#187: The Secrets To Success: What Gurus Don’t Tell You With Douglas Vermeeren

Welcome to The Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, bestselling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markel. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your conscious pivot.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel. I've got a big smile on my face today, which I love to smile. So I mean, my resting face is usually kind of sad. And when I was a kid, I remember, and not even when I was a kid, into my 20s, if I was not smiling, somebody would usually walk up to me and go, Is everything okay? In which case I'd react and be like, no! I'm sick of people asking me that! So it just became easier to smile, I suppose. But smiling also, it's transformative. So when I'm smiling for any reason really, I feel that everything in my body sort of on a biochemical level is just changing. And my thoughts become better, my energy is better, I feel more energized, that kind of thing. So I suppose it might sound a little superficial, But today, if you can just find time to smile, man, I mean, for no apparent reason, you don't need a reason to smile. And if for nothing else, if you can't think of a good reason to smile, just remember what I said, that when you're not smiling, if you take a look at your face in the mirror, it's usually that you've got resting bitch face or resting sad face or resting angry face. Kind of everybody has that. Very rare I see a person that doesn't have a resting face that's not necessarily totally congruent with the energy they want to put out in the world. So I feel great and happy that I have a great guest today and somebody that's really, really kind of coming back to meeting this person. It's many years ago that we last met at an event that we were both together at. And now we're kind of making a reunion out of it. So Douglas Vermeeren, and I'm probably loused up his last name. So I'll ask him in a second how to correct that. But Vermeeren, is that right, Douglas?

Vermeeren, that's it.

I got it. Okay. Douglas Vermeeren has researched the success strategies from business leaders and companies like Nike, Reebok, Fruit of the Loom, FedEx, American Airlines, UGG Boots, Uber, KFC, McDonald's, Disney, United Airlines, Microsoft, and others to share the success secrets with other people. In fact, he's a trainer of trainers, a coach of coaches, somebody that's doing some really amazing things, has been featured on Fox, CNN, ABC, NBC. TV and CBC. And he's a Canadian, we're not going to hold that against him. Douglas, it's so great to have you on the show today. Welcome.

Good to be with you. You know what's funny is I'm actually a dual citizen, so I'm always conflicted of where I belong, right?

This might sound cheeky, I suppose, but you're too nice to be an American.

Oh my goodness.

I don't know what it is about Canadians, and maybe it's not fair to stereotype every Canadian as a good, good person, but Every Canadian I've ever met, with only one or two exceptions, frankly, I've thought were a little kinder and a little gentler than the culture of people that are raised in the neighbors to the south. Now, that's not to say that there isn't a place for the kind of go-getter mentality or that edgy— I grew up in New York, so I was around a lot of edgy people and stuff, but I don't know. Canadians, there's something going on up there. Maybe it's in the water. I don't know.

I don't know. Well, I kind of like the saying that you probably heard that there's really only one or two bad people on the planet. around a little bit, right? So that's the deal. But yeah, I kind of feel like you do that there are good people everywhere. But I think our industry, let's be honest, I think it attracts people who maybe have positive vibes and are a little bit more, how should I say, easygoing. They're looking for the good in people. And that's maybe not always true in any industry. So I think this idea of good and bad, maybe it's just the circles we travel in, right?

That could be. You know what? Speaking of that industry, for folks that don't know what industry we're referring to, I think you're referring to the personal development or personal growth industry. It's interesting about that space, that industry, that you get a lot of people who are, at least in my experience, who are healing from wounds, that are working on themselves, that are teaching people in many ways the things that they either have had to learn themselves or are still in the process of learning, which makes it kind of an interesting thing. So, I'd love to get a sense of how it is that you got either drawn into or attracted to, or how it is that you pivoted into that space. Yeah. And maybe you could tell us a bit of that origin story. That's a good place to

begin. Yeah. Well, the crazy thing is, is I really had no exposure or experience with it at all growing up. My dad worked in construction, pretty rough guy, and my mom babysat kids in the home. We were totally broke. We were highly engaged in the poverty pattern, very definitely immersed in the rat race. And I thought that that's how I'm going to make my way in life is I got to really hustle and I've got to be this grinder. I've got to hopefully get an education, which I wasn't very clever. I had learning disabilities. And so I was like, this ain't going to be my route. And really, when I was about 19, somebody gave me the book Think and Grow Rich, and that was my first kind of exposure to it. And the other book they gave me was How to Win Friends and Influence People. Now, just to kind of show you a little bit about kind of the dunce and the area I was at, when he gave me the book How to Win Friends and Influence People, he said the first person you need to learn to become friends with is yourself. And I was like, I kind of was a bit offended, but I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's not really a fair— like, I wasn't being kind to myself either, right? Like, what? And so, when I read the book Think and Grow Rich specifically, to be quite frank, I was inspired like everybody who reads it. I was like, wow, this is a really cool book. But I actually was kind of jealous. And what I was jealous of is I thought Napoleon Hill, to write that book, we all remember he met with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, the Rockefellers, the Wrigleys, and all these people. And so, that's kind of what got me on my path. I was like, well, if he can go out and meet those kind of people, maybe I can go meet those kind of people and learn from them. And I have to admit, maybe my motives were a bit selfish when I began. Really, the truth is I was looking after meeting successful people so I could kind of steal their best ideas and make something of myself. What I didn't count on happening was that I would develop friendships with them, and they were much more inclined to help me and mentor me and guide me than I'd ever expected. And so that was kind of the shaping of my life. So how did I get involved in personal development? Well, naturally, as you're talking with people like Oprah and you know, Richard Branson and all these people, everybody wants to know what they taught you. So, I started getting these invites. Richard teach you. Come talk to our group. And so, I started speaking and to be honest with you, I had no idea it was even an industry or career. I just thought I was doing a favor and I got hooked with the teaching part. And I know that you can relate because when you're sharing wisdom and you see people evolve and change, it's kind of a neat feeling to know that you're part of that, right?

Tell me about the time you met Oprah.

Oh my gosh, it was really cool. It was an event that a friend of mine, Christian Darbyshire, was hosting here in Canada, and Oprah was speaking in one of our big arenas. And so because I knew Christian and he had done some work with us for our first movie, The Opus, he said, well, why don't you come out and meet Oprah? And I was like, yeah. And so we went, we were part of kind of a VIP behind-the-scenes kind of get-together with her as she was getting ready to come on stage. And we spent probably a good hour and a half with her getting to know her, got pictures with her and all this kind of stuff, and kind of got on her radar. And at the time I had just put out Like I said, our first movie, but our second movie was just coming out called The Gratitude Experiment. So I was able to give her a copy and we had a good long conversation around the power of gratitude and how she uses that in her life. And it was really kind of neat, right? Like that's one thing that success books don't really share enough of, in my opinion, is gratitude.

Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, As business leaders, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other Free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. It's sort of the unsung hero, maybe not so unsung anymore, but there are a lot of people talking about it and rightly so because it is such a powerful thing that even in any moment, regardless of what's going on, there's a place for gratitude. There's a transformation that's possible in gratitude. And yeah, when you find that somebody who's really done well in life has practices, has specific rituals around something like gratitude, you go, wow, all right, so you're not too busy for that. You don't have too much money to have to care about that. And that's a beautiful thing.

One thing that I thought was kind of interesting, and we brought this up in that movie as well, is that the thing that I discovered is that whatever we're grateful for, like whatever gratitude touches, expands. So whether it's your relationships, you want better relationships, you need to start being grateful for what you have. You want more abundance, you've got to be grateful for what is in your life. Right now, if you want to have it, feel it, right? Whatever it could be, feelings of self-worth, self-confidence, whatever you want to grow, gratitude expands whatever it touches. And then the other big aha in that movie when we were doing it, I believe I learned this from Mary Morrissey when we interviewed her from the film, but she was talking about the big difference between having gratitude for and gratitude in. And most of us have gratitude for the things outside of our lives, you know, the car, the relationships, you know, you fill in the blank, the things that we can tangibly touch. But what happens when that's taken away? What happens when that disappears? How do we still find gratitude even if we're in a position of things not going right? And I thought that that was really profound.

Yeah, agreed. Tell me about filmmaking. It was— so here you are, you're growing up in Canada or in the US?

I grew up in Canada and then I went and did all my school in the US. And I used to live in California. I used to live in Encino. Funny enough, I sold pest control door-to-door in Redlands, Hesperia, Victorville. So I was like, I was like—

You're an Encino man, huh?

Yes, I was. Pauly Shore, oh my gosh.

Remember that crazy movie?

That's nuts. Yeah. Yeah. So I started as a background extra when I was in the second grade. When I was in high school, I did a little bit of stunt work here and there. And then I did some into college and university. The last big movie that I did photo doubling and stunt work on was Open Range with Kevin Costner, Robert Duvall, and Annette Bening, a cowboy movie that was shot up by here. And so I've always been fascinated by film. And it's funny, because when I went out, I interviewed those 400 top achievers after reading Think and Grow Rich, I wanted to make a movie on personal development. development. I really did. And everybody that I talked to was like, you know, we don't even know where to put that in the video store. And there's another antique, right? A video store, right? What is it, a self-help thing? Is it a how-to? Is it a documentary? Like, where does it fit? So no one would ever give me the chance. But then, you know, The Secret came along and What the Bleep came along and they really did big business. So all of a sudden my phone rang off the hook and it was like, are you still interested to do one of these movies? And so our first movie was actually shot as a period piece narration, but then cutaways to interviews. with, you know, some of the greats. Jack Canfield's in there, Mark Victor Hansen, Joe Vitale, the whole gang, right? Like, so that was our first movie. Random House did 23 languages worldwide with the book, which was just really awesome. And then it really kind of opened up the opportunity for me as a speaker. People started saying, we love, you know, your film, would you come talk to us? And so I did 2 other films since then, and then this new one. But I did The Gratitude Experiment, talking about the power of gratitude with Bob Proctor and John Gray from Men Are from Mars is in there and Mary Morrissey, as I mentioned, and a few others. Then we did The Treasure Map, which focuses mostly on money mindset, which obviously you speak a lot about. But the thing that happened to me too is when I interviewed the top achievers, my blueprint changed. And so I can relate to that. Right?

Right. So what's the latest movie called?

The latest movie is How Thoughts Become Things. And this is the one we're super excited about. In fact, it's interesting. It's been kind of a really unique ride with COVID right? Because normally we will do screenings in theaters and we'll do galas and have the speakers out. But this time, you know, we're just chilling at home sharing the movie with people. Yep. You know, I think maybe partially because people are at home, but our sales are off the hook. People are really, you know, right now we're actually outselling the original film, The Secret, 3 to 1, which is incredible. I can't even believe that. So it's kind of a blessing in disguise. But I think it's because the film really also has come at a time when we kind of need help with our thoughts, right?

Yes. And people are alone with their thoughts. And I don't know how comfortable that is at times. Well,

you know, it's cool that you say that too, because, you know, we often think about adults being at home with maybe fear or what am I going to do with my job gone or my economics and everything. But my favorite letter, Adam, so far, my favorite letter that I got was from an 11-year-old boy who wrote me and said, you know what, I love in the film how you talk about fear being actually one of our greatest powers. Because he said, before this, I was afraid at school, had bullies that bothered me. I wasn't very good in school. So I was afraid of what I was going to do. I was afraid, you know, and he listed all these things. And he said, but right now I look at what's going on in the world and I see the adults that I look to for my support and my hope, and they're afraid. And so I'm terrified. And this conversation of COVID hasn't really addressed the kids very much, he said. He says, I just really don't know how to interpret what's going on. You know, I don't know what to do. And he said, as soon as I saw the film, I began to feel some peace because I recognized that fear is a form of imagination. That's left without boundaries, right? Imagination that's, that's left without support, right? That was kind of a really cool, oh, I'm glad we made a difference there, right?

Yeah, the statistics are pretty stark. I know in June they surveyed 18 to 24-year-olds, a segment of 18 to 24-year-olds, and they found that 1 in 4— and this is, I don't know if you've heard this, pretty shocking— 1 in 4 had considered committing suicide. Wow. And so anxiety and depression rates have skyrocketed since COVID and the bulk of the increase is actually in that younger age demographic.

Wow.

So very much, I think, the fact that you got, you know, that feedback from a young person that's seeing that movie and feeling more secure because of that, I think it— because you couldn't be sort of meeting the market, meeting people, meeting all of us where we most are right now, which is in a state of uncertainty. I've got a book coming out next year that's all about leveraging the power of uncertainty. And it's counterintuitive because uncertainty is the dark room. It's the boogeyman that's under the bed. It's all the unknown and the things that produce fear when we don't have a sense of what's going to happen next.

Let me share with you something interesting too, not only when we did this film, but When I was doing my interviews with the top achievers, I kind of evolved from business people and celebrities and athletes. I got some really good info there, but I also wanted to know a little bit about transformation, which is kind of what we talk a lot about in the personal development industry. How can we shift? And I decided I didn't want to interview the regular suspects, like our regular guys who can over the weekend turn you into something new. And there's people that can do that. I get that. But I wanted to interview somebody that's maybe not from that world. And so I decided to interview the suicide hotline worker lady that trains all the people in the US.

Right.

And so it was really interesting discussion I had with her and I'll never forget something that she said. I said to her, okay, so what are some key things that you got to do to transform somebody? Because when they call in, they're at the lowest point of despair. People are hurting, they're in pain. Some of the people have a gun on the bed next to them or maybe they've taken pills or some people have already, like they're committed, right? And she said, well, out of all the things that we can tell them, the one thing that we won't say is don't kill yourself. And I was like, whoa, that's like the first thing I would say, like, don't. And I said, well, why is that? And she said, well, when these people call, they feel like they don't have any choices. They feel like they're cornered and that this is the only solution. And if I tell them what to do, it makes them again feel like I'm just another victim of what's going on around me. So she said, what we do instead is we point out that, yes, you could kill yourself. That's a choice. But then we help them see the consequences. And so we help them see that, yes, you could do that, but that's what this looks like. Or you could call and get help like you're doing now. And that's what this looks like. And then she said something that I thought was super profound. She said, when we help them see they've got choices, the more choices they see, the more power returns to them. And I thought that was neat. And I wonder if that's partly with this, what's going on with COVID now. I was talking to another young guy too about this idea of suicide and what's going on now. I didn't know the stats that you said. That's interesting. But what he said is, he says, it's not even that I'm in despair. He says, I'm just bored. bored. So maybe one day I just end it because there's no real, you know, it doesn't matter either way, right? And so I was like, wow, that's kind of a scary insight that some people again don't really even look to what the consequence could be. They don't look beyond the future. They're just kind of feeling like unfulfilled in the moment. And that becomes a possibility of escape. So it's pretty scary.

Do you think at some point, maybe a movie that you're— or a project that you're involved in might actually tackle that? Is that something that is dealt with in How Thoughts Become Things?

I shared that story that I just shared in the film, but I don't really think we focus so much on the feelings of depression per se or thoughts of suicide or what have you. I think that'd be a very interesting subject matter to tackle. For sure it would be. In fact, it's funny, I just signed a deal, funny enough yesterday, and I'm meeting with the guys tomorrow again to do my next movie. And the next movie is actually on overcoming screen addiction, of all things. Really?

Yeah. I'm so glad you asked that or answered that question before I asked it, which was, what's the next project? And it's interesting, I heard again, these statistics are kind of floating around in my head, but we've got something going on called constant cognitive arousal. You've probably heard that term before, but sort of 150 to 200 times a day, we are just picking up our devices, checking things, whether it's Facebook or other things, email, etc. And it's sort of producing this low level of anxiety in us. And in fact, there's a documentary out right now called The Social Dilemma, which I'm

not— Yeah, I saw it. It was awesome. It was great. Well done.

Yeah, very well done. And so it's by design in many ways that these devices are created to sort of addict us, but more than that, to sort of keep us focused the way they want us to be focused. And again, a lot of that is sort of stealing something or taking something as much as it's giving something. There's also a price we're paying for it. So I'm curious, what's this project about, if you're at liberty to say?

Yeah, yeah, I can say a few things. It's too bad I didn't know because I have the posters here. Brought it and showed you. But I love their catchphrase that they've got for it. They referring to social media, it says, the prison too powerful to turn off, which I thought was really kind of cool, right?

Right.

Because that's it. Like, this is it. These are the bars. These are the bars on your cell, right? And nobody really thinks about it that way. And I love that The Social Dilemma talked about, you know, how it's calculated and designed to trap us. But what this film will talk about is the escape route, really. And so when we know, because we all know we're caught, and the truth of the matter is, is it's a weird prison because it's not like, let's say, a drug addiction or something where you can just say, I'm going cold turkey, I'll go to rehab, I'll get help, and I'll never touch this stuff again. This actually is a consistent part of our day. We cannot operate in life without connecting to either loved ones or a business or whatever through this. It's how do you kind of dabble with fire and not get burnt, right?

Right. I think there's some place between coming off the grid and being able to, you know, and some place between being off the grid and being so on the grid, I suppose, that you're—

Yeah. You know, the thing with the other experts that I talked to already in this space too, the other thing is, is many people, just like other addicts, like, I mean, the behavior is the same, they're in denial that this thing actually has some form of control over their life. And so that's maybe the first question is to recognize to what degree you're wounded. Right? I think that that's a really hard question. And I don't know, maybe when we get the film for that done, we'll come back and we'll talk about it again. But I would, you know, maybe off air, I'd love your thoughts on that too. But it's an interesting question because we're all sort of knee-deep in it.

First of all, I'm a huge believer. We're going to talk in a couple of minutes. We're going to shift our conversation into the topic of resilience. But with almost anything, you know, change starts with awareness and often And the kind of change can be very, very small because all you're looking to do is sort of break the status quo. Yeah. I mean, if the status quo is that you pick up your phone with no consciousness around what's this device potential, what's the potential that it has for good and not for good in your own life, well, then you're just sort of ignorantly being used. In many ways, I think we are a tool. And as that movie talks about, that we are in fact the product. So it doesn't mean that in order to break that status quo or to break the streak, you've got to do something radical. There's no need to sort of jump ship from technology. As you said, that's kind of foolish. And I think that's what people think is that it's an all-or-nothing game. I can either go off the grid or I got to be on the grid and that's the way it is. But there are other things you can do. So I'm going to hold up my phone just so you can see. And I've got messages. I've got notifications that you're going to see that pop up. There it is. And so, you know, there's LinkedIn notifications, there's a text, there's the time, you know. But what do you notice as well? What do you see about that screen? Let me, let me see if I can clear it as well and start it up again. Yeah, let's try now. Okay.

Oh yeah, it's got a setting that calms you, tranquil. Or am I seeing that right? Because there's a bit of glare.

I'll go ahead and toggle it and show you what it looks like normally, or what it would look like normally. See it now? Okay, folks that are listening and not watching this on YouTube, what I just did was I showed my phone when it's in standard mode for me. It is in grayscale. Grayscale, as in gray, as in gray and white, and that's it. No colors. And it's also set to vibrate or no sounds. So I get no notifications. I'm not getting notifications. There's no bell ringing and no sound that's triggering my parasympathetic system to produce cortisol just to be like, oh, did I get a message? Did I get a like?

Jump, jump, jump.

Yeah, jump, jump, jump. Exactly. And there's no colors that are sort of like little eye candy for me. It's boring. I started this experiment about 6 months ago, and I would say at this point, I pick up the phone, touch the phone, and utilize the phone about 1/3 of the time that I was previously. So without sound, without color, physically, it's much less attractive to me, and I'm not playing into some of the— I'll just call it the strategy and maybe even the tactics that are being used by social media.

It's called a win-win.

To draw me in for more screen time, more of my precious time in otherwise consuming their content. That's one of those small steps that, at least for me, I was able to take. It's one of those things where you go, okay, so I'm now engaging with technology. I'm not abandoning it. I can't, as you said earlier, but who's in control? Yeah. You probably remember from an exercise that we did in this financial literacy course that you and I had last sort of met at. There's an exercise where you're contemplating whether you are in charge of money or money is in charge of you. We won't talk about the exercise, but it's really profound when it comes to that, when it comes to technology or money, for example, that you have a sense of who's running the show.

That's right.

I think with technology, in many ways, we think we are running the show, but we're really not.

Yeah,

yeah. The movie that you're putting together, I think, couldn't be I don't know how long it takes you to put a movie together, but this is one I would say it's really needed now.

Needed yesterday. Yeah, needed yesterday. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of cool, and we'll be talking about some strategies. Like, I've got black and white pictures too. These are actually my grandbabies, but I do black and white screens too. But I just think it— I didn't do it because the way you did it. I did it because the picture looked better.

And then it's so funny because I think in many ways the pictures do look better. A lot of things.

Yeah, I know. Yeah. But you know what's funny? And maybe like you, like, I do business All over the world, right? And so my wife got really upset one night when somebody from the UK was sending me messages and I had the ding ding on and it was like at 3 in the morning. So from then on, I basically keep my phone outside of any room and I actually don't even carry it with me most of the time. And when I'm in the office, because I'm at the office right now, I'll actually generally leave it in another room while I'm doing work on the computer and so forth.

Right.

But it's a hard thing. I can empathize with people who Are like, where's my phone? Where's my phone? Right?

For sure. It's a body part. I mean,

it's a body part.

You know, adaptational will someday will be growing one of those or something. But

do you know what I just remembered, by the way?

What's that?

We also connected at a Secret Knock too, not too long ago.

Is that right?

We were also there briefly, but you were busy too. I was busy. But it

was so funny that you, you know, that Greg is a filmmaker and obviously he's The Frank Shankowitz movie was just a beautiful movie.

I was there for the premiere. It was amazing, wasn't it?

In Encinitas, you were there?

It was at that Secret Knock that they showed it.

Yeah, yeah.

Frank's an awesome dude. I love that guy so much.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, It's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. And for folks that don't know who Frank Shankwitz is, I'll just quickly say he's the guy that really came up with the idea for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He was kind of the guy that first helped to grant a wish to a young boy in Arizona who was dying of cancer and wanted to be a state trooper. Frank had a heart, and to this day, I think, has the heart the size of that state or bigger. And so it's just a beautiful movie, Wish Man.

If it doesn't make you cry, there's a problem with you.

There's a problem with your tear ducts. You got an issue with your tear ducts if you don't cry. For

real.

It's called Wish Man. And a mutual friend of ours, Greg Reed, was a director on that project and producer, I think, or I think

producer, but yeah, I'm sure he had a lot of other input too, but yeah.

Yeah. So, let's talk a little bit about resilience as we wind things down here. Obviously, the world is facing great challenges. You've got a movie, the most recent movie out, How Thoughts Become Things. So, let's talk about the perspective that you would take, that you took in that movie, and apply it to how it is that people create resilience. I'd love to get your definition of resilience to start with, and then let's bridge the gap between If it's possible between the content of that movie and this concept of resilience today.

Yeah, I think that there's a lot of things we could talk about on resilience. You know what's funny is the first thing comes to my mind is that I actually do mixed martial arts as well. So I'm a competitive mixed martial artist. And, you know, when you're in that atmosphere, yeah, it can be painful, but not in the sense that people think. It's not the taking the punches in the ring that hurt. It's actually the preparation and practice. You know, they say that if we learn how to get through pain and practice, we don't bleed on the battlefield.

Hmm.

And I think that this is partly true with resilience, that our strongest bit of resilience, whether it's making a movie, whether it's if you're an entrepreneur or whatever it is that you're trying to do in life, I kind of love what Stephen Covey talked about, that our private victories precede our public victories. It's those things that we got to do when no one's looking. And to be honest with you, there's no one there to prod us forward or push us forward. And sometimes it's uncomfortable, but it really is that stuff that we do in private, the commitment that we ultimately have to the greater long-term vision. In fact, going back to this idea, we're talking about choice. The more choices we have, the more power we have. Well, a couple of years ago, I had a chance to speak at a maximum security prison in North Carolina. And there were guys in there that had at the time made choices that they thought were really good, right? Choices that they thought would bring them happiness and everything else. And what I found is this idea of happiness being a choice, that's kind of an incomplete answer. Happiness is making a choice that creates a good consequence. One that we're happy with, one that we're pleased with, one that we can have more freedom with and experience that. And so, I think resilience is the same thing because we can bang our head against the wall with things that don't really have value, or we can have a vision of what we really want out of life, the legacy that we want to achieve and create that will affect our family and our future and everyone else. And that stuff's worth suffering for. It's worth making a trade. One other quick thought is a couple of years ago, one of my best friends is John Demartini, who you guys all know from The Secret. And he and I were talking about the word passion, the word passion. And he feels like the word has kind of been misplaced and misused, that we often when we're talking about passion, we talk about the things we love. But the truth is, is the origin of the word comes very similar to the, when the usage of in say The Passion of the Christ, right? It really means what do we love so much that we're prepared to suffer for? That's really what passion is. Mm-hmm. That we're willing to sacrifice, we're willing to suffer, we're so committed. There really is no pain. And so I think one of the biggest problems why people have a challenge being resilient is because they really don't have a love. They don't have a connection deep enough to something that has meaning. They don't see the long-term consequences. They're not living for a bigger picture. And so I think that that's for me in my life, what allows me to get through things. Now, I wish I could say I'm perfectly resilient in every way and I could always make the right choices and I always sacrifice the right things, but we don't because we don't often see clearly what we want. But I will tell you this, if we invest the effort to see that, we gain power and resilience.

Yeah. I really appreciate the way you unpacked that and the Stephen Covey. And that was, I don't know if that was Senior or was it Junior? Senior. Yeah. Good. All right. I was going to say because— They're

both

awesome though. I was approached to do a speaking gig. We speak a lot to corporate audiences. And then they said to us, well, we still want you, but we picked Stephen Covey.

Oh no.

So they took him and I'll get the next one or whatever, but it's kind of funny. But pain in practice precedes— your private victories precede your public ones. And what you said about pain in practice, I think, is really important. In many ways, it reminds me of something that Steve Martin said. He was being interviewed by Charlie Rose some years ago. And then this statement that I'm about to share with you ultimately became the title of a book by Cal Newport called So Good They Can't Ignore You. And the concept there and why I think it's relevant is that he kind of breaks down the myth of the passion principle. You know, that passion's important, but you can't use passion as a way to decide what your career is going to be, for example.

Yeah.

Because you don't know enough. You just don't know enough at the beginning, and you don't know whether or not you are willing to suffer the slings and arrows, to suffer the pain that's often required to become masterful at something. That process of becoming masterful, it's a mentality, the craftsman's mentality, To something isn't about, I love this thing, therefore, I can endure the pain. In many ways, it's because you've been able to endure the pain of doing something that you learn to love it. You learn to love it because you learn that you're actually equipped to do it effectively, that you can do it consequentially, that you, as you say, that you can create great outcomes. Yeah.

Well, it's cool that you mentioned that. I've got a whiteboard here and something that's kind of fun. Just draw a circle here. When I was doing my interviews with the world's top achievers, and I can't remember which business leader it was that shared this, but he pointed out, you know, most gurus nowadays are saying if you want to be successful, all you have to do is follow your passion or your purpose. And then he shared this quote from Warren Buffett that I've never forgotten. He says, what you love about you is your hobby. What other people love about you is your business. And he says, I don't want you— and he was talking to me— he says, I don't want you to follow just your passion and your purpose. He said, what I want you to do is find where your passion and purpose actually overlaps the passion and purpose of other people. And then he pointed out that that's where the profit is, but more important than the money, it's where the validation comes from. Because when you have these difficult days, speaking again to resilience, when you have moments where the crap hits the fan and you're feeling like, oh man, I just can't do this anymore, it's going to be those that you serve that actually make you feel like you're making a difference. And to me, that was a really powerful insight when he shared that with me.

The people that want to know a little bit about what resilience looks like in your world, just give us an example of a recent experience. Yeah, I know. Hey, hold on. Take a breath there because I know I just hit you between the eyes with that. I'll just say that the other thing I think it's really important is that you've got to create resilience before you need it. Resilience isn't something that you turn on in an instant when the shit hits the fan. And that's where the practice comes in. That's where the effort and the drudgery and the boredom even that you go through when you do something and you're in mixed martial arts. So the pain of the practice is what prepares you for the arena at some point when it's live and it's real.

The other thing that it creates is muscle memory, right? If I had to wait and be in a situation and try and think through something, this is what I'm going to do, this is how I'm going to respond, blah, blah, blah, as it's occurring, unfortunately, I'm going to be way too late. It'll be over before I get a chance.

Because there's an element of thinking that's involved in something that can more be trained. And I think that's an important piece of this, that resilience is a trained skill.

And I think that this is also really important, like whether you're an entrepreneur or what have you, if your first instinct is incorrect, oftentimes you spend way too much time now trying to figure it out, or even you outthink yourself onto these things, right? And so I think that that's a really important thing. Now, activities for me recent with resilience, well, to be quite frank with you, the biggest one that comes to my mind is obviously the one we're all dealing with is COVID right now. Now, the big kind of challenge that we had is obviously we invested a ton of money to make this movie. We went around the world to shoot all kinds of great people. We spent all the time editing and making it. And here we go. We've got a release date. I believe it was April 26th, Los Angeles, and we're going to have all kinds of people there. We had tickets sold and guess what? Well, they told us you guys can't do any gatherings. Right? So on a dime, everything that we had prepared for, everything we thought about was taken away. So what are you going to do, right? Yes. And so I think this is the thing where, you know, when we can kind of build in our mind the muscle memory of understanding how to pivot and not just having a correct answer, but pivoting and trying a few things to find what's going to work without giving up, we can be strong. Kind of reminds me of another situation when I was early in these interviews with the top achievers, right? I'll never forget, there was a guy that I was interviewing, or I was with, I wanted to start a business, right? And he was worth about $300 million.

Hey, can I— I'm gonna stop you right there for one second.

Yeah.

I don't wanna move past what I think is a juicy bit, so.

Okay, let's do this.

All right, let's go back to you get this news, and it's you and your team and your partners, et cetera.

Yeah.

This premiere is not happening. Bring us into the belly of the beast. You're in your war room, your virtual war room, you're having this conversation. You can leave out the expletives. What are you guys discussing? What are you ultimately trying to—

Well, I just remember actually one of the first things that somebody called me and said, we're not gonna be able to do this event. And I just remember the first words out of my mouth were, excuse me? And then he said, oh no, this COVID thing. And by the way, to make matters worse, kind of what happened is I finished the movie, then I went on a holiday with my wife and we were in Mexico with all the kids and the grandkids and stuff. So we're like celebrating that we're done the movie. Let's just enjoy a break before we hit this real big promotional push on things. I was in Mexico when I got the call, so I was like, excuse me? And then they told me, say, listen, you know what, everything's closing up. And then they also revealed the news that you better be on the next plane home or you might not even get into your country, right? Because they're closing borders left and right. And so I was like, this is nuts. Okay, well, tell you what, before I jump to any conclusion, let me just pause and think about this. I'm gonna make a few phone calls, right?

See, first you paused.

Yeah. Well, you got to pause because here's the deal. Any decision made at a high point of emotion is always a mistake, right? Because immediate gratification never creates positivity or lasting rewards. It might create a little bit of fun, but it never creates a positive outcome in the end. And so—

Pause now. Keep going.

Yeah. Okay. So this kind of overlaps the story I was going to tell. So just quickly, the story is, is when I was going to start this business as a kid, my questions were always like, how do I find customers? How do I do my marketing? How do I do this? How do I do that? And I'll never forget, this friend said to me, he goes, I can tell you're going to start a small business. I said, what do you mean? He goes, well, you're asking selfish questions. I said, what do you mean by that? And he goes, the better questions you should be asking to solve your problems isn't how can I, but who can help me? That's the question you want to ask because all great things are created by a team, not an individual. So, there I am in Mexico and that was the thoughts that went through my mind. Okay. If we can't do a premiere, who can help me figure this out? Because either A, I'm going to do nothing and lose a whole pile of money, have people pissed off at me because they're in the movie or they've got tickets to see the movie and blah, blah, blah. And so, I got to figure out a solution, but I definitely can't do this on my own. So, who can help me? So, no kidding, Adam, I took a sheet of paper, I made a list of all the people that came into my mind that might have an insight. Who do I know who's also in the movie business that maybe is having to pivot today?

Right.

Who do I know that's maybe in business that has to pivot? Who do I know that's running events? that maybe is pivoting? What are you guys all doing? Who do I know who does this and that and the other? And so literally, no kidding, while I was on the beach in Mexico, I started making phone calls. And I had a few really zany ideas that people had, some that I was like, not in a million years will I ever try that. Thank you though. You're a good friend. Bye. Then I had other people who had some really great ideas. And in fact, not only great ideas, but they even made me introductions to people within their networks who had the ability to execute, which was really kind of cool because even if you get the good ideas, I think that's always a fear in the back of our mind. I don't have the skill set, right?

How do I execute on this?

Yeah, how do I execute? And so, I had people literally, and this is the cool thing about COVID mind you, it's kind of like everything else. It sort of reminds me, Jay Leno once said, he said, you can see who your friends are by who would drive you to the airport at 2:00 AM, right? Those are the guys that will show up. And so, when I started making—

Jay Leno, you know, if you get to drive one of Jay's cars, I think it changes the equation just a little bit.

Yeah, there you go, right? Yeah, I'll be a friend for that. Funny enough, he was one of the guys that I interviewed and met because I used to coach Louie Anderson and they were buddies, but that's a whole other story. But anyway, so as I was calling around and I got these people who kind of had some ideas, I was surprised at how many of them said, oh, let me make a phone call, I'll take care of that for you. Even when I told some of them I'm with my family in Mexico, they're like, oh, you don't even need to worry about that. I got it. I'll arrange it. He'll call you. We'll sort it out, right? Friend of mine. So, I think that this is something also interesting about whether it's resilience or life. If we raise the level of our standard of friends, right? What do we say? You'll never do a million-dollar deal at a $10 breakfast. So, you get a higher level of friends, people that really— and by the way, those friendships, it goes both ways. It's not just me taking. I've got to serve too, right?

Mm-hmm.

That's how friendships work. But if you elevate the level of friends, you'll see that that idea of your network becomes your net worth. I think before it can ever become your net worth, your network becomes your safety net, and that's something totally different. And so, you can solve bigger problems by just who you're reaching out to and who you're collaborating with, and that made all the difference for me.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. The one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the Resilience Assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free Resilient Leader Assessment is go to It takes less than 3 minutes and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So, go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. I think you've given us a lot to chew on there and I want to ask you about your own rituals because—

Oh, yeah.

You know, again, when we think about practice. And how it is that practice is the preceding of something that manifests in real life. What does your practice look like for resilience? Do you have rituals?

You're talking daily?

Yeah, exactly. Maybe dig into one specific ritual that's really the most meaningful in your day. That would be a great place for us.

Well, I do agree that with probably something that maybe sounds a bit trite that we've said before, or that people have said before, is that the beginning of your day dictates your day. And so I really think it's important to start your day correctly. But one of the things that I— and I'm not sure maybe the best way to articulate this is I want to start the day with me in control rather than me in reaction mode. And so yes, in my home, I am the first one up in the morning. I'm the first one up. And what I will do is I start by exercising my brain before I exercise my body, but I do both. So I read every single day. I'm trying to— how do we say— and when I read, I'm not just reading to say, oh, this is a great book and put it on the shelf. I'm actually reading it. With the question in mind that if someone were to ask me this, how would I teach it? Would I teach it better? And is there things that, you know, that I would share a different perspective on this? So I almost am having a conversation as I read the book. And then from there, I'll put the book away. And while I'm working out, I'll also watch YouTube videos also on subject. I'm not going to just listen to music and rap out and whatever. Although that's fun, there's a place for that, but I'm still in my learning mode, right? And so when I'm working out, I'm the guy who has actually a laptop and a notebook while I'm lifting weights and doing other things. So I kind of find that that gets me into my zone and I feel like I'm in control and I also feel like I'm filling me with info. It's that idea that you need to expand who you are before you can expand what you have. And because I'm always feeling like I'm in expansion mode, whenever I hit a problem, I'm not really too worried about it. I just, again, get to my network or I know I can handle it because I'm bigger than where I've ever been before. And so that's really been useful for me. I do some meditation as well. But I know this is gonna sound crazy. My meditation, my greatest meditation, you're gonna laugh at this. It's kind of like what Mike Tyson said, you know, everybody has a plan till they get punched in the face, right?

I love that quote.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I also love his quote that says, if you were writing what you wrote on social media and you were saying it to the guy, you would get punched in the face. So be careful. But for me, whenever, like, I train every single weekday at lunchtime, Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And so when I come in the door, if you bring your problems with you, you're going to get hurt because your mind is in too many places at once. So whenever I come in there, you must be in the moment. You must be present. You must be even with your own breath. Everything must be in now. And so I find that for me, I know this is going to sound crazy for other people, but as I'm on the mat trying to avoid getting armbarred or choked out, I'm in a state of zen because I'm so present, right? Nothing else interrupts me. And so for me, that's a big kind of ritual for me. I need that to find myself.

Yeah, I think that's really— there's something really profound in that because there's an element of relaxation that you can choose to bring to even the most tense situations. I remember our son Max was a wrestler in high school and then did rugby, played rugby, and was involved in BJJ, Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And he had me He'd been bugging me forever and ever because I used to wrestle with him when he was a kid up through middle school, and then I stopped wrestling with him. He'd literally break me in half. And then he grew and he got to be 6'3. So I go to this studio with him and we get in there and he starts going through different moves with me. And I'm literally in 2 minutes, I'm full on, completely sweating, just totally dripping, just trying to keep him off me.

Yeah, yeah.

But at a certain point, I just realized that my more effective strategy, even with somebody that had that experience and that where I was really out of my league, was that when I relaxed, I was much more able to not only move fluidly and flow in ways that didn't allow him to achieve his ultimate goal, which was to armbar me or choke me out. Yeah. I survived a lot longer just being able to relax, assessing what was going on, adapting to what I was seeing, and then assimilating this new information. And I think in many ways, we are looking at an opportunity right now. That's one of the most important things we can do in our pivots.

I like what Bruce Lee said. Remember Bruce Lee said, be like water. And I think whenever we resist obstacles that come at us rather than just kind of feel what they are, the resistance actually is an activity of the mind as it is. And so oftentimes, just the resistance prevents us from finding solutions. And so sometimes it's better to surrender to what is and now deal with what is in the same way that we roll with it. So,

yeah,

I don't know. I'm just a firm believer that martial arts is life, right? It really is a reflection of life.

It's a microcosm. It's like so many things. We've got a friend of ours, Kute Blackson, who's writing a book on surrender right now, which is going to be out really soon. So great topic. Love the conversation. Really appreciate your presence today.

Oh, you're awesome.

Good to be reunited. And as we close out, I'll share for— as both as a reminder to myself as well as for folks that are first listening in. To me, the waking ritual is probably with— well, in my life, the most important by far. I believe that the quality of our lives is really equal to the quality of the rituals, the conscious practices, our consciously created practices, which ultimately become habits. They're things we don't have to think about, like the way you pick up the toothbrush with the same hand. You don't have to think about it. But when we don't have that level of comfort with something new, we've got to be really conscious about it. So, for me, 12 years ago or thereabouts, as I was transitioning out of practicing law and moving into some other area, not even having— much like the time we're living in now, I had a lot of uncertainty in my life at the time. I used to wake up in the morning and feel anxiousness at the start of the day, kind of put my feet on the floor and feel even some sense of dread at times. And that was a tough way to begin. And I started to make this one shift, this one change that took me about 10 seconds. And really, in many ways, was what you were saying earlier, Doug. It put me in a position where I was creating a blueprint for the day that I wanted to have. I knew that in order to produce that day, that the first thoughts I'd have, the first feelings, even more to the point for me, the first feelings of the day would either be something that I chose or something that would be chosen for me. Ritual is very simple. Wake up. That's the first thing. So, Doug, simple question. Did you wake up today?

Of course. Thank goodness for that.

I knew I'd get that kind of a real strong answer from you. Sometimes I ask people that.

I plan on doing it tomorrow as well.

Yeah, you plan on doing it. Good, good. Me too, buddy. Me too. And for everybody else that's listening and watching this, I realize you woke up today and I'm not sure in your mind that you realize what a blessing that was and how not only Was it a blessing? But it's also quite a thing to note. I'm not a big fan of comparison. And at the same time, you can realize every day that you wake up, that you're given that gift to wake, that there are people who are not waking up at that moment. There are people taking their last breath the moment you're consciously taking your first. So there's something special, even if the day is tough, even if what you've got ahead of you is a slog or it's painful, as many of us, Each day, it's filled with lots of those things. But regardless of that, in that moment, you can be in gratitude. What we talked about at the beginning of the show, you wake up, that's step 1. 2, it's easy to be in gratitude for almost anything and for lots of things in that same moment. And 3, what are the first words that come out of your mouth? And my grandmother used to say, start the day on the right foot. And I just couldn't think of a better way to start the day on the right foot Then the way that I speak my life into existence, because I think that the words that come out of our mouth very much is a prophecy. We're speaking our life into existence like in the Bible it says, and God said, let there be light. No, it's not a religious thing. It's just a question of the power of the spoken word, the power of vibration on the quantum level. So what are the words that come out of your mouth the first thing in the morning? I mean, for a lot of people, for me, it used to be like a grunt. I would ugh. I would say shit or something like that. Or it's looking after the dogs or it's getting coffee or it's running after the kids or whatever the things are we've got going on. What I'm going to sort of suggest that you do tomorrow as I do it tomorrow and as Douglas does it tomorrow is that we pause for a moment. You take 10 seconds when your feet hit the floor and you feel that gratitude for that moment. What are you going to say out loud? My words are the simple words I shared in my TED Talk. I love my life. I love my life. That's it. I love my life no matter what. So you could adopt those words. You could choose to try those on for size like I did a bunch of years ago, and I've been saying it ever since, or you could come up with something else. So Douglas, I'm going to put you to the task. I want you to tomorrow just email me or text me or something with the words, the first words that come out of your mouth tomorrow. Sure.

Well, I'm already kind of, what do you say, pre-planning that. And I'm kind of teetering between Today is my day, and now is my time. It's going to be one or the other two, right? Because this is it. You're right. I love your phrase also. I love my life. I think that's it. We got to find something like that. But I think the reason I chose this now is my time is because also, you know, I love that imagery also that you had about while you're taking your first breath, someone else is taking their last, and we've been given this time. So it is now. Now is my time. And you hear a lot of other people say reverse those words now, like N O W, and it spells one like we've won. That's pretty cool, right? Like, we get it. But I prefer to look at the first letters, N-O-W. N, no. O, other. W, way. No other way. So, if you don't use now, when are you gonna do it, right? This is it. Now is your time. Use it. Use it, right?

Couldn't agree more. Thank you, everybody. If you've got comments, questions, anything that you'd like to share, please go to adammarkel.com/podcast. And share your comments there. Of course, we'd love you to subscribe. And if you know somebody that would really benefit from listening or watching this conversation, please go ahead and share that as well. We love how the community has just expanded and grown with great and amazing people. So again, ciao for now, everybody, and thank you, Douglas. Thanks for being a guest.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcast. For more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot Community on Facebook at pivotfb.com.