Be A Broker Of Fairness With Rich Gibbons
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Employee loyalty is a competitive advantage. So how do you keep them? In this episode, John Livesay has the guest who can boil it down to one tip. Rich Gibbons, the President of SpeakInc, dives deep into the value of becoming a broker of fairness and what it brings to the industry. The one thing that needs to be everybody’s North Star is that you are not trying to stack the chips in anybody’s favor. Rich emphasizes how being fair to everyone makes you more advantageous in your business. Also in the business of selling himself as a speaker, he then shares why he thinks the key to finding the right speaker is finding someone who listens. If you wish to know how to keep your employees loyal, learn the speaking culture, or simply gain great nuggets for success, then you should not miss this conversation!
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Listen to the podcast here
Be A Broker Of Fairness With Rich Gibbons
Our guest is Rich Gibbons, the President of SpeakInc, a bureau that books the top speakers in the world. He said, “It is important to be a broker of fairness. When you are easy to work with, it becomes a competitive advantage.” Find out his secret sauce to keeping his employees loyal. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Rich Gibbons, who’s a native of Connecticut and Glasgow, Scotland. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. He joined Speak Inc in 1991, which is one of the top speaking bureaus, and now serves as the company’s president. He has been closely involved with the International Association of Speakers Bureau, IASB, and is a past president of the organization.
Because of his knowledge and expertise in the industry, he has been sought after as an expert witness on legal issues involving professional speaking. He has also been involved with the Corporate Event Marketing Association, serving as a board member. He and his wife, Heather, have three children. Shout out to Julia, Jackson, and Max. In his spare time, he enjoys mountain biking, road cycling, windsurfing, motorcycling, and skiing. Welcome to the show, Rich.
Thanks for having me, John. That was a fun recitation there.
I’m always curious to have someone tell me their own story of origin of how you get started in the speaking business. You can take us back to being in Scotland and coming to America or wherever you want to start your story. You have been speaking for a long time, which is something we are going to dive into.
I first moved to San Diego, California, 33 years ago. When my wife and I first moved here from New York, we showed up in California. We didn’t have jobs and no contacts. We didn’t know anybody. I went to my alma mater and looked up the alumni directory and thought, “There is got to be somebody from our school out in San Diego.”
Sure enough, I saw that one of my fraternity brothers was out here. He was a couple of years ahead of me. I looked him up and came to learn that his wife, Ruth, had started a speaker’s bureau. I didn’t know what a speaker’s bureau was. When I paid her office a visit, I saw all these books, audio cassette series, and VHS tapes of these fascinating people. Ted speakers weren’t a thing back then. It’s that genre of subject matter experts and a lot of interesting people.
I would say to her on a Monday as I pay her office a visit, “Would you mind if I borrowed this series of audio cassettes? Can I take this book for a week? I want to look at this VHS tape.” It was almost like going to the library. I would check these things out and come back a week or ten days later and return that stuff and walk off with other stuff.
I was a real voracious curious consumer of the content of people like you that have a tradecraft and area of expertise. The arch of their story is endlessly interesting. She and her husband were working closely. When it came time for them to expand and grow the business beyond just her, they thought, “This Gibbons guy seems to be interested in the product.” This summer 2023, it will be 32 years. It must have been an idea whose time had come.
One of the things I found intriguing in your bio is you are being called an expert witness. I’m guessing there is a story there of some of the cases you have been called on. How do they even find you? One of the things that a bureau does, for those people who aren’t familiar, is all the contracts and getting the money upfront. If a speaker doesn’t show up, you have a whole roster of other people for backup, which gives the client peace of mind.
There are a lot of details and now, contracts are getting more complicated, from what I have been hearing. Tell us a little bit about what SpeakInc and your brand’s expertise is in those kinds of contracts. If you have a story of being on trial because we watched those shows on TV. We know how an expert witness is coming up and the defense is going to try to discredit it.
Our company and companies like ours, my brethren in the industry, or industry colleague friends across the lecture circuit, we serve as an intermediary between the companies and the trade associations that engage the talent, and that universe of talent that is out there. We want to be a broker of fairness. We want it to be fair for both parties. The one thing that needs to be everybody’s North Star is that you are not trying to stack the chips in anybody’s favor.
[bctt tweet=”Be a broker of fairness.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Our role is to make sure that there are no areas of ambiguity and that everything is clear. We have all had more familiarity than we would probably like with force majeure provisions coming out of the pandemic. A lot of people pre-pandemic were like, “Force majeure? What is that?” Everybody knows what force majeure is now. We are being an advocate for a level playing field and making sure that expectations are set with a great deal of clarity.
The second thing you asked was about the expert witness thing, which was entirely passive. I received a phone call one day from an attorney locally here in San Diego, California, who had been referred to me by a colleague of mine in Texas. It was related to a medical malpractice case for a popular, prolific, and bestselling author that had been a host of Oprah’s favorite or Oprah’s Book Club.
She had a book club where she would pick a book. She had her favorite things. It could be products to buy during the holiday time. One author that she raved about was Men Are From Mars, Women are From Venus. She had the whole audience participating in that situation where women have this wake-up call where he is not that into you if he is calling you Friday night to go out Saturday.
It wasn’t the Men Are From Mars, Women are From Venus. It was a similar author who had his moment in the sun and sold a lot of books. He had a heart event and was purportedly mistreated in the healthcare facility. There was a lawsuit. The insurance company was defending. Oftentimes, expert witnesses are brought in to weigh in on arcane industries or cottage areas of commerce that are not that well understood by people who are extramural to it.
When I was invited to participate, I went to a friend of mine who was a litigator and an attorney. I said, “I got this phone call today. I’m shying away from it.” We found out that I was being collared to be an expert witness. He said, “You should do it.” I’m glad I did it because it was illuminating and fun. His prediction came to pass. That was, “You will be part of a deposition and a dialogue where your area of practice will be the topic of conversation. No one in the room will know what they are talking about except you.”
That was absolutely the case. I was shocked at how authoritative the old expression, “Often wrong, never in doubt.” These attorneys were definitive and authoritative. I would listen to them and think, “That’s not remotely a reality.” There’s always a place for an expert witness to inject a little bit of truth into the conversation.
Most people don’t even have a clue that it exists as a profession. I remember going to a doctor’s office. The doctor is looking at the job title or profession on the medical intake form. I wrote, “Professional speaker.” He goes, “Is that a thing? People make a living speaking.” He couldn’t wrap his head around it.
When I learned that my fraternity brother’s wife had started a speaker’s bureau, I said, “What the heck is a speaker’s bureau?” They were like, “We help these groups and identify talent for the platform.” I thought to myself, “That must be like shooting fish in a barrel. How many companies can be doing that?” You then get into it and you realize, “It is competitive.”
Let’s talk about speaking because what you do that I don’t think people first think of is selling. You are in the business of selling yourself as a bureau to get clients to pick you to find their speakers, and you’re in the business of selling the speakers that you have on your roster as being the right fit. One of the things that stood out for me when I was browsing your website is the key to finding the right speaker is finding someone who listens.
I have a whole belief premise that soft skills, listening, empathy, and storytelling are what make us strong. You got listening on your website. We are on the same page here of how important that is to figure out even if you are the right fit sometimes as a bureau, let alone a speaker. If you could speak to that a little bit about how important listening is, and how you have that be part of your culture.
For a company like ours, as a non-exclusive bureau, we don’t have a backroom with a dozen names under contract that we get gigs for. It is not like that. Our marketing communication, branding, and positioning in the market are not unique to us, but it is the wall we are leaning our strategic ladder against. We can be impartial assets and counselors to those people putting together agendas.
Broker Of Fairness: There’s always a place for an expert witness to inject a little bit of truth into the conversation.
Oftentimes, it’s the number of event stakeholders and executive leaders that want to get their fingerprints on speaker selection. They want to talk about a theme. There’s the almighty budget, and the cross-section and demographic of the audience. These event stakeholders can take 10 to 15 minutes to tell you about one slot, the opening general session or the closing keynote, what they want people to think and feel, and how they want their audience to change their orientation after the program as opposed to before it.
You can take the same briefing and description of all I have mentioned and share it with ten people, and you can get ten different answers. There is a lot to interpretation, follow-up questioning, and understanding of who has worked well in the past and who has maybe not hit the mark. Getting a feeling for the entire fabric of that entire landscape tells you a lot. It becomes the curation process and suggesting candidates that will align well with what is being described. It is not an art form, but it is not going to be reduced to software code anytime soon.
I want to double-click on something you mentioned, “Listening includes deep questions beyond the initial question.” In the world of psychotherapy, would you go to a therapist with your partner and say, “The romance is gone?” That is what is called the presenting problem. People think, “As soon as we get their romance back, everything will be fixed.” The therapist will usually say, “That is the presenting problem. There is something else going on that has caused the romance to go away like lack of trust and hurt feelings.”
That is their job to do that. As a sales keynote speaker, I work with the audience on thinking of themselves as doctors, asking questions like that, and not taking the first problem that a client gives you as, “This is our big problem. If you solve this, we will hire you,” or whatever. Sometimes it is as simple as saying, “Anything else on your mind? Anything else that you want this event to be? Anything else that is a concern to you?”
You get down to another level, especially if they are interviewing you and maybe elder bureaus or maybe other speakers, and I’m the one that said, “Anything else?” Everyone else goes, “You want them to hit their quota. I can do that. Bye.” If I say, “Anything else?” They go, “We also like them not to take rejection personally, be a little more resilient, or whatever else they are struggling with.” I can then go, “I can do this and this.”
If I don’t ask the question, they don’t often give you more than the first-level answer. I thought that is a great example of what you are saying there. With events in particular, there are many moving pieces. They almost need you to be a therapist sometimes and realize you are not alone in this. That is part of the messages.
That’s a great way to put it. I feel a little bit like a fossil making this observation, but so much of what my colleagues and I did when I first got in the business back when dinosaurs roamed the land in the early 1990s, everything was phoned and faxed. I don’t even think the email was a thing back then. There is so much automation, and everything is very digital that I will be diplomatically insistent.
A lot of my colleagues, both my partners here, as well as my industry colleagues, to the point you made two minutes ago about anything else. You can’t ask anything else over email or text. That is got to be eyeball-to-eyeball. That is why having these conversations over Zoom or Teams, there is more of a dialogue. It can be more conversational.
There is a famous speaker who came of age in the late ‘80s. He had a great firm that has stuck with me for three decades that is prescription before diagnosis is malpractice. It’s a lot about that to the extent you are making recommendations before you have heard the whole story and unpack all the nuances of the meeting landscape and direction.
There is such a huge ecosystem there that to have that conversation, and to the point you made asking open-ended questions, “What else would you like me to know about?” The stuff you pick up in those dialogues. Sometimes it is not possible if you are working with an agency or a production company and you are a couple of degrees from Kevin Bacon. You are not right at the coalface. It is a little bit of the telephone game. You don’t get that granular detail.
When you are talking with a CMO or a director of events, and they have a seat at the table, they understand the details and nuance of how they are putting that together with the energy and the theme, and where they sit in the evolution of their company and organization. When you have the dirt under your fingernails familiarity with everything they are dealing with, it makes you pick up these minute details in what they are communicating. To the extent you know the minute details, background, experience, and history of the speakers, you can make those connections that are hard to do when you get a macro, generic, or general brief.
[bctt tweet=”‘Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.'” username=”John_Livesay”]
Sometimes if you are talking about the details, it can be as simple as when you land or get to your hotel, text the bureau and the client. Let everybody know you are there. That is one less thing they have to worry about, especially if there is bad weather, canceled flights, or 100 other things. That requires a speaker to not be self-focused the whole time and realize that you are just one cog in this big wheel. If you can take that, that is one of the easiest things you can do to be known as someone who is easy to work with.
From what I have heard from having the pleasure of being with you in person here in Austin, that is a big criteria on which speakers you recommend. Are they easy to work with? That is one thing you can do to be easy to work with. Are there other things that people should be aware of? Is that a competitive advantage of being responsive and easy to work with? I love you to speak a little bit about that.
If you look at a pie chart of these are the things that the event marketer and meeting professional has to worry about for the annual sales kickoff or the global customer conference, there are enumerable things they have to chase after and that are keeping them up at night. If you are a 6% slice of the pie chart, but you are 45% of the headache, you are upside down there.
I want to come back to what you said. Are there things that the speaker can do? The days and hours leading up to the start of a huge event are filled with heart attack emergencies and migraine headache-inducing problems that the event owners have to solve in real-time. Meetings start on Thursday morning, and here it is Tuesday afternoon and we have a huge problem. They got to figure that out.
That is not the time for a speaker or a bureau to be in their hair asking about AV tech needs or something that could have been dealt with several weeks earlier, straightforward and simple. We tend to think of that 2-week or 3-week zone leading up to the event. You got airfare, air itineraries, and ground transit. You will be like, “We will figure out the tech check as we get closer.” There are those things that are a bit more plastic in real time. If there is anything that can be taken care of far in advance, it should be taken care of far in advance.
What experience bring is anticipating problems before critical thinking in action. It is what you described. One of the things that I’m also impressed with because I’ve had the privilege of meeting not just you but several other people virtually and then in person, Lisa Warren and Jenna George, is this incredible loyalty. This is the problem that many companies of any industry of any size struggle with. How do we attract good talent? Done. How do we keep them?
The loyalty factor is huge in speaking. I’m sure a lot of people will go, “I got to lean in here.” Rich is the president. He probably sets the tone. There must be some culture that keeps people from being wooed away. For whatever reasons, people leave jobs because people say, “They don’t leave the job. They leave their boss.” I’m guessing reading goes into it as well, making people feel they have concerns and flexibility. If you had to boil it down to one tip you could give people who have employees, what could they do to keep people loyal?
First of all, thank you for your generous observation. The principles of this company are proud of our brand and our reputation. One of the things that we are most proud of, as you rightly noted, is the tenure of our team. Yes, if you have seen my business card, it says president on it. I am lucky to be surrounded by incredibly smart people and partners. It is not remotely a lonely experience because there is a new problem to figure out every day, and I don’t have a patent on being right. My wife would certainly confirm that I don’t have all the answers. I don’t have all the answers.
The extent to which we are a collaborative operation, and this is a long-winded answer to your question. It is a little bit hack need and almost a trope that the proverb like, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We are emblematic of that. We have been in the business for 33 years. We must have some level of tenacity and longevity in the business.
It is a function of going together that every single time we run into something, somebody’s background and industry connection, the way someone is wired, whether it is a fellow agent, colleague, or journalist who is deeply involved in finance. Everybody has their little niche of experience. The collaborative nature certainly helps out. It is certainly not unique to our company or us.
Some of my best friends in the industry at other companies also have ESOPs. They also have some of the key staff that are stakeholders and shareholders in operation. I’m thinking of the company that went flying out of my head, Upstate, New York, a yogurt manufacturer founded by a Turkish entrepreneur. All of his employees are part owners in the company.
Broker Of Fairness: If you are a 6% slice of the pie chart, but you are 45% of the headache, you are upside down there.
Is it Chobani?
Yes, I see it in the grocery store every time I go. He is looking at the world through a prism of abundance and realizing that you can’t dominate your team and ring their best effort out of them without them coming along for the ride. Any successful operation has that notion of, “We are all in this together. Whether we fail to succeed, this is our success or problem.” If you look at a company like Chobani, it is emblematic of the notion that when people feel like their opinion matters, their perspective is valued, and they have a stake in the action, how can that not breed loyalty in ownership and buying?
I want to take that one step further. Thank you for that wonderful answer, and show it as not just nice to have. You are not spending a lot of time training and interviewing people. One of my favorite phrases as a sales keynote speaker is, “What this means to you is?” When you are presenting your bureau to a big company, and they are saying, “We are looking at you and two other bureaus. One of our big points of differences is we have one of the most, if not the most, loyal teams out there.”
You insert the phrase, “What this means to you is?” You can start painting that picture of if someone has got a turnover all the time and you are working with the bureau that has a different agent servicing you year after year. There are no history and no frame of reference. You are starting from ground zero versus us. We have a history together. That allows us to build on that history together. There is a shortcut in a language we develop and trust. That is the other ROI that people don’t always put together and connect those dots.
Some of my aging colleagues who have these incredibly immersed, deep, and loyal connections where they know the entire events team have spent innumerable hours at these events and chasing after things that are maybe technically one of my principal partners of the last 25 years. I think of him at an event and receiving this celebrity who had traveled to the event with her toddler in the entertainment industry.
He found out at the 11th hour that the car service that had said they had a child’s seat did not have a child’s seat. This car service, like an hour, needed to go pick up this celebrity at the airport. It is like probably a Lincoln Town Car thing. There he was. He was running off to Target to purchase with his company credit card a car seat.
Nowhere in your job description say, “You will be responsible for purchasing a car seat.” There is enormous loyalty that is earned on the part of the agent to the degree they are swimming in the water column with the event pro onsite, “We found out about this problem.” To the degree, we as a team are able to say, “No problem, we will chase it down.” That creates an enormous amount of connection and loyalty that is not unique to us. There are lots of other colleagues I have in the industry that would do the same thing, but I think buyers, to a great degree, understand who is leaning in and who is phoning in it.
Any last thought or a quote you want to leave us with, Rich?
My colleagues love to give me heat and static. As my Scottish mother would say, “That is good. It will knock the sharp corners off you.” I don’t have any sharp corners left, but one of the things they tease me about, and it is well earned, and I am guilty as charged, is how somewhat hand-ringing and OCD to the extent to which I overthink things.
One thing I have been trying to embrace and move forward on, and I can’t remember who said it, or it could be a dozen different people that have said it, but the quote I read that stuck with me was, “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” That notion of the 1.0 version of whatever you try that is new, might not be your best effort and product. You might be trying, but the end result might not be the best.
As one of your guests shared, when you were talking about speaking with Wayne Dyer’s 74th birthday, “Did I live the same year 74 times in a row or 74 different years?” I’m butchering that quote, but the point is to try new things, get outside your comfort zone, and be okay with doing it poorly because you can’t get to the 6.0 or 7.0 version of anything without doing the 1.0 or 2.0 average mediocre.
[bctt tweet=”Loyal employees create value.” username=”John_Livesay”]
That is something that you asked for. Is there anything you like to say in closing? That would be it. All of us during a time of such, it is awfully hack needs observation, but we live in a time where market change, technology change, and all the tools that we have at our disposal are changing fast, radically, and yet so powerfully that we need to be comfortable.
Particularly me, I need to be comfortable with maybe coloring outside the lines once in a while and being okay with imperfection because I’m not like that. I have colleagues who I admire because they are quick to try new things and new approaches. I’m a little too hand-ringing in the corner with a T-square and a protractor. In this day and age, that is not how to be.
Thanks for inspiring us to remember to loosen up a little bit, how to create people who are loyal by letting them feel seen and heard and creating a culture of us, and more importantly, reminding us all that we can all lean in a little bit more instead of phoning it in. Rich, if someone wants to hire speaking, what is the best place to send them to?
They can certainly go to our website, which is SpeakInc.com. We are on social media and everybody’s got an email.
Thanks for sharing your wit and your wisdom with us, Rich.
It is a pleasure, John. I admire how present you are, and it is super fun talking to you.
Likewise.
Important Links
- SpeakInc
- Rich Gibbons – LinkedIn
- International Association of Speakers Bureau
- Corporate Event Marketing Association
- Men Are From Mars, Women are From Venus
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Becoming Kings With Johnny King
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Our body is our kingdom. We keep the peace inside our kingdom. In this episode, Johnny King, the author of Becoming Kings, shares his insights on reaching our highest potential to become kings in our kingdom. Our inner kingdom encompasses our mental, emotional, and physical well-being; the outer is our purpose in the world, while the eternal kingdom is the things you take to go beyond our human experience. Once these three kingdoms are in alignment, that is how we reach our highest potential. Johnny also shares some tips on how we can become productive. Tune in to this insightful interview!
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Listen to the podcast here
Becoming Kings With Johnny King
My guest is Johnny King who has some great insights and a description of how to work on your inner, your outer, and your external kingdoms. Enjoy the episode.
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My guest on the show is Johnny King. Before Johnny became a transformational coach for men to help them reach their highest potential, he first had to discover his own. Amidst the recession of 2010, Johnny was broke. In fact, $35,000 in debt, jobless, and picking up the pieces of a failed marriage, he thought he was done. Little did he know it was the start of his journey.
He resolved never to experience hopelessness like that again. For more than a decade, he’s built and sold several successful businesses. He owns multiple short-term rental properties, travels the world, and operates a growing HVAC business. He sells his book Becoming Kings worldwide while producing a podcast that I’ve been fortunate enough to be on called Becoming Kings. Out of the pain of countless losses, he systematically designed his habits and routines to create a life he fell in love with. He’s now teaching others those tools so you can realize your own dreams and truly become the king or queen of your kingdoms. Welcome to the show.
Thank you. It’s a privilege to be on and to connect with you once again.
We were talking before the show about how we spontaneously ran into each other at a dinner in Austin, where I live and you live in Denver, so it was completely unexpected and a lot of fun.
I got you by surprise, for sure.
I don’t know about you, but I put people in categories like this person lives here and I only live here. I’m like a man at the airport and I run into somebody, I’m not as shocked, or at a sporting event or something. You’re like, “There’s a lot of people here.” That was an intimate 30-peer supper club event. What are the odds of that?
As you well know, the longer career we have, the more people we connect with, so the more likely you’re going to run into someone and it’s hard to always connect a name with a face. Along with anything else, that’s a challenge for sure.
For me, moving to Austin years ago at the peak of the pandemic, even though I’ve been here for years, doesn’t feel like that. I feel like I’ve started to find my tribe and my friends. I lived in LA for many years and I would run into people much more frequently there. Anytime anybody knows my name at a grocery store or anything in Austin, I’m always shocked. Tell us a little bit about your own story of origin. Can you go back to where you grew up, college, or school where you got onto this journey of having some success before 2010 came along?
Similar to you, I grew up in the Midwest, primarily in St. Louis. The short of the long ultimately is that I grew up in a relatively traditional blue-collar, white-collar, Midwestern family with four other siblings and was busy and always running from sporting events to choir concerts to everything else. The older I got, the more I realized that there were things going on between my parents and their relationship and how deeply that started to affect my own behavior in relationships, romantic relationships, and my relationships with my parents.
My father was a workaholic and primarily, he was around, but he wasn’t necessarily emotionally present. That’s such a gift to have that level of that connection and that presence. Ultimately, my mom got ill in 2006 and passed away. It was not easy, but the first record scratch in where I thought my life was going in my vision of it.
I had gotten married shortly thereafter. My father came out of the closet the year after that. The year after that, my ex left. Everything that I knew for what my life was going to be on the trajectory I thought it was on was blown up. That started the journey of, clearly, the man that I had become, and the life that I created was all facade, quite frankly.
It was legit, but I was trying to fake it until I make it because I was so insecure. I didn’t know what it meant to be a man. I started to heal myself and my relationship with my father. All those things brought me back to being where I am now, proud of who I am, happy with what I’m creating, and having my father be one of my best friends, which was great.
What a full circle that is.
[bctt tweet=”Productivity is achievable in small steps.” username=”John_Livesay”]
That’s a huge part of my journey, for sure. That’s the short of the long.
Lots of healing there. It’s funny, I watched the Garth Brooks documentary on his life and you look at that career and you’re like, “Wow.” You don’t realize that even someone at that success level struggled for a long time. They left Oklahoma, went to Nashville, and came back in 24 hours like, “This isn’t for me.” He has this amazing career after getting discovered, and then in the same year, much like you.
This is what I find so fascinating about stories. We don’t have to be a famous person to have these kinds of events, multiple events. A divorce, dad coming out, career, financial challenge, any one of those things by themselves knocks people down and keeps them down for a while. I call it the 1-2 jab. I’m not even fully standing back up from that.
Garth says, “I got divorced after many years. I have kids with this woman. I lost my mom, my closest supporter.” That was devastating. You went through that with your mom getting sick and then finally, he decided to retire from performing because he wanted to spend time with his kids. He goes all in the same year. Talking about losing your identity. That’s why I was like, “Look at you. You had that 1, 2, 3 like Garth did.” For seventeen years, he was not performing. He’s remarried and his new wife said, “I think you should go back on the road.” He said, “Is anybody going to remember me?”
That journey, whether you’re a man or not, of being disrupted and getting knocked down is huge. Your name is King and the title of your book is Becoming Kings. I love some of the takeaways in this book. The one I wanted to start with is how can we avoid this ordinary person mindset and not sabotage our life of abundance.
Becoming Kings: The Modern Man’s Path to Being Powerful, Purpose-Driven, and Fulfilled In A World That Has Taught You Not To Be
Abundance is not, for me, defined strictly by money, but it’s how many friends I have. Do I have an abundance of health? Do I have abundance and joy? I’m asking you to describe, first of all, what abundance is and then what we are doing in our minds to prevent us from feeling like we don’t deserve it, do you think?
Answering your first question, I feel like abundance ties into yes, my last name is King and yes, I’ve played my branding off of that, but I feel like it’s always been something that I’ve been connected with and driven towards. It is wanting to live a life where I have exceptional health physically, emotionally, relationally, and financially. Back in the old days, a king obviously reigns over the kingdom and has riches and everything. I wouldn’t say so much that my definition of being a king is that traditional, let’s say, but more focused on what we as men have control over in our lives.
You could have a lot of things. You could look like you’re a king and yet still be deeply insecure and hurting. You could be addicted to various substances, doing horrible things in the world. That’s certainly not what I feel is a king. That gets to answering the second question, which is what I feel prevents us oftentimes is our own insecurity. That has a lot to do with our upbringing and our lack of mentorship.
That ordinary mindset is, “Who am I to think that I’m going to be successful? Who am I?” It’s almost like impostor syndrome a little bit.
It’s 1 of 2 things. I do feel like there are a lot of people that are “hugely successful” and yet they are so driven by their insecurities. They’re like, “I’m going to prove the haters wrong,” and everything else. My father, too, was driven that way and I can relate to it as well. We have these deep underlying skeletons in our closet that we’re not enough and that we’re not lovable, so I must achieve X, Y, and Z.
I feel like that’s what guys oftentimes do. If I can get this thing, if I can get this person to hitch their wagon to mine, if I can have this many commas in the bank or live in this area of town, then I’ll be set. A lot of times, we get it and then it’s not there. We’re like, “Is this all?” Nothing changes. If anything, we’re more depressed and lonelier.
I remember a friend of mine in LA was an actress and very successful for a period of time, so much so that she could afford to rent a beach house in the Malibu colony. She was on this successful sitcom and she was never more depressed. Nobody wants to hear about it because you’re living the dream. You’re on a sitcom, you’re in the Malibu colony, and you wanted to throw a 4th of July party. What most people don’t realize about Malibu is it’s foggy in July. They call it the gloom June, which extends into the 4th of July holiday.
There you are and you can’t see the fireworks and so nobody wants to come and it’s cold. You think the show you’re on is stupid and it’s not why you became an actress. You’re, again, feeling so isolated that you can’t complain because you’ve got the money. It transcends gender. I used to do that. “As soon as I get out of college, I’ll be happy. As soon as I live in this neighborhood, I’ll be happy.” I remember talking to another friend of mine who lived in Bel Air and she said, “Everyone always says the grass is always greener. What I’ve come to learn is it’s all grass and it all needs to be mowed.”
We’re defining ourselves by our ZIP code and the prestige of our address or our car and all that stuff. That’s why it wears off after a while, doesn’t it? For me, the whole process of buying a house is so arduous, but by the time escrow closes, I’m like, “I don’t care anymore.” Even the new car is fun and then it’s been a couple of months and now, that’s my new norm. What is it that you help people become, as you say, mentally bulletproof so that we’re a little free of all that? That’s one of the things in the book that’s so powerful.
I’ve learned this by having these types of amazing conversations. These are not my original ideas. I have learned that for me, a lot of my healing has come through relationships with myself, with God, with my dad, making amends and various other things, and taking responsibility. A lot of my identity, the way that I viewed myself before, was in my relationships of how I attached to people or attached my value or my sense of self-esteem or self-worth to what they thought of me.
I was somewhat of a chameleon. I was inauthentic in my interactions with them. I was never taking ownership of my own fulfillment, my own sense of self-love, peace, and congruency. I feel for anyone to be ultimately bulletproof would be to get to the point where sticks and stones can break my bones, but words cannot hurt you. It’s because you’re very secure with who you are. That’s ultimately not what I feel like a king or a queen. Not to use those words obviously, but someone who knows themselves through and through has very few craps to give and they love what they do.
They love people, they’re present, and they’re great at what they do. They’re like your 2:00 AM friends who, if you had a busted down car and you needed to call someone, you could rely on them. We’re blessed if we have multiple of those people in our lives. I feel like a lot of guys who didn’t have very great role models in their lives learned to be very pleasing, yes men, if you will, which is inauthentic. We were too worried about getting our feelings hurt or hurting other people’s feelings. At some point, to be bulletproof, you got to know yourself, have done the work, and know that you’re not going to make everyone happy and that’s okay.
Even as a sales keynote speaker, I have to realize that not everyone’s going to resonate with my message or me and that’s okay. When you’re free of being at the effect of other people’s opinions of you, then you’re off that self-esteem rollercoaster. If you’re willing to put yourself out there as you do, where you have these programs for men and helping them become resilient, helping them get fit, and helping them with their mindset, there’s going to be people who critique that.
Whether it’s on a YouTube comment or as a speaker, they usually send out surveys. The odds of all 500 people or however many on the audience loving you, some people are going to go, “He’s okay,” or some people rave, but if you let yourself attach to, “That person liked me so I’m okay and this person didn’t, so I feel bad about myself,” it’s exhausting, isn’t it? I’ve been on it.
It’s relentless. You don’t sleep. You can’t concentrate. You can’t ultimately be present for other people.
You talk about there being three kingdoms that we should each build. Can you tell us what those are?
I talked about them a little bit already without saying the names, but it’s your inner kingdom, which is where you first start. It’s that relationship with yourself where most guys think that, as we were saying earlier, the solution to their problems is an outside-in job. They’re looking for something outside of themselves to solve or fill the big void that’s within. It’s an inside-out job. You’ve got to work on the inner kingdom, the mental, emotional, and physical health.
You have the outer kingdom, which is more about what’s your purpose in the world. What are you here to build and contribute? At the end of the day, the older we get, the more we realize how short life is. What are you here to do? What’s the impact? Your eternal kingdom focuses more on what things you get to take with you beyond this human experience. We don’t get to take our bodies. We don’t get to take any of the things that we acquire, but I believe that we get to take the love, the memories, and the relationships. The eternal, long-lasting, never-ending kingdom is where the juice is. It’s the interactions with people.
It’s a little bit of a legacy that you’re leaving behind. Children, you can still leave a legacy, relationships you’ve built, or something you wrote that inspired someone. I love that you’ve labeled those. You’ve taken that branding to a whole other level. Why I’m impressed by that, Johnny, is it’s memorable. I’m always striving for what I can create and say that is memorable and actionable. You have labeled those in such a way that if something’s not working, we now have a go-to checklist.
Is this an internal thing? Am I not exercising enough or am I so depressed, upset, grieving, or whatever it is that the inner work is not happening? I’m not meditating or doing whatever we need to do. Is it, “I don’t even know what my purpose is?” That’s why people hire you. They go, “I’ve lost my way. I didn’t grow up wanting to be an accountant. Do I have to do this the rest of my life because this is what I know how to do, golden handcuffs? Is there another purpose I could maybe figure out?
People retire and they don’t know what their purpose is if they don’t have that job and that title anymore. There are so many people who need what you do at different stages of their life. I’m pretty disciplined and I know my purpose is this. I went to a friend’s memorial and I realized I don’t have any legacy. I’m blowing all my relationships off the minute work makes one request that I’m so afraid of saying no to because I won’t get that promotion or whatever else. There’s no balance here. I’m painting a picture of all the different scenarios of why people would want to come work with you. Is that pretty close?
[bctt tweet=”Failure to commit is the high cost of low living.” username=”John_Livesay”]
That’s close because before I’d started working with men, I was working with women for eight years. I was doing a lot of health coaching, which was anything but health coaching. It was all psychiatry and everything else, being like a therapist. I’ve started to realize so many of these women had amazing relationships with their spouses. They were a great mother, and they loved what they did, but their relationship with their physical health and their inner kingdom was blowing up all of it.
It’s similar to my mom. She had so much that was going for it, but because she didn’t take care of her own health, she passed away at 61 years old. A lot of times, when we would get into it, sure enough, there was a rape or an abortion. There was something that was unresolved. That was why they were overeating. We all have our things. That’s a hard one to hide when you have excess weight on you. A lot of us who are, let’s say, healthier can still hide porn addictions, alcohol, sex addictions, or gambling addictions. It’s oftentimes the result of things that we’ve had that are unresolved.
You might have a great body and a great business, but you have no legacy or no one to share life with. You’re like, “What is this all about?” You could have someone who’s amazing in your life and you could have great health, but you have no real passion towards something that you’re building. You have to have all three. I see them as like circles that overlap each other and right in that sweet spot where they all overlap is that congruence. That’s where I feel like a king ultimately lives.
It’s like a three-legged stool. With a missing leg, it’s going to fall over. I see here you also can help people with productivity. You don’t have to have attention deficit disorder to have challenges with distractions. We’re constantly being bombarded with distractions and people go, “I didn’t get anything done. All I did was put off fires.” I hear that often. What is the one little tip that could intrigue people to want to engage you to learn how they could be a little more productive?
I struggle with it too. I’ve attempted to eliminate as many distractions, particularly off my phone. However, because our phones are literally on us pretty much 24/7 when they weren’t twenty years ago, it’s so crazy difficult given that we’re all pretty much connected to devices in general. One simple one that, to me, makes a massive difference because I know of so many people who scroll at night, the first thing they do in the morning is to scroll is putting their phone across the room.
It’s such a simple thing. I charge it across the room so when I put it down and then get into bed, I can’t grab it. That is a big part of allowing yourself to slow down and then be able to focus on what you are aiming towards. This is a lot bigger conversation to do a whole episode on but focuses more on your external outer kingdom. What are you committed to? What are you creating? What’s your impact on the world?
In what way are you going to bed knowing that when you wake up, you have a fire lit underneath you to get those things done? There are so many different hacks that I have in my programs that help you be productive because I’ve had to work for myself for many years. I got no one to whip me or any boss to tell me. I have to get stuff done. Otherwise, there’s no food on the table. There are a lot of things there that we could get into.
You have worked on your own story, your own three kingdoms, and it shows. When I ran into you in Austin, you were happy. Your face lights up and I don’t feel you can’t fake that. When you feel someone’s energy and you don’t know what’s off, you go, “I don’t know what’s on, but everything’s on with this guy. I feel it. It’s not like he’s faking it.”
You’re walking your talk and that’s why people want to work with you. They can start by listening to your podcast. They could buy your book Becoming Kings and then the weekly newsletter. There are lots of ways to work with you. Do we just send everybody to JohnnyKing.com? Is that the best place for everyone to get into your world?
There are so many people obviously that are out there that can support. One of those things that you have to look for is some type of resonance. Do you connect with someone? I work with Christine Hassler and Stefanos, who are down there in Austin as well. They work with Preston and Alexi. I’m always looking for that type of person to connect with. Similar to you, people can look at my website and see what I’m up to and if what I’m doing resonates with them. If not, like connect with me and I’ll put you in touch with some people who are also amazing coaches.
It’s because you come from a place of abundance. That’s what I like about you.
I’m here to serve and connect people with.
It shows. Any last thought or a quote you want to leave us with?
Becoming Kings: What prevents us from becoming kings and queens is our insecurity. That has a lot to do with our upbringing and lack of mentorship.
There are several quotes that are up in my room that I look at, but there’s one that says, “Failure to commit is the high cost of low living.” It’s the commitment to improve, the commitment to be, which is scary to get out of the rut of. I know on paper everything looks good, but there’s something missing. It’s scary to upset the apple cart. Start creating healthy boundaries and start doing the work to figure out who we are and who we might love ourselves as. The lack of commitment usually results in a lot of regrets, so I don’t want to live my life that way.
Thank you, Johnny, for being you, for writing your book, and for offering so many ways for people to get all three kingdoms at maximum. Your impact is huge and I’m happy to be someone in a small way to get that out into the world. Thanks for coming to the show.
Thank you. Likewise, your energy is palpable, but it’s contagious. I saw you and people want to be around you. It was fun to connect and so fun to have you on my show. It’s fun to be on yours. Thank you for having me on.
My pleasure. See you soon in Austin.
You bet.
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My Pandemic Puppy
Posted by John Livesay in blog | 0 comments
During the pandemic, many people felt isolated and got a dog to help keep them company. Over 93% of people who adopted a dog said it helped their mental health.
I had just moved from LA to Austin on March 1, 2020, just a few weeks before everything shut down. I drove with my sister Barbara and my King Charles Cavalier Spaniel Pepe. He is a miniature version of the breed, and I always ask the groomer to give him a “puppy cut,” so everyone always thinks he is a puppy.
Barbara offered to drive with me, which made for a fun road trip, and we stayed at dog-friendly hotels along the way.
Little did I know that after my sister flew back to her home, I would be spending a lot of alone time with my dog Pepe.
Here are the ABCs that Pepe taught me about on how to handle life’s disruptions:
A: Always Be Kind and Affection
Pepe defaults to kindness when he meets new people on a walk. I like to say he has never had a bad day, and I’m doing everything in my power to keep it that way
Pepe shows me that affection doesn’t not have to be earned. It is available 24/7. He is full of licks and cuddles.
B: Be Present (and Belly Rubs!)
Pepe is always in the now. Once, I stepped on his tail by mistake, and he quickly forgot about it. He does not hold grudges.
He loves belly rubs any time but especially in the morning. He rolls over on his back and stretches his paws as I rub his belly. It is a great way for both of us to start our day.
C: Compassion, Comfort, and Connection
Pepe is my ideal companion full of compassion and comfort. He is easily entertained when we play fetch, whether it is in the house or outside.
Connection can be formed in simple playful activities that can include others, too. When friends are over, we take turns tossing his ball for him to retrieve.
The next time life feels overwhelming or frustrating, I suggest you revisit the simple ABCs of life that Pepe has taught me to get yourself recentered. There is always time for a belly rub or a game of fetch to get your mind focused on what really matters.