12 Questions To Clarify Your Purpose In Life And Business

Welcome back to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast. Today we're going to be listening to Rob Berkley. Now, a lot of times we build our businesses out of need and we forget that our businesses were built on purpose to be able to serve us. Rob Berkley is going to be joining us today and his credentials continue to go. So I'm not going to make that long list. I'm going to let you listen in as you get all of the details, but we are going to be talking through how to be able to make sure your life is fulfilled. Now, there are going to be 12 questions to clarify what you want and how to make your life extraordinary.. But beyond that, of course, we don't have time vampires we're gonna talk about. We are gonna talk about 7 alligators. All right. Plus we're, of course, we're gonna talk about a couple vampires. So let's go ahead and jump in as Rob starts us off rambunctiously for 12 questions to clarify your purpose in life and business. I don't think there's anybody that has had a bigger impact in the field of direct response than Dan Kennedy. The legend of Dan Kennedy should be ignored at your own peril. They're not really lessons. They're kind of laws. Laws that you live by. Dan opened my eyes to what small business marketing looks like. Dan teaches strategic direct response that is timeless. His ripple effect touches people who don't even know his name.

The world as we know it was changed because Dan Kennedy became obsessed with marketing.

Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with your host, Dan Kennedy.

I'm up here to introduce your next speaker, Rob Berkley. Rob is a very, very close friend of mine and he's a wonderful speaker, wonderful friend, and I'd like to read a few things off of here that he wanted me to read and then I'm gonna tell you a personal story. Rob is an executive coach, management consultant, speaker, and author of more than 2 decades of transforming the businesses and lives of senior executives, entrepreneurs, and leadership teams and partnerships. Rob has been a successful entrepreneur, board director, both public and private, corporate leader, and an executive coach. Prior to leading his own executive coaching firm, he worked at executive levels in banking, publishing, technology, including companies such as Bankers Trust, Simon, Schuster, and Pearson. Some of his many clients have included Abbott, American Express, AT&T, Aristocrat in Australia, Beth— I'm sorry, BellSouth, Bell Laboratories, Citibank, Chase Bank, who's a private bank, and MasterCard, Fidelity Investments, G2, Hewlett-Packard, General Motors, IBM, Merrill Lynch, the New York Stock Exchange, Playaway Digital, Reuters, Resource Interactive, Sun Microsystems, as well as coaching thousands of executives, professionals, and entrepreneurs privately, in teams, and in groups. That's a long list. He earned a bachelor's degree from Cornell University and has attended Harvard and Stanford for advanced education and holds the distinction of Master Certified Coach, the highest level of accreditation awarded by the International Coach Federation. He's also a co-author of Speaking of Success with Stephen Covey and Brian Tracy, who you are all very familiar with. He's also the co-developer of Vision Day, which he'll be talking to you about today. Rob was the founding GKIC independent business advisor for both the North and South Boston and is a longtime member of Bill Glazer's Information Marketing Mastermind. As a speaker, Rob has shared the stage with Dan Kennedy, Bill Glazer, Paul Scheele, Michael Gelb, Allie Brown, and others. And the reason I'm up here is because Rob has helped thousands discover their passion and life purposes, create powerful personal and corporate visions, grow their bottom lines, and create extraordinary businesses, lives, and creative works through the Vision Day program. I have had my own about 3 Vision Days with Rob. I had 2 independent with him and a group Vision Day with him and his wife Deb. If none of you have ever experienced a Vision Day before, you need to listen closely to what Rob has to offer to you. He will walk you through exactly what your vision and your sole purpose is. He'll help you discover it and he'll help you find what's gonna make you happy in your life. If you all don't know, I'm now engaged. Thank you. This August I'll be divorced 3 years, so this will be my second marriage. And the reason I bring that up is because I never thought I'd get married again. But last year, I had my own vision day with Rob, and one of the many things that we discussed was what I was looking for in life. And I had discovered by the end of that day that I wanted a family and that I wanted a husband. And he helped me walk through that and find out really what it is that I wanted in that person. And I found him about 6 months later, not even knowing he was— been in front of me for 2 years. So that's just a small portion of what Rob has done for me. I went to Rob after seeing him transform many of the InfoMastermind members that was in his group by going to Vision Days and saw the transformation that they brought, that he brought into their lives. Many of them from Bob Briganeres was the biggest difference I seen. Alex Niem, Jesse Canone, those are just a few. So if you wanna talk to anybody in this room about the changes that he's made in lives, come see me after you talk, after you see Rob. I'd like to introduce Rob Berkley.

Thank you, Sherry. How about a big round of applause for the engagement? All right, that makes me so happy. So I have a promise for you all this morning, and that promise is is at the end of today that you will leave with at least one thing that you can use to transform your life when you go home on Monday. Now, if you only have one thing, I'm not doing my job, but I know you'll get at least one. And the funny thing about that is, at the end of a very long training I had many years ago— this actually is going to sound like one of those Karate Kid things, but, uh, At the end of a very long training I had many years ago, my teacher and I were having a discussion about being effective in the world and being useful in the world and getting things done and making a difference. And I was talking about it with her, and at the end of the discussion, she looked me in the eye and she said, how many snowflakes does it take to break a branch? How many snowflakes does it take to break a branch? I heard one. Yeah, it takes the last one. So I hope today to give you at least one snowflake that will break the branch that lets you move forward to having a more extraordinary life. And let's talk about what I mean by that. So We have feelings when we go through our lives on a day-to-day basis. And some people go through lives— and I'm just gonna stand here, this will be the spot for surviving. Some people just survive in their lives. Has anyone ever been there? I have. And then going up the continuum, there are other people who are satisfied with their lives. Right? Who here is satisfied? Good. And then there's another set right about here of people who wake up every day and say to themselves and know in their heart that they're fulfilled. And that feeling of fulfillment is what I go for in my work. So at the By the end of this, I'd like you all to be moving up this continuum, to be in this place of feeling truly fulfilled with your lives. So it's important to know how I got here. In 1988, I started a software company. I had a really brilliant partner. This was the first time when a Wall Street trader could use one workstation and see their entire portfolio on their desk have like prices and stuff and make trades instantly. And that was like absolute magic back in 1988. And I saw a trend and I had a vision for a company that was going to deliver that to the Wall Street community. I hooked up with a really brilliant technology guy and together we set off to build this firm. Well, a couple of years later, all of a sudden this company had a multi-million dollar payroll. We had employees all over the place. We had grown out of our space, and we were totally overwhelmed. And I was drowning as a leader. I was drowning as a manager. I had no idea how to do what needed to be done to keep the company moving, to establish a vision, to make sure that the company actually grew as a company. I was lost. It was like riding a wild horse through the woods with the horse trying to smack you off on a tree branch. A friend of mine said, "Hey, you know what?" He goes, "If you keep this up, you're gonna have a problem. You're working 18-hour days." Has anyone ever worked 18-hour days? Yeah, exactly. I was young then, I could do that. You're working 18-hour days, you're exhausted, you're going out to 2 dinners, you're going out to 2 breakfasts to entertain people. He said, "If you keep this up, you're gonna have a problem." I said, "Well, you know, you're right. In fact, I'm kind of at the end of my rope." What should I do here? He said, well, call this guy, call this guy Joe. And I said, well, why should I call this guy? He goes, well, Joe's an executive coach. And I'm like, well, what in the world is an executive coach? I don't know if anybody remembers back to the dark days of 1988 before there were coaches under every rock and tree and hiding around, hiding around boulders and swimming. They're everywhere now, but back then this was a very rare species. And my friend couldn't explain it to me, and he said, "Look, Rob, just trust me. Just bring this guy in and talk to him. I promise you it's going to make a difference." So I called him up and said, "Hey, can you meet me in New York?" He said, "Sure, I'll come in." He came in from Pennsylvania. It's a couple of hour trip. We had to meet in the coffee shop in the basement of the building we worked in because I had so many employees stacked on top of each other. There was no meeting rooms. No conference rooms. We had people working at desks like this, like elbow to elbow. So we met in this place, it was called Naturally Delicious. And one of the unique things about Naturally Delicious, aside from it being our conference room, is it had green Naugahyde seats and bright orange walls because it had this carrot motif going, you know, naturally delicious, healthy food. And I remember to this day, and I remember putting my hand down, you know, you ever have those flashes of memory, you put your hand down, you see it right there on that green seat, looking at this man who had big thick glasses on, peering at me from behind his glasses, and he said, "What's going on?" So I started telling him my story. Now, I can't count the years, but all these years later, when I start to tell this story, I feel like I'm right there. I feel like I'm 28 years old again. That's about 22 years ago. I feel like I'm right there in that place, in time. I feel the same emotions. I feel the same fear. I feel the same confusion. All those things that I did then. And so I told him my tale, and he looked at me, and very quietly he said, "You know what?" He goes, "Rob, you're not broken." And it's gonna be okay, 'cause you're not broken. And he went on to say, "There's just two things we need to talk about today. Just two things." And I don't know if you've ever had an experience like that in your life, where you sit down across from somebody, or you're hearing somebody speak to you, and all of a sudden you're feeling totally connected to the person. And all of a sudden you know that this person can help you. And you know that you can trust this person, that this person can make a huge difference in your life. Now that's exactly what went through my head right then in that moment. It was a transformative moment for me because I knew it was going to be okay. And I said, Do you really, really truly think you can help me? He goes, yeah. He goes, let me tell you what's going on here. He goes, two things. One thing is you have no idea whatsoever what this company can do for you. And you have no plan about what you want from this company. And I go, OK, you're right. I don't have totally any clue at all of what I should be doing and what I want. Because I didn't know the company was there to serve me. How many people here serve their companies on a day-to-day basis? Right. We're servants to our companies. Companies were invented to serve the owner. Novel concept. He drilled that into my brain. I've never forgotten that. The reason we start companies is so they can serve our lives to a greater purpose. Right? The reason we come to these events is so we can serve our lives to a greater purpose. He said, "You know what the second thing is?" "you just don't have a clue about what you need to do to make this thing work." Well, that didn't feel so good because I had read all the management books, right? There's a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Huge difference between knowledge and wisdom. And I learned that from him too. But really, you know, the big moment came like 2 or 3 minutes later. I said, "You know what? I'd like to work with you if you really believe you can help me." He said, "Yeah, it's going to take about 3 months." of real discomfort, 'cause you're gonna have to unlearn some bad habits, and we're gonna have to implement some new things in your company, etc. I said, I'm up for it. I'm ready to rock and roll here. But 2 minutes later, it really hit me. And what hit me was that what he was doing and what he did for me was so much cooler and so much more fascinating and so much more interesting to me than being the president of what at that time was one of the world's leading companies building these systems. Crisis of career, but not really, because as soon as you know exactly what your purpose is, the rest of the stuff just does not matter. Does that make sense? Everybody with me? Good. And I thought to myself, how can I change places? How can I be this guy that's sitting in that seat? Working with people? How can I be up in front of people speaking? Well, here I am today. I can't believe it. I wrote this down 20 years ago, that I would be in a room like this full of eager, excited, engaged people who want more for their lives and who want to give more to others. So I committed to doing this work. I sold that company with his help in 1991, and then I went to work with him Uh, he became my mentor and we launched a great coaching company, uh, 1991. And from that point forward, my own mission and my own purpose has really been 3 parts, okay? To help people to be intellectually clear, meaning you know what you want. 2, emotionally free, meaning that there are few things that get in your way from having what you want, and 3, if you choose to accept it, financially free as well. That doesn't necessarily mean being rich over the top, but it means having enough money to be able to walk away from whatever you want at any time, to live in the home you want to live in, and to do the things that make you happiest. Sound good? Yeah. Is that okay?

All right.

So where does all this stuff I'm going to talk about today come from? I'll talk more about Vision Day later on. Hundreds of Vision Days. Vision Day is a 1-day strategic planning day for your life, or for groups it's 2 days. I've been working with the presidents and owners of public and private companies now since 1991. I've been in the boardroom. I know what goes on in there, and I know how to help these people move forward. And it's no different for anybody. It's the same situations. In fact, 90% of the people that I meet suffer from one problem: they don't know what they want, so they lack clarity. So we always start there. Um, if you answer the questions I'm going to talk about today, then your life will be more extraordinary. So I'm going to run through them quickly. Okay, what's my life purpose? What's the highest expression of my love? You know, it's funny, You don't hear love too much at Glaser Kennedy events, but in the last 2 days I've heard it a whole lot. Like from— everyone hear Bill Glaser yesterday say he was in love with Joan Rivers? That was a beautiful moment. Those of you that saw Ari, he said the same thing. What's the highest expression of my love in the world? What are my goals? What's my plan? What capabilities should I develop and what weaknesses should I eliminate? Okay, what's stopping me from getting to the next level? Where's my geographic home? What distracts me? And what is not finished in my life? What will my legacy be? By the way, I'm going to make this interactive a little bit. I won't put anybody on the spot, but there will be some things to write down, so have a pencil, pen, and paper ready. What distracts me? Number 7 is what's not finished in my life? What will my legacy be? What is our vision as a couple? What is our vision as a family? How do I make a living with my passion? And what would I regret most? Those 12 questions, simply said, complex but worthwhile answering. So the first one, and I'll tell you stories of people that I know and people I've worked with. These are all with permission. In the coaching relationship, it's often very private. These are people who have given their consent for me to talk about the work that we've done together. So the big question is, like, what are you here to do right now? And the big answer that people always miss is that more often than not, we're here to do more than one thing with great intensity. Anyone notice that? Anyone ever felt like, gee, I should be focused on one thing, but I've got this burning desire to do more than one? Right? Okay, so we can have multiple missions, multiple purposes at one time. Secondly, they change over time. When I first started my company, okay, it was about building that firm, but it changed in the blink of an eye. Now, it took a couple of years to change things, but it changed in the blink of an eye. And there's one more misconception about life purpose, passion, or mission, or whatever you want to call it. That misconception is that it has to be about, like, creating something, or like building something big, or doing something like that. And the thing that I've discovered over the years is that there can be two kinds. That is one of them. It could be to build, like, a bridge or a dam, or write a book or do something. But there are other people who struggle, and they struggle through their lives because their purpose is just to do something, wherever it might be. And I'll talk more about that. So it's not an end goal, it's just a way of being. And that's a very profound and important point. And think about it for yourself. I would bet in this room that at least half the people have a purpose like that, whether you know it or not. So I'm going to talk about now a friend of mine, Jeff Barrett. And Jeff, at the time I met him, was the chief operating officer of a company that made medical devices. And these devices used to that go on your head and measure brain waves while you were having anesthesia. Well, Jeff had really finished with that company, done a great job. It had gone public. He made a little bit of money. He had won the industry's prize for lean manufacturing. He called me up. He said, "Rob, listen, I'm really struggling here. I am bored out of my mind. This is a great company, but I don't know what I'm going to do next. I really don't have any fire. I don't feel like I'm engaged. And I'm struggling." and this is no fun. And so he came down to Martha's Vineyard where I live and work, and we had a vision day. And back then when I was doing this, it was always the question was, well, what do you want to do? We couldn't find it, and this was getting to be a little bit tough. But by the end of the day, we came up with something that was really new and different for me, where he said, you know what, he goes, the thing I'm most passionate about and most interested in, and the thing I most want to do in this world is I want to bring manufacturing back from overseas and bring it to this country. That's what I want to do. And I went, wow, that's really different. That's not like, I want to build a boat or I want to make cars. He goes, yeah, he goes, my heart is in manufacturing and I want to do this thing called lean manufacturing. It's not important what that is, but I want to do that. And so he goes, you know what, I'm good. I'm very happy. I have a couple of ideas. Let's call it a day. I'm gonna head on out, but I want to think about this. And the big question is, well, what are you gonna do with a passion or purpose like that, right? I want to bring manufacturing back. There's a lot of different ways you can go, aren't there? Could be very confusing. He called me up one day, said, you know what, I got it. There's an article in the New York Times about these guys that are building these architectural design homes, and I want to build those. Well, long story short, he couldn't raise enough capital to do that, but he said, "You know what? There's something about this idea of architecturally designed, engineered living spaces." And so we sat down and worked and we thought, and finally he came back to me and said, "You know what? I have an idea. I'm going to build bathrooms. I'm going to build bathrooms." I go, "What?" He goes, "I'm going to build bathrooms." He goes, "I'm going to build an assembly line to build perfect bathrooms here in Massachusetts." Pretty cool. And that's what that thing is there. That's an Eggrock bathroom pod. He says, "I'm going to build these bathrooms and they're going to go in hotels and army barracks and hospitals." And so what Jeff and his team now do is they're able to reduce the time it takes to build like a Hilton Garden Inn by 3 months because they can deliver 150 bathrooms on the back of a tractor-trailer. And then they just slide them into place. Brilliant. It's amazing to see. Exactly. It's like my friend here is hitting his head. It's like, wow, why didn't I think of that? Well, I said the same thing. I was there from the birth of it. But the key thing is, like, bathrooms are cool, but he could just as well be building houses or just as well be building planes. He took his manufacturing expertise and married it with a love of architecture. And that's how passion and gifts and talents come together to make a life special. And I tell you, it's not been easy for him. The economy has done a double dip since he started it. It's a new concept in this country. He had to fight to get it accepted. But every time I called him, I said, "How's it going?" He goes, "Oh man, it's bad today, but I love what I'm doing." Right? How many people say that every day? Oh, my goal would be that all the hands come up. I'm having a tough day, but I love this and I know it's for me. And that's what I want for you. And that's why I'm giving this presentation. And that's all about why I do this work. So next one, what's the highest expression of my love? I'm back to that love word here. This is actually a little bit more from the feminine point of view. Very interesting. For men that are in a committed relationship with a woman and for women that have often wondered, like, "Why don't I feel like I have a mission and purpose, but there's something else special inside of me that I'm seeking to do and wanting to bring my heart to?" Well, the big question is, what's the highest expression of your love? And doesn't mean that men can't have that too, but I see it mostly with women. That are looking to bring their heart to the world. Quick example of this: a beautiful woman named Maureen Riopelle, whose mother passed away from cancer many years ago. Her mother's name was Mary McGuire. And Maureen kind of had an inkling that she wanted to do something around cancer and helping people that were cancer victims and stuff like that. But nothing really happened with it. It didn't really go anywhere. And until like a couple years later, she herself got cancer, and it was very rough. And she pulled through and is fine, cancer-free. But she had a realization, and the realization that she had is that once you're pronounced cured Okay, once you're pronounced cured, you go from this world that's all-encompassing to take care of battling the cancer with you into this world where you're a completely new and different person. Anybody that knows that— anybody that's gone through the journey of cancer and come out the other side, okay, they're different. They're different people. Life is different. And there was no place There was no place for Maureen to go to get support. All the support was gone. And that's when it hit her that the thing that she wanted to bring to the world was an organization that would pick up and bring care to people who had survived and made it and give them a place to come where they were understood, where the new normal of their lives had a place. And so she created this Mary Maguire Foundation that held a beautiful event for women all over the country where they can come together and talk about what it's like to survive. Highest expression of her love. She worked tirelessly to do this, and no matter how hard she worked, she was always filled with joy. So the next one. How many people here have a goal-setting process that they use regularly? Let me see your hands. Beautiful. Look around the room too. Hold them up. Okay, now keep them up. How many people know that so well that they can teach others? Keep your hand up. How many of you that know it so well that you can teach others do teach others? Keep your hand up. Good. Very important. Thank you. Very important. Okay? So, like, 30% of the room said that. Absent and fuzzy goals and lack of a plan are the 90% problem I find. And it might sound very simplistic, but it's not because it comes in many forms. There are many ways. There are actually 23 different ways you can be prevented from reaching a goal. And there are probably more, but those are 23 ways I know. I'm not gonna take you through all of them right now. We don't have enough time. That's a, that's a whole day in itself. But clear and well-defined goals and a goal-setting process turn your life from randomness to focused action. Okay? And what I want to suggest to you is that after we leave today, you go find yourself a goal-setting process and find it fast and learn it and make it part of your life and do one step more with it, like was done for me many years ago. Take that process and teach somebody else how to use it so they can lift their life up. Does that make sense? Sound worthwhile? Doesn't take long. So let me talk about Christopher Celeste. Christopher was the president of an ad agency in Columbus, Ohio, and through family reasons, he had to leave that position ended up moving to Cleveland. I've known him for many years. Moved to Cleveland to be with his family and started asking himself the question, "What is next? What's next with my life? What am I going to do here? How am I going to make this work?" And, you know, over a little bit of time, he finally came to the answer. His answer was this: "I want to create a company to invent something that has never existed before." Create something that has never existed before. And so that was Christopher's goal. And the upshot of that is that his company created this thing called the Playaway. Has anybody seen these? Okay. So these are fabulous. What they are is in one little box, okay, you can have a book or a couple of books. There's no downloading, no uploading, so people without computers can use them, so elderly people can use them, people who aren't technically savvy can use them. He built an entire organization that's thriving right now around this. But one of the reasons I tell you this story is that at this point in time, we have servicemen and women stationed all over the world, some in active duty, some not. All of those involve danger, risk, loneliness, isolation from our families, and hours of boredom. And probably early January, I was down in the Bahamas speaking for Dave Lindahl at his real estate thing, and I talked about the playaway. And I'm sure some people in this room also have the same story. After the talk, two men came up to me, and these were very large, sturdy, strong men, much bigger than I was. And I was like, "Uh-oh, I said something dumb," because I can do that on stage now and then. And they said, "We want to thank you for being a part of that because one fellow was stationed in Iraq, the other one says, 'I'm stationed in Afghanistan, and the only thing that kept us from losing our minds were these Playaways that the Playaway company—'" You know, I get touched whenever I hear this. "That the Playaway company had shipped to us as a gift from across the world. And we used to wait for the box, the container to come in so we could get our latest versions and we'd swap them around each other. And these things made their lives better. So from just wanting to invent something that never existed before to really transforming somebody's life. How cool is that? So, The next one. What capabilities should I focus on and which should I get help with? Woo! Yeah. You know what I'd like you all to do? Actually, no, I'll tell you the story first, then we'll do it. So the first thing, I was working with a lawyer and he had been a great corporate lawyer for many years. It was time for him to retire. His goal was to work in the arts, and his goal was more to work on Broadway. And the question he posed was, "Listen, I'm not particularly good-looking, I can't sing, I can't act, I've really just been a lawyer my whole life. What am I going to do here? Because my real desire is to work in the arts, in theater, on Broadway, in New York." So, there you are, Rob. Here's the big challenge. How are you going to help me with this one? And I go, well, I don't have a clue, but let's drop back 2 steps and ask the question: what are your greatest gifts and strengths? What are your greatest gifts and strengths? What do you naturally do so beautifully that everybody around you will tell you what your gifts and strengths are, yet you don't know it yourself? Okay. And we started talking, and, you know, it turns out one of his real gifts is that this man can connect with anybody. Throw him in a room, people just gravitate to him. They follow him around. He tries to get away, they're chasing him. They're trying to catch him and talk to him. So he's a natural connector. Everyone read "The Tipping Point" here? Worth studying. If you're in sales and marketing, read and study that book. The 3 types: connector, the maven, the visionary. Know them, because when you run into these people, they each behave differently. So knowing that he was a connector, what do we do? We use his superpower. He's a superpowered connector. And so we go, "Well, how can we have him connect with people?" The first thing he does— he was serving on the board of an arts organization in Cleveland. The question was, "Who can I connect with here that will get me to New York?" Within 2 weeks, he was serving on the board of Juilliard. Everyone heard of Juilliard? One of the great arts institutions in New York City. Using that skill of connection, nothing more. Just using his ability to make contact with another person and make contact beautifully and quickly. Connects his way to Juilliard. He's at a cocktail party, he's talking to somebody, connects to some producers, and they ask him the question, "Would you like to invest a little bit of money in one of our productions?" Well, it just turns out that that production was a work called Urinetown that became a Tony Award winner, and all of a sudden he was in the flow with one of the largest Broadway production organizations in Manhattan. So you can see how the steps— like, gee, what am I going to do to— I'm a connector, my magical gift. 3, I know some people here in Cleveland. 4, I'm in New York. 5, I'm at a cocktail party. 6, I put a little bit of money in. 7, I'm connected to one of the most powerful organizations in the world. 8, everyone hear of Wicked? He's a part producer of Wicked. All of a sudden, he spends at least 2 or 3 months a year in New York connecting people in the Broadway world. This man lives his dream through identifying his gift. So what I'd love for you to do right now is just take a moment with a pen and paper and write down one thing, write down one thing that is really, truly, absolutely special about you. One thing. And if you know more, write them all down. And if you don't know, make something up and then go home and ask somebody that knows you well. Because they'll tell you. If you want to find out what your gifts are, the people around you will tell you. They all know. They know better than you do. So go ahead and write down one superpower that you have, one thing you do phenomenally well that you do without effort. And then just look up here and give me the nod when you're done. I'll give you just a couple of seconds. Yeah, if you're saying I don't have any gifts, that's baloney. I have never met anybody in all the years I've been doing this that doesn't have some special talent that can be pressed into service. Okay, everybody got something? Just put your hands up if you got something. Okay, and for those of you that aren't doing it, that's cool, but it will be helpful. So I'd like to hear just one or two things from people. Anybody just shout it out. What's your gift? Say what? Find humor in situations. Yeah, beautiful. Somebody else? Communicate passionately my enthusiasm. Communicate passionately my enthusiasm. Yes, you do, John. Somebody else? Simplify things. Yes, you do, Jeff. Is that Jeff? Yeah, it's a little dark over there. Yeah, you certainly do simplify things. Jeff Herring, everybody. Yeah, you inspire, right? You inspire. So somebody else? Yes. Creative. Yeah. Somebody else? Build things with quality. Build things with quality. That's a gift. Yes. Encourage others. Encourage others. Somebody else? Tenacious. Tenacious. Yeah, that's one of mine. Personable. Personable. Yeah, get along well. Anybody else? Successful at whatever I attempt. Beautiful. Successful at whatever I attempt. Great. So the big question is— and thank you— does anybody, one last person, have a burning desire to yell out? Yes. Teach really, really well? Good for you. Thank you. So we're a room full of gifted people. Now the next question is, how much of the time do you spend using your gift in your work? Okay? How much of your time do you use spending your gift, you know, using your gift in your work? And that's the answer to you. Okay, so what we want to do is when you're not using your gifts in your work, you're standing over here in the surviving or in the satisfied place of life. When you're using your gifts at work all the time, mostly, you're standing here in the fulfilled place, and that's when magic happens for you. Does that make sense, everybody? Put your hand up if it does. Who's going to make a change because of this little exercise? Is that all? Come on. I thought you wanted to live extraordinary lives. This is a little thing to change. And the way you do it is you make a list of all the things you do. You make a list of all the things you do, and you say, is this my strength? Is this my strength? Is this my strength? If it's no, no, no, you hire somebody to get it done. Because I would rather see you perfect your strengths than strengthen up your weaknesses, because otherwise you just have like mediocre everything. OK? Just that alone will transform your life. It'll take about 3 months if you do it. So what's stopping me from making progress? By the way, a lot of the pictures in this presentation I take myself. It's one of the things I most love to do. This alligator was in the Fakahatchee Swamp. For anybody that's seen the movie "Adaptation," with Nicolas Cage. I think this is the alligator that ate him at the end. I was about this far away from— it's actually a female— it's actually this far away from that alligator. But the key thing is, the things that stop you from making progress are like alligators, and there's 7 that identified and 7 that you have to think about. So 1, lack of clarity. Number 2, lack of desire or something that interferes with your desire. 2 different things. One is I just don't want to do it, 2 is I do want to do it, but something is holding me back. Something is slowing me down, like that sickening feeling you get in your stomach when you think about making a sales call. Well, why is that? Okay, lack of desire really is what that is. And not that it— I'm not— it's not your fault, but there's something going on that's holding you back from doing that. Opportunity, meaning do you have the opportunity to do something? Everyone knows who Arnold Schwarzenegger is, movie star. Mr. Universe, Governor of California, all 3 things. But he does not have the opportunity ever to be President of the United States because he's not a citizen. So if you're working where there's no opportunity to do something, stop doing it. Knowledge. Do you have the knowledge to do what it takes to get done what you need to do? Ability, meaning do you have the skills? Like, I would never be an accountant because I would cause companies to go bankrupt in a week. I don't have that ability. "but I'm really good at the other stuff, so I focus on that." The environment. Is there anything in the environment that's stopping you from doing what you need to do? So when you go back to your office, look around. Is the environment distracting? Is the environment cluttered? Does the environment have in it what you need? All those things. The last thing: planning. And when I talk about a good plan, I'm talking about a plan that you have that you can open up on Monday and you know what to do for the rest of Monday, right? How cool is that? And then when you open your plan up on Tuesday, it's got the steps for you. And everybody says, "Well, I'm an entrepreneur and I can't make a plan. I gotta do what my heart is telling me to in the moment." Well, I'd say that's baloney. I know a lot of entrepreneurs that have great plans that are crushing it because they follow that plan. They spend time to make the plan and they take that plan and they follow that plan through and they make something happen in their life that's phenomenal. It's not that hard. No plan, hard to be successful. In fact, Dan, speaking yesterday, I love that. It was brilliant. Add complexity to your business, right? Rather than simplify, add complexity, become more complex than your competitors. How cool is that, right? But please do not try that without a plan, right? Because your business will topple over on you and your life will topple over on you and we'll have a very sad story that we'll be sharing over coffee one day. Okay. I'm going to skip a couple of these. I'll do this one. This thing is called a lubber. They have them down in Florida. They're about as big as this speaker here. And the other morning, one of them was trying to tow my car away by himself. But the key question here is like, what bugs me and what's not finished in my life? So I find all the time that people have unfinished threads trailing along after them. Who here would like an extra 30 minutes a day of productive, fully energized time? How many people here would like an hour a day? What would you do with 30 minutes to an hour a day? Like, how valuable is that? There's only two things we can't replace. We run out of energy, we run out of time. You can always make more money. You can never make more time. Hard to get more energy. Okay, so the question is, Actually, you know what? I'm not going to read this. Let's just do it. All right, everybody get their pencil and paper ready. Okay, the things that bug you, I want to make a list with you. The things that you put up with that suck the energy out of your life, the things that make you miserable at a very low level that stop you from being productive. For example, I took my car in to get detailed. We have a very nice car and we go to a very expensive car dealership, and the car dealership has about 16 people that go over your car with a Q-tip to make sure it's perfect when it leaves. Which I really like. And so I get into the car and I'm driving home and I go, "Wow, what a perfectly wonderful clean car. Smells great, drives great, everything." And then it gets dark and then an oncoming car flashes its headlights at me, and what do I see in the windshield? A big palm print. It was horrendous. And so what that palm print does was it distracted me, it kind of took all the fun out of it for about 30 seconds. Okay, a little nibble there. Then the next day I go to, I go to go do a speaking engagement. Well gee, I look at my shoes, my shoes aren't shined. What happens now? Oh, another 30 seconds. I'm a little bit upset because now I got to take care of my shoes. So the question is, what are the things in your life that are at a very low level that you put up with on an ongoing basis, day after day after day, day after day that suck these little 30-second chunks of your life away. So I'm going to run you through the questions. So, just answer yourself yes or no. Is your computer fast enough, or do you sit there and swear at your computer? Okay, good. Two, is the desktop on your computer a jumbled mess? You can't find your files. Do you not know where your number one proposal is from last week? Write that down. Yes, no, computer not organized. Do I have the software I need to do what I want to do, or do I have one of those trial versions that when I finally print out where it is I'm gonna print out, it says free copy of XYZ software right in the beginning before you hand it in to your client. Not a big deal, but all these little deals all together add up time. Are you writing? Capture, you didn't have any of them, did you? You didn't have any of these, did you? No, I knew that. You're perfect. Um, when you look at yourself in the mirror, is your hair the way you want it to be? If you have hair, like mine's easy. Okay, when you go into your closet for your wardrobe, is your closet the way you want to be? Are your clothes the way they want them to be? Do they fit the way you want? Do you feel good when you stand in front of a room full of people and people are looking at you? Do you feel comfortable, or do you worry just for 30 seconds when you get up there? Okay? Does this make sense? All these little things happen to us all day long, every day. When you get in your car, are you afraid if your car's gonna start or not? Is your car missing windshield washer fluid? I tell the story of everybody's lives. So here's the exercise to do when we leave. But right now, did everybody get at least one thing? Okay. If not, I'll keep going, but I don't want to take a lot of time. The idea is, what is it that happens at a low level that takes my attention for 30 seconds? Because how many 30-second chunks a day eat a 30-minute day? It's like 1,800, right? Or 180. Don't ask me to do math. I told you about that later on— earlier on. So we make a list of these. Now, I would challenge each one of you when we leave this conversation to spend an hour or two and make a list I would believe that you can come up with at least 50. If you can't beat 25 little teeny things that you're tolerating, putting up with, that are getting in your way, I'll buy you a cup of coffee out there at the coffee machine. Now, once you make that list, the key thing is to tackle it 3 ways. Way 1 is just to take care of it yourself. Way 2 is to set aside a budget. Your budget could be $50, $500, $1,000, $50,000, but to set aside a budget to absolutely clear away as many of those things as possible. And the third thing that you can do is actually take that thing and choose to put up with it. Okay, for example, I have an ankle that's been damaged many times playing sports, and rather than have surgery on it, I tolerate it. I choose to put up with it because I just want to hold off on that. But I made a decision at one point that I was just going to deal. Does that make sense? So make your list, eliminate them. If you eliminate 50 of those things, you'll find that you have 30 minutes more or better every day of your life. And the goal is to have zero things that you're tolerating in your life. Okay, if you create a life where you have zero things, everything flows. Very important. I hear this all the time: how do I make a living with my passion? Okay, how do I make a living with my passion? Well, it's not like those common books that say, uh, leap and the net will appear. Has anyone ever heard that? I always say, leap and I'll bring the spatula. And people say, I don't want to spoil the thing I love, or I can't get paid doing that. Well, I have news for you. I have never seen anybody that identifies what they love in this world who hasn't been able in some way to be associated with that and make a reasonable living. Maybe not a super home run, but they've been able to make enough so they can have a wonderful life. I've never seen it. Now, people that fool themselves, yeah, they get into trouble, but people that are really truly focused and passionate on something, of something, there's always a way to do it. And, you know, I get a lot of folks that go, you know, I really want to be a basketball player. Well, you're only 4'3", so there's a little bit of a problem there. How do I make a living with my passion? Well, that's very simple. Okay, we have an advantage here, and I hope you all know what the advantage is. The advantage is if we follow what Bill and Dan teach us, we can always make money. It's very simple. If we follow the steps, it works. That's the secret weapon. So if you know what your passion is and you know what you want to do, you may not be able to be a basketball player because you're not tall enough, but there's got to be something where you can get close enough to the world of basketball where you can be useful and valuable to other people. Does that make sense? Okay. How many people here— and I don't— don't raise your hands, don't raise your hands. This is very private, so I ask you to keep your hands down. But how many of you in this moment are doing what you passionately love and making a living from it? Thank you. Very important. And that's a question. And the next question is, what is it that— if you're not doing what it is you passionately love, what is that? And how in some way can we work to get there so that you can spend more time doing it? I want to talk about Lori Forrester. Lori Forrester was just on— she's blonde. Oh, Martha Stewart. She's just on Martha Stewart Radio. Okay, this is a long-time dream of hers. She's the wine coach. When I first met her, she said, "I want to be a lawyer, and then I want to be an executive coach, and maybe I should go back into software sales," and all these things like that. And every conversation, it turned out that her passion was helping teach people about wine, helping people learn about wine. And there were all kinds of things going on. "Well, I don't want to ruin the thing I love," or, "Who's going to listen to me?" All this stuff. Other beliefs about working with wine. And I hope you all get a chance to meet her because she's an extraordinary woman that has now built a business. And her motto is, "I demystify wine one glass at a time." OK? Extraordinary. OK? I was with her in Chicago last week. She lives her passion day in and day out. Does she have bad days? Sure. But does she love what she does? Yes. Has she been around the world? Sure. Is she teaching people, changing people's lives? Of course. She's making a living with her passion. It's beautiful. It's extraordinary. Okay. And one of the reasons she can do it is she uses Glaser Kennedy marketing techniques too, so she can get out there and get paid. So study your Dan and Bill. Okay.

Big one.

Okay. What would I regret most If I were to die tomorrow, heavy question. I'm not talking about a bucket list, not talking about all the trips you want to take and all this stuff. I'm talking about what is it that I would really be upset about if I were to die tomorrow? What's unfinished? What would I regret? It would make me very sad, okay, because, you know, all our lives end in one event. We know what's going to happen, so no use hiding it. So let's get clean with it. A couple years ago, two of my dearest friends and mentors died. I love both of these men, and they were both very helpful to me over my life. And I had the good fortune, when we knew what the final outcome was going to be, to sit down, have a conversation with each one. And in that conversation The question was, "Is there anything left for you to do? Anything important? Anything left undone? Anything that you regret?" And each one very clearly and calmly said, "You know what? I'm good. I'm clean, and I'm complete, and I'm at peace." And that reinforced to me that there's no time like the present to be really clear about what we'd regret most. So go ahead, take one moment and write down, if you would, what you'd regret most in this time. I'm not going to have anybody call out, but just take a second and write it down. Something left unsaid, something left undone, somebody left uncared for, any one of those things. And then let's talk about this, which I absolutely love. Gratitude. The sensation of gratitude. What's most important? I mean, what is it that I'm most grateful for? And what I'd like you to do right now is take a sec— a second and write down the things you're most grateful for. The number one thing you're most grateful for. But there's a little caveat here. Not your family, not your health, not your spirituality. Write down the thing you're most grateful for. And it could be the way one of your family members behaves, but I want you to be really specific. So take a moment and write that down. And while we all sit here quietly, I'd like you to reflect on that thing that you're most grateful for and the power in that and how incredible it is to be in a room full of gratitude with 600 or so people sitting here together. Feeling grateful. Imagine living a part of every day feeling grateful for something that's been given to you. How spectacular is that? How beautiful is that? How full do you feel when you just do that simple thing? I urge you to pay attention and carry this away— carry this around with you. So how do you use this? Okay, create sacred time every year, one day or more. Okay, when you can create a plan, prepare yourself, meaning sit down and step by step get ready to have in place all the things you need to create a plan for the next 12 months of your year so you can move forward and create something special. Make your business more complex. Create a plan. Okay, get support. One thing that I'm sure you all know about yourselves, I know about this myself, is I cannot pick myself up by my own hair. Okay? You can tell. It's all gone on top. I've tried. You gotta have support when it comes to asking the hard questions. It's almost impossible to do it on your own. You gotta have somebody to back you up and take you into the truth. Create a perfect environment, a place where you're not distracted. No BlackBerrys, BlueBerries, no iPhones, iPads, iPods. No nothing. A place that's peaceful and quiet and beautiful and inspirational for you where you can sit down and let your mind unfold. Answer these 12 questions for yourself with the utmost candor. Put your heart and soul into it. Create a detailed plan for your year, meaning step by step, so you know what to do next. Thank you very much.

Thank you for listening to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with Dan Kennedy. If you love hearing in on these lost Dan Kennedy talks and speeches and calls, then please let someone else know about this podcast. That's how you can help it to grow, and the more it grows, the more free Dan Kennedy we can bring to you. Also, Dan would love to give you the most incredible free gift ever designed to help you make maximum money in minimum time. Now this free gift comes with almost $20,000 in pure money-making information for free just for saying maybe. You can get this gift from Dan right now at noBSletter.com. Not only do you get the $20,000 gift, You also get a subscription to 2 marketing newsletters that will be hand-delivered by the mailman to your mailbox each and every month. One from Dan Kennedy and one from me, Russell Brunson. To get this gift and your subscription, go to NoBSLetter.com right now.