How Diverse Voices Are Changing The Narrative With Blair Bryant Nichols
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For years, the dominant voices in the business world were white, male, and straight. But that is no longer the case. Diverse voices are starting to change the narrative. Increasingly, businesses are recognizing the value of diversity in all forms and actively seeking out diverse voices to help them tell their story. When companies embrace diversity, they send a powerful message that everyone is welcome and that all voices matter. We talk about all this with Blair Bryant Nichols, owner of BBN Creative Management. Blair is an expert on developing speakers for corporate events, conferences, and other thought leadership opportunities, including internal and external communications. Join in as he talks about unconscious bias, diversity, and how the right mission and purpose drive success.
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Listen to the podcast here
How Diverse Voices Are Changing The Narrative With Blair Bryant Nichols
Our guest is Blair Bryant Nichols who manages speakers, authors, and other people who are all about diversity. He is a champion for getting diverse voices heard. We also talk about unconscious bias and how, when you have a mission, that’s what drives success. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Blair Bryant Nichols. After beginning his career representing hundreds of authors from top six publishers, he moved into the management of founders, entrepreneurs, executives, authors, and celebrities with various work streams, projects, and personal interests acting as a chief-of-staff, manager, or agent. He has deep expertise in developing speakers for corporate events, conferences, and other thought leadership opportunities, including internal and external communications.
As a manager, coach, and consultant, he helps diverse individuals and/or socially-driven companies foster new strategies for operations, communications, business development, and partnerships across all appropriate areas to further develop and enhance their bottom line and brand. Blair is the author of Before You Fall In Love, a series of personal essays on Medium.
He is a former Co-Host of Inside The Greenroom podcast, which is a behind-the-scenes look at the ever-changing landscape of live events and the speaking business. He got his MBA from UCLA Anderson with a specialization in Entertainment Management. He is my particular speaker manager, I’m happy to say. Welcome to the show, Blair.
Thank you, John. I’m constantly reminded I need to shorten my bio but thank you for sharing.
It’s quite a list of accomplishments. I always like to ask my guests to take us to their own story of origin because we love storytelling here on the show. You can go back to childhood, high school, college, or wherever you first felt like, “I like communications. I like connecting with people.” A show you were on in high school that you were like, “I’m going to be in the entertainment business in some way, shape, or form.”
I was a Literature major as an undergrad because I loved books. I thought I wanted to work in government. I realized that law and government didn’t excite me as much. With Literature, I felt like I could explore something that I was passionate about, all while having no idea even that the publishing world existed. Even though I was reading my entire life, I never thought about the business behind it. I set my sights on that and landed at the HarperCollins Speakers Bureau.
My journey, as I’ve started to reflect on it more and more in my career, certainly began much earlier. I went to a Catholic high school in South Carolina. The day before I graduated high school, we were at the church that we were using for our baccalaureate mass, the traditional mass the day before our graduation. It was going to be the time when they were announcing all of the honors for the senior graduating class. There were only 33 of us. It was a pretty small newish school in the area so it was a pretty intimate setting.
The big awards of the night were salutatorian and valedictorian and officially announced those to the community there. I grew up gay. I was in the theater. I was a nerd. I was not an athlete. For me, the imagination, the culmination of my adolescence was going to be this graduation, and being the valedictorian and giving that speech felt like my Oscar moment. You’re giving that speech. You fantasize about finally feeling some validation and reward for a lifetime of anxiety and sometimes bullying. Especially in a Catholic school, questions about your identity, and everything else that’s going on.
[bctt tweet=”The right mission and purpose drive success. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
I like the combination thereof valedictorian and feeling validated. That’s a clever play on words there.
Maybe there’s a connection there. As they got closer to announcing these top two positions, they got ready and they announced, “Salutatorian Blair Bryant Nichols.” I was a salutatorian and everyone clapped. It was a nice moment and then they announced who would be valedictorian and my entire class stood up. I can’t tell you what it felt like at that moment to feel ultimately defeated. It wasn’t just that this classmate had beat me in my GPA, had outperformed me on tests, and we went head-to-head.
What had happened a few months earlier as we were gearing up for the end of the year and there were about four of us with very similar GPAs all taking multiple APs and finishing up with finals. They said that they needed a little bit more time to determine who ultimately would be the valedictorian. What was going on behind the scenes in my conservative Catholic high school was that my headmaster went to the drama teacher, someone I was very close with, and asked if I was going to come out during my graduation speech because that was the rumor.
I wasn’t publicly out. I had told a couple of my friends. I was out to my family who was supportive. My mom was a teacher at the school. She had heard what was going on behind the scenes. Ultimately, what they decided to do was not reward it to the person who had slightly the highest GPA. They decided to let the faculty vote. Now, imagine being my mother and watching her son who should have been rewarded with this top honor, see her peers, colleagues, and boss decide to hold an arbitrary vote. They selected the person who is much more aligned with their faith, who had demonstrably done more in the church, is more involved, and in their eyes, is a better example.
The funny thing is they still let me give a speech. I’m not sure why this was big prevention, but it prevented me from receiving something that I felt like I had earned. As privileged as my life has been and was to that point, it gave me that first taste of discrimination that didn’t sit well. It planted a seed in me that made me want to rebel against society, organizations, and systems that held people back for racist, bigoted reasons and be a champion for diverse voices.
I landed in this industry because I love publishing. It was a great opportunity to get into this world. It took me from HarperCollins to Hachette, Simon & Schuster, GTN, and bigger agencies. It took me from New York to LA and where I still live. Ultimately, it took me to where I’m at now, starting my own business that’s devoted to diverse voices and championing people who are not White straight men.
There are a lot of speakers that I first worked with in this industry that fit that description. In fact, most of the highest-paid speakers ever heard of in that description aren’t celebrities. They’re former CEOs and presidents. They’re the people who you would expect to be receiving these types of paychecks. The people who were getting booked for diversity talks were always the low man on the totem pole. We’re always getting the least amount of fees and we’re considered not as important or valuable as these other speakers.
I’ve come to see and research shows, again and again, the value of diversity, innovation, creativity, and all these different things. I don’t offer speakers of the world who just speak about diversity. You’re not an expert in diversity. You’re an expert in storytelling and sales. You’re a master at it. You just happen to be diverse. That’s what the marketplace wants. They want new perspectives. They want people that represent all sides of the industry, all silos, or whatever it may be, but they want them to also represent different parts of their population of their employees.
Diverse Voices: Nobody wants to be the recipient of stereotypes or prejudices, and yet we all are programmed with it.
Hopefully, by working with people that don’t always look exactly like them, they’re getting what they’re investing in, new perspectives, and ideas. They’re getting something more from that talk, workshop, or whatever it may be because if they just brought in someone that looked and thought like them that reinforced what they already knew, there’s not going to be a lot of change. I’m sure you’ve experienced that in organizations and seen when it goes well and when it doesn’t go as well.
You’re 100% correct because the assumption that everyone is a White, straight male just because you happen to be White and male is consistently surprising to me. You always have a choice on how you come out and let someone know you’re gay. It could be, “My husband and I,” or, “My ex-husband,” in my case, whatever you say that lets people know without having to say I am gay.
It lets people know that the assumption of this is not accurate. Everyone I know who has gone through that process of coming out has faced some level of pushback. “We’re not so comfortable with you.” Especially the hiring process often is, “I want to be able to go have a beer with this person,” and stereotypes that go around that if someone’s gay, they’re not into sports, this, or that.
They can’t possibly relate to my life. There’s way more that we have in common than we have not. If you’re not able to find the connection points with people because of your sexuality, then that’s on you. The perception is a lot of people are like, “I don’t even want to try. I don’t want to take the risk of having it be awkward for me.” You don’t make anybody feel awkward, but they need to understand. What you said is that the different perspectives of diversity, whether it’s gay, a different race, gender, or whatever the issue is, diverse ideas create diverse concepts and creativity.
If you keep listening to your own bubble to get your news, then you never have other perspectives. That’s not where any growth comes from. Your management company is BBN Creative Management. You only manage people who are diverse in some way. I thought that was a fascinating niche. I love the story of where you got your own sense of, “This isn’t fair. This isn’t right. I can’t be the only person experiencing this so I’m going to figure that out.”
Just because someone is diverse, again, the stereotype was, “That must be your topic.” There are so many assumptions that everybody makes about things that they don’t know about. Ironically, it’s the same problem in business that I see a lot. They go, “This is a big company, therefore,” and then they put all the stereotypes about them, “They’re not flexible. They’re not nimble. They treat people like numbers.” That’s not the case in every big company. Nobody wants to be the recipient of stereotypes or prejudices, yet we all are programmed with it. Can you speak a little bit about what people can do besides bringing in people, whether it’s a speaker or employees to make people feel welcome?
I want to comment on some of the things that you said because that idea of having someone that’s like us, that fits our culture, and is going to be a good cultural fit, you hear that a lot. That’s code language for, “They’re like us. They look like us. They think like us. They’re going to fit in. They’re not going to rub anyone the wrong way.”
You want people with diverse ideas. You want people that differ in size, age, and everything. The most successful teams are ones that are diverse and it’s a flat egalitarian-type model rather than hierarchical. You want people that can work together from all different perspectives, but not with one person, the appointed leader in some structure that makes anyone feel less than. That’s just a little bit about teams.
[bctt tweet=”Diversity creates innovation.” username=”John_Livesay”]
One of the things that I love most about working in this industry with people like yourself and getting to meet so many amazing, smart people in their areas of focus is now I’m working with a woman named Vivienne Ming who’s a transwoman married to another woman. It is pretty diverse. She has talked about the neuroscience of trust. She’s been one of those speakers talking about diversity for many years.
Businesses keep inviting her back to make the case for diversity and the case has been made. There’s data and research in reams to support what I mentioned around creativity, innovation, engagement, and pay equity. All of those things that especially my generation and others care so much about now in our workplace. She got interested in why it is so difficult for people to put these changes in place.
Pragmatically, they know what the benefits of diversity are, yet a lot of these trends continue. A lot of these things happened in corporations or small companies or whatever the case may be. She did further research and found that it’s back to our biology. You and I have a sense that we’re similar. We have similar backgrounds. We both grew up in a similar part of the country. We’re White, we’re gay, we’re male, but it’s even down to if your intestinal flora is the same as someone because you live in the same thing. You have a similar diet. It comes down to so many factors that are completely innate that it makes meeting someone else risky.
It’s a risk. It’s effortful. When you go out, you meet someone, and you click, that’s how we all judge whether or not they’re a good match. We’re like, “We’re going to get along well. I didn’t vibe with that person if you’re in LA because that’s your first impression. Oftentimes, that’s the person that’s going to help you grow and change the most, expose you to new perspectives, and make you uncomfortable.
It’s the same thing in hiring, but you’ve resisted that. It seems like, “This is going to be unproductive. This is not going to make things efficient. This is going to make things harder and it’s true. It will. It is effortful to integrate someone different, but the results speak for themselves. This resistance to it is not something that comes down to policy and practice. It comes back to even our own biology.
To answer your question finally, “What can people do?” you have to make that effort. You have to understand and know that psychology, the neuroscience are going to tell you to resist. Think that this person isn’t the right one, but maybe you need to dig a little deeper. Check your own assumptions and biases. Understand, if maybe this is going to be the value add that you need because there’s going to be some friction. There’s going to be something different.
That’s fascinating to think about, “We can take it from a business angle. I can talk to you all day long about the bottom line impact,” but it hasn’t made a bunch of changes. We have to be aware of what’s going on in our minds and our bodies to then be able to overcome that and create the change which will create the organizations that you and I would love to see.
You touched on so many great things there. Let’s unpack that a little bit for the listeners. The first step is the awareness that we all have some bias. The concept is during hiring, in particular, it’s an unconscious bias. I have a little story about that shocker. When I started working at Condé Nast, I worked for a woman publisher who was a brunette.
Diverse Voices: Speaking is not a vocation. It’s an advocation.
I didn’t notice it until after I’d been there a few months that all the women in the New York office that reported to her were also brunettes. I’m like, “That’s interesting.” It wasn’t until she left and then they hired another woman to be the Publisher of W Magazine and she was blonde. Little by little, everyone that was replaced or left was also blonde.
I was the only one that had been there consistently to notice that and I was like, “This is fascinating. Your unconscious bias, even on hair color, let alone anything else, sexuality or race, is influencing who you hire.” Once we realize that it is unconscious, we have to fight because that’s staying in our comfort zone. I like to work with people who in some way look like me literally, in the hair color case. They may be not even aware of it. If I want to have some diverse opinions and override that, I might have to get out of my comfort zone.
As we know in business, if you stay in your comfort zone, that’s the beginning of the end of your business. You’ve got to constantly be stretching, learning, and trying new things. Certainly, this is one area that a lot of people are not instantly thinking of. “This is a way to bring in a new idea from someone who has a completely different perspective than I may have, but certainly some of our employees have it. We want to make this a friendly place for everyone so let’s mix it up a little bit.” That awareness is so valuable.
Let’s talk about some of the other people you represent because there’s a wide variety. I tell people about Bethany Hamilton who is famous for losing her left arm to a shark. People have seen the movie and the book. They say that it is a fascinating level of awareness that someone like that has. You’re not quite as well-known as Oprah, but she has an evergreen message that could have gone the opposite way.
She’s this beautiful woman. She doesn’t have her arm. A lot of people would say, “I’m just going to be a hermit.” She did the opposite. I would imagine that we all have flaws, whether they’re visible or not, disabilities, whatever you want to call that, something that we’re embarrassed about, or that’s not the norm. Someone like Bethany is showing us, “Why don’t I make the most of this?” It makes you grateful you have all your limbs. That is a starting place. I speak to what people love about her.
She’s so unique because a lot of times when you have someone like her who’s an athlete, often they’re well known. They have won the Superbowl or been very popular. I wouldn’t say surfing is the most popular sport by a stretch in the US or anywhere around the world. Her story of perseverance is so unique, at thirteen years old, getting back in the water, and wanting to continue to do the thing that she loved. This traumatic experience could have easily set her back for the rest of her life, and maybe would have heard the story of her survival and that would have been it.
It would have been a news story, but what’s so interesting is that her story has permeated society so much that almost every elementary school includes her story in one of their books by 3rd or 4th grade. My niece in Indiana brought home a book and my sisters called me, “You’re not going to believe this, but Megan is reading a book about Bethany Hamilton right now. I told her that you work with her and she was so impressed.”
I get so many requests from people from big companies and organizations. The reason they’re interested in her is that the kids love her. Whether they’ve talked about it or watched the movie. She’s got her documentary, Unstoppable, on Netflix, too. That’s something so unique. You don’t hear about that often with speakers. That’s not a groundswell coming from the children of the potential meeting planners and organizers. She has that personality, message, and that lightness about her. She’s apolitical. She doesn’t want to choose sides. She is all about health and living a wonderful unstoppable life. She’s been successful for so long at this because she’s not the best speaker.
[bctt tweet=”The most successful teams are very diverse, a very flat egalitarian type model rather than hierarchical.” username=”John_Livesay”]
She’s not in it to be out there like Tony Robbins. She just enjoys sharing her story, helping others, and inspiring, especially young people. That’s something interesting to me. I haven’t worked with a lot of speakers where I felt like so much of what’s continued to carry their story and their everything forward has come from such a young audience. I’ve started to think about how to diversify some of my client’s offerings with children’s books or YA books and start to plant those seeds early because I’ve seen what effect it has on someone like her even her speaking to big companies.
My book, The Sale is in the Tale, is a business fable about someone who’s 30-something. When I was speaking to a client, the guy said, “I saw my son in your story.” That was never my intention, but it made me happy that when you have a story that’s so strong, people younger and older than whatever that person is going through at that moment can relate to it. Speaking of story, let’s talk about Michael Anthony, AKA Michael Unbroken. I am like, “ I’m the Pitch Whisperer. He’s Michael Unbroken.” I loved that. He is all about being the hero of his own story. Tell us a little bit about what Michael Unbroken is doing.
It’s another great case study of how this crazy-speaking world can work. He was at a speaking competition. He won a pitch contest. Someone was there that I used to work with and unrelated. His team reached out to me to be on the podcast that I was previously recording. One of my other clients was at that competition. We started talking. We had a great conversation on the podcast.
He ended up becoming a client and working together more fully. He just has an incredible story about the trauma he endured as a child, how he escaped and rebuilt his life from addiction being massively obese and on his own after, horrific things happen to him. He has made it his mission to end childhood abuse and trauma in the future.
A lot of speakers, especially ones that I align with, have a massive purpose and vision. One of my old bosses used to say, “Speaking’s not a vocation. It’s an advocation.” It’s best when it’s not just there for people who want to sell, who want to make money, who figured out they’ve got a thing that they can offer. There are budgets and we’re just going to keep pitching.
It’s people who are driven about getting out there and sharing a message who have a deeper purpose. It doesn’t matter if they’re speaking to corporate audiences. At the end of the day, they are driven by something higher and bigger and that is him. He’s been driving up the charts on his own podcast and self-publishing books, getting the word out, and completely hustling his way into very influential places with influential people. Hopefully, you’ll be hearing a lot more about him in the future because he hasn’t quite broken through to the general masses, but that’s where he’s headed.
You said something I want to double-click on for everyone reading, which is the importance of having a mission bigger than making money. It’s something that we’ve heard before, but a lot of us forget, we don’t think it’s important, or a company might have it written somewhere on a wall, but nobody visits it and lives it every day.
I know from my own journey when I came up with the mission of helping as many people as possible get off the self-esteem rollercoaster, where you only feel good if things are going well or your numbers are up and bad if they’re not, I, myself, was on that roller coaster many times, up and down. We don’t celebrate the good. You’re already back to worrying about, “How am I going to hit my next goal? What if something bad happens to me if I’m not making my quota, getting laid off, or whatever else?”
Diverse Voices: Generosity leads to intimacy, which leads to candor, which leads to accountability.
I got from a client that you are on this rote which is exhausting. If I can show people through the stories they’re telling themselves in their head, how to step out of that so that any one event doesn’t devastate or elevate your self-esteem. That it stays fairly consistent regardless of outcomes so you’re not seeking. That is a huge takeaway for a lot of people.
They usually engage me to help them win more sales, but then when the message and the mission are coming out, that’s one of the biggest things that people say to me. It becomes awareness that I’m on it. I didn’t ever label it before and you’ve shown me a way to get off of it. That’s when you feel you’re making an impact. That’s what all of us want to do in whatever job we’re doing.
When you think of having that mission and purpose, when you’re sharing that, whether it’s in a sales context or in meeting someone, it gives them more of an emotional connection to you as a person. Even if you tell a great story and make it emotional, if they also know what you’re now, what your purpose is and everything, it sticks with them. I get so many people who find me because they’re excited about my mission or they liked the copy on my website. If you put it out there, people are going to remember you.
People are going to find you. They are going to refer people to you because they’re going to remember, “You need to go talk to Blair. He’s similar. You guys have similar ideas. You guys would align.” The magic is when you’re not just making a nice connection, closing the sale, and keeping it warm and friendly. They’re actively referring people to you. John, how did you turn people into evangelists for you? You’ve done such an amazing job with sales. That has to come through some referrals and word of mouth as well.
The number one thing I do is figure out what the expectations are and challenge myself every time to what can I do to exceed those expectations and go above and beyond. That’s what people remember. “We got some nice feedback or what have you.” I remember giving a talk and the client came up to me. He said, “We never have the same speaker back next year. Do you have any recommendations?”
I said yes and I gave the recommendation. I looped it back to the speaking bureau that had booked me for the job. I said, “I know they also happened to represent the speaker.” That bureau raved about me because I was going above and beyond by giving a great talk and making the client happy but I was pre-setting up for the next one a year out without him having to start from scratch all over again. That’s one thing I do.
It’s challenging ourselves, “What can we do to be irresistible to someone that they remember us and want to do something that makes it special?” I love making introductions. We met through our mutual friend, Sterling Hawkins. If you want to build relationships with people, do that. Think about somebody else and help them. That builds so much goodwill that it energetically comes back to you.
I agree with that. I love making connections. I’m not a matchmaker. I wouldn’t even know where to begin on that. Professionally, I’m the guy who knows a guy, generally, or in most cases, a gal who can help you out. Generosity is exactly the key. I worked for Keith Ferrazzi for three years as his Chief of Staff and his book, Never Eat Alone, is pretty much a guidebook to building relationships.
[bctt tweet=”You want people that can work together from all different perspectives, not with one person, the appointed leader, and some structure that makes anyone feel less than that’s just a little about teams.” username=”John_Livesay”]
There were four points in a circle that is the general framework. Generosity leads to intimacy, which leads to candor, which leads to accountability. It works across the board. If you lead with generosity and actual generosity, not, “I know exactly what I want to ask for once I give them this thing.” You know so often when people are being generous with an ultimatum or an ulterior motive is the appropriate thing.
When you’re truly generous, follow up, make that connection, and help someone with what they’re doing, that’s going to lead to a relationship. You’re going to get real candor and hopefully, the accountability whether it’s an employee or whatever also comes through with these types of relationships. That bureau is going to feel some responsibility to continue to promote you. They want you. You’ve done a great job. You bring the business back.
That’s the accountability on your part. You’re bringing business back to them that you easily could have spun off for yourself and have taken and run with it, which is what a lot of speakers do. They think in the short term and those are the types of people, whether they’re in Hollywood or all over the world, as speakers. They don’t have as long of careers because these people, the ones that you’ve worked with, the ones that I’ve worked with, have been around for a long time. These are long-standing agencies and bureaus. Maybe some of the people will change and go but a lot of the major players are still the major players in this business. It hasn’t completely exploded and consolidated either.
It’s a smart way that you navigate these relationships and how generous you’ve already been with me, how I’ve seen your relationships that you’ve built with the other agencies, and things like that. That’s what excites me about working with you and with others who understand the value of partnership and that this is a long-term strategy.
This is not a get-rich-quick thing that you can maximize in one year and walk away from if you want to get the most value out of it. It’s thinking in the long-term, creating that plan, and being intentional about that. It’s okay to be generous to people that you want to have a relationship with because you want to do business with them. You just have to provide value if you think they’re going to want to have any exchange with you.
Before I say goodbye to you on this episode, I wanted to ask you. AJ is the Founder of the concept of Get Your Shine, which is a personality quiz. Everybody loves a quiz so good for him for creating a quiz. Tell us a little bit about what that is.
AJ, similar to you, he and his partner moved from LA to Dallas during the pandemic. They’ve been living that Texas life out on a ranch there in Granbury. It is not the same as Austin. He’s an incredibly energetic speaker. He used to be the Head of Mojo when Verizon and AOL merged and Yahoo was mixed in there, too. He was traveling the world, speaking to different teams, and getting them excited.
He’s done a lot of coaching with executives on communication and a lot around internal culture and things like that. He created the Shine Scale as a way to talk about the different attributes that help bring you to life. In the same sense of building your confidence, putting your best foot forward, and understanding the areas where you could use some improvement, the scale helps break down some of the things where you’re maybe more heart-focused and where you’re more head-focused. It splits between the two. We need both.
[bctt tweet=”Having your sense of purpose and meaning and why you do what you do can create much more excitement, engagement, and purpose in your life.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Oftentimes in sales, sometimes people are head-focused. They focus on the numbers, the data, and the pragmatic side. They ignore the heart. They don’t make that emotional connection. They don’t tell a great story. They don’t bring out the qualities that make people like and trust you, which is how they buy and make decisions. There are those times and there are times when people are too heart-focused and don’t ever get around to the salient details and the other things. They think the relationship will carry them into that conversation.
You need both. He talks about both sides of that. We’ve done some really interesting workshops for Univision and Verizon, even virtual during the pandemic, and getting their teams to think about their own personal mission statement. Even when you work for a major company, having your own sense of purpose, meaning, and why you do the thing you do can create so much more excitement, engagement, and purpose in your own life.
We’re helping people do that, who were not usually in an environment to participate in those conversations, and who hasn’t been asked to share their origin story ever before. By the end of the session, we’re getting them all to do that. You can tell the shift that comes over them as a team and as an individual, getting to start to look at themselves, and define their work as a part of their identity, rather than just, “This is my function. This is my story over here.”
You’re singing my song because I love working with clients and helping them figure out their stories of origin. Why did you get into healthcare? Why did you become an architect? I’ve had people who’ve worked with people for years, not knowing that story of origin, and suddenly feel closer to them. It’s because stories make us feel connected and bonded. More importantly, they make us memorable. That’s the a-ha factor when you’re meeting so many people. If you have a little story that has a twist to it that does it. If people want to reach out to you, they can go to BBNCreativeManagement.com. Before we say goodbye, do you have a final quote or a book you want to recommend?
I wanted to conclude a little bit more about my story and then I’ll share some recommendations there, too. I thought back to high school graduation when I’ve been examining my origin story as I launched my company and have been speaking to clients and potential clients. It got me thinking even further back and I realized that the salutatorian speech wasn’t the first time I had the opportunity to get up and speak in front of an audience.
I lived in Pennsylvania when I was in middle school. We had moved there when I was starting sixth grade and we moved back to the same town where I’d left in eighth grade. Middle school is not the best time in anyone’s life. It wasn’t the best time in my life. I didn’t make a ton of friends. I didn’t have overall the best experience. I was getting ready to leave at the beginning of eighth grade. We had written essays and submitted them. That was the only assignment, but my teacher decided that she thought I should read my essay aloud.
The irony or the coincidence was I was Bethany Hamilton’s age. The essay was about sink or swim. I went on to describe as a thirteen-year-old male in front of an entire class of other eighth graders that I felt like I had sunk there. I had given a moral about when people are struggling, help them swim instead of sink. Hopefully, I’ve gotten stronger. I do remember the feeling of being recognized, supported, and told that your story is important. Your peers need to hear it.
Rather than my story being about getting back at the people who discriminated against me and there’s been many more than that one high school principal, it’s about the people who lift other people’s voices. Being one of those people, being the support, the love, and the care, not to knock anyone else down or displace anyone, but to help give more room for those types of voices. That is what I’d like to think about more than some of the other more traumatic parts of the origin story. There are a lot of great, amazing books out there. I’d recommend yours. It depends on what you’re looking for.
You guys can reach out to me on LinkedIn, as well as BBN Creative Management. I’m always happy to have a chat wherever you’re at in your business, speaking, or whatever it may be. I’m always happy to meet new people and give my two cents. Feel free to define me online. We can chat more about book recs, too. You can follow me on Instagram. For the first year, I’m finally posting books that I’m reading. I’m trying to be more intentional about that so you can see what I’ve been up to and what else I’m reading the rest of the year.
Thanks so much, Blair, for coming on the show, for becoming my speaking manager, and for sharing your wisdom on how important it is that all of us realize that we can join this mission to be champions for diverse voices, whether it’s ours or anyone else’s. When someone’s down, reach out a hand, and help. If we all start doing that a little bit more, things will change.
Important Links
- Blair Bryant Nichols
- Before You Fall In Love
- The Sale is in the Tale
- Never Eat Alone
- Get Your Shine
- LinkedIn – Blair Bryant Nichols
- Instagram – Blair Bryant Nichols
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The Power Of Playing Offense With Paul Epstein
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
How do you execute purpose-driven leadership? Today, organizations everywhere are struggling and looking for ways to thrive. When you’ve lost motivation, how do you spark the hope and light within you so you can continue making a difference? Learn about the power of playing offense with Paul Epstein. Paul became the go-to fixer for NBA teams, NFL franchises, and league executive offices because he mastered the come-from-behind win. He recognizes that victory comes from the inside. In this episode, he dives into his book The Power of Playing Offense and how you could use this to develop your leadership skills fully. Tune in to this episode to listen to his deep insights on leading with purpose and how to win big.
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Listen to the podcast here
The Power Of Playing Offense With Paul Epstein
Our guest is Paul Epstein, the author of The Power of Playing Offense. He talks about how people can go from having a job to a career to even having a calling. The through-line of all of his work is helping people find their purpose and he shares his own story of how he discovered his purpose that will tug at your heartstrings. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Paul Epstein, who I met at a speakers boot camp. To understand how he has become a leading speaker and thought leader in the world of purpose-driven leadership, you have to begin with the path that brought him to finding his why. He has been in the sports industry since his career began, serving in the NFL League, a lot of national sales campaigns for Super Bowls and managing a record-setting sales organization at the San Francisco 49ers.
He’s also been very involved with saving New Orleans, which was once at the bottom of the league attendance and they were in danger of being relocated before he helped rally the city to save their now beloved team. Before all that, we’re going to hear about his own story of origin, where he was working in an entry-level sales position for the LA Clippers, making $7 an hour on a four-hour shift with no promise for growth.
He went on to lead the New Orleans Pelicans, named the Hornets. This development team as they struggled to stay relevant in a football focus region. He realized that sports are a lot more than just sports. It’s a civic pride thing but as big as a leap of faith was to come years later when he discovered his own personal why, which we’ll be certainly asking him about. Welcome to the show, Paul.
Hi, John. I’m fired up to be here. Thank you, my friend.
It’s always fun for me when some of my previous guests know each other and we were talking about Gary Sanchez, a previous guest on my show with the WHY Institute and you’re all about the why. Let’s go into your own story of origin. You can start with making $7 an hour, or you can go even further back on how you’ve been passionate about sports all the time? Do you get that from your dad or how’d that all come about?
[bctt tweet=”From a job to a career to a calling.” username=”John_Livesay”]
Why don’t we start at the $7 because maybe the more compelling part of how you land on $7 is to imagine leaving six figures to make $7? Not a lot of people do that, but in my case, I was one of the crazy ones. It was because prior to that, the six-figure opportunity fresh out of undergrad at USC, I was working for a Fortune 10 organization.
Everything was great. It was rolling and I still remember the story, where for those that are sports fans reading and maybe the name Mel Kiper rings a bell. He is known as the top NFL Draft Guru. He’s a very high-energy type of guy, a fiery personality like I’m talking right now. I’m driving around in my minivan, which was a company provided at 21 years old in ESPN Radio and Mel comes on. He says, “Have you ever wanted to work in sports? Have you ever wanted to work in the NFL, NBA, NHL?” I’m driving. I’m speeding down. “Yes.”
The call to action at the end of the commercial was call 1-877-SMWW-NOW. SMWW stands for Sports Management World Wide. I gave them a call and took their online course. Their promise was if you’re one of the top students, we will open up our Rolodex and network to you in the sports industry. Not only is there a happy ending to this story, it’s the biggest no-brainer in my life to go from six figures and comfortable, but having not feeling a purpose in what I was doing. It was just the paycheck to now. I would have done it for free.
When I think about the things that are best in life, I know we have a great sales audience reading in. What you do if there were no money on the line? Whether it’s a check someone is cutting to you, or it is you as an entrepreneur. Would you sell, whether it’s yourself, product or service, if there was no economic gain in it for you?
When you can answer, not only yes, but hell yes, that’s when there’s a deeper burn in a belief, passion and purpose because that’s how you matriculate from job to career to calling. I went through that journey and transformation. People always ask me, “How do you know?” I always bring it back to when you’re not chasing something. When it feels like, “I would do this for free every day.” I felt blessed that they even paid me $7.
I love what you said there, how to go from my job to a career to a calling. We’re going to tweak that out. That’s great. That’s the ultimate hero’s journey. Now you also wrote a wonderful book called the Power of Playing Offense, which is a playbook for leaders, not team transformation but personal transformation. Let’s dive into the story of origin around that. How’d you come up with the title? Let’s start there.
The Power of Playing Offense: A Leader’s Playbook for Personal and Team Transformation
Spending fifteen years in the NFL and NBA, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. When you think about the mentality, that in my words, I like to attack each day with a mentality of playing offense, that is this all gas, no brakes type of approach, where we all know there are two types of people in the world. As I spent fifteen years in a high-performance environment like sports, I clearly see the delineation and there are two groups.
I want to ask the readers, think of these people in your life. You know folks on both sides of the fence. One always seems to play on their toes. The other is seemingly always on their heels. One has a mindset where it’s always, “Let’s not lose.” They play not to lose. They’re never going to fail big but they’re never going to win big versus the other feels like, “I’m blessed to have this house money and I am playing to win every day.”
The first group, market, external circumstances always seem to dictate their terms, but the second group operates on their terms. I like to describe that as the first group plays defense, the second group plays on offense. When you play offense, you not only play with purpose and passion, you take control of your future. That is the spirit of how I landed on the Power of Playing Offense.
When you talk about leadership, this was the playbook that I never had because I did positional leadership has all called for a decade and a half. Everyone taught me how to hit goals, metrics, numbers and KPIs. Nobody taught me how to lead people. To me, that’s the secret sauce of business and life. I said, “What is the book that I needed a decade ago and it never came?” I had to fail, fall, pivot, reinvent and go through all of these things and I have no regrets. I’m happy that I didn’t have the book. I wanted to make sure that people in the future didn’t experience some of the same pain.
You’re tapping into a big struggle. I was working with the healthcare tech company and they’re not the market share leader. They want to be, but they’re not. One of the reps said, “We’ve got to stop playing defense because every sales pitch is us defending against the leader of, why aren’t you doing this? They are, whatever the issues are.”
This concept of offense or defense in terms of presenting your content, message or story against someone who has bigger leadership is your area of expertise because you told me before the show that you’ve been selling the underdog your entire career. Let’s transition from top playing defense and start playing offense even if you’re the underdog. How does someone do that?
For context and backstory, I did fifteen years in the industry and for those that are sports fans, if you root for any team for fifteen years, you’re going to make the playoffs, 5, 6 maybe 10 times, if you’re lucky. How about in fifteen years, I enjoyed the playoffs once. I sold a playoff team, 1 out of 15 years, whether I was directly in a sales seat or I was leading the entire sales enterprise.
Now you talk about an underdog. It was a joke in the industry that I was the black cat, wherever I went on the corner of the field of the Is. They’re saying they are going to be a lot of Ws. The first one was the LA Clippers. This is not the Clippers of nowadays, where now they are winning. They were in the shadow of Kobe and Shaq, Lakers. ESPN called us the worst brand in sports and Sports Illustrated said, “You are the worst franchise in sports history.” We had to sell that.
[bctt tweet=”Choice is when your fingerprints are on the blueprint.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I shared this story of the underdog to say that even from a recruiting perspective, if you want to talk about the pitch, what’s the pitch to get somebody to come work for the Clippers at that time. That’s the situation that I found myself in every single day. Over time, we couldn’t house enough people that wanted a bite at the apple because the pitch which came from the heart was, this is not for everybody. A tribe either needs to attract or repel you.
Imagine you’re in the boardroom right now and Paul is the hiring manager. I said to the group, “My job is to hire the best talent. Your job is to control the controllable. I’m not even putting pressure on you to sell.” It was the opposite of what everybody in the industry says, “Where it’s about metrics, goals, numbers and KPIs.” I said, “No. That’s my part. Let me remove that pressure from you, but here’s the hard hat and here’s the lunch pail. I need you to show up with every single day.”
There are three components, work ethic, positivity and coachability. You give me those three things. I’ll take care of you for the rest of your career. This was for a job that had a 6 to the 9-month runway, 10% usually made of the promotion to a senior role. I had what I called the constitution, which was on a whiteboard in my office and everybody could see it. I had them sign. I put the date of 6 to 9 months from their hire date.
I had them sign it and said, I made it sound like a constitution, “I will commit to the values of work ethic, positivity and coachability.” I would sign it right under them. I said, “You give me those three things and in that three-month span, 6 to 9 months from now, I got you and take care of you, not only for that first promotion but for the rest of your career.” That is how we pitched it, fulfilled it, delivered on it and I’m still fulfilling those promises to this day, years removed from the sports industry.
Instead of trying to get people to work at a place that might be seen as, “I’m working here because I didn’t get any other offers.” It became, “This is my first choice because the culture cares about me and it’s a fit with my mindset. I’ll feel proud of working here as opposed to embarrassed.” By taking the external judgments of what you decide, whether something’s good or not. Flipping it internally is what I’m hearing.
I’ll piggyback on that because years later, as I’m recruiting for the 49ers Academy, which I was the proud founder of. This is a decade gap in between stories to show you the matriculation of how this surfaces. At the time of my Clippers story, I didn’t know the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Those terms had not entered my vocabulary.
Playing Offense: Anybody interested in more of the research, scienceofpurpose.org is a massive accumulation of how purpose connects to the bottom line and to individual performance.
For everybody reading, into a simple way of thinking about it is, carrots and sticks are the extrinsic motivators. If you do something, I will give you a bonus. If you don’t do something, I put you on a performance plan or you lose your job. That’s a carrot and stick. The intrinsic motivation is, are you motivated from the inside out? Is there a level of internal success, significance, happiness, fulfillment and purpose that you feel in work? Me, as your boss, don’t need to hold you accountable. You hold yourself accountable because you believe in the place, me as a leader, the team and the culture, all that.
I had four cornerstones at the 49ers Academy, the same type of pitch at a time where not a lot of folks were wanting to come to the organization. It was after the honeymoon period, the first 2 to 3 years of Levi’s Stadium. Here are the commitments we make to you. There are four cornerstones, purpose, choice, progress and impact.
Purpose, we will create an environment where the why is greater than the what. Crossed us that we can guide you on the how and as Nietzsche once said, “When your why is strong enough, the how will take care of itself.” We focused entirely on purpose as the foundation and then choice. Rather than saying, “Here’s the playbook, go execute.” It became, “What kind of plays do you want to run?”
Now I’m giving everybody a voice, even as a recruit to say, “What’s the environment that you thrive in? What leader do you love? Just because Paul is wired a certain way, maybe you want some tweaks to that and I’ve got to have some empathy. I’ve got to listen to that. Otherwise, I’m not going to have you maximize your potential.” That was choice. The way I describe choice was your fingerprints will be on the blueprint and people take more ownership when their fingerprints are on the blueprint.
The third cornerstone, progress, I’m a massive believer that if you can make a commitment that when somebody leaves the office, they are better than when they showed up that day. They will keep coming back. Whether you’re the underdog or the market leader, it is equally effective because now it’s not about the paycheck. It’s not even about the company, brand, product or service. It’s about me as a person.
When Paul feels that my company and my leader care about me enough, that they’re going to invest in my development and I’m going to be better when I left than when I showed up, I’m going to keep coming in and grinding. The blood, sweat and tears are going to be organic and authentic, and that’s the third one.
The fourth one is impact. My firm belief is that everybody in life wants to make a difference and feel they matter. They want to do what matters and make a contribution. That impact is the driver of all things good. Whether you’re the Clippers, the 49ers or anybody in between, I said, “Purpose, choice, progress, impact.” If that is you, this is your tribe. It wasn’t for everybody and thanked God it wasn’t, but the people that wanted it made leadership so easily.
[bctt tweet=”Every day is a pitch like life, life is a sale. If you’re not living and leading with purpose, then you’re building your house on quicksand.” username=”John_Livesay”]
They felt like they had found the water in the desert, I’m sure because most players aren’t that clear on what the culture is. You don’t know what you’re signing up for. This concept of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation is worth double-clicking on. I first came upon that concept when I was selling advertising and Lexus was launching here in the states.
They said, “We compete with BMW and Mercedes. We have done all these studies that certain people buy the BMW like if you’re an agent in Hollywood, you have to wear the Armani suit and drive a BMW because that’s external motivation. I want to impress people with my labels and country club, whatever.”
There’s a whole group of people that buy BMW and Mercedes that are internally motivated. They aren’t trying to impress anybody. They want the car to be well-made and that’s who we have to target because we don’t have the history of branding. Once you have that awareness of it’s not a recruiting tool, it also becomes a marketing and branding tool.
I couldn’t have said it any better and case in point because I’m a big sucker for stats, especially when you’re talking about something like purpose, as much as I do. I think there are a lot of folks that feel like, “It’s a little up in the clouds and that doesn’t connect to performance or the bottom line.” Anybody interested in more of the research, ScienceOfPurpose.org is a massive accumulation of how purpose connects to the bottom line and individual performance.
One of my favorite stats and it ties to what you said is that we’re trying to switch consumers. You’re trying to take somebody that’s not participating or engaging with your brand, product or your service. You’re trying to get them on board with your team. Purposes, one of the greatest drivers, there is about a 73% clip of global consumers that will pivot and change brands based on connecting with the purpose of the brand.
That to me is that intrinsic piece because it’s not the bells and the whistles. I could watch a commercial and I got that. It’s why do you exist as a company, as a person? Are you communicating with your purpose? Are you communicating to the outside world? What your intrinsic motivation is because that will create a pull effect versus in sales. It’s often a push effect.
Playing Offense: If you’re trying to switch consumers, you’re trying to take somebody that’s not currently participating or engaging with your brand or your product or your service. You’re trying to get them on board with your team’s purposes.
As I think about pulling, that’s intrinsic and what’s fascinating about this when I saw the stat of 73% in purpose-driven brands. That’s how global consumers shift. I thought, “This is bigger than branding a company.” You are the brand. We are all our own brands. How we show up each day is how we represent our brand. If we’re not showing up with purpose, we’re going to miss the mark on 73% of the market.
Your book is talking about these five pillars of playing offense that we lead ourselves, others and then, of course, what the future can be as some legacy. The through-line that I see is it all has to start with purpose, especially in certain industries like sales or lawyers, known for being extremely competitive within the same company. That doesn’t work on a sports team and yet in business, you’ve got people who are supposed to be on the same team and yet there is so much infighting going on. Do you think part of that’s because there is no through-line of a bigger purpose?
I think there are two sides to the coin, transactional or transformational. The more that we walk through life and sift through life in a transactional mindset, that’s where the whole scarcity versus abundance piece came from. Here’s a real example. We’re both speakers and we both speak about sales. Do I view you as competition in the sense of is there only so much food to eat that I shouldn’t be coming out on your show? I share it with my audience and now more folks are going to say, “John is pretty awesome. We want to hire him as a speaker.” That’s a scarcity mindset. Versus abundance is there’s enough for all of us and not just enough. We can grow the size of the pie when we support each other. I think that’s the real win.
Here’s the piece on sports and I’ll go back to offense-defense. Everybody loves to be on a winning streak and when there are blue skies. The weather is perfect and I can do no wrong. In that case, the purpose is an inspirational thing. I think the purpose is more effective in a storm. It is more effective when the defense is pushing back.
Take the pandemic as an example, very unexpected and unanticipated. Depending on our age, it was something that most of us had never seen and experienced. The fear, risk, uncertainty and anxiety, defensive elements in life, a lot of them not only external but also in our mind, we housed a lot of those negative thoughts, emotions and feelings. My piece is how deeply do you believe in what you do and why you do it? That’s the purpose and the greater your purpose will be the fuel of your eventual resilience.
In other words, if I believe in what I’m doing, I’m going to continue to get up off the mat because it’s not about a single day, a moment or a transaction. It’s about this long game. The job career calling transformation, as I said earlier, that’s what this is all about. It works on the field, court or ice. It works in the boardroom or the sales trenches. Having that deeper belief and purpose can keep you on the treadmill, especially on the days you want to get off.
[bctt tweet=”One has a mindset where it’s always, let’s not lose. They play not to lose. So they’re never going to fail big, but they’re never going to win big. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
We can all relate to that. There are certain days you feel like exercising and certain days you don’t. You don’t feel like exercising even if you get yourself on the treadmill. You might go, “Just ten minutes. I’m not doing the full 30 or whatever it is.” There has to be some bigger purpose to get you to do something when it’s so easy to stop doing it.
The purpose is to hit a certain goal of your weight, body fat or whatever, like certain goals of hitting a certain sales quota. That’s not nearly as impactful or it doesn’t have the longevity as, “I’m doing this I can live to see my grandchildren.” If you’ve been diagnosed with something or it’s a bigger purpose to why you want to get healthy versus vanity. It suddenly becomes, “We’re speakers. We have to have some endurance on changing time zones and fleet. We got to show up fully present.”
Nobody expects a Broadway star or an athlete to show up on the field, not being in training, rested, ready to go and practice, yet a lot of us show up in our own lives going, “Swing it when I get there. I lost my voice.” Whatever the issue is. There are so many things that we take for granted when we see a professional perform, whether it’s an actor, athlete or a speaker.
I think that all of these things that you’re talking about explain what it is that makes you so successful as an expert on helping people find their purpose so that they can lead others to success, whether it’s in sales or any other endeavor. I want to ask you, as we wrap it up, to give us a story about your own purpose. How did you find your purpose?
I’ll explain what’s more important, which is the color and the background of it. The statement is my purpose is to inspire purpose in others so they can play offense in life and we’ve appreciated the context to this conversation of what those things mean. The Latin definition of inspire is to breathe life into. I’m here in this world to breathe purpose into others.
My purpose is to help you find your purpose. My mission is to help you not only have a mission statement but to be on a mission. My cause is to help you find your cause. That is how I breathe life into people, teams and organizations. I found it at an offsite leadership retreat with the 49ers and frankly, it’s what led to my eventual Jerry Maguire leap out of an industry that I never thought I would leave. I thought I would still be here decades later and be riding the sexy train of the sports business. It was an amazing ride.
Playing Offense: What your intrinsic motivation is because that will create a pull effect versus in sales, it’s often a push effect.
Once I tapped into purpose and I started to understand my core values and my biggest value is impacted. I asked myself a simple question, “Can I create more impact inside of the walls of this team, this industry or beyond those four walls?” When I evaluated the decision like that, I knew that I had to leave and take a leap, but the reason and part of the purpose discovery process is you have to do a lot of life reflection to tap into your authentic purpose.
The biggest memory for me comes from the biggest pain in my life and often, for those reading, your greatest pain can often be tied to your greatest purpose. For me, the greatest pain was losing my dad at nineteen. As an only child and I still remember picking up the call where I got the word that I picked up as a boy, and I hung up as a man. My mom went from a parent instantly to a partner.
What I got to appreciate over the years, because I don’t know if somebody is reading and maybe this will resonate, but I’ve learned more from my dad since the day he passed than when he was alive. It’s because of the stories that I’ve heard from his former students. By trade, my dad was an educator at a continuation high school. For those that are not familiar with continuation high schools, it’s typically a kid’s last chance. They’ve been kicked out of traditional schools. They landed a continuation and there is no next step. The next step is no school will take you.
In a lot of situations where you come from a broken home, you’ve been given up on, disadvantaged backgrounds, the hope and the prayer is that you don’t become a statistic on the street. That’s the environment that my dad chose teaching. Years after he passes, I’m at a barbershop, a few blocks away from the school that he taught at. I’m sitting in the barber’s seat and walks in a 7-foot-tall man, tattoos on every square inch of his body and his face. If you saw it in a dark alley, you are running the other way.
He and I locked eyes and he’s coming right at me. I saw his hand go up and I fully expected that a fist was about to impact but instead, I opened my eyes and I saw a finger that was pointing right at me. He says, “Are you Mr. Epstein’s son?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “I wanted to come over to say thank you because your dad was the first person that ever believed in me. I’ve had a job for two consecutive months now, and that may not sound like much to you, but it means the world to me.”
John and everybody reading this next part is what got me. This gentleman said, “Your dad gave me a reason to think that tomorrow was worth it.” When I heard that, it changed my entire vision and meaning of life. I understood the impact that he made on people’s lives. That’s why impact is so important to me. It’s not a core value. You asked me what my whys and I gave you the marketing answer along to inspire purpose in others so they can play offense in life. You know what it is, the spirit under that because there’s always a why under the why? The deepest why that I have is to make my dad proud.
[bctt tweet=”The intrinsic motivation is, are you motivated from the inside out? Is there a level of internal success and significance and happiness and fulfillment and purpose that you feel in the work? ” username=”John_Livesay”]
It’s heartwarming. As I say, when we tug at heartstrings, that’s what gets people to open purse strings and gets us the emotional connection that we need because people buy emotionally. If people want to find out more about you, that your website is PaulEpsteinSpeaks.com. The book title again is the Power of Playing Offense. You have something relatively exciting and new to share with us in terms of a partnership you’re doing with the WHY Institute. Why don’t you tease that out a little bit for us?
It’s pretty hot off the press and I’m now as Senior Advisor for the WHY Institute. I know Gary Sanchez, who’s a dear friend. He’s also been a guest on your show. He’s an amazing human being and on a mission. It came from Simon Sinek’s old work and the Golden Circle why, how, what. The problem with the why are most people cannot directly explain it.
Imagine the magic that’s possible when you not only know your why but you know the why of every person on your team and in your organization. I see this tool being able to unlock all of our potentials because we have so much greater empathy when we understand how to speak the other person’s language. That’s what the WHY Institute and the assessment does.
From the heart, that once you can tap into your why, the world starts to become a lot clear, there’s a lot less burnout, fatigue, and you’ll start to feel alive. That’s the closing piece that I’ll share with everybody is a simple thing to share is when you’re living on purpose and life is no longer happening to you. It’s because you’ve activated and aligned your head, heart and hands. When your head and heart are on board, your hands will follow. That is the equation to living and leading on purpose. Align your head, heart and hands, game over, lights out.
Thank you so much for sharing your passion, your why, your stories. I think it’s going to be something that’s going to help a lot of people. Thanks again, Paul.
John, thank you so much.
Important Links
- The Power of Playing Offense
- Paul Epstein
- Gary Sanchez – Previous episode
- WHY Institute
- 49ers Academy
- ScienceOfPurpose.org
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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The Five Questions With Dr. James Mellon
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Life always has many questions in store for us, but a precious few of them are actually, in the long run, productive. Dr. James Mellon is the founding Spiritual Director of Global Truth Center Los Angeles and author of the new book, The Five Questions. James joins John Livesay to give you a little taste of the titular five questions that you should be asking yourself. There are certain questions—and answers—that move the needle in terms of the progress you want to see for yourself. But the journey to finding these questions and answers begins with believing in yourself and your own capabilities. After all, life’s too short to keep comparing yourself to other people.
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Listen to the podcast here
The Five Questions With Dr. James Mellon
Dr. James Mellon is the Founding Spiritual Director of Global Truth Center, which has launched a new way to experience a body, mind, spirit connection in a program called Welcome Home. James’ philosophy of life is enlightenment through entertainment. He wears many hats in the entertainment world from being a Broadway actor, director, writer and producer. He’s a sought-after speaker in the field of personal growth. He is also the author of the book, Mental Muscle: Sixteen Weeks of Spiritual Bootcamp and has a new book, The Five Questions. James, welcome to this show.
It’s so great to be here, John.
You’ve been on the planet for a while and you’ve done a few things that have made a big impact. That’s a part of why I was so excited to be able to put a spotlight on you. I know you’ve helped so many people including myself, get clear on who they are and the impact that’s possible. A lot of the people who tune in to The Successful Pitch Podcast are entrepreneurs and they’re looking for a little bit of inspiration, motivation, and maybe some tips on when it’s time to pivot and make a change. I also want to talk to you about resilience because you’re the expert in that and that’s one of the keys to being an entrepreneur. One of the things I like to ask my guests is to tell us your own story of origin. You have so many stories and you can go back as far as you want. You can go back to being someone who wanted to be a priest in Philadelphia or you can jump right into your decision to get to Broadway. You start the story wherever you want.
Mine does start out as a kid in Philadelphia who could see the world outside of Philadelphia as something enticing and exciting. I always knew that I would be a Broadway, movie star or a television star. I had a sense that I was made for something bigger than Northeast Philadelphia. Even with all of the race consciousness and the familial encouragement or I should say lack of encouragement, making the world a big, bad place, a place that’s difficult to get into and succeed at. This is where it all began for me. I never listened to what other people had to say about what I wanted to do. I went and did it. I’ve always been that person to jump in before I knew what I would hit.
The Five Questions. Never listen to what other people say about what you want to do.
Automatically, I’m starting to think of Broadway musicals because that’s a part of who you are from Good Morning Baltimore to There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This to Sweet Charity.
Even the one that I started on Broadway, which was West side story and that was against all odds because I didn’t have the dance training that Jerome Robbins was looking for. I didn’t have the singing training that Leonard Bernstein was looking for and I didn’t have the acting chops that any of them were looking for. Somehow when I stood on that stage and auditioned, it was like, “I’m here and I’m the right person for this. Give me a chance,” and they did. You’re right. When you decide to do something like Tony sings in West Side Story, “Something is coming.”
[bctt tweet=”Life is too short to compare yourself-tick frickin tock.” username=”John_Livesay”]
My whole life I have believed something’s coming. Even now, I still feel something’s coming. I don’t feel that I’m in the, as Jane Fonda likes to talk about, the third act of her life, I don’t feel that. I feel that there’s something new always coming. You used the word pivot. Pivot is so important to my life and I noticed yours too. If something doesn’t feel right, we need to pivot and not be afraid to pivot. Too much of the world is spent dealing with what they are accepting out of life as opposed to, “I don’t want to only accept this. I want to actually be passionate about something.” I pivot whenever I need to pivot and I don’t worry about what people will think about it.
This concept of jumping in without “having all the qualifications or the background that a lot of people think you need to do” is a helpful thing for us to double click on. How do you get the confidence or the mindset to do that?
How would you get the confidence to do something like that? It’s innate in all of us. It’s right there for us to tap into. The question is, “Do we tap into our natural authentic selves or do we tap into what the race consciousness around us is telling us?” For most people, unfortunately, we tap into what we’re being told as opposed to what we know and I mean in a deep sense not what I know because of what I’ve been told but what do I know in spite of what I’ve been told.
I want to get right to your book, The Five Questions, because I want to make sure we cover what those questions are. Think of it as a roadmap, readers, for your own entrepreneurial journey as well as your own personal growth journey. As you’re learning these questions, you can think about what your answers are for both personal and professional. Then I’ll ask you, James, how you’ve applied some of that on your own pivot. Tell us what those five questions are and we’ll go back to each one.
These questions came to me because I was caught off-guard. As you know, I’m a busy person and I tend to do a lot of things at once. I was at a retreat center and one of my partners came up to me and said, “I’m looking forward to your workshop.” I said, “When is my workshop?” They said, “It’s in an hour.” I hadn’t realized my workshop was that day. I went and sat under a tree and I said, “What do I need to know here?” All of a sudden these questions downloaded to me and they came in a specific order. It’s this, the first question was, “Why am I here?” Followed by, “What wants to know me?” Then came, “What wants me to release it?” “What is mine to do right now?” The last one was, “Do I know how great I am?” Those five questions came and I wrote them down. It was almost like a download. I wrote them down and thought, “I can work from these.”
[bctt tweet=”Money is a demonstration of integrity and passion on the right path.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I went into the conference hall and there were about 200 people there. They were all sitting and I asked them all to lay down on the ground and I said, “I’m going to go through some questions for us to start this off with.” When I started and I asked the first question, “Why am I here?” I was flooded with 100 other questions. The first question took about 30 minutes and people were crying, moving around and wriggling. I was like, “There’s something here.” When I got to, “What wants to know me?” I explained that we live in an energetic field of ideas and desires. Elizabeth Gilbert in her book, Big Magic, talks about how these ideas come up and you either take them or you don’t. If you don’t, someone else will because they’re all such viable living things and entities.
What wants to know me is, what am I allowing in my passion, intelligence and my wisdom? What am I allowing myself to absolutely engage in my own mind? It’s been a pretty amazing journey for me with these five questions and how they play out. That first question, “Why am I here?” I think of you and your amazing journey through your many careers and there are moments when something is ending like, let’s say your work at Condé Nast. When something ends, the question, “Why am I here?” can be answered on so many different levels. Why am I here at the end of this journey but why am I here at the beginning of this journey?
When entrepreneurs can ask themselves that question, why am I here? Why am I starting this company? What is my bigger purpose than just making money? They define a culture and attract the right people to their team, which attracts the ideal customers. People go, “I don’t need to figure out what my culture is in my company yet. It’s only me or me and a couple of people.” I tell people, “No. You need to know from the beginning why you’re doing this beyond profit.” That’s what people are responding to energetically.
This concept of what wants to know me, as an entrepreneur, a lot of people have a lot of ideas and in fact, so many of them that I help, say, “Don’t try to boil the ocean. Figure out one thing. Who you help and what problem you solve.” This concept of creating time through meditation or any other options. Google and big companies that now have nap rooms. A lot of people leading tech companies are saying, “One of the keys to my success is meditation and allowing other ideas to come in that are yours and not reacting to the world and emails all the time.” This question of “What wants to know me?” do you have any advice or suggestions for people of what they need to do to create that space to hear their own ideas?
It’s funny you should say that. One of my newest projects is a live space people will go to called Welcome Home. The whole purpose of creating Welcome Home is to give people an opportunity to go somewhere, into a room, into space which is our physical spaces, although they can also be entered virtually, to allow yourself to decompress. Get rid of the outside voices and world, to give yourself the opportunity to focus your mind on only you and allowing nature and nurture and all of the intentional energies out there to flow in and get into the fluidity of this thing called creative mind.
[bctt tweet=”EGO-Enter Greatness Only” username=”John_Livesay”]
You asked the question about, “Why I am here and what wants to know me about an entrepreneur?” One of the smartest things an entrepreneur can do or anyone with a new idea is to ask the question at the onset of something. “Why am I here?” If we find out that the only reason I’m here is that I feel I have to be here or it’s going to make me money, money cannot be the end goal. Money for me is always the demonstration of the integrity and passion that wants to be brought forth. Money is just a natural outcome of when someone is on the right path. Sometimes we hear, “Why am I here?” We may hear, “I’m here for all the wrong reasons.” It’s like you. I’m here for all the wrong reasons. I need to pivot. I need to ask myself, “What can I do to find what’s mine to do?”
The Five Questions. If something doesn’t feel right, you can’t be afraid to pivot.
This concept of, “What do I need to release?” Bob Iger was quoted in the New York Times launching Disney+ saying, “They realized they needed to release something true to only making money from the model of traditional television of owning ABC.” He started the streaming service and he said, “If you don’t innovate, you die.” Sometimes you’re even killing off your existing revenue source. In terms of spirituality and how people are doing things, what you’ve created with welcome home is the Disney+ of church.
Thank you.
You’re creating a place for people who want to watch ABC can still do that and go to church whether virtually or online or go to Global Truth Center or in going to hear you speak every Sunday. For others who are like, “That’s not me or I never did like that format,” you’re doing your own version of Disney +/Netflix for this place of Welcome Home. It’s important too because I’m so big on the story of every origin that Welcome Home is not a destination like, “I’m going home to see my family for the holidays.” It’s a welcome home to yourself going inside. Is that accurate?
That is absolutely right. Welcome Home, meaning that there is a place in you and a place in me that when we’re in that place, we’re in the same place. That’s what Namaste means, when you honor the sacredness and another person. John, you are so correct. I am a minister, a Reverend, I have my Doctorate in Consciousness Studies and yet I lean away from the religious side of even my own ministry. Everyone has a ministry in life. Even whoever’s the head of Sony has a ministry. It’s called Sony. I lean away from the religious side of it because, to be honest, that’s one of those dinosaurs and albatrosses that are dying out. You watch a lot of these religions and churches people aren’t supporting it anymore.
[bctt tweet=”You can’t really run very far if you are weighted down with all of the things that have no purpose in your life anymore.” username=”John_Livesay”]
There are still the holdovers, the ones that still want that type of experience but as the younger generation moves up and becomes the older generation, they want experiential. They want to feel what it feels like to be spiritual. They don’t want to be bored to death being told what it’s all about or asked to do some archaic exercises of prayers and whatever. What they want is to feel it. They want to be involved in it. That’s where we came up with the idea of Welcome Home. I still love Sunday services at Global Truth Center. I love being on stage, singing, band and fellowship. I love all of that but I recognize that there are many people who want something different so we came up with Welcome Home. It’s a series of 45-minute sessions where you go in and either have a sound bath, heart breath meditation or heart math. There are so many different modalities out there that can get us tapped into our inner self so you can finally say, “Why am I here? What wants to know me?”
What is the sound bath for those people who might not be aware of that?
A sound bath is a concert. I remember when we used to go to hear concerts and people still do. It’s a concert. It’s allowing your audible senses to be bathed in sound. Usually, those sounds are glass bowls, chimes, gongs, some rain. Also, those with big tusks that have all those pebbles in them and you turn them upside down and it sounds like a rain forest. It’s a beautiful place to go to. You usually lie on a mat with a beautiful pillow and a blanket and you’re surrounded in love and sound. People take about 45 minutes out of their day to go be immersed in this sound bath.
It gets you out of your head and all the frustrations of worrying about something. You’re fully present and you’re immersed in this experience that can reset your button. This concept that we recharge our phones and yet we somehow think we don’t ever need to recharge our bodies or our minds.
If you recharge your phone, why wouldn’t you be willing to recharge your body? You know what happens when you don’t recharge your phone.
That will be the visual image for Welcome Home. It will be a phone being charged in. It will be the future of us all becoming chips inside of us. The other question of what’s mine to do right now, everyone, whether they’re an entrepreneur or not struggles with time management. So much is coming at us with tweets and text messages and things that we weren’t expecting and our day gets away from us. How does that question allow us to make sure we are in fact doing the right thing at the right moment?
All of these questions take into consideration that you’ve given yourself space and time to let these questions answer you. It’s not about you answering them. If you allow that question to answer itself through you, sometimes we hear things that we may not want to hear like what’s mine to do right now? We may be shocked to find out that a lot of what we’re doing isn’t mine to do right now.
The Five Questions. If you recharge your phone, why wouldn’t you be willing to recharge your body?
The keyword there is mine versus delegating it to someone else.
Even the question, “What wants me to release it?” I have been on the other end of that question and found out that what wants me to release it is a relationship that no longer works for me. It could be a business partner, a friend or a family relation. It could be anything. You can’t run far if you are weighed down with all of these things that have no purpose in your life anymore. You’ve got to let it go and ask, “What’s mine to do right now?” Now you have the ability to go do whatever that is when you’ve let go of everything else. For the businessman and entrepreneur to say, “What’s mine to do right now?” If I were in the middle of it or at the beginning of a business project and I asked myself that question, “What’s mine to do right now?” I might give myself the opportunity to get out of thinking of the seven billion things that need to get done for this company to succeed and hear the first thing that I need to do.
It’s trusting your intuition to let it bubble up as opposed to, “Last night, I wrote down the number one thing is this.” Things might’ve changed and you’re still obsessed and attached to what you think has to get done first. It may not be the case. You said something about being burdened with so many things to do. A lot of this concept of what’s mine to release now might be being obsessed with what other people are doing aka what’s my competition doing and comparing ourselves to other people. That can be a burden. What advice do you have for people who want to release that trap?
It’s a big trap. You put your finger on it beautifully, it’s competition. Not to go all spiritual on you but for me, spiritually speaking, there is no competition. I understand that there is competition in the world. I am in the world. I succeed well in the world but for myself, I have to be clear that when it comes to truth, spirituality and energy of life, there is no competition. Energy is always expanding, creative, growing and moving. If I put my attention on what someone else is doing, not only am I not moving forward, I’ve stopped to pay attention. I’ve heard you talk about Michael Phelps. If you take a second to look at your competitor, you have lost because you’re not doing what’s yours to do.
[bctt tweet=”It is knowing who you are that allows you to step onto the largest stage possible.” username=”John_Livesay”]
There we go. It’s full circle because if you were to analyze what percentage of my day am I focused on what’s mine to do versus what’s everyone else is doing, how they’re ahead of me, how many more likes they have, how many more books they sold or widget, how much more money they’ve raised, or 101 things to be focused on besides what’s mine to do. You said, “I’m spending 30% or 40% of my time subconsciously thinking and focusing on that.” I’m reading the news and I’m thinking about, “Look at what that person did or got that I didn’t get.” What happened? Will you focus some of that energy on what I can do best?”
What would I do with all that time if I wasn’t doing that? I love Holland Taylor. I interviewed her for a show I’m doing called The Inner View and Holland was one of my guests. Someone in the audience, I forget who asked her, but it was a question about, “Do you ever worry about opportunities in what may go to other actresses?” She leaned forward and said, “I don’t have time for that stuff. My life is continuing to move forward, tick-freaking-tock.” I laughed because she put her finger on it. She said, “I’m living my life. Meryl Streep lives her life. Everybody else does what they do. I don’t need to be Meryl Streep. I personally don’t need to be Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra or Marianne Williamson. I am who I am. They are who they are and we’re all doing what is best for us to do at any given moment.”
This final question of, “Do I know how great I am?” This is one that most people might struggle with. I’d love for you to talk about the difference between confidence and arrogance as you see it.
That’s a great way to put that. I always look at the ego. We think of ego sometimes as a bad thing when someone says, “That guy has such a big ego.” You better have a big ego. You better have a big understanding of who you are because it’s your belief in yourself. It’s your knowing who you are that allows you to step onto the largest stage possible. I don’t have a problem with ego whatsoever. Here’s the difference. You said confidence and arrogance. Confidence comes from an ego that knows who it is. It’s entertaining greatness only as opposed to people in spiritual terms, say edging God out, meaning edging the greatness out.
Confidence to me is someone who knows who they are. I tell this story a lot about Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise was my roommate back in the 1980s or early ‘80s. I was starring on Broadway and West Side Story and he was this teenager from New Jersey who wanted to be an actor. He would stay at my apartment because we had the same manager. Tom used to tell me all the time he was going to be a movie star and I used to laugh. I’d say, “Tom, you’re 5’7”. I didn’t see it but it didn’t matter that I didn’t see it. It didn’t matter who didn’t see it. It just mattered that he saw it because he had confidence and certainty about who he was that you could not fight him off of that. He’s also the nicest guy in the world. Arrogance is when you’re actually insecure about yourself. You don’t know who you are so you put up this pompous air of, “This is how great I am,” but you don’t believe it. Let me tell you as a director, when an actor walks into a room and they don’t believe in themselves, they barely have to speak and I already see it.
Listening to you describe these wonderful questions again and I can hear this over and over. It seems to me that there’s a circular connection to all this when I’m thinking visually. If we answer, do I know how great I am, ties into my belief in myself, which stems from answering the first question of, “Why am I here? What is my purpose?” Does the answer to why I’m here help the foundation to answer this is how I know how great I am because I know why I’m here? Is it all connected?
It’s totally all connected, John. Those five questions can be used in any situation. When you peel the onion back, every time you peel a layer back, start over, ask the questions again because if I know who I am and I know how great I am, when I say, why am I here? I’m going to get a different answer.
I promised at the beginning of this that I would ask you about resilience. You’ve had two major incidents in your life that most people would have a difficult time jumping back from. If we’re going to have things happen to us and it’s not a matter of if we get back up but I’m keen on how fast do we get back up. From being diagnosed with cancer to having your daughter tragically die at nineteen in a car accident, you’ve had more than your share of challenges in life. I don’t want people to go, “What an easy-breezy life this guy’s had from Broadway to this to that.” You’ve had all of that too. Somehow you model for yourself and other people this ability to be resilient. My big question to you is, what advice do you have for people on how they can be more resilient?
When you look at the word, resilience, resilience is the capacity to recover quickly, to recover quickly from some difficulty. When I was diagnosed with stage four cancer, to be perfectly honest, as devastating as it was to look at on the surface, I never ever felt that it would kill me even though they gave me a few months to live. They said in March I would be gone by August if they couldn’t find everything. They had no idea where it was. There was something in me that said, “You’re not going anywhere.” I had to go through five months of chemo, radiation, tearing things out of my neck. I went down to 130 pounds. For a six-foot male, that’s not a great weight. The whole time there was something behind me, which is my true self that said, “You’ll be fine. Keep going.” I’ve never had to get back on my feet through that. I don’t think I ever left my feet so I was pretty clear.
When my daughter died, which we’re about to reach the anniversary, if resilience is the capacity to recover quickly, perhaps I haven’t been resilient because I don’t think I will ever recover from that. However, what I did do quickly was to make sure everybody knew that just because the worst thing that I could have ever imagined happening to me happened, it did not change my faith. It didn’t change what I believed about God and about myself. It didn’t change how I would answer, do I know how great I am or that life may unfold perfectly no matter what.
It’s caused me to go deeper into what is life and what is death and try to have a better understanding of that. A day after my daughter passed, someone wrote on my Facebook page, and they didn’t mean it in a mean way. They wrote that they were sorry that it happened and perhaps I would reconsider the many things I’ve said as a minister and as a speaker. When I say, “Life unfolds perfectly and there’s always good in everything.” This person brought that forward and my reaction to it was so visceral that I went back onto the stage within three days of her passing and did not leave the stage. I stayed in my pulpit and my work. I have still stayed within my work this whole time. It was in reaction to that. I still do believe all this and no one is going to argue me down just because I have suffered something because my daughter’s fine. Wherever she is and whatever her next journey is, she’s fine. I miss her. I can’t even tell that I miss her every day. I miss her every moment of every day.
You always remember why you’re here. That’s the key to resilience that goes back to that answer to that first question.
“Why am I here?”
That purpose and reason for being allows you to be such a light and a gift to all of us. How can people find your book, The Five Questions, and find out about Welcome Home? What’s the best place for people to do all that?
If you go to JamesMellon.org, you will find me and my programs and you will find the book there. It’s simple. You’ll find me there. I don’t send people, I don’t even like using the word church anymore, to my center my spiritual center. If you’re interested in that, it’s called The Global Truth Center. You’ll find what goes on there. To me, it’s all one thing. Thank you for saying it at the top of the show, enlightenment through entertainment. I’m an entertainer. I will always be an entertainer, actor, singer, dancer, director, writer and minister. I get to take all that I do, wrap it up into one thing and focus my attention wherever that takes me.
James, I can’t thank you enough for reminding us that we get to remember who we are, figure out where we want to go, what wants to know us and all the other great questions that we can now ask ourselves in any situation.
Thank you, John. This has been a real treat.
Important Links
- Dr. James Mellon
- Global Truth Center
- Welcome Home
- Mental Muscle: Sixteen Weeks of Spiritual Bootcamp
- Big Magic
- The Inner View
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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