0299 | From Suck to Success: A Guide For Extraordinary Entrepreneurship with Todd Palmer

Hi, this is Todd Palmer of Extraordinary Advisors. You are listening to EA interviews, EA interviews.

Episode 299, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week. Join Mario Ficcini for today's Expert Authority Effect interview. We are in for a treat today, my friends. Expert Authority world. I have none other than CEO of Expert Authority Expert Advisors, Todd Palmer. For the second, I want to say I wanted to do this, but that would actually be four for the second time. Whatever the case is, we're going to bring him back up to talk about his new book, From Suck to Success. And I'm going to bring him up right after we thank our sponsor, Todd Palmer. So you've got your book mostly written, but now what? Visit getmybusinessbookpublished.com today to learn how you can publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's getmybusinessbookpublished.com Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, From Suck to Success, a guide for extraordinary entrepreneurship author CEO Todd Palmer. Todd, welcome back to the show.

Oh, it's so cool to be here. I didn't realize I was the first ever second appearance guest on your wonderful show. Thanks so much for having me.

Oh, it is my pleasure. I enjoyed the first one. We did episode 99 for anyone that wants to check that out as well. But I've been excited to do this. It's a new mil and I just can't wait to ask you about your new book and hear some of the things you've been doing since the last one because it sounds like everything's going well. I knew it was. You're an extraordinary person. But why did you want to write another book?

Well, so the book was really designed for two audiences. First, it was designed for myself as a 27 year old entrepreneur because these are all the challenges that I face as an entrepreneur that no one told me about when I started in this process. From the itty bitty negative committee in my head to all the pitfalls and how success is really a looping corkscrewing experience, not a straight point A to point B experience. And secondly, in all candor, I wrote it for my son. He went through a lot of this process with me when he was younger. Now he's a 30 year old CPA and I wanted him to be able to have a tombstone to be able to look back on it. And I'm just blown away at the reception we've received. It's an international bestseller. Number one book Multiple categories. And it's just. It's truly something that I hope will impact entrepreneurs for years to come.

What is your vision, you know, five, ten years from now? Where do you. Who would you hope gets access to it in those next five or 10 years?

That's a great question. For me. It's really that startup entrepreneur who's thinking about getting into business. What does it look like? What are the ups and downs? What are the prices we pay as entrepreneurs? But as well as, you know, the entrepreneur is currently stuck. Everything I talk about is inside out leadership. And everywhere we go, there we are. It's work, life, integration. And part of that model is really looking at every problem and business ties to one thing. And it's always people. And 99 out of 100 times, it's the person at the top. It's us as the entrepreneur.

Why do you think it always is the person at the top like us that everyone the problem starts there from?

So look at it like this. So I had a client recently come to me, say, I've got some cash issues. All right, makes sense. I can see where you are and why you have those problems. Who made the decision about the cash? I did. As the entrepreneur. Who led the team around the cash? Who hired the controller? I did. Who hired the cfo? I did. Who do they report to? They report to me. So is it really a cash strategy decision or is it decisions you made as the entrepreneur and maybe things you could have done differently? It's not really a money problem. It's a people problem.

So do you believe that there are business problems or there are personal problems that come over into business?

Oh, that's a great question. No one's ever asked me that before. I think it's yes. And I think there are certainly business problems. I mean, things happening to businesses like a Covid hitting the business. It's like being in a car accident. We're driving down the road, we get hit by the COVID car. That happened to us. But as soon as we recognize that we are in the process of this impact experience, we now make choices and decisions. We make those choices and decisions as leaders, often based upon the history we bring to the table. How were we raised? What pivots have we been through before? I spoke when Covid hit virtually in Malaysia, and I was with two other CEOs, Andy Biden and Nigel Bennett, and we talked about Tales from the Edge because our audience over in Malaysia had never been through a recession. They had never been through tough times. They were all one to Five year entrepreneurs who were just experiencing something for the first time. And I find that a lot of people have to often dig deep. And what they dig deep in is the successes they've had in pre entrepreneurship times, the successes in sports, the successes in family, raising kids. So it's work, life, integration. Wherever the entrepreneur goes and the business goes, they always come back together. And it's getting them unstuck around how they look at the world. And we're talking about kind of in the pre interview, you know, did, did something happen to us or did it happen for us? Well, if we recognize something happened for us, we're actually going to operate in a different part of our brain, whether it's business or personally related.

Yeah. And I'll tie this back in because I can use my own personal example right here. We're talking about, you know, you mentioned Covid a couple of times. Did this happen to us or for us? Because I was like, yeah, it was so cool. You know, we grabbed lunch together and I was like, yeah, I think it was like two years ago. Yeah, no, I didn't even have the show two years ago, barely. And I'm like, wait a second. And I'm trying to do the math in my head and I'm like, I am so screwed up with the timeline. I've just been rounding up, adding a year to everything. But it literally was just a year ago. I was like, how can you be episode 99 the same month I started my show? I'm ambitious, but that's a bit much.

Yeah.

So I might still be wrong. I don't know when it was, but I. It's. It's thrown off everything. So to the humoristic point of that, and for the record, I wasn't smiling about the car smashing into someone. I was smiling at the analogy you used. And I've realized on here, there's times where someone says something funny and it's like, oh, or they're saying something and then the natural 2, 3 second reaction, but then they jump into something super negative and it's like, oh, so and so died.

Right?

And it's like, no, no, no. It was the thing you said before. But.

With everything that's been going on, we're talking about how some people, they're going, oh, my whole world's turned upside down. This and that. But you know what? Even when that wasn't going on, there was something else going on. Something else going on. And we're talking about some people that, who their business has grown astoundingly ecstatically extraordinarily.

And it's because we've all taken this huge adversity and gone, what can I do to empower it and make it better? Why do you think some people choose A versus B one?

I think it goes back to programming. How were we raised? What have we learned? And at times, if you think about it, a fixed mindset does serve us well. When we're little kids, for example, a really good fixed mindset message is don't put your finger in the light socket. Probably a good.

Till what age?

Well, I would say that's probably a universal thing. Lisa. I'm not going to. You're welcome to, but I'm going to not put my finger into the, into the light socket.

No, no, no. I mean not putting it in there. Use a fork. You can't fit your finger in there anyway. Use a fork. Just saying. But to what? You know, we have that programming, but do you think at 8 you should say, hey, maybe expand it 10, 12, 16, 18, 4. I mean, because there's the child prodigies and there's other people who was like, oh, they're not an adult yet. It's like, well, it's too late at that point. You now have two decades of their life you have to undo versus, you know, what's your thought that where do you think it should switch from? Here's the basics to.

Changing.

Great question. One, I believe, and I've seen it happen with entrepreneurs that I work with, anywhere from entrepreneurs I work with in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, they're able to make pivots and changes. What once they've got awareness that there's an option of change, once they've got the ideal that you can pivot out of that. Now to your directly to your question. I have an 11 year old stepdaughter and we've spent a lot of time working with her on having a growth mindset at 11 versus a fixed mindset. Because if you take a look at, you know, take it out of the entrepreneurial, the business context, many students have lost numerous days of school. Many students have lost graduate walking down graduation ceremonies, they've lost sports events, seasons, et cetera. And so we've had to work with her so that she can understand that, you know, there's an opportunity within the tragedy of COVID for her as a student and how can she learn? And I give her so much credit, she's gone, she's in sixth grade because she's been able to double down on certain things. She now reads at a 10th grade level. She now approaches situations instead of having a fixed mindset that you're right, I'm wrong or you know I'm right, you're wrong to. Let's approach it with massive curiosity. Let's use different parts of our brain and this is an 11 year old and she just went through this really interesting conflict resolution recently where she went into a conflict with massive curiosity. No tears were shed, which is for an 11 year old girl, which is super exciting as the person who's got to live with her sees and she was able to come out of it being seen and heard, which is so important at any age. But she's also known. So when she seen, heard and known the conflict was avoided, resolution took place, people were seen and heard and the tears were never shed. That's a really big example of an 11 year old applying a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset.

How do you think that's going to translate when she's. Because she's not even a teen yet. How do you think that's going to translate into her teens and twenties, you know, as she enters high school and college?

Well, I've already seen it happening with her now where she's, she's avoiding the gossip games, she's looking for opportunities to be a resource to others. She had a friend who had an issue with the friend, the friend had an issue with her parent and she was able to talk her through seeing it with multiple options, not just only one way of doing things. You know, when we're, we're operating in our reptilian parts of our brain in the expectation mindset, it's really hard to see options but we move into the higher cerebral cortex and we're able to see more of a growth opportunity for we're able to see different options available to us then that's really where growth and learning takes place. So she's doing that with her peers now when she gets older. Our goal, our hope, our dream, our wish is that she will make better decisions armed with different information, looking through at a different lens. So we constantly polish that lens so that when she goes through her life she's able to see things more in an again, more is it things are happening for me, not happening to me.

I think it's great that you're doing it at a young age. And that's why I asked because there's the two thoughts. It's like leave kids alone till they're grown but by then it's too late. But it's Also, like, you don't want to rob them from their childhood. Because I know other people who have achieved at the highest, extra like, highest possible levels you can imagine, but they flat out said they're like, I wish I had more time to be a kid. You know, I have the whole rest of my life to do that. You know? You know what I mean? I do believe there's a balance for it.

Does she have desire to go into business, entrepreneurship?

Well, it's interesting. So when I first met her, she was seven, eight years old. And I meet her and she's this tiny little creature of a million questions. And she goes, my mom said, you're a CEO? Yeah. I said, you know what a CEO is? She's like, this is what she said. She was, she was, you make lots of money. I said, well, that is a definition of some CEOs, but let's assume that CEOs can do well. Why do, why is it important to you to make lots of money? She goes, I have an answer for that. I want to own my own building someday. Really? Why do you want to own your own building? Basically, it came down to the building in real estate she saw on some TV show was a really great mechanism for stability and a really great investable asset. And she said to me, just when I own a building, I, I can charge people rent. And when I charge people rent, I get lots of money and I want to have lots of money because I want to go do cool things with my friends and I want to buy a pony. Perfect. Very appropriate for a 7 year old. Now, she's not gotten there yet, but it's interesting because being home again, the opportunity and the tragedy. She sees me work every day with my clients. Now, we maintain confidentiality in our coaching relationship with my clients at Extraordinary Advisors. But she sees me bouncing off the walls and talking to them. My arms are flailing and we're problem solving and I'm whiteboarding things out for them. So she comes to me with curiosity versus judgment. She comes to me with curiosity versus a fixed mindset. So she goes, well, so if I wanted to build my own app, for example, how would I actually make money doing that? So the cool part about being in the same house during these, you know, she's in school two days a week and home three days a week, she's able to see the different experiences. Instead of just that one day of take your kid to work in three out of five days, two out of five days, it's take your, you know, share your work experience with her and teach her that there is a lot of abundance out there, even though on the tough days when she's not able to do what she wants to do and she feels a little bit of scarcity.

So I love that you're using the analogy with your stepdaughter, but I'm also hearing a lot of parallelism with entrepreneurship because it doesn't matter if you're 7, 11, 37, 48, 50, 55, whatever the case is. It doesn't matter what I should have just said. It doesn't matter what age you are. I just think that that's less entertaining, though. There's something. It's like, whatever. I think whatever.

Business is a lot of the same way. Because you could be sitting here going, well, whether you're going into real estate or not, there's a person going, well, I don't want to own a building. I hate real estate. What's good for you? Do something different. Clearly don't like what you're doing now anyway. It's not about the thing, it's about the mindset and the attitude behind it. Where she's going, this leads me to this, which leads me to this, which leads me to that. And I can help more people ultimately because of these things. Instead of just how would you like. I know more people that are old. I know a lot of people that are over 18, almost all of them. But the point is, there's the adults who go. They have. We have all these dreams, goals and ambitions, and it's like we just lost that tenacity of a kid.

Of to say, yeah, anything's possible. When the reality is we've worked 20, 30, 40, 50 years to have the assets, resources, network, relationships, experience, and probably five other things that all could be working in our favor. And we limit ourselves.

Yeah, we really do. And it's been exciting for me to talk with her about it. And I talk about it in my book From Suck to Success. Like, we can be intentional or we can have expectations. And when she has expectations, we talk about this, like around homework, which is classic for kids, versus having the intentions she's able to actually academically perform better when she goes into it with an intentional mindset versus a fixed mindset and we've been able, you know, we were supposed to. For example, I was going to give a speech last April of 2021 at Disney. You say that to an 11 year old. They don't hear, hey, Todd's going to work. It's giving a speech. I'm going to Disney. Is all we heard in my household. I'm going to Disney. Can I go? Well, we didn't, we weren't able to go. We have a long conversation of what that meant and why we couldn't go and because, you know, the outbreak and all the pandemic issues.

So she said, she's like, well, how else are you going to continue to take care of me? Basically that was a great very, you know, not a very self care question, not a selfish question. I said, you know what, I'm going to do what I tell you and I'm going to be very intentional. So I started volunteering and she's watching me and I'm working like a madman, all for free. And I talked with 42 CEOs in 67 days and I got zero clients from those CEOs and those speeches. Going to Malaysia, virtually everything else. My business is up 300% since last March because those CEOs started becoming my greatest salesforce. And they're telling their CEO friends and some of them needed coaching and then some of them would get unstuck. And we talked about it and we just had this conversation last week and she's like, I've never seen you so busy as long as I've ever known you. How did you do it? I said, because you taught me a lesson. We had a conversation of, you know, we can't go to Disney, which is disappointing. Where's that opportunity? Well, I can go speak in Malaysia, I can go speak in Germany, I can go speak in South Africa, all from Detroit. And you can enjoy watching me. And sometimes she'll sit in the background here and we'll kind of watch me perform and she just has a good time with it. And so we decided that, you know, we can be intentional because the overall intention, which ties into the purpose of why I do all this, is to improve lives. The reality and she and I talked about this is I can do that anywhere. I can do it from home, I can do it from stage, I can do it from podcasts, I can do it in the grocery store. She was like, you were really nice to that lady. You helped her get unstuck about, you know, the things she was going through. We had a conversation in line one day. She's like, yeah, that's the beauty of having a purpose driven life. So I can do it anywhere. To teach a kid that that opportunity and abundance can happen anywhere in the world is, I'm hoping anyways that will be a gift that will last in her life forever.

That's Phenomenal. And I'm glad you brought up the point. It's a great expert authority insight that you can do it from anywhere. Because for the last decade plus, there's people who have said, how can I do this? I never thought I could. I've always loved engineering solutions because.

People just don't know what they don't know. You know, zoom is nothing new. The phone is definitely nothing new. It's just a matter of what modality you want to be using. So do you feel that the phone is more effective? Zoom is more effective. After doing all of this, what would you say is, is there a best medium or is it just really, hey, do what your clients want, Just go out there and serve whatever way you do it, that's the best way for you.

So I'll tell you what I think the best medium is and also tell you what I think the worst medium is.

I think when I can see someone, like I can see you right now, we have a different chemistry and a different connection versus if we were just on the phone. And I really am a believer in 80 plus percent of communication is done using non verbal tools. Whether it's hand gestures, body language, vocal intonations, up and downs. How do we, you know, I can say a sentence and I can inflect on certain words at a certain point, but if I've got the expansive part behind it, you're going to receive it differently. As my audience, when I'm coaching my clients, if I can hear them, but if I see like a little subtle hint where someone looks away like, hey, we're talking about tough issue, are you feeling some guilt, shame and embarrassment around that? Oh my gosh, how did you know? Well, because you look down, you look to all the telltale signs that I can't see on the phone. And especially when we're communicating with our teams, video imaging, connecting with human beings in as much of a two dimensional, three dimensional way always is better. Because in the absence of communication, people are going to fill in their own narrative. And if we can fill in that narrative for them and control that narrative and communicate that out, it's always better done in a visual medium. Here's the worst way to communicate other than not communicating, which is the absolute, absolute worst way. Text. Text is to inform. Text is not to communicate. Text is not to negotiate a contract. Text is not to problem solve with somebody else. The main reason I found is when I receive a text from Mario, I'm going to put Mario's voice to it. Well, is it happy Mario Is it angry Mario? Is it frustrated Mario? Is it? Which Mario is it? Or if I've never talked to Mario, I'm going to put my voice to it. What's my mood? Am I happy? Am I sad? Am I good? Am I bad? Am I angry? Am I frustrated? Well, I'm going to apply that to whatever message I receive, which is putting the communicator, the sender of the message, at a very distinct, distinct disadvantage versus you can't get me on video, Pick up the phone and let's have a conversation.

That's hilarious. But also I appreciate the expert authority insight on it because, yeah, I've done that myself where it's like, oh, well, that's easy. They all, all this person does is text and they're always upset. Cool. Not on the high priority list. Just throwing that out there. Number one, if that's you.

Be a blessing, not a burden. But yeah, you, you hear the different voices in email. I'm like, well, shoot, what's the right way? What if you were just on the phone with them and said you emailed them? Like, are you supposed to call back? So it's more personal. But you said it was just going to be an E. There's all the different modalities. But yeah, when you can see them or even in person, you know, just that. Not even what's said, but just observing people and how they interact with other people. I think that's a huge thing too, especially for business. You know, especially you could be super nice to me. You know, we're cool and everything and then we sit down and then there's someone else joining us and they're just treating everyone like crap. But they're nice to us.

It's.

It's like that tells you something. Maybe they're nice to everyone but us. That also tells you something.

Well, I just had this happen with a client last week. I have a new client out of Texas. Coaching her up. Sends me a quick text message. Hey, I have an employee issue. I think I may have to terminate somebody. So immediately. I pick up the phone and called her. What's going on? Well, I didn't want to bother you, but I just, for some reason, I just, I felt compelled to share this with you, so. Well, let's talk through what's going on. We're talking through the issue. And her initial understanding of the issue made a lot of sense that yet termination may be the unfortunate result. Well, I challenged her. I said, you know, you don't need to make a decision today. You can Take the weekend. It's Friday. You can always make, you know, have the conversation on Monday. What I challenge you, even if you have to terminate this employee, what I challenge you to do is to think about how can you leave this conversation with the most information possible? How can you be curious, not judgmental? How can you dig down deeper and find out new information? Because if you have to let the employee go, they're gone anyway. I said I would just challenge you to think about it versus, you know, you go girl or you go guy. And, yeah, be that badass CEO and let this person go. And she was like, what would that look like? And we. So we did some role playing right there in the moment, probably 10 minutes. That's why, again, I always tell my clients, if you have an issue, I'm available 24 7, 365. Because in those moments of. It's like I always say, it's like coaching a football game. Like, let's drop the play on the sideline. Let's work it out versus let's go watch the film and see what we could have, should have done.

Yeah.

So I talked to her this morning. I said, how did it go? She's like, oh, my gosh, I'm so glad you called me. I was able to do a deep dive with this employee. I was able to learn so much. I was able to center myself going into this conversation, so I was able to present my best self, and we cleared a lot of misunderstandings out of the room. We were able to repair some damage in the relationship, and he's still with me today. Now we have some firm boundaries in place. We have some things that we had to talk through, but I leaned into the uncomfortable, not away from the uncomfortable. All based upon our conversation on Friday. Thank you so much. Oh, absolutely. I mean, just made my day, other than talking to you, of course, but it really did. You know, it was just something that, as a coach, in those moments or those light bulb moments go on and those aha moments take place, and we're able to get. I'm able to help someone get the life they want, save a relationship with an employee they found valuable versus being triggered and hijacked by what they thought maybe was going on.

That is such a great ripple effect of just being able to be present in the moment, understand and see the different perspective. Because like you said, you don't need to do it right now. And even if you're going to, instead of just basically ending it off a cliff where it's like, it goes into this void or abyss. Hey, let's at least get some feedback. You know, I think they're called the exit interviews. Like, okay, no, that's if you're leaving, not if you're getting fired. Whatever the case is. More. More dad is better than less. Because you know what? Maybe it wasn't completely this person's problem. Clearly, if they're still with them, they couldn't have been doing it all that wrong. It sounds like it was more of just a misunderstanding, but now since there's some understanding applied to the situation, clearly set up boundaries and everything, but it just makes more sense for all the parties involved.

Oh, for sure, because we, you know, we go into conversations thinking we have to have all the answers of CEOs. I know I suffered from that for decades, that it was my version of my imposter syndrome, where I had to be all things to all people all the time and know everything. Well, the reality is I didn't and I didn't know that it was my responsibility to get into the nitty gritty, to delve deeper. Don't take the first answer. Dig, dig, dig. You know, tell me more, tell me more, tell me more. To figure out what the root cause issues. So much of what we do as CEOs, as leaders, as entrepreneurs, as parents, as partners is we deal with the sentiment, not the root cause. If we can get to the root cause of what the fracture in the relationship is, we can get to the root cause of what the problem is. I mean, we had to talk about this. Last time I was on your Show, I got $600,000 in debt. Not because of the bank, not because of. You know, I could certainly blame clients and the economy and everything else in the recession time, but it was because of me. I was the root cause. And to get $600,000 into debt took a while. It just didn't happen overnight. So I had to dig deep with the help of my coach, who came in, and we dug and we dug and we dug to figure out how to get me unstuck. And then when I got unstuck, that's when I made the Inc. 5000 six times. It wasn't because I was able to just look within and self coach and operate in a silo. No, I had to bring in help. I. I had to get help. And I had to deal with that imposter syndrome, and I had to deal with the fact that I didn't have all the answers. And that's okay. I didn't know everything, and that's okay. And the only way I'm gonna do this by being vulnerable, asking those questions just like my client did last week, so that she was able to get unstuck around some of the things that she was taking in, because in talking with her, she was bringing some. Some previous employees that had been long gone from the company into her itty bitty negative committee. And that was helping propel her to maybe a decision to. That she potentially could have regretted.

You are giving such great deep insight there, and I am so appreciative of it. I want to come back to something you very nonchalantly said. I've done it myself, and it's centering because we can talk about. You got to get to the problems, you got to get past them and dive deep and everything. But centering, if it's exactly what I'm familiar with and you're referring to, you're talking about literally looking inside of yourself, centering yourself and starting the day off of there. It's. I'm not misinterpreting the term, right?

Correct. So I feel as a coach, when I coach others, my job is to ultimately teach them how to do self coaching because I can't be with them 24 7, 365. And I always give full credit to my coach, Dr. Danny Friedland, who taught me how to self coach. And when I self coach, I literally use different parts of my brain and versus being reactive, being in fight or flight, being triggered by something going on, I move into a higher cerebral cortex of my brain and in that transition, I slow down, I get centered. I think about what matters most. I think about what my purpose is. I think about what outcome do I want to have from this tough conversation? What outcome do I want to have potentially from anything from again, tough conversations to date night. What is my intention around this exchange with another human being so that I can show up and be the best version of me possible, still being authentic, transparent and vulnerable. I don't want to not telling anybody to wear a different mask. But know what you know, why you're there. Be steadfast because you know yourself well enough to know that you bring, you know, your own garbage to the conversation too. You bring your history, you bring your times of being hijacked. So you're part of that communication dynamic, not just the other person.

I love that you're talking about it because I've done leadership training and inner work and not everyone knows about it. I did pick up on it when you said it. Your centering techniques. Did your coach give you Something specific or are you using the one with. From Alexander Everett?

So here's what I use. I'm not familiar with Alexander Everett, so it may be identical. So I use a thing called the active learning cycle. In the active learning cycle, we basically figure out what our purpose is. So if I'm triggered, why am I bothered by this? And go try to dig deeper and anchor it in my purpose. And I got my purpose. I worked with Simon Sinek a dozen years ago to get two years to figure out two words, improve lives. So I want to improve lives in everything I do. So then I put it into ultimately what my experience is, what was my intention, not my expectation around that experience. So being in debt, really easy. My purpose was I want to improve lives. Hard to do that being $600,000 in debt. That wasn't working for me anymore. So I created an intention of getting out of debt, not an expectation of how I would get out of debt. Very important delineation there created strategies around that intention to that top line of getting out of debt, which tied to my purpose. And then we did massive activities, massive. Then we tried it again. More strategy, more activity, tie it back to purpose. So for me, every time I know I'm triggered by anybody, first of all, I realize that it's you, not it's me, not you that's triggering me. You said something that could be innocent, like, I don't like your shirt. Well, what do you mean you don't like my shirt? This is a great shirt. This is bought for me by my girlfriend. This is bought for me by my mother. What I'm hearing is you don't like my girlfriend or my mother or I'm hearing, you know, you don't like this. My shirt's just a manifestation of something, but it's within me, not within you. You can totally not like my shirt. It doesn't really matter. The triggering is my responsibility to myself. It's just like the COVID car accident experience. And when I recognize it, for me again, going back to my imposter syndrome, my triggers, my imposter syndrome was driving the life of my life as a car. It's in the driver's seat. All I do is switch seats with it using the active learning cycle so it sits next to me. It's still going to talk to me. It's still going to give me feedback. It's the goal is to have it give feedback less and have it give it quieter so I can maintain the control of the situation. But there are times, I mean, traffic In Detroit, my friend, you know this like ah, we get triggered. Well is it. Do we really know why that person cut us off? Could it be they could be in a hurry and they're completely irresponsible. Texting, that is certainly an option. Or are they rushing to see a loved one who's got a serious medical illness and they're, they're doing what they feel like they need to do because that's their highest primary driver and everything in between, we just don't know. What we do know is we're triggered and it's our responsibility of self ownership to work through that process of what's triggering us.

That is really great expert authority insight and I'm. Thank you for elaborating. I think that is appropriate word because I know there's people that might not even know what it is, let alone doing it. And I wanted to give a full depth of the structure because you know, everyone. It's reminded me of the picture of the iceberg where you see the success at the top and all the little things. But it's like what's that primary driver you're talking? Can you see it at the very bottom? It's at the core and that's how you recenter and get to the core. So the rest keeps building up from, you know, and then you can. The rest of the world can see it on the top.

Oh for sure. Within the active learning cycle. I love like the gyrating underneath surface because it's like a helix. We're always going to be learning, we're always going to be iterating, we're always going to be spinning to the top, to the bottom, to the top, to the bottom. Because that's life. You know, I always tell my clients, a client hired me a couple years ago and he introduces me to his entire leadership team and he goes, I hired Todd Palmer from Extraordinary Advisors. He's our new coach and he's going to solve all of our problems.

Thank you very much for the introduction, Mr. CEO. My name is Todd Palmer and I am the CEO and coach at Extraordinary Advisors and I'm here to improve your problems. I am not going to solve all your problems. So if you have a cash problem, for example, your $600,000 like in debt, like I was, we're going to fix things in the business so that your new cash problem is you have to pay too much taxes because you've made too much money. They're both money problems, but they're going to be different because at the end of the day it's life is the curriculum. Business is just a facet of that. So if you have money problems in your personal life, you have money problems in your business life, it ties back to you. It's part of the whole dynamic. It's not. We can't segment our lives out there so that, you know, it's just a business problem or it's just a personal problem. Especially when you're an entrepreneur. Wherever you go, there you are.

Yeah. And to your point with the Helix, it's like, should I be spending more time growing myself? Should I be relaxing or should I. Should I be working on the business? And it's like, yes.

Yeah, exactly. I always tell my leaders that.

If you're. Whether it's, you know, relaxing. Right. So, like, well, I should be working all the time. Well, a lot of people think that entrepreneurship is like football. They should just muscle their way through it. They should just push through the issues. There are times when that's required. And there are other times. It's more like, like golf, where it's just more of a pendulum swinging and it's more of a. More of a whip action. And there are times when it's just important to be still. Let the storm pass. Just like my client, I said, you know what, you don't have to make any decisions on Friday. Let the storm pass. Get centered. Think through ultimately what you really do want to leave the conversation with this employee with and then go in there centered so you can get through it. And I saw on social media that she went to a concert over the weekend and she went to a nice dinner. So she was taking care, choosing some self care. And there's value in self care. And it's not always self care doesn't equal selfish. Because as leaders, people take a lot from us because we have a lot to give. But if we take who we are at the core and think of it like a giant bucket, and in that bucket we have water. And from that water, we give to this person, we give to our family, we give to our friends. And we give and we give and we give and we give and we serve and we serve and we serve. The water reserves go down, we reach the bottom of the bucket, and all of a sudden we're wondering, why are we so resentful? Because everybody wants something from us. Well, we didn't do self care. We didn't take care of ourselves. We didn't go out on our boat. We didn't go out and relax with our friends. We didn't watch A movie by ourselves. That's what they used to be. One of my favorite things, just to shut the world out, turn off my phone and just be present to be entertained. And that brought my reserves up. When my reserves come up, you know, my reserves meet my demands. It's evil. Even when the demands exceed my resources and the resources go down, that's where the resentments, that's where the negativity comes in.

I'm just blown away again with everything you're sharing. And I know this is easy and effortless for you, for anyone who's just meeting you for the first time, why don't you give us a little synopsis of like how this all got started and you know, how did you get to this point of the ultimate success? Where did it all begin at?

Well, I appreciate the question. So I realized even why went back in time to write the book. You know, I'm stuck at home, Covid. I had plenty of time to write the book, but I kept saying, why am I doing this and why do I coach? It all ties back into the help I receive from others. How can I now be of service to you? I want to be. I'm a big believer in servant leadership. And when we serve others, I'm always stunned that If I give 95%, I will get back 120% back from others. It's just the weirdest. Like there is this weird balance that I am just fortunate and blessed to be part of. So for me, why I coach, why I do all this, why I left being a CEO to become a full time coach, was because it gives me energy, it gives me purpose, it doubles down on the improved lives mantra that I practice every day. And the more I do that, the more enjoyment I get, the more I'm able to give to my family, to my friends, to my clients. And when I was a recruiter, when I was a CEO, it was sometimes a very.

Soul sucking experience. And it was very much a big stressor in my life. And I talk about it extensively in the book and how I was constantly having to pivot to maintain a positive attitude, how I had constantly pivot to make sure that others were taken care of. Now when I'm coaching people, I feel like it's just, it's my purpose in life, it's the reason I'm here. It's when I say, you know, I get so much joy in others success, much more joy than I got in my own success. The example that I like to use the most often is think about Christmas. We're a little kid at Christmas. We love get love to get gifts. Feels really good. I get a new video game. I get a new toy. I get a new something. Well, now I've pivoted to being the little kid who loved getting that. I've now pivoted into the adult who loves giving. And when we give to our kids and we give to other people and the joy and the light bulb moments that my clients have and the breakthroughs they get. Oh, Mario, I can't tell you. It just invigorates me to watch them get the life by design that they're craving and to know that I've been the guide above their hero's journey. They work their way through it. They've earned all this. I've just been that trusted advisor on the sidelines. That person has been able to watch them from 30,000ft grow and develop and become all they can be. That's why I do it.

You're creating that ripple effect just like your coaches.

Oh, my gosh. My coach is an amazing guy. And, you know, he's, I've been with him for seven years. Danny Friedland. He has a YouTube channel, Living well from Within. And there he talks about it where, you know, he's, he's coming to the end of his life. He's got state. He has stage four brain cancer. And he's decided that.

Sorry to hear again.

Oh, thank you. You're so kind.

And he is so rooted and that cancer is happening for him, not to him. He will not be a victim. He will not be a martyr. He will let, he will share with the world what he's going through. He chronicles it every single day. He's brought his family into the fold. His sons Zach and Dylan contribute content. His wife sue contributes content of what it's like for their family to go through this and to watch him be buoyant and to roll in. I mean, he coaches conscious capitalism and he coaches me and he coaches the whole food. I mean, he coaches brands that you all have heard of. And for him to fold us all into his journey to his legacy on this channel is so powerful because he's a heart centered leader who doesn't want to follow. A heart centered leader. He's all about giving to others. And he's getting the ultimate gift of sharing with you what he's going through, demystifying some of the treatments he's going through, demystifying what it's like to share it with your family. These are life lessons that we don't learn in college, we don't learn them in seminars and training programs. We're learning it through a world renowned expert. And him opening himself up fully to all of us to be on this journey with him is just an amazing gift. And I am so incredibly proud of him. I mean, I am just one. I am just blessed to know him, lucky to have him as my coach and just the legacy he's leaving. Thank you so much for opening the conversation, Mario.

I think it's great what you're doing and what he's doing. And it's about that ripple effect of, you know, there's people that say, I don't know why I'm doing this. Or.

For an example, with podcast or with my author clients, it's like, well, why would I want to do this? There's always that. Who's gonna listen to me? You start off with one episode, 10 episodes, you know, five downloads, one down. If you ever start a podcast and you don't, you better be your first listener. I'll just put that out there. Because there's people who are like, I haven't got any downloads. I'm like, when did it go out? They're like a week ago. I'll tell you what, I was the first one clicking on mine before it even went live. You got to believe in yourself, in that ripple effect that you're doing, that I, I like to center myself or I'd like to surround myself with people who are heart centered because it is that ripple effect, you know, like that battery like you're talking about. You keep, you know, whatever you need to do to charge yourself up, but then we charge everyone else up and then where does that spread to and everything? So I appreciate you for doing what you do.

Thank you.

I'm glad he's doing what he does. And I just, you know, I'm glad I found what I'm doing because it took a while.

Oh, sure.

And now it's great. I absolutely love highlighting great people like yourself, because the whole reason I started Expert Authority Effect interviews is to exponentially elevate the identity of humanity. And I cannot do that on my own. And I know you have your mission and you can't do that on your own. So for someone who's listening going, maybe they're a little bit. Still stuck in, well, I can do everything on my own. Or maybe they have a little bit of a team, or they just don't. I know it's stemming from an internal hurt. They don't want to get hurt. It's an Internal scar. They don't want to get hurt, they don't want to open themselves up. And I know so many good people who are already successful, but they're not at that abundance point where they're just, they want to build the team bigger, they want to go bigger, they want to do stuff. They're still hanging on so tight. And it's reminding me of that picture of that, that rope. And it's a, you know, it's the bloody hand and it says, sometimes hanging on hurts more than letting go.

Right.

And what would you say to someone who is still hanging on even 5 or 10%? I mean, I would like to think they got the message through everything we've been sharing. But if they haven't got it yet, what would you say to them to say, let go, let God, just let go of it so they can be at that next level? I know they want to.

Sure. A couple things come to mind. First of all, I think there is.

People often ask me, you know, when you engage a new coaching client, why do they come to you? And then I'll say, well, why don't you get some other people? And I often find that why people hang onto the rope is pride and ego. And with pride and ego comes a lack of acceptance. I was working with an entrepreneur who was hanging out of the rope of his restaurant. We got him unstuck because we figured out why he was still hanging. Why was it so important? Because ultimately we figured out his identity as a human being was tied into the success of his business. Happens a lot with entrepreneurs. Once we were able to get him to let go of that, he pivoted from one restaurant concept to a different restaurant concept. Within 30 days, he's in San Francisco and he was. It got him tied into his purpose. Right. He's holding onto the rope, moved him into his purpose versus being right. You know, going down with the ship mindset. And he got into the restaurant industry because he wanted to create great date nights, of all things. He said, I really love hosting people in my house. I want to take into the world. I'm a trained chef and I just love it when I love, love, and I love when people have great date nights in my restaurant. So he pivoted. How do I help people have great date nights at home? Because they can't. They couldn't come to his restaurant. And so he created this great menu of high end pizza. Average price is like 36 bucks for a pizza. And he was creating great date nights at home. He had a whole themeology and he did marketing around it. He did $3 million worth of pizza sales in 12 months because he stuck to his purpose. He let go of the vine, let go of the rope, and he pivoted into why he was really doing the restaurant business. And it wasn't to make a lot of money, which I'm glad he's making great money now. And it wasn't to be Chef of the Year. It was to create great date nights for other people. Now he does that from home. And what he loves about it is his footprint is reduced significantly. Square footage in San Francisco, super expensive. He has significantly smaller staff. And now he really doubled down on why he does what he does. And he's super content.

That's part of the problem, is we hang on thinking we have to be right versus let go. Let's find acceptance. Let's achieve some internal contentment and move forward.

That is inspiring. And, yeah, if anyone's hanging on after that, well, that's on them, because I would love to know more personally what he's doing. To have pulled that off with the pizza and everything. I mean, that's inspiring. That sounds great. I got one more question for you before the thanking of the sponsor. And I don't know when I started it, but it's new to you.

It's the Wheel of Whatever.

The Wheel of Whatever. Okay.

This was not on last time, was it?

It was not. I would have remembered it. Remembered the Wheel of Whatever.

Yellow or black?

Oh, gosh.

Because I'm wearing black. I'll go with yellow.

Ooh, look at that contrarian right there.

So this basically gives me carte blanche. Notice all the questions.

It's just numerous. Too many to count.

Yeah, I designed it that way intentionally. So this basically gives me carte blanche to ask you whatever I want, and you have to answer.

Let's go.

Look at that. I was kind of wondering, because everyone else just knows it's part of the show, but you didn't. And I just thought about that about five minutes ago. I'm like, oh, another new thing. So. Oh, do I have to be holding it? Well, it's my show. I can do it. I want. So my question for you is.

Where do you see your company and what's your next level going to the next five years?

Well, I pondered that a lot. Our revenue's grown 300% in 12 months. Never would have projected that. Predicted that book came out international number one bestseller. Never would have predicted that.

My. You know, as I think about my bhag. You know, I Used to think, well, I want to, I want to impact a thousand entrepreneurs. Friend of mine said, well, what if you could impact a million entrepreneurs or you could impact a million people? I thought, oh my gosh, that's crazy to think about. For me, I really want to be living my reason to be here, improve lives. I want to do it on my terms, which is success is doing what I want, where I want, with whom I want as often as I want to do it. And I love coaching. If I could coach 12 hours a day, seven days a week, I would. And I could.

But I don't know exactly how to scale that. So is it more books? Is it some kind of online content? Because there will be a capacity to. How much Todd can anybody take, first of all? But how much Todd can I put out there? I think ideally I would like to be annually impacting 20 to 25 entrepreneurs in my coaching practice, figuring out an online portal to be able to give her content to people. Kind of like the book. The book is for people who are interested in what I have to offer, also helping them solve problems. And a lot of it can be self applied. Great, please do reach out to me if I can help coach you. But also there's going to be people someday in 100 years where I'll actually pick up the book and read it. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's crazy. So for me, I want to impact as many people as I can for as long as I can. But I've never really shackled myself with having a more intentional and expectational. So I would guess if I could impact.

Between now and the time I get called up, if I could impact half a million people, I'd be really happy.

I like it. I know you have the heart for it. And I was partly curious, but partly this would be a great question because it is. It's not a typical one. I mean, why'd you write a book? Why do you have the company, all these things, you know, I get them asked too when I do guest interviews. And I was like, I wonder what his end game is with this. Because you've already made a big difference in many people's lives.

Thank you.

So I'm glad your passion is still there. It's clearly only increasing and I'm glad you're making a dent in the world for the good. I'll say that too.

Well. So what I'd like to do is if anybody's interested in my book, go to my website from sucktosuccess.com and I'll give you a chapter for free because that allows me to make even a bigger impact into the world.

There we go. I'll make sure that goes on to the show notes with a link to that page. We're going to thank our sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. Titles, cover designs and promotion. Oh my. You are all excited to achieve your goal, maybe even dream of becoming an author to serve more people with your business. But it's turning out to be a lot more than you expected, huh? I get it. I've done it numerous times personally. Visit getmybusinessbookpublished.com today to take the first step on making this process enjoyable, dare I even say fun, and most definitely profitable. Your business and audience depend on it. But you know what? Don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori. I went from having an idea and.

A possibility to actually getting my book published.

Or Catherine, thank you for making my.

Mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice, what he got done for me in three days regarding my book launch.

Unmanageable.

John Cody. I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful.

In getting me where I needed to.

Go with promoting my books.

Rocio, there's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process. Adele, if you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficcini or Bill Benner. I can't make a higher recommendation than to work with Mario Ficini. He has been great for me and right now I won't work with anybody else except for Mario.

Hey, their words, not mine. Visit getmybusinessbookpublished.com today to take the first step and I look forward to hearing your transformation as our next video success story. Once again, that's getmybusinessbookpublished.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. Todd, are you ready to take imperfect action?

I take imperfect action every day, my friend. Let's go.

That's why. I knew it. You're gonna love this. So the first question is, what is.

Did I change the question in like 900 episodes? No, the first question is, what is the fastest path to the cash profits?

Fastest path to the cash.

That's true.

Margin over revenue.

Okay, number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it.

Oh, the biggest problems is they see they operate in an isolated world, they put themselves in a vacuum, they co collude with their imposter syndrome and the quickest way they can get out of it is getting help. Whether it's a trusted advisor, whether it's a peer to peer group, whether it's a coach, whether it's just a trusted friend operating in a silo without bringing in outside feedback is a quick death spiral in my experience.

Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Oh, I think as a coach for me to maximize customer lifetime value is to continue to get to know your clients. Be super curious, be more focused on being interested. Not interesting.

Excellent. Great answers as always. You kind of gave me an idea. I'm not sure if I can say the name or whatever of the show but do, do do do do. Like it's the only part of the show I actually, actually have a 60 seconds or less. The rest is like tell, you know, tell me everything you know that's honest and you want to share and everything. But great answers as always. Where would you love people to learn more?

Yeah, for sure. Like I mentioned earlier, please come to my website for my book, get a free chapter. Please mention that you heard me on mario show from sucktosuccess.com if you're interested in a little bit more about me extraordinary advisors.com I'm happy to give you 30 minutes of my time for free. Go to todinary advisors.com and let's set up a conversation.

Excellent. Well, it has been an absolute pleasure, Todd. You're amazing, Mario.

The pleasure has been all mine. It's always nice to connect with a a fellow metro Detroiter.

All right, episode authority, whatever. I'm really enjoying this. All right, expert authority world. We have another great episode here today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and God bless.

You're already the expert. But have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate qualified leads while increasing profit for you 247 and if so, how well are you promoting it? With the expert authority effect publishing method, it's easier and more profitable than ever. Visit getmybusinessbookpublished.com today and take the first step to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book. In eight weeks, visit getmybusinessbookpublished.com and take the first step knowing it will be your very best and you're leaving it all on the field. Oh yeah, and it's also free. Once again, that's getmybusinessbookpublished.com hey, thanks for listening to today's episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know I sure did. If you haven't done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show. And also be sure to check out eainterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you tomorrow.