Strategic Leadership: Nurturing New Leaders And The Leadership Tree With John O’Grady
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Strategic leadership uses the concept of the leadership tree, where you nurture the people under your leadership until they develop to become leaders on their own. Former Division I athlete, West Point graduate, Army Colonel, and leadership coach John O’Grady joins host John Livesay in this episode to share his experience in strategic leadership in challenging situations. He is a distinguished combat leader whose unit was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for “extraordinary heroism in the face of an armed enemy” in recognition of their exemplary work in Afghanistan. John attributed this success to their values-based culture and used what he learned from this experience to drive his leadership coaching career. His empowering message now benefits coaches, athletes, and corporate organizations through his coaching firm, O’Grady Leadership and Consulting Services, LLC.
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Listen to the podcast here
Strategic Leadership: Nurturing New Leaders And The Leadership Tree With John O’Grady
Our guest is John O’Grady. He has an incredible background in both athletics and in the military. His company is Strategic Leadership Academy where he takes his lessons learned from the battlefield into the world of Corporate America. He said, “You need to be willing to seek collaboration from wherever it may come.” The kinds of people he likes to work with are those that have both humility and curiosity about how they can learn to grow and raise better leaders. He said, “The key thing about athletics and the military is you have a sense of purpose greater than yourself.” Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is John O’Grady and what John does is helps athletes, coaches and executives bring out the best in their players and teams. He’s a former Division I athlete, a West Point graduate, Army Colonel, and a distinguished Combat Leader. John inspires leaders to become the best version of themselves in the most demanding complex, austere and challenging environments. He utilizes the principles he’s developed and practiced for over 30 years in athletics and the army. He works with a diverse group of organizations and he provides leadership, culture, and strategy principles that are fundamental to getting the outcomes of excellence. John has a decorated military career where he led organizations from 30 to 3,500 people in active war zones. One of the things he’s most proud of that we’re going to ask him about is his leadership tree. John, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, John, and it’s a pleasure to spend time with your audience as well.
The readers are much in for a treat learning from you. I started to tease out what your leadership tree is. Can you take us back a little bit to your childhood and college? How did you become you? How did you decide you wanted to get into the military?
It’s a little bit by accident and a little bit due to athletics, quite frankly. The accidental part is in some way, I socialize and I would always watch the old war movies with my dad on Saturday afternoons. I look forward to that. The athletic part was being a lacrosse player that provided me an opportunity to get recruited and then ultimately go and attend the United States Military Academy.
You are an athlete and, in the military, concurrently, is that correct?
Yes, technically. While at the Military Academy, you’re playing Division I Lacrosse, but you’re also a cadet, which has clearly the military components of the academy.
What similarities are there between being a great athlete and being a great cadet?
Some of the key similarities are a sense of purpose greater than oneself, certainly, and understanding that being part of a team is purposeful, it’s purpose-driven. The little bit that you give of yourself exponentially returns by the larger community that you’re a part of.
There’s so much to dig into there. A sense of purpose being greater than yourself. A lot of people, unfortunately, go through life not having a sense of purpose. If they do have a sense of purpose, it’s all self-focused. “I want to be better at this. My purpose is to do that.” You’ve got big scale purposes of making the country that you’re serving a safer place, then you’ve got your own purpose of the team doing well. For those of you who don’t know, Division I is the top of the top. It’s the Olympic level performance going on there. You’ve taken all these amazing things.
Strategic Leadership: No matter what position you think you’re in, always be willing to seek collaboration from wherever it may come.
I love this image of you and your dad watching war movies and becoming athletic, and now you’re a cadet. We’re going to take the readers on this next start of your journey. You’re in a war zone, and I don’t have many people ever encounter that I get to talk to about what that is like. There’s little I know about military training. You’re the expert. Is it true and do you have a story that when you’re in those crisis situations, you don’t have time to think about what to do and you just rely on your training?
That is accurate in many respects, for sure. There have been a number of situations I’ve been in that I can share that will lead to that.
Take us back to a specific incident however long ago. Tell us what year it is, but give us a little bit of the who, what, where, so we’re in that story with you and then it will take us on that journey.
It was 2011. I was deployed to Afghanistan, leading a 500-person organization. We are in a battlespace, roughly 8,000 square miles. To put that in perspective, Rhode Island’s about 4,400 square miles. We had to break out the team of 500 into approximately five 100-person clusters across this battlespace. We deal with a myriad of challenges and complexities, 5 major ethnic groups, 15 districts that this was broken down into, 1,000 villages, and 30 major languages with a whole host of other dialects spin-off from that. Also, a whole host of players inside this space from non-government organization people to government organization people to other military forces to tribal warlords as well. It is one of the unique stories I have.
We’re in Afghanistan with all these different tribes and languages and things. What’s at stake? Everybody could die, but what is the biggest problem you’re having to solve besides all of the logistics? What is your mission?
Our mission essentially is to help the Afghans themselves provide a safe and secure environment for themselves so that they can begin to thrive in a healthy way.
You’re protecting them from attack, correct?
In many regards, yes. We’re partnering with a whole host of people to do that.
Is it an active war zone?
[bctt tweet=”Being part of a team is driven by a purpose greater than yourself.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Yes.
Tell us a time when they were being attacked and what you had to do to keep them safe.
We are one of those outposts. Those separated forces of about 100 people that I put out in one of the spots in the battlespace, they’re under attack. It’s starting to get dusk and we can’t get air in because of the weather. I deployed with a ground element to go into this village to help provide additional support. You’re hearing things over the radio and different things are coming in. Reports from different places if things aren’t going particularly well. Dusk is starting to fall. There’s an act of firefighting going on for a couple of hours here. Thankfully, we have no serious casualties. In a distance, we see what looks like these torch-like lanterns, almost like the old medieval movies that got that stick with the large flame on top. We’re trying to make that out like, “What the heck is that?”
What it turned out to be is that we were in a valley called the Sanglakh Valley and that valley had been taken over by the Taliban. What these lights ended up being were about fifteen people from the Sanglakh tribe coming to attack the flank of the Taliban, who was starting to gain on us. At the end of this, we link up with them and I’m on the ground now standing there. The tribal leaders, who I ended up becoming good friends with during my time there, had led fifteen of his tribesmen into this attack. Finally, there was an organization there that they viewed could help them get back to their valley that was part of their tribal lands going back as long as time.
You’ve got this huge contrast with American Forces there with state-of-the-art technology and basic tribal weapons and people with just a torch trying to help you help them.
What I learned from that was no matter what position you think you’re in, being willing and able to seek collaboration from wherever it may come is always important. Keep that mental aperture, if you will, organizational aperture open for those opportunities because that partnership became one that fundamentally changed the dynamic. That’s the second thing. Bad situations seize the opportunity and create and collaborate on new opportunities, which was powerful for me.
While they may not have the state-of-the-art weapons, they’ve got a passion and a heritage that is a reason and purpose bigger than anybody else to figure out how to help you. In this particular battle, were you successful?
Yes. It’s successful as any good battle is.
That’s the best you can hope for. You help keep them safe, so mission accomplished. This resolution part that you’re talking about is these life lessons of being willing to see collaboration for wherever it may come. Also, another resolution was that they felt empowered and the morale went out that we won this battle and together, we can continue to win. That would be some great things.
Strategic Leadership: The principles of leadership are very transferable. How they’re applied is very contextual.
It falls back a little bit to some of my athletic training as well where the team being larger than any one individual. You have your team that you normally think of, but then what are the other teams outside your team that you can create that larger pie if you will. It doesn’t have to be about scarcity, competition, and me grabbing my own. It could be about collaboration, growth, and we eat the bigger pie.
That leads right into what we teased, which is your concept of a leadership tree where you continue the success of people that reported to you and they become leaders. Were there some people in that situation that saw how you handle that and then went on in future situations to become their own leaders?
I would like to think so in terms of either directly or indirectly observing my leadership and the culture that I tried to create that then helped them in their own authentic way, go ahead, and have their own success. There’s one that comes straight to mind. A guy named Jim Collins, who’s a brigade-level commander is in charge of about 3,500 people. He’s at Fort Bliss and he’s been made the COVID response commander for the Fort Bliss community, which is a large military community down in Texas. At the time, he was a major in my organization. He was a direct report to me, but now he’s the guy who’s commanding 3,500 people and taken on this additional challenge for not only the soldiers but all the family members. Also, all the other people who work to support Fort Bliss installation as well as the surrounding community.
Your command was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, which is the highest award given to you and it’s for extraordinary heroism in the face of an armed enemy. You attribute this to the culture that you created.
I’m incredibly blessed with unbelievable people inside that organization and layers of leadership inside that organization. I won’t take that credit on my own at all because that’s deserved by not only the entire organization but here’s something for your readers. The American people can be as proud of that as I am because it’s their sons and daughters that they give to us, and it’s a sacred responsibility and trust that I know I never wanted to break. I know many of my peers as well feel the same way.
You’ve taken all this experience with your crisis situations and managing all these people and managing huge amounts of money including operational portfolios in excess of $14 billion. You have your own consulting firm, O’Grady Leadership and Consulting. Who do you do your best work with, John? Who is your ideal client?
My ideal client is a person who’s in a leadership position, who has both the humility and the curiosity to want to grow. That’s who I work best with. What sectors do I find that in? I find that ideally in athletic coaches because of my tie and how strongly I believe about not only sports but what lessons sports can provide these young people who are going to be the future leaders in our society. Also, corporate executives and executive teams.
Do you have an example of a case story where you worked with someone that came to you and they said, “We want to grow, we’re humble and curious?” It could be athletic or it could be a corporate story.
I’ll give an athletic one, but I’ve had it in corporate as well. The parallels are there. Principles of leadership are essentially immutable and transferable. How they are applied is contextual and that needs to be first understood. That’s one of the first failures I find that people have when they’re going through leadership. They take one thing from one and try to plug it into the other. It doesn’t quite work that way. It centers around not understanding, not knowing, or worrying about where my next generation of leaders is coming from. In this case, it was an athletic coach who wanted to make sure that he never found himself in that position. He knew and looked back over the course of a successful career that some years, he was more concerned about leadership inside his organization and others, and he didn’t want to have that much variance anymore.
[bctt tweet=”If you have an ad hoc approach, expect to have ad hoc results.” username=”John_Livesay”]
How long ago was this? What sport is it? When you say leaders within the sport, do you mean where is the next quarterback coming if it’s a football situation?
It was lacrosse at Georgetown University, the women’s lacrosse program. It started initially with just being focused on the captains. These are phenomenal kids, so it’s no indictment or judgment value statement on one year of captains versus another. It’s about getting the maximum potential out of those individuals and being intentional.
In the corporate world where you have to develop new talent all the time to keep them happy, promote them, how do we find them, and how do we recruit them? The number one problem I hear all the time in Corporate America is, “How do we recruit and how do we retain top talent?” The same thing is true in this lacrosse example you’re saying.
Also, develop that talent. In corporate, lots of times, it’s middle management. Usually, the CEOs and those higher-level executives are clear in their own minds of what they want, how they want things to be, and what they want the culture to be like. Somehow, by the time it gets down to the lowest levels of the organization, that message gets dissipated or even flat out stopped. It’s not unlike that with a coach with his assistance, captains, and then leadership group.
As you’re working with this lacrosse coach, you’re helping them figure out where the future leaders are going to come. What is the one mistake you see people making all the time? Is it worrying about it or not knowing what to do next? What do you see happening?
The biggest thing I see is an ad hoc approach and then they’re a little bit surprised when they get ad hoc results.
You have a step by step proven system I’m guessing so that you take the guesswork out of it and say, “You need to be doing this and then you need to be doing that.”
Let’s use captains as an example on a sports team, but the same could apply for mid-level managers. “Coach, how do you pick your captain?” “This and the third.” “Might you and your senior staff get together and list ten attributes or characteristics that you’d like your captains to have. Go ahead and institute a program where you ask it in a survey form to the entire team.” “List the top three athletes on your team who will best advocate for you to the head coaches. List the top three who you trust the most, etc,” whatever those attributes were. That alone is incredibly powerful because one, you give anybody who’s listening, a word roadmap of how to behave and you’re reinforcing the things that you say are important. Two, you learn about how different people list all those people and you juxtapose that to what you thought would be on that list. You see what they value and who they value. You see people who maybe you thought were good who aren’t on that list. That alone is incredible.
It’s a way to curate that with some value and everyone’s agreeing on what the values are. This leads me to one of my last questions for you, which is your distinction that is important between capability and capacity. If we’re looking at criteria to define the next captains or leaders, how can people put that into action? Should they emphasize one over the other?
Strategic Leadership: Capacity in the leader development sense is about the attributes that are going to best allow you to deal with the unknown.
I don’t think it’s binary and I generally tend to drift away from those types of things. Unfortunately, not a lot of people feel that way. I know you get that totally. I’m sure many of your readers do. The way I think about the two is to me, capacity is based on ensuring your human capital inside your organization can do the things that are necessary, based on all the stuff that has happened in the past. It’s informed by the past. What’s interesting is about the future, none of us, your readers, you or I, have any idea truly what the future will bring. If there’s a reader out there who does, please contact John and myself with the next lotto winning number. Generally speaking, we have no idea. Capacity, in the human capital sense and the leader development sense, is about the attributes that are going to best allow you to deal with the unknown, the future. That causes you to have to go down a whole other leadership development task.
Let’s give an example. You and I are both public speakers. We get hired to come and speak at corporate events and live events. With a lot of situations, people are saying, “Can you do it virtually?” We know we have the capacity and the skills to be a speaker, we then had to test ourselves to see if we were capable of learning how to do it in a new platform. John, any last thought, quote, or book you want to recommend?
A book would be Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. I have read it probably 3 or 4 times and it’s incredibly timely too. Given the fact that at least as we’re having this discussion, we’re in the throes of the pandemic. It’s a powerful book about finding purpose and understanding where your agency truly lies and the power that comes with that.
If anybody wants to follow you on social media or get ahold of you to find out about hiring you for consulting, how can they find you?
I’m on LinkedIn, John O’Grady. I’m on Twitter, @OG_Leadership, and then email, [email protected].
John, thank you for your service, for inspiring all of us to be better leaders and for giving us a roadmap on how to do it.
Thank you as well, John, for you having this vision and also providing a platform for people to go ahead and share some goodness in the world.
Important Links
- Strategic Leadership Academy
- Man’s Search for Meaning
- John O’Grady – LinkedIn
- @OG_Leadership – Twitter
- [email protected]
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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Success Academy With Brandon T. Adams
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
There’s no singular way to becoming successful. Each person has their own journey to success, but there are certain building blocks that make it much easier to become as successful as you desire, your own way. Brandon T. Adams is an Emmy® Award-Winning Producer and Host of the TV series, Success in Your City. Joining John Livesay, Brandon explains some of the most important building blocks for becoming successful. Let this lively conversation between Brandon and John serve as a call to empower you to become successful on your own terms.
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Listen to the podcast here
Success Academy With Brandon T. Adams
Our guest is Brandon T. Adams, who’s a successful entrepreneur at a young age. He tells a story about how he wasn’t even confident and couldn’t speak that well when he was a child. Now, to see him as confident and speaking all around the world around the skills that he’s acquired as an entrepreneur and how to be successful is quite inspiring. He said, “If you want to build your network, the quickest way to get someone’s attention is to make them money, and that when you work with the best, you are seen as being the best.” Brandon shares his passion and enthusiasm in a way that you have never known before. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Brandon T. Adams who is an Emmy Award-winning producer and host of the TV series Success in Your City. He’s a podcaster, speaker, inventor, adviser, crowdfunding expert as well as a media expert. He’s a serial entrepreneur and he owns a stake in a number of businesses including the Accelerant Media Group, Live to Grind, Young Entrepreneur Convention, Success in Your City, and more. He and his team have worked with high profile clients like Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank and John Lee Dumas, XPRIZE, and many more. They’ve raised over $35 million to date and he’s the Associate Producer and the youngest feature entrepreneur in the movie Think and Grow Rich: The Legacy, which is based on the classic book Think and Grow Rich. Brandon has been featured on the cover of Inventors Digest, USA Today, NBC News, and was listed among Seven Millennial Influencers to follow in 2008 by BuzzFeed. Brandon, welcome to the show.
Thank you. It’s always weird hearing your intro, it puts you down memory lane, but I’m excited to be here with you and provide massive value to your audience.
Are you still a Millennial? Everybody’s dying to know you’re in the top seven in 2018, now it’s 2020. Did you cross over?
I’m still a Millennial. I’m 30 years old. It’s crazy. I can’t believe I’m 30, but time flies. I’m still young.
Take us as far back as you want. You could go to childhood, high school, your college days at Iowa State. When did you decide you wanted to have this career being an entrepreneur and doing adventurous things?
I was born an entrepreneur. When I was born on December 31st, 1989, my dad was happy because I was a tax cut and my mom was mad because I wasn’t the New Year’s baby. Instantly, I came out and I was an entrepreneur. My dad was already trying to figure out ways to make money off me and for me to make money. I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I grew up in an ice business. I sold packaged ice and I can sell ice to an Eskimo. My dad was a wholesale distributor. We delivered bag ice. Envision cubes of ice in your drink. Every time you have a drink of water with ice or a drink of whiskey, you’re going to think of me. We sold packaged ice for a living and growing up I was in that business. It was ingrained in me about working with customers, buying and selling things, and this whole entrepreneurship thing. I saw my dad running the business. I saw the ups and downs when he was about to lost it all, and then when he had the ups in the business. That was ingrained in me at a young age.
One disadvantage I had at a young age that became a part of who I am is I was born with a speech impediment. As a kid, I had a lisp and I couldn’t communicate like other people who bothered me. I made it my burning desire to become a great speaker and overcome my speech impediment. At nine years old, picture this kid looking in front of a mirror and doing, “I am a great salesman, I am a great speaker, I am a success.” I was driven to overcome that. I’m never getting bullied. I would cry. I would tell my parents, “I don’t want to go to speech class and all these things.” Eventually, my disadvantage became my advantage. I started putting myself out of my comfort zone. I always volunteered to speak in front of the class even though I wasn’t a good speaker. I would go and do things that scared me. Eventually, I started to become a better speaker. By high school, I lost my speech impediment. By college, I got better at speaking and I went to be a paid speaker. It’s crazy where things go. I’m going to college. I was at university. Some people go there and they get great grades. That wasn’t me. I got a 1.68 GPA in my freshman year. I stay a little bit of sex, drugs, and alcohol a lot. I got kicked out of my dorms five days before we were done at school for fighting. I was down this path of I didn’t know where I was going to go.
[bctt tweet=”When you work with the best, you are seen as the best.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Where I had this change pivot part of my life is when I was introduced to the book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. If you haven’t read the book, everybody should read it. It’s a game-changer. Here’s what I took away from the book. People like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Andrew Carnegie, all these people that pioneer the things that we have now, I saw what they achieved. They weren’t 4.0 students. They weren’t the smartest people out there but this is what they had. They had a burning desire. They had a vision for themselves. They surrounded themselves with the right people and they didn’t quit until they got something. When I was reading that book in my college apartment, wondering what I was good at next, I realized that anything was possible for me if I kept going. That ultimately became what changed my life. I went forward in anything I took on. I had this mindset of I can achieve it and I had this confidence about myself that no matter what it is, I’m going to take it on because if I keep going and keep pushing, I’m going to be a success. That formed me into who I am now as an entrepreneur. The things that I do from producing TV shows, speaking, being able to speak with people like you and impacting people’s lives in a positive way.
Let’s take this story of origin, which is certainly fascinating. Getting in trouble right at the end of school. I had a similar situation where I was never somebody who got in fights and then somebody was constantly picking on me. Several days before graduating from junior high, we were on some field trip and he started on me again. We got into a fight and he had gotten his braces off and I happened to pop him in the mouth and the front tooth came out. You can imagine the drama of that. Luckily, they find the tooth and put it back in his mouth. That’s something you can do now but it is an unexpected behavior outcome. Everyone has a breaking point and you can also not judge yourself or anybody else based on one particular incident.
Getting in a fight or hitting somebody in the mouth is not life-changing where you get kicked out of school permanently. There was some talk about, “Should we let him graduate?” I haven’t thought about that in years. It does feed into the concept that everyone’s got a story and because you see a person at a certain level of success or confidence doesn’t mean they were always there. In your case, with the stuttering and the fact that you transformed that into being a speaker. Let’s fast forward to your relationship with Kevin Harrington from one of the original sharks on Shark Tank. You don’t just have a casual relationship with him. How did you at such a young age relatively speaking, because Kevin’s not in your generation and neither am I. I’m always impressed when somebody young breaks through the noise and the clutter and finds enough of things in common that that person says, “I’m going to spend some time with you.”
A lot of my friends and mentors are 20, 30, and 40 years older than me and I clicked with that. I believe I’m an old soul and I relate with people that are doing big things, people like Kevin Harrington or other people I’ve connected with and work with. It started with me first doing a lot of research. The one thing I learned about life and then thinking the rich and businesses would, for one, you understand a person, you understand what they’re trying to achieve and you can find ways to help them achieve that and become a person of value to them. Eventually, you’re going to get to work with them. You look at history and you’ll get Edwin C. Barnes who put himself into business with Thomas Edison. He went to him and he said, “I’m here to go in business with you.” He knew he already made up his mind before he got on a train and went to see him. It took two years before he got past sweeping floors. He went into business with him and became wealthy because of it. I look at somebody like Kevin Harrington. When I came to him in 2015, back when I wore a suit and tie and all that. I created a personal video in front of my computer and I sent it to him. It got to his assistant and I said, “I wanted to work with him in some way and that I wanted to help him.”
That video led to five more months of negotiation and conversation with his assistant to even get to talk to Kevin. I want him to come to speak at my event. I ended up committing a large sum of money to get him to come to speak at my event. At that time I didn’t have the money, but I committed and figured it out later. I ended up meeting with him. He had seen what I had done back in 2016. I helped a guy named John Lee Dumas do about a $500,000 in a month for the book, The Freedom Journal. He wanted me to do that for him. I had created this value proposition. I had created this expertise in an area and I use the expertise to add value to people like Kevin Harrington. Ultimately, what I did is I made them money. The quickest way to get somebody’s attention is either you pay them or you make them money.
There are a lot of people that talk and they say, “I’m going to help you. I can do this for you.” Talk is talk. Can you walk the walk? What I did is I walked the walk for a lot of people and it was a lot harder than I thought it was. I would say I’m going to do something, but I realized it was a lot harder than I thought, but I always did it. When you have that track record, that street cred, what happens is other people get attracted to you. That’s how I built a relationship with Kevin. He spoke at my first event in 2016. I wound up going on to coauthor a book together. We then went on to do multiple multimillion-dollar deals and we advise companies together. He’s become a good friend. I have a father that I love dearly and he’s like another father in the space that I have. That relates to anything. No matter who you want to connect with and being in business with, it’s simple when you think about it. How can you help them? How can you help them make money and how can you help them get towards their goals? If you do that for them, they will reciprocate and they will help you in return.
We’re going to make that a tweet, “The quickest way to get someone’s attention is to make them money.” You also mentioned John Lee Dumas. For those people who may not know who he is. He hosted a wonderful successful podcast called Entrepreneurs on Fire, which I’ve had the privilege of being on and I got one of his Freedom Journals. It’s a big tool to help people write down what their daily goals are and stay focused. What I love about the Kevin Harrington story that I wasn’t expecting to hear was, you told a case story as opposed to a case study, which is what traditional people do. They would say, “Here’s my case study. On this date, I did this, and then I did that.” It’s dry and you told the story.
Becoming Successful: Whatever it is, you can take it on if you have the confidence. You can be a success, so keep going and keep pushing.
A good story has a little bit of struggle. It took me five months talking to the assistant to get in front of Kevin and then the little surprise in that story is, “I’d done something for somebody well-known in the podcast business.” John Lee Dumas publishes his revenue of how much money he’s making on his podcast for people. It’s inspirational and transparent. That course begs another story, which is what great storytelling does. People are intrigued enough to want to know more. Let’s back up. John Lee Dumas is a successful guy like Kevin Harrington. You’re this twenty-something-year-old guy going, “I have some expertise already that you don’t have to help you sell this Freedom Journal.” Can you tell us a little bit about what that expertise was and how you got it?
I want to add quickly to Kevin Harrington’s story that I realized as we were talking about this. When I initially got the first meeting with him in person, somebody said, “I can get you a twenty-minute conversation with Kevin in person in a car ride. You’ve got to be in Florida tomorrow, fly here.” I flew to Florida and I went there. I took the opportunity to get that and that’s where we made the deal to work together, just so you know.
Here’s the lesson. What are you willing to do that most people are not willing to do? How bad do you want it? How much are we willing to invest in it? When I was interviewing for a job, I flew myself to New York. I said I was going to be there anyway seeing friends and I wasn’t. I remember meeting Michael Phelps and asking him what his secret was. He told me that when he was young, his coach said, “Michael, are you willing to work out on Sundays?” “Yes, coach.” “Great. We got 52 more workouts in a year than your competition.” That is, “What’s the takeaway?” What are we willing to do to become an Olympic athlete level in our business life that other people aren’t willing to do or haven’t thought to do? A lot of people will be like, “I don’t have the money. Flying all that way just for twenty minutes, is it worth it?” All of that shows your character and your tenacity as opposed to you telling us you have it. That’s why I want to circle, underline, highlight with a couple of other stories to amplify your story. Now, people have three examples.
It’s taking action. You have to burn the bridges like you’ve done to go to the interview. You burn the bridges behind you. You assume the sale, the opportunity, and you just go. You can’t have any defeat in your mind. You have to have the sole focus of, “This is going to happen. I’m going to do this.” That’s how I’ve lived my life. In the last few years, I’ve lived that way. It’s allowed me to get a lot of amazing opportunities. Going back to the expertise of how I got to work with John Lee Dumas, and this is a great lesson and this is the beginning of where I got into podcasting. In 2015, I started a podcast show called the University of Young Entrepreneurs, which is now the Live to Grind Podcast. We have over 400 episodes. What I did is I wanted to learn from other people around the country. I wanted to pick their brain. I didn’t say, “Can I come to pick your brain?” I said, “Can I bring you on my show and share it with my audience?” I didn’t have any audience at the time, but I’m going to share it with my audience.
John Lee Dumas was one of the people that came to my show. While in this process of doing podcasting, I was starting to build my brand as a crowdfunding expert. I had not that much experience in crowdfunding. I wrote a book on crowdfunding to build my brand. I started going on TV shows and morning shows around the country because when you’re on a morning show, when you’re on video and people see you as this expert, whether you are the expert or not. I was doing all these things to build up the street credit and credibility as a crowdfunding expert. When we got done doing that interview for him going to my podcast show, at the end of every show, I always said, “I’m a crowdfunding expert. If I can help you in any way, please let me know.” Always let people know how you can help them. He said, “I’m thinking about doing this campaign for a book called The Freedom Journal. Maybe I’ll call you up on your services.” That was it. As soon as the show got done, I rescheduled the call. We jumped on a call. I gave him all the advice I had and I took the initiative and spent a whole day creating a campaign page for him. He did log in and say, “Let’s do this.”
I took on the campaign at no fee because I saw an influential person in podcasting. I knew that if I could prove to him how good I was, he would share with his audience and I was right. It was five months of me working with him at no cost. When we launched a campaign, we made it the fifth-largest crowdfunding campaign in history for a book. This is what’s happened from that. He brought me on his show four times. Every time I’ve been on the show, I’ve made money. Once I made $50,000 from going on one of the episodes. That experience led me to work with Kevin Harrington, XPRIZE and Think and Grow Rich: The Legacy and being part of the movie Think and Grow Rich. That one thing that I did to take the initiative to add value. First, I built up this area of expertise, crowdfunding, and then I offered value. I gave massive value and then that was the catapult domino effect for my career. That’s why I get the opportunities I do now.
A lot of people have also heard about XPRIZE. We know you’ve made a splash from investing in yourself and believing in yourself and getting proof of concept, which got to Kevin and say, “I want that too.” What did you do with XPRIZE?
[bctt tweet=”You never know where a conversation will lead.” username=”John_Livesay”]
This is a funny story. I turned XPRIZE down first.
Do you know why I love this so much? I’m constantly teaching people about storytelling genres. In a classic romantic comedy movie, 9 times out of 10, the couple that ends up together doesn’t like each other at first. The people that you’ll hear about, I read that the guy who played Captain America turned down the part because he wasn’t confident enough, Chris Pratt. You can’t imagine anyone else in that role and then you hear the backstory of, “I turned it down. They haven’t talked me into it because I was too insecure about my ability to do it. Not that I think it was a good part or that I was too good for it, but it was the opposite.” You’ll start looking for them and going, “There’s that classic scene where they hate each other and then they end up liking each other.” First of all, most people would be like saying, “Would you like to go on Oprah, when she was on?” “No, I turned it down.” I can’t wait to hear how this goes. I did want to take a beat and under. Already, you’re leaning in because who in the world would turn down XPRIZE?
It’s funny because it’s this whole demand when somebody they can’t get something, they want even more. When this happened, they hit me in a time of my career where I was focused on one thing. It was when I went on this endeavor to create the TV series Success in Your City. I had stopped everything else. I had a company I was doing well in and we stopped that. I went all-in on the show and right when I was going all-in on this show, they wanted me to help them fundraise and be a part of a project. The project was called the Ironman. They want to do a $10 million crowdfund for people with ALS. It was this exoskeleton suit. At the time, I didn’t know that’s what it was going to be, but they wanted my crowdfunding services. I did a call with them initially. I added a mass of value to them and showed what I did. They kept following up and I was busy. I didn’t respond, then I did respond. I said, “I’m busy right now.” It got to the point where the CEO called me on my cell phone. Marcus was his name. They have a different CEO now. He left me a voicemail, “Brandon, what’s it going to take for me to get you to come to XPRIZE?”
I said, “Let’s do this. This is my ask, by the way.” I initially said, “I will fly out and I will pick two people that I know are the best, and we’ll come in and we’ll give you everything we know. These I believe are the best people in the country for crowdfunding.” My ask is, “You have to sponsor my event in Iowa and I want Peter Diamandis to come to speak at my event.” That was my ask. They said, “You’re going to ask big. You never know what you’re going to get.” They said, “Peter doesn’t even come and speak at our events. Let alone in Iowa, but we’ll give you our CEO and he’ll come to speak.” That was where that happened. They flew us out. They sponsored our event. They paid us a good sum of money and he was committed to speak. The sad part of that story is before the event, he had left XPRIZE and then he couldn’t speak anymore. He apologized. He was like, “I got scheduled to meet with Tony Robbins and Richard Branson and these people. I can’t miss this meeting.” I was like, “I get it.” That’s how that happened. How I got the opportunity is because I worked with influential people.
If you want to become the best in your space for one, you may not be the best at what you do, but if you can show that you’re the best at what you do, if you can work with the best, you are seen as the best. I worked with celebrities. I worked with the original shark from Shark Tank. I worked with John Lee Dumas, the top podcaster. I worked with Think and Grow Rich and The Napoleon Hill Foundation forward working on the Think and Grow Rich movie. I worked on all these sexy projects. I might have not been the best in the whole industry, but I was seen as the best. Because of that, that led me to get to work with XPRIZE. For me personally, one of the greatest accomplishments to say I got to work with them because I had read the book Bold. I had studied XPRIZE. I love what they’re doing with advancing our abilities in life. It all came back to building up my expertise in one area, showing a few select people that I was worthy, and then the rest brought itself to me.
There’s our second tweet of the episode, “When you work with the best, you are seen as the best.” I love it. This concept of Social Proof. That’s why having footage of yourself or being quoted in magazines and press all of that gives you the social proof. From an advertising standpoint, we used to call it co-branding with people and brands co-brand with each other. Back in the day, United Airlines cobranded with Starbucks and they served Starbucks on United exclusively to get people to sample it before it opened up in their city and to have a competitive advantage against another airline.
Think of yourself as a brand. It’s the first step to co-branding like you’ve done and given many great examples. It would be interesting to hear about your experience being on live TV and being in a movie because a lot of people think about that. In my experience in live TV, the adrenaline is going so much. It’s almost like the three minutes flies by and being on the soundstage. I remember the first time robotic cameras came at me and then I had to talk about tips on being confident and my heart was racing. I was like, “Where are the people pushing the cameras?” That’s what I had at the other studio. There are lots to being comfortable on camera. What have you learned on your journey?
Becoming Successful: When you communicate back to people, it gives you a way to converse with them by speaking to their pain points, and giving them what they want.
I’ve learned a lot. I’ll tell you, it’s addicting. It feels amazing. It’s like an addiction. You go on TV, there’s no other feeling like it that says, “It’s a lot.” I’ve been on 50 morning shows across the country. In 2015, I was going to a lot of morning shows. It was like I’m this eagle thing. I want to see how many shows I could get on because there’s a whole process to it. There’s a lot of work but I know how to do it. I learned that for one TV storytelling, all of it is entertainment. Can you be entertaining? Can you keep people’s attention? Can you tell a story? It’s elevating your voice, going loud or going low, using your hands, smiling, all these different things, and using words that people can think of. Names of people or stories that people can relate to because if they can relate to that, they’ll be able to relate to your message and you’ll get your point across.
Morning shows and live TV is becoming the ultimate storytelling. Sadly, you look at morning shows across the country or news channels, there are a lot of dark and sad stories. Anytime I went on a show, I was in positive energy. I wanted to bring the fire. What I’ve learned from going on morning shows is learn to master your communication. Be exciting and entertaining. When you can be exciting, entertaining, and communicate your words into descriptive graphic in terms of people can visualize that, you will be a hit. You’ll get your point across and you’ll get what you want out of a situation. It helped me become a better storyteller and communicator. I’m doing it at a point because as you said, it’s like 90 seconds clip to 6-minute. Usually, the 2.5 to 3 minutes you have, it goes quickly. You have to know going into the interview what you’re going to say. Also, you have to be good at controlling the conversation because if you let the host do it, you will get what he wants you to say. I’ve been on morning shows where I feel like I was better than the host and I helped them with communicating the interview.
Were you talking about crowdfunding?
Crowdfunding. The first thing I did was I found a niche everybody wanted to hear about. Everybody wanted to know what it was like to raise money through crowdfunding. I found that was a sexy topic people want to hear and I utilized that to get on morning shows. The thing I did, I call it unique like a local hook, is I pick the campaign at every city that had a crowdfunding campaign live and I promoted them and said, “I want to promote this local campaign in Reno or California.” I loved it because these people didn’t even know. I got a guy in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I called him up and I said, “I want to get you on the morning show. This guy doesn’t even know me and he couldn’t believe it. I’m like, “No, seriously, they’re expecting you.” I got him a TV segment. We went on together and then he got another segment. I’ll never forget, he came up to me like, “Brandon, I don’t even know you. Why would you do this for me? Thank you so much.” I’ll never forget the emotion I had. I’m like, “I get something for someone I don’t even know.” The feeling I got was more than anything I could have ever got from this situation. That’s my TV show experiences.
To give people some tips so that they can try to figure out how they could get this experience that you and I have had. Not everyone has had it. You need to think of a sound bite that’s going to grab that producer’s eye. A lot of authors like to try to get on TV and very few do. My book Better Selling Through Storytelling does not sound like a book that you’d have on a morning talk show. It sounds like something for MSNBC, which is fine. The pitch that publicist and I came up with was, “How to go from invisible to irresistible in your dating life and in your career?” They were like, “That’s it.” They show the little ladder and then of going from each step and then you go back and forth between the dating and this and that. Typically, you give the people questions and you’ve got to stay connected to the hosts, whether you’re on a podcast or a TV show, they are the ones that have the audience.
The more you use the host’s name and stay focused on them, don’t look at the camera. All these things you can do if you’re a rookie that makes you not come across confident. I remember one of the guys said, “You’re also a speaker. I give talks, but I get nervous still. Do you still get nervous?” I thought to myself, “I’m not going to make it about me so much.” I said, “Would you say you get butterflies in your stomach?” He said, “Yes. Exactly. That’s what happens to me even though I’m on camera every day.” I said, “The goal is not to get rid of those butterflies, but to get them to fly information.” That’s a soundbite that works every time for my talks and on TV. He didn’t know it. He thought I made it up at the moment. You talk about talking and controlling the conversation, he was trying to go off the script about, “Do you get nervous when you speak?” I made it about him and then pulled out that moment where I asked him a question that goes, “Are you feeling this?” then do that so everybody at home can watch it.
What I like about what you did there is you coached him on a live TV and you have that clip.
[bctt tweet=”Learn to master your communication.” username=”John_Livesay”]
The producer said, “Monday morning is hard to get them to laugh because they’re up so early after the weekend of being off and you did.” You can see in the last few seconds when we were off the script and they were riffing. I make them laugh by that comment. You have to be comfortable with silence when you’re a confident person. I wondered if you had any thoughts around that topic, being comfortable with silence.
Silence is a powerful thing. It’s awkward for some people because people want to talk, they don’t want to silence. Sometimes the silence at the right time like your public speaking or let’s say you’re doing something that’s impactful, it lets your communication and point settled to the audience. It gets it across. Silence, they say the person that talks the least is the one that wins and sells. If you listen, this goes in the storytelling. I used this all time and I know you do too. When you talk with a potential lead, you talk with a potential client or a business. When you can let them talk and share everything about them and that you learn about their pain points. You learn everything about them, their avatar. When you communicate back to them, it gives you a way to communicate to them speaking to their pain points, what they want, and doing it through storytelling.
You can say, “Here’s a passive experience of somebody I’ve worked with.” You can pull it. I have all these stories. I call these files in my mind. Depending on who I’m talking to, what show I’m going on, or who I’m potentially going to work with, I look and I think, “What file am I going to pick from here and apply to this conversation?” The more you listen, the more ammunition you get to be able to take on their conversation to win, and then you take on the conversation with a story. That is ultimately why people are successful in sales. They utilize storytelling, but they also utilize power listening and then communicating to that person’s need.
You also have a Success Academy where you help people become number one and figure out their potential and get seen, which is your expertise. Tell us a little bit about who this is for.
I’ve worked with people all over the country in terms of building their brand influence online, doing it through communication, and the power of video. It’s storytelling but mainly through utilizing their story and their expertise on video. I’ve worked with a lot of real estate agents. I’ve worked with the top 1% of real estate agents all over the country. I’ve worked with actors, speakers, authors, you name it. I created that because personally, as we talked about building my brand as a crowdfunding expert, I built my brand as a crowdfunding expert, as TV producer and host, and I’ve helped other people build their brands. I wanted to create something where I could share with them how to build their brand influence. There’s a system, it’s utilizing things like TV, books, telling your story, podcasts, and all these different things that I did. I didn’t know it as brand building at the time. I thought, “This is how I’m going to get myself out there because I don’t have any money to promote myself.” I applied these and then I realized, “This is how you build a brand.” I’ve been working with hundreds of entrepreneurs over the country and helping them build their brand influence online specifically through video content with the Success Academy.
You also have something cool and I signed up for it, which is people can get a text that’s going to motivate them every day. Tell us about that and what do we do? What’s the number and how do we get those text messages?
We had it going daily and what I do is I send out texts here and there to people. If you text my name, Brandon, to the number 64600, what’s going to happen is you’re going to get a text from me and I send out free texts and I give people motivation. I love it. People reach out to me and they’ll say, “Brandon, I needed to hear this.” That reminded them of me. If you want to text my name, Brandon, to the number 64600. Get hooked up to my text list. I don’t send spam, I send motivation. It’s my way to get back. I’m always trying to find ways to add value to a more standpoint. It’s top of mind. People would text me instantly, “It’s Brandon.”
Becoming Successful: People all over the country are using communication, especially the power of video, to build their brand influence online.
If people want to learn more about the Success Academy, either launching a podcast, writing a book, getting on TV, becoming a speaker, and figuring out the proven step-by-step system you have, how do they do that?
If reading and you want to find out everything about how you can work with me and stuff, go to BrandonTAdams.com, everything’s there. Honestly, if you want to connect with me and have a conversation, I am good at direct messages on Instagram, @BrandonTAdams, and it’s me. It’s nobody else. I love having a conversation because you never know where a conversation can lead to. Send me a direct message on social media. I’m @BrandonTAdams everywhere.
That will be the last tweet and the last great way to end the show. You never know where a conversation will lead. It could be a twenty-minute conversation with a former Shark that changes your career. We were in a group and it was in a breakout room and there were 5 or 6 of us. We were only there for six minutes. There was something about you that made me say, “I want to get to know this guy more.” Since then, there you are on my show. It turns out we know a lot of the same people and that’s the energy you talk about. Brandon, any last thought, any last quote you want to leave us with?
First, I thank you, John, for everything you’re doing. You understand the power of storytelling. This book Better Selling Through Storytelling is something that all people need and I mean that. My life, everything I’ve done through podcasts, speaking, and video, it’s storytelling through different mediums and the most powerful, influential people that have impact people’s lives I talk about this when I speak. You look at Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Steve Jobs, a lot of their success came through storytelling because they learned how to tell a great story of their products. A great story to build a following and influence people. If you can master storytelling, you’ll have success in whatever it is you do. For one, hire you or understand the power of storytelling because it will change your life.
My quote is, I always say, “Create something great and become unforgettable because life is too short not to.” Life is short. It’s fragile. You don’t know. No day is grand for us. This could be our last day and I always say, “Figure out how to be the best person you can be on that day because you don’t have regret.” I personally do not want to wake up one day and wonder, “What if I were to do this? What if I had done that?” That’s how I live my life. Always going after things that I believe in. Taking so-called people see as risks, but for me, it’s going after my dreams. If you do that, you’re going to live a happy life seriously. From all the hundreds of entrepreneurs I’ve ever interviewed, they said they went after what they wanted and they had no regrets. For you, go after the things you want and you’re going to live a fulfilled life.
Thanks so much, Brandon, for sharing your passion for life, your wisdom, and your incredible enthusiasm. You have been a great guest. I’m looking forward to having a lot of people read this.
Thank you.
Important Links
- Think and Grow Rich
- Kevin Harrington
- The Freedom Journal
- Entrepreneurs on Fire – Podcast
- Live to Grind Podcast
- XPRIZE
- Bold
- Better Selling Through Storytelling
- @BrandonTAdams – Instagram
- @BrandonTAdams – Facebook
- http://BrandonTAdams.com/
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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The Spirit Of SkinSpirit With Dr. George Baxter-Holder
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
No matter how much we try to discount it, appearances affect so many aspects of our lives. Although physical, its influence reaches our mindset and the way we perceive and even feel about people and things. Tapping deeper into how appearance can affect our confidence and view of others, John Livesay interviews Dr. George Baxter-Holder of SkinSpirit. As a board-certified Aesthetic Nurse Practitioner and Doctor of Nursing Practice, he shares with us his knowledge of beauty, giving us a peek into how jawlines make someone look smart or strong and how you can reverse some signs of aging. Reminding you of what is important, Dr. George then talks about the importance of focusing on looking your best now and not what you used to look like ten or fifteen years ago. He also discusses being in business, sharing about the need for having an entrepreneur’s mindset, especially when you are planning to grow what you have already created. From skin to business, this episode is going to give you great insights and advice. Join John and Dr. George to know more.
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Listen to the podcast here
The Spirit Of SkinSpirit With Dr. George Baxter-Holder
Our guest is Dr. George Baxter-Holder. He talks about how our appearance can affect our confidence and how we’re perceived as someone who’s smart or even strong depending on our jawline. He always said, “Focus on looking your best now, not what you used to look like 10 or 15 years ago.” He also talks about the importance of mindset in someone who’s an entrepreneur that’s growing what they’ve already created. When you’re all about that, I think Dr. George is the Elon Musk of faces with his technique and his creativity. You’re going to enjoy learning more about entrepreneurship and how to pull in ideal clients.
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Our guest is Dr. George Baxter-Holder. He has firsthand knowledge of how beauty-obsessed nowadays Hollywood actors are. As a child actor in Hollywood, he played the role of a genetically perfect boy on Star Trek: The Next Generation. His bad-boy character made all around him start to age prematurely. In real life, George plays the good guy role, trained as a board-certified Aesthetic Nurse Practitioner and Doctor of Nursing Practice. He helps patients reverse the signs of aging at Skin Spirit Medical Spa in Austin, Texas. He has a Doctorate from Duke University and a Master’s from the University of Washington. While he is no longer “genetically” perfect, he is working on aging well. George, welcome to the show.
Thank you, John. I appreciate you having me on and having a conversation.
We met through a mutual friend when I moved from Los Angeles to Austin, so we have that LA to Austin similarity. The people who are reading this are going to want to have a sense of who you are before we get into some of your insights. Your own story of origin is fascinating just from the little tidbit. Growing up, you can go back to childhood or you can take us right to the set of Star Trek, whatever you want to do.
It’s funny because it feels like it has been this windy, curvy, up and down, dark woods, light mountain travels. When I look back on it though, it’s a straight line. I understand exactly how I got here. I was born on Long Island, New York. I was twelve or so when my parents moved me out to Seattle, Washington in a little island. I went from Long Island to a little short island called Vashon Island. I grew up there knowing that I wanted more out of life. We could spend hours going into all the little ins and outs and details, but to make a long story short, I went to the University of Washington. I did well at school but still I yearn to be an actor. I ended up dropping out of school and moving to Los Angeles to pursue my dream of being on the silver screen. I didn’t do a whole lot of that except for Star Trek which is funny because that has had some legs. I filmed that at the end of 1988 and it’s still talked about many years later.
That show has rabid fans and I’m one of them. Now with the new Picard show, it continues to stay in people’s consciousness. It’s fascinating that sometimes art imitates life. You’re playing a genetically perfect person and everyone else is aging around you. You get into the field of helping people to look their best and not have the ravages of age take over.
The irony is amazing. It’s season two, episode seven, if anyone’s interested in Star Trek: The Next Generation. This innocent genetically perfect boy who Dr. Pulaski beams up to the ship and takes out of this stasis and immediately she starts getting impacted with signs and symptoms of rapid aging. Fast forward to the real-life George Baxter-Holder as a Doctor of Nursing Practice and Nurse Practitioner, I’m in facial aesthetics and work with my clients to reverse the signs of aging and the juxtaposition of that is so fun.
[bctt tweet=”Do you look differently than you feel? Dr. George is the Elon Musk of Faces.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Let’s talk about confidence because that is such a key element to being successful in any area of your life, whether you’re an actor going up against all the other actors for a particular role, and you have to audition. I know in the sales world, you have to go in with some confidence that you believe in your product and what you’re selling. You’re now in the confidence business because how we look, whether we like it or not, whether an actor or not, in order for us to feel confident and at our best, we can’t be worried about our appearance. We have to take care of it and then forget it is my mindset. Talk to me about your tips on confidence from a mindset standpoint, because you and I share that same philosophy of our thoughts, beliefs, and create our experiences. Do you have any affirmations or mantras that you tell yourself before you give a talk or you’re stretching yourself out of your comfort zone and trying something new?
The funny thing is I have a lot of things that I say on a daily basis. My first two words every morning are thank you. Forgive me when I started talking about this stuff, I get emotional and I’ll start to choke up. I’ll try not to do that too much, but it does happen. It’s about well-up of the universal spirit that’s within all of us. It burst out in liquid form. The thing about it is before I do anything on stage, podcasts, or whatever, I say this little thing that God and I have said together for a long time. That is, “God, please don’t let me suck.” It’s become this funny little goofy thing that I don’t take it too seriously, I don’t feel like that’s going to happen but that’s what I want. I want to come off okay. I’d love to be exceptional but I’m okay with adequate. I feel like I strive too hard to be perfect. That striving for perfectionism is such a trap.
Dr. George, you’re singing my song. I talk about this all the time from the standpoint of helping people get off the self-esteem roller coaster where they feel good about themselves if their numbers are up or they’re looking great. They don’t have any acne, wrinkles, or whatever and doubt about themselves if their numbers are down or things are going wrong. This need to be a perfectionist isolates us because nobody is perfect and we can’t relate to somebody who looks or acts perfect. We have to be vulnerable and let people see that we’re not always perfect nor do we need them to be perfect.
Let me tell you a little story exactly about this. It’s funny because what you said is we need to let people see that we’re not perfect. We also need to see it ourselves and being able to laugh at ourselves. I bought the iPhone 11. I was so proud of it. I’m so excited to have these three little cameras. Travis and I are in the middle of moving. I stopped at the title company, I’ve got the trunk open, and got this broom in my trunk, I set my phone down, and I think to myself, “Don’t set your phone down there. You’re going to lock your phone in the trunk.” That was my thought. I didn’t listen to it and that’s the key. I set my phone down and I’m monkeying with this broom handle to try to get the trunk closed. I pushed the broom handle, I slammed the trunk and it wouldn’t close.
I pushed the broom handle in a different way and I slammed the trunk. I did that seven times until I looked over and I had completely obliterated my phone. It’s one after another. The old George would have freaked out and swore. I completely broke down laughing realizing that once again, I didn’t listen to my inner voice. I didn’t heed that and it’s important that when we’re talking about confidence and pride, you have to listen to your innermost self to know that it was good. I did well there and be able to say that to yourself and not feel like, “I’m coming off as arrogant, I’m coming off as too confident,” or “People are going to look down on me because I looked too up at myself.” It’s this weird dichotomy of there’s nothing wrong with being confident.
There’s a difference between confidence and arrogance and that’s the big distinction. I’ve talked to people about perfectionism and I’ve often found that it’s not enough to tell people, “Don’t do this.” You have to give them something to replace it with. What I do is I say, “Become a progressionist.” It’s a new word I made up. We celebrate our progress. When we’re climbing Mount Everest and we’re halfway up, we can look down and go, “Look how much progress we’ve made,” or you can look up and go, “Look how much further I have to go.” Because you’re in the confidence business through skincare and anti-aging, I’m sure you have to work with your patients on this premise that our goal is not perfectionism and there’s going to be a healing process. We need to start celebrating our progress, and I know you take pictures to document the whole experience. Talk to us about that concept of progress and celebrating it.
SkinSpirit: When you have that sharp jaw, it says to the world that you’re confident, strong, and assertive.
It starts in the first consult. To bring out what people love about themselves is important. A lot of my peers in the business will hand someone a mirror and say, “Tell me what brings you in? What bothers you?” I don’t want to know what bothers you about your face. I want to know what you love about yourself and how I can take you to the next level of accentuating that brilliance. It’s always going to be a journey. If I have the opportunity to do everything at once, I usually don’t. Only because I want to see you in two weeks or a month after that and celebrate with you. What you said, that progress, that’s important. I also know if we’re off track.
I have struggled with comparing myself to the younger version of myself. I talk about it in my talks to companies about when we focus on our progress, we succeed. I used to be a swimmer and I remember beating somebody once in breaststroke. You keep your head up and I kept focused on the wall, hit the wall, he turned his head half a second to look to see if he was ahead, and that half a second of looking and I stayed focused caused me to win. Intellectually, I know in business, you need to focus on your progress and not compare yourself to your competitors. You’re the perfect person to help people with this. I’ve heard other people do this, “My best days are behind me,” or “Will I ever have that jawline again? Do I need that jawline to feel successful?” Most people are not underwear models so we don’t need to judge our self-esteem so much on our appearance, and yet we still want to show that we love ourselves enough to take care of ourselves. What advice do you have for people who might be comparing themselves to their younger selves?
That is a fantastic topic because we all do that. We have an image of ourselves. I’ve got my senior pictures from high school and I look at that kid and I’m like, “I want that chin and cheeks back.” The thing about it is I also look good for 54 years old, and I don’t have a problem telling people my age. Clearly, it is an inner glow that shines on the outer surface and that is where it starts. That’s why I start my day with gratitude. That’s why thank you are the first two words out of my mouth. That’s why I do affirmations in the mirror especially on those days where I’m not feeling like that eighteen-year-old and then the aches and the pains. We can’t get caught up in that because that negativity shines also on our face and in our eyes.
If we’re in pain, imagine how scrunched up everything gets.
Doing it with my clients, I only need to do a little bit for people to feel a large impact from what we’re doing because we don’t need to take them back twenty years. We take them back six years. I say that all the time and I picked the number six, I don’t even know why. I picked the number six because it’s not five and it’s not ten. It’s like, “Let me erase six years. I’m good with 48.”
Some people do too much and you’re like, “I don’t know if you’re 40 or 70.” It’s also frozen. You work at Skin Spirit in Austin, but it is part of a larger national brand and expanding. That seems to be the philosophy for the whole brand. Is that why you chose to work with them?
[bctt tweet=”We can’t get caught up in the negative because the negativity shines also on our face and in our eyes.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I remember going for my interview down in Palo Alto. I walked around and I met everybody. Everybody had this glow about them. I am not talking about they all looked pretty because if you lined them all up, you could find flaws if you wanted to. The thing about it is everyone had a glow from within. I asked everybody the same question, “What is the spirit of Skin Spirit?” People hadn’t been asked that before and people understood what I was going for. I got a myriad of answers but there’s a difference in the company that I work for than any other skincare company that I’ve ever been involved with. I teach and train all over the country. I’ve been in a lot of different clinics and there’s something extra special about Skin Spirit you can feel when you walk in.
I felt that when I walked in. There’s a warmth, caring, and energy. You can tell the people they like and respect each other, and are working together. For everyone reading, that’s a great question for you to ask yourself even if you’re a one-person entrepreneur, let alone, if you’re working for a company, “What is the spirit of,” and then insert your company name. You need to have that defined as a brand so that that brand stands for certain values, cultures, and celebrations. I know Skin Spirit is very much about embracing diversity, making a statement about that, and making people feel welcome regardless of anything so that it’s inclusive and not exclusive. I would say it’s one of the brand attributes that I’ve seen and experienced.
What are some of the new techniques? For people who are reading, saying, “People know that they can get a facial,” but it’s not just a normal facial. The facial I got there was off the charts. The word ‘glow’ is even in the name of it. There’s Botox that people know about. That’s that whole artistry of too much, too little and then there are all kinds of other new things going on. Let’s go through the three. Let’s start with a facial and a little bit of description of what’s new in the world of wrinkles. Who should get it? All the other things will be the third bucket. A lot of people who read this are in tech and you’re such an expert in the combination of artistry and technology. If you think of yourself as the Elon Musk for faces because Tesla isn’t just the electric car. It’s the look, design, and artistry of it. What makes a unique facial at Skin Spirit?
I love the fact that you’re starting with the facial because that is where it starts. When I’m doing my consult, I use the tent analogy. I’m talking about the fabric of the tent. The poles of the tent. How the tent is tied down in the foundation of the tent. If we remember that the fabric is the most important thing. The facial is the fabric. It’s taking care of that surface and getting the surface glow. It’s getting your own dermas and collagen to regenerate. That happens with things like the diamond glow or the signature facials. Our facials are not fluffy, feel good. They may feel good for you but that’s not their point. Their point is medical-grade to get results. They’re all results-based, science-based, and medical-grade. In order to get a facial, you have to have a good face exam with one of the medical providers first because they’re that significant. We have experts that are awesome at the office. Tammy and Lynzy are out of this world as exceptional providers. They understand the skin and they understand how to get it to glow and bring out your best.
It’s almost like if you think of your body and your face like a car, people will say, “Do I get I my car washed? Sometimes I need to get my car detailed.” We wash our face every day, hopefully, like brushing your teeth. If you want to make your car looking great, you’re going to get that detailed every so often. The same thing with your face and a facial. That’s the analogy I use. We move into Botox. Whether you’re a man or woman, let’s tie that into confidence. We look in the mirror and we’re not trying to be 40 years younger, but there’s something going on that’s challenging for us to feel 100% confident if there’s something furrow in the brow or there are a lot of wrinkles in your forehead and we’re not even lifting our eyebrows, all that stuff.
It’s key, John. Your audience out there may have an idea in their head when they hear the word Botox. Botox is a brand name, it’s like Kleenex. It was brought to us from the Allergan Corporation. I applaud them for all the direct-to-consumer marketing that’s done. It is a neuromodulator. It modulates the way that the nerve communicates with the muscle. There are other brand names out there. There’s Dysport from Galderma and Xeomin from Merz. What happens is we don’t even know when we’re making micro-movements. When we’re furrowing our brow, we don’t even realize it.
SkinSpirit: Being an entrepreneur means collaborating with the community, providing innovation, and providing a personality that is new and exciting.
I’m concentrating and concerned right now, then somebody comes and says, “Why are you so mad?” It’s like, “People think I’m unhappy or mad,” or “People think I look different than I feel.” This is the key right here. I want you, my client, to have a better grasp and better control to express how you feel on the outside. When I look concerned, I look concerned. Fully treated, not over-treated or frozen. I have full mobility in my face but fully treated with neuromodulator. To understand that a provider like myself can treat and rejuvenate you without over-treatment or botched look. They haven’t done any benefit to our industry. Most of my clients don’t even know that they’ve been treated. They just look great.
We want to look the way we feel on the inside, which is beautiful and at least peaceful, if not happy all the time but certainly not angry or mad because of our face and gravity. You and I had a conversation that fascinated me about the psychology of how we interpret things when we see them. One of the signs of aging is that our temples get hollow. If you see elderly people, you’ll notice that. It starts 40s or 50s, I don’t know when it starts. People make assumptions about you. The stereotype that if you wear glasses, you must be smart. You’ve got this great bow tie on that’s part of your brand. People will go, “He’s a professor, he’s an honor, he’s teaching around the country.” If we don’t have a fully filled out forehead, then you said something that shocked me. Tell us what are the unconscious thoughts there?
There’s a level of intelligence that’s held in the upper third of the face. That’s where your brain is. When you look and you are getting hollowed out in that area, especially for men, and this is key. This is why you and I were having this conversation because we were talking about men. Men can be full here. What that says is, “I’ve got a big brain.” “That man is intelligent, he’s got a big brain.” Look at the picture of you right now. You look like you’ve got a big brain. You’re smart, intelligent, and you help people. It’s not dark, foreboding, and skeletonized. We make those assumptions about the jaws as well.
If we think about some of the characters, going back to your acting experience and the expertise, look at how they do villains in Star Wars. Those people are big. There’s no empathy in them and no intelligence. The other thing you said is a defined jawline isn’t just youthful, it also connotates confidence.
Strength and confidence. They’ve done studies on that. The Kybella is a fat dissolver under the chin. I use it in my practice off label in the jowls as well, because the jowls mask a very tight and sharpened jawline. When you have that sharp jaw, it says to the world that you’re confident, strong, and assertive. If we look to TV or cartoons or things, you have Dudley Do-Right that’s got that sharp, confident chin. You think about these individuals like a strong military man. You think he’s got a sharpened jaw, the salespeople and lawyers.
If we want to seem smarter, we need to come to you and get our temples full. If we want to seem stronger, we need to come to you and get our jawline as defined as possible. It all starts with the fabric of the facial and this whole journey. Do you have any last thoughts for people who are entrepreneurs? In a way, even though you’re connected with Skin Spirit, you’re responsible for generating your clientele, I see your wonderful Instagram posts. Your personality is coming through and you also pull in some of the other staff that you work with. You’re continuing that spirit of we’re having fun here implies you’ll have fun here as well as getting the results you want.
[bctt tweet=”Bring in your personality to your business. No one else has it.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Entrepreneurship gets misunderstood and if I’m an entrepreneur, I’m starting a new business. It’s a growth mindset. Being an entrepreneur means that I am going to collaborate with the community. I am going to provide innovation. I’m going to provide a personality that is new and exciting. That’s what entrepreneurship means to me. I’m even dabbling right now and thinking about doing an MBA in Entrepreneurship, like I need more letters after my name. It’s something that excites me enough to want to go get more information about it. For your audience that are entrepreneurs, I would say to them, bring in your personality. No one else has it. That’s the one thing that you can bring to your business that’s uniquely you. You might make widgets. There are plenty of people making widgets. Go ahead, make the best widgets you can be, but you can’t make John’s widgets because only I can make John’s widgets.
When I wrote my first book, there are a lot of books out there on selling. I thought, “I’ve got my version of it, my story.” That’s the same thing. It goes back to your confidence that what I have to say is worth hearing and the right people will find it. What a great place to end that on. Dr. George, if people want to find you and Skin Spirit, tells us where all your social media handles and all that good stuff.
My social media handle is easy. It’s @Gorgeous_ByGeorge. You can also look it up by my name, George Baxter-Holder. There’s also an old website. You can go to GeorgeBaxter-Holder.com. There’s a little bit more of my personal life and stuff. I have a past. There’s more than Star Trek in my past.
Thank you so much for enlightening us on confidence, strengths, and most importantly, the importance of gratitude.
Thank you, John. Thanks for having me.
—
Drugs, Food, Sex and God: An addicted drug dealer goes from convict to doctor through the power of intention
I’m talking with Dr. George Baxter-Holder and George is a board-certified Aesthetic Nurse Practitioner and Doctor of Nursing Practice at Skin Spirit Medical Spa here in Austin, Texas, where I also live. We’re here to talk about LGBT Pride and the importance of getting comfortable with who you are. The more people who share who we are, come out of the closet, let other people know the importance of loving yourself, and accepting yourself. The more other people will be encouraged to know that you can still have a happy life, career, and relationships. You don’t have to sacrifice one for the other. Welcome, Dr. George. You and your husband, Travis are here. We could celebrate pride together and also inspire some other people to do the same.
I can’t thank you enough. This is a great opportunity. To share this message is critical and crucial. It seems like the younger people get it. It’s the more experienced people that need to lighten up.
I wasn’t around during the Stonewall riots to have a memory of them but that is part of our history. At one time, it was illegal to hold hands with somebody in a gay bar, let alone hold hands with somebody on the street. People could get fired, teachers, the military, and all kinds of things. We’ve come a long way and yet, we’ve got people Ellen, Neil Patrick Harris, and Anderson Cooper that are all great role models. Growing up, we had Paul Lynde in the Hollywood Squares with that, “I’m probably gay but I’m not like that, so I don’t relate. I can be funny.” Now, there are many different choices and you don’t feel like you have to “necessarily” stay in the closet for your career to be successful.
Now more than ever, the need to be authentic is what people are buying. You do have such a fascinating past, not only being on Star Trek, but then having your own challenges around sobriety. That is certainly a very common challenge that a lot of people in the LGBT community have. Part of it has to do with messages from childhood or society saying you’re not good enough and you feel guilty or ashamed so you want to numb some of that. Share with us as much or as little as you want about that journey and how you have arrived now to this happy, openly gay life, and a loving relationship with a wonderful husband.
This is one of my favorite love stories. As a young boy, I felt so different. I remember early on feeling that something was not right, my life was not right. I didn’t have a word or a name for it but I knew that I felt different than my peers. Not just different in a funny gregarious way, but different as in there’s something wrong with me. I wanted to numb that feeling. To make a long story short, I did everything I could to numb that feeling from fantasy to sexual exploits. Finally, I dove into the drugs and alcohol world.
I don’t regret any of it looking back on it. I’ve said before when you look at my life, it looks like it’s got lots of ups and downs, peaks and valleys. There was a prison sentence, drug addiction, and hospitalizations in there. When I look at all of that stuff, what I see is a straight line to where I am right now. I wouldn’t change any of it. I have a book out that I wrote in 2013 called Drugs, Food, Sex and God. I remember when I was working on the book, I always talking to Wayne Dyer at one of his symposia. He said, “I’d put God first.”
[bctt tweet=”If you’re getting a message of shame about being the person you know you are inside, go find different messengers.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I looked at him. I said, “Wayne, I always put God first, but that’s not a sexy title.” I broke out of all of that. I went to prison. I was in prison in Y2K. I was praying that the whole Y2K bug would open the doors then I would be free, but that didn’t happen. What happened is when I got out, I realized that this was not the life that I had set out to live. In all my life of fantasy and whatever, this was not it. I needed to make a change. Some people helped me a little forcefully to make a change.
July 8th is an anniversary day for me. I had my first 24 hours clean in July 8th, 2000. There are two other things wrapped up in all of this. We have time for one of them, I don’t know if we have time for the other one. Wrapped up in all of this is that I’m gay and not fitting in with the society that I was raised in because of that. My drug addiction and homosexuality. My sisters were married and I was never going to have that. I was never going to be happy. I was always going to be in this lifestyle that I tried to make myself fit into.
It’s underbelly lifestyle that I felt. In the ‘80s, that’s what we did. We were in dark bars and we didn’t come out of dark bars. As I progressed in my recovery, I met this man, Travis. We were at this party. It was an Alcoholic Anonymous celebration for someone celebrating 25 years. The minute our eyes met, or he saw me, I saw him, but both of us were with other people at this party. We didn’t get introduced, but there was a spark, there was something there. About a month and a half later, we had our first date. Twenty-two days later, I bought his ring and matching one to this one. A couple of months later, I asked him to be my husband. We were engaged for a long time but years later we still have a fairytale life. I have everything that I’ve ever wanted out of life.
You’re describing the darkness. It’s a great metaphor for where you were spiritualy, as well as the darkness of being in a bar because you have to hide. The opposite of pride is shame. That’s why we’re creating this to show and thanks to Skin Spirit for its willingness to celebrate pride and celebrate diversity. The best way to do that is to share stories of people and to let other people know that they’re not alone. If you happen to be in a place of shame or darkness, it doesn’t have to stay like that. That would be our message for everybody. We would certainly have had done something to make the world a tad better.
My feeling is if you’re getting a message of shame about being the person you know you are inside, go and find different messengers.
If you were an openly gay person or an ally, put your money into companies and people who are part of the community and support your beliefs. That’s a nice thank you to Skin Spirit for celebrating and welcoming people of all diversity.
Important Links
- https://www.SkinSpirit.com/
- Allergan Corporation
- @Gorgeous_ByGeorge – Instagram
- GeorgeBaxter-Holder.com
- Drugs, Food, Sex and God
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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