What Anyone Can Do The Introduction To Our New Podcast formerly Year Of The Peer Podcast

Welcome to our new show, What Anyone Can Do Podcast, with Leo Battari and me, Randy Cantrell. Our new show picks up where our last show, Year of the Peer, left off, highlighting the simple truth that who you surround yourself with matters, and that if we enlist the support of others, give back to those who give to us, and pay it forward for the next generation, we can do anything. Author and keynote speaker Leo Bottari and I will interview a diverse group of thought leaders who will share stories and insights that will help you succeed in business and in life. How? By doing the things anyone can do, but most of us never will. Well, we are, uh, we're somewhat tardy, but we've been busy, busy, busy behind the scenes. Leo Bottari, um, welcome to, uh, your own show. Well, this is, this is one where Leo and I are just going to chat and catch you guys up to speed with some stuff going on, some really exciting news. And, uh, and we're glad to bring it to you even if we are a day late and a dollar short.

Yeah, no, very excited. I think, um, you know, part of what we've been trying to navigate this year is figuring out how to transition from the year of the into what I think has been a real evolution of content, right? It has gone from looking at how and why formal peer groups work so well, and also looking beyond our peers, looking at these circles of people who surround us that are our parents, our kids, our spouses, our mentors, mentees, teachers, you know, all of that, because all of them create that community, that circle, which I think we depend on and actually could, you know, use a lot more. And we can contribute to that circle, obviously, in much greater ways as well. So, of course, part of the new book, as you know, comes out September 3rd, What Anyone Can Do: Surrounding Yourself with the Right People Will Drive Change, Opportunity, and Personal Growth. We're going to be really looking at this podcast, as you know, from the standpoint of in the first 6 weeks or so continuing to interview thought leaders as we always have. Except we are going to be more topical this time around. So for example, as you know, when we launch, of course this show will be running on the 7th. When we launch on the 14th with our first guest, Dr. Diane Hamilton, who I'm so excited to have on the program. But we're going to talk about a great project that she's working on and a real topic of conversation around curiosity, how surrounding yourself with the right people can help us really be more curious and how being more curious can really help us in so many different ways. And she offers some wonderful insights into that. The following week we get Tom Rubens, who we're going to focus on accountability. And I think that's another key, right? If we get people who we are very public with, who we say, hey, here's something that I want to do for myself, and I kind of enlist their support, their encouragement, their accountability, their wisdom, their advice, you know, all of that. It's far more likely that I'm actually going to do what I said I'm going to do, as opposed to keeping it to myself, getting a really good start on it, and a couple weeks later rationalizing why this isn't really working out for me anymore, why I can't do this thing that I said that I wanted to do for myself. And in most cases, as you know, when we set personal goals like that, it may be something as simple as losing 10 pounds or something. It's not like I'm trying to make the Olympics by the end of the In most cases, we do set realistic goals we want for ourselves, and quite frankly, you know, all too often we just let ourselves completely off the hook in doing it. And as you know, you know, the whole premise of the book is the idea that, you know, there's a lot of people that are really, really successful, and it's not because they're capable of superhuman feats. It's because they do the things that that anyone can do, but most of us never will. And of course, the idea is if we surround ourselves with really good people, they'll help us do those little things that anyone can do far more often.

Well, as we pull the curtain back and kind of show even more about the behind the scenes stuff, which I think is, I think there's just large lessons even there. You know, everybody's got the front-facing stuff that we all want to put our best foot forward. And it's not, It's not hiding, um, skeletons or anything, but there's just so much grinding and so much— to use today's vernacular— hustle that goes on behind the scenes. People see the performance, you know, we kind of get infatuated with that tip of the iceberg kind of stuff of, okay, well, there's the performance, but every band that you go see, every play that you might see, there's just a ton of work behind the scenes that's done away from, from the crowd. And that's been happening, that's been happening here as well. Share with us a little bit, because my thoughts are the collaboration, the book itself, the new book, the first book, The Power of Peers, co-authored with Leon Shapiro, and, and that book really focused on formal peer groups. And as we began the podcast in January of 2017, the conversation immediately began to broaden and widen. Part of that was organic. Much of that was driven by our intent to expand the conversation because your questions to the guests were, were always, who are these people that have influenced you? And it wasn't always peers. In fact, peers usually weren't the first people mentioned. It was mom and dad and grandma and grandpa. And It was these people in our lives. And so, as that conversation expanded and then you got the idea for the book, and that's been almost a case study, it seems to me, in collaboration and the whole very topic of our podcast.

Well, it is. There's so many fun stories with that. First of all, I will mention that The Power of Peers was very much a work of collaboration as well, not only with Leon, but with so many of the people. I did well over 100 interviews and a lot of people that contributed to that. I always felt through that whole thing that writing a book about the power of peers and locking myself in a room thinking I could do it all by myself was a little bit anti-the message, right? So, but this time around though, I think to your point, I mean, consider all of the things that went into the fact that this book even exists as an idea, let alone it got written, right? So first of all, as you well know, you approached me about doing a podcast and we came up with the Year of the Peer podcast and we did it. It's why we had all these guests and why, you know, that kind of happened. Number of months, well, as we were into the podcast, we were probably 5 or 6 months into it, and I talked to Robert H. Thompson, who wrote a great book called The Offsite. And Robert's just a terrific guy. He was actually one of the guests later on the show as well. And Robert really gave me the idea of writing the book to begin with, saying, God, there's so much rich content here. There's so much there. You're advancing the conversation in a way that is a worthy endeavor to take this to the next level. So the idea of doing that, and of course the content isn't just for me, much of it comes really directly in the words of our podcast guests who contribute to all of the content in the book. So, you know, some of it clearly is my stories and some of the way that I weave things together a bit, but a lot of it is very much comes from the incredible guests that we had on the Year of the Prayer podcast. It was just so amazing. You know, and, and with that, when I start thinking about meeting Dan Hoffman— Dan Hoffman, as you know, is the CEO of Circles. Now I sought him out I was kind of interested in what he was doing. Dan has created a platform that, you know, of course we're on the Zoom platform here now, which we love and we've enjoyed using, certainly. And there's, you know, WebEx and GoToMeeting and all these other platforms that I think by and large are really good presentation platforms, good platforms for a couple of people talking like we are right now. Circles, however, has been created really as a conversation platform. And Dan's done an amazing job, I think, of creating this simple, visually interesting way for people to collaborate in small groups. So, you know, so I became really intrigued with his work. And so I go to meet Dan, and Dan and I really hit it off well. In fact, the funny part of this was, I don't think we talked for 5 or 10 minutes, and I knew I wanted him to write the foreword of the book, right? And yet I felt silly. I'm like, I can't ask the guy. It was going to look ridiculous if I asked him in 10 minutes, you know. But by the time the end of the conversation, I was like, heck with it, I'm going to do this because this is where this whole area is going. It's not just about where it's been. Peer groups have been around a long time. Mastermind groups have been around a long time. I think the idea of really creating the kind of platform that allows for what people are asking for right now. As you know, in social media, it isn't about getting a gajillion Twitter followers. It's how do I get— how do I engage in deeper conversations with fewer people where we can help one another do what it is we want to do? And that's what Dan Hoffman's work is all about. I think he's done an extraordinary job. By the time—

and his website, by the way, is a unique URL because it's circles and the dot is between the L and the E, so it's circl.es. And yeah, it's— but those two stories, pardon the interruption, but us beginning the podcast, me not knowing you from Adam, and reading the book and reaching out to you, you connecting with Dan, and in a moment not hesitating— I don't know, I mean, I think there's a lesson there, I think. And our hesitations and our—

I hesitated for only about 40 minutes though.

Yeah, exactly. Well, and me too in reaching out to you. So I don't know. I mean, if you're out there and you're listening to us and you're thinking of connecting with somebody or trying to connect with somebody for some genuine value proposition that you bring to the party, and don't hesitate, just go for it.

I think what's interesting about that, and I think the Dan Hoffman writing the foreword is a case in point, right? Where I asked Dan, you know, like it was right near the end of our conversation, and I just knew his work, his sensibilities, everything aligned with where I felt all of this is going, and I really wanted— I said maybe not a lot, maybe Dan Hoffman's name isn't a household name right now. I think it will be. I think what he's doing is really remarkable, and it's really exciting. I think it's a great opportunity for us to get to use it for the podcast to really give people a visual understanding of what Circles is all about, how that can work. I don't think he necessarily designed it to be a podcast platform, but I think he was— when I mentioned it to him, he was really intrigued, you know, about the idea of doing it. So of course he did agree to write the foreword, and enthusiastically so. And I think if there's any lesson in that, it's simply that Just ask, because the worst thing he's going to do is say no. Like, "I don't have time," or, "I'm not interested." Exactly.

Well, and then there's somebody else whose fingerprints are all over the book in a unique kind of way too.

Well, and that's for sure. So one of the things, when I thought about this idea of what anyone can do, which is, we've talked about before, comes from Joe Henderson, wrote for Runner's World for about 30 years, big runner and all that. In his 1976 book, The Long Run Solution, He basically said, look, when you look at a lot of people who really have it going on in life, it isn't because they're capable of superhuman feats that no one else can do. He said basically they do the things that anyone can do, but most of us never will. And so it really made me think about the fact that I think anyone can seek to surround themselves with really good people. And if they enlist their support, they'll do those things anyone can do far more often. And that oftentimes is the real key. But when I thought about what anyone can do and I was just thinking about it from a brand perspective and the idea that I want people to really look at this and see this content as relevant for them, to be super approachable, you know, the kind of thing you would grab and read on a couple of hour flight and be able to absorb that. And I thought, who better to help me achieve that than Ryan Folland? Now, Ryan Folland, I met— now, he and I at the time lived an hour away from each other. We met in Portugal. And realizing, of course, that, you know, we were down the street from one another basically. And Ryan's not only a, you know, brilliant speaker and real expert with regard to communication and personal branding, but he does these cartoons, these little illustrations that are, that are awesome. I mean, they're really great. And he includes little taglines with them all. So again, I asked him with the idea that he can say no or, or not. I said, Ryan, what do you think about doing illustrations that would not only likely appear as part of the COVID art, which it will, of course, but for each of the chapters in the book to give that, just to create that fun feel for the content and the fact that we're not trying to create like a real academically oriented book so much as we, it's grounded oftentimes in some cases research, in some cases, you know, the personal stories and insights of our podcast guests. But by and large, it's something that I think everyone can really relate to. And as they read it, I think that Ryan's cartoons contribute to the relatability. It's absolutely the picture's worth a thousand words kind of thing you're going on. I feel like he added another 12,000 words to the book just by having the illustrations there. And yet you can look at it at a glance and smile with every as you hit every chapter.

So yeah, the COVID illustrations alone are, uh, oh, it's fun, real creative.

And we'll include the, um, the COVID art, of course, as part of the podcast. And of course, we'll show the, you know, the book cover coming soon too. But it's, it's great stuff, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate, you know, you and Dan and Robert Thompson and Ryan Folan and all of our podcast guests and a host of other people who you know, I surrounded myself with basically during the year of the peer. And, you know, we produced something that I hope will have both some fun and some real practical value for people, especially when you get to the end and we talk about how you as an individual and how you as a team can develop a people plan. And that's essentially how you surround yourself with the right people, how you engage them really in a step-by-step way so that you can kind of do, you know, get what you want from life, whatever that may be for you. And what I also think more importantly, you contribute to others by either giving back to those who are giving to you or paying it forward, you know, to people that I think are going to represent the next generation. You know, we all have had people who gave to us, and I think it's only right that we do the same for others. It's fun. It was an exciting project. You know, just really can't wait for it to come out. And really excited about the podcast. I know, A, we're going to talk to some really great people one-on-one for the first, you know, 5 or 6 weeks or so. And then when we shift to circles and start literally having podcast panel discussions and creating circles around different topic areas, I think it's going to be great fun and I think it's going to really deliver powerful value for our listeners as well, because we're just going to have a lot more brains at the table.

Yeah. Well, and it's fair to, I think, to tell our listeners and the viewers that Leo and I've been having discussions, you know, offline, away from your prying eyes as an audience, just How can we bring value to you? It's easy for us to talk about, well, this is something that anybody can do, but so many people don't. And there's all kinds of conversation points that we're planning to have around that. As you said with Diane and curiosity and accountability and self-awareness and the fear and courage. And I mean, there's just so many things that that stop us. You know, we get it in our head and we just, for whatever reason, we're afraid of what we're afraid of.

I've got—

we're both grandfathers and these little ones, you know, you can just watch these little kids that are in our lives grow up and they've just got— I've got a 2-year-old, 3-year-old, fixing to be 3-year-old grandson, fearless to climb anything. But is terrified of jumping in our pool, you know, because, and mom and dad have theorized, well, he doesn't feel like he's in control there. As long as he's grabbing ahold of something, he feels like he's in control. And you can just watch a 2-year-old that's never had an experience and have fear. And at some level, it doesn't matter if we're 62 or 2, it still is a, is a big driver. So Leo and I've been having conversations. How can we expand the conversation? So last year it went from formal peer groups to expanding. Okay, well, who, who is around you? Who are these people around you? To kind of an interview-based thing, which brought great value from it, a book. And now it's like, can we, can we put more people at the table? Can we bring more people to the table to have these conversations? So that these are first and foremost, so that these can bring real value to our audience, give them some real things to think about, some things to challenge them so that they can join the ranks of doing what anyone can do.

Well, here's the thing too. Um, I think it's also being open to possibilities, right? Because we didn't go into the Year of the Rip Year podcast and invite all these guests and do all this stuff. Because I was interested in writing a book.

That wasn't even on the radar.

It was only until much later that that came into play. I also see coming up for this year, you know, what we'd like to do, as you know, is, you know, on the website being able to look at when we build the whatanyonecandodo.com site, which, you know, we hope to have up obviously in the next 60 days as we get into pre-launch on the book and all that. I think the opportunity for people to create their own circles, and they can do that, and they'll have the ability to do that on our site, either circles that they run themselves or circles that, you know, they may get you to facilitate for them, which would be wonderful, you know. But any way that we can kind of continue to create value, I think the more that, you know, we listen to those around us and figure out how best we can take this message and bring it to people so that they can then share their stories of things that they've done for themselves. You know, one of the studies, of course, that I point out in the book is University of Scranton did a study of people who identify a New Year's resolution, and they basically say that 92% of them fail. It's really unbelievably inexcusable that failure rate is that high. And I think again, for most people, they didn't set a goal that they didn't want. They didn't set a goal that was completely unrealistic. They just set a goal that they had very difficult time, left to their own devices, to be committed to. And I think such a simple idea is just making others aware, putting yourself out there, that, hey, this is some— this is important to me, and you're my friend, or you're you're my family, you're my coworker, or whatever that person may be. And I may call upon you to help me get there or check in on me once in a while, or, you know, hey, I noticed that you did this 2 years ago. How did you do it? You know, how can you help me do that same thing? So I just think there's incredible value there. And it's really simple. And yet none of us or I'll say at least not nearly enough of us do it very often or very well. So the hope is that by kind of raising the topic and giving people some specifics about how to engage others in a way that can be helpful for all of us, that will make a difference in somebody's life.

Well, there certainly is empirical evidence that society needs it. So it's not that we're doing it for that reason, but it's— There is that. There is that. No, I'm really looking forward to it. I think we're going to hopefully prove to you, the audience, that we've got your best interest at heart, that we want to bring value. These conversations, you can expect there to be some diversity sitting at the table, which Leo and I both are proponents for and think is important. You know, offline we've had countless conversations and we'll push some of those conversations, I think, forward in that insights and our ability to eliminate some of the blind spots that we have in our lives, because we each have our perspective. Leo comes from a part of the country that is very foreign to the part of the country that I come from. You know, he's a Northeasterner and I'm an Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana guy. Educationally, we're very different. Demographically, age-wise, we're close, but We're a case study of what I think our audience— don't pigeonhole yourself and don't pigeonhole what value you think the other person might bring. And I'm not— well, I will. I'll use myself as an illustration. My first conversation with Leo was, have you ever thought about having a podcast? And coming from business world and coming from the C-suite, for so many years, I was very upfront, very blunt, very candid, which is kind of how I roll. And I just told him, I'm just going to go ahead and get this out of the way and tell you upfront, I don't expect anything. I just expect to be able to help you. And all I want is guilt by association. I like this space. Uh, at the time I don't play in this space, but I'm intrigued with it. I think it's got tremendous value and I see such a need for it in the C-suite. And so I was very upfront with Leo and I just, this is something that I've got the skillset and the chops and the experience to do for you. And I like what you're about and want to do it. Now, don't make those offers if you don't mean it, but if you mean it, you know, don't, my advice would be don't Don't put yourself first. This has been all about Leo and Leo's, you know, evangelizing this. He's dragged me along and there's benefit in that, but good people do the right thing. And Leo's good people. I would like to think that I am as well. So we just, we want to increasingly give you the audience real stuff, stuff that you can sink your teeth into. And if our, our little show can be an example to kind of show you the way, then great.

Well, you know, like I said, I appreciate your involvement more than you know. Um, I think that, uh, having you as co-host this year, um, is a huge help and huge, uh, value, you know, to the show and to listeners. And, uh, you know, incredibly grateful for, um, for all of that. But I think, um, To your larger point, I think reaching out, asking, being involved, willing to give to others can provide really great rewards. And I'm excited about it all. So looking forward to next week, our first guest will be Dr. Diane Hamilton. I'm just thrilled that we were able to get her on the program. And if you're curious about what we're going to talk about, then, you know, you'll like the subject matter because it's all about curiosity. So anyway, with that, Randy, thank you so much. We're going to be excited for a great season coming forward and it's going to be awesome.

Yeah. And I will tell people that for now, leobottari.com, L-E-O-B-O-T-T-A-R-Y dot com is where you can find everything that you need. Uh, Leo and I will be updating some things and the podcast will, will kind of shift as we get closer to the book launch. But your, your, your subscription and iTunes, none of that's going to change. So you, you don't have to do anything. We're going to make it easy for you.

And I want to, uh, as a reminder too, we will be on C-Suite Radio, uh, as well again, right, the season. So I'm very excited with, you know, Jeffrey Hazlett and the whole team they have over at C-Suite Radio. They've been, uh, incredibly supportive and really smart. And again, The more really good people we surround ourselves with, the better, you know, we're all going to do as well. So anyway, Randy, thank you.

Thanks.

All right.

To learn more about our show and what we do, to submit questions to us and to subscribe to What Anyone Can Do Podcast, please visit us at whatanyonecandodo.com. What Anyone Can Do Podcast is hosted by Leo Battari and me, Randy Cantrell. Our music is Vibe Ace by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0 license. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. We hope that you'll share the podcast.