Courage, Compassion And Rescue with Marty Brounstein
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Episode Summary:
Urging leaders to make a positive difference wherever they are, Marty Brounstein talks about doing the right thing when you find yourself in a situation where it’s fear-based. As a master storyteller, he discusses the power of using stories as a way to teach people, not only engaging them but getting themselves imagine being in it. He shares his book, Two Among the Righteous Few: A Story of Courage in the Holocaust, about a young Christian couple out of Netherlands who saved the lives of over two dozen Jews during World War I. Highlighting the three key takeaways of courage, compassion, and rescue, he relates all that into the present day and ties them into how to be a better leader.
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Listen To The Episode Here
Courage, Compassion And Rescue with Marty Brounstein
Two Among the Righteous Few: A Story of Courage in the Holocaust
Our guest is Marty Brounstein, who is a master storyteller. He’s the author of Two Among the Righteous Few: A Story of Courage in the Holocaust. It’s a true story of courage, compassion and rescue involving a young Christian couple out of the Netherlands who saved the lives of over two dozen Jews during World War II. Marty has been on an unexpected journey himself and sharing the story of how non-Jews and Jews involved in the resistance and rescue during the Holocaust. Delivering storytelling presentations that audiences have found educational and inspirational as any good story does. This is in the eighth year where he’s been speaking about this. He’s based in San Francisco. It’s great to have you on the show. We love storytelling experts. Welcome, Marty.
Thank you very much.
I always ask my guests to tell their own story of origin. Can you go back and tell us a little bit about your own childhood, high school or college? However far back you want to go where you started becoming enthralled with storytelling.
I grew up in the Chicago area, which is why now I live in California. The winter’s got me. Early on, I always had an interest and fascination with history. In my early professional life, I was a history teacher. Part of what made history come alive for students is the ability to tell stories. As my career evolved as a Human Resources Executive over 25 years, I ran a management consulting business dealing with leadership development and performance effectiveness. We deliver seminars and even executive coaching. Stories are always part of how you teach. It’s a great way to make examples come alive. In essence, it hit me early on and now I realize it more. The journey with this story is all about storytelling at its best.
Let’s double-click on what you did as the leadership development consulting. What lessons did you learn that the audience could take away so that they can become better leaders?
One of the biggest things was engage your audience in whatever you’re teaching them, whenever you’re talking to them rather than talking at them. Part of even now when I do storytelling, but even when I did training, I’m often throwing questions to the audience to get them to be thinking about what’s going on. How would they handle it? What do they know about these kinds of situations or this history? Often as much as when I did the training, having them get involved hands on to practice what we were teaching. All of that engagement, the interactive nature of it is what gets, especially adult learners, but even children, far more involved and far more learning than if they’re just sitting back and receiving.
[bctt tweet=”Help can be as simple as asking, What can I do for you?” username=”John_Livesay”]
When you’re engaging an audience, telling a good story is one way. Getting people to imagine themselves in the story is what I found is the key, especially when you’re giving a case study of someone else you’ve helped and you’re trying to paint a picture as opposed to just presenting a bunch of stats of what you’ve done for somebody else. Can you describe what you have done in your leadership consulting around storytelling as a sales tool?
Quite often in the sales side of it is where I’m meeting a prospective client, as I did many times, I would share stories of what I had done with other clients. It wasn’t just telling him, “This is what I can do for you, but here’s an example of it of how this client took this service and made something good happen.” Those always resonated for people. In teaching of the activities, the skills and the lessons that are a form of sales because you’re trying to get people to sync, open up and learn new behaviors, the power of stories is very helpful to get people to relate. Often, I would tell people, “Do you know where I get the stories from that I’m sharing with you? They came from other managers and executives just like you, who put into practice these skills.” You’d get some nods around the room going, “This is real.” Part of the power of stories is that these aren’t fictional stories. These are always real stories that I’ve told and still tell now with this one on Two Among the Righteous Few.
The phrase that you said there, “Leaders just like you,” is a real great takeaway for the audience to start incorporating into their storytelling so that people can see themselves in the story. One of the questions people have when they listen to a story is, “That’s great for that person, but would that work for me?” If you can paint that picture that they were just like you, they were struggling, they had some challenges, then they overcame those struggles. I was their mentor or Sherpa up a mountain and together, we were able to get them to a place now and that things are great. Do you have some thoughts on the structure of what makes a good story?
This journey with the special story I’m doing, Two Among the Righteous Few, I had a public storytelling presentation event. I had some audience members come up afterwards and going, “I don’t know if I could have done it with Frans and Mien Wijnakker, but I was thinking about it.” It’s the whole idea of putting people inside the story. I’m so excited when I hear that, and I often say it’s not whether you would have, hopefully you never face with the life and death risk they were, but the idea that you were thinking about that, wonderful. Then you’re showing that you have an awareness and an openness. That’s the real key.
To your question about the structure of a story. A story is similar to any good presentation. There’s an opening to get the audience attention. Then you relay, “Here’s what happened,” and then you’re doing some wrap-up. Especially with stories, whether it’s in a sales situation, a teaching situation, as you do that wrap-up, you’re connecting it back to the people right there. How do you apply this? What does it mean to you? It’s relevant. Stories are somewhat like jokes in the same way. When you tell it and it doesn’t fit into the context of what we’re talking about, it falls flat. Nice story, but big deal versus there’s a point to it at the end that connects to people and that’s always the key part.
Otherwise, it’s interesting information but it didn’t emotionally connect with them.
It has to make sense to them that it’s relevant to what we’re dealing with here.
How did you come up with the idea to write this book? What inspired you to write it?
I often tell people, this is a story I stumbled into by accident on a trip to the Netherlands with my wife in May of 2009. The story is about this young Dutch Christian couple named Frans and Mien Wijnakker. During World War II when their country was under the brutal occupation of Nazi Germany, they got involved but most did not. In the end, they saved the lives of over two dozen Jews from a certain death. It’s a story of courage, compassion and rescue. I had heard of their name and the keyword in the book title is the word, righteous. They received a heroic honor called Righteous Among the Nations, which is the honor from the Holocaust museum in Yad Vashem, Israel for the non-Jews like Oskar Schindler. For those Jews who risked their lives to save the lives of Jews in the Holocaust. Not many did it that’s why the title is Two Among the Righteous Few and not Two Among the Righteous Many. Out of curiosity of my wife who has an element into this story, I got to meet the five Wijnakker children. Frans and Mien are not alive, but their five children are.
In that meeting by accident creates the sparks as once I knew of that honor, when I found out that that’s what their parents had received, I was blown away. I understood what that meant. You don’t get that for showing up, something heroic happened. One thing led to another and eventually, not only did I write a book. Early in my eighth year, was my event number 646. It’s taken over our lives but in a very positive way.
Let’s talk about each one of these three words: courage, compassion and rescue. Let’s take each one and describe your definition of it and then pull something from the story that showed unexpected courage.
[bctt tweet=”Listen without judgement” username=”John_Livesay”]
Courage, bravery are in simple terms, the ability to stand up for what you believe or they see the need for help when it may not always be easy. It certainly may not always be popular and there may be risk involved. Certainly, for Frans and Mien Wijnakker, if you’re going to get involved because the consequences were dangerous to deadly. The Nazis didn’t kid. If you got involved to try to help the people they are most after, Jews, you had the same consequences, “We’re going to send you to the concentration camps,” or in some cases, executes you. Compassion, that’s the ability to care for others beyond yourself. I do workshops out of this story in workplaces under the title, The Courage and Compassion to Do the Right Thing: A Lesson in Making a Positive Difference. We have people apply the lessons from the story in their jobs and compassion is one of those things that we look at to what you’re asking.
I often say, “If you could sprinkle the powder of compassion on everybody you come into now and it would forever be their behavior, what a wonderful country we have.” It’s so easy to think about yourself or maybe those near to you, but to be able to show that you care about others beyond yourself is powerful. Frans and Mien did that to the highest degree. All these people that they helped, they knew none of them. They had never met a Jewish person in their lives before they were Catholic and yet they thought that you should care for people in dire need. That teaches a wonderful lesson. The word rescue, and this is to the highest degree, was helping people to be safe, helping people to escape danger. At the height of this, they often had ten Jewish refugees in their own home with their four little children. They created a rescue network in the little towns of their countryside area where they would place Jews with people there. Over two dozen got saved because of their courage, compassion and rescue efforts.
Since you’re doing workshops on this, do you have an example or a story on an actual company where they’ve learned these lessons of courage and compassion? How does it relate? Does it relate to the culture of the company or does it relate to how they treat their clients and customers?
What’s neat about the workshop is I’m going to give you an example that happened with a company. The theme of making a positive difference is I let them take that theme that’s relevant to them. For some of them it’s their core values they want to reinforce. For some, it’s the client service they want to reinforce. In other cases, their leadership. It’s a diversity and inclusion. Sometimes, it’s all those aspects that are important to them. I did a company as an example. They had a management retreat, so I was there working with the management team of 25 or so that they had there and often we have bigger groups. After the storytelling, which they certainly were very inspired, “How do you apply the lessons of the story into your leadership practices on the job?” then we let them draw those conclusions and apply it. In the end, they have to put down a commitment to go forward. The discussion was so rich. It was neat to see the things that came out and we even took it a little deeper because they wanted to do more than that.
Better Leader: We know it’s not easy, so recognize that but don’t let it eat at you.
We looked into leadership behavior that makes a positive difference. We examined some things with them about that that you could just see people in their comments and in their discussions in the small groups, very reflective. Including as we were closing to share some reflections, the general manager, so the top executive in this group speaks up. It was so neat to see and talk about some of her own behaviors, the things that she does, and the things that she has to be more aware of to make her leadership even more have a positive difference. I couldn’t have paid somebody better than that comment at that time as we were getting ready to close. You could see what the power of this was doing for them, and so it was wonderful to see the reception we got from it all.
A lot of people in the business world think that the only way they can motivate, let’s say their sales team is fear-based, if you don’t make your numbers, you’re going to get fired. It is pressure. The opposite of fear is courage. What lessons or advice do you have for people that might find themselves in a fear-based results only driven place of employment to find the courage to not let fear overtake their life in their career?
If you’re in that environment, now you probably have more choices if you have those skills and experience. If you’re sticking it out, it’s not to lose focus on what you’re here to do your job for. If it’s sales, sure you’re there but sales is more than just driving numbers. It’s about giving the clients and customers that quality service. If you say that’s your focus, more than likely the numbers will come with it anyway. Sometimes you have to block that out. One of the strategies when I was doing my management consulting business that still comes up in this workshop too as advice is nod and smile, which is the whole idea. Let them rant and rave, nod and smile. Go back and do what you know is the right thing to do, but stay focused on doing the right thing. Don’t use it as a de-motivator to say, “What’s it going to matter anyway?” You have to do it for yourself because sometimes you’re not getting the positive reinforcement you wish. Don’t let it stop you.
I want to ask you about compassion for yourself when you’ve had a bad day or you’re getting discouraged and then compassion for other people, whether it’s your coworkers or clients. Tell us what tips you have on how we can be more compassionate with ourselves as a starting point.
[bctt tweet=”Let go of negative self-talk, turn the corner” username=”John_Livesay”]
There’s the, “Be kind to yourself.” Sometimes in our heads, we can get all that negative self-talk going if we’re running through some rough patch or people are frustrating. Then you’re browbeating yourself and that doesn’t get you up. There’s that recognition, “What’s going on?” Sometimes a phrase I use is, “Turning the corner.” Put those things aside, go around the corner, stay positive, stay patient. We know it’s not easy, so recognize that but don’t let it eat at you and get you down because that will show. The other part is compassion with their team members. To me, it starts with if you’re a professional as you do your job and it’s also recognizing these people I work with, some I’m going to like more than others. I don’t have to bring any of them home. I need to have good working relationships. If I’m taking steps to consistently treat people with respect, to listen to where people are coming from and not be quick to pass judgment and I’m there when we have challenges to focus on problem-solving. You show that you have compassion then. You show that you can care for people. You show that you can work with people of all types. That’s when you’re performing at your highest level as well.
The third one is rescue. I gave a TEDx Talk called Be the Lifeguard of Your Own Life. Unlike in a hurricane, no one’s going to come and rescue you if you don’t evacuate. What are your thoughts on rescue in the corporate world?
In essence, we don’t have life and death situations in terms of the rescue people may think of. I look at it more of the willingness to help. If you see others in need, whether they’re asking for it or not, it doesn’t mean you go and pose it. If you can do things to cooperate, to lend an extra hand, sometimes help is very simple. You responded to somebody’s email rather than leaving them wondering did you even get it. You can say, “I can introduce you to such and such source who could be the best one to help you with your situation or thank you for opening that door.” Help can be often done in simple ways. When you ask that question, people often say, “How can I help you?” Mean it. Sometimes people say it and it’s like, “Yes,” because you were trained to say the words, but you have no meaning. There’s no sincerity and you don’t want to be bothered. If I need to put something down to come over to help you and do something to get it done, it makes it easier if I need to ask you for helping me. It’s all about building that win-win relationship.
Help can be as simple as asking, “What can I do for you?” It’s so profound yet simple and yet often overlooked unless it’s this grand lifesaving rescue we don’t think any little bit of help makes a difference, but it seems to me you’re saying it does and that it’s cumulative.
I find one of the most simple and powerful forms of help is their willingness to listen to others without judgment. Sometimes what people most need is somebody who’s supportive. Somebody that I can bounce ideas off to vent a few frustrations and it doesn’t come back to haunt me. That’s very helpful when you can do that for people.
I’ve seen it in action myself when I’ve helped clients win that clients they’ve lost because the client feels like, “They didn’t listen to me and things went off track. Now, this project isn’t done on time. I’m mad. I’m not going to work with you anymore.” The ability to listen without judgment, to let them vent, understand, put your empathy hat on as I call it from their perspective of how frustrating it was to not feel like anybody was listening to the warning signs before it was too late, it allows you to be compassionate, rescue the account and save it from being lost. The other big takeaway that you’re talking about here is emotional IQ. Do you have any thoughts around this whole courage, compassion and rescue as it relates to having emotional intelligence?
It does relate as you’re getting it very well there because there’s the intellectual intelligence. You have a good knowledge but do you have, in simple terms, people’s skills? Do you have the skills to get along? Can you understand where other people are coming from? Can you accept the differences and not see them as flaws or things that run from? All of that shows the emotional intelligence. The big part of that is the self-awareness of your own behavior to put yourself in check, to tune in to cues that are happening, both verbal and nonverbal, so that you’re consistently respectful with people. When we listen in the news, the political things happening and the #MeToo Movement, you get that emotional IQ was very low, but the thirst for power was very high to take advantage of people. We don’t need any of that and certainly not in workplaces. We need professional positive environments and emotional IQ was key for making those kinds of environments become real.
What I love about what you did there was take something that happened in World War II and you brought it out into present-day situations of courage and rescue, and the courage it takes to say something to someone who’s powerful. Then it becomes cumulative again. Where there’s one, there are usually many. You’re not the only one, but at the time you think you’re the only one. In your book, were they aware that other non-Jews were helping the Jewish people stay safe or do they think they were the only ones taking that risk?
[bctt tweet=”To be able to show that you care about others beyond yourself is powerful.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Initially, Frans and Mien Wijnakker got involved in this rescue effort by accident, not by design. Frans was doing his black-market business. He’s a risk-taker already because if you get caught, you’re thrown in jail. This is under the Nazi occupation in World War II. This doctor, acquaintance who was a customer he had done business with before, before he leaves the meeting, the doctor says, “Would you be willing to help?” In the end, as the doctor explains, “This young girl, could you take her home to where you live in the countryside for three weeks? She happens to be Jewish. Would you be willing to help?”
Frans was that helpful kind of guy. He always viewed himself that way. He acted that way and here’s the call for help. He doesn’t quite recognize the dangers he’s just taken on and his wife, Mien, when he brought her home right with him, was saying, “Then let’s help.” Then one thing led to another and it built over time. As things built and they got involved with a resistance group that helped them build this rescue network, then they realized there were others doing it but not a lot. They didn’t have awareness of what’s going on in the country. If anything, their awareness grew of how dangerous this was and how careful they had to be because those stories were coming. The Nazis were brutal to any form or resistance, but even more so to those helping hide Jews and yet they didn’t turn away.`
That simple question, “Would you be willing to help?” I also find that when you ask people, “Would you be willing to give me your opinion on something or your advice on something?” It’s amazing how that opens the door to have a conversation that’s collaborative and productive.
The power of questions, which fits well into stories. I start my storytelling presentation on this story, by asking my audience three questions to get them thinking, and that puts them into the story. If they want to go into it, it starts. I have people at the very end as they come up to visit afterwards often say, “Those three questions made me keep thinking through your whole presentation.” I’m like, “I’m glad you were thinking. I’m glad it sparked that awareness.” Luckily, we don’t have to make those kinds of decisions about life and death. You make those decisions and translate it into your behavior.
Better Leader: Do not turn a blind eye to misconduct. If one could get away with it, more will do it.
That’s what I’m doing inside school classrooms to when I take these workshops to organizations and professional conferences. We get past the storytelling and apply the lessons. Especially when I’m dealing with a management group and we talked about applying the lessons, I emphasize if it hasn’t come up, do not turn a blind eye to misconduct. We hear that always in the news. The managers would look at the other way and then here’s this problem manager, the executive that everyone knew about, but nobody ever said or did anything about it. You cannot afford that. That’s what creates these toxic environments. If one could get away with it, more will do it. The idea of when you have a very professional environment, you have far more ability to be a productive one. Sometimes it takes the courage to step up and say, “That’s wrong. We’re going to get it addressed.”
What are those three questions? You’ve got us all intrigued with an open book?
Question one, would you be willing to help others whose lives are in great danger? I pause and say, “Think about that,” because that’s a tough question. Question two, would you be willing to help others whose lives are in great danger knowing if you got involved, you would probably put your life in great danger? Would you still help? Question three, would you be willing to help others whose lives are in great danger knowing if you’ve got involved you’d probably put your life in great danger, when these people who most need the help, everybody else wants to hate them or be indifferent to their plight, would you still get involved and help? I pull it together. Two Among the Righteous Few: A Story of Courage in the Holocaust is a true story of a Christian couple that answered their definite yes to three of those questions in a time period when most said, “No.” They are true heroes.
[bctt tweet=”The opposite of fear is courage.” username=”John_Livesay”]
What I find fascinating about the third part of that question is when other people are either hating them or at best indifferent to them, there’s no obvious social acceptance of, “We have to help them.” It reminds me a lot of what’s going on with certain refugees and things, “I don’t necessarily hate them, but I’m indifferent to their plight. It’s not my world.”
During one of my presentations, that comes up from the audience sometimes. They relate these things to the present day.
It’s a fascinating way for us to take lessons from history, apply it to how we’re reacting to what we see in the news and decide which side of the right thing to do we are on and what we can do to take action. Any last thoughts you want to leave us with, Marty, about your book or how we can be more courageous or compassionate?
If you take all of that seriously and we’ll talk in the context of wanting to do your job, especially if you’re a leader in your role, managed positions are viewed as leadership roles, although not all people in those roles act as leaders. Every day, if I approach my job, I’m here to make a positive difference whether I’m in sales, service, whatever role you’re tearing, you then have the right focus. Then you’re going to be always thinking about how do I best work with people? How do I best treat people? How do I best get my job done to get the results that I need? It’s all about making a positive difference and that’s what this story has all been about.
How can people follow you on social media?
I have a website, www.MartyABrounstein.com and there’s a Facebook page for the book under my name as well. When you put the link in my email, I don’t mind people contacting me directly, so I welcome that. I hope to see them at some of my presentations or maybe these are the people who will invite me to come to their organization to share this special story. At the very end of the story, I have a very meaningful personal connection to this story and its heroes as well. I always reveal that at the very end. When they read the book, they will find out. I always close every presentation with, “Thank, God, for the courage and compassion of Frans and Mien Wijnakker.”
Thank, God, for your inspiration, courage and compassion to take this message out into the world. Thanks, Marty, for being on the show.
Thank you so much for having me, John.
Thank you, John.
Links Mentioned:
- Marty Brounstein
- Two Among the Righteous Few: A Story of Courage in the Holocaust
- The Courage and Compassion to Do the Right Thing: A Lesson in Making a Positive Difference
- Be the Lifeguard of Your Own Life – John Livesay’s TEDx Talk
- #MeToo Movement
- www.MartyABrounstein.com
- Marty Brounstein Facebook page
- https://www.Amazon.com/Two-Among-Righteous-Few-Holocaust/dp/B005XHMX96/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538155403&sr=8-1&keywords=marty+brounstein
- Quantmre.com
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Happily Ever Always with Michael Rosenblum
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Episode Summary:
We often look for happiness in different places and people. But no matter how much we look, we can’t seem to find it. Michael Rosenblum believes we all deserve to live Happily Ever Always and for him, that is about looking within oneself. He is a self-made man and one of America’s most successful real estate brokers—deemed even as the broker’s broker. He talks about how much of his success comes from loving what he does and in serving other people. Shedding some life into real estate, he gives light and comforting advices on going to listings, selling, buying, and marketing. Ultimately, he believes that money can’t buy you happiness but happiness can make you rich.
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Listen To The Episode Here
Happily Ever Always with Michael Rosenblum
Happily Ever Always: A Top-Selling Real Estate Broker’s Secret Guide to Confidence, Contentedness and Security
My guest is Michael Rosenblum, who has written a wonderful book called Happily Ever Always. He reveals the winning philosophy by his amazing route to becoming one of America’s most successful real estate brokers. He has this amazing story where he takes you on a journey where you go through all these exercises to get in touch with what your thoughts are about happiness. He tells us that good business isn’t good enough. As someone who passionately believes his joy is measured in the equal proportion to the happiness of those around him, you could imagine that he makes everybody feel happier. He said, “We’re intentionally seeking this spiritual connection because it triggers greatness and we all want that. When you realize why you always deserve to live happily ever always, you have the secret to not only a happy life but a happy business life.” Michael, welcome to the show.
Thank you, John. I’m delighted to be here, certainly humbled, to say the least.
I always like to ask my guest to tell us your story of origin. You can go back as far as you want. You can be a little boy dreaming of being rich. You can be high school, college, wherever you want to start that had, “I want to be happier than the people I see around me.” Whatever you think would be relevant to give us a sense of how you all started on your journey.
I should probably begin by saying I was one of those children who never felt as if he fit in with other kids. I was a little different. In being different as we all maybe have experienced at one time or another in our life, you get bullied when you’re different by people who sometimes are not happy themselves. As I began to grow and learn to like myself, I decided through my trials and tribulations of life that I wanted to find out if there was some formula for being happy. As a young person, I thought happy was being rich, having a lot of money, all material possessions. I came to learn over time of a successful business that I wasn’t happy.
[bctt tweet=”Don’t wish your villains away” username=”John_Livesay”]
I remember having a job one time. I was paid so much money and it was blocks from my home here in Chicago. I would wake up every morning and I would cringe to go to the office because I wasn’t enjoying myself. I was able to go to dinners and buy different things and yet I wasn’t happy. I thought maybe happiness is when you meet the love of your life, when you meet that right person and you have that connection. I was blessed to have that experience and it didn’t work because you fall in and out of relationships.
That’s a lot of pressure to put on one person, “You have to be responsible for my happiness, now go.”
Together, being with someone, I was thinking that was the epitome of happiness and it wasn’t. In short, what I realized was that happiness came from within me. I had to figure out who I was and what was going to make me happy. What I found that was going to make me happy was having a sense of security of my own personal truth. Accepting me for who I am, growing with that and accepting the flaws, the favorable aspects and the gifts that are buried within me.
It’s an interesting way of looking at life because a lot of us, especially in the business world and sales, are looking for people to like us, accept us, typically in the form of hiring us. This whole podcast is about the successful pitch. If you’re constantly pitching to get hired or to sell a product or a service and your big concern is like Sally Field, “Do they like me?” You’re never going to ever feel completely happy because not everyone’s going to like you or what you’re selling.
That is the truth to heart. Furthermore, what’s interesting is that when you find that you like who you are, you have the ability to present yourself in an authentic way. You’re not concerned what other people think and you’re not concerned that the product you might be selling isn’t going to be favorable to somebody else. You can sell yourself best when you like yourself. When you find your own sense of happiness, then you have the world by the tail and you can do everything and anything that you ever wanted to.
You certainly have the world by the tail when it comes to business as one of the most successful brokers in Chicago. You’ve generated sales of over $400 million and then inducted into Berkshire Hathaway’s Hall of Fame. You’re constantly in the top 1% of 46,000 real estate brokers. There must be something to that success that has allowed you to stay consistently at the top. Yet if people think that that’s going to make them happy, they’re still not getting the message.
It falls back on the fact that you have to be happy with yourself. You have to like yourself. You also have to be authentic to who you are. By understanding who you are, then you present yourself in a real way. When you present yourself in that real, authentic way, you will find that people will gravitate towards you and you can do anything. My success in real estate is probably driven by the fact that I just want to do a great job for people because that’s what I would want to be done for me. I often call myself the broker’s broker. The reason why I call myself the broker’s broker is because I treat my clients in the same manner that I would expect my broker to treat me.
[bctt tweet=”Reincarnation: Do you want to come back as you?” username=”John_Livesay”]
It’s almost like a doctor saying, “I’m going to treat this patient like it’s a family member and not just another job.” I love this concept of when we are our authentic selves because in the marketing world if you try to be all things to everybody, you’re nothing to everybody. As opposed to picking a lane, picking a niche, who this is for and who this is not for. Therefore, when you go out to pitch to get someone to hire you, to give you a listing, what is it that you do or say that makes people want to work with you versus someone else? Separate from all the bells and whistles of, “This is our marketing strategy.” I want to hear, if I can, what’s the mindset you go in with? What’s the energy? What is it that somebody could say that would cause you to say, “This isn’t a fit?” Anything you can share in that arena?
I believe the driving force when I go into a listing appointment that separates me from other brokers is number one, my enthusiasm for the work that I do. Number two, being able to give a clear, concise presentation and of course not to forget the word compelling. We all suffer a little bit from not having the most robust attention spans because we’re busy. You need to have your presentation done in a succinct way where for me, one of the things that I do is I like to cover four points. I bring a wonderful presentation book of real estate comps and all the marketing we do. It’s a wonderfully thick book that we leave behind with our clients. What I do is number one, talk about who I am and a little bit about my background. Number two, I get into the comps. Number three, I talk about the marketing that we are going to implement in order to drive traffic to a particular property. Number four, we talk about how we’re going to service you, the client, so that we’re answering your questions before you ask them.
I would imagine that other brokers do a similar process in terms of the research and a little bit about their bio. What I’m looking for is your secret sauce. Do you paint a picture of what life is going to be like? Do you paint a picture of the process which can be stressful being less stressful because of your happiness focus?
It’s probably the oodles of enthusiasm that I seem to generate when speaking to somebody. I’m asking them questions about why they’re moving and why they’re contemplating this sale. If I’m working with a buyer, in going through an assessment program with the buyer, it’s trying to find out what’s the motivating force and then talk around that. I think it’s probably coming in and having an enormous amount of enthusiasm for what I’m doing. The other thing is just having the knowledge. You would be surprised at how many people don’t have a lot of knowledge about their industry. Fake it to make it.
What I hear then is if our audience wants to be more successful and happier, bring your enthusiasm, which has to be authentic. Ask questions that are specific to that particular person’s reason for making a change. Most importantly, prepare and don’t underestimate that can separate you from the competition. If someone is also saying, “I’d like to overcome some self-doubt. Maybe I don’t have the years of experience and this amazing track record that you have, Michael.” What would you recommend people do?
[bctt tweet=”When you find your own sense of happiness, then you have the world by the tail.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I believe everyone has certain gifts that are a little different than someone else’s. When you don’t have an experience in selling a lot of real estates, you might have a skill set that you can comport from a prior profession you were involved in. For instance, maybe somebody was in party planning. What they can talk about is the fact that when they get a listing, they build a marketing plan around that particular listing to figure out how to get the optimum amount of traffic. They’re taking their skill set from planning parties, which involves understanding menus and understanding possibly how to get press, depending upon the type of party it is. It’s taking a skillset from a prior profession, going ahead and comporting that to real estate and implementing it. Your enthusiasm can drive a contagious and infectious road path to get people to do exactly what you might like.
One of the things you talk about in the book, Happily Ever Always, is listen to your gut, not your wallet. That goes back to that earlier question I had about when do you say no to a potential client? Your gut’s saying, “I’d love the commission on this listing.” You’re listening to your gut and not your wallet. Do you have a story around that you can share?
First and foremost, you have to trust yourself. You have to believe that others are going to do the same. When you’re genuine, you win. If you have an agenda only for money, you won’t. Sometimes I’ll go into an appointment and I’ll sit down with a potential seller. They’re telling me that this is where their property should be priced and that they know exactly how it should be sold. It begins to make me feel as if, “What am I here for?” I should probably back up and say when I meet somebody who tells me that they’ve sold a lot of properties and this is where it should be priced despite the comps. I’ve cued them on different reasons as to why they believe that and I don’t feel that it is genuine or it makes sense. I step back and I’ll say, “I don’t think I can meet your expectations. I’m not the person for you.”
I realized that if someone’s telling me that they’ve sold six properties and I’ve sold over 1,000 properties, I have a better track record in deciding whether or not something’s going to go. Therefore, if I feel the person’s contentious, I realize it’s only going to be blood money. It’s not going to be harmonious. When you are in business with someone and when you’re selling something for someone, you’re married to them and you want to have that harmonious relationship. If it’s not there, then you’ve got to listen to your gut, not your wallet. You could end up spending a lot more in the long run.
[bctt tweet=”You get bullied when you’re different by people who sometimes are not happy themselves.” username=”John_Livesay”]
You also said you called it blood money, which leads me to my other question. You talk about, “Don’t wish your villains away.” Tell us what that means.
That’s an excerpt from my book and you should never want to wish your villains away. For lack of better word, I’ll use the word dreadful. Sometimes the dreadful people we think that come into our lives we wish weren’t there are the very people that can teach us lessons, not only about our self but also be a springboard to take us to a greater place. You might say, “Michael, why would you make that statement?” John, I would make that statement because sometimes mean people do things to us. It irritates us to the point where we say, “I’m not going to be your doormat. I’m not going to let you walk all over me. I am going to rise to the occasion and I’m going to be better.” That villain motivated you.
Even Cruella de Vil is someone that could motivate us if you look at it the right way is what you’re saying.
Another thing that I’d like to touch on is the point that is there anything bad in life? I guess we could say there are things that are bad in life, but sometimes from the tragedy comes the victory. We don’t see that necessarily when we’re settled in a situation that is terrible and that is painful. Sometimes if we step out of it, which takes a lot of courage and a lot of strength, we end up finding that we are strong and we can endure and we end up winning.
Is there a time in your business life when things fell apart and you still were able to find happiness?
There was a time in my twenties, I remember specifically where I wasn’t getting paid worth my salt. I felt in all the times that I kept asking my boss for a raise, which was over a two-year period that she wasn’t interested in doing that. I had looked for another job but hadn’t found one yet. I believed that until I took a hold of my life, believed in myself, quit my job and didn’t worry about the fact that I didn’t have another job. I knew that I would get a job or I could wait tables or do something rather than work for somebody and not get paid worth my salt, I went ahead and I quit.
Happily Ever Always: When you find that you like who you are, you have the ability to present yourself in an authentic way.
The next day in making phone calls, I had two job opportunities. What was interesting to me here was the fact that I probably needed to do what I did. I wasn’t going to find the security of getting one job and leaving another job. Perhaps I believe what the universe was saying, “Stand up for yourself. Don’t be a doormat. Believe in yourself. Believe you have great talent and things might not work in that alphabetical order that you want, but if you take the risk, you will find the reward.”
Is that what motivated you to want to write Happily Ever Always?
What motivated me to want to write Happily Ever Always was going through life’s trials and tribulations and realizing that we all deserve to be happy. Therefore, I found myself in my 30s and 40s starting to write different things. By the time I got to 52, I figured it’s a do or die situation. It’s time to write and put it together.
A lot of people have a dream of writing a book and they never make it happen. What was it that made you say, “I’m going to do this now,” besides time is running out?
I feel I am a fortunate person. I’m not the smartest person, I’m not the wealthiest person, I’m not the best-looking person, but I love being me. If I was asked to be anybody in this world, who would I want to be? I would want to be me. To be honest with you, it’s because I can say that with great conviction that I would not want to be anybody but me. I hope in my next life, if we believe in past lives, that I can come back as me. I felt that happiness needs to go in a book and needs to be shared with other people so that they can feel the same way. In writing the book, I felt rather than give my philosophies, pontificate and narrate, I needed to invite the reader to answer questions. As I narrate the story of my road to happiness, I prompt the reader to answer specific questions at the end of each chapter. That when they’re done with the 150-page read, they might have found their personal truth, which will always allow them to live happily ever.
[bctt tweet=”You can sell yourself best when you like yourself.” username=”John_Livesay”]
We’re not going to wish our villains away. We’re going to listen to our gut and not our wallet. We are going to keep our commitments no matter what. Those are the real things that you say will help us be happier in our personal and our business life and that they are in fact connected. Can you speak to the connection between personal and business?
The connection to personal and business is believing in yourself. When you believe in yourself, everyone else will too. In the business world, your colleagues will believe in you and they’ll trust you. In your personal, the people who love you and you love and the people who haven’t come into your life will also find that halo of happiness that seems to surround you as a person.
The book is Happily Ever Always. Congratulations on having a mission and a purpose to help other people get happier and want to be happy with whom they are that they wouldn’t want to be anybody else. The outcomes of that are all the trappings of success, but it’s coming from a completely different place from the inside out instead of from the outside in. If people want to follow you or certainly if people want to hire you to find them a place to live in Chicago or hire you to help sell their place in Chicago, how can they reach you?
They can reach me at HappilyEverAlways.com.
Thanks for being a guest on our show, Michael. It’s been a real pleasure and a happy experience for me and I’m sure the audience.
Thank you, John.
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Innovation Hacks with Josh Linkner
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Episode Summary:
To Josh Linkner, founder and CEO of ePrize, creativity and innovation are the lifeblood of all human progress. As such, he’s spent his career harnessing the power of creative disruption. His journey has been non-traditional at every step, using innovative hacks to topple competitors, fight through adversity, and achieve at the highest levels. In addition to his own startups, Josh has been involved with the launch, growth, or financing of over 100 other companies. Josh shares how he built the largest digital promotions agency in the world, ePrize, serving 74 of the Top 100 brands. He also touches on innovation, creativity, reinvention, and hyper-growth leadership. Josh states that focusing on not only inspiring audiences but also sharing actionable strategies is what drives meaningful outcomes.
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Listen To The Episode Here
Innovation Hacks with Josh Linkner
My guest is Josh Linkner, who started his career as a jazz guitarist and he personifies innovation, entrepreneurship, and breakthrough disruption. He’s been the Founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million. He’s a New York Times bestselling author not once, but three times. His first book is Disciplined Dreaming and then he went on to write two other books, The Road to Reinvention and Hacking Innovation. I’m interested to have him share with us what hackers do that we can apply to our own way to be more innovative, but in a legal way. He’s also the founding partner of Detroit Venture Partners and he invests in over 100 startups. He’s been named twice the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is President Barack Obama’s Champion of Change Award recipient. He writes for Forbes and Inc. Magazine. He’s a big supporter of Detroit and he gives keynote talks all around the world about innovation and he helps other speakers. He’s someone who gives back and has a passion for making a difference. Josh, welcome to the show.
Hacking Innovation: The New Growth Model from the Sinister World of Hackers
Thank you so much. I’m delighted to be joining you.
I love your story of origin and I would love to have you share with us how you went from a career as a jazz guitarist into entrepreneurship and then on to this amazing international speaking career.
I grew up in Detroit and I started playing Jazz when I was about eight years old. I’ve been playing for 40 years and I love music. I love the art form, but clearly, it wasn’t the most lucrative career choice. I’ve equally found a love for creating similar types of art, but in business. To me, we can be artists whether we’re playing music or doing a Broadway play or writing code, it doesn’t mean you need to be less artistic. I’ve always taken that same creative approach to anything that I’ve done.
I’ve ultimately moved into entrepreneurship and venture investing. Ironically, your show’s around the pitch. The pitch had a lot to do with it. When we’re Jazz musicians trying to get a gig, you’re constantly pitching yourself. You’re trying to just get someone to hire you. The same works when you’re trying to raise capital, when you’re trying to land customers, when you’re trying to attract talent. To a degree, it’s salesmanship not in a bad way, but in a persuasive and authentic way that ultimately drives progress.
There are a lot of similarities between music and being fluid on stage and entertaining people. Let’s talk a little bit about the talks that you were hired to do and some of the clients you’ve spoken to around innovation. What are some of the secrets to being innovative in your business or an innovative way to pitch?
I’m very lucky I get to speak all around the world. I did 163 keynotes all over the place, mainly for large companies. We can apply the lens of innovation, that’s a core message that I share far beyond product development. We have to think of “innovation” as this big overwhelming word that only applies to CEOs or people wearing lab coats. I like to show this notion of everyday innovation and being innovative whatever we happen to be doing, whether that’s customer service or finance or in this case, pitching. As we think about pitching in a creative way, that could become the difference maker. If you’re pitching in a competitive situation, especially if your product or service is very similar to others, the innovative nature in which you pitch could be the difference maker between winning or losing.
[bctt tweet=”We underestimate the risk of standing still.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I like to do a few things. First of all, let people know that all of us are creative. Whether you’re good at music or not, doesn’t mean you’re creative. All of us, as human beings, have the creative capacity to solve problems in imaginative ways and use this creative muscle in our daily work. Once we were connected to that, what I like to share are some very practical tools and techniques that allow people to drive innovation into, not only the big stuff but the little stuff.
One thing I like to do is called the Judo Flip. It’s a very simple tool. Let’s say you’re selling life insurance and everyone in the industry sells life insurance the same way. You’re confused with the competition easily because everyone looks, act, sounds and smells the same way. The Judo Flip is simply asking yourself, “What is the exact opposite? What’s the opposite of what I’ve always done? What’s the opposite of what everybody else is doing?” If everybody else pitches in a three-piece suit, maybe you pitch on a black turtleneck. If everybody else come and hawk their wares, maybe you come in with no presentation and you simply engage in a dialogue. It’s a way of forcing yourself to look and list out what everyone else is doing, what you normally do and you’re simply asking the question, “What would happen if you Judo Flip it?” If you Judo Flip the tradition upside down in order to uncover a fresh approach.
That mindset of just because everyone else is doing something in a certain way, it reminds me of lateral thinking, which is that same way of, “How can I think out of the box?” Not just that but do something that’s memorable. That’s where storytelling comes in, whoever tells the best story when you’re pitching becomes memorable. Can you share an example of some of the times you’ve had to pitch yourself versus another speaker and what you’ve done to be Judo Flipping?
First of all, one of the messages of pitching is that it’s about the pitcher but it’s not, it’s about the audience. The first thing you have to do is getting yourself in a mindset that it’s not about you or what you’re trying to sell, it’s more about what you could do to add value and serve the other person. This nontraditional approach has worked for me in all aspects. One of my favorite stories, I had the chance to win some business as I was growing my company from a giant corporation. They were going to single source all of their purchases of our kind of work, we did digital promotions, and give a whole bunch of business to one supplier. A competitive shootout ensues and we made it to the finals.
At this point, there’s me and two other companies left standing. We were desperate it has to be a game changer if we want it. The problem is that the buyer, in this case, was a jerk. He was dragging the process out. He was difficult and abrasive and all that. I bumped into him and his wife at an industry conference. I kept running up to him at the coffee breaks and I’m trying everything I know to close the deal. Nothing worked, he was totally dismissive. What happens next is that I see him at the airport and it turns out that he and his wife were on the same outbound flight that I was. The guy gets an upgrade to first class, he’s a frequent traveler. Being the gentleman that he is, he takes the seat for himself and sends his wife back to coach. If I did that with my wife, that’s got to be it, game over.
Innovation Hacks: If you’re pitching in a competitive situation, especially if your product or service is very similar to others, the innovative nature in which you pitch could be the difference maker between winning or losing.
Next, what unfolds, I also got an upgrade. I walk on the plane and there he is sitting down and I had the seat next to him. All of us that are reading this is pitching like it allowed me in sales of some capacity or another were like, “You’ve got the seat next to your biggest prospect, two hours uninterrupted, sit down and sell.” To me, there’s an opportunity to be creative. It’s an opportunity to explore an unorthodox or a judo flip approach. I said, “I have the seat next to you.” He looks back up at me and he says, “We could chat.” I said, “I’d love that. Here’s the thing, I have much work I’m behind on. I need to catch up on this flight and I also noticed that your wife is sitting at the back. How about we switch seats? You two can enjoy some family time. I’ll get my work done back in coach.” He thanked me and I was a little nervous. Was that the stupidest thing I’ve ever done? I thought, “Let’s try the opposite approach.”
I walked back and present his wife my ticket. I said, “Go sit with your husband, have a great flight.” She gets a little choked up and she’s like, “Thank you so much, I’m so happy to be sitting with my husband.” The flight takes off, I don’t think too much about it. Once we land, all of us we check our mobile device. The first thing I noticed was an email from my office. It said, “Josh, deal signed.” Here’s what happened. The guy later told me, “I was looking for a tiebreaker. All three companies were solid but when you demonstrated some humanity instead of only chasing the bottom line, when you showed me that you could be innovative, that’s who I needed on my team.” Before the flight took off, he texted it to his office. Once we landed, that deal had already been signed. It was a $30 million deal.
It’s a bit of a risk. It is a great example of the Judo Flip. What I love is you’ve now shown us how to be innovative as it relates to the humanity part of it. I don’t think that people think of innovation applying to humanity and that can pay off. I also loved that you didn’t say, “I’m a great guy. I’m going to give your wife my seat.” You said, “I have work to do.” You were equally busy and that there were some things going on in your life, which is always, an important factor that you can’t be too needy or desperate for anything. “That if this doesn’t happen, this is my all or nothing,” world. That sets you apart as well in my mind.
I did it because it was the right thing not only because I’m trying to game it but it all paid off. My experience is that when we go and pitch anything, I raised over $250 million of venture capital through the years, I bought and sold several companies. I spent a lot of time pitching. Also as a venture capitalist, I’ve been on the other side doing 3,000 entrepreneurial pitches. I will say that what I’ve seen the best ones are not the ones that have the straight up the middle pitch. It’s the ones with the curveball. It’s our job to position our offering and to be persuasive in a nontraditional way because that’s going to yield a better result.
I’ve seen many examples of this innovative thinking. Can you give us another one? I watched one of your videos and I was amazed at how you came up with an innovative solution, so you didn’t lose business. It’s one thing to use innovation to get it, but how do you use it to not lose business?
Early on, we won a piece of business in my company from United Airlines and we were excited. I’m a little startup in Detroit and this is a major brand placing their trust with us. My company designs and runs digital promotions. We were part ad agency and part software company. When we run a promotion like sweepstakes, we’re also doing the legal stuff, the rules and regulations. This is a sweepstakes grand prize of $1 million and United flies at different countries. They wanted their customers from all the same countries to be able to enter the $1 million sweepstakes. We take the business, we’re all excited then we got into the legal research. We learned that in Brazil, which had to be an eligible country, a drawing of this nature, according to Brazilian law, must be done on Brazilian soil.
We’re thinking, “We’re going to Rio.” Until we learned that in Australia, which also had to be an eligible country, Australian law declares that prize draws must be done within the physical boundaries of Australia. I was a little tech company. This is not a small problem, this was a massive problem. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t give away two prizes. I couldn’t afford an extra million dollars. I’m not about to run an illegal sweepstake and I didn’t want to have to go back to my huge new client and tell them we’re too stupid to take their business. The answer didn’t come from me, as the CEO, I wasn’t smart enough, nor did it come from anyone with the fancy title, it came from an individual team contributor in my legal department.
Here’s what she says to me, “Josh, do the drawing at the Brazilian embassy in Australia.” It’s technically Brazilian soil, technically within the boundaries of Australia, which we did. I’m not kidding, it saved my company. The reason I like sharing this story is that if we want to drive creativity in our organizations, it’s not all about us being the creative wizard, it’s about empowering others. It’s about creating a safe environment where part of their job responsibility is to be creative and to share the crazy wacky ideas. The only thing I did as a leader here is I created an environment where this woman who shared her idea, she wasn’t nervous she was going to get fired. She wasn’t scared she was going to get reprimanded for sharing a crazy idea because we celebrated all ideas, big and small. I would encourage the audience to do the same.
[bctt tweet=”Everyday innovation requires practice.” username=”John_Livesay”]
The big takeaway is to create a safe environment where people don’t feel embarrassed or scared to share something that they’re going to be ridiculed for because that’s the creative process. That goes back to Jazz, which is a very creative way of improv and creating something new. You’ve heard a lot of pitches as an investor. I would be remiss not to ask you to either share one of your favorite pitches or, beside not doing a traditional pitch, any tips you have for someone who is pitching to you or any investor that you think will make them stand out?
When you listen to pitches, some of them are so bad that we created this funny list of what not to do. Here are a couple more tactical things. One is a great presentation is about discussion, not a monologue, so make sure that you’re listening as much you’re talking. Avoid the buzzwords, name-dropping, big, boastful and outrageous claims. Instead, make sure that your authentic self is coming through and that it’s a conversation. You want them to fall in love with you as much as they fall in love with your idea. What I’d like to see is storytelling and I love to see when people are pitching and focusing in on the problem that they’re solving. If someone comes in to pitch me for capital and they’re like, “Here’s this money I’m going to make.” I feel like they’re focused on the wrong thing. I want them to come in and say, “Here’s this burning problem in the world and it needs to be solved. I’ve committed myself to solve it. Here’s how we’re going to do it in a nontraditional way.” That to me is cool.
Another thing, we have a little venture capital rule called the 10X Rule. If someone comes and says, “I want to start a new auction site and it’s going to be 2% better than eBay.” My response is, “No way.” eBay already has won that and they have too much critical mass for you to compete. Our little simple litmus test was this, if someone pitches us an idea, we say, “Is that idea 10X better than what alternatives are already out there?” If it is, I want to learn more and I want to invest. If not, I’m probably going to pass because if there’s already an incumbent, if there’s already a market, how are you going to solve the problem in a ten times better way?
By the way, it doesn’t have to be your product. You could have a 10X advantage elsewhere. It could be a 10X cost advantage, it could be a 10X people advantage, a 10X brand advantage, 10X safety advantage, whatever. For us, we always say, “Is there a 10X somewhere in the mix? If there is, we’re excited. If not, we’re probably going to pass.” It’s a good way for someone who’s trying to pitch to say, “Can you position your alternative?” Whether you’re selling a product or service, or you raising capital, in some way 10X better than alternative choice. Even if you’re trying to raise don’t profit money. You’re trying to raise money for the American Heart Association, why should someone give money to you versus someone else? Your story better be ten times better.
Those are useful takeaways and in been doing that myself where I pitched my startup that I’m working on, quantmRE. We describe what the problem is when people have equity in their house and if they need to take the money out to remodel or send a kid to college, the only option they have is to refinance it. We’ve completely Judo Flipped that and are now giving people money without having them take on more debt because we buy a small percentage of their house. When that happens, we’re giving people the freedom to get access to money liquid without taking on more debt. That’s a way that is 10X better than people taking on more debt.
When people understand all of that, you can start to get people to say, “I’ve never heard of getting money without debt, tell me more.” That’s what you’re saying. We’re describing how we’re helping people, the problem that people are having when you’re asset rich, but cash poor. If you can solve that problem that intrigues a lot of people to say, “How do you do that? You’ve already done it and now you’re going to put that on the Blockchain on top of it and let people buy real estate without being a landlord. That sounds something that’s pretty revolutionary, I want to know more.” That’s all good pitches in my opinion. Also to intrigue people enough to say, “That’s interesting. I want to know more.”
You’re such a good example there because you’re not just sharing some little teeny feature. What you’re offering is profoundly better and different. Nobody wants another me-too solution. What the world craves are originality and unique and better approaches. When we’re talking about pitches, just a couple of quick things that I’ve learned. We would always ask ourselves when we would get pitches to venture capitalists and I would do this when I was raising capital. Here’s the question, “Are you selling vitamins or Advil?”
Here’s what I mean by that. If it’s 2:00 AM and it’s snowing and you’re in your nice warm bed, no one’s ever going to get up, get in their car, dust off the snow, drive four miles, and go to the all-night drugstore to buy vitamin. It’s not going to happen. If you have a headache and you could barely see straight, you’re going to do whatever it takes, pay whatever it takes, go through whatever extra discomfort it takes to get yourself that Advil. Back to pitching, is your solution something that it’s just nice to have? Vitamins are nice and convenient and you do it when you get a chance. Is it like a burning pain that you’re solving? The more you can position your product or service company as Advil addressing a real burning pain in the world as opposed to vitamins “a nice to have,” you have an easier chance of raising capital and ultimately succeed.
Innovation Hacks: It’s our job to position our offering and to be persuasive in a nontraditional way because that’s going to yield a better result.
I find that useful because we instantly know that one is a preventative and the other one is instant. You must address the “why now” factor when you’re pitching. Why is now urgent that this problem gets solved and the vitamin versus Advil paints that picture in a great way. Let’s jump to your book, Hacking Innovation. This concept of the Frogger is interesting. Can you expound on what all that is?
I grew up playing video games like many people. Back when I was doing that, there was the game of Frogger. For those who don’t remember Frogger, you’re this little frog and you’re trying to cross the street. The way you do that is you hop on moving objects that are flowing in the stream like the back of a lily pad or an alligator or a log. Eventually, you try to get across the street. The thing is that when you take a step and you’re on dry land which now you’re on a log, if you stay on the log, you then fall into the stream because the log is moving in increasingly faster paces. What you have to do is go from a dry surface and then right where you land, jump to the next dry surface and the next one in order to avoid the raging river of death.
I can’t think of a better example for what’s happening now in our business climate because today it’s like a giant game of Frogger. In other words, you have a good quarter. Now you’re on back to the lily pad, but if you stand still, that’s the riskiest thing you can do because you’re going to fall in the river and die. It’s about going from point of success to the next point to the next one. Those factors are increasing today at a rate like none other in history. It’s incumbent on us not to think of success as we’ve cracked the code and you’re going to do the same thing forever, but rather leaping from one point of success to the next and always moving forward because realizing that standing still, connecting to the status quo is probably the riskiest move of all.
That is spot on to my philosophy as well which is there’s no such thing as a comfort zone anymore. You’re Judo Flipping the traditional way of, “Let’s avoid risk.” You’re saying, “Nope, the hackers embrace it.” That’s what you need to be doing in your business in order to not be drowned in the Frogger example.
One thing I’ve learned in 28 years in business is that people tend to overestimate the risk of trying something new, but they underestimate the risk of standing still. That’s exactly what the Frogger thing is all about, is that realizing that we have to go in our careers and companies. From one point of success and then right when we land, it’s about re-imagining what’s next and continuously creating your way forward.
We underestimate the risk of standing still. You are the master at sound bites and giving great takeaways, which leads me to what you’re doing to help other speakers. A lot of people have a passion for speaking, but they don’t have the business model that you are applying from your expertise in the tech world to this. I was fortunate enough to attend this 3 Ring Circus Speaker Bootcamp. First of all, the branding and the tone is spot on for me and is literally magnetic. I’d love to hear you describe what made you do it and what it is.
[bctt tweet=”All of us as human beings have the creative capacity to solve problems in imaginative ways and use this creative muscle in our daily work. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
You and I are very blessed that we get to share ideas with people all over the world. When you give a keynote, you have the opportunity to change lives, move industry, and make the world a better place. It’s a wonderful opportunity. There are so many people out there with fabulous messages. It could be on lots of topics, business, health, relationships, on and on. There’s a wonderful training on how to be a better speaker. There are great speaking coaches and content coaches, but if someone wants to learn the business of public speaking, I’ve found that there are no good high-quality options. As I started doing this more regularly, I realized that most of the stuff out there was pretty cheesy. It was like the zillion dollar speaker or all this stuff that like it was a get rich quick nonsense.
For me, we figured it out. I applied the same rigor that I had when building a software company to the world of public speaking and we developed a systematic approach to build and scale a speaking business, driving both volumes of speech opportunities and fee. When we finally got to that point, I said, “I would love to share this with other people because if we’re able to help them get their messages out there, the world is even a better place and how cool is that?” We started this fun thing called 3 Ring Circus, the site is 3RingCircus.com. It was playful and a bit self-mocking.
Innovation Hacks: We’re hard-wired to be creative, but unfortunately, most of us were socialized out of it.
The idea is, “It’s a circus out there and wouldn’t it be nice to have some people helping you get your circus up and running?” We host a one-day speaker bootcamps and provide some additional coaching services and such to help people with a powerful message that they want to get out in the world and then teach them the business of speaking. They’re able to do so and get paid handsomely and get a lot of opportunities to speak on the biggest stages in the world.
It’s well-produced and you not only teach the business of speaking, but you have a speaking bureau, agents, and founders there who share their insights on how they select which speakers are going to represent. It was one of the best days I’ve ever spent on my career and you’ve been kind enough to offer the audience the ability to enter a code called Pitch 500, which would give them $500 off the cost of this speaker bootcamp. That was very kind of you to do. Do you have any last thoughts you want to share with us about what we can do to stay innovative whether it’s in our career or in our personal life?
[bctt tweet=”Practice micro-innovation as opposed to the breakthroughs.” username=”John_Livesay”]
If you think of creativity as an everyday habit instead of a once a decade initiative, it’s a healthy way to look at it. I would say practice micro innovation as opposed to the breakthroughs. If you walk your dog, is there a more innovative way to do that? If you answer the phone or send an email, how can I make it a little more creative? If you’re going to send a prospecting email, how could I go jazz that up a little bit? If you think about lots of little acts of creativity rather than waiting around for some change the world type idea, the big stuff will take care of itself if you’re practicing the little stuff. Just do lots of little creative acts. The thing I would encourage people to know is that the research is crystal clear that all of us as human beings have an enormous creative capacity.
I like to say if you’re breathing, you’re creative. We’re hard-wired to be creative, but unfortunately, most of us were socialized out of it. We’re taught not to be great, not to take risks, not to make any mistakes. If we can reconnect to that gift of creativity, amazing things ensue. Human creativity is the one thing that can’t be outsourced or automated. It’s the thing that allows us to be closers instead of second round, all the things that we want can be enabled through human creativity. It’s fascinating when you study the brain chemistry, the difference between you and me and Picasso, brain-wise, is negligible. It’s not that he was endowed with something from God, it’s just that he built those skills up more than perhaps you and I did. All of us can be the Picasso of our field or the Mozart are the Da Vinci. If we give ourselves permission and practice a little bit, we can go on to do incredible things.
What a great message that creativity is like a muscle. If you make it an everyday habit, then you start telling yourself, “I am creative,” and your brain will start finding solutions that it didn’t even think was possible because you believe that you are creative. I love that. Thanks so much for being on the show.
Thank you. It’s absolutely my pleasure. Keep doing great stuff. I appreciate it.
Links Mentioned:
- Josh Linkner
- Disciplined Dreaming
- The Road to Reinvention
- Hacking Innovation
- Detroit Venture Partners
- quantmRE
- 3 Ring Circus Speaker Bootcamp
- 3RingCircus.com
- www.JoshLinkner.com
- Quantmre.com
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John Livesay, The Pitch Whisperer
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