The Long Game With Dorie Clark
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Think long-term. Plan for the long game and learn to reinvent yourself. Just how important is it to do this when it comes to your career? You are about to find out. Join John Livesay as he sits down with author and executive education professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, Dorie Clark as they discuss long-term strategic planning and how to reinvent yourself for success. Pay close attention and learn the ins and outs of self-assessment and self-improvement.
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Listen to the podcast here
The Long Game With Dorie Clark
Our guest is Dorie Clark, the author of the book The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World. She said, “Just because something is long, it doesn’t mean it’s slow. The effort we put into something compounds over time as interest does with the money.” Enjoy the episode.
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I welcome back a guest, Dorie Clark. She’s been named one of the Top 50 Business Thinkers in the world by Thinkers50 and was recognized as the number one communications coach in the world by Marshall Goldsmith Leading Global Coaches Awards. Dorie is a consultant, a keynote speaker and an author. She teaches executive education at Duke and she’s the author of a book called The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World. She’s also been a former presidential campaign spokesperson. The New York Times described her as an expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives. She speaks for companies like Google and Microsoft. Dorie, welcome back to the show.
[bctt tweet=”Effort compounds the same way interest does with money.” username=”John_Livesay”]
John, thank you. It’s so good to be here.
Let’s tap back in to do a quick refresh for anyone who didn’t get to read your other episode as to your roots. I know you grew up in a small town in North Carolina. We start to get a sense of how you didn’t grow up in Silicon Valley. I’m always interested to hear those stories of people who are in a situation where they go, “This is not the end for me. I’m going to figure out a way to do something else.”
I was thinking about this because there are some interesting accidents of birth. I used to work in politics. I worked at Howard Dean’s presidential race as a spokesperson. Our campaign manager for that race was known for being one of the first people to harness the power of the internet during a presidential campaign. His name was Joe Trippi. Part of his origin story was that he had grown up in California and he went to San Jose State. It’s almost through that accident that he became turned early on into the world of the internet and its possibilities. Even though he went on to be in politics, he had that Silicon Valley orientation and was able to cross-pollinate it. For me, I grew up in a small town in North Carolina, which was most famous as a golf resort. I have not yet found a way to cross-pollinate my work with golf so I fled instead.
I was reading a newsletter from Chip Conley who was talking about that within the word flee if you rearrange it, you can turn it into feel. I’m like, “That’s clever. I hadn’t thought of moving that L around like that.” Sometimes we don’t want to flee something and we want to feel what it is. Sometimes we feel it and go, “It’s still time to leave.” Let’s talk about your book. The reason I was trying to be clever with the pronunciation there is you’ve turned the word Long on the cover into “XOXOXO.” I’m assuming the X is silent. Maybe there’s another way to pronounce that but I thought, “That’s so clever in terms of hugs and kisses.” How did you come up with that long game with all those Xs and Os?
I published the book through a commercial publisher, Harvard Business School Press. As a result, I didn’t have too much control over the initial design. I can’t speak to what the designer was thinking. However, what I think it’s about is sort of bingo’s Xs and Os. It’s about the strategy of the long game. I’m so happy that you liked the cover because one of the challenges that authors with commercial publishing houses often face was a battle royale over the cover. Unfortunately, I tried to be generally a very agreeable person but I made the publishers hate me because this was the fifth cover concept that they gave me. The other ones felt like we’re not doing it. They were not speaking to what the book was. As the author, you want as best as you can for the cover to help add to the message and to convey it. For me, the idea of the strategy of Xs and Os and how you win the game is part of it. When I finally saw this design I was like, “This is the one.”
I’m sure you’re going to be able to give a talk on this and show all the covers that were rejected as part of the process of getting to the right story and right message as a brand since that’s one of your areas of expertise. A lot of people, when they see a finished product or finished talk they assumed that was your first stab at it. I have found that when people take you behind the Wizard of Oz curtain a little bit and you go, “No, this was a journey,” it inspires other people to think, “Maybe I’ll be on a journey and it won’t be my favorite thing right out of the get-go whether it’s something I write or something that I say or even the name of a talk that I give.”
One of the other reasons I love your title so much is the juxtaposition. Anytime there’s something like, “Long-term thinker but this is the short-term world,” that’s an interesting premise for our brain to try and put those two opposites together. If it is a short-term world and people are worried about the next quarter’s results, does it still make sense to be a long-term thinker? Let’s start with that open-ended obvious question of what we know the answer is. I’m curious to know not only what the answer is but what makes it the answer.
The Long Game: One of the best ways to differentiate yourself from the competition is to share your ideas publicly.
Ultimately, most of us can probably agree that the world has been getting more and more short-term oriented. We see it in businesses where many corporations are focused sometimes excessively to bad ends on short-term results and choosing stock market returns, in consequence making some poor decisions. We also see it in a lot of people’s lives. As we get more and more inundated with the internet culture, social media, constant comparisons and looking around, a lot of people are driven to distraction by what other people are doing and accomplishing. It does create pressure about, “Why are they succeeding? Why am I not succeeding? What do they know that I don’t? What am I doing wrong?” That leads to a frenzied rumination that is not the optimal way of being.
We know intellectually the things that are worthwhile in our careers and also in our personal lives are usually things that you have to work out for a long time but it can be hard. The biggest thing that I wanted to address in the book is that we all know intellectually that success does not come overnight but in practical terms, we don’t know what not overnight is. Maybe it’s a week. Shouldn’t it be a week? Often, it takes a lot more than that. This is a book about how to gird yourself for that uncomfortable period of time where you’re working hard towards something meaningful but you are not yet seeing outward signs of success. In order to get to that success, you have to persevere, which is not an easy thing to do. This book wants to give you the ammunition to be able to do it.
Let’s talk about creating online courses because I know you’ve done that and I went through that whole process as well. I remember, when I first started it, it seems so daunting. I thought, “Was anyone going to want this or buy this?” Don’t worry about that now, worry about creating something that you think is valuable and that you see as needed. As opposed to well, “When’s the payoff on this investment?” That is a great example of you’re not only an author and a speaker. You’ve decided, “Let’s create another source of revenue but more importantly, another source or way for people to consume our content that can be packaged with a talk.” When that happens, then you’re not just waiting for that once-a-year meeting that they need a speaker for.
I am a big fan of trying to think strategically about these questions and about building up multiple revenue streams. This was the topic of my book Entrepreneurial You, which was about how you create passive income. How do you create multiple revenue streams in your business? COVID showed us all pretty vividly that if we only have one income stream, certainly if you have a day job, but even if you’re an entrepreneur, but you only do one thing or one type of thing, COVID or any disruption like that, you don’t see it coming. It can be swift and dramatic. The more legs you can have on the table, the more different things, ventures or things that you have your hands in, the better because it provides you with a lot more stability and solidity if something changes in the marketplace. It also enables you to capture more upside.
It’s ironic because you’re talking about taking the long view or the long game of something, yet you have this wonderful marriage of saying, “There is a way to create rapid content for a masterclass because so many people get so overwhelmed with writing anything.” In one of your courses about that, you say, “I’m going to show you how to quickly come up with some ideas to get your message starting to flow. There is a happy medium and you are straddling both sides of it to keep the big picture and still take action.” Would that be a fair assessment?
[bctt tweet=”Be a long-term thinker in a short-term world.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Absolutely. In terms of the long game and the big picture, one of the drums that I like to beat is if you want to become a recognized expert in your field if you want to differentiate yourself from the competition. One of the best ways to do this, and this applies across industries, is to share your ideas publicly. If you don’t do that self-evidently, people don’t know what your ideas are unless they’ve worked with you directly. That is always going to be a small number of people.
It inhibits the virality of you as a person if the only people who know you are the people who personally know you and have worked with you directly. Whereas if you’re creating content, writing articles, doing podcasts like this or what have you, it enables a ton more people to see who you are and what you’re about. It’s shareable content so the word can spread and that enables you to grow much faster and make a big impact. That is an essential component of playing the long game in your career. With that being said, long doesn’t mean slow.
One of the covers that were proposed to me by my publisher that I was vehemently opposed to was they wanted to put a snail on the cover. I said, “First of all, snails are ugly. Second of all, the long game means strategic. It does not mean inherently that things have to be pokey or take a long time. You can be swift. You can move with alacrity. It’s about choosing the right things to do.” Similarly, that’s why I created a course, the Rapid Content Creation Masterclass. It is in your long-term interest to create great content and share your ideas but that doesn’t mean it has to be a painstaking process.
We know success takes a while. We start getting impatient and comparing ourselves to other people. That’s such a rabbit hole. First of all, imposter syndrome and resentment can kick up. Your resilience can go down. Much like the pandemic when it started, we didn’t know when it was going to end. For many of us, myself included, that was one of the hardest parts of it. More than eighteen months, let me try to wrap my head around that. It’s the same thing, “When is this success coming? Is it coming?”
I would love to hear what you do but what I’ve done is I think of myself as a stock. If I invest money in this stock called Me, I know my work ethic. I know a sense of some talent and some previous successes that I could say, “If that was a stock, I would invest in it. It might have some dips and not get profitable right off the get-go but it’s going to get there.” Do you use a metaphor like that for yourself? Do you have other ways of looking at things and helping other people see themselves in a way where they don’t get so impatient?
I love that metaphor, John. You’re exactly right. There are a couple that I would use. The first is your effort compounds the same way that money compounds over time. I’m a big fan. To go back to our previous example about writing articles for instance, which is something that I’ve done a lot in my business and in working to get my ideas better known. It is a process where you can’t just write one article and assume, “I’m done.” It doesn’t have to be onerous. You start where you start. Maybe it’s an article a month. If you can, maybe it’s an article a week. If you do that over enough time, eventually, you have built a body of work that is substantial. People do begin to know who you are because of those small efforts. It’s deploying an hour a week towards something meaningful.
Another financial metaphor that I like a lot, which I share in The Long Game comes from a gentleman that I interviewed. He’s a friend of mine named Jonathan Brill and I wrote a piece with him in Harvard Business Review. He talks about the way that he thinks about structuring his career portfolio. He says that his first goal is to create what he calls Heartbeat Income. It’s like, “What is the amount of money you need to cover the basics, pay the mortgage, pay the health insurance, get your food and whatever?” He always says, “That’s the first part.” After that, you can afford to be a little bit riskier. He said, “You need to take 20% of your effort and ask yourself, ‘What’s a bond and what is SpaceX stock?’” It’s good to have things that are secure to take care of the needs that you need to be met. It’s also good to have a little bit of something risky in the portfolio in a small way that could pay off exponentially. It’s true in our stock portfolios but it’s also true in terms of our career bets and where we’re investing our time.
Everyone’s aware that technology is changing at a rapid rate that no one’s experienced before in their careers, which requires people to stay in a learning mode. You can’t go, “I know how to be an engineer. I know how to be an accountant now. I don’t need to learn anything new.” With artificial intelligence coming along and a lot of professional services industries and things like and even computers doing radiology and reading X-rays. There are many things now that you would think you know what you know and you’re good now. You can coast for 40 years. What you’re saying is no matter what you’re doing, you need to be this long-term thinker and say, “What else could I be doing with my career to keep myself relevant or ahead of the curve?”
The Long Game: It is in your long-term interest to create great content and share your ideas. But that doesn’t mean it has to be a painstaking process.
All of us can probably think of examples. I have a person I know whose father has been long-term unemployed. This is an educated guy who had a great career but he was an architect that refused to learn AutoCAD. That’s what architecture is now. It’s using this software and not drawing things by hand. For years, he hasn’t been able to get a job because of his unwillingness to do this. You can say, “He’s pursuing other things,” which is great but he doesn’t have a job. It is incumbent upon all of us to be thoughtful. If we decide, “This is intolerable. I don’t want to do this.” Fine. Pick something else. Reinvent your weight into it but the problem comes when there’s not a goal and a thing that we’re reinventing ourselves into. Instead, “I’m not doing that thing anymore,” and there’s a void.
I remember when I was selling advertising for magazines back in 2008. It was the first time I got laid off. Someone said to me, “This reminds me of what happened to the silent movie stars. Some made it to talkies and some didn’t.” You’ve got to figure out if you’re willing to learn how to sell digital ads instead of print. Yes, it’s a whole other language and a whole other set of things but it is an ongoing choice we are continually making. It’s like, do I want to understand blockchain and what an NFT is? Do I want to say, “This is where I check out. I’m not going to learn anymore?”
I don’t necessarily think I’m going to run and invest in one but at least I’m going to understand the language. I think what you’re saying is to stay relevant, you have to speak the language. I remember listening to Lisa Gibbons being interviewed. She said, “I agreed to appear on Dancing with the Stars because that’s the language that a lot of people are speaking these days for actors or hosts to stay relevant.” She’s not a professional dancer but you’ve got to be willing to stretch out of your comfort zone and go, “If this is what people are talking about and I get invited to play the game, I’m going to learn how to dance enough to do the Mamba for two minutes.” Those were a couple of examples in addition to that architect that you said.
At a certain point, it’s like someone said, “I have a flip phone so I don’t text.” You’re like, “What?” Maybe if you’re a grandparent and you have checked out and you’re like, “I stopped with the flip phone. I’m not going to use Dropbox. I don’t know how to get this to you then.” We don’t realize that we’re constantly saying yes and learning and adapting to new things, including Zoom versus Skype and Blackberry versus iPhone.
This is what I want your opinion on. I see so many companies thinking, “We’re at the top. We’re going to stay here forever,” Kodak, Blackberry, Blockbuster, on and on. The irony was there’s a documentary on Netflix about the demise of Blockbuster. What advice do you have because you work with such big companies? They hire you to come in as a speaker and consultant on making sure that they are not just chasing after every new shiny thing but are having some long-term thinking when it’s hard with all the demands on them.
Some of the best advice about corporate strategy comes from my friend, Rita McGrath, who I profiled in one of my earlier books, Stand Out. I talked a bit about Rita and her ideas. Her book is called Seeing Around Corners. She shares a lot of interesting information about how companies can begin to see inflection points as they’re happening or before they’re happening so that they have time to pivot if needed. To a certain extent, it’s asking yourself simple questions like, “If you work for a company, are you noticing that you don’t buy its product anymore? If you are working at a company, are headhunters trying to poach your talent?” It’s a good thing that headhunters are trying to poach your talent because it means that you are seen as a leader in your industry. If they are not circling, that’s ominous. It’s looking for little things like that.
I love the concept of if your family is not using film and everyone’s taking digital pictures or your family’s not going to Blockbuster every weekend anymore and renting these little red things from Netflix or starting to stream. That process is fascinating to me to watch. Eventually, it’s going to be every studio and network. We now have NBC streaming. That whole demise of cable in a weird way. Do you remember when people were talking about, “I’ve cut the cord to cable?” I thought to myself, “Is that a few people doing that? How would you figure out how to watch what you want?” I don’t know many people who are still paying for all that.
[bctt tweet=”We all know intellectually that success does not come overnight, but in practical terms, we don’t really know what not overnight is.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I remember my mother coming to visit me at my house and being upset that I didn’t have cable because she’s like, “I’m turning on the television and what do I watch?” She was upset by this whole situation. She demanded that I order a cable subscription for when she came to my house. I’m like, “This is dumb, mom.”
We can get Jeopardy on YouTube. It’s pretty funny. I sold my place in LA before I moved here to Austin. I was talking to one particular real estate person that I’d worked with for a while. I said, “There’s a competitor that’s a lot more digital than what you’re doing. I’m interested to hear what your strategy is to sell the house now that it’s been ten years since I bought it.” They’re like, “We run an ad in the LA Times on Saturday and a magazine.” I’m like, “If there’s anybody I know that still gets the LA Times, it’s on a Sunday only not a Saturday. You’re putting a magazine in a Saturday thing and someone’s got to flip through that magazine to see an ad for my house and I’m paying you for that? That doesn’t make any sense at all.” That’s horse and buggy time.
Here, they also deploy some pigeons.
It is fascinating to watch the resistance of industries like real estate, which has been so much the same for decades of how people get paid and how things are marketed. They do a virtual tour of the house and they even have a thing where you can measure to see if your sofa will fit. I’m like, “Do you guys do anything like that besides pictures?” They’re like, “No. We can’t do everything.” How our brain justifies not evolving. I wasn’t in complete shock that I got laid off because you could see print was dying but it is a death of anything. There’s that denial like, “Did it really happen? I thought it might, but it did?” That’s the psychology of what you’re doing that I find fascinating. You’re encouraging people to get out of this frenetic of putting out flyers every day. I’m sure the people at Blockbuster were busy up until the point where they realized, “This isn’t going to work anymore.”
You do need to zoom out and by the time they did, it was too late because they didn’t have the money to go after the subscribers the way Netflix did. It’s a fascinating little nuance in that documentary I watched. You watch all these other people try to join the party. He has an advantage and they bought Fox on top of it. Isn’t that interesting? Talk about a long-term view of something. Disney doesn’t have enough content that they have to buy those premises. Looking at that can help us look at our career. That’s what you’re saying in the book as well.
Something that I’ve striven to do in all of my books is essentially take the way that we think about corporate strategy and apply it to our personal lives. I got my start doing consulting for organizations in enterprise-level consulting. All of my books have been aimed at individual professionals. It’s fundamentally the same analysis. It’s the same way that we ought to be thinking about these questions.
The Long Game: Long game means strategic. It does not mean that things have to be pokey or take a long time.
That’s why I kept toggling back and forth because I knew that was your specific area of expertise. You have your niche and that’s a great place to wrap up this wonderful interview. When you have a brand like Dorie Clark, people know you, all of the books have a thread, all the talks and courses are all connected, then we know we’re in Dorie’s world. What a wonderful place to be in. It makes the momentum and the energy pull in because you know where you’re going. Any last thoughts or quotes you want to leave us with? We can get the book, The Long Game on Amazon and your website DorieClark.com.
Thank you so much, John. I appreciate it. I’ll also mention that for people that are interested in doing more of a deep dive on strategic thinking. I do have a free resource that people can download, which is The Long Game Strategic Thinking Self-Assessment, which is at DorieClark.com/thelonggame.
I saw that. It even pops up for me when I went there. What a great tool that is and what a great person you are sharing your warmth and wisdom, which is a wonderful combination. Thanks, Dorie.
John, thank you so much.
Important Links
- Dorie Clark
- The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World
- Episode – Dorie Clark Past Episode
- Entrepreneurial You
- Rapid Content Creation Masterclass
- Harvard Business Review – Jonathan Brill and Dorie Clark Article
- Stand Out
- Seeing Around Corners
- Amazon – The Long Game
- DorieClark.com/thelonggame
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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How To Focus In An Unfocused World With Erik Qualman
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Are you easily distracted? Do you wish you know how to focus and get more work done? Erik Qualman, a keynote speaker and the author of The Focus Project, joins John Livesay as he discusses the principal components of staying focused. Erik notes that staying focused is a powerful thing that stretches the possibilities of what you can do at the moment that will also help you in the future. Learning the ways on how you can stay focused gives your mind the power to take control of what’s important and is the key to success.
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Listen to the podcast here
How To Focus In An Unfocused World With Erik Qualman
Our guest is Erik Qualman, the author of The Focus Project. He talks about there are three key things we need to do in order to stay focused. We need to know our purpose. We need to have a process and finally, we need to focus on the progress of what we’re doing. He said, “When you make the right decision, money follows. Success is two sides of the same coin, getting focused and staying focused.” Enjoy the episode.
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We have a returning guest, Erik Qualman who is a five-time bestselling author and a keynote speaker. Erik has performed in over 55 countries and reached 50 million people. He was voted the second most likable author in the world behind Harry Potter’s JK Rowling. His Socialnomics work has been on 60 Minutes, the Wall Street Journal, and used by the National Guard to NASA. Over 500 universities use his materials. His animation studio wrote and produced the world’s most-watched social media video, Social Media Revolution. He is a former sitting professor at MIT and Harvard’s edX labs, and he received an honorary doctorate for his groundbreaking work. Most importantly, he’s still trying to live up to “The world’s greatest dad” coffee mug he received from his wife and two daughters. I had the joy of meeting Ana Maria, his wife. I’m sure that he’s given her “The world’s greatest mom” mug. His book is called The Focus Project. It’s about how we can stay focused in an unfocused world. Welcome back to the show.
It’s great to be back. I’m glad you’ve met my better half. Ana Maria does have a much larger mug than I do for two reasons because she’s great and also, she needs a little more coffee to get going.
Let’s go back. For most people, it might be the first time that they’re reading an interview about you. Take us back to your childhood. I know you’re from Michigan. How did you get into this world of digital? I know you had a background at Yahoo. Was there anything in your childhood that led you to go, “This is where I’m going?”
I would say no on the childhood. I was always a curious kid. The first thing I sold was marigold seeds. This is a yellow and orange flower that most of you see if you don’t know what a marigold is. If you break those apart, they break in hundreds of seeds that you can put as a kid into a paper Dixie cup and then go door-to-door and sell them. It’s beneficial to those people because you can plant them and water them, and they’ll grow. That’s the only piece from an entrepreneur standpoint. I was fortunate to grow up in Michigan with two brothers and a great family that’s very active.
I graduated from Michigan State University. During my time in Michigan State, I was an intern at an ad agency that worked with Cadillac. I remember I was an intern when I did this. I had to write down the meeting notes. Think about writing all the meeting notes for the meetings because you’re meeting with the client. What was said, he said, she said. It takes quite a bit of time. I typed them and print them. I have to put them physically on everyone’s chair and then mail it to the client or put it in an interoffice mail. Some of you might not know what that is. When I talk about interoffice mail, it’s surprising that it still exists. People are still looking for these envelopes that are all used. You cross out the name. It’s bringing back memories, probably not good ones for a lot of people.
The Focus Project: The Not So Simple Art of Doing Less
One day, I go, “This new thing called email is new for businesses. Can you send an attachment?” There’s no Google, so I had to figure it out. I’m like, “You can.” Instead of printing it and sending it, I did the unthinkable and saved two hours of my time and emailed it. Within a minute, the head of the agency is in my cube. He’s like, “What are you doing?” I go, “It’s better for the environment because I’m printing on paper.” He’s like, “No one cares about the environment at this point.” I go, “It saved an hour of my time. I can tell as an intern that he doesn’t care how I spent an hour of my time. Finally, I go, “I can track this because a lot of times, the client says they didn’t get it. I can track that shows they opened it.” That saved my internship. That was a precursor to me getting into digital items. Later, when I took the full-time position, they go, “There are these things called websites that came out of nowhere. We need Cadillac.com. Can you figure it out?” I loved it and away we go, as they say, and the rest is history.
What a great story of origin of solving a pain point. Instead of the client saying, “I didn’t get it.” Not only did you get it, but you also opened it at this time and you spent this much time reading it. That’s fascinating. Earth Day was from the ‘70s. I remember that was a big deal in school and yet, the actual focus and implementation on it. That’s the thing that stands out for me in that story. It’s like, “I don’t care that you’re saving paper.” Of course, no one would typically say that now but interestingly, that was on everyone’s radar and yet, not being put into use.
This is Michigan. Keep in mind, Michigan still to this day has $0.10 per can, which is shocking to me. If you ever watched Seinfeld, they’re doing a whole episode on it. Most days, they don’t have a return policy to return your aluminum cans for money. You pay for it upfront, then you return them to get the cash. If you happen to be a lucky kid and find some cans, then that’s free money. It was very progressive. It’s funny to see how some things have progressed. Still, Michigan’s the only one that has $0.10, and not every state has a return policy on aluminum.
You’re also the only speaker and author who, to my knowledge, has an animation studio. Can you tell us how that evolved?
We’re working on a cool project. It’s one of those deals to where when I wrote Socialnomics, that’s my first book for a lot of your readers out there, I go, “I’m talking about social media.” Socialnomics was the four-phase book. MySpace was the biggest thing of the day. The book is about, “This is why social media is not for teenagers. This is why it’s going to change the world and how we communicate because governments are going to use it. Businesses are going to use it. It’s not just for teenagers.” At the time when I wrote it, everyone’s like, “Social media is for teenagers.” I’m screaming from the mountaintops, “No. It’s going to be massive.”
[bctt tweet=”When you make the right decisions, money follows.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I talked to CEOs for an hour and they’re like, “That sounds good. I agree with you,” then they wouldn’t do anything. I’m like, “I got to hit these people over the head.” I did Social Media Revolution which is a lot longer. Now, they’re a lot shorter. It’s a four-minute animated film with all these crazy statistics. They’re like, “If Facebook was a country, it’d be bigger than whatever.” I’m giving context to these data points and it went massively viral. Companies would reach out and say, “Can you do that for us? We want to do this initiative.” I go, “No, I just did that for the book to help explain it.” By the third knock, I’m like, “Wake up.” I’m like, “Yeah, we can do that. We have a whole studio. We will make it happen.” That’s how it all started and that’s what we do. We do only a couple a year because we want them to be super high quality, but we work with the best brands in the world. We’ve done some for Disney, Cartier, Mont Blanc, IBM and Chase. It’s been a fun ride.
A couple of takeaways there for people reading. When someone needs something that you can do and is willing to pay for it, perhaps that’s worth exploring as a business. Sometimes, we think it’s an outlier or one-off request. If you get enough of them, then you start to go, “This might be something.” Of course, that doubles down your brand credibility, uniqueness and memorability, which you have in spades. If you have a relationship with Mont Blanc and they’re looking for a keynote speaker, it’s such an easy introduction from the people who hired you to do the animation studio to say, “Let me put you in touch with so and so who’s hiring our speaker for the annual meeting.” Breaking through the clutter and being memorable and unique.
Speaking of clutter, in your book, The Focus Project, I don’t know if you were able to predict the future. Coming out of this pandemic, many people are complaining about how hard it is for them to focus. There’s an article about there’s something between thriving and depressed, and they’re calling it languishing. People are more tired than normal or Zoom burnout or all these other things. Even the children experienced school remotely. It has been a difficult challenge. What I liked about The Focus Project is this is a broader book than just execs. This is could be for moms, teachers and entrepreneurs. Anybody who feels that they’re overwhelmed and their me-time has gone out the window. My first question around this is, what inspired you to write it?
It happened before the pandemic. The book was complete right when the pandemic hits. What inspired me was that I was wrestling with it. I was sitting here going, “I’m the owner of my destiny supposedly but why is my hair on fire every day?” I’m like, “I’m not going to do that again tomorrow.” It was rinse, wash and repeat. I’m like, “This is crazy. If I’m struggling with this, let me go ask around.” I started asking school teachers, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, CEOs and small businesses. You got it. Everyone’s wresting with focus and how to focus in this unfocused world. The pandemic hit and it’s also throwing gasoline on it. Ironically enough, once the pandemic came out, the world’s first thought is, “Oh my gosh for the world,” then the second thought is, “I’ve got this new book. This is terrible. How am I going to launch a new book during a pandemic?” You’ve seen a lot of the movies. They’ve moved an entire year to launch Despicable Me 4. I started getting DMs and emails, “I need this book now. Don’t set due in the fall. We need it now.”
We did the unthinkable and moved it forward. We pretty much just published the book. It’s almost impossible to move a publishing date for a lot of reasons. I won’t bore you guys with that. Fortunately, we got to help these people. I don’t care if it impacts the sales negatively. If people are physically okay but mentally struggling, let’s get it out the door. It’s been rewarding for me to see that it’s helped people during these difficult times. It was the gasoline on the fire and it’s allowing people to focus in this unfocused world.
How To Focus: Focus is really hard but it can be learned and it can become a habit, but you need a purpose to help you drive that.
That’s such a great example. We might have heard the concept of, “If you have a problem, maybe other people have a problem,” as a source of creating something, whether it’s a book or a product or even a topic for a talk. What you do that I also want to underline for everybody reading is make sure it is a problem. Don’t just think, “If I have, then everybody does.” You did some research to confirm in the startup world that product-market fit was there. Ironically, it’s another great story that it was needed more than ever as opposed to being pushed back. The word unprecedented is a little overused with a pandemic, but your story about a book being moved up as opposed to being pushed back like movies and other things is unprecedented. I’ve never heard of a book even being able to get pushed forward, let alone because of a need. That must feel great.
That goes to a bigger picture about a certain point in our lives and in our career where we’re doing something way beyond, “This is going to make me a lot of money.” If you’re being hired as a speaker, people are looking to you for some leadership and some thoughts that they can implement. One of the subheads of your book that you talk about is The Not So Simple Art of Doing Less. You even have something in there about pretend like you’re in school again and go on recess. Can you talk a little bit about that?
It’s crazy. To dovetail on your point there, there are a lot of conversations about if we move the book forward, it might make less money because books are generally launched in the fall. I go, “Let’s do what’s right for the reader. If it loses us money, I’m okay with that.” Ironically enough, everyone knows that when you do that, you make more money more times than not. It’s not always rainbows and unicorns as my daughters would say but it’s true. When you make the right decision, it’s ironic how much the money follows after you do that. That’s been the case.
I can’t thank them enough for reading the book, all the positive reviews, and making it a commercial success. It’s been great to see that it’s helping people on an individual level. It’s a book that I wrote. It’s called a project because I undertook it. I was struggling with it. John, I also started to ask in one of the last events I did. It was funny as I opened the book. I’m at a cocktail reception. I was one of the keynote speakers. I’m in this VIP room and I’m like, “I can’t believe I was in this room.” Businesses have been in place for hundreds of years in America. They’ve got last names like Mars, and they live on streets like Hershey and Cadbury.
I’m like, “What an advantage. I can just sit here and listen.” I’m asking these icons, “How are you so successful?” They’re like, “We’re a little better at focusing the most.” I go, “What do you struggle with on a day-to-day level as the leader?” They go, “Staying focused.” I’m like, “It’s the same coin. Just two different sides.” That’s when I go, “They’re doing it.” That’s why I started asking everyone that I’d run into, “If I could have more time,” then I realized, “You don’t need more time.” If you woke up two hours early, that doesn’t mean you get more done. You might get less done. If I gave you six more hours in the week, we’d all be super excited like, “You should give me a bonus of six hours.” You wouldn’t get everything done that’s on your to-do list. There’s more to do. That’s the fallacy we tell ourselves or I told myself. That was one of the biggest a-ha moments from the book.
[bctt tweet=”Success is both getting focused and staying focused.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I was glad I went through the project marrying the institutional research looking, “What does the brain do? What does the body do? What does sleep do? What does the food do?” Also, “Here are some tips and tricks when you’re in an office,” and then testing it myself to see what worked and didn’t work to tell the story. Everyone’s different. I say, “This didn’t work for me but it works for a lot of people,” or “Even if it doesn’t work for most people, this worked for me.” I want to make sure everyone took it at a personal level. I’ve never written a book on a personal level before. We almost pulled that as well. I was at a book club meeting and they said, “That’s our favorite part. That’s why we write it.” It’s a larger female audience. Most readers are females, 30% are female. It’s been amazing. We’ve been lucky.
Two big things there again. You are constantly full of nuggets. I love it. The first one is getting focused is a competitive advantage. The other one is talking to somebody who’s at the peak of their career, whether they’re an actor or a director or executive. How do you get to the top? The next challenge is how do you stay at the top. How does somebody have a relevant career? The same thing is true about, “I’m more focused on somebody else but I also stay more focused on someone else.” The second part of what you said that I’ve learned also is when we speak, write and talk to people, the more vulnerable we are and the more they connect with us. As opposed to pretending that we always have it all together all the time in terms of confidence or whatever the topic is. People like to hear our struggles and journeys. That shocked me because you shared that you played basketball in school because you happen to be tall and it’s the law.
I happen to be super-fast and quick. I’m kidding.
When someone sees somebody that’s tall, fit and in shape, they assume they’ve been like that their whole life. They don’t have to worry about it or think about it like us mere mortals.” You talk about you’re in Sweden and suddenly, you’re getting this little funny jab from your dad saying, “Those pants look a little tight there.” You reframed something about, “Instead of indulging in all this wonderful chocolate, when I’m in this country, I’m going to do something differently.” Can you share that shift?
It relates to neuroscience. For all your readers out there, you have sets of friends to where you’re a certain character, for lack of a better term. You have different subsets of friends. For some subsets, you’re the healthy person. When you’re around those people, since they are deeming you the healthy person mentally in your mind, you’re like, “A healthy person doesn’t eat this.” You would have peer pressure in a good way. You wouldn’t eat something unhealthy because then people say, “I’ve never seen you eat something like that,” or conversely, it could be, “You’re the one that’s always out there doing the crazy thing. You’re the one that’s willing to go talk and get this figured out.” We can’t get a table at the restaurant. Jill is the one that always gets it done. Jill’s the one that doesn’t matter. She can go. She’s not afraid to go talk to that stranger at the hostess stand. She’s going to make it happen.
How To Focus: There is a superhero in all of us; we just need the courage to put on the cape.
We have different personas depending on the subset of friends that were with, so you got to take advantage of that. If you want to quit smoking, for example. It’s not like, “I’m going to quit smoking.” Neuroscience shows that if you say, “I’m not a smoker,” that changes everything. A smoker wouldn’t do that or a healthy person wouldn’t eat that. I told you that story because we do that with our friends. That’s how it works. There’s that peer pressure and also your mind takes on the persona. It’s interesting. When I went to Sweden, I was getting fitted in Boston, which is a progressive city. It’s European. I kept going to the guy, “No, this suit needs to be tighter. I’m going to Europe. They wear everything super tight, especially in Sweden.” They go, “This is crazy tight.” I go, “It needs to be tighter. This is frumpy.” Fortunately, there’s a lady. He was the boss but she had the guts to come around and she goes, “He’s right. It needs to be tighter. That’s how they wear it because I was just in Europe.”
That whole trip was funny because I didn’t consider myself in shape. I was backstage and I said to the group that I was with, “How do you stay in such good shape?” I was about to grab that jelly doughnut back there in the green room. I’ve stayed out of like, “I like to do this,” and all sudden I go, “I got to stay out.” The suit was ridiculously tight. Getting out of cars, I had to be careful. That was the most dangerous. Be slow and lean in, especially since I’m so tall. I’m trying to lean in without ripping the pants. Funny enough, I’m thinking these are trained professionals. The Swedish guys that I’m with, their suits are just as tight, and both of them split their pants during the week. I’m like, “I thought you guys knew how to do this but apparently not.”
That’s a risk they’re willing to take. Another big part of your brand is your name and this embodiment of a superhero. You have this quote from Superman and I love it. It’s like, “There is a superhero in all of us. We just need the courage to put on the cape.” When we’re talking about clothes and pants, I thought that would be a good transition into, “Is there a superhero in all of us?” Certainly, women I know feel like that’s true with Wonder Woman movies. Children are big on that for Halloween and tapping into that. I don’t think you usually have to convince children that they can put on this persona. They don’t have to feel like, “I’m not good enough.” We don’t have that ingrained in us quite yet. Would you share a little bit about your name, email and all that stuff, and then what you’re talking about with being a superhero?
I won’t go into the full length of the story because we did that last time. My name is Erik Qualman, so my first initial and last name is EQualman. For many years, especially the first fifteen years, I did not like it because there’s some good-natured ribbing, whether it was at Yahoo back in the ‘90s or Travelzoo. It’s like, “We need a coffee. Equalman, super-fast, so go get the coffee.” It’s like, “We need to crunch these numbers over the weekend because we’re going public. Equalman is super strong. He can crunch the numbers over the weekend.” I thought all this time that is happening to me, and then the story I told last time is I realized, “This is happening for me. What a blessing. I can’t believe I’m Equalman. Let’s step into it.”
That Superman quote resonates. I have the courage to wear the cape. For those that have ever seen me, I wear these crazy bright green glasses. Being from the Midwest, it’s uncomfortable for me to wear these and step into it, to put on these glasses and put on that cape, but I know that it gets the brand out there and it’s good financially. I had a tough time wearing them at first before I went all in because I felt like, “Look at me,” and then people are looking at you. I know that sounds weird because I’m on stage a lot, but a lot of us are introverted-extroverted. It depends on the moment.
[bctt tweet=”It is up to you to unleash your superpower.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I realized that the glasses could help one person. I’ve seen people come up to me because they can recognize me. It’s great because if I was taking them off, no one’s going to recognize me. When people come up, I realized that if I can help one kid out there, just one other person, it can be a kid at heart even 18 or 80, it doesn’t matter, then it’s worth stepping in that discomfort. It’s worth putting on the cape or in my instance, it’s worth putting on these green glasses. That’s why our podcast is called Super U. It’s all designed to give you tips to unlock and unleash the inner superpower that’s in all of us. That’s what we’re trying to do. Give you that moment that we can unlock it, but you need to unleash it. We can give you the key to help you unlock it, but you’re the one that needs to unleash it. That’s what we always try to do. Entertain, educate and empower people to achieve their best life. That’s our whole mantra and that’s what we’re trying to do.
The willingness to be a little different and pull a little attention gives other people the willingness to realize, “I don’t have to be someone who fits in. I can maybe take a risk and be myself.” That’s the real gift and why I wanted to bring it up again because there are so many layers to it. The other thing you talk about especially as it relates to focus and making it a project is this concept of selective attention. We’ve experienced it but I would love to have you define what it is and how we can use it to be more focused.
One example of selective attention would be if you’re in the market and you need a new car. There are three cars you’ve figured out you want out there. All of a sudden, you start looking at them, you see them everywhere. Let’s say you decide, “I want this GMC SUV because I got two kids.” All of a sudden, you’re trying to figure out the color, and all you see are these GMC SUVs. That’s selective attention. That’s one example. The way you can use that is trying to write down what are you focused on and then use that selective attention to your advantage because then you put that in your brain. A lot of times, it got to go across your lips, so verbalize it out loud to people, and then to the pencil tips, so write it down. Lips and pencil tips, and then that helps to train your brain, and then that increases your selective attention around those things.
What a great soundbite, lips and pencil tips. I love that. That’s visual. It’s clever. Any last thoughts you want to leave us with on how we can be more comfortable doing less or realize that we need to give ourselves a little recess?
There are three things I learned from the entire project. Number one, focus is really hard but focus can be learned and it can become a habit. You need to have a purpose to help you drive that. There are three things that I learned that I call the three Ps. The first one’s purpose. For example, let’s say you want to eat healthier or stop smoking. If you rely on willpower, that’s not a purpose. The purpose is, “I want to live longer.” That’s okay but what’s better is, “I want to live longer because I want to spend more time with my grandkids. I want 5 or 6 more years with my grandkids.” It’s getting to that purpose. It helps you form that habit of focus on that certain thing.
How To Focus: We need to know our purpose. We need to have a process and we need to focus on the progress of what we’re doing.
The second thing is the process. The great people that we interviewed are not born with the DNA that allows them to focus better. What they’ve learned is they need systems and processes in place, not willpower. Willpower will fail you almost every time. Most of those systems or processes are around saying no. If it’s not an emphatic yes, it should be an emphatic no. If someone asks you, “Do you want to do this?” In your mind, you’re like, “I should probably do that for XYZ reason. I should probably do that because I’m a good friend. I should probably do that because maybe it’s okay for my career.” That’s a no.
The reason you’re saying no is that you can say yes to the big things in the future. You think you have unlimited inventory the further out it is. Your inventory is set to respect the capacity. Put those systems and processes in place. Most of us are people pleasers, including myself. Having a system where I can just copy and paste an email and tailor it for that person. That makes it easier. Understanding that a quick no is better for that person as well than a long-drawn-out no. It’s not an emphatic yes. It should be an emphatic no. We don’t have time to get into all the processes you can set up but that’s one.
Last but not least, this is the most important. It’s about progress, not perfection. If you’re like me, January 1st, if I’ve set up a New Year’s resolution or name your favorite time you set your goals. Also, you’re like, “New me tomorrow. I’m going to get up at 5:00. I’m going to meditate for ten minutes. I’m going to journal for ten minutes. I’m not going to eat any sugar. I’m not going to eat any gluten. I’m not doing this.” You’re going for perfection, so you’ve doomed yourself for failure. When if you just said, “From now on, I’m cutting out processed sugar.” Start small and then stack it from there. It’s about progress, not perfection.
I talk to people all the time about letting go of being a perfectionist and replacing it with the word I created, progressionist, because we’re wired for progress.
That’s great.
Thank you. You have to tell people, “Don’t think of yourself as a perfectionist.” I’m always like, “What should I think of myself then?” I made up this word progressionist. I’m a progressionist. I celebrate my progress, and I start my meetings with my team like that. What progress did we make? Let’s celebrate that. As you know, the brain is wired to celebrate it. Fitbit, video games, you’re at the new level. Purpose, process and progress. I love it.
I love what you brought up about languishing, John. My kids are in elementary school, so I’m going to give the school principal credit for this. Whatever you’re doing, put a comma during the pandemic like, “I did a podcast, during a pandemic.” “I did a virtual keynote, during a pandemic.” Give yourself a break. I love your term there. It’s awesome.
Thanks. If people want to reach out to you, they can go to Equalman.com to find out more about your book or hire you as a speaker. Erik, thanks again for coming back on. Thanks again for writing this important book. It’s a perfect time.
Big hugs, John and thanks for everything that you’re doing to make the world better. It’s so good. It’s such a blessing to have you in my orbit.
Likewise. I’m so grateful we’re living in the same wonderful city at the same time in Austin. Thanks for sharing your passion with the world. Everyone always feels better after interacting with you. I’m certainly on that team.
Right back at you.
Important Links
- Erik Qualman
- The Focus Project
- Erik Qualman – Past episode
- Socialnomics
- Social Media Revolution – YouTube video
- Cadillac.com
- Super U – Podcast
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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Bust Your Limiting Beliefs With Christopher Burns
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Most people have been thought to believe in one thing their whole life without really understanding why. Some of these beliefs would be limiting beliefs. They would stop you from reaching your full potential. Find a new identity for yourself so that you can improve in whatever business you’re doing. This is how Christopher Burns became the person he is today. Christopher is the founder of Men Mastermind. He dedicated his life to coaching men to activate their purpose, power, and prosperity. John Livesay brings him in to the show to teach you how to remove your limiting beliefs and activate your purpose today.
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Listen to the podcast here
Bust Your Limiting Beliefs With Christopher Burns
Our guest is Christopher Burns. He dedicated his life to coaching men to activate their purpose, power and prosperity. He teaches people how to go within to master themselves, which allows them to create their dreams. He’s been coaching men, entrepreneur and leaders for several years and works with these clients one-on-one, group coaching and home study courses. Welcome to the show, Christopher.
Thank you, John. It’s great to be here. I’m grateful to be on the journey together. Thanks for having me.
I love to ask my guests their own story of origin. You can go back to childhood or school, wherever you want to start your story. I have a friend that I’m a godfather to his son and I say, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” There are lots of obvious choices like a fireman or whatever. In his case, a security guard came out. I was like, “We might want to aim a little higher but okay. Is it the uniform you like? What’s going on?” Most people don’t have a childhood dream of doing what you’re doing. That’s why I’m fascinated to hear when did that start.
I dreamed of riding dirt bikes and motocross races when I was younger. That was something my dad and I did as a bonding time. We would go out to the desert and ride dirt bikes in Southern California. I was a curious kid. I saw opportunities and I was questioning, “How does the world work?” Here’s an example. When we were driving up to Northern California where our family has a cabin, I asked, “If someone throws a baseball in one car going one way and another person throws a baseball in another car going towards us, at what speed do the baseballs hit each other?”
[bctt tweet=”Accountability partner keeps your revenue consistent.” username=”John_Livesay”]
It was funny because that’s how my mind worked. At the same time, I was so curious that it started to aggravate my dad a little bit. He had a little shorter of a temper and he said, “Don’t you ever stop asking questions? Don’t you ever just enjoy?” That was that moment where I was like, “It’s not okay for me to self-express, to be curious and to be me.” That was one of the first memories of having that. Over the next decade or so I proceeded to close myself up and shut myself off from being self-expressed.
You might see me now communicating fairly effectively on podcasts, interviews and speaking. Throughout high school, I was so shy. I didn’t know how to communicate. I didn’t know how to self-express. I was introverted and afraid of what people thought about me and the world in general. I didn’t want to pick up the phone and schedule a dentist or a doctor appointment. I’ll say, “I don’t want to deal with that, mom, you deal with that. Dad, you deal with it.” It was a scary time for me in being a young man and then trying to figure out life. As children, I believe we get to figure out what is our journey in life and what are we meant to do.
I went to school for Electrical Engineering. I got my degree but I was also not seeing myself in that traditional route and hired a life coach. I was going to Toastmasters and things like that. Lee Adams owned a successful radio electronics store in Southern California. At the time, he was dying of cancer and he was attempting to overcome that. I was so inspired by him that he was giving his last breaths being of service, contributing to me and other people who we believed in to live their dream life that I was moved by, “This guy is living for something.” That stuck with me and planted a seed that I love to serve people. I love to help people make their dreams come true, especially men in this vehicle of the Men Mastermind, mastering men within. That’s a brief overview of a couple of those key points that made me so passionate about coaching.
I want to double click on “I’m too shy to even call a dentist” to now go where you’re running men’s groups and speaking. That’s quite the hero’s journey, as we say in the world of storytelling. It’s quite an arc. Most people don’t start quite that shy. It’s interesting when my mom was visiting me when I was living in LA and I said, “Let’s go into the Beverly Hills Hotel. They have lots of movies there and there are all kinds of history.” She’s like, “No, I’ve not dressed appropriately.” It never occurred to me to not feel okay enough to go into a hotel lobby. My mom is from a different generation. It’s not like she was wearing cutoffs or something, but she didn’t have the proper jewelry on or whatever her mindset was about that.
Limiting Beliefs: Look for your limiting beliefs and remove what you got programmed into believing. Identify the beliefs that are sabotaging you.
That was my first a-ha of on some level, my self-esteem is higher than hers. That’s always a little trivial even as a young adult. You’re like, “I got other issues but that’s not one of them.” Do you think it stems from a fear of what other people are going to think about you? You’ve insinuated that. I’m not a therapist here so we don’t need to even figure out where that came from. How does somebody might have a small dose of that? I teach people all the time when I talk to sales teams that the fear of rejection is the number one thing that keeps people from going into sales. It causes burnout and we all have to sell ourselves whether we have that as a title or not. How did you get to the place where you’re like, “What somebody thinks of me is not going to keep me up at night?” What did you do to get over that?
I’ll be the first person to say that I’m still a work in progress. I’m still a recovering people pleaser, but I would do whatever I could to put myself in the fire. How do I put myself in the fire? I did nine months of door-to-door sales for Verizon phone lines and business in Southern California heat. It wasn’t the most pleasant experience but I got a lot of experience there. Even before that, I was in a network marketing company trying that out for about one year and quickly learned how much I had to grow in my leadership, self-esteem and confidence. I said, “What’s something I can do to challenge myself to break through this lack of self-confidence or self-esteem several years ago? Let’s go to Southern California, Cal State Fullerton College and go up to 50 random women and ask them for their phone number.” It doesn’t matter if I get it or not. I don’t even stick around long enough to get it. I just ask the question because it’s the question that I’m afraid of asking or was afraid of asking. I did that and it was so exhilarating. It’s such an adrenaline rush and so activating for me that it changed me forever.
The takeaway here is when you confront your fears and repeatedly do the thing that scares you, you start to realize that after a while, it’s no longer triggering and you’re not attached to the outcome. That was the real secret. “I have to do it,” and then after you have your 10th or 20th no, a yes is almost a surprise, “Here’s my phone number,” or maybe you change the way you’re asking to play around with it. The key and what I’m getting is not being attached to the outcome allows us to let go of some of our fears. Would that be a good tweak for the episode?
Yes. It’s a commitment to the growth mindset versus a fixed mindset.
[bctt tweet=”Have a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset.” username=”John_Livesay”]
That’s the old comfort zone again, isn’t it? Tim Sanders was kind enough to write the foreword to my book and he talked about it in terms of you either have an abundance mindset or a scarcity mindset. Einstein said, “The biggest decision you’ll ever make is, do I think the world is a friendly and safe place or not?” This growth mindset or fixed mindset is in that same genre of me growing, “Does that take away from someone else?” You do have a mindset that there’s a fixed amount of abundance and joy in the world or do you feel like it’s fixed? That leads to the next question which is you also help people become more prosperous whether they’re working with you one-on-one or in one of your masterminds. Let’s talk about your mindset and your beliefs around money and any growth you had to do on that.
I’m always a work in progress personally. I believe that we’ll keep working until we’re in the grave on becoming a better version of ourselves. For my upbringing, we were comfortable, upper-middle-class. In that next step up, the truly wealthy elite thing. My family had a negative view towards that like, “Power is bad. Power corrupts. Greed is bad.” All these things that I had to work through. I had the opportunity of excavating these limiting beliefs. That would be the very first thing if someone’s not where they want to be with prosperity with either the amount of money that they have or feeling and experiencing the prosperity that’s all around them because truly, we live in an infinitely abundant universe.
It’s all about our recognition and awareness of it. The first thing that I did was start writing down those limiting beliefs so I could get it out of my automatic monkey mind and the machine that keeps replaying the same tapes over and over again because that’s what I got programmed into believing. I got that down on paper and went through various reprogramming techniques but a simple one is crossing out the limiting belief and replacing it with a more positive statement. That’s something that anyone can do at any time.
The first commitment is I’m going to identify and inventory when these beliefs are sabotaging you when they come up. When I think about money, successful people or what it means to have a big business, does that mean I’m a slave to my business or does it mean freedom? It’s going through that process of re-choosing what is the reality that I want to create. I fully believe that we are the creators of our reality. Life is a game. It doesn’t mean it’s trivial but it is a game that I believe that we make up the rules. That’s a powerful place to stand in.
Limiting Beliefs: When you shift your identity, there’s an old identity that someone might have and you get to let go of that person. If you don’t have a new identity to step into, someone doesn’t have that new identity.
I tell people, “You’re the movie director of your own life. You can yell ‘cut’ at any time if you start playing out a horror movie of what the future might be.” That gives us the power. You can change locations as I did moving to Austin. That gives you a lot of freedom. It’s so important to write down because so many people in a digital age don’t write things down anymore. If you write it down, there’s that limiting belief again.” It’s so subtle and almost insidious. I remember growing up and I’d say something about, “Can we do this? Can we get that?” “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” That’s now implanted. I didn’t say it did but you’re implying that it’s not abundant. You’re not even aware that you’re implying that.
Excavating all that old stuff, writing it down and going, “Where did that come from? Does it really matter? Do I believe it true or false? Got it.” That’s a great starting point for getting people to go, “How do I replace it?” What I want to ask you about is and I want to see if you are doing something along these same lines. When I ask someone to stop thinking a certain way or let go of an old way of doing something, let’s say pushing out information to get people to buy. I say, “I want you to start telling stories and pull them in.” It’s crucial to give somebody something to replace something with. You can’t just say, “Don’t do this anymore,” and not give them what they should do as an alternative. Writing down the limiting beliefs and putting an X and throwing away doesn’t help unless you’ve got a whole new set to go in there. That’s what I’m getting at. I want to hear your thoughts on that.
Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit is a great start of that like nature abhors a vacuum if you don’t have a positive habit to replace the negative habit. You can do all the work that you want to replace the negative thing but chances are, you’re going to find the path of least resistance. Someone’s going to do that and it’s probably not going to be the best habit that could fill that space and slot. Another thing is the identity level, which is more in Atomic Habits with James Clear. It’s another habit formation stuff study. When you shift your identity, there’s an old identity that someone might have and you get to let go of that person. You get to kill off that person. If you don’t have a new identity to step into or if someone doesn’t have that new identity, then it will be very difficult for them to progress in a meaningful way. They will be leaving it up to chance. They will be a boat adrift at sea rather than a plane that is chartering a course to a specific destination.
Somebody’s got to take control of it. I talk about it in terms of being a copilot with your buyer and you’re both in the cockpit. You’re not flying the plane alone and they’re not flying the plane. It’s this concept of when you ask someone to buy or hire you or whatever it is, it’s not a shock. I said, “When we go on an airplane ride and they go without landing at LAX, no one ever stands up and goes, what?” I’m never going to fly around forever and yet, if you’re just adrift and your life is reacting to things and you’re like, “I have a flight plan and I have a destination in mind and a path to get there.” I might have to change the path like an airplane does with weather or what have you, but at least there’s a plan and we know where we’re going or where we plan to go as opposed to, “We’re going to get up and fly around and see what happens to the wind.” That’s a kite. That’s not an airplane ride.
[bctt tweet=”The fear of rejection is the number one thing that keeps people from going into sales.” username=”John_Livesay”]
This relates for me to the masculine energy and a healthy masculine because we might hear a lot about toxic masculinity these days. I believe that healthy masculine energy sets a container, sets a context, holds the frame and says, “This is what’s going to happen. I’m going to lead us to where we want to go. Together, we are going to go here. Does that work for you?” They check-in and they have this boldness, confidence and knowingness that, “Where I’m going matters. It’s meaningful and valuable. I wouldn’t be here unless I was planning on getting us to something that’s going to make a difference for someone’s life.” That’s key in the masculine aspect and especially with people not having a lot of great masculine role models growing up that we get to step back into that and trust that that masculine is valuable when it’s done in a healthy, not overly aggressive, overly controlling or overly manipulative way but rather purely, “Do you want to go on this journey? Here’s where we’re going.” It’s that open invitation which I believe is key in sales.
I tell people, “Once you tell a good story, the question is do you want to go on that journey with me?” It’s not about pushing them to do something. You’ve told a story that they see themselves in. One of the challenges I faced and I know that you helped a lot of men deal with is feast and famine. When I had a corporate job, you know what your paycheck is and you hit your bonus, you get some more money. It’s not so much a roller coaster. When you’re an entrepreneur, that stability is gone. Sometimes you have a great month and then sometimes a slow month. A pandemic or all kinds of things can happen. Especially as a speaker you’re like, “I need to learn how to do virtual talks now, not just in-person.” What tips do you give in your coaching and masterminds around breaking through these cycles? Does it keep going back to mindset or is some systems not in place?
I know you would have a great mindset around resilience and adaptability because of your TED Talk. For me, the thing that I focus on is if you can have someone outside of you like you said with that copilot, whether it’s a coach, an accountability partner, a business partner, a colleague, whatever it is, but someone who is able to be there to check you and check the person, check one of our readers on their growth, on their metrics, on the statistics that matter and are vital to them in their business, then I find that accountability is essential, especially for people who start up their own venture, their own vehicle.
For me, it was difficult to go from listening to teachers and bosses for most of my life and then transition into I get to generate myself. I get to generate my own activity, energy levels, intention, focus and activity. I find that having someone by to you who is able to be that copilot and consistently hold us accountable is key. For me, coaching is one of those things. Even masterminds is a great thing. If you could share about where you’re at, what your numbers are in the group. I think that’s super important but ultimately, what are those processes every week that we look at? We’ve probably all heard of KPIs, Key Performance Indicators. How do we know if we’re on track or off track? The real key is, do I know the vitals of my business? Do I track those on a daily, weekly and monthly business? Am I in tune with those? Do I know what those are so that I can course-correct them if need be?
Limiting Beliefs: You need to have someone outside of you, whether it be a coach or a colleague, who is able to be there and to check on you.
Am I in tune with those? That’s the magic source there because everything is energy, money is energy, relationships are energy. I remember when I was being interviewed for a speaking engagement and it was between me and two other speakers and then I get the email from the agent go, “Congrats, they picked you. They liked your energy.” Literally, that’s what they said. I thought, “Is it that obvious?” That’s what people are buying. It’s not the book, the content, the tours, the video or all the things that we think are going to get them to say yes. Later the event planner said, “I felt so good talking to you. I figured that if I feel this good, you’ll make the whole audience feel that great.”
This accountability partner keeps revenue consistent. That’s a nice little tweet for the episode as well because that sums up what you said in a way. This course-correct part is so crucial because if you’re flying solo and you don’t have anybody, you might not save yourself time to pull up on the airplane. If you’re thinking of it in terms of eating during the pandemic, “I gained some weight.” It’s like, “What are you going to do to fix it?” The next thing you know, “I haven’t done anything,” then you’re like, “Pull up already.” If there’s no one there going, “I see you’re eating more and exercising less, you know that’s not a recipe for what you want. How much longer you think that suits going to fit?” That’s probably the biggest challenge in why a mastermind that you offer is so valuable. It’s the isolation. In prison that’s the worst punishment, solitary confinement. We can’t go it alone in our lives or in our business. You have three pillars that you have in your curriculum. I’d love to hear what those are.
The three pillars of the mastered man curriculum are purpose, power and prosperity. Going back to what you were saying about isolation, I believe that when someone is alone, the confinement, they’re in prison by themselves, they get to sit with the shame and what they’ve done. There’s no human connection, openness, realness, transparency and vulnerability. Starting with that power pillar is out of order but the power pillar relates to this because if someone doesn’t feel powerful and able to express themselves like I know I didn’t when I was growing up and when I was super shy and introverted.
I know that when one of my clients launched his podcast, he didn’t feel powerful to be able to do that. He didn’t feel like he had the confidence to know-how. He was stuck in his head trying to figure things out. It was this block for him so when he reconnected with his self-esteem, self-worth and power, he was able to step into that and launch something that now is impacting a lot of people’s lives. That would be the power of prosperity and freeing ourselves of shame, limiting beliefs and things like that. The purpose pillar is where we start, typically. That’s because of identifying what is the vision for our life, the dream, the desire, where we want to get to, the destination so that we can course correct, so that we can start making different choices, putting in different habits, putting in different routines, activities and systems to be able to get there. We first got to know where do we want to get to and then also come to a humble acceptance of where we are now. That’s a big challenge for a lot of men especially. It’s the ego of, “I’m supposed to have it all together. I’m supposed to have it all figured out.” When we can be humble about that, we get so much freedom.
[bctt tweet=”In order to confront your fears, you need to do whatever you could to put yourself in the fire. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
I remember on a family vacation, we would drive and this is way before GPS and my dad would get lost. You could not get that man to pull over and ask for directions. I’m like, “Can we please pull up? Ask someone. We’ve gone too far.” “No.” “Why?” He’s like, “I’m a guy. I should be able to figure this out. I don’t want to bother.” Whatever the belief system is. It’s not just about money. It’s this concept of going it alone. Therefore, if I make a mistake, you don’t have any compassion for yourself and you’re judging yourself so harshly.
I remember hearing someone talk about the whole process of driving is error correct. On the freeway, you start to get a little too far to the lane. The movements are so subtle. I love that concept of driving is an ongoing series of error correct. It’s all unconscious competence, so why would we suddenly fear that we can’t make mistakes because we’re always making mistakes. They’re not huge. Luckily, we don’t crash the car but it’s always that. I love it. Christopher, do you have any last thought or a quote you want to leave us with?
I’d love to breathe, John. I believe breath has gone backseat in a lot of people’s lives and their personal presence and power in that aspect. For me, getting in touch with our breathing and activating our bodies, getting reconnected with our bodies, there’s so much wisdom within our bodies. If we want to be better salespeople, leaders, fathers, wives, whatever it is, if we are striving to be a better version of ourselves, then I believe we get to tap into the power within us. There are all kinds of different routines and things that you can do. A simple one is to reconnect with your breathing and that can start with 1, 2 or 3 minutes of being mindful and present. The mentor of mine, Jeremy, calls it having a mind break. If you take a three-minute mind break and you do this a couple of times throughout the day, it can drastically improve your performance because you’re able to be centered, grounded and ready to go versus all spun up and in reaction mode.
If people want to reach out to you to find out about your programs, your masterminds, where should they go?
Go to MenMastermind.com. You can also shoot me a DM on Facebook or Instagram. Facebook is @Th3Burns. Instagram is @IAmMillionaireChris. You can also email me, [email protected].
Thank you so much, Christopher. It’s been great hearing your insights. I’m going to be fascinated to watch you continue to grow. If you’re this far along in your life and your career at the ripe young age of 30, it’s going to be fun to cheer you on from the sidelines even if you don’t know I’m doing it.
I feel the support. Thank you so much, John. Thank you to everyone who tuned in. Stay connected to this show because when you pitched successfully, when you are an effective pitch master, learning from the Pitch Whisperer, all areas of life get better for you. John, thank you.
Thank you, Christopher.
Important Links
- Christopher Burns
- The Power of Habit
- Atomic Habits
- @Th3Burns – Facebook
- @IAmMillionaireChris – Instagram
- [email protected]
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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