114: What You Can Learn from 3,500 Interviews with Thought Leaders with Corey Poirier

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Welcome to the Earn your happy podcast.

I'm Lori Harder, founder of The Bliss.

Project, 3 Time Fitness World champion, fitness expert and cover model, turned self love junkie, lifestyle entrepreneur and author.

Each week I'll bring you a guest.

Or a thought that will help you bust through your fears, connect to your soul and get focused and clear so you can elevate your life, business and relationships. We don't wait until we're ready for someone to tell us we're good enough. We take what we want and we anoint ourselves. Get ready to earn, own and unapologetically rock your happiness every single day. Are you with me? Here we go. Welcome back to the earn your happy podcast and today I have Corey Poirier on the show. He is an award winning keynote speaker and also a best selling author. He has a radio show called Conversations with Passion and on top of that, he is a stand up comedian. So we have a very diverse conversation today. But one of the biggest takeaways for me is on his interviews. He has interviewed 33,500 thought leaders. So what do you learn from 3,500 interviews? Let's get started and find out. Corey, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm really excited and honored that you're here today.

Yeah, I'm honored to be here and I am, well, passionately, since that's my favorite word, passionately excited to be here today as well.

Oh, I like that. All right, so for people who maybe don't know who you are, could you share a little bit about your background, what you do and how you got to the place that you are right now, whatever place that is.

So I guess if I start first with background, I come from a, for lack of a better way of saying it, a heavy sales background. So I spent, well, the better part of, I guess probably 10 years in the corporate sales field and world and that I really credit for a lot of my, I'm going to say a lot of who I am today because as you probably know, Laurie, whenever you're working in a sales capacity with thousands of people over a career, you get to learn a lot about what makes people tick, how to communicate with people and just sort of what, I guess influences and makes the world go round. So. So it's a big part of my background. And then the secondary part would be I have a history in the world of stand up comedy and I like to believe that's sort of what kicked off my speaking career and also taught me more about communication than I ever thought I Could learn. So that sort of, I guess we'll say my background and how that evolved is I, after my sales career was over, rather, I jumped into the speaking world. I mean, I'm gonna say I jumped in full, you know, full speed ahead. And I still, of course, that's still one of my core focuses. But what sort of happened along the way is I started interviewing people and I got really obsessed, you know, I, let's say, AKA passionate about learning what makes people tick, what makes them successful, where they have their hiccups, and how I could share that with sort of the rest of the world in, let's say, Napoleon Hill, think and grow rich type way. So I've been kind of compared to Napoleon Hill, which I'll take that comparison every day of the week, mainly because he spent his career doing what I'm now spending my career doing, which is interviewing those what I call enlightened super achievers so that I can share it with other people.

Okay, I love all of that. There are so many different places that we could go with this. But, um, but first of all, stand up comedy. What? Because I'm guessing that it deals with a lot of the same things as speaking, obviously. So were there a lot of fears when you first jumped into that? Just like if someone was really going to jump into speaking, how did you feel? How did you confront that?

Yeah, I was, I was absolutely terrified. And in fact, the route that I, you know, if you look at it, that stand up comedy was the first part of my jump into the speaking world. The road I went, I would never recommend to my biggest enemy or my biggest friend. So. Well, what happened is I had a stage play in a fringe festival where I was acting in the play. I directed, I wrote the play and was directing it, but I was terrified of being on the stage. So what happened was I. We needed another actor for the play and I was so terrified of being in front of the audience. What I did was I actually wrote a part in the play that would see me with my back to the audience rather than facing them. And so I was facing the actors. So that was my level of comfort, first of all. And at the end of a seven day run, one of the actors asked me, hey, I heard about this workshop at a local university in stand up comedy. How would you like to give it a go? And you know, I said, that sounds terrifying. I'm in. And I'm a believer, Lori, that if you're going to face the peer, you need to face the head on. So I also Know that I can attend a workshop like a boss, for lack of a better way of saying it. You know, attending a workshop doesn't mean you're ever going to get on a stage. So even though it was a little bit nerve wracking, I was like, well, I go to the workshop, if I never jump on the stage, nobody will ever know, you know, that I was planning to. So I went to a two week workshop in that workshop. Now they say the number one fear in the world above death is public speaking. And stand up comedy is in my opinion, way above that. And the reason they don't say it's the number one fear is because so few people will ever try it that they don't even bother rating it. And so you want probably a lot of training whenever you're going to be tackling something few people will ever do. Well, the training in that two week workshop was here's how you adjust the mic stand and Dane Cook rules. So the first thing that got us into this mess, he basically was a fan of Dane Cook. So he just said dane Cook rules and talked a lot about him and then said, here's how you adjust the mic stand. And so that was our first training and then week three, so going to the point of, you know, what did I feel? I jumped on the stage. Week three, we got to the club, we were excited. I was excited because we were told people were going to entertain us. So I was like, well, now I'm going to get to see way more and learn way more than I did in this first two weeks because I'm going to watch people on the stage and we're going to kind of critique it afterward or what have you. But we found out about five minutes of showtime that we were comics. Oh my gosh, he was booking for the night and I know now that he didn't tell us because we would have all left. But what happened was meaning in advance. But what happened was when he told us about five minutes at 8 o', clock, which was showtime, I went into the bathroom to look for the exit window and there was no exit window. So, you know, I guess sucks to be me. I came back out and there were 15 of us that showed up from that workshop. And when I showed back up out of the bathroom, I think was eight were gone. So there was me and six left. And I always envied those. Well, I should say I envy those other eight. I first got out of the bathroom probably for the next hour because they were smart enough to just walk at the door, whereas I went to the bathroom. And of course, then I failed my. My one plan. So I just said, well, now I'm here. And so at about 10 after 8, we were still debating who's going up first, because nobody wanted to be that sacrificial lamb. So I jumped up on the stage because I had been to one Toastmasters meeting, and I learned that you're better to go up first than last and watch other people go up and have nervousness before you. So I said, well, this is probably the worst fear I'll ever have, so let's do it and get it done with. And I jumped up and I grabbed the mic and I told what I thought was the best joke that I ever told my life to dead silence. I thought, well, you know, the sweat started coming down. I thought, this is terrifying, but I'm already up here. So I jumped into the second best joke again, dead silence. And finally, the guy that got us into this mess, he called me over to the side of the stage and he hit me in the back of the head and he said, you idiot, we haven't even turned the mic on yet. So to answer your question, which that was a long answer. And as you can tell, I've shared that story before, but truth is, is that I was terrified. And I probably had no business jumping up on that stage, but it was probably the smartest thing I ever did in my life because it really opened the door to what my passion is today, the speaking. It probably opened the door for me to be able to interview some of the high achievers that I would have been terrified interview otherwise. So, as I always say, our biggest fear is just outside our comfort zone. And that was way outside of my comfort zone to get on that stage. But by doing it and surviving taught me a massive lesson and built my confidence in a major way. So was it comfortable? No, it was an easy no. But that's how I fell onto the stage. Was basically going to this workshop being terrified, finding out we were comics when I had no material and just going through with it anyway and not dying in the process.

Oh, my gosh. I. I love that story because the key thing that you just said for me was doing it and surviving. And that is all that you need in the beginning is, I think so many people think they're supposed to take action and be successful, when really that's pretty much what I. I can sit here and think of so many stories that are really similar to that, where I was like, wow, if I would have even known What I was getting myself into, I would have never showed up. But just leaping, like, putting yourself in these places where massive growth is going to happen, Right? So the more fear you have around it, the more opportunity we have for growth. So that's amazing. I can't even imagine how you felt after that. Like, okay, I survived. I did it. Everything from here can't be that much worse than this. And it still wasn't that bad looking back. So that's amazing.

So you.

I looked at your, you know, everything that you had sent over and. And went on your website and scoured everything. And you are so interesting to me because. Not only because of who you are, but also because you have 3,500 interviews with influential people. I can't even imagine what. What was that like? How long have you been interviewing people?

So, you know, if I'm gonna say this is, I guess we'll say random picking a date, but I mean, a month, a year. If I was to go back and say when I probably did my first interview ever with, let's say, a business leader, it was probably 1996. So that puts it at 20 years ago. And then what happened was I did a number of interviews for a business publication. I had. And how would you define. How you would define the publication? To explain it to somebody is it was like a newspaper version of Success magazine in a very regional basis. So I launched this regional business publication, ran it for a year, and just in that first year, probably did. Because we averaged about 30 to 40 interviews minimum a month for the issue or for the publication. And my first year, I probably did 400 interviews when I was 19. But then I kind of disappeared from that sort of interview world for a number of years. And then when I jumped back into it, what happened was fast forward a bunch of years later, and I realized I never closed the door properly on that publication. And I wasn't happy with how I closed the door. So I launched a new version of the same thing. And what happened was I was able to do a massive, massive amount of interviews in a while. I'm gonna say a short amount of time, because the publication would allow me to do anywhere from, let's say, 50 interviews to 75 interviews in a month. And we were. I ran the publication for probably it was monthly, probably 75 issues. So you can start to see where the numbers start adding up. And then I started doing interviews for online video show and my own radio show, slash podcast. And it just kind of amassed from there. So you know what? And now I mean I still I've cut the last two weeks I've been traveling but normally I'm probably averaging on a normal day, three to four interviews a day still, even in spite of travel schedule, speaking regularly all the rest. So it just kind of hasn't slowed down from there. But yeah, real I'm gonna say accumulation of the interviews really came from the publication.

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So something I want to ask you because interviewing, you know, myself, podcasting, I find that it can be really nerve wracking. We can tend to put people on a pedestal without even meaning to. We can get on and get so nervous like what are we going to ask these people? How are we going to make them feel special or important or get what we need out of them? What questions are, you know, should we be asking? What question is too deep? What's too light? What's too. I mean, we can get in our heads, right? So what do you do to just show show up and allow them to really open up? Do you have a ritual around it or is there something that you do right beforehand to kind of just put yourself at ease and prep for a good interview?

So it's a two part answer because, you know, if somebody's listening to this and they want to start interviewing, I don't want to give them a false answer. You know, I don't want to send them in the wrong direction or mislead them. So I'll say, when I first started, I was heavily prepped. I mean, I would go to interview, you know, insert name here, and it could be, you know, one person, business owner back then, obviously, like when I was first starting, all the way up to somebody who has 30,000 employees. And I would bring my questions and I would, you know, read my questions in front of them. And now bear in mind my earlier interviews were print interviews. So of course it's a little different, right? It's like a journalist going, you can interview and have your questions, take notes, it doesn't matter. It's a lot different than obviously freeform on a show. And so When I started out, I definitely was very. I won't say I was scripted, but I definitely had scripted questions that I wanted to stick to for the most part. And I was scared to even deviate. So my prep was make sure you stay sort of polished, if you will, and try to just stick to the script. And it wasn't a script, but that's kind of, you know, how I sort of. I'm gonna say by looking back now, that's sort of how I survived those early interviews. But now if I. And I'm kind of skipping a lot to say this, but if I fast forward to today, it's the exact polar opposite. So today, let's say, for example, I'm just thinking at the top of my head, for example, let's say Jack Canfield. So chicken soup of the soul. A lot of listeners probably know who Jack is. So when I was interviewing Jack, that was a pretty big deal. I mean, that's back. The first time I interviewed him was maybe four years ago, and I was told by his staff that he turned down nine out of every ten interviews. And when my interview finally aired, the day before he was on Oprah and the day after he's on Larry King Live. So it was pretty nerve wracking. And so they asked me for questions. Can you send us questions? And I said, the truth is, I can do so, but the questions will probably. I'll jump off script like all, you know, by. If I ask a question, I'm just randomly saying, Jack, you know, you have a book called the success principles with 64 principles. What is that? What's the one most important one? You know? And he could say, well, there's 64. You have to do them all. Or he could say, well, here's the most important, even though it's all important. Well, that those two different answers are going to take me in a different direction. One could stay in the script and one might not. So I kind of told them this is kind of how I roll and so I might not save the script. So we. They did. They just said, well, don't bother send the questions, then let's just wing it. And so my answer, Laurie, is that when I started, I was really scripted and stuck to the questions. And now it's not abnormal for me to go to an interview with a framework in my mind and no questions at all.

Yes, I love that.

So it's flipped that much. I just did a. I did. It was at a conference where they brought me in to be the mc, but also the Stage interviewer. And so I interviewed probably 20 business leaders in a matter of three days on the stage in front of an audience live. And I never had one question planned. So that's how far it's come. The opposite way. But it took obviously, we talked about 3500 interviews plus to get to the point where now I'm comfortable doing that. So, you know, I love the quote and I'll say it, I'll say, I'll credit it to his name, Mark Little, who I shared the stage with early in my comedy career. But I think I've heard other comics say it, but Mark said it so elegantly. I'll share it the way he said it. I said, mark, what's the one thing you think the average person doesn't realize about stand up comedy or stand up comedians? And he said, without missing a beat, he said, how much work goes into it to make it look like no work at all goes into it? Yes. So that it's a lot of years of getting to the point where it makes it look like it's not as much work as once was.

I love that you shared that because, you know, so many people do think, oh, it's a gift. People are just, you know, that's something that maybe they're, they just were born with and they just feel so comfortable up there. And truly, I mean, same same thing. When I started my podcast, it's just, I didn't know what I was doing, so I just stuck to a script until I realized, okay, you know, I'm going to try this one question or I'm going to go down here, I'm going to down sit, see how this feels. It's all just that first step and that first initial willingness, right? To see what else is possible if you kind of go off the beaten path. And that's when you realize, wow, this is really where the good stuff comes in. So then you're more willing to do it again. And I heard a quote recently, just talking about if you can accept the worst that can happen in that situation, really you give yourself the absolute freedom to do anything. And it's what we say to ourselves afterwards. So that's been something I've really adopted. I'm like, you know, what if I say something wrong or if I offend or whatnot or it's. There's an edit button, especially in podcasting. So, okay, that brings me to my next question. 3,500 people in, amazing, influential people. I looked over who you all got to interview, and it's Just like everybody that I'm also dying to interview. What is something that comes up, a common theme between everyone? Do you have anything that's just really blaringly obvious?

Yeah, absolutely. I'll share the top three, and I'll work my way backward because, you know, it's obviously you want to leave the teaser to last in my talks years ago, well, not years ago, maybe three years ago, when I first started this, put together this talk called the Secrets. And I called it the Timeless Secrets of Enlightened Super Achievers. When I first launched it, and I used to start from the first to the third and our first to the fifth. And, you know, it only took me about a week to realize it doesn't make any sense, you know, because then they heard the most important one or the most common one first. Then they're thinking, well, I'm working my way backwards. I'm losing momentum. I'm losing anticipation as you go. So I switched it. So I'm gonna do the same here. But three go really quickly. The three most common traits right now. I mean, it could change in another thousand interviews. But the three most common we've discovered is the third is that these top influential leaders are extremely focused, and to the extent that they go all in. So what do I mean by that? I decided to. And we documented all this, and we basically, like Napoleon Hill, we went and added up my system, and I added up all the numbers and wanted to make sure, what are the common traits? And one of the ones that surprised me, and this is the one the most, is that these top influential leaders, they don't try to multitask as much as everybody else. You know, I've been quoted as saying, I want to make single task new sexy again, because multitasking, I mean, can some people do it better than others? I think we have to all say probably yes. But are any of us really meant to do it? My opinion, based on what I've learned in the years since, is no. So these top superachievers, they know how to say no to the things that won't get them closer to the purpose, so they can say yes to the few things that will. And so doing that, what they do is they focus and they go all in. So I used to just say they avoid the distractions. But we had a speaker on the show one time, his name is Mike Lipkin. And I asked Mike about this, and I said, does it surprise you? And he said, no, I think it's just that they go all in. And so that put A distinction in my head of the idea that, yeah, they basically, they go all in with their phone when they're with their phone. Then when they're with me, they go all in with me. And that's probably why when I'm with these people who are juggling so much, you know, juggling more things than some people humanly possible, they still somehow, if they're with me two hours, managed to make me feel like I'm the only thing in their world or life. And I never hear a phone ring, I never hear a buzz. So I have to say that that's one of the most common traits is that they have the ability to go all in and make the focus on whoever they're doing, whoever they're with right now or whatever they're doing right now. That's number three. Number two, and this probably won't surprise you and it may be a common theme theme that you've discovered is what, and I term it this way. Lifelong learners are leaders. So what I've discovered is the people that keep feeding their mind as much as they feed their body, those are the people that seem to thrive. And Zig Ziglar, I think said it best. And you know, it was probably one of my favorite quotes to ask him about when I was lucky. I mean, I say I was lucky enough to interview him before his passing a couple of years ago and we've done stuff with his family since. And I'm a massive Nick Ziglar fan. Anybody who knows me knows that I am. But one of his quotes that always spoke to me was that you can finish school, but that doesn't mean you should ever finish your education. And that kind of sums up what we've learned is that these top achievers realize you need to keep feeding your mind. And I'll go one step further and say we're in an information heavy wisdom life world now where we're bombarded with information, but we have to sit to get the wisdom. And what I've discovered is these top tier achievers, they know how to efficiently get to the wisdom quicker. They can find a way to get on Facebook for five minutes and get what they need from it versus the person that stock on Facebook. Five hours doesn't make either right or wrong, but it's just they've efficiently learned how to do that. And I think that puts them in a better position to whenever the information. I've heard a quote saying that all the information online is doubling now every year. I don't know if that's Fact or not. But we all know it's getting, you know, it's definitely growing. So, you know, if you can't keep up today, how are you going to keep up in five years time? So if you can figure out how to be more efficient than the other person when it comes to getting your wisdom, I think that's going to put you in a better position than the person that can't figure that out. So again, what I've discovered is these lifelong learners, these people I continue to learn are the people that are the leaders. And what's really cool as well, Lori, is that years ago it had to be reading a book. I mean, reading a book, reading the newspaper, talking to your nosy neighbor. You only had a few ways you could learn. But today we're so blessed because we have TED talks, podcasts, there's so many ways to learn. As Brian Tracy said, you can turn your car into a mobile library, you know, so you can actually plug in now. You can even, even if you don't have a new car, you can get an FM transmitter from Best Buy for $35, plug it into your lighter, plug your phone into the other end, pick a station has nothing on it, and start playing through your phone whatever you want to listen to. So we've never had more of a time to feed our mind than ever before. And again. So the common trait is that these top tier achievers, they continue to do that regularly. And then if I, if I go to the first one and then, and you know, and, and if you want to interject it all, let me know. But if you go to the first one, if you want any questions on it, just let me know. But the first one is, this is kind of my favorite. You'll hear me talk about this more than anything else. It's passion. So I've noticed that these top tier achievers, and it's almost without exception, I mean, if I go to that 3,500, it's like 99% of these, the people that have discovered how to thrive, they're living on purpose and they're living with passion. So they discovered what they're put here to do. They know what their personal mission statement is. That's what I call it. Or you could call it their personal mission statement or the purpose statement. They know what it is, whether they have it written down or just know it intuitively. And they live every day accordingly. You know, Bob Dylan, he had a great quote that said for him, passion. How you know that, how you define passion, or if you're living with passion is if you get up in the morning and you go to bed at night and in between all you do if you love. That's living with passion. So what I've discovered is these top tier achievers, they spend the majority the lion's share of their time living with passion and living their purpose. So those are the top three.

Oh, I love all of those.

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So as far as passion, I'm sure that you've dove into how they feed it or do they have a common ritual like a morning ritual or a daily ritual that you found?

So, you know, I guess if I'm, I'm thinking what again, I go to the common, what are the common things I've noticed that these top tier leaders do? And I'll reference, I don't usually, you know, quote the same name twice. We've done a lot of interviews. But I have to, I have to add this in. Jack Canfield is the person that at least I heard it through. He does something he calls his hour of power. And Tony Robbins has an hour of power too. But they're two totally different things. Tony's is, you know, an hour with Tony and getting you pumped up and Jack's is an hour with yourself. So basically with Jack. And so what I say this to Laurie is tied back to the question. I've noticed that a lot of these top leaders do what Jack is doing, whether they do it in the same way or different ways. And I think that's one of the things that fuels their passion. So what Jack does is he spends the first hour of every day before all of the interruptions come in, he spends 20 minutes meditating. So let's say feeding his spirit or feeding his mind, what have you 20 minutes learning. So feeding his mind once again, 20 minutes exercising. So feeding his body. So he spends basically his first hour of every day doing that. And what's really cool is we all know exercise. We've heard the news that it's good for us. I just mentioned about the power of feeding your mind. And then spiritually, whether you meditate or you don't believe in meditation and you pray, whether you just sit in silence, they say that 15 to 20 minutes, I've heard multiple times meditation or deep thinking is equivalent to four hours of deep sleeping. So if you think about doing all four of those or all three of those things for an hour before most people even get up and start their day, I think it probably explains why a lot of them are able to keep their passion alive throughout the day and avoid some of the interruptions. So I think that's part of what they do. And then the second thing, which is going back to the thing I mentioned about a passion statement or a purpose statement or a mission statement, My mission statement is to be the guy who donates, motivates, inspires, entertains and educates. That's my five point test. And so if somebody asks me to take on something, if it's only going to be one of those, then it's going to be an easy no. It's going to be all five. It's going to be an easy yes. And then in between, that's when I, you know, have to think about it. But if it's three or more, it's usually a pretty easy yes. Well, what I've noticed is these, again, these people that live with passion have that in common in the sense that they figure out what are the things that are going to keep their passion alive. They're going to fuel their passion, they're going to help them serve a bigger purpose. And how can they do more of that during the day? And so for me, like I said, it's by knowing what my mission statement is and staying true to it and making sure I'm spending most of my time doing it. That helps me keep my passion alive. And then surrounding myself with other passionate people helps keep that going. And then, like I said, this hour of power help me start on the right foot and set the tone in the right way so I'm not dealing with the negativity right from the jump when I get out of bed. So that would be kind of my quick answer.

You know, I was reading a quote and I cannot remember for the life of me who said it, but it was talking about how leaders say no or work through the tough stuff faster so they just make the tough decisions faster. And I thought, you know, when you really look at that, it's talking about how you were just saying, you know, staying really focused and knowing exactly what your purpose statement is so that every decision is not a does this, you know, oh, would this be fun? Or oh, am I, you know, this is an opportunity that can't be missed. We're always going to have those, especially when we set goals. So it's just if it's not aligned and it's not moving you forward, it's a no. And I just thought, you know, that's the one thing I think why people get so stuck is just because it's so. It's not easy to say no. It's, you know, and everything else seems more fun. So if you can make the tough decisions faster, right when you know, is this in alignment or not? Just say it. Then you can move on to the next one and things don't pile up, you know. So what is one of your favorite. Do you have a favorite lesson that you have learned just where you, after maybe an interview, just got totally shifted and implemented it into your life?

Yeah, probably. And again, this is top of mind. I'm sure there's literally. I guess I could probably say there's probably thousands of times and that's happened. As, you know, when you're interviewing people that have traveled different paths and you. So many cool things come up. But if I go top of mind, instantly we had a guy in the show, his name is Robin Sharma. And okay, so Robin wrote, I think It's. He's at 11 books now. He was voted the number two guru in the world behind John C. Maxwell. And Robin's actually from my neck of the woods in Canada. So that's always kind of cool to see, you know, how much he's been able to do being. And he's from a really small province in Canada, so it's just kind of cool to see how, you know, how many people he's been able to impact and influence. And so he shared a couple of things that made me stop and go, whoa. One was just. It made me think. And the other one was, you know, how I made a change based on it. So the stop and think one was he said that most people, and he was referring to most people not discovering their passion. So he said, most people die at 20, but they wait till they're 80, bury their own bodies. And he said, I called them the walking dead. You know, basically, they're the purposeless zombies. And I mean, it's not to knock anybody. I mean, and, you know, it's not to criticize anybody. It's simply that they haven't found their passion. But it's really. He was lying. It's really sad to see what percentage. The high percentage of people that live their whole life and never find their purpose or passion. So that was kind of a woe and I shared that sin. So that was kind of a make you think. But if I, you know, if I look at what he said, that I actually started implementing and really reflect. He talked, and I think he was crediting, if I recall correctly, Warren Buffett, who he heard it from but basically talked about reverse engineering your life by saying, who do I want to be sitting on that step, rocking the chair at 80, you know, what achievements do I want to have, what I want my life to look like? And then what are the things I have to do? Basically breaking down the pies and reversing it. What are the things I have to do each year and each month to become that person sitting on the chair at 80?

I love that, really working backwards because a lot of times we just, we're such now people, what's happening now? What do I want to accomplish right now? We don't look and think that all of these little tiny things are really shifting our world and creating who we are going to be and who we're becoming. So did you find. Do you find any common blocks? Do you get that far asking them what are the things that arise for them that really tend to either scare them or block them and how do they work through it?

I guess one of the big ones that's come up is, you know, if you think about people that, let's say they're, I'm going to say, self talk, even at the highest level. I mean, there's people, and you've probably seen this Laurie, who are basically in their office directing orders, directing traffic, maybe managing staff, speaking to a thousand staff members that talk themselves out of going on, let's say, on a media tour or speaking to the media. There's people that are in office as CEOs that will be able to impact so many more people if they're able to conquer their fear of public speaking. And really it all comes back to that fear of. And that self talk. I say it's the fear of the unknown. You know, when you don't go on a stage, it's the fear of the unknown in most cases. So what could happen? It could be good or could be bad, but I don't know and I don't like being that uncomfortable. So I would say a big block for people is both the fear of rejection or the unknown, but also the self talk that comes along with that. Them allowing themselves to talk themselves out of something that could impact their life and change their life in a positive way forever. I think that's probably the biggest block.

Yes, for sure. That's amazing. All right. Anything else before we wrap that you want to share? Maybe some bit of wisdom that's come out of everything that you've done in the past, well, 20 years?

Well, I, you know, I guess I would say, and I kind of to this already, but I'll back it up with a statistic. And I heard it a long time ago. I haven't looked for it since, but it was all online at the time. But I think it was the Charles Schwab Institute that did the study. And they basically surveyed and interviewed and essentially studied the top 2% of North American CEOs to see what they had in common. And what they found is that they read an average of 3, 3 or 4 of the right books every month. And you notice I say write books because, you know, you can read Harry Potter or 50 Shades of Gray and you can, you know, you can learn stuff, you can, you know, stimulate creativity. You know, Harry Potter has helped more kids, they say, discover again than, you know, almost any other book in the last 20 years. So I'm not knocking them. But in terms of if you want to grow your. Expand your mindset, you know, there's certain books, obviously, you know, it could be a Think and Grow Rich that I mentioned or how to Win Friends and Influence People, but they discovered that the top 2% of North American CEOs, the biggest thing they had in common is that they essentially read three to four books a month. And I would say this, that was an older study. I would say now you could say they learn X amount per month, of hours per week, because it could be listening to a podcast, whatever that is. So what the. I guess the message I'd like to leave people with is make sure you're finding ways, whether you have an automatic system or you have a normalized system, but make sure to find a way to have a learning plan that you activate regularly. So make sure to find a way to feed your mind, whether it's podcasts, whether it's audio cd, Success magazine, TED talks, shows like yours, Interview, I mean, reading interviews in publications, whatever that is. Books. Find a way to feed your mind. Maybe it's just 20 minutes a day like Jack does. I'm sure he does more than that, but at least 20 a day. Minutes a day. Or maybe it's you have an hour a day. But find a way to dedicate time to learning. And I think you'll find that in the end of a year, you'll be blown away by how far you've come.

Amazing. Okay, just because we're going to wrap, but I have to know, do you have any favorite books? Maybe top two or three.

Well, so I'll add a third one because I mentioned two. First book I ever read in my life. And this might surprise you, Laurie, I was 27 years of age, My very first book and the book I read was Dale Carnegie. I mentioned how to win friends and influence people. You know, I won't belabor the point as to why that book and how it pulled me in, but it pulled me in. Think and Grow Rich. Similar book, very big on storytelling pulled me in. So if I had two more, since I've already mentioned those a couple of times, I'll add in probably the Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. Love that book. Can't say enough good about that book. And then I probably will go to Robin Sharma who I mentioned the monk who sold his Ferrari.

Amazing. I love that book too. Okay. I just want to say I'm so grateful for you. Thank you for sharing all of this wisdom with us.

My pleasure, Lori. And I'd like to see, and I believe we're going to make it happen, us bringing you onto our show as well and getting to maybe flip the switch and ask you questions of what you've learned from your experience with so many enlightened super achievers.

Yes, I would love that. And Corey, I always end with a question question. So I would love for you to let us know. Okay. So you have an elevator ride. It's only about 30 seconds with someone and they look over at you and say, how can I make myself happy? What is your answer?

Wow, big question. And I'll try to give a big answer. It's. I would tell them they have to if they haven't. So this is the big thing. If they haven't found their passion, they have to find it sooner than later. So that's obviously it's a two part answer. Did they find their passion or not yet. But if they're not happy, I'm sorry to say it this bluntly, but I think they probably fully found their passion yet. Because the people I've seen and I mean I've, as we know, I've spoken to a lot of them who are really happy, genuinely seem to be really happy. I mean, as long as you know what we can see on the surface and what they're telling us and what the vibe we feel and the energy we feel, they've discovered their passion. So it seems to be a common thread. So I would say you need to find your passion if you haven't yet. And then I only had the 30 seconds, I would tell them that's what to do. But I would say, and here's my card if you want me to tell you some steps for how to do so. Because that would take more than seconds.

It really would. I know. That's the quick answer. All right, so where can we find you? Where can we follow you?

Probably the easiest answer that would be two places. One is thepassioncure.com and the reason I send people there is it has our. It has our show there, our blog, but it also has the links to the social media channels that everybody connects through these days. And then also we launched a speaking program to help people launch speaking careers about a month ago. And we're going to be relaunching again in the near future. So if they want to check that out in any way, shape or form, it's simply thespeakingprogram.com so I'd send them to those two places.

Awesome. Thank you so much for being on today. And you guys, if you love this episode as much as I did, make sure you share it and share it with someone who needs it. Until next time, earn your happy. Bye everyone. Thank you guys so much for spending this time with me on the earn your happy podcast. I am so glad that you stopped by. If you could take one second to share this episode with someone you think would love it, that would be absolutely amazing and we would be forever grateful. Also, please leave us a review if you feel so moved by going to itunes and leaving us an honest thought, an honest comment, Tell us what you think, tell us what you want to hear more of. It would really help us out on our journey to helping thousands and thousands of people. Until then, don't forget to earn your happy. Thanks again, guys. Bye Bye.

Sam.