Age of Disruption with Media & Communications Guru Joel Roberts

Welcome to the Conscious Pivot podcast with international speaker, business mentor, best selling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markell. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life.

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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, this is Adam Markell and welcome to the Conscious Pivot on Pivot Radio. I am so blessed to be here with you today and beyond my own blessing to spend time with you. I get to spend time with a dear friend, someone that I truly admire and love. He is one of these very rare individuals that has a great talent for teaching, but also has this incredible gift for sharing his special talents in a very, in a very real way, in a way that helps to draw the best out of other people. So for me, we're really connected at the heart level. So I love this man, I admire this man, and I'm not just bringing him on this show simply because I love and admire him so much as he has a story that's going to resonate with you guys. He has a story that is so relevant today. In fact, we were talking, just chatting before we hit the record button, about how right now, this is one of the most profound times of change that our world has known. And I'm a big fan of music. Love rock, I love folk. I grew up listening to Bob Dylan. My dad, I think the first Bob Dylan album that I ever, ever heard was Highway 61 revisited. And this other amazing album that had Lei Lalee Lei. I'm trying to remember the name of that one, but the first, the first Dylan song that I can ever remember actually impacting me from the standpoint of just hearing the words and having the words sort of wash over my soul was the times they are changing. And when Dylan wrote those words and whenever it was in the early 60s, they were very profound, they were poignant, they were relevant. And here it is some 50 plus years later. It was right around the time of my birth. So I am certainly now dating myself, officially carbon dating, but no truer words could be sung or said than those words right now. And I think one of the most challenging parts about the world as we're experiencing it together right now, is the fact that there is this change, this ever present change, and there also feels like there's this sort of a battle between those that are yearning for change and those that are resisting change. And the only thing that I know, like I know my own name, is that change is here to stay. And so how you, how you deal with it, how you embrace it, how you utilize it is really the subject of this podcast, the Conscious Pivot. So do you, do you allow fear to get in the way of your being able to work with change as it shows up or to be able to see change ahead of it showing up for you? There's so many facets to that. And clearly what we've seen even recently with the elections in North America, was, if anything, a referendum on this season of change. This season of reinvention is so upon us. And I couldn't think of anybody to be able to share something with our audience that was more skilled and, and would be a better person to convey this message than the gentleman that I get to share with you right now. His name is Joel Roberts. As I said, he is a very special human. He spent many, many years behind the mic, 10,000 hours behind a microphone, either on radio and TV. He's probably best known in the radio world for being a talk show host with KABC radio in Los Angeles. And he has an incredible story of reinvention, a pivot story, as we call it, and what he's been able to do now, after adjusting, let's call it to change, is truly remarkable. It's inspiring, but it's so much more than inspiring. And so I'm going to let him share that story with you and then we're going to have a conversation today. It's going to actually rocky world. That is my firm intention that people's lives today will be changed because they've been able to hear your story, Joel, and can also hear some of the wisdom that you've shared with companies like Lockheed Martin. I know you've been the media coach for some of the biggest, biggest books, authors of the biggest best selling books, including Chicken Soup for the Soul. You've done remarkable work all over the world, globally, corporations and individuals. I feel so lucky to call you friend and, and also to be able to share you with our audience. So without further ado, and here's the microphone. Joel. Joel, welcome.

Thank you. Thank you. Adam, my brother. Well, you know what, it's funny, man, what you were saying about Bob Dylan. And I just want to tell people I don't have it in front of me on the Internet, but come gather around people wherever you roam and admit that the waters around you have grown and accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone. If your time is worth saving Then you better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone. Cause the times they are a changin. Yes. And I guess that was 65, and we were both. You were being born, and I was just a little bit older than being born. But I tell you what, right on. And this is a season like that. You're right. It's a season like that. And I. You have an incredibly moving story. And since I'm a broadcaster, I'm going to insist you tell your story, too. So we'll trade for us, man. But what I think I'd love to do, you know, I come from la. I live in Nashville now. But for the moment, let's pan back, as they say in Los Angeles, just for a little bit, because I want to tell everybody that's watching this broadcast, if you're worried about your future, if you're thinking you got to reinvent yourself, if you're thinking that you're going to have to pivot, if you're not sure how to do it, if you're not even certain whether you'll have to do it, let alone how to do it, I just want to establish one bit of news right away. You are not alone. You are not alone. And so I'm going to pan back a little bit so that you can feel like you're in a larger context and in a way, that's challenging news. But the work that Adam and I do together, I think will make it good news. So what am I talking about? I'm talking about global trends, man. I'm talking about the fact that in the last 10, 15 years, and God knows, the last five, there has been tremendous outsourcing, tremendous job displacement. The digital economy is like changing everything under the sun. And maybe we love it, maybe we don't. Maybe we love the age of disruption. Maybe you can get a ride for cheaper than in a taxi by going on Lyft. Great. Maybe you can order on Amazon and you get a discount over bookstores. Maybe cars are going to be driverless. Maybe a lot more seminars are delivered via technology like this instead of having to fly there and stay in a hotel. And maybe all that's cool, but I think there's something else that needs to be said, which is there are a lot of people in our country, especially who live in areas that were big in manufacturing, and they have seen that sector of the economy either dwindle or die out altogether. And they are, in large part, people who voted for President elect Donald Trump. Whatever we may think about Donald Trump, this much we know. A lot of people feel dislocated, don't they? A lot of people are in pain. A lot of people don't know where their next job is going to be. A lot of people don't know how to translate their current skill set into some other arena. Things are changing. And I'll be open about one thing. An issue that I take with Donald Trump's promises to bring jobs back to America is I'm not so sure a lot of those jobs are coming back. And I'll give you a couple of examples. Maybe they'll come back. And Adam, hey, man, if they come back, I will be the first to stand up and go tell it on the mountain and sing hallelujah in every language that I can. But I'll tell you what two interesting things. When you and I are done today, and I'm in no rush, neither am I. Okay, when you and I are done today, where am I going? I'm going to the Apple Store, because here's a little secret. I got two new MacBook Pro Pros recently to compare models. And during the Christmas season, Apple let you have longer than they usually do. So I got two new, and I'm keeping one and bringing one back today. Why am I bringing this up? Because on those boxes, brother, they say, designed in Cupertino, California, which is 15, 20 minutes from where I grew up. I grew up near Stanford, but those things weren't made in Cupertino, California. And in my garage is a beautiful mountain hybrid Trek bike. And it says right on it, designed in Waterloo, Wisconsin. It wasn't made in Waterloo, Wisconsin. Those computers, for the most part, were made in China, although the components come from all over the place. Those bike frames were made in Taiwan. Okay, so here's the deal where I take issue with Donald Trump is are those jobs coming back? He's supposed to have done something with carrier air conditioning in Indiana. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe Ford's not going to move a big plant to Mexico, which could be great. Maybe, maybe not. It's complicated because consumers are going to be paying more for goods. All right, we'll leave that debate aside, but here's what we know for sure. He's right about one thing. This was a referendum on change. This was the people of America saying, we're afraid it's taken off without us. And a lot of people are left behind. And I got left behind. You got left behind. We both recovered. So let's talk about that. So what did I get left behind from? I got left behind from the job that I had wanted since. I don't know. Okay. When I was like five growing up in the Bay Area and I'm listening to the San Francisco Giants broadcast on my transistor radio, literally under my quilt at 11 o' clock at night because I don't want my parents to know I'm awake. I would. When the game was over, I would broadcast it to myself. So it's kind of like not a big accident that I got into radio. And then I became a talk show host in la, the radio capital of planet Earth. And then I had an accident and I worked all through the ranks and I went into prime time, man. Afternoon drive, Monday through Friday, 4 to 7pm Talking to a quarter of a million people with a partner that I love working with. It was exciting. I never would have left it. That's capital. N E V E R. Never. And then I was at an event, standing in front of a big bank of loudspeakers. The audio engineer hit the wrong button. I lost 50% of my hearing in 10 seconds. It's gone. It has not returned. And I developed a very severe condition called tinnitus, or tinnitus, which is noise in your head. And there's no cure for that. So the best ear doctors in the world told me, we can't help you, but you can't go back to wearing headphones 30 hours a week. It's going to make this worse. I was 40.

So hang on a second. I want to just so that we slow this up for its appropriate impact. You are at an event, meaning you're there for your own personal development at this point, you're a KABC radio talk show host. You're at the top of the game. Let's just say you don't have any trouble getting into the best restaurants. They know who you are. There's tables waiting. There are people that want to spend their time with you, schmooze you, use you. I mean, you're at that place that most people work their entire lives aspiring to get to. And you're on your own time at an event, and you walk past a bank of speakers and what happens?

Joel, let me clarify one thing. Everything you said is almost entirely accurate. In fact, the show that I had done on KABC had just been replaced by a sports talk show. But that was fine with us. I had one of the best credits in America and I had offers coming in from all over the place. So I was staying in radio. I Probably could have even stayed in Los Angeles, because the sports talk incarnation that the radio station went through was not long lived. I could have gone back, okay? So at that very moment, I had a very substantial buyout. I mean, enough for me to live for a couple of years without working, which ain't my style to not work. So I was doing great. Got to continue in radio, no doubt, whether in la, maybe New York, maybe Chicago. I had my agent calling me all the time. Then I'm at an event as an invited media guest. The audio engineer hits the wrong button, I get blasted. I'm just precisely in the wrong effing place. I mean, like, literally, I was in a 10 foot area that was just the wrong freaking place. I knew something was wrong. But this was down in Palm Desert, and my mom lived at a retirement community in Palm Desert at that time, and I was staying with her. And the next morning I woke up and I heard a helicopter overhead. And I thought, well, I haven't heard that around here before. And I'm lying in bed, you know, in the sofa bed in her den, and I'm thinking, man, what is up? There's this helicopter overhead and it's been hovering over us for like 20 minutes. Is it a police helicopter? Is it a media helicopter? Is there some crime scene going on? So I got up, put my shorts on, went outside, looked up, no helicopter, cloudless sky. It was the most dramatic moment of my life. I looked up and I thought, I don't. I don't understand this. What. What am I hearing? What I was hearing was the beginning of a season in purgatory that I cannot describe. And I have a decent descriptive capacity. I had a severe condition called tinnitus. And they brought me to a place in Los Angeles called the House Ear Clinic, which is like the Mayo Clinic of ears.

So for those that don't know what tinnitus is, this is ringing in the ear. In essence, yes.

Ringing. I had a jet engine.

Jet engine.

It can be pitches. It can be. I had. Literally, I could not. Within four days, I could no longer hear human speech unless you really shouted at me. And my doctors, who ironically were listeners of mine from the radio, said to me, there's nothing we can do for you. There's absolutely nothing we can do for you. We're going to put you on steroids because maybe it'll reduce the inflammation in your middle ear, but that's not even the issue. And thank you for all the great years of listening that you gave us. We wish there was something we could do for you. Good luck.

So in essence, the doctors are saying to you, you're done. Your profession as you know it, how you earn a living, your identity, you know, without getting into the, you know, sort of the more in, the more ego based things of it. I mean, what you've been doing, not just for money, but to create a fulfilling career is over as you know.

It, in that moment completely.

Yeah.

And it's everything you just said. You did a very good job of kind of covering the bases, number one. First of all, I have no problem with ego gratification. My philosophy about ego is put your ego in the service of something higher and let the good times roll. I have taught on your stage more times than neither one of us can count. I enjoy the heck out of it, okay? I got no problem enjoying it. I got no problem. The crowds love me, I love them. I don't have stage fright. I have stage release. I don't have a problem with ego. But yeah, it was my identity and I had this four letter appendage after my name. K, A, B, C. And you do get the table in the restaurant and you do get buckets of mail and you do get women expressing an interest in you. It's just true. I was a radio star and it ended in 10 seconds at an event in Palm Springs and it was over, right?

So.

The immediate thing is not what do I do next for my career, but do I ever recover from this? Some people don't. I have a very good friend, he would not mind me saying this, who owned a restaurant on Maui called Stella Blues, if you've ever heard of Stella Blues on Maui, his name was Ray Ennis. And Ray suffered from the same condition and took his own life. It breaks me up to think about him because when I heard that he had taken his own life, I don't necessarily disagree with what he did. So for four months I'm in this acoustic freaking hell. There is no promise whatsoever that I'll ever make get out of it. I'm not even thinking about what's my next career move. I'm thinking about do I survive this? Do I off myself? But after four months, it began to subside. And after about half a year, it was within a range. Like on 1 to 10, it was kind of like 2, 3. I could live with it. So then I'm saying to myself, now what? I can't go back in the air and wear headphones. It would irritate my auditory nerves. And man, brother, I loved being a broadcaster, okay? I loved It. I love the studio. I love the audience. I'll tell you something that may seem bizarre. When you turn on a microphone, it emits a smell.

I was just gonna ask you.

No one else can smell it, but I could smell the difference between a hot mic and a not hot mic. And that studio with that acoustic glass and the screener behind it and the engineer behind the other one, and that sign that says on air, man, it was me, and I was good at it. You don't get to prime time in Los Angeles by accident. I hope people will just allow that little bit of ego, if you want to call it. I was good at it. And it was over. I mean, it was over. When this finally went down, they said, look, we don't have to tell you this, but we're just going on record, and we'd love to be listening to you again, but don't do that, brother. Do something else. So, okay. Why? Well, here's what I want to share with people. This is probably the most important thing that I think I can share in terms of mindset. See, Adam, I had to say to myself, my job is over. That career is over. If I'm not my job, I can get that. If I'm not my career, what am I? Who am I?

Yes.

And my answer was, I'm not saying this came to me in two minutes. I'm saying I had a struggle with this, but finally I realized there was good news. I'm not a job. I'm not a career. I'm a talent.

Hey, Joel, hang on one second for there. Right there. Because I think this is super important. You know, we will hear stories that are inspiring. You can, you know, YouTube and you'll find them. And you go to events and you find them and you hear them and all that's incredible. But. But it is so condensed. You know, there's this moment where the rug gets pulled out from under you, and then the next moment, you've. You've discovered the wisdom of the ages, you know? You know, you found yourself, you found what you needed to, and then you can go forward. I don't want. I'd like to sort of pull the accordion back for just a second and give our folks a little bit of a sense of the time period. And without getting into maybe the great detail of it, just stretch it out for a second to say, when you go from that moment where the doctors are telling you that 10 seconds, just. By the way, the ringing isn't going to stop. It's not going to stop tomorrow. You'd be lucky if it stopped, because there's not much we can do about it if it did stop. So all the prayers and everything else, and three, four months later, it subsides. But meanwhile, you now have to change your career. And yes, your identity is tied to that as well. And a lot of other things. Give us a sense of what it is that. What was the process that you went through? Even if that process was nothing more than walking around in circles or riding your bike or talking to your wife or what was it that helped you to go from the rug getting pulled out from under you to. To that moment where, yeah, you have some new clarity. Because, you know, the book that you and I have talked about for a while, which is the subject of this podcast, which is this book, Pivot, you know, the conscious pivot is divided up into three pieces. One is the clarity piece, which is really about the things that we believe about ourselves. The second is about momentum and what is it that we do? What are our behaviors that help us to create results in our life? And the third we'll talk about later is really about our practice, our conscious practices, which I call rituals. So I want to get to the point where you've got some clarity, because that's where I think we're going to meet people. We're talking about the times. They are changing. Well, right now, what's happening in the world is, as you said, there's this change that's upon us. There are jobs that are going away. There are jobs that are never going to come back. There are people's lives that are changing in ways that they couldn't predict, just like you couldn't predict when you walked past that sound, know that bank of speakers that your life was about to change 10 seconds later. So if you could unpack that for us just a bit more.

Well, I felt like it was the most unfair, unjust thing that had ever happened to me. I felt like it challenged my experience of God. I felt like I was being tortured. I felt like I was being tormented for some sin that I had no idea what it could have been. I felt that even if I had committed some sin, there was no way the punishment fit the crime. I mean, people off themselves from this. And in the beginning, you know, I, like, I went online and then I just stopped going online, man. Because you don't want. You don't want to know. You don't want to know the stories. I joined a tinnitus support group. I went once and I thought, screw this. This was not my identity. I'm not some condition. And I screamed at God a lot. I mean, I flipped the bird, you know, I'm Jewish. The word Israel in Hebrew means he shall struggle with God. That's what it means. Yisra' el in Hebrew means he shall struggle with God and man. I guess I was fitting the vocation because I could not possibly explain or account for a blow like this. And you have no idea if it's going to end. The best in the world cannot help you. They throw their hands up, they wish you good luck, you're on your own.

I'm 40, 39 or 40. Did people in your profession, people that your colleagues or friends, did people stop being so friendly or did the phone ring a little less or the mail pile shrink a bit?

Of course. I mean, I was no longer. I had recently gone off the air due to the sports talk thing. But like I said, I had no question whatsoever I'd be back. And it was fine with me to move to New York or Chicago. I thought that would be fun. But, yeah, I was not of any use to anyone anymore. Man. I was barely of any use to myself. This. I'll tell you what. Here's an image. You ever had your cable go out on your TV and you get white noise?

Yep.

Turn it all the way up to the maximum volume that your speakers can generate, sit across from that and don't move for four months. That was it. That was it. Couldn't hear human speech. I'd be walking my dog at three in the morning because I never slept very much anyway. The cops in West LA got to know me. Oh, that's the guy who was walking his dog at 3 in the morning. He's not a burglar. He's cool. He's okay. I don't even know how I survived. I'll tell you one thing which people may not find very satisfying, but I'll. You want to know why I survived? Curiosity.

Say more about that.

What were you curious what my life would be like if I ever recovered, but I didn't know that I would.

So what's interesting about that, Joel, is that, you know, I know you're a spiritual person, and my spiritual practice is very important to me. And I read and I think about it quite a lot. And one of the things that I've been looking at in one of the books I started really diving into in the last few months again, because I read it before was. Is a book called the Untethered Soul. Michael Singer. What's really interesting in that book is that he talks about how it is that we can observe ourselves and being in the seat of observing ourselves and in all states, especially when our mind is reacting from a place of fear. And we all know what that feels like. And that word curiosity is really important, I think, because what I wanted for us to do with our time today is not only to unpack the process that you use to reinvent, but then to also talk about on a macro level, how it is that people that are facing the challenges that they are right now, both the ones that are upon them and the ones that are yet to show up, that they can be better prepared to deal with what they've got on their plate. And equally as important, they can be that much more prepared to deal with the stuff that's going to show up on their plate in an hour or in 10 seconds or in 10 weeks, whatever it is. Right. And I think curiosity is a great word because it describes part of your process, which was that you were developing some objectivity or at least some distance to observe. And what you were curious about was, you know, how am I going to handle this?

Right?

Will I survive or will this kill me? You know, knowing that old. I think it's Nietzsche that said, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, or whoever it was that's the true author of that statement. But, you know, aren't you just a little curious? I mean, people that are listening for this, watching this right now, aren't you just a little curious how it is that you're going to handle what's coming or what's already shown up? Because it is a great. It's a great drama. What's more dramatic than our own lives when you think about it, Right? So it's interesting to be that we are in many ways voyeur. You know, our society is. There's so many people who are observing others in life through Facebook and through, you know, other. Other social channels, YouTube, whatever it is, but that they're in observation of others living, you know, failing, succeeding, doing all kinds of stuff. And this is what I think you're describing at some level is that you were curious about and observing your own drama as it was unfolding. So give us. Give us a sense of how that, you know, what. What was the process that you used from that point where. Where your ears sort of. The ringing died down just enough for you to be able to then have this, you know, you were no. No longer sort of in fight or flight mode, so to speak, Right. And then you Were able to have that curiosity take you forward.

Well, those three steps of yours. Clarity, momentum, rituals. So at a certain point, I did get some clarity, which was the good news, that it appeared that this hideous thing was decreasing. So for the first time, I began to say to myself, I may have a life after this. I didn't know what the life would be. I didn't know what the career would be. I didn't know anything, but I'm gonna survive this sucker. Okay?

So, first of all, I'm not in mortal danger. This is big. I want to try to just sort of dive into it. Each piece. I'm not going to die from this.

I mean, this won't kill you, but a lot of people kill themselves. Yeah, but I was never there.

Yeah.

For whatever reason, I just wasn't. But so clarity. I started to actually get excited about a realization. And it was what I started to tell you before that I would love to expand on when I said to myself, I'm not a job. I'm not that particular job. I'm not even that particular career. Radio broadcaster, talk show host. What am I? I thought, I'm a talent. I'm a very unique constellation of talents. And I'm not being spiritually correct when I say that I think all human beings, Unique constellations of talents. But I knew. I'm just going to be really straight with people. I knew that I was a talented guy and that I had gotten where I had gotten by virtue of that talent. It's not like you have a degree in broadcasting or whatever, and that ever does you any good. First of all, my degree was not in broadcasting. Second of all, most people with degrees in broadcasting never go anywhere in broadcasting. So let's dispel that myth right away, okay? But I knew, and I hope that people feel the same way about themselves. I knew I was a talented guy. And so at a certain point, even though I didn't know where it would plug in, Adam, I knew it would plug in somewhere. That the world would find a use for me or that I find a problem that I could solve uniquely. And I want people to look at themselves that way, because they may think, well, I'm a job. I. You know, you. You were a hotshot attorney, okay? And you're. You're a shark, and you're a tough dude. You know, people who know you now and love you now would probably have a hell of a hard time recognizing you if they saw a video of you. Then they think, this is not the same, and they'd be Right. You're not. Okay. But in addition to having a command of the law, in addition to being able to argue a case, in addition to being able to do all those things which you and I associate with the career called lawyer, you also, whether you knew it or not, had simultaneously acquired a skill set that could be plugged into a different arena. You might not have even known it until you went home and said to your wife, if I don't get out of this career, it's going to be my spiritual death. Although I think maybe she was the one who said to you, if you don't get out of this career, it's going to be all of our spiritual death. Whatever.

I came home and I told you.

If I don't stop doing this, you're going to be widow. Said to himself, in the process of becoming. I'm sorry. The audio went out there for a moment. Go ahead.

No, you keep going, Adam.

The audio went. Okay. So you said to yourself, I can do something else. I knew that I had a talent in the communications field, speaking, writing. I didn't know where it would end up. But then an event changed my life. Mark Victor Hansen of Chicken Soup for the Soul fame. His office called me up because I had had them on my airwaves like, six or seven times. I had Mark and Jack on my airways. Mark and Jack Canfield before. They were huge, and they were always great. So he called me up and he said, hey, we're doing this seminar down in Anaheim, and you ought to come down just to hang out for a few hours. And I said, what? What's the seminar? And they said, it's called how to. How to build your Speaking and Writing Empire. Why don't you come this Sunday? And I said, maybe. I can't promise. I had just recovered. I'm, like, in my fifth month from the accident. And I had a girlfriend at the time, not my wife. And I said, I don't know if I'm gonna go. You know. She said, well, maybe you should go. So I went. So I'm sitting with 300 people, and they're talking about how to attract media. And suddenly, truly, in the middle of a sentence. This is not a figure of speech. Mark stops in the middle of a sentence, and he says, wait, I'm up here talking about media. And now we got a guy sitting in the audience who just left primetime on KBC Radio. Joel, you come up and talk about media. And I said, when? And he said, now. And I literally took a Marriott hotel napkin and a hotel pen And I wrote as quickly as I could eight words on that napkin. Those were my notes. And everybody's applauding. They don't even know me. I haven't had a chance to think about any of this. I go up on the stage and I start to talk, just from my heart, from my experience, about A, what it takes to get invited onto a high level talk show, and B, how to deliver a killer interview when you get there. And suddenly I experienced what I would call this bifurcated consciousness. There's the part of me that's still talking and there's the part of me that's looking down on the whole scene and saying, this is a business.

Pay attention. Now.

Mark likes to make this gesture. And I'm still talking, man. And suddenly there's a part of me that's looking at the me that's talking and saying, dude, don't miss this. Yes. And I saw these 300 people, man, and they're like, you know, they're furiously scribbling. And I'm just vamping from stuff that's been in my DNA since I don't know when. And then I heard myself say something and I thought, who's saying that? But here's what I said. I said, and therefore I have decided to do a seminar of my own called Excellence in Media. I've never done a freaking seminar in my life. And some guy raised his hand and said, great, how much? And I thought, I thought, well, they were charging like six. Whatever it was, whatever they were charging. I just named that number because I figured these people have already paid that they can't consider that outrageous. Everybody said, great. When I said, well, I need to confirm with the hotel seminar space, so I'm going to give out my phone number and I'll be in touch. Then I left and I drove to my girlfriend's house and we're having dinner And I said, I did a really weird thing today. She said, what? I said, well, I pivoted. Yeah, in a big freaking way. She said, well, what did you do? I said, I announced I'm going to do a seminar of my own. And she like puts down her fork and says, on what? I said, media, you do know a lot about media. And I said, yeah, well, I've never done a seminar in my whole life. And here's this fateful line. She said, worry, probably nobody will come.

That's why she's your ex girlfriend, right?

That's why I'm married to the woman over there instead of her.

Exactly. Hey, Joel, I Want to pause right there, just to rewind one thing so that folks are getting the process. This first step is, as we talked about, is clarity, creating clarity. So you were, you had this accident and took you out, and it's months later and you're lucky to be alive. And you're just kind of doing everything you can to survive at that point, you know, working, managing your own mind and your thoughts and all the rest of it. But at a certain point you have sort of a more conscious moment, an even more conscious moment, right? The aha, one that handed clap where you say to yourself, I'm not, I'm not my job. The identity I assigned to myself as the KABC radio talk show, blah, blah, blah, is not who you are, it's what you did. It's not who you are. What you are is a talent. And then of course, you said that your personal belief, your spiritual beliefs, that everybody is a talent, that's just something we all have to own, right? So you at that moment were able to own the fact that you were a talent. And I want to point that out because clarity is about beliefs. And much of why we're unclear in our lives is that we believe things about ourselves that are based on what people have taught us or the people that shared their beliefs, that became our beliefs. It's our programming, it's all of those things. But ultimately, many of those things we believe are not who we really are. So for me, my own thing was, I believe that I was a lawyer because I went into the phone Booth as a 20 something year old and I got out of the phone booth three years after law school, passing the bar, and I walked out of the phone booth with a suit and tie and voila, I was a lawyer, right? That became my identity for almost 20 years. But what I realized through my own process, which is different than yours, my process was instead of it being 10 seconds to sort of having that pivotal moment where rug gets pulled out. For me, it was more like 10 years of feeling like I was dying on the inside, that my spirit and my soul were shriveling up. So that prolonged period of pain led to one of those pivotal moments where I came home and I said, you know, I had said to Randy, if I don't stop doing what I'm doing, you're going to be a widow. And then lo and behold, a few weeks later, you know, I have a near sort of what I thought was a near death experience in the hospital, thinking I'm having a heart attack and I'm really just having an anxiety attack. But ultimately, it was getting my attention in a different way than the universe chose to get your attention. Right. And then through a process which started with getting clarity on what I really believed about myself, I came to understand that my true belief is that I'm a teacher, that I love to be teaching people to counsel. That was the part about law that I actually loved. So then, you know, sort of in my late 40s, I go back into the phone booth, back into the, you know, the. You know, instead of I go in as Clark Kent and I merge as Superman, I go in as Adam Markell, the lawyer, or soon to be former lawyer. And I walk out of that phone booth as a teacher and somebody that wanted to teach in this space that you actually teach. And that's obviously how we've become friends and colleagues. So the first piece of this that I'm getting from you is that your clarity came in the form of a belief. And that belief that you adopted was that you are not a job, you are not the thing you are doing, the identity you assigned to it, but you are the talent. Yes.

Amen, brother.

So I got that right.

Beautifully said. Amen.

Beautiful. So now you get called up on stage out of nowhere. You know, it's no coincidence in my mind, but you get to see yourself in this new light. Give us the next sort of order of events, because we go from having some clarity to obviously putting that clarity into action. Yeah, this momentum piece.

Yes.

Okay.

So this was on a Sunday, and I had given out my phone number, and I'm having dinner with my girlfriend, and she says, well, don't worry. Probably nobody will call. The next morning, I had a prearranged breakfast with a friend of mine in West LA at a great pancake place called John O Groats. And I got home at 11 in the morning from breakfast, and my voicemail was full. I thought, people are coming to my seminar. I better do a seminar. So I had driven by this hotel in Los Angeles, and it looked nice, so I called them up, the Hotel Nico on La Cienega Boulevard. And I said, my name's Joel, and, like, do you have any seminar space, you know, for 25 people or so? They said, yes, and, you know, we'll send you a this and that. I said, I've never done this. I mean, what do you need from me? You want a credit card? You know. Anyway, now, here's the fun part. So initially, it was not a large group. 20 people, 25, something like that. And guess what? So I made course books. So they all started 9am Saturday morning. They sit down, and I have written on the board, do not open your course book until I ask you to, please. So they've got the course books in front of them. I go up in front of the room and I said, everybody, please open to page one. Some guy said, I think mine must be defective. I have a blank sheet of paper. Some lady says, mine's blank, too. I said, I'm terribly sorry. Please go to the next page. Guy raises his hand. I don't know what's up, but it's all blank. And I looked at the room and I said, great. There is no curriculum. You're the curriculum. You want to learn how to do media? Come up, sit in the stool opposite me, and I'm going to interview you when we're going to generate this course. Because I don't know how to lecture about this stuff, but I do know how to be it. Who's first? And, man, by noon, I had to say to them, go to lunch already. We were addicted. This was fun. I mean, it was fun.

Exclamation point.

Yeah. And I'm like, I'm a conversational choreographer. I'm an artist. I'm showing them how to do it. I'm listening to them talk about their book or their concept or their cause or their creed or their candidate or their whatever. And it's not yet what it could be. And I take it and give it back them. And I'm like, I've been trying to say that for five years. And I'm like, have fun. And man, it just took off.

So you started down this path and you had this first, let's say, a fundamental belief that you're a talent and that you know, that God, spirit, the universe would put your talent to use. That kept you going long enough for there to be this intervention, this thing to happen, serendipity, coincidence, whatever you want to call it. Right Again, I don't believe in accidents. And so you show up, you end up doing something crazy, which is to declare out loud, hey, I'm going to do a program. I'm going to teach people. I'm going to share what I know. Right? Because you knew how to be that, as you said. And then you book a room, people show up. You, the curriculum you had planned does not exist. Now throw it out the window. It's all blank pages. And you've got to pivot yet again. You've got to adjust your course, correct your course and keep going forward. And now you have more belief that this is fun. You're doing exactly what you want to be doing. You know, you're adding to those beliefs. Is that correct?

Yeah. And, you know, it's like a ladder. You get some objective evidence with your right foot and you get confirmed by the universe. Like, people show up or they pay you, and then that enables you to say to yourself, I'm going to take a risk with my left foot. So you take a risk and you go up one more rung in the ladder and then you say, hey, I'm alive. I'm still here. You know, I love that Elton John song. I'm Still Standing. I love that song. And then you go, okay. And that risk pays off. And that confirms your beliefs. So now you're here. And then you take another and it's. You go up there. And I was reinventing myself within, reinventing myself. And I'll tell you about that.

Please.

So suddenly I'm a media coach. Well, I have a true confession. I didn't want to be a media coach. I really didn't. It's a reductive part of me. I could do it, but there's so much more to me.

So.

I had never really worked in the corporate arena before, but I got a call from Novartis Pharmaceuticals that they had invented a drug that had not even been approved by the fda, the Food and Drug Administration, and that the guy, one of the inventors, was a real introvert. And ABC News had informed Novartis that they were going to do a 20 minute segment on this breakthrough cancer drug, whether Novartis liked it or not. And they thought, oh, God, we are in trouble. We don't even want this coverage. They didn't have a choice. They got my name through a guy named Rick Frischman that we both know. And I got a call. This lady says, hi, I'm Gloria Stone from Novartis Pharmaceuticals. And she waits like I'm supposed to know who they are. They're huge. They're like the third biggest in the world. But I didn't know who they were. They said, we've got this guy, we need to prepare him. And we hear you're the best media coach in America. I'm like, okay, thank you. I mean, I said, where is he? Oregon. Anyway, I did this one thing went well. Five months later, I got a call from that lady. I had forgotten all about it. She said, she doesn't even say hello. She said, hi, we got approved. And I'm thinking, who got approved? I didn't know what to say. You got approved. What do I say? Congratulations on your self esteem. I mean, I didn't know who got approved for what. Then I realized, oh, it's that lady from the drug company. She said, I want to send you on a tour to talk to about 35 different spokespersons all over the country. And here was one of the big mistakes I ever made. I called her, oh, I'm a hotshot now. So I said, well, that's gonna cost you. And she said, how much? And I thought. And I said, $100,000. And she said, oh, for Christ's sake, fine. Their budget was half a mil. Yeah, I didn't know. Okay, fine, I didn't know. I forgive myself. So I went around, I came back. Here comes another pivot. I come back to their campus in New Jersey, and the next day, there's a guy that's going to be on the Today show, and I've just trained him. My limo is waiting to take me back to the Upper east side of Manhattan. The following day. I'm going to go home. I'm done. It's five in the afternoon. I'm zipping up my Toomey briefcase. The door opens, and in walks this lady with 12 people behind her. I'm, like, looking at my watch and I'm saying, my limo is outside. I'm done. This guy's ready. He's cooked. We don't want to train him anymore. She said, no, no, no, no, no, no. She's got 12 people behind her. I said, who are these people? Are they going to be on the air tomorrow? She said, trust me, they'll never be on the air as long as they live. I said, then who are they? She said, our brand managers of our 12 biggest brands. And by God, if they could articulate our selling propositions the way you do, we'd be a better company. Sit down. So I sat down, and one hour later, I had a different business. Adam. I literally was dizzy. That's not a figure of speech. I'm in the back of the limousine after I've worked with these 12 brand managers who will never be in the media as long as they live. And suddenly I say to myself, oh, my God. I know something that is useful beyond the media. I know something that's useful in sales, in marketing, in print, in speaking. This whole thing of media consulting is a tiny fraction of what I know or of the usefulness of what I know. And I would have never realized this on my own. She taught me this. But I'm Sitting in the back of the limo, going back to Manhattan, and I'm literally nauseated, dizzy, because I'm thinking, holy moly, I'm sitting on a big freaking thing here. She changed my life. She changed my business.

Yeah. That you never, never would have seen had it not been for everything that sort of all the pivots that led to that point. So you get this. This expansive view of the world, where a more expansive view of the world is what. What I'm hearing you said was the end result of how these things were playing out for you.

And then this will take me 60 seconds, but I've got even one more punchline. Wow. So then I worked in pharma for a number of years. They bought our home. Okay, whatever you may think, I worked in areas of it that I thought were very ethical, but sometimes I had some conflicted feelings about it. But anyway, so one day I'm sitting at this big conference in Denver, and there are four or five media consultants training hundreds of doctors. And the word has come down from the federal government that the regulations on pharmaceutical companies are going to get a lot stricter and that we're not going to be able to coach these people the way we've been coaching them. So everybody's crying into their beers because they have all defined themselves as pharmaceutical, media and communications consultants. I'm not crying into my beer. I'm thinking, that's not me. That's not what I do. What I do is I take people who speak technical language and I translate it into plain English. I'll just do it someplace else. How about Lockheed? They got technical people called aeronautical engineers who need to speak to people called senators and congressmen and generals of the Pentagon who only understand plain English. I'll go there. I'm not a pharmaceutical consultant. I'm not a media consultant. My skill set is to translate anything into compelling English.

Noel, correct me if I'm wrong, but it feels to me like, and I'm getting this for the first time from you now, all the times we've spoken and I've listened to you and watched you work with people, I've never gotten this part of it, which is that at the beginning, the initial thing that caused you to have to pivot, change your career, all that was fairly devastating. Took some time, took some processing for you to gain clarity. Started with a new belief, but then ultimately, it seems as though one pivot led to the next. Almost the way dominoes tip into other dominoes. So to the point where you're at, when you're describing, what you're saying now about yourself is that you were no longer surprised. It didn't come as any great surprise, that when another pivot or another change, let's say, was going to manifest itself, you immediately knew that there was another opportunity. Meaning you went right to curiosity. And then curiosity immediately opened up sort of a new vista that said, hey, this is not the end of something. This is actually the beginning of something new. That Right. Am I close?

Yeah. And the thing is, this is what I want our viewers to get. I just. I mean, I wish I could reach out and just grab every one of them by the heart. Don't think of yourselves as a job. Don't think of yourselves as a career. Think of yourselves as a constellation of talents. And it can be plugged in here, it can be plugged in there. Constantly look for new problems to solve. The definition of an entrepreneur is somebody who looks at some small corner or some big corner of the universe and says, wait a minute. There's got to be a better way. Yeah, there's got to be a better way.

Well, here's a distinction, Joel. Right? You put your finger right on it. For people right now. They're always, you know, I think people are trained to want to find opportunities, to look for opportunities. But what I'm hearing you say is, in essence, because the main objective of a business owner, an entrepreneur, is somebody who can solve problems profitably, right?

Yes.

Instead of looking for opportunities, really what you're doing is looking for problems. You're looking for something to solve for which you are the solution. So you seek out to see, where is there a pain? Where is there a problem? And ask the question, which you always ask. How am I? Or in what way am I the solution to that problem or that pain? Yes.

Right on, man. When I realized that pharma was going to dry up due to the regulatory constraints, and all these other people at that conference in Denver are weeping into their beers, I'm thinking, I know how to translate technical language into plain English. Who else needs that? I'm going there. I'm the son of a famous rocket scientist. I learned how to translate technical language into plain English so that my father could talk to my mother my whole life. And this was it. It's like you talk about the dominoes, and then I want to get to something you talk about called the rituals. But the momentum comes from the dominoes, and you can't predict the dominoes. But you've got to have your lenses focused, man. You got to be light on your feet. You got to know if I'm the answer to Adam. Look, there is no problem on Earth that only incarnates in one place. People being unable to speak plain English. That problem exists in more than one place. Or if there's a problem of people wanting media attention for their work, more than one type of person has that problem. And then I got discovered by some very, very big seminar promoters who said to me, we're going to put you on a stage and see if you're any good in front of an audience, and the rest you know.

Exactly. And that's the part of the story that most people hear or they see. And that's why this piece in between was so important. So we went from clarity to taking that new, clear view of yourself as a talent to then doing something, learning something, changing again, continuing to pivot, taking whatever feedback you got. Like, you know, I'm sure that the next time you delivered a seminar, the workbooks didn't show up blank. Am I correct about that? Good. So you learned something. I want to throw your own words back at you if I can, because before we actually hit the record button, you said this, and I wrote it down. You said, people are in despair. This is talking about today. Not yesterday or last year or anything. Today, people are in despair because they don't know how to reinvent. And this is a season of reinvention with a vengeance. Share what you meant by that and what is it that you'd really advise? And then we're going to get into that. What do you do? What are the practices or rituals that you used and that you continue to use? But let's go at those words first. People are in despair because they don't know how to reinvent. And this is a season of reinvention with a vengeance.

I can give it to you in one word that you and I are now accustomed to hearing. We're hearing it so much, it's become a cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason. And the word is disruption. If you were a taxi driver, your life has been disrupted by Uber and by Lyft. If you were a brick and mortar bookstore, your life was disrupted by Amazon. If you're an automobile manufacturer, there may not be drivers behind those automobiles anymore. If you are someone who, like us, has conducted in person seminars, and we're still conducting in person seminars, but let's be honest, that market has shifted to delivering content via technology like this more and more. It's both. So there is disruption everywhere. Everywhere. Disruption. Equals despair temporarily.

Repeat that, Repeat that please.

Disruption equals despair temporarily. Then it's freakin opportunity, man.

All right, Those of you that are listening, I'm hoping people have been taking notes the whole way through, but this is, this is serious. Disruption equals despair. We all get that. But that's not the end of the story. Because the next thing that shows up from that is opportunity. If you're a problem solver, right? If again you see yourself, if you believe, if you have the clarity to understand that you are a constellation of talents. Not my words, Joel's words. You are a constellation of talents that are on this earth now. My own belief system, in order to serve, that we are here to serve. And that your function, your job, your number one focus must be to identify what your constellation of talents is and to be able to utilize them or repurpose them. Reinvent the process of purpose, putting them to some use, to serve others. And that is not only how you feel fulfilled, but how you also have a, an endeavor that produces, that produces financial results, wealth, success, everything that you know, we say we're looking for.

Yep. And now I had another thing happen that was life changing, which we can probably talk about another time. But what I would say is this, This mindset, this mentality. Look, I'll tell you something man. I don't think any of us will ever have a greater enemy than the one that we see in the mirror. I don't mean to make a cynical or a despairing statement. I'm saying that, let's be honest, all of us struggle with self loathing sometimes or self doubt. We've all gone through things where, oh my God, you know, the past. Somebody leaves us that we love. You know, a job drives up, what, whatever you, you've got to be in the habit of saying, you know, I still have tinnitus, but I. And it comes up, but it doesn't go up that high very often and. And I know it's going to go down. Going to go down.

So.

The season of reinvention that we're talking about, not everybody is an entrepreneur. But you and I do work in the area of entrepreneurs. And here's something that I love about your company and what you do. Being an entrepreneur is lonely, especially in the beginning. And all the business schools in the world may not necessarily teach you what it's really like out there to create value, to offer it to the world, to do all that in a way that's sexy and compelling. Being an entrepreneur is lonely. You can go it alone. Why go it alone. To me, that's what New Pizza is all about. It's like, why not have community? Why not have like minded support? Why not have people who can shorten the learning curve for you? Why not have people with whom you can synergize? I mean, man, I'll tell you, that's where it's at. I just look at my story, Mark. Victor Hanson stuck me someplace. I can't take any credit for that. I can take credit for seeing the opportunity. Gloria Stone from Novartis put me in front of a bunch of corporate people. I didn't say to myself, I've got some broader agenda. No, I was smart enough to know when they pointed it out that they had really pointed out something important. But I didn't know. So where would I be if I were, you know, holed up by myself all the time? You need community, you need other people, you need synergy. This is what's so great about what you do.

This is probably a great place to enter that discussion of what are our rituals, Because I think one of the things you're identifying right now is probably, well, it is a ritual for me. It sounds like it's a ritual for you, is that you put yourself. I know, I. When I started my own pivot, you know, I wrote this book because it was, in essence, at the beginning, just a way to share with our kids how I had. I was approaching a midlife crisis in my life, right? And I figured at some point, with four kids, one, one, if not more of them would approach that place. At some point where you. I was asking questions that were tough for me to answer. Like, you know, is this really why I was born and is this what I'm supposed to be doing and is this how I'm gonna die? You know, is this gonna be my legacy and all that kind of thing. And when I couldn't answer those questions, I began so share a little bit about my, My own, My own ritual. And part of it, one of those rituals is reading. And so, you know, I wanted to write a book because I figured my kids at some point might want to read that book. And as it turns out, there was no other people that have wanted to fortunately read this book. Which is great because, you know, it started out as an idea, and three years later it turns into, you know, something, you know, tangible. That's just the way it happens, right? But reading is a ritual reading. I read the. I read the Bible almost every day. Not because I'm religious or religiously inclined, but because there's wisdom in those words. Like when you spoke earlier about, you know, our enemy. There's a. I think it's a 23rd Psalm where there's a line, it says, thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. And how I've learned or have come to understand what those words mean is that the only enemies we can have are in our own household, meaning the enemies within us, inside of our own mind. Every time we tell ourselves a story, that's limiting our own divinity, that limiting what's possible for us. Or in some way, putting more faith in our obstacles, more faith in the people who don't believe in us, more faith in the situations or the problems or the difficult difficulties, quote, unquote, more faith and fear than we put in the love of ourselves, the understanding of our. Like you say, that the constellation of our talents. When we put more faith in those other things, we're denying truth, the truth of ourselves. And that that whole concept, what we're talking about, is really the training or the retraining of our own minds. And I think when we're talking about ritual, it sounds to me like you're part of your reinvention, where you've made it an art form and now you've helped so many other people, thousands of people all over the world in business and people who are in careers, but people who are entrepreneurs. All that is because you've been able to get a. You've been able to get leverage over your own mind. Yes. Is that correct?

I'm like anybody else. I struggle. I would not put myself forward as necessarily the most enlightened human being I've ever met. But I would say this. I'm curious, and in a good way. I'm stubborn.

All right? So stop right there, because here's the linchpin. And you just said it. And I was counting on you to do this because you have humility. And so this is not a situation where you. Where you or I figure out how to think. And then we're good. We're good. This is daily. It's a vigilance. So I woke up this morning and I had to start from ground zero. That's the purpose of rituals, when we talk about what it takes to pivot. And I know because you and I have had this. We've met, we've been in our backyard, we've sat around a fire pit to discuss this, how important it is that we have, that we are helping people right now deal with that despair, deal with disruption in a creative way. In a way that allows them to have their hearts opened. And that just as you. That their hearts are singing because. Not because they're perfect or because they wake up every morning happy, but because they have some process. Pivoting is not a plan. Even though planning is great, it's a process. And part of that process is how do you deal with yourself? How do you deal with your mind on a day to day, on a minute to minute, a second to second basis?

How about this? Pivoting is a lifestyle.

Say more about that.

It's a lifestyle. It's a way of being. It's like dance, brother, dance. Keep dancing. And it's like if you go to see a dance perform, there are times when there are tremendous leaps and there are times when they're within a fairly small space and there are times when it's very stable and predictable and there are times when it breaks out. And what makes the art form interesting when you're sitting there in the audience is that you can't predict that. I think pivoting is a lifestyle. I'm pivoting again right now. I mean, these days I know. Welcome to life, brother. And if you and I had gotten complacent and we had, forgive the arrogance of this, but we had reason to be complacent. Neither one of us is without some accomplishment.

That's kind, thank you.

We had reason to be complacent. Guess what? I'm reinventing myself right now. I'm pivoting right now, these days as we speak. I just wrote 70,000 words in a month. That's my all time record by so far. I don't even know what my second place is. And I'm stepping into a different career, a different contribution, a different way of being. I'm not even going to share what it is right here and now, but it's complete different. It came from what I was doing. It came by accident while I was abroad. It showed up, it took my heart. And now I have zero doubt I'm moving into something different.

Share with us then. How are you supporting yourself? So, meaning, assuming the process is similar, right, that there's this. No, no, no, I don't mean that. I'm saying clarity. You've gotten clarity, as you said to me, that the clearest sign is always from the heart. So you got a confirmation from your heart. Now you're going to be in that stage of tipping over, maybe the first domino, which again, I don't expect you to share what that is at the moment. That's okay, but you're going to start that domino tipping process and then ultimately my theory, and you don't have to agree with this if you don't, but to me, the container or the thing that supports the pivot is the daily practices, the rituals share, if you could. Because one of the questions that we got from social media, from Facebook, somebody asked that, they wanted to know what are three examples of rituals or daily practice that helps to keep you on track. And in this case, we're talking about keeping the clarity, keeping the dominoes tipping forward. So now that you're moving into something brand new, which is exciting, right, what are some rituals that you know you can either that you already have or that you're going to create to support you? And I also share one of my own.

I would love to hear yours. I'll give you one of mine which is be ever so humble. Write something every day. And I'll tell you something, man, I now go around saying to myself, I'm a writer. I already know that I'm an international seminar leader and that I love the stage, but I'm a writer. I got my 13 inch MacBook Pro and there are days when I don't feel like writing. So one of my rituals, the most important one right now, is be it ever so humble. I don't care if it's a sentence. And it's never only a sentence. Because by the time I get myself up there onto that imac, to write my one sentence, begrudgingly, because I forced myself to do it, to keep my word with myself, it's never only a sentence. And at a certain point, my brother, my story to myself, began to change in the last month. I'm a writer. I'm gonna do something that is beyond anything I ever imagined. Not only in terms of what I'm writing, you know, the work that I'm doing abroad in Europe and everything, I'm not gonna talk about it here and now I will another time. I can't tell you the energy that's coming to me around this work. I mean, publishers, leaders. It's like in the beginning I'm like, who am I to be doing this? And then it's the cliche, who am I not to be doing it? And we thank whoever it was that originally said that, whether it was Marianne Williamson or Nelson Mandela, no one even knows anymore. But all I know is this. You're right. Rituals, rituals make things real. So I've got this law. Be it ever so humble. If it's one freaking word, get up There. I'm being it. And thank God a million times, thank God a million times. Thank God a million times. I have enough money that I can transition into something else without financial panic. My heart goes out to people who are in that place. All I can say is, do whatever you got to do. I'm not saying that I can retire now and sit on a beach. No. But I have enough that I can transition. I'm still doing the work that I've been doing. I'm actually happier doing the work that I've been doing because my new thing is balancing it and it. Am I making sense? It makes it. But man, there is a new calling. And this is the thing. This is the thing. And then I'll shut up. Be it ever so humble. Write one word every day if that's all it is. And I did. And now I'm looking at three documents that have 70,000 words. I don't even know how I did it. I don't even know who it was that did that. I barely have a memory of it.

Yes, I want to. Take that in. So, Joel, this is, this is, you know, we're simpatico, so it's no wonder that we're going through some similar things at the same time. And so I don't want to repeat your ritual, but let's just say I'm using a similar ritual right now myself. But I'm also doing something else differently in the midst of my own transition, my own pivot right now. One of the things I realized was that I really, really want. I want to be more. I want to get more things done earlier in the day. I'm not a lover of the word productivity. I don't want to be a producer. I'm not a product, you know, but that's quibbling. Alright, so let's just say I want to get more stuff done that's meaningful. The critical things to me, the most important things, I want to get them done earlier today. And so for me, that means even though I love to hang out at night and just whatever it is, you know, lounge around and, you know, maybe read or watch TV or take a walk or just hang out with the kids and Randy and all that kind of thing, Randy said to me long ago, when I travel, she goes to bed at 9 o'. Clock. When I'm home, we stay up till 11 or 11pm 30, we're back.

Okay, you went out for a moment.

Went out for a moment. All right, so real quick, my new ritual is that I'm going to Sleep. I'm upstairs and in bed at 9 o' clock with the stated goal of being sleeping by 10 so that I can get up earlier in the morning and use my morning rituals, which are a combination of prayer and meditation and then a walk, as well as, you know, food. So it's kind of. My rituals are sort of mental, emotional, spiritual and physical. And so this green drink, for example, is something that's a staple just for physical health and energy and that kind of thing. And to be able to do all that, it takes a bit of time. You know, it's. It's at least an hour. And I want to have that hour even before the kids get up to go to school. That's my goal. Because there's more that I want to do and there's only so many hours in the day, as we all understand. And so for me, just a new ritual, you know, now that I'm in this place of transition, I said, I asked this question and I was curious, what new rituals could I create to support what I want to do going forward? You asked the same question, what new ritual? And your new ritual is just write a word, which, you know, it never is just one word. So every single day, no matter what you're putting yourself on, you know, on the keyboard to write. And that's your ritual. So I truly believe that rituals Achieve Results. That's ultimately. Well, it's. Interestingly enough, it's a title of. It's a working title for a new book that I'm working on, Rituals Achieve Results. Because it's that idea that. Almost like the Seven Habits that Stephen Covey wrote, but from a different place. Because I think rituals have a sacred. They're sacred and they're conscious versus something that we do just habitually. Because we've either, you know, always done it that way or we've watched other people do it that way, or we just, you know, don't even know how we got to be that way. But we're creatures of habit. So I'm thinking let's be more purposeful. I want to be more purposeful. And everybody that's watching this right now because I know we're going to come to a concluding point right now. Whether you're in a state of reinvention or transition or you're just, for whatever reason, thinking ahead of the curve, disruption is everywhere. I want to paraphrase what you said earlier, Joel. The world is in a state of disruption. Our elections in the United States are clear indicator of that. And it's caused A lot of pain. People, as you said, are in despair in some ways because they don't know, you know, what's next or what they should do next. Certain jobs are never going to come back. Certain situations, opportunities will change and change forever. Like, for example, in our space. It's not that people won't attend live workshops and trainings. It's just that for the most part, it's more convenient, it's more realistic even for technology to bridge, to bring us together. And that's why we're doing what we're doing. Quite frankly, pivoting is a process that you cannot live without and to now take it right out of your mouth, pivoting is a lifestyle. So with the last few seconds that we've got right here, Joel, given the fact that it. It's so important as a lifestyle that people can continue to take in the feedback that's all around us and then re. Articulate themselves, reinvent themselves, change in some ways, change to move with what's happening in their business, in their career, in their personal lives. What's the best piece of advice that you can leave folks with in regard to either the art and science of pivoting? The lifestyle of pivoting. You know, what's the best thing you can leave people with in that area?

I can tell you what's really worked for me. Chunk it down. Doesn't sound too sexy. Doesn't sound like something that would be uttered by a guru in some Himalayan cave. All I know is this. If, Adam, if I had said to myself, I'm writing 70,000 words in a month, I would have been so intimidated by that goal. I'm quite sure I would have produced next to nothing. I didn't say I'm going to write 70,000 words in a month. I said, I'm going to write something every day. And the more I did something small every day, the bigger it became. And now I look at it and man, in reality, I am 5 foot 6 and 135 pounds, but I feel like I'm 6 foot 2 and I'm an Olympic freaking athlete. And I look at those 70 words. 70,000 words, baby. That's it. That's it. That's my big wisdom brother. You got it. And it may not sound sexy, but I can go up there and I look at that document and I go, I did this.

I did this.

I did this. 70 freaking thousand words. And I'm just getting warmed up and I'm attracting all kinds of stuff. And I'm not some law of attraction guy. I'm not an airy fairy guy. I'm opposed to the Santa Barbara syndrome, okay? I may not be a New Yorker, but everybody thinks I am, okay? But I'm telling you, if I had said to myself, it was my parting shot, I'm going to write 70,000 words in a month. I can pretty much bet my you know what, that I would not have done it. What I did say is I'm going to write something every day, and a month later, my own sense of my capacity, or to use that word that you have considerations about, and so do I. But I'll use it for a moment. My own productivity or my own potential. I'm walking around with a different story in here, man. Baby steps.

There you go. That's the perfect place to leave. I'm going to give you a pound right there. I'm going to say a few parting words to all of our audience and to summarize what we've been talking about in this beautiful path that we've taken, which was lovely, is about your beliefs. Your beliefs create clarity so you believe something new and different about yourself. Joel. That's what I've been hearing consistently since the time that that speaker went off in your ear. And from those beliefs and that clarity come the things you do, the behaviors that you've got. And that's just the equivalent of those dominoes tipping over. You know, there's a great story about the dominoes, and I think that the record is something like 8 million dominoes. You know, people set up like 8 million dominoes tip over. But this thing that I really love is that I read that you could start out with a domino that's 38 of an inch high. I don't know if that's quite 3 8, but a very tiny little domino. And the thing about this tiny 38 of an inch high domino is that it will tip over. You know, if you push it over, it will tip over another domino that's one and a half times its size. One and a half times its size.

Think about.

That's crazy, right? And that domino, that domino will tip over yet another domino that is one and a half times its size. By the time you get to the 28th domino, that domino will be large enough to topple the Empire State Building. Now, that sounds like inspiration and motivational mumbo jumbo, but the truth of the matter is that's just physics. Starting with something that's 38 of an inch high. And that is the equivalent of what you described as writing one word, taking that smallest of small steps, but doing it every single day consistently. Baby steps every day. One domino. So today for you, wherever you are, wherever we're meeting you, it could be that you're riding high, it could be that you're feeling low, whatever that looks like for you, my call or my wish for you is that you just tip over one domino today in the direction of something that your heart calls you to do. And that's a lifestyle, brother. So thank you so much for being with us. Joel Roberts, you are a pivot master. Master pivoter.

I'm a pivot student, but I'm a consistent student. Yeah.

Yeah. That rings true for me as well. So if you've enjoyed this podcast, I would love it. If you've got additional questions or comments, things you'd like to do, you can go to AdamMarkel.com and on the blog. That's the perfect place for you to leave your comments questions for Joel and myself. I'll get those questions, Joel as well. Thank you for all the comments questions on Facebook as well. And Joel, with your upcoming pivot, your transition as well as mine, we know it's an unfolding and beautiful process. So thank you, brother.

Thank you.

Cheers.

Thanks for listening, everybody. 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@adammarkel.com podcasts for more tips, strategies and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love. Join our Pivot community on facebook@pivotfb.com it.