Mind Capture: Leadership Lessons from Ten Trailblazers Who Beat the Odds and Influenced Millions
Tony Rubleski discusses his book on ten influential leaders including Seth Godin, Jay Abraham, and Brian Tracy. He explains "mind capture," the challenge of cutting through information overload to grab attention, and shares how he landed interviews with major figures through homework and direct outreach to publicists.
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Well, greetings everyone. Welcome to the Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014 episode of Free Webinar Wednesdays. This is Eric Cook with WSI Internet Consulting where we work with businesses and organizations in helping them better understand and leverage the power of the Internet as a strategic business tool. You can learn more about me and WSI online at www.poweredbywsi.com. With me this week is my good friend and Free Webinar Wednesday partner, and I missed you last week because you were not able to join us, Mr. Jeff Simpkins. Jeff, say hello to everybody out there in Free Webinar Wednesday world.
Hello everybody, this is Jeff Simpkins. I'm with Community Bank Consulting, Inc., and you can learn more about me and Community Bank Consulting, Inc. online at www.communitybankconsulting.com. And Eric, I'd like to mention this week another one of our new service offerings for banks is a vendor management program we've started. The vendor management program actually gives you access to attorneys and paralegals to review all of your vendor contracts, and it has a compliance piece built in and a monitoring piece for contract key trigger dates and those type things.
Excellent.
Excellent.
So any bankers in the audience, if you'd like to get more information on that, shoot me an email.
I'd love to talk with you.
And I can see from the audience we do have quite a few of our banker buddies joining us today, which is great. So I know that you also announced a couple of weeks ago some services related to vendor contract negotiation and pricing. So excited that there's some cool stuff going on in your world for your banking solutions. Yeah, bankers, get in touch with Jeff.
Lots of exciting new things going on.
Yeah, very cool. Good, good, good. Well, I don't know if you were able to catch the replay, and the replay actually didn't have it from last week, but I had JP Nichols and we talked about banking innovation, which was a great conversation. We actually explored, we cut new ground in a lot of different areas. And one of the things that we actually did last week, although we're not turning it on this week, but we actually turned on the webcam feature. And JP and I stuck our mugs out there for the rest of the world to see. Luckily, I wore a clean shirt that day, and so everybody at least got to see me somewhat dressed up, although JP certainly looked a whole lot better than I did. We may bring back the webcam at some point. Curious to know, those of you that are joining us live that maybe were on the session, if you enjoyed looking at us or if that was a distraction. I know sometimes with bandwidth and audio quality, that can also bog things down, and we try to be cognizant of that. So who knows? Maybe we'll do that for special occasions, and you now all know what I look like. And unless you've kind of creeped Jeff on Facebook or whatnot, maybe we'll get him to make an appearance on Free Webinar Wednesdays down the road. So that was kind of fun. Well, let's go ahead and—
Give me an advance warning for that one, Eric.
Yeah, we'll give an advance warning. We'll make sure at least from the waist up we've got a nice shirt and tie on. We might still be in shorts and flip-flops, but we'll just keep that secret for the rest of the audience. Before we officially get started and welcome our guest, I want to make sure to cover a couple of housekeeping things. As a reminder, Free Webinar Wednesdays is recorded and archived and made available at freewebinarwednesdays.com. So we encourage you to stop by our website, and if you happen to miss the banking innovation chat from last week or others, or you'd like to share today's session with friends or colleagues, freewebinarwednesdays.com. And also, if you'd like to ask a question or interact with us today, we encourage you to do that as well. We like interactivity, and you can use the chat feature. in your control panel, which is likely located in the upper right-hand corner of your screen, and just type that in. Jeff and I will monitor that, and we'd be happy to ask your question of Tony when the time comes. So with that, Jeff and I are very excited to bring back Tony Rubleski of the Mind Capture Group, and he's been a guest of ours before and talked about some books, and I've actually had the honor of seeing him present in person at banking conferences And really love his message. And I know he does a lot of work not just in the banking sector but all different types of industries, kind of, you know, focusing on capturing minds and delivering what I think is a great message. I believe I still have one of your pink brain squish ball stress ball things, if I'm not mistaken, somewhere. So every once in a while I get stressed, I bring the brain out and squeeze it and think of you. But Tony, welcome back to Free Webinar Wednesdays.
We appreciate Well, thank you, John. It's an honor to be back again.
Yeah, good. So I'm going to go ahead and we're going to kind of run this a little freeform today. We don't necessarily have any slides. We're just going to kind of make sure everybody knows how to see Tony on his website. But we're going to chat a little bit about his upcoming 4th book called Leadership Lessons from 10 Trailblazers Who Beat the Odds and Influenced Millions. We're going to visit some of the people that are actually featured in that book. But maybe, Tony, for those of you or those of us that are joining that maybe haven't heard of you before, aren't aware of some of the other books, maybe give us a little recap and kind of what's your passion and what motivates you to get up in the morning and capture minds.
Well, Eric and Jeff, essentially I love to teach people how to stand out and get attention. And with that in mind, that's really the biggest marketing challenge that I see in the 21st century is how do you get what I call mind capture? So can you guys hear me?
Yep, we've got you.
Okay, very good. We had echo earlier. Excellent. So I love to help people that have a good product/service. I know we have a lot of banking professionals on the line. How do you get more customers? How do you get them to do more business with you? How do you improve their life as far as save them time, Make it easier for them to do banking, for example. I know you guys are IT professionals. And with that in mind, we all have a product, a service, or message that we are trying to promote. And it is very, very noisy out there. I know, Eric, you and Jeff have interviewed me several times. But you look at what is going on, the attention challenge or getting mind capture, I argue, is getting more and more difficult. And it is not to be argumentative with an audience, This is the reality. We have 5,000 to 7,000 messages per day in North America trying to get mind capture every day. And on top of that, we have our own goals, initiatives, and deadlines that we're under, each of us on the call. So it's a very crowded mental freeway. So I argue that if you get very, very good at getting mind capture, you have a much higher chance of getting appointments, getting your clients to look at another product or service that can improve their life, to grow and expand your enterprise. So if you have an idea that you are trying to sell internally at your organization, you do have to move that idea through and get people to pay attention to it, but also convince them that it is worth pursuing. So I know it is kind of long-winded, but again, I am very, very passionate. And as I am out here on the West Coast, I am in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho right now. It is good morning from me to you in the East. A lot of folks are listening Eastern Standard. It doesn't matter wherever I travel.
Well, you might be surprised. We will— and maybe the folks can type in the chat box— we'll frequently get people from the UK that'll join us and all over the place. So when we have UK guests, it's usually we're breaking into their dinnertime, but we certainly love it when they join us too. So spanning the globe, if you will.
Excellent.
Well, we're looking at your website, and I think I referred to you on the website as a speaker and an author. You've got 3 books already in the can that I'm sure you incorporate in your speaking sessions. You want to maybe just give us a quick little rundown, and if there's an area on your website that you'd like me to go to and focus on that kind of talks about the books, The different messages that are delivered and then how those have kind of built into this next book that maybe you can talk about when we're thinking about or when it's going to be released and some of the components of the 10 Trailblazers.
Excellent. Eric, just a quick thought. If people are interested, there's really 2 ways to kind of dive into the Mind Capture universe, I'd say. Facebook obviously is a good channel. You and I connect there occasionally. But if they go to Facebook.com and type in my name, they will find me. And I'm finding that I have about 800 people that are on my business page. But if you go to Facebook.com, you should see my fan page come up or business page. So that's a great way to access. Actually, it should be Mind Capture. And then we are pulling up right now. If you pull up my name, that's probably the easier route to go. And I put up every day different articles of information, mind nuggets I call them, quotes. And I'll cross-reference back and forth between my personal page and the Mind Capture page. I know it's pulling up right now. So there's an example. You see the profile picture. And then also, let me bring that back up here in a second. You'll see the COVID of the 3rd book which I think we've interviewed before on. There it is. So if you click on the gal that is holding the book coming out of the water, that was the 3rd book that we put out a couple years ago. For our audience that's looking at this, really that book dealt with— the subtitle is How to Awaken Your Entrepreneurial Genius in a Time of Great Economic Change— dealt with a lot of mindset. I know, Eric, you've got some of my books and have seen me present live, as you mentioned. That book came out really early 2011. I call it under a lot of duress. I know some of the folks listening will be able to relate to this. I was right in the middle of a divorce, a very traumatic time on a lot of fronts. I have 3 children. It was a very busy, hectic time, very stressful. That book literally was released sort of under the COVID of night. I wanted to self-publish it to get it out faster. I did not go back to New York. A lot of people said, hey, that book was really a lot of the mindset about how do you deal with adversity and setback. And the timing of the book literally came at a big challenging point in my own life. So there was a lot of irony when that book released, and frankly, it didn't get as much fanfare or marketing push as I normally would give with a book. So we fast forward today, for everyone listening, we've got the new book. And Eric, this is one of the— really the first couple of interviews I've done to talk about it with your group and your audience about the new book. And I'll give some reasons why the book has been written and really the launch date. We're looking at July, August to have the book ready. So as we tape this here in mid-April, you are at the forefront. But I really wanted to get sort of a sneak peek out to folks that have either heard of me, and several people on the line have seen me present or have had my other books, but also for new folks that are like, hey, who are you? To give them a tip-off that the book is coming. So we look at the 4th book. As you had mentioned, the subtitle is Leadership Lessons from 10 Trailblazers Who Beat the Odds and Influenced Millions. It's a little bit different direction. My first 2 books were much more tactical marketing sales nuts and bolts. How do you get exposure, customers, referrals, create a great press release, get more eyeballs to read your direct mail pieces, your online information? But you look at the 3rd book was mindset. This 4th book, as we're looking at the page there, is really taking a lot of content that I've done over the last several years, and I wouldn't say repackaging it, But presented in a way where people go, wow, there's a lot of good information here, and sort of updating it for 2014 into 2015. And I know Eric and Jeff, as we go through this, will talk about some of the featured mavericks or trailblazers, as I call them, in this book. It's fascinating. I sometimes forget, similar to you guys, the people that let you interview them and the wisdom that they share. So this 4th book, as we talk about today, was originally about a year ago going to be a totally different book. But one of my coaches by the name of Jim Palmer, we were having a private phone call and he said, Tony, why don't you take some of these interviews you've done with these people that are hugely influential and make that your 4th book? And sometimes we forget the obvious that's in front of us. So as we dig into this, that's sort of the general theme is we've got all these great trailblazers that have literally influenced millions of people. They share with me their time, talent, and treasures. We tape these interviews. And we went back through the archives and selected 10 original trailblazers and added 2 more additional people to the book.
Tony, can you talk to us about what do you mean by trailblazer?
Well, the definition, there are 2 of them here, is one that blazes a trail, number one. And number two, an innovative leader in a field, a pioneer. And really, if you look at the second textbook definition, That to me is a trailblazer. And what we'll find as we roll into today's interview is that some of the names you have up on the screen, I'll quickly walk through to give an overview, and then we can dive in specifically more about them, time permitting. Seth Godin, I describe him as a big picture trailblazer. So if you're looking at chapter 1, Seth arguably has the number 1 blog in business in the world. And I've been a big fan of his work for many, many years. Hugely successful, and he really looks at a lot of things going on in business and societal trends and talks and writes and blogs extensively about those things that are occurring. If you look at the second author, we have Dave Liniger. I called him the persistence trailblazer. He is the co-founder of a little company called RE/MAX, and we were very fortunate last year. I hosted an event involving Think and Grow Rich and Napoleon Hill where Dave Liniger was given an award at the event, and he actually spoke at our event. And I was allowed to interview him a couple of times. I've met with him face-to-face. And it's fascinating to see the challenges not only he but everyone that's in the new book had to go through before they became sort of quote-unquote known in their industry or around the world with their companies or brands. If we keep looking, chapter 3, W.M. Paul Young wrote a book called The Shack. And it's very much, as I put here, spirit trailblazer. A deeply moving book about God. And I know some folks have said, you know, you delve into a lot of business obviously, but you talk about spirituality. And I'm okay with that. Jeff and Eric, I think everyone listening knows that we're not going to please everybody. In the last several years, I'm okay talking about, you know, different people that have a great spiritual message. It does not mean that I'm preaching at them. And I know when a lot of groups bring me in, for example, I know we have a lot of banking professionals. If I'm speaking to a banking group, you know, I'm not up there to preach religion.
Right.
It's just that some of these trailblazers, to me, their spiritual message is very universal. And I don't think it encroaches on business where someone's going to get offended. And I really wanted to make the book not just about business people. I wanted to make it about those that have influenced different sectors of society, but the whole goal is they've helped millions of people with the message. So chapter 4, we had John Stossel, and I call him the free stream thinking trailblazer. And some of our folks over 40 might remember John Stossel. From a show called 20/20. And he was very, very popular. He was on there as sort of the consumer investigative reporter. If you go back in time, you could probably see him sitting next to Barbara Walters and a lot of the big names, Geraldo Rivera, when he was on there. And John now is over at Fox Television with his own show called Stossel. And I would have to say arguably one of the bigger, as far as mass media personalities, I was very fortunate to get on the phone and interview. And I'll tell everybody listening, he was a little intimidating. Because typically Stossel is taking on and questioning companies or government organizations, asking them the questions. So I was able to flip the microphone back on him, which was kind of an honor, but also, like I said, a little intimidating and strange. But we had a lot of fun during the interview. Dan Bylsma, chapter 5, is what I call the belief trailblazer. And for our folks that are in the West Michigan part of the audience, Eric and Jeff, Dan is sort of our hometown hero. He played in the NHL for many years. He is now the head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who ironically his rookie year won the Stanley Cup with him as the rookie head coach. The highest sport in hockey, the trophy is the Stanley Cup, and he won it as a rookie. More recently, he was the head coach of Team USA at the Olympics in Sochi. So in Russia, he was there leading Team USA, and his story— he's also a personal friend of many years, and when he lived in Grand Haven, Michigan during the offseason, We played church softball together. I got a chance to get to know Dan. He's just a really solid guy, very modest, very humble man, but don't be fooled. As we talked about in the interview in the book, he's very driven to get those players to believe and play at a very high level. So, uh, do you guys want me to continue? I can walk through the other authors real quick and then we can dive in specifically.
Yeah, I think it'd be good because I recognize some names on here, but, uh, but some of them I don't. I know one of the questions that I'll have for you, and you can either answer it now or come back to it, but With John Stossel, for example, and you talk about how maybe you were intimidated by him, how did you come up, especially with him, how did you come up with the questions that you wanted to ask him? Because obviously he sat in front of world leaders, and, you know, not that Tony Rubleski isn't all that and a bag of chips, but, you know, I can imagine why you were intimidated. So how did you come up with your questions for him and for the others? Well, Were they all the same, or were they tailored more specifically to their industry?
Well, I'm really glad you brought that up, because we may have time to delve in more, but this is my initial thought to that. The question is this: I do my homework, and he had a brand new book come out, and I went to the bookstore, picked it up. I thought on an impulse, hmm, he's probably going to be doing book signings and book media for about the first 30 days. Most publishers, they require the authors to do a book tour for the first month or two. And the book had just released in hardcover, so it was a new release. So I looked in the book, found out the name of his publishing people, did a Google search, found out he was doing a book signing in Florida, called the Barnes Noble store in Florida, got the manager. It was like a series of quick synchronicity type of events. They referred me to his publicist in New York. I leave a voicemail. This is all in like a matter of 15 to 20 minutes. The next day the publicist called me from New York, asked a couple qualifying questions, asked me to email more information, which I did right away. A couple days later, I get a call. I kid you not. Hey, John's got these times available next week. He's going to be in Napa Valley. When can you do it? I thought, wow! Okay, I did my homework. I read his book.
Wow!
Literally, I caught him. It's a matter of timing. There's the keyword for everybody. You have to at least ask and make a reach out. You never know what's going to happen. That's the first step. Secondly, if you do the right timing, you can catch someone. Typically in publishing, I knew this intuitively, during a book tour. So a series of good timing events all lined up. And frankly, I was just amazed how easy it was. Because there are other authors in the book that took me years to get, and much more detailed follow-up to try to time it where they were doing a book launch or they wanted to do media. So there's your answer. And the thing about intimidating, it's not like John was a bad person. He was great. It's just that you figure this guy's been on television for so many years. has probably done countless interviews. And what I told myself before I went on the phone with him was, look, this guy is human, Eric, and Jeff, and everyone listening. He's human just like all of us. He has goals and dreams and challenges. And by golly, I did my homework. I'm going to do a good interview. I'm going to give it the best I can. And frankly, once the first minute or two is over, the butterflies kind of go away. Once the interview gets up and rolling, and in the book I'll talk about this more, You hear the actual audio interviews, the energy picks up right away, because after the first butterflies, they know that it's going to be a different type of interview, and it's more of a fun, conversational style. And almost every author I've ever interviewed in the last 7 or 8 years, or thought leader, likes the fact that it's not stuffy and boring. So there's your answer.
Very cool. Well, that's what Jeff and I try to do— not stuffy and boring. Maybe somewhat disorganized and a little disjointed, but at least we're not ever called stuffy and boring.
Hey, you guys do a great job. That's why I keep coming back on. So well done.
Well, we appreciate it. And you mentioned earlier, this is kind of one of your first interviews, and I can't tell you that means a lot for us to be able to be one of the first on your announcement of this new book. So that's pretty cool too. So let's, let's continue with number 6. My wife is a huge fan of Jeffrey Gitomer and has been in sales, and she's got his Little Red Book of Selling and all the other colored books that he's come out with. But Maybe talk a little bit about Jeffrey and then finish it up with the rest of the folks there.
Well, Jeffrey is an interesting character. I've watched his career for about the last 15, 16 years. I was very fortunate to host him at an event that I did in California last year, the Think and Grow Rich Summit. Jeffrey was one of our featured speakers. He is arguably one of the top sales trainers out there. I defined and termed him as the sales trailblazer. And having watched him many, many years and worked with him directly as an event promoter, Jeffrey knows how to sell and he's worked very, very hard. He's very opinionated. I'm sure your wife can attest to that, Eric. I've read his materials and Jeffrey's kind of like a blunt force trauma. I mean, when you see him speak, he's very engaging. He's a great presenter, knows his stuff. He's also from Philly originally, so if that gives you some indication, we love our folks in the Northeast and Philadelphia. He's very street smart and direct, and you know with his knowledge base and him being out there for so many years, it was very fortunate to get him. It was a fast interview. Typically, the interviews roll 45 minutes to 60 minutes. Jeffrey was about 32 minutes, and that just tells you how boom boom boom, his fast his mind works, but also his responses to questions. He knows his material so cold that the interview was just. Holy cow, it was like, wow, that was exhausting, but it was only 30 minutes, but he covered a lot of great ground. You look at section 2, we talked about mindset first. We're in section 2, the sales and persuasion trailblazers. Jeffrey is the first one. Jay Abraham is what I call a strategy trailblazer. Jay Abraham used to be called the marketing wizard. He's not as active as he used to be, but he's one of my original mentors besides Dan Kennedy and a few other select folks. Jay literally charged $5,000 per hour to consult. You talk about someone that understands marketing strategy at a very complex level but can make it simple, Jay is arguably the best in the world. A lot of his work was done heavily in the '80s and '90s, but his track record and his legend live on. Just again, to get him on the phone, I had met him once before, but he was a very kind man, very sharing with his time. And it was very revealing about— we did the interview right around the Great R. It was back in '08 or '09 we taped that interview. And his book had just come out and it was really how do you handle dealing with a recession. So I remember his interview, you guys will appreciate this, but it was one-on-one and he was 35 minutes late. And I had a conference call line. I tape all these interviews one-to-one privately. But I kept sitting there and put the phone on speaker. He comes on and he's like, I'm so sorry. I was just honored to get him. I said, Jay, not a problem. He goes, well, I was just being interviewed. I think it was by Ken Blanchard or somebody for a lot of his audience. Several hundred thousand people are going to hear it. What that showed me was, okay, number one, he made the time for me. I was willing to let him be late. I was very appreciative that he gave this sort of upstart interviewer a chance to talk about his book when he had all these other bigger interviewers that wanted to get him on the phone. So again, you never know if the timing is right, and if you make the reach out, what people will say. I'm shocked, guys, how many people say, yeah, let's do the interview. But it's just a matter of having the confidence and the timing to pull it off. All right, chapter 8. Sally Hogshead is what I call the Fascination Trailblazer. And if you're not familiar with her, she's doing a lot of work under the banner of fascination and fascination methodology. And it's really— Fascination. In-depth studies of how you get people to pay attention, but more importantly, how do you get your brand to stand out. So I'm a big fan of Sally Hogshead's work. She's very much the last few years becoming well-known in the keynote circuit. I think she has another book coming out shortly, but just a big fan of her work. Another tough interview to get, but once we had her on the phone, it was just a fun— probably one of the funner interviews I've ever done, where we were cracking up midway through. We just couldn't stop laughing at certain points. You find people that you resonate with and those interviews go even that much better. Chapter 9, we have the legendary Brian Tracy. And if I sound a little nasally, forgive me. I'm fighting a really bad cold right now, so that's why I sound a little congested. But Brian Tracy is what I call the communication trailblazer. And Brian arguably is one of the top business minds in the world. He's written, gosh, I don't know, more than 25 or 30 books. But one of my heroes, and I've seen him present many times live. You talk about a guy that's just influenced so many millions of people the last 20 years, Brian Tracy is definitely it. So big fan of his work and interview. He just put on a sales and marketing clinic. Chapter 10 is Ben Gay III. He's sort of what I call the dark horse or the influence trailblazer. Ben, who I've gotten to know the last really 9, 10 months, was very popular in the 1970s and early '80s and wrote a series of books called The Closers. And I didn't know until I met him in the fall that book series sold over 5 million copies. And a lot of it, for our audience listening, was done to direct selling organizations and real estate groups, network marketing, by word of mouth. So it never really hit the mainstream. You didn't really see his work like on New York Times list or, you know, Wall Street Journal. But the guy was literally at the age of 27, the CEO of a network company called Holiday Magic. This goes back to the '70s. And the stories, you know, Jeff and Eric, the stories I get from these people are just fascinating. They were at history. I mean, check this out. When I interviewed him, we talk about it in the book, he actually hired Zig Ziglar, the legendary Zig Ziglar, to work for him when he was CEO of Holiday Magic back in the early '70s. So, I mean, almost probably everybody on the call, even our UK folks, probably know who Zig Ziglar was.
Yeah.
This was the type of people that Ben actually was mentored by or hired to work for him. Another interesting note about Ben, the legendary Napoleon Hill directly mentored Ben for 2 years before he died. So when I interviewed Ben, I was very intrigued as a student of personal development that someone, you know, that was interviewing actually worked with the late Napoleon Hill directly and got to have lunch with him and pick Napoleon Hill's brain. For those of you that may not be up to speed, Napoleon Hill's book Think and Grow Rich has sold over 80 million copies. It's considered really the Bible of the personal development industry and still continues to influence several hundred thousand people per year. So to have a direct link of history from Ben to all these other trailblazers was just amazing. That's why I dubbed him the Influence Trailblazer. Section 3, I put in a couple of bonus interview guests. One is by the name of Brad Zalis, and I call him the generational trailblazer. Brad is really a rising star out of New York City. He was the founder of a company called K2 Design, which was one of the first public internet companies in the 1990s to go public on NASDAQ. K2 Design actually was one of the few dot-coms— I'm sure some of our folks are going to appreciate this— that made money. So when they went public in 1996 on NASDAQ, they were the first company to go public in the IPO space that was web-based out of New York City. And really, Brad went from about 5 employees to 60 employees in a matter of 18 months in New York City. So he had to manage all these young web designers and programmers. And his book is really about teaching how to handle the generations. So a lot of folks that have Gen X, Gen Y, Millennials, Baby Boomers in their organizations, will love that interview. As a matter of fact, I just spoke to Brad yesterday in New York City. He is so busy right now because all these companies are like, look, how do we manage all the different age generations in our workforce? So I put him in there because I also thought not only is his content solid, but his message is going to be very, very hot and very timely for at least the next 10 to 15 years. And in chapter 12, the last sort of bonus trailblazer interview was with Jim Palmer. Jim is also, just full disclosure, one of my business coaches, and he's written several great books. I call him the never-quit trailblazer. The reason is he had cancer. He had a business that was struggling for a couple of years, and the guy just is persistent and just doesn't quit. I thought to put him in the book would be a great value-add as a bonus trailblazer for our audience. I know I went kind of quick. Again, this is really one of the second interview I've done about the new book that's coming out in a few months. Very excited, and as we get more and more interviews under our belt, I'll have more content and more graphics for you guys and for the audience. But literally, there are only a handful of people that even know the title, and after today, know a little bit more about the content of the actual book.
Yeah, well, cool. One of the questions that I know I've got, because it sounds like you did all these pretty much audio and you recorded them, is there going to be Any release of that audio? With a lot of people now doing podcasting and sharing audio and making it available for download, is that anything that you've thought of, or are those really kind of rough cut and for your ears and eyes only as part of creating this 4th book?
Well, it's funny you should ask that. What's going to happen is at the end of each chapter There's going to be a link where you can click on it and get the entire interview unedited. So as a huge value add—
Wow.
Deadlines and Deadlines Directly from Jeffrey Gitomer gives more value. You're going to be able to get all 12 interviews in their entirety when you buy the book. So I want people to go, holy cow. There's snippets of the interviews in each chapter, the actual Kindle, the digital book, and the printed book. So we're not going to reprint the entire interview or the transcript. We are going to sort of, as an editor and the guy that did these interviews, I went through and sort of pulled a few highlights from the interviews. And then there is a call to action at the end that says, hey, if you want to hear the entire interview, here it is. So if anything, I know if I were a fan of this type of industry, that would be a huge benefit for me. And I'm doing interviews every month myself, so there is always a new set of interview guests coming up the pike. And there's also probably about another 80 interviews that aren't included in the book. So as we keep creating interviews and doing new ones, there's no shortage of the content. It's making sure people get out there and they really enjoy it. Some people might dive into certain interviews and listen to the entire thing and go, holy cow, that was really good. But yeah, you nailed it. We're going to be giving out the interviews, the full ones, at the end of each chapter.
Wow, very cool. I'm looking forward to listening to the one with Sally. Sounds like you guys really enjoyed yourself. I'm suspecting there's going to be a lot of chuckling and laughter in that one.
Well, thank you, sir. It was a lot of fun.
I'm curious, is there one interview that stands out as a favorite, or what are your thoughts on that?
Well, you know, I enjoy every interview. There's always some sort of what I call revealing moment that just shocks me when I'm interviewing a guest. I have to say one that particularly reached out and really grabbed me was when I interviewed William Paul Young, W.M. Paul Young. His book The Shack sold, I think at latest count, about 14 million copies. A lot of different literary groups and associations said, look, the top 100 books of all time, The Shack is right up there in that list. And when I got W.M. Paul Young to do the interview, it took about 6 weeks to get a response via email. I literally, guys, had forgotten I asked him. And it was right before Thanksgiving a couple years ago, I got an email back that said, Tony, it's me. I'm going through the several hundred emails I get per day out of 3 inboxes, and I found yours amongst the thousands. And I literally fell out of the bed and almost dropped my laptop. I couldn't believe he got back to me. Because I had again forgotten, and then for him to go through like a needle in a haystack and say, let's do the interview, I was floored. So that was the first sort of miracle or synchronicity point or God wink. But when we got him on the phone, oh my goodness. There have been a few times where, again, I've been really, really deeply moved with a guest. There were several times in the interview, guys, I almost wept. And I don't know if it was because of my own life experiences, but some of the stories he shared from readers that had read the book. He talked about the challenge they had, the struggle to actually get the book out there. That book was marketed for under $300. And it by word of mouth sold several thousands of copies. And about a year and a half later they got picked up for a book deal. But when he talks about in the interview, the actual audio when I'm going one-to-one, the miracles that occurred for that book to even be printed, how he ran to Staples around Christmas time with the last $100 he had to make 10 sets of photocopies to give as gifts. The book itself is phenomenal. And I'm sure some of the folks on the line listening have probably read it or heard about it. But the story behind that story, the book, is just amazing. So again, that was one of the more deeply spiritual, moving interviews I've ever done. And you can tell the guy is just very wise. He's a very, very gentle man. And he's still shocked by all the success of the book. So it was really neat to get someone on the phone That his ego wasn't so far out of control. And I don't mean that like any of the guests were bad. It's just you could tell this was a very humble man that wanted to get the book out there, but was still surprised that it took off like a juggernaut. So that was a huge interview.
Wow. Very cool. Well, as a reminder, we do have the— I don't want to sound too much like a cheesy radio guy, but we do have the chat lines open. So call in and ask your question of our guest. But if you've got a question or you— something's burning, feel free to use that and let us know. One of my other questions— Jeff and I will just kind of bounce back and forth— it sounds like this book, and I guess the other books that you've done as well, they can cross the boundary. They're not just a business book and they're not just a personal enrichment book, that there's lessons that one can take back to the office and implement, but there's also things from a personal spiritual perspective Maybe comment a little bit about how you kind of walk that line between giving people business tidbits that they can use, either maybe they're a solo entrepreneur, they have their own business, or they work, maybe they're an employee like at a bank or someplace else, and then how they can take some of what you're providing here and use it for their personal life.
Well, it's another great question. I think what it is is that life and business do intersect. And I know that certain groups are very particular about, hey, we want you to cover these specific areas. For example, when I'm doing a live keynote or I'm speaking at a convention, I get that. Here's what we're paying you for. We want you to talk about this specifically and really stay on point. I have also found that a lot of groups will bring me in because they're like, look, you're not afraid to kind of push the envelope and you're real. You're authentic. And that is something that as a marketing guy, when I work with clients, the marketplace is seeking authenticity. They'll pay a premium. And actually, it's easier to stand out and get attention because if you're sort of just nilly-billy vanilla, you kind of play it safe, the marketplace just ignores you. So I'm not advocating you do over-the-top crazy antics. Some clients that I work with will actually do that, and they're comfortable with that. For the most part, A lot of companies, small and mid-sized companies or associations that I'm brought into, most of their clients or their actual employees aren't that, I would say, eccentric or willing to do really out-of-the-box type of things. So I think the last few years I get a lot of referrals. And what happens is a meeting planner will reference check me and say, what's this guy about? And a lot of them will say, and this isn't me just saying this to toot my own horn, I look at the testimonials they write. Very carefully, very funny, authentic, real, not afraid to speak his mind. And again, it's not like I'm up there being so crazy where I'm swearing or offending people deliberately. No, no, no, that's just dumb. And I've seen some speakers that do that, and typically they don't make it very long in this industry. It's just that I think as I've aged the last few years, I'm 41 now, I've seen a lot of craziness the last few years. I call it adversity. I alluded to it a little bit earlier. I went through a pretty intense divorce. I've had my business almost not make it through that. I've had other business partnerships in my career. I call that adversity. It forges you through the flame into steel. I know a lot of folks listening can relate to that. We all have challenges. What was interesting when I interviewed a lot of these people for the book, the challenges they've gone through, and I went, wow, we're all human. I think when you bring that human element into when you're talking to a group, you're writing books, you're doing interviews, You're creating products, people are looking for that. They want to know that you've actually lived and that your life is not perfect because that's not real world. I hope that kind of answers the question because again, life and business do intersect. That's how I look at things and that's how I teach and train.
Yeah, good. While you're saying that, I pulled up the testimonials and although I've not been an organizer at a conference. I also do conference speaking, and I can tell you it's nice to get that feedback. And I've talked to some of the other program directors that I've also been a part of, and they've told me kind of on the side that, you know, when you're there, they're like, yeah, Tony always gets great reviews. He's always— you're genuine, you're real, you have fun. There's a lot of stuffy speakers out there that deliver information And the information is good, but it's the way that it's delivered. And I think one of the other elements, and really what you're doing in the book here, is you're telling stories.
Mm-hmm.
A lot of people will talk about the importance of storytelling and relating it back to something that people can find tangible. And it sounds like, or it seems to me, you do a lot of storytelling in your books and also. Do you want to talk about the importance of that as part of delivering your message and making sure that it is coming across genuine and real?
Well, Eric, if you are listening in your office or wherever you might be, grab a pen right now and write this down. Storytelling is everything. It is everything. And we mentioned Zig Ziglar a few minutes ago. I alluded to him with his affiliation with Ben Gay, one of our interview guests. The late Zig Ziglar had the famous statement, facts tell, stories sell. I know it sounds very homespun, sort of Will Rogers, almost too simplistic of advice, but it's real. One of my upcoming interviews right now is Talk Like TED. That's the title of the book. Carmine Gallo is the author. He went and interviewed all the top TED speakers. He watched the videos from the TEDx talks. And a lot of his book talks about that the best communicators are great storytellers. And I noticed that when you tell stories, people long after I leave a convention, and Eric, you do presentations, they might remember a couple stories and one or two strategies that directly impact them now. But the stories live on much longer than the actual talk or presentation. And there is an art form to it. And a lot of people say, hey, when you are up there talking, you make it look really easy and you are having fun. And here are a couple things I would say to them. First of all, thank you. And I love to tell stories, but I practice those stories. I also know that I have to have fun giving them because I'm on the road a lot. It's a very strange lifestyle when you are out as an author and a speaker half to 3/4 of the year. I have to have fun doing what I'm doing because it might take me a day to get to an event. I have 1 hour the next day to try to help teach that audience. And you don't preach, you teach the best you can. You share knowledge and content and ideas and stories. And then I get back on a plane and go back to the next destination. So out of 2 or 3 days of my life, I may only have 1 hour or 90 minutes to connect with 500 people. And you've got to look at every minute as being sacred. And there are effective ways to capture and engage the audience that, for example, Carmine Gallo in his book Talk Like TED talks about. Zig Ziglar taught for many, many years. All the great salespeople throughout history have been great storytellers. And I'll say this, They are great salespeople. This may be a little shocking for some of your listeners, but put this on your card. Scratch out the title and put Chief Salesperson. Some of the folks might go, wait a minute. I work in the bank. I'm in HR, or I'm on the front line, or I'm a branch manager. I'm not a salesperson. No, no. We are all in sales now. Ironically, you mentioned at the beginning here, I've talked to 3 banks the last 2 days. It's been funny, Jeff and Eric. how many banks are saying, get in here because our CEO to our board of directors to everyone in middle management down to the frontline teller, they all need to understand they're in sales now.
Yeah.
And that's been a big shift of thinking in the last 5 years. You've seen popular culture and movies and television make salespeople look like they're all scammers. Unfortunately, that's not the case. They have a tendency to glorify what I call the bad apples. And I talk about these salespeople like a Steve Jobs or Howard Schultz from Starbucks that literally move industries and make millions of lives better with their products and services. They're out there selling that story. So again, get it out of your head. There's nothing wrong with sales. We're all in it. My big philosophy in teaching is let's get better at it so when we find the person that we can help and serve, they're not uncomfortable, we're not uncomfortable, and we can Yeah.
You mentioned TED. And I just pulled the site up here a little bit. And I know this is a little bit off topic, but there is a lot of storytelling that goes on on TED and some interesting things. And for maybe people that aren't familiar with TED, maybe if it is a site that you frequent, any thoughts or kind of nuggets of wisdom that you picked up off of TED with some of the stories that they tell? Some of the speeches and talks that people have had?
Well, definitely. Typically the TED Talk is limited to 18 minutes. And what happens is now TED has expanded their brand. They have franchised out their talks in different cities. But if you get asked, an invitation to speak at one of the major TED conferences, that is a huge honor. Typically you will see folks like Tony Robbins was one of the first TEDx speakers. The first year they launched, I think Al Gore was another one of them. But that level of folks, they know that it is a huge viewing audience. And I will share personally, one of my favorite talks is by Simon Sinek. I don't know if you want to pull that up. But Simon Sinek became literally in TED lore, TED legends, very famous after he gave his TED Talk many years ago. But Simon Sinek has an actual book as well that came out of the TED Talk called Start with Why. And that little video he put up in there, the last name if you want to look this up later is S-I-N-E-K, Simon Sinek, S-I-N-E-K. It's just phenomenal. And when you see that, I see you've got it right here. It's S-I-N-E-K. There it is. And out of that TED Talk, his book Start with Why became a bestseller. And that's personally one of my favorites. But if you go in and look at some of your favorite authors, you can look at different groupings or categories and go through it. It's very addictive. I know there was a streak there for a while I didn't watch any television whatsoever. I would just occasionally when I had time click on my laptop in a hotel room and throw on TED Talks.
Yeah. I know we've got a Roku streaming device and that has a TED channel in it I believe. I think that's where I got it, but I'll frequently go in there and pull it up and see what sort of a TED Talk's there. Of course, that might not be to my wife's liking. Maybe she wants me to hop over to Netflix or watch, you know, some other TV show. But yeah, these things are pretty amazing, and they're all pretty quick and short, but really kind of out there. So any possibility of us seeing you in a TED Talk down the road?
Well, I would be honored. It would be definitely, if I got an invitation, I would take it. And I think for everyone listening, this type of— if I got the honor to do a TED Talk, it would be nothing like I've written about in my printed books. Here's why. If I had the chance to do that, I would really talk specifically about how do you handle adversity and reinvent. So I'll give everyone a little tip-off here. I know we are recording luckily. But how do you deal with adversity and reinvent yourself? And I look at that talk because the timeliness of it, let's say it was the next year or two I got an invitation, but the last several years have been just a mind-bender. All the craziness that I've seen, good and bad, but out of the adversity of life, I've had 2 or 3 huge career breaks come down in the middle of chaos. And I couldn't have scripted it. I'm very much a goal setter. I coach people. I'm also coached by other coaches. And some of the things that I went after didn't arrive on schedule. Some did arrive exactly on schedule, but they took a course to get there that was so bizarre I couldn't have even predicted or even thought of it in that comprehension. So the adversity to me would be really what I would talk about and how do you reinvent, because we all go through challenges. If you come out on the other side, infinitely more chances than not you're going to be a lot stronger and wiser. But when we're going through it, we feel like it's never going to stop, this challenge going to end or this pain. And I would have to say the last few years, that humbling process has allowed me to really get my message out there more because I'm a little bit different. I'm more about other people's stories. What knowledge do you have that I can take and learn? Where I used to be, early in my career, more about myself. I was much more egocentric. And I'm not ashamed to admit that. A lot of my friends are like, wow, you've really changed the last several years. And some of the people that I get a chance to interview now, the old Tony wouldn't be able to get near them because I was too full of myself. So I know it's pretty humbling to share with the audience, but this is the reality.
Right.
And I think as we go through life, once you hit that adversity, it changes you and it can make you either really bitter or it can make you better. I know that may sound cliché, a play on words, but there's a lot of truth there. And that bitterness eventually, it can take you out, or you can get better and say, what do I need to learn from this huge piece of adversity or lesson? And that's also a big part of the new book. It flows through a lot of the interviews, and a lot of the spirit of how I edited the book down was for those that go through challenge. And how did these trailblazers, when for several years they struggled, how did they keep persisting onward? I mean, when I interviewed Seth Godin the first time, He told me that for almost 5 years he was darn near bankrupt. He had almost no money. I was floored that we were capturing that. He was actually sharing that. I thought, Seth Godin has always made it. He's always had it easy. No, no. He struggled for years and years in obscurity before he made it. And that's what I want to reveal, not so much about where they are at now and all the fanfare, but what did they do to get through and push on to get to where they are at now.
Wow.
Very cool.
I'm interested in knowing some of the people that you would like to interview, Tony.
That is a great question. I've got a few, as you might imagine. I'm working right now on getting George Lucas. I really want him bad. I'm a huge Star Wars geek. I know he's retired now. I think he sold for $4 or $5 billion to Disney. So I'm shooting to get after George Lucas. I'd also like to get— this is a little bit different, and I think I can get him. His name is Dave Mustaine. I'm a huge heavy metal rock fan. I love all genres, but I have a huge affinity.
Yes!
I just read his biography called Mustaine, New York Times bestseller. Dave was one of the original members of Metallica. I also followed his career when I was in high school and college a little bit more, when I was a little bit crazier. But his memoir was phenomenal. So Dave Mustaine is a little bit more of a rock and roll guy I'd like to get. So those 2 really jump up. Another strange one, before I check out, is I'd like to get Tom Hanks on the phone or do a face-to-face. I've been a huge fan of Tom Hanks for years. Some of the groups I'm getting into now, a lot of the referrals are a lot faster because it's a very small marketing universe. Once you nail a large celebrity or 2, they'll open up typically with their agents to get you to other celebrities. It's just a matter of time when I make a breakthrough with a large celebrity, that will open the door where I can get other celebrities to jump on and want to be interviewed. So those are a few that come to mind right now.
You made a comment earlier and my experience has been the same. What you learn when you gain access to people like Seth Godin and Tom Hanks is they are just people, they are just like us, they just happen to—
Yeah, well, and I think what I've learned too is that as a professional speaker, there are some gigs— like I've met John Walsh from America's Most Wanted. I've gone on after him. Mick Fleetwood, the drummer and founder of Fleetwood Mac, I've spoken with him in Las Vegas. This is not to name-drop, but sometimes I'm backstage going, how the heck did I get here? I've noticed talking to them that when you are real with them and you kind of just talk about, hey, how are you doing? What are you working on these days? And you are not starstruck, they love that because they are like, okay, cool. This person is not going to freak out because I'm seen all the time. And when you are authentic and real. Another little marketing tip, you make it about them. A lot of the interviews I don't say much. I have some very good prepared questions. I just let them go and go. And they like that because I'm not trying to sell my agenda on them. The interview is always first and foremost about them. What are they trying to promote? What is their story? And I'm very, very well known at this. And people that eventually get the book down the road and listen to some of the interviews, I always ask what I call a humdinger question at the end. It could be, all right, what do you want to be remembered for? And sometimes what they tell me absolutely shocks me. And I'm going, thank God we're taping this interview. Because they'll reveal things they've never actually in an interview revealed. I ask some easier questions, but I throw in some tougher ones, not to trick them, but to get them to really think that, wow, this guy did his homework on me and he's not wasting my time.
Any humdinger answers that you can share before the book launch that might surprise us? I don't want to put you on the spot, but now you've got me curious.
Give me more context. As far as answers, as far as about the book?
Well, when you said you kind of finished with a humdinger and you said sometimes the answers aren't what you expect, is there one that jumps into mind? I know we said what was one of your favorite interviews, but what was the strangest or the most unexpected answer to Well, I think the one that comes to mind immediately is Dave Liniger.
Dave Liniger co-founded RE/MAX International back in the mid-'70s. When I asked him the question, what do you want to be remembered for, your legacy? I'm going to paraphrase. I don't have it in front of me, but what struck me was how humble he was. It went along the lines of, I want to be remembered as someone that helped people.
That's great.
gave back and didn't forget the person that's maybe struggling or the single mom that's working her tail off to provide. What it showed me was true humanity, that this guy is worth a lot of money, but he's from Marion, Indiana. He grew up a farm boy out in northern Indiana on the farm, worked his tail off. He didn't forget where he came from. That to me was really cool because I had met him obviously before I interviewed him at the event that he showed up at. I knew he was pretty genuine, but when we captured that and we taped it, it really showed me that he's got all the toys. He's got all the wealth. I mean, he said at one point jokingly in the '90s he didn't really work as hard because the royalties alone from RE/MAX when the real estate market was booming— think if you owned RE/MAX. You had a lot of money coming in. Let's just put it that way.
Yeah.
I think what your point was, he's had all the cars, the toys, the houses. He's done the skydiving, the elephant hunts. But after a while, you come back to your core and realize that you want to give that money back as far as a legacy, and you don't forget where you came from. So his answer to me was very Dave, but also really cool to hear because most of the traditional media would look at a Dave Liniger and think he's greedy. He's made all this money. He doesn't care about the common man. When you hear him in his own words, answer a question you didn't know was coming, you can't fake that. The track record that RE/MAX has had long before corporate giving became a key thing, kind of the latest fashion, we're giving back. RE/MAX was doing it with Sherwin's Miracle Network for years and years. I think at last count it's over $100 million just with Sherwin's Miracle Network alone that the RE/MAX family has donated with their brokers. That to me is frontline proof. that they walk the talk. So that was probably the best answer that I— on that question, I was like, wow, that was really cool.
Wow, very cool. Well, we are almost to the top of the hour. I know we've got one question, and my suspicion is I'll know the answer, but someone wants to know how they can get either on an email list or some other notification so when the book is available, how can they get first crack at it?
If I don't have an answer to this one, then I'm not a marketing guy.
I figured you know this one pretty easily.
Well, thank you in advance for looking at getting the book. I never take someone buying a book for granted, and their attention is at a huge premium. 2 things, if you go to Facebook.com and you type in my name, my name or Mind Capture, Friend request me. And all you've got to put on there, if you want to put something, heard you on the interview Free Webinar Wednesday, or hey Tony, I liked your interview. I will accept your friend request either through the business page or my personal page. I know you've got it up right there. And I'm building both pages for maybe another interview I will talk about later. But that is the first way. If you go back to my main webpage MindCapture.com, there is a box on the right-hand on the home page where you can get a weekly free e-letter. It says right there, Mind Capture News e-letter. Just put your first, last name, and email address. And then once a week we put out a very content-rich e-letter. So I do an opening message. I do a book review each week. And I do a lead article on either marketing, mindset, implementation, somewhere in those realms. I might talk about referral marketing one week. I might talk about great books. About the power of a positive mindset, great customer service in action, or a great interview. But it's very much for people that have been on my list for years. Like, look, we love the fact that you don't bomb us every day with messages. And I want to make sure that that e-letter, people I know that have been on it for years say, look, we forward it around the office. We use them for our sales meetings. So those are a couple great ways to dial in. And why I mention that is there will be more and more updates coming as the book gets closer to a launch date. And again, really for everyone listening, we are going to do a soft launch in the summer. I have a lot of local clients and national that want the book for different meetings. And then we are actually going to release late this year, early 2015 with more of a formal launch with a New York publisher. And I can't disclose it yet, but we are 99.9% getting a book deal with a New York publisher again in the next 2 weeks. So we are going to have much better distribution. And very excited. Once we get all the official paperwork done, I'll make that known to the world. But we are going to New York launch this 4th book.
Very cool.
Well, and I can testify that the Mind Capture newsletter does its job because I get it. And that's how I kind of caught wind of book number 4 coming around. And there was some mention of it. And Tony, you've done a great job for us in the past and always looking for opportunities. And I know you're a busy boy doing lots of traveling. Is that by where you're sitting today. You're not in West Michigan, you're out in Idaho. So we really appreciate you joining us, and I look forward to keeping connected with you through all the social channels and the newsletter, and just wish you nothing but the best. So this has been great. We've got lots of good comments and feedback, and I'm sure our audience has gotten some really good ideas to take away today.
Well, thank you first and foremost. And Jeff and Eric, you guys keep up the great work. And everyone listening, thank you for your time and attention. I do value it, and at some point I'll meet you down the road or in cyberspace. Have a good day, gentlemen.
Sounds cool.
Good. All right. Well, that concludes this week's episode. I do want to make sure everybody knows next week, I believe we're going to have to cancel Free Webinar Wednesdays. We're going to be offsite and involved in other responsibilities and unable to have the show live. But we'll be back the following week. So we'll post that up onto the website and make sure that you get that reminder. But we certainly appreciate everybody joining us today. We'll get the recording out on our website here shortly, and stop back and visit that. Share it around. Connect with Tony. And until then, have a great week, everyone, and we'll see you at freewebinarwednesdays.com. Bye-bye.
