they’re both manic people that are doing crazy. You’ve got crazy ideas to think that you could actually go out there and somehow be the number one sprinter in the world or that you could somehow go into a meeting and walk out with $5 million for this idea that started rattling around in your head months or years ago on your coach and now you’re asking for money. So, it’s crazy people, but I love working with them.

John:

Well, I really like what you said there about the idea that you have for your product is your potential that you have, but what really counts is your ability to execute that idea. IE, what are your numbers and investors are saying we’re not going to fund anybody who “doesn’t know their numbers” and we’re investing in people who know how to execute. Todd, you’ve had a two successful businesses with great exit. So, you clearly have been down this path, but I want to go back even further. When I was watching short video you did about a life lesson you learned from our dad. Can you share that with the audience?

Todd:

Yeah, sure. I mean I was young and we were – I grew up on a farming ranch in Western Canada. I live here in New York City now, but I’m still at my core a farm kid and we were walking out of a steak restaurant and on the way up just like most people I had some meat stuck between the teeth, so very natural for me to snag a tooth pick and when I walked out the door, I tore the tooth pick out of the cellophane and then I tossed the cellophane on the sidewalk as we continued to walk towards the car and my dad is a man of very few words.

Always sort of led by example more than anything else, very respected in the community and he stopped, walked back, grab the cellophane and he always, just like most good farmers, had a breast pocket with pens and a notebook that he used for the farm and he grab the cellophane and he stuffed it in his pocket and kept on walking and I thought to myself, wow, that is a perfect example of how you win at life is by taking care of all the little things.

Most people always focus on the big stuff, but in my experience in working with high preforming people is there are fanatical about making sure the details are well taken care of. A friend of mine and someone I’ve been able to do some work with, Brian Fetherstonhaugh who is the CEO of Ogilvyone, you know, one of the greatest advertising agencies on the planet.

We were going through and we were doing a presentation together and the gentlemen who put together the slide deck had come in and then Brian and myself and his assistant were sitting there and just watching someone at that level go through that presentation with such a fine tooth comb and just picking out just micro little punctuations errors or just the slightest little alignment issues and that’s the CEO.

Most people would think that they wouldn’t care about those things, but someone who is operating at a high level does care about that impression, because just like the people that are listening are going in to present a successful pitch, you know, glossing over all those things will be picked up on by people who have a tremendous eye for detail, which are typically people who are very successful.

John:

I love that you brought that up.

Todd:

So, the analogy is just take care of the cellophane in your life, because it matters.

John:

It does. I love that you brought that up about the details on the slide, because I’ve had investors tell me, if you have a typo on your pitch deck, that’s it. That’s a no right off the get go, but what I love so much about that story about your dad is A) you’re a master storyteller and I’m constantly working with my clients to teach them how to become a master storyteller.

So, you described how old you were. You described that your father is a man of few words and that he literally didn’t say anything and by not saying anything he said volumes and then that life lesson that you took and continue to take with your and teach other people. We’re going to tweet that out. If you want to win at life, take care of the little things.

That’s a great phrase and a great tweet for the first 30 minutes or whatever we’re going to be talking together, but I love that. It’s so many things of take care of the little things and be a storyteller and you encapsulated all of that in one quick story. Amazing. Fantastic.

Well, as I promised in the intro, I want to hear about how you won greatest salesperson in France, because, let’s face it, when you’re pitching, you’re selling yourself and your idea to investors, so you must – there must be a great story there.

Todd:
Well, that’s actually how I got involved with Ogilvyone, because Ogilvyone and YouTube are partnering up to do this search for the world’s greatest salesperson and that was back in 2010, beginning of 2010 and now have some successful businesses and the prize was going to be a fellowship at Ogilvyone.

Now, I wasn’t really doing it to get a fellowship at Ogilvyone, but how I found out about it was a good friend of mine actually on Twitter sent me a tweet and said hey Ogilvy who I know absolutely love, because David Ogilvy’s book Ogilvy on Advertising is one of the first books I give people when it comes to just learning how to communicate or sell or market yourself.

I think it’s just, it’s still a great bible today on that subject and she said, they’re doing this cool thing, I think you could win this and so I went and saw they’re very kind of tongue and cheek funny launch video for it and what they asked people to do was just submit a two minute video of how you would sell a red brick on YouTube and so as soon as I saw their pitch video, I was like, well, I know exactly how I’d sell that red brick and I was working on an important project at the time and I was like, you know what, I’ll get to this later, which I teach all my clients is famous last words, because you will never get to it later. If you’re inspired to do it and it’s something that’s really going to make an impact, do it now.

So, I kind of did some self-coaching there, got up quickly, through on a sport coat, kind of wrote a mini little script and one hour later I had the video done, in the can, and upload to basically YouTube and my whole shtick with the red brick was that the red brick was used to help build empires, because the Samaritans who invented the red brick used it to build pyramids. It was also used to build roads to help connect us all, because bricks were originally the thing that we used on roads and then ultimately it was helped to revolutionize homes.

So, there were no longer vulnerable to whims of nature, but at the end of the day, all of those innovations started in the mind of one person and just like them you probably have an idea, a dream, a goal or something that you have never taken action on, so if you buy this red brick, it will be a message not only you but the world around you that you’ve laid your first red brick. You’ve taken your first step to a life of commitment action.

So, it kind of went on from there and then I said, you know, if you buy this brick, we’ll donate, because it was right around the time that Haiti had the big hurricane to roll through and devastate the country and I said all the proceeds will go to the Red Cross at Haiti. So, anyways, it’ll help rebuild that country as well. So, metaphorically it helps to rebuild a nation. Anyway, so that submission video got me down to a final three, final three of us then were flown over to Cannes to the International Advertising Festival.

So, I got a free trip out of it already and there was a gentleman who was like a Hollywood producer, and then a lady from Japan and then we all had to do a two-minute pitch on stage of how we would sell the new Motorola Droid cellphone. Motorola was a client of Ogilvy and now we were in the biggest theater in all of Cannes and that’s where the Cannes Film Festival is at where they put the big movies and so we’re on stage, we’ve got two minutes and me going over there.

I had never been to an advertising festival. I had no idea what to expect, what the demographic of the audience was going to be there, so I actually prepared five different pitches based on different demographics and when I got there I found out and realized after meeting with much of the people that there was going to be a big chunk of the audience that didn’t have English as their first language or really didn’t even speak English at all.

So, I was like, all they’re going to hear is like wah wah wah wah wah, but I did know, so I thought to myself, okay, well, what is a character, a story, something, that when I say the word, it’s the same word across every single culture and so I was like playing with the idea of, okay, Motorola Droid, just the word Droid is a cool cellphone, it’s a technologically advanced thing, who would use that? Batman would use it.

So, I started off my pitch with, you know, if you had to, if you had the opportunity to design your own mobile device the Motorola Droid cellphone would be that device. In fact, it would be the device used by Batman and as soon as I said the word Batman there was this crowd of Greek advertisers that were in front and I saw this one lady nudge one of her counter parts and she said, this guy is good and that’s when I kind of knew I had the audience pretty well, but there was like, 1,300 people in the audience then at the end of it, everyone did live text message voting and then the result was I ended up winning this and it was a great experience. I ended up meeting Mark Zuckerberg at the Facebook party. He came up to me and said, hey, aren’t you the world’s greatest salesperson?

John:

What a great title.

Todd:

Yeah, it went on from there and that’s how I ended up doing a bunch of work with Ogilvy.

John:

I thought there was probably a good story there, but you gave us two good stories. I love it. You know what, it’s so interesting that I want to break it down for what you did so that the people listening can really understand just why you won and why it was so good is when you’re describing something and I tell people, you know, when you tell a story, give three points for people to take away and you said, if you have a dream, an idea, or a goal, right, and it just flows so effortlessly out of your mouth, but clearly you thought that out.

So, people are going to say I have one of those three things, so this is for me and that’s so important when you’re pitching and I constantly work with my clients and say you can not wing your pitch to investors and clearly you did not win this. You had five different pitches ready depending on who the demographics are and that’s of course the key to success is know your audience. Investors are not all the same.

You have to customize your pitch to what their speciality is and what their hot buttons are and what they like to invest in and you nailed that and on your feet no less of what’s the word that resonates across the world that you don’t have to speak English and in that cash was Batman and you became the Batman and won the award. What a great story. Thank you so much. So much great information there on how to pitch and how to connect with the audience.

Todd:

To your point, I mean, there’s a reason why rules of three, you know, are influence. It’s the whole see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Everyone knows, as soon as you say, see no evil, everyone else can repeat the next two things. So, you’re right, organizing information into threes is exceptionally helpful to the audience.

John:

Now, the Batman thing leaves directly into one of your key areas of expertise which is creating an alter ego. Can you speak to that, Batman?

Todd:

Yeah, for sure. So, how I kind of, my first business that I started was doing mental game coaching with athletes, they weren’t pro athletes at the time, because I was just out. I was young, but it didn’t take long before I started working with professional and Olympic athletes and how I got my name was I built up a name as being the person to go to to build a secret identity or alter ego to boost performance and how that came about was I played college football.

I was a nationally ranked Badminton player and one of the devices that I used for my mental game was, you know, not going out on the field of play as myself, because Todd has had his insecurities and his worries and his concerns about other people judging him, but that’s not going to serve me on the field of play where I need to perform and what most athletes do, which is what they get wrong, is they go on to the field and they carry themselves with them as opposed to stepping into something else that’s going to perform for them. I mean it’s people naturally see actors do it. They go out on the stage and they act as a character in order to deliver the results or the emotional response to the audience that makes the story believable.

Well, if you want to make your performance believable, why not step into it as someone or something else, so I had this five-step process. I’m in the midsts of writing the book on it and I’ve been doing this for well over a decade with clients and as I started doing a lot more work with people in the corporate world or entrepreneurs.

I mean, there’s a field of play that everyone steps on. Like, when you go into a pitch, that right there is a certain rule and there’s a certain framework on how to be successful in that field or in that room. Going in there with trepidation and concern and a lot of belief in what you’ve done, maybe you didn’t prepare properly is not going to serve you by any stretch of the imagination.

People are investing at the end of the day. Yes, the idea is important and the numbers behind it important, but they’re still investing in the entrepreneur, because you and I both know the odds of the thing that’s being presented actually being 100% the thing that shows up in the marketplace is, I mean, I’ve never seen that happen personally and I invest in products and companies all the time and so we’re investing ultimately in, okay, do I believe that this person can actually steward this thing to completion. Can they execute or are they just an idea person who gets excited about something and then drops off, you know, three months later and now my money is gone.

So, building out this idea of stepping into a better heighten version of yourself on that field is the fastest way I’ve ever found to help people boost performance and the result that they’re looking for on the field and if you think about it, this is not about being fake, this is not about being unnatural, you are already doing, because who Todd is, I mean, I am, I’ve got two little girls under the age of 2.5. I am very different with them than I am as Todd the hard charging, you know, kind of a spanking in the ass coaching adviser that I typically have that avatar as being.

So, who I am in business is very different than who I am in the home with the family and then who I am with my friends when I’m out for a drink or a beer watching the game is still another version of my personality just magnified to kind of accommodate that experience and so it’s just that. When you get this you become far more intentional and deliberate about who it is that you’re creating so that you can perform at the level that would be considered the highest levels so that you get the result that you want.

John:

I’m so glad that you said that, because I was going to ask you and you answered the question before I could even ask which is how do you have an alter ego and still stay authentic and you said, and we’re going to tweet this, when you have a better heighten version of yourself, that boosts performance. That is magic. That is gold. That allows you to still be yourself. It’s a better…

Todd:

Even to challenge, because I mean, the word authenticity is a very big kind of buzz word that’s out there even nowadays and I challenge people all the time, I’m like, tell me what authentic actually means. Here’s my premise, I don’t think anyone on this planet is really authentic, because if people were authentic, the most authentic moment of your life was when you came out of the womb and you were bloody and you were shitting yourself and you were crying.

So, if you want to be truly authentic that’s how you should be behaving right now and I mean, not to be too explicit, but I mean, that’s the reality, that’s what true authenticity is and how do we all get our personality shaped, yes, after definitely being a dad of two little girls there are just things that are baked into their DNA, you know, my wife Valerie and I have had nothing to do with shaping them what so ever, it’s just in them and you can’t explain it, but there’s environment impacts, there’s social impacts, there’s the friends that we have that helped to shape that personality and so where does their authenticity begin and who they’re showing up in life as that personality begin as well, so my challenge to people is I just don’t believe in the word authenticity.

What I care about is performance. If you’re a good person to me, I don’t know care if you’re not being authentic in the moment. You’re just nice to me. What do I care if you’re being authentic? The result was my interaction with John was a good experience. So whether you were faking it or not, I don’t care.

John:

Great. The other thing that you’re really on that I find so fascinating and useful is this whole concept of positive thinking versus positive expectations and in Silicon Valley and the startup world, there’s this whole thing called the trough of despair that all startups go through and you talked about it in one of your blogs about high performers tend to battle depressive states more than other people. Can you talk about that and what causes that and how can we handle those depressive states?

Todd:

Yeah and to kind of use, maybe a metaphor to help explain it. I mean, there’s, I think of life as having two classes of fish in the sea. There’s a class of fish that lives at the very bottom. It’s cold down there, it’s dark, light doesn’t travel down at the bottom there and there’s an exceptional amount of pressure that’s down there.

Now, currents can come along and maybe the fish that’s living down there gets caught in the current and slowly that current starts to bring them to the surface and if that fish doesn’t escape the current and travel back down to where it’s natural environment is, they’ll get eaten by a predator at that level or eventually get to the surface and the sun will burn them or whatever the case is.

So, they’re built to be done there and then there’s another class of fish that’s at the surface of the ocean and they’re colorful and they’re bright and they jump and they dance at the very top and if they get caught in the current and get taken down to the very bottom, they would die because of the pressure that’s down there and so in my experience of working with thousands upon thousands of high performers at the Olympic level or entrepreneurs whether it’s billionaires or whatever, they’re the people who live at the bottom of the ocean. They can handle the pressure.

They can handle the intensity of what’s it’s like to be in these situations and so I think the real problem that people are experiencing is that there has been this one rule that’s set up in life that is life is about being happy and joyful and I disagree, because I don’t think that Elon Musk sole purpose in life is to be happy. He has said that he is here to solve really big problems for this planet.

You don’t give really big problems to someone whose lens on life is to have just a fantastic lifestyle, right, I think that people need to be careful about the rules that they’re setting up in their head and making themselves feel bad because they don’t feel like they’re happy all the time, because they’re in a stressed out state. No, you chose it and almost like and almost you didn’t even choose it, it choose you.

You’re meant to do this because you can handle it and I’ve said that to some entrepreneurs and friends that have struggled with it and one of them remarked back to me, I’ve been living in just a state of worry and self-judgement for 15 years. He sent me an email the day after. He’s like, I have never felt more free than that. You just lifted so much pain and anxiety and self-judgement off my shoulders, because I felt I was doing something wrong in life, because I wasn’t that typically very, very happy person and now it’s one thing to be able to handle depressive states.

Now, I’m not saying that depression isn’t an okay thing, but it is something that people who do big things deal with, because our roller coasters are a hell of a lot steeper, which means they’re steep on the climb and that means the very top can be incredible, but they’re steep as well and they can go a lot deeper than other people who just aren’t taking on challenges like we would be and so yeah, the trough of despair is something that is very common, but the idea that you’re a bad person for experiencing it isn’t true, it’s just the nature of the world that you’re living. You are sort of meant to handle it and it’s okay.

John:

Well, being a former swimmer, I love the analogy of the different levels of the water and I almost want to combine your two metaphors and say, if my alter ego is going to be a deep sea diver, I’m going to put on my deep sea equipment as my alter ego so that when I have that on, I know I can handle the pressure and the analogy of the water and I won’t always stay down there. I’ll come up for air when I need to, but when I need to get the job done, I’m going to be able to handle the pressure cooker. It’s really helpful.

Todd:

Yeah and so to kind of carry on of your analogy. If I’m going to give someone a tool then that they can put on and wear to help them manage those, that deep level of pressure that we go through is you’ve – people have got, it’s the first thing I try to get all my private clients to get into is meditation and it’s going to sound. I mean, here are the numbers, 10 of the top 13 private equity traders in Wall Street, here in New York City, the wealthiest people will all credit.

The reason that they outperform everyone else, they meditate every single day and that helps them avoid the emotional highs and lows that everyone else in the market is going through, because really what meditation does it flexes the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe of our brain is the part that allows us to stay focused, to concentrate and to mitigate the limbic emotionally part of our system.

So, whether it’s two minutes, studies have proven even if you do two minutes of meditation, that will, it’s proven to help manage emotional states even just two minutes and the misconception that people have with meditation is that, because people go, yeah, I’ve tried meditation and I can’t get my mind to shut off. Meditation has nothing to do with your thoughts going away. That’s the kind of misnomer or the myth that’s out there. Meditation is all about being okay with what’s passing through your mind and not getting attached to it.

So, if you think about it this way to use a metaphor, your mind is the sky, the thoughts passing through it are clouds, what most people do is they get some sort of self-judgement cloud passing through and they get entangled with the cloud thinking that’s who they are and I’m telling you, no, it’s not, and here’s the thing, we all think those thoughts. I’ve worked with the ultra high-performers on the planet and I can tell you they deal with those self-defeating thoughts too sometimes, they just don’t get entangled in it and they continue to execute and take action.

John:

That’s great. So, we’re going to tweet something out about mediation is like clouds going through your head, just say next, next, next, don’t get entangled in anyone that would bring you down, just go next. Keep the wind going, keep the clouds going, and I think that’s so helpful, because like you said, so many people are so afraid, I can’t stop my thoughts. Oh, I don’t have to, I just can’t – the goal is to just not get stuck on one and go over and over to keep reliving it. How many times have we’ve done that?

Todd:

Think about when you’re just looking at the sky anyway. Sometimes you’re just looking at clouds and you’re like, oh, that’s an interesting shape. So, the same thinking can go with your thoughts. You’re like, oh, that’s interesting that thought entered my head. Be more curious about it. Don’t get entangled into it as that’s me, that’s who I am. It’s more like, that’s an interesting thought. How about that? What about that one over there? Like, that’s kind of the more, be more observer of it rather than someone who is just identifying themselves with the thought.

John:

I love that so much, because I think that’s the key is not being attached to any one outcome especially when you go pitch an investor, you can not be attached to that outcome, because they’ll smell it and just like a date or anything else, you can’t be attached – is this the person that’s giving me the money? Is this the person that’s going to marry me? Is this, whatever, you just have to not be attached to anyone outcome and you’ll be at your top performance.

Todd:

Staying engaged in the process. That’s the key.

John:

That’s great. So, you’ve already given us a hint of your book that’s coming and you mentioned the Ogilvy book. Are there any other books that you want to recommend to the listeners before we go?

Todd:

I think a great book that’s out there, I don’t even know if it’s in publication anymore, but it’s Seeking Wisdom from Darwin to Munger. It is a fantastic book on just thinking in the context of models. Like, I’m a really big visual models person whether it’s v-diagrams, XY graphs, and pyramids and stuff like that and Warren Buffett has said that Charlie Munger is the fastest 30 second thinker on the planet and that’s because Charlie Munger has made it know that he has about, I think it’s 96 different mental models that he’s memorized from tons of different disciplines whether it’s mathematics or physics or literature or psychology so that he can think quickly. He doesn’t get entangled in the whole subject matter. He goes, okay, what’s that about? What is the idea of confirmation basis about so that when I’m listening to John give me a pitch and he’s telling me why this thing is going to be successful, is he coming at it from a point of data or is it confirmation basis, because he’s travelled down that road into this niche or this industry.

So, he’s able to think far more quickly and it’s based in real data and real science. It’s a fantastic book and it’s just a really great read. People think it may be really dry, but it’s such a great book and then I think another great book that’s out there that I actually would attribute a good chunk of maybe my messaging that I had which was successful for the red brick video, it’s called Metaphorically Selling.

Most people wouldn’t have heard of it. It’s not like it’s a best seller, but the lady does such a great job of giving examples of how one speech without a metaphor and one speech with a metaphor connects. I mean, you were talking before about stories. Metaphors are just a micro story. You know, a very short sound byte for people. So, Metaphorically Selling is, I mean, I recommend that book to, I should probably – she should probably send me a commission checks, because I send all those darn books and maybe she has – it’s a great book and she’s a lovely, smart lady that wrote it.

John:

Well, you’ve given us so much valuable insights into how to sell through metaphors, how to look at the numbers and not focus on your potential, not get stuck in your ideas, to get out of the trough of despair. Is there any one final piece of advice you want to leave the listeners with?

Todd:

Continuously take action. That’s it. That’s just the hallmark of how you get yourself out of the trough of despair, just keep moving, and not defining where you’re at with where you’re going to be for the rest of your life. I mean, that’s not, because I want to be careful that we’re treating everyone as if we’re in this trough of despair, but just keep taking action and you never know what’s going to be around the next corner, you just don’t.

John:

That’ll be the final tweet, keep taking action. It’s that simple. Thank you so much for being on today Todd.

Todd:

John, I appreciate it. Thank you.

TSP034 | David Howitt – Transcription
TSP032 | Charles Michael Yim – Transcription