Building a Business That Satisfies Your Soul - and Makes an Impact

On this quest to help people soar.

You know, it's. I'd love to tell you I had the Hollywood version of this, that it was a vision I had. And I had it all planned since I was a kid and when I was six, I drew a picture and that's all materialized. And that would be a big lie. It actually happened by accident. And where it actually happened was I was invited to do a best man speech in Dublin in a place called Lukin. And I'll never forget when my friend rang me and asked me to do this best man speech, I was so excited, I said, absolutely. And then it dawned on me what that meant. And then I thought to myself, what if I break my leg? What if. And I'm not exaggerating, I was so petrified by being seen publicly. And we went to this hotel and lo and behold, it used to be an old theater and there was a stage. And I'm looking at this stage and thinking, no, no, no. I said to him, where's the speeches taking place? He goes, oh, at the top table on the stage. Because there was no other room because arch weddings are enormous. And I decided leading up to that that I was going to be. I was so insecure, I was so scared. And I said, you know what? I'm just going to be really funny. So I decided to create a funny talk, which was so inauthentic. And then I decided I was going to be the smartest guy in the room and I'd be trying to be clever. And that didn't work. And about a week out from the wedding, I just gave up. I was so exhausted trying to put on all these masks, pretending to be something I wasn't. I showed up, Alison, that day. I just let go, I spoke. The only place I can tell you I spoke from is my heart, from my soul. I just let go completely. And at the end of my talk and I did a toast to the bride and groom. There was an enormous standing station and I stood over to the right of the stage, I remember, and I looked at the bride and groom and I looked back at the audience and everyone was staring at me and people were crying. And I'm thinking I was so awkward, I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. And I came down off that stage and this is the really important part. A young man walked up to me who I'd never met in my life and I've never met him since, with tears pouring down his face. And he says, well, if I ever get married, will you Be my best man. To which I used some colorful language to say no. And he looked at me and this is the key. He said, you have got a gift. And why I share that story is it's not about me. The story is sometimes it's the things that we do so naturally that we find impossible to put a value on. But it's the thing that others see in us. And it's sometimes a stranger that can see something in us that we either cannot see in ourselves or more importantly, don't want to see in ourselves. So be aware of your self worth, your self value, how you view yourself in the world and how you put yourself down, while sometimes strangers are trying to elevate you in society.

Yeah. Wow. And then be willing to not just see the gift, but to step into the gift. And this is so powerful. Well, I'm, I'm glad that you were asked to give that speech. What do you think are. When you think of business owners that are stuck and trying to break through that ceiling of their success, what do you feel like are the top two things that hold them back?

Self worth. They don't feel they deserve it 100%. They don't feel deserving of that success. As I was going to share this, it's very personal. It's not anymore when I share this, but we just took ownership of a castle in Ireland. We've been working on this for six or seven months. It literally closed within the last seven days. And it has 22 acres. It's got this extraordinary history. And I can't tell you how many times I try to screw that deal up or find a way not to execute and pull the trigger on it. And I can sit here and say, was there genuine concerns about COVID 19, the fact that all of our live events were cancelled. And by the way, I deeply commend you for the way in which you're pivoting. And I'm not just saying that or feel I have to say that, you know what determination, like, talk about it. Why? Rather than just, ah, forget about it, you know, we'll get back to live events like the way you've put this together. I commend you deeply. But there was concerns. But ultimately the origin of all the things that I try to put in the way of this deal or the fact that I didn't feel deserving of cause I grew up in a little housing estate in Ireland where there was a little, small, little house. My parents were brilliant. They did their best little garden. And there was about 200 houses that were identical. Who am I to live in a castle? Who am I to have 22 acres of woodland in one of the most majestic parts of the world? So self worth is at the heart of. Of so much sabotage are people's inability to break through that ceiling that you talk about. The second thing. That's one. The second one is. I often believe you have three ideas. I often believe we have three books. We have the book that we think will sell. We have the book in our. That's in our right pocket. We have the book in our left pocket that we think people want us to write. They've told us to, but every one of us has that book in our back pocket. And I'm using a book analogy, but that could be a business idea. And we're afraid to put that on the ice. Put that on the table, put that on the chopping block. Because if we wrote that book, we created that business and the world said no. They're not just saying no to my ideas, they're saying no to the essence of who I am. Because we care so deeply what other people think. We seek validation, love, and recognition from so many people that we would rather fail doing what we think we want to do rather than putting something on the table. That is the essence of who we are. I see that all the time. And the way we frame that is, if this was your one last startup, what would you create just as a framework to play and to imagine?

Wow. So beautiful. So much to really take in. You know, as we wrap up here, I would love for you to share the story about the two old men on the porch with the dog.

Yes. So there are. When people come and work with me, sometimes they'll sit in a room, they'll travel. In some cases, well, they used to thousands of miles to sit in front of me for the clarity that they don't want. In other words, sometimes they're hesitant. I'm in the room, I'm open. No, you're not open. You're as open as you can be. If I took a stone and I threw it at you, you'd do this. Our brain is trying to protect us in the same way. So you're open. You're just not as open as I can be. Sometimes it requires us to get to a place where the pain is so bad, unfortunately, as humans. And the story goes that there's two old guys sitting having a beer on this veranda, and they're sipping their beer, and the gentleman who owns the property, his dog comes up and Curls up in a little ball. And as he's sitting down, his friend who's visiting looks over and this dog puts his bum, his backside on this exposed nail that's sticking up through the veranda, through the deck. And he goes, mate, he says, your dog's lying on a nail. The guy takes a step and he goes, yeah, yeah. And he goes, but it's a nail, like it's shirt sticking into him. He goes, he'll move. And the guy goes. When. He goes. When the pain is bad enough. And unfortunately, many humans are designed that we need pain in order to pivot. And I think if we have the courage to ask the questions now and begin to tweak our lives, hear over the next couple of days, take this information, do something with it. I think that those pain points don't have to be as significant or even arise in the first place.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Before I totally get it. There's a saying I say is when your desire for change grow stronger than your fear. It's like, okay, I've had the nails already. Let's not go there anymore. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. This is such, this is a gift for you, tuning in all the way from Ireland, sharing your heart, your soul, your story and inspiring everybody here. Can we all give it up for Philip McKernan? Is he been phenomenal? Let's share the hearts. Thank you. Thank you so, so, so much. And I'm looking forward to having you back again at the following events.

Appreciate that. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Everyone say goodbye. Let's blow it up on the chat here for Philip. Awesome. Oh, my goodness, what a gift. Thank you. All right. That gave me the shivers. Oh my gosh. The breakthroughs. I could see the people that were watching their faces, the thoughts, them going deeper, things they hadn't thought about in a long time. The things that really, really matter. Because we get so caught up with all the things going on in life. And when you can get to the heart of the matter, that's really where the joy comes from. And that's what Philip is so gifted at. So I hope you absolutely enjoyed this as much as I did. And I hope that you'll enjoy. You will join us at one of our big three day events. In fact, we have one coming up here called Scale it live on May 6th to the 8th. And so you just go to scaleitlive.com if you are a business owner, you've been in business for a while and you're ready to take it to the next level. You definitely don't want to miss this. And if you're listening to this and the event has already passed, you just go to our website @pinnacle global network.com and find out what our next events are that are approaching or reach out to us if you want to support, to grow or scale your business. Okay. If you haven't subscribed to the show, absolutely do it and share it with the business owners that you know. Till next time, get out there, elevate yourself because you are worth it. Bye, everybody.