Brain+Trust With Tim Hayden
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
In today’s fast-paced world overrun by technology, understanding how the human brain behaves, works, and reacts is an important aspect of digital consumption. John Livesay delves more into this topic with Tim Hayden, the founder of Brain+Trust and chief business strategist at The Next Practice, by discussing how empathy and getting a full grasp of audience emotions can result in a compelling marketing strategy. Tim also explains how data science is being applied to COVID-19 trials as well as the concept of sonic gardens.
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Listen to the podcast here
Brain+Trust With Tim Hayden
Our guest is Tim Hayden, who is the Founder of Brain+Trust, which is an agency that helps companies use empathy and technology to anticipate how to get inside their customer’s head. He’s also involved with a company called The Next Practice, which is about anticipating what’s coming around the corner. We go into things like how to tend to your sonic garden, a consent management platform, what’s happening in the world of AI, and consent and data privacy. All through a lens of how do we make the world better. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Tim Hayden, who has many years of marketing and business leadership experience. He’s been the founder of new ventures and a catalyst for transformational progress with some of the world’s largest brands. He is a strategic business executive, studies human behavior and how media and mobility are reshaping all of the business. From operations to marketing and customer service, he assembles technology and communications initiatives that lead to efficiency and revenue growth. He’s an investor and advisor to technology startups. He actively works with entrepreneurs and ventures to capitalize on opportunities and shifts across many different industries. Tim, welcome to the show.
John, thanks for having me. I appreciate that introduction.
Tell us your own story of origin and take us back a little bit. You can go back to childhood. You can go back to your days at Texas State. How did you get interested in being involved in startups in general? It seems to be a part of your path.
Growing up, my mom was a school teacher and later on, she became an executive with several nonprofits including The Hurst Euless Bedford Chamber of Commerce, right in the middle of the Dallas-Fort Worth. My dad on the other hand was in software. That’s probably what made me acutely aware of what was happening with technology and how it was iterating as time went along. Technology got faster. It got better. My dad, I wouldn’t say it was cumbersome, but he was absent for a lot of my formative years because he was working for somebody else. That’s the easiest way. I’ve always thought if I could wake up on Monday mornings knowing that the world is on my shoulders to win, to survive, or to do whatever else, that’s the path I’m going to take. That’s even been the case when I’ve gone to work for a large corporation or somebody else. I’ve always tried to be entrepreneurial in my approach.
Doing my research in preparation for this is, you have a fascination with human behavior and that’s why we’re looking forward to getting to talk with you because I share that passion from my advertising background. That’s what made me get into advertising was, what motivates people to change their behavior or buy one product over another. The same concept to persuade one person doesn’t necessarily work for another. You have certainly done a deep dive into that. Let’s start with what you’re doing at a company where you’re the Chief Business Strategy at The Next Practice? I find that concept fascinating “unlocking what’s next?” This premise that we all have to find what’s coming around the corner, we can’t stay in our comfort zone is what I get from what you’re doing there.
I’ve worked across a number of industries. You take municipalities and state local governments. This comes from even me sitting on the board of the Austin Chamber of Commerce at one time. The art of economic development is always being able to look 5 to 10 years in the future to understand what do you need to do to develop an infrastructure, the systems, the processes, and the environment for business to be conducive for a long period of time. That’s one part of it, but at The Next Practice, we’re all about doing that in terms of marketing customer experience and communications. We think that without calling it digital transformation, how can we help organizations with their endeavors be able to realize revenue growth, find new customers, and experience repeat behaviors from the customers that have already bought from them?
[bctt tweet=”Going on the next level by having empathy is what every entrepreneur should keep in mind.” username=”John_Livesay”]
How can we do that and always be ready for how behavior is going to change? That’s the important takeaway there is that, as the world becomes more automated as immediacy. During COVID, we can buy anything and have it delivered to our house in a matter of minutes, hours or days. That’s been a reality for some time, but we all know it way too well and we expect the rest of the world to be that way. At The Next Practice, we’re about being always on the next level if we can. It doesn’t mean that we’ll overshoot what needs to happen, but it means that we’ll have an understanding or maybe empathy with where things need to go from here.
You were very involved with the Austin Chamber of Commerce. Let’s give a shout-out to Austin and what an amazing community. I live here myself. I’ve been impressed by the friendliness, openness and collaboration that everyone finds here. A lot of people are moving from Silicon Valley here. The city has been voted the number one place to live for a couple of years in a row. There’s so much that it has to offer. From your perspective, both with your experience at the Chamber of Commerce and being an entrepreneur here, what is it that makes Austin special for you?
I went to school in San Marcos about 30 miles South of here. In the early and mid ‘90s, I was exposed to a lot that was happening with Austin. My wife went to UT. Neither one of us grew up here. She grew up in East Texas. I grew up in the DFW area. It’s the vibe that Austin has built on the edge of the Hill Country with a river running through it. It’s between the University of Texas and Ohio State, which has the largest public university in the country. Lots of young people live near the middle of town. You put a state government in the middle of it. The state government that leans a different way than the local government leans. It makes for an interesting mix of developments in terms of culture and business. That’s why Austin is the place for a creative class and for people whether they want to start new companies or they have fresh new ideas, this is a wonderful Petri dish to do that in.
You add in how green it is with an aquifer, the beauty of all the parks, amazing food, and live music. There are many special sauces to it that companies, even Tesla are coming here. It continues to attract and see what makes it unique. The thing you said that resonated with me, Tim, is as it relates to The Next Practice is this concept of empathy. Can you define for everyone reading what empathy is from a business standpoint? How is that a great tool to anticipate what’s coming next?
We look at it through the lens of design thinking about being human-centered, customer-centered in business is to understand exactly the preferences, needs and disposition of your audience. You said it first, “No two people have the same behavior traits, no two people have the same wants and needs, or have that same disposition.” When you talk about empathy, it’s about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes as best as you can. That’s a tall order. It’s an impossibility to do at scale, but thanks to the way we’re connected digitally these days and more so every day, we have the beauty of data turned into insights. That helps us understand how people behave, what their preferences are, what they imply and state, and maybe how they respond to questions we put in front of them.
It’s always about understanding and being customer-centric. That goes for internal communications, as well as understanding teams and business units, how can they better share information, how can they be on the same page having a true north of insight on that customer behavior. We believe at The Next Practice and Brain+Trust partners, that’s the remit for companies that want to not just survive, but want to succeed and grow over the next decade.
Brain+Trust: Being customer-centered in business is to understand exactly the preferences, needs, and disposition of your audience.
Let’s take some companies, maybe Kodak or Blockbuster. They had a little more empathy and been able to take a look at what’s coming. Maybe they would have seen that the business model that they had relied on for so long wasn’t going to stay either because the technology was changing and customer preferences were changing. The hassles of back in the day going to a store. Imagine young people today, they don’t know how to even operate a rotary phone. Let alone the concept of you had to wait for a movie to be returned before you could see it. All that is fascinating to me. You touched on Brain+Trust. As I said, you are busy in many projects. Tell us your role at Brain+Trust and what the story of origin was there?
In 2016, I was in the process of moving back from the Bay Area in California to Austin. I was out there in the Bay Area for two years. I had a couple of colleagues that I knew who had come from large global digital media roles with major companies. We all had a conversation and said, “There’s a wave of new technology coming into the market.” Artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation, not to mention what was happening with social media. Not to mention what’s happening in mobility in the automotive space with cars getting smarter. Some cars are able to drive themselves. All of this and the speed at which it’s happening is extremely confusing to decision-makers and leaders.
We built Brain+Trust, first and foremost, to be a sage counsel and at least a resourceful guide to be able to help business leaders roadmap where they need to make investments and decisions for investing in the future, whether that’s new process and operations or new technologies. Thanks to the pandemic in one way, it accelerated the need for companies in light of customer data privacy laws. In terms of the imminent threat that companies like Amazon and others pose to certain verticals, is to build a direct and personalized experience with your customers and to operate on their terms, which brings us back to empathy. Understanding your customers in their needs and serving those needs, that’s what businesses must focus on.
I spoke at the Coca-Cola CMO Summit and it was the CMOs of all of their quick-service restaurants that serve Coke. I was speaking to the CMO of Domino’s Pizza. He was explaining that their philosophy was creating the perfect pizza experience. Meaning you have a thought, “I’d like a pizza,” and it magically appears and fast. He and his team created that app that tracks the thing. I want to ask you about that whole thing of transparency and that people feeling part of the process is a new behavior. They’re using artificial intelligence.
That’s one of your areas of expertise. They said, “If you tend to order the same pizza at the same time every day, and you open the app or pick up the phone, the AI notices it and says we’re going to take a risk the odds or whatever. Put the pizza order in before you finish completing what you want on it to try and shave off a few seconds of the delivery time.” The bigger picture is the perfect pizza experience, and that’s where I’m fascinated to get your insights on because technology is great. Unless we’re connecting it’s feelings and emotions. What’s coming next and have this overall vision of in this case. I think about a pizza and it shows up and then using AI to make that happen without the customer even knowing it is something that you’re talking about.
We used to call that surprise and delight. KLM Airlines does this in several airports in Europe, where if you put up a signal, if you tweet or back in the days when everybody’s to check in on Foursquare. If you let the world know you’re at the airport and KLM has got their ducks in a row from a technology standpoint. They sense that you’re at the airport because you said you were. They already know what flights you’re on, what gates you’re on. They’re going to surprise you with a gift. They’re going to surprise you with something. We’re going to see more and more of that. What’s fascinating though is that because of the choices that consumers have, in terms of where they can get the goods and services they need. The way they can go about discovering new flavors, new products, and new brands. We got to be careful.
[bctt tweet=”Understanding your customers in their needs and serving those needs—that’s what businesses must focus on.” username=”John_Livesay”]
We need to know that it’s okay when I call my local pizza. I order from East Side Pies a lot here in Austin. If I call them up, I’ll ask, “What did I order last time?” They tell me what I did. I said, “Let’s do it again.” I don’t have to tell them my name. Because of caller ID, they knew who I was. That’s good but understanding that maybe shaving a few seconds off the delivery doesn’t mean that you have to preempt the consumer. Let’s allow our customers to be in control as much as we can. Let them opt-in. You’re required to do that because of data privacy laws that are popping up in 27 states. The bottom line is let’s make sure that they’ve consented, they’re opting in, and they’ve given you the green light to do that thing.
Which leads me to an article you wrote about, “If you can’t give a customer a cookie.” You talk about this premise of Consent Management Platform or CMP. Tell us what that means and how that can help businesses do better marketing.
Most people that are reading this are going to be aware of websites, especially news websites that they visit. That has a little banner that comes up and says, “Will you accept these cookies?” Most of those outlets will allow you to click on a different link and be able to see how your information is used. That’s how global data privacy regulations in Europe, which started a few years ago. That’s how that spelled out and how you’re supposed to do it. That’s how the California Consumer Privacy Act, which went into effect here in the United States. That’s what it says you need to do. What’s happening is Google is no longer going to support third-party cookies, which empowers brands to do so much from tracking a customer from a search result to the website. Maybe to the mobile app, to an eCommerce store, to a physical location and to do so on their terms, not Google’s.
Google is saying no longer will they support third-party cookies or use them in terms of how they do everything from rank searches and guide people to your doorsteps. You’re going to see probably more of investment directly with Google that will be required to leverage the behavior that’s there within Google. Apple at the same time has come out with a new operating system, iOS 14, which puts the customer in total control of who gets access to their data. Who gets to understand where they go with that device, whether an iPhone or an iPad or a Mac. What is consumed on that device, where has it been used, maybe what speed were you going, what direction you were going back to your place. Your point about predictive pizzas, “Does he drive by here every day?”
What we’re seeing is twofold. One, commitments to customer data privacy. That’s what we see there, but we’re also seeing that Apple, Google and others are doing all they can to be able to compete with Amazon. They understand that in Apple’s case with maybe Apple News before but with Apple TV plus, they’re getting more minutes of the day and more hours of the day with you in their ecosystem. You’re consuming media that flows from Apple. You already have the devices. You carry Apple with you all day that, how do we get more of your time while you’re in at home, your vehicle, and other environments. That’s what’s going to be fascinating over the next few years, as we see that shake out alongside more scrutiny to customer data and customer data privacy.
The other thing that I was interested in and impressed by was your Brain+Trust partners are a member of The Next Practice Group and you’re working with the Johns Hopkins University on their trials during the COVID. Can you explain how you’re helping all of that effort that everyone is concerned about?
Brain+Trust: The flip side of understanding consumer human behavior is how to get on the other side with behavior change.
I can’t tell you everything, but I can tell you that we’re employing data science to be able to identify audiences and opportunities to have people enroll in the trials. This is for convalescent plasma. This is a partnership between Johns Hopkins University, UCLA and several other universities. It’s about helping them as quick as possible as the trial needs to run, because with COVID, it’s a race for everybody to get the best possible treatments in place. The best possible vaccines through the approval process and trials. It’s a treatment with convalescent plasma and it’s not different than a company that’s trying to get to market as fast as they can before their competition does. In this case, their competition happens to be a virus.
It’s always a race and this case, the stakes are very high. How wonderful that you and your team have the technology that you used, crafted and honed to help companies have successful launches and anticipate what’s around the corner and play all scenarios out of imagining. What could go right, wrong and how can we mitigate those to help us all lead happier and healthier lives again without this fear hanging over us. There are some to going back to the empathy thing. There’s a toll that we all feel over time that we’re going to start to look at. What is the toll of isolation, depression, and all these other things that are separate from the fear of getting sick? I was talking to people at assisted living and how much longer it’s taking to get people to put their parents in an assisted living home because of those fears. Not being able to visit the parents and all those issues come up into play. You’re at the cutting edge of anticipating what’s going to be needed to help people get through what could be seen as a post-traumatic syndrome situation when this is finally over.
That’s the flip side of understanding consumer human behavior is how do you get on the other side of it with behavior change. How do you be able to temper expectations because there are many statements being made some by the government, some by brands companies that purport to have solutions, whether that’s vaccines, it’s more hospital beds, or it’s certain types of treatment or medicines. In terms of the fear that hangs over us, it’s intimidating or even worse than that it creates anxiety. There’s the associated things that happen there if going to the office was the only time you socialized with others. I think is the case for a lot of people.
There are some problems that can occur in terms of depression and isolation. How do we manage this in terms of a much calmer approach to educating people on how to stay safe. Educating people on when there may be changes to certain protocols, whether that’s businesses reopening, schools reopening, or new types of testing being available in the market. There’s much in the way that we can all learn from this experience on how we should go about education, which is a communications remit. Not only understanding behavior, but helping change results in better outcomes for certain populations or the population at large.
I have to ask you about your concept that we all need to tend our sonic garden. First of all, nobody loves words and can appreciate good writing as much as I do with my advertising background, speaking and helping people become storytellers. That’s what sticks is when our brain goes, “I know where the garden is. I know what sonic waves are. What is a sonic garden?” You have the skill of pulling people in with your words crafts. Tell us what you mean by tending a sonic garden.
People talk about elevator pitches. There are certain tones that when you’re on your couch, in your home, and a TV spot comes up of your favorite fast food restaurant or an automotive brand, you can tell within the first few seconds who that is. Even without looking at the screen, you usually can tell. The same thing with jingles, for shows tones like for Intel Inside, these are all pieces of us at Brain+Trust. I need to give all the credit in the world to my business partner, Tracy Arrington. She comes from years of advertising and has always looked in audio, especially with radio, satellite radio, and podcasting. The opportunity to build more trust with an audience and to do with certain sounds, audio cues, messaging, and the narrative you put forth.
[bctt tweet=”How to forge better relationships with your audience and catch their interest? Understand their needs and emotions first.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Back in the day, television shows used to have a theme song and then they got so frenetic about every second costing money. They’re like, “Can we cut that out and have a show without a theme song, friends, and all that stuff?” A song that people would hear that and they smile. Now because they want more time for ads, they have cut that out. If people want to know more about Brain+Trust or The Next Practice, any other way you want people to follow you? I see you’re big on Twitter.
I don’t know that I’m big on Twitter. I’m @TheTimHayden on Twitter. I always doing a podcast or anything like that would say, “If you had about anything we talked about or want to challenge me on it, please do it out in public. Bring it on Twitter.”
Any last thought or quote you want to leave us with, Tim?
We have a number of things that are going to greatly reshape how the country and our cities and our states are run because of all the different positions and different referendums that are up. The sun is going to come up tomorrow. Saddle up. Know that there’s always a new day.
Thanks so much, Tim.
You got it, John. Thank you for having me.
Important Links
- https://Braintrust.Partners/
- https://NextPracticeGroup.com/
- @TheTimHayden – Twitter
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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Dig Deep To Fly High With Karl Staib
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
The real key to success lies deep within ourselves, embedded in our goals, emotions, and desires. Aiming to help entrepreneurs achieve a boundless mindset and use their struggles as stepping stones is Karl Staib and his Dig To Fly technique. He shares how a simple concept born out of grief from his father’s death led to a life of gratitude, which Karl wants to impart to every business out there. To explore it even further, John Livesay turns the table and lets Karl interview him according to the Dig To Fly technique. They go deep into John’s desire to gain more momentum in his speaking stints, where he wants to grow, and how meditation can help achieve his goals.
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Listen to the podcast here
Dig Deep To Fly High With Karl Staib
What I like to think of it is we have these diamonds inside of ourselves and they’re rough. They’re caked with dirt. You don’t realize that they have energy trapped inside of them. When we dig down and we start to uncover them, we start to see the energy come out because we bring them to light, and we see the shine and the sparkle.
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My guest is Karl Staib, the Creator of the Dig to Fly Method. In this episode, he literally walks me through a particular challenge I’m having and uses his method to uncover new ways to look at it. When we change our mindset and come up with actionable ways to move the needle away from anxiety and into some sense of focus and comfort, it’s quite something. You’re going to enjoy this. You can start to see yourself in this episode where you can say, “I’d like to be a little more patient. I’d like to stop comparing myself to other people. I’d like to become a little more comfortable with the unknown.” If any of that resonates for you, this episode is for you.
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My guest is Karl Staib, who is the Founder of the Dig to Fly Method. He trains people to use this method to find opportunities in their struggles. He’s been featured by Forbes and National Public Radio and has worked with great companies like Phillips Global and Southwest Research Institute. He has speaking chops. He’s spoken to Fortune 500 companies about using their struggles and turning them into stepping stones. He has a passion for improving the mindset that has no bounds. His real expertise is helping small business owners get a new mindset. When that happens, their business starts to take off. Welcome to the show, Karl.
Thank you. I’m excited to be here.
I always love to ask my guests to tell their own story of origin and you can certainly take us back to childhood or school or when you had your own struggles with health issues or your father passing, wherever you want to start the story.
There are many different spots because a lot of it stems from childhood. How we connected was because my father was passing and you connect with that story because your father passed a few years ago as well. It’s important when we go through a struggle, like a passing of a loved one, dying of a business that we dig into these thoughts and emotions. My son watched a little video that my older son created. It was these animated little characters. You do still frame. One came into the frame and made fun of the other, then the other’s shoulder slumped and he sulked out of the room.
My youngest started crying. A lot of empathy. I was like, “That’s great.” After crying, he’s like, “Can I watch something?” It was a way to soothe himself because he didn’t want to feel these feelings. I was like, “It’s okay to be sad. It’s all right.” When I was growing up in the late ‘70s, ‘80s, the boys were like, “No. Dust yourself off, get back out there. Don’t feel these things.” Our world is changing a lot. When we do feel these things and when my father was passing, we can either ignore it or we can soothe ourselves with alcohol, video games, TV, sex, whatever but we’re not paying attention, and not tuning in. When my father passed, it was this fork in the road of like, “What am I going to do here?” I knew a gratitude journal is one of the best ways to help process things. That’s what I did. That started me on the whole Dig to Fly journey. I went all in and now I have this method that I help small business owners with.
You have a book called Bring Gratitude: Feel Joyful Again With Bite-Sized Mindset Practices. I know we’ve heard the importance of gratitude, but I’ve never heard anybody use it as a way to deal with grief in particular. That fascinated me because I thought, “How wonderful to have another tool in our toolbox.” Gratitude does many things and your process certainly does that. Let’s talk about what your issues are about? How does someone find gratitude when they’re going through a crisis, whether it’s a business or a personal crisis?
When I first started on this journey back in 2016 when my father went into the hospital, I’ve done research in the work happiness space. Back in 2008, I started a website called Work Happy Now. I spoke and I trained people around work happiness. It was hard. People didn’t get the concept and in 2020, things are shifting. In 2021, we are becoming more empathetic and we are becoming a more compassionate culture. That’s amazing because back in 2008, I would reach out to companies and my employees are lucky to have a job. What are you talking about? Now years later, it’s a big shift. What’s amazing about this opportunity is we have these tools like gratitude but we then can say, how do we apply it?
[bctt tweet=”When you dig deep, you remove the dirt off the diamond that is you. Ask yourself the questions you don’t know the answers to and watch your business take off.” username=”John_Livesay”]
That’s when I came up with the Dig to Fly Method, because I realized it wasn’t just gratitude that I was using. I was digging in underneath these thoughts. I had testicular cancer and one of the things that you have to do with testicular cancer, or if you’ve ever had skin cancer or know somebody that has, you can’t take that piece of cancer. You have to go around it because it will metastasize. There are these little hairs that keep going. You have to go even further around it. That’s when I was like, “I need to not be just grateful for things. I got to understand where these feelings are coming from that I’ve been so afraid to think about and process.” I noticed when I started doing that, I reduced my procrastination. I was happier. I was taking on bigger challenges because I wasn’t as afraid. That’s when I was like, “This is something powerful.” Would you like to try the Dig to Fly Method?
I’d love to. Let’s jump in and show people what it is.
Do you have a current struggle that you’re dealing with right now?
I would think the big struggle I have sometimes is a lack of patience. I expect things to happen faster than they sometimes do. Whether it’s, “I thought I’d be booking more speaking engagements than I am now. Why is this taking so long? It seems like everybody else is able to speak more frequently than I am. What’s the missing ingredient?” That’s all tied together. The biggest struggle is getting comfortable with the unknown of when the next gig is coming.
I love it because a lot of people struggle with this. On a scale of 0 to 10, zero being, “This isn’t a struggle at all,” and ten being, “This is overwhelmingly the biggest struggle I’ve ever dealt with in my life.”
Seven.
Why is this a struggle?
Bring Gratitude: Feel Joyful Again With Bite-Sized Mindset Practices
Because I love doing it. I have gotten such great feedback that I have a wonderful impact on helping people become storytellers, and how it enhances their career in their life. It feels like this is what I’m supposed to be doing. When it’s not happening as frequently as I would like it to, it is a struggle because I get frustrated thinking, “Am I not doing something right?” I’ve gotten past the not feeling good enough, which used to be part of the struggle. Now the struggle is, how do I create momentum?
Why do you want to create momentum?
I know there’s a great book about the tipping point. I remember somebody saying, “The more you speak, the more you speak.” I thought, “What does that mean?” Now I have had an experience of it where someone will be in the audience that will hear me speak. They’re like, “My wife works at XYZ Company. I’m going to tell her they should talk to you.” That is what I mean by momentum happening. Your confidence level continues to go up the more you speak. Your skills are finely tuned and you have stories ready to go about how you gave a great talk and how it gave everybody a great impact. That’s why momentum is powerful. It helps our energy and our confidence.
You said the word impact. Another reason why you want to make an impact on these people, could that be another reason too?
Yes, because the more momentum I have, the more people I’m reaching, the more impact I have. Ultimately, that’s what we’re trying to always do, create some legacy.
What are your expectations? Where do you expect to be at this point?
I stopped setting goals for myself around this because I was always under pressure for many decades in Corporate America with sales goals. You have to sell this month this X number, in this quarter, in this year to hit these goals. My intent is to align my intentions and allow the right people to find me without having to beat myself up if I’m not hitting certain numbers. As with any business, you have to invest quite a bit of time and money. As a speaker, you invest time in your website, your video, getting that edited, all that. In my case, I also have a course that goes with the talk. Your expectations are mine anyway of this is an investment in me. I know my work ethic and my skillset. I’m willing to put this money in.
[bctt tweet=”When we go through a struggle, like the passing of a loved one, we must dig into our thoughts and emotions.” username=”John_Livesay”]
As with anything, there’s no promise that it’s going to take off. At one point, you break even, and then when does it become profitable, and then when does it become something more than, “I love doing this. No, this is an actual career that you’re getting to do.” The big shift for me leaving Corporate America was realizing, “If I make $100,000 as an entrepreneur versus $100,000 as an employee, they’re very different.” I hadn’t realized that. First of all, it’s probably not going to come in a steady two-week paycheck, ups and downs. Also, there will be expenses that you have to pay, your insurance, websites and things like that. $100,000 as an entrepreneur is not necessarily the same lifestyle as an employee.
You want this to grow quicker because you’re like, “I have certain expectations money-wise, expectations of how I want to affect people and impact them,” and your legacy. This is where we need to start making some shifts here, some mental 180s. What are you grateful for about this situation?
I’m grateful that I have a wonderful speaking agent named Shawn Ellis. I don’t take that for granted ever. I’m grateful that I have had the opportunity to speak and get selected. I am grateful for the response. I gave a talk to Anthem Insurance and someone came up to me afterward and said, “How long have you worked in healthcare?” I’m like, “I haven’t. I took the time to customize my talk to your industry.” When you get a standing ovation and you see tears in people’s eyes, and you realize that you’ve touched their heart, and/or the feedback of, “That was beyond our expectations.” Those are all the things I’m grateful for.
The last part of this is, where are the opportunities that are within this struggle that you can dive into?
I’ve started the concept of focusing on healthcare and tech companies because I love that industry and I have several experiences with it. One of the things I’m looking at is I updated my LinkedIn profile, narrowing in on that particular industry. Sometimes people think, “That’s limiting yourself.” The irony is I’m still getting offers to speak at other industries because they want to hear about what’s going on in healthcare and tech, and how it could apply to them. It may seem like you’re cutting yourself off if you just niche. It has turned out to be the opposite experience.
What other opportunities have you noticed?
Sometimes speakers refer me when they can’t do a gig or other speaking bureaus, I’ve gotten on their radar enough to get referrals that way. Sometimes people find me by Googling storytelling and sales. I’ve spent some time and money on my search engine optimization. That’s always exciting when that works. That was unexpected. I had the belief that I was going to have to convince companies of the value of storytelling to grow their business. Many companies now have after the book Better Selling Through Storytelling came out.
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
It wasn’t the book but I wrote the book without having that expectation. When it first came out, I was definitely having to convince people of how it makes you memorable and magnetic, people buy emotionally and not logically. Now the last few inquiries had been, “We want someone to teach our sales team how to be a storyteller.” It’s specific to what I do that’s an unexpected opportunity to have. Other people speak about storytelling and do it in different ways, which is fine. I don’t need to be the only expert on storytelling. That’s been fun to say, “Let’s keep making sure the SEO stuff works.”
Also, with external opportunities, there are also internal opportunities. What internally have you noticed going on that you could shed some light on?
I noticed that the more I speak, the more confident I am every time I have to go up and be interviewed for the next talk. I’m still on a high from the feedback from the recent one. Also internally, I remember I was up against 1 or 2 other speakers and the agent called and said, “They picked you. They liked your energy.” I thought, “How great?” The person said, “I felt inspired and motivated by your passion and energy, I assumed you’d make my team feel the same way.” Sometimes I can get stuck in my head internally going, “I need to explain to them all the details of how this is going to work.” At the end of the day, money and what you take away from a speaker is all energy. People are buying my energy as much as they are my expertise
What opportunities are out there that maybe you haven’t worked on to reach more people to make this bigger impact?
That I’m not sure I have an answer for because I’ve been digging as deep as I know how anyway. I’m exploring all the different channels, whether it’s how people can find me agents, referral, search engine, Google search. There is that tipping point that I’m doing press. You get some momentum that way of people started hearing about you. Posting on social media is another big way not to be attached to someone having to respond from one particular post. I did get somebody that reached out to me blindly on LinkedIn who goes, “I like your videos. I’m interested in talking to you about a talk that we have coming up in six months.” I thought, “Which videos? I need to know which ones are resonating.” I thought it doesn’t matter. It’s the consistency of it.
I’m going to read these back to you. I’m going to play it back to you in story form. I want you to listen, and then what we can do over the next 30 days to help you reduce this struggle and get more of these opportunities. The big struggle is a lack of patience. You want things to happen faster, more speaking opportunities. You see other people getting these opportunities and you wonder why you haven’t. The big part is the unknown. As you build this, you’re not sure what is going to happen next. I asked you to rate the struggle and you said it was a 7 out of 10. That’s manageable. If people say a ten, I’m like, “You’re not quite ready for this yet,” but it’s a seven, so you know there’s wiggle room there. There are things that you can improve. You have the motivation. If it’s a 1 or 2, there’s no motivation there to make any change.
Why is this a struggle? You love speaking. You love how it makes you feel but you’re not doing as much as you’d like, and you’re wondering, “Am I missing something?” You want to reach this tipping point and you want to make a big impact in the world. The expectations you have is you want to be able to reach more people. You expect more people to realize that you are good at this and that you can help them. One of the things you realize is you stopped setting goals. When you stopped setting goals, maybe there are some opportunities there of like, “Is there a hybrid model?” Maybe not the goals that Corporate America was setting but something that you can set that makes you feel more comfortable.
[bctt tweet=”Anxiousness is just a form of being stuck.” username=”John_Livesay”]
You realize too with your expectation of, “I’m going to start this business. When I earn $100,000, it’s not the same as earning $100,000 working for a corporate job.” We started that shift of gratitude. I could see it in your face. You started talking about the wonderful speaking events that you speak at healthcare. You have a wonderful agent, Shawn Ellis, which is amazing and you’re lucky to have him. The responses that you get, you’re blown away by how people feel, and how you can emotionally affect them through your words. You’re amazed that as you’ve been able to do more of this work, you don’t need to convince them that they need a storyteller. This didn’t happen ten years ago. This wasn’t a thing.
Opportunities, you want to focus on healthcare and tech. This is something that you realize like, “Yes, I’m niching myself, but I realized I’m also still getting jobs in other industries.” There are opportunities for more speaking referrals. Confidence, as you do this and people you’ve realized is they love your energy. Maybe how can we play off that? If there are these videos out there that they are attracted to, how can you showcase more of these? Where can you do this? I noticed social media seems like a good opportunity for you. I want to do internal and external goals. What actions can you do to reach out to others and then internally, help you process this. Let’s start with the external. What could you do over the next 30 days once a day or maybe Monday through Friday but every single day for 15, 20 minutes?
I could probably reach out to the people that I’ve spoken to in the past and check in on how they’re doing and the impact that it’s having. That might lead to a referral.
Can you do that every single day? Can you add some other people that might have been in the crowd that you’ve talked with? Maybe 1 or 2 people a day, when can you do that? What time of day? How can you add that to your routine?
I probably like to do it after lunch like 2:00.
Can you put that on your calendar?
Yes.
Better Selling Through Storytelling: The Essential Roadmap to Becoming a Revenue Rockstar
Keep it short, like 10 to 15-minute block you, and then once you have that email, you can copy and paste portions of it like your talk. It’s the core there. I love that. Now, internal.
I know that when I definitely booked time to meditate, I’m much happier.
Why is that? How does that help?
I’m not as reactive. I don’t get as stressed out and frustrated as easily.
When can you do that for once a day over the next 30 days? When’s best for you?
8:00 AM.
How long are you going to do it for?
I had this guided five-minute meditation.
[bctt tweet=”We need to be our own greatest advocate.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I love it short because whenever you’re like, “I’m going to do it for 30 minutes,” no. I know me. I do fifteen minutes max, and then I want to do something now. I heard what you’re going to do at 2:00 PM. You’re going to reach out to people, past clients, people you’ve spoken with. You’re going to get to understand a little bit deeper of how they liked it, get some feedback. Can you get maybe even quotes or testimonials while you’re doing It?
That’s a great idea.
You have a guided meditation that you can use and help you become less reactive. That’s why it is so important. The key thing and what I like about that is you’re already starting to think of how you’re going to be grateful for these things. You’re less reactive and you know you’re going to be calmer. How do you feel now on a scale of 0 to 10?
It’s like a three. It’s amazing putting a plan in action and not feeling overwhelmed. Part of it is this Dig to Fly Method is giving me a sense of control about something that’s felt out of control.
An important part of this is the sequence. You create some emotional space when you start putting a number on it, and then you’re already like, “That’s not terrible.” You start working your way through it. You dig down and then you start to do that 180. You can start getting out of that hole and start flying. I love it. Seven to three, that’s fantastic. Good job.
How great is that, you were able to show and not just tell what the method is. When you said, “Think of it like a story,” that’s the way I’m wired. Suddenly, I’m not listening to just my own stuff. I’m literally seeing a character in a story. Our protagonist is struggling with patience and comparing himself to other people and getting comfortable with the unknown. I’m like, “That’s a story I want to see how it turns out.” That part of it was interesting. Also, the willingness to ask questions that I’ve never asked myself. I could see how this would help small business owners in particular, but anybody, gets unstuck or get less anxious. Anxiousness is a form of being stuck. Maybe you’re still taking action but you’re anxious about it. That’s not the energy you want to put out into the world either.
What I like to think of it is we have these diamonds inside of ourselves. They’re rough and they’re caked with dirt. You don’t realize that they have energy trapped inside of them. When we dig down and we start to uncover them, we start to see the energy come out because we bring them to light, and we see the shine and the sparkle. We start to take away the dirt and the grime, and we start to chisel it away. We see how beautiful it is when we take the time to dig into this stuff and surface it because then it’s like, “Yes, I see what’s holding me back,” and then you can move forward. That’s the thing. It’s this murky darkness. You’re like, “I don’t know which way to go,” and then you slow down and go through the process.
Dig To Fly: Dig out of your hole, start to feel better and grateful, and then realize the opportunities that you have.
Everybody in the audience, after this is done, I have a one-sheet and they can print it out. They can do it themselves. That’s what I try to train people to do. Therapists are great counselors but we need to be our own greatest advocate. I want people to do this because I do this if my son’s acting like a little jerk or whatever and he’s in a cranky mood. I’ll be like, “How bad is his struggle?” I’m like, “Where did that question come from?” Subconsciously, now it starts popping out and I’ll do this method in 30 seconds. I’m like, “Where are the opportunities for?” Talking about my son crying, probably the older me from five years ago would have been like, “Come on. It’s just a little movie.” Now I’ll sit down and I’ll walk him through it because I want him to have this inner voice to be positive and talk him through things instead of being like, “Shove it aside, buddy. You’re fine.” It’s so interesting.
If people want to get your free steps and questions, they go to DigToFly.com.
Right there on that homepage is a little email sign up and they’ll get the Dig to Fly worksheet. I also have a recording of another Dig to Fly session so they can listen to somebody else. She was struggling with a friend. She has a reaction on there. She’s like, “Oh my God.” It’s funny. It hit her like a ton of bricks. It’s cool to hear.
I felt like you were running the interview instead of me hosting. I’m a big believer of show, not just tell something. We certainly showed how it can work in real-time and hopefully, people can imagine themselves going through it like I did. Any last thoughts you want to leave us with, Karl?
If people don’t even do this Dig to Fly Method, it’s important for them to pause, take a breath and say, “What is bothering me and why is it bothering me?” That why is so important because once you understand why, then you can start to come dig out of that hole. That’s when you can start to feel better and grateful, and realize the opportunities that you have.
Ask yourself, “Why am I so upset? Why is this bothering?” Nine times out of ten, we’re taking something personally. At least that’s my experience or we’re coming from a place of fear. One of those two whys can help us dig out and become the diamonds we were meant to be and be dirt free. It’s Dig to Fly Method. Thanks again, Karl, for sharing your expertise with us and inspiring us all to remember that we have the resilience inside if we ask these questions.
Thank you. I had a blast. Great job.
Important Links
- Karl Staib
- Bring Gratitude: Feel Joyful Again With Bite-Sized Mindset Practices
- LinkedIn – John Livesay
- Better Selling Through Storytelling
- https://www.Amazon.com/dp/B07DBT1L76/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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Soft Skills Make You Stronger
Posted by John Livesay in blog | 0 comments
“Soft skills,” which include empathy, listening, and storytelling, are known to not be as important as hard skills. If you’re an architect, your hard skills are what you learned in school—i.e., how to design a building. If you’re a lawyer, your hard skills are what you learned in law school and passing the bar. If you’re a keynote speaker, your hard skills are knowing how to put together a talk that has a beginning, middle, and end—i.e. the craft of speaking.
No matter what your profession, mastering the soft skills is what makes you stronger than your competition. Recently, a top architecture firm had me speak to their team about how to build better client relationships. Their old way of winning new business was to show their design and hope that would be enough to get a new client. When a client told them they were going to hire the firm they liked the best, because the project would last 5 years, they panicked. “How do we become more likable?” they asked me.
Enter: soft skills! I told them that one of the best ways to increase your likeability is to show empathy. The more people think you understand the stress they are under and how you can help them, the more they like and want to work with you. Telling stories is a great way to build rapport, especially when you tell a story of origin around what inspired you to do what you do. People love working with people who are passionate because they usually means the process will be fun. When I showed them how to turn their case study into a case STORY, about when they helped a client meet a deadline, the prospect new client knew they have found the right firm for them.
The best storyteller wins!
Lawyers have “contests,” where they have to pitch against other firms to get hired. If everyone just talks about where they went to law school and the stats about how many cases they won, there is no emotional connection. Instead, when a law firm shows how they connect to a jury using the soft skills of storytelling and really listening to a witness, they win more cases and new clients.
When an event planner is interviewing a speaker and all the speaker talks about is how great they are and not how they are going to customize their talk to meet the event planner’s goals, the speaker doesn’t stand out from other speakers. The speaker who tells a story about how they love to have dinner the night before their keynote and meet and talk with as many people as possible to really have an in-depth feeling of what their challenges are is the one who gets booked and gets the highest ratings.
When you create content that shows you have empathy, people get to trust, like and know you. Putting myself in an event planners shoe’s, I created a blog for them on 4 questions to ask speakers to help them make a decision. What kind of content can you create to show your soft skills of empathy and storytelling?
Three Tips
Here are three things you can do to make your soft skills even stronger:
1) Make soft skills just as important as hard skills in your culture. When you invest in training that helps your team practice listening and empathy, it will become stronger—just like your physical workouts.
2) Practice telling your case stories and stories of origin with your co-workers. That way, when you have a request to pitch for new business, you are ready to go!
3) When you don’t win a new client, sit with your team and ask for the real reason they went with another person. Rarely is price the reason people don’t buy from you. If you dig deep, you may discover ways to show more empathy and understanding of the problem for the next pitch. When you do all these things, your soft skills will be stronger and stand out against competitors.