0313 | Dr. Roger Hall

This is Dr. Roger hall from DrRogerHall.com and you're listening to EA Interviews.

EA Interviews. Episode 313, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini.

For today's expert Authority Effect interview.

I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm very aggravated. You might think I'm happy and go lucky and yay. Everything's great all the time and it's like the world's burning. But Mario can find something positive. It's not the case all the time. Sometimes it's like I, I probably shouldn't even say what I'm thinking sometimes, but life isn't perfect. You're not perfect. Neither am I. And don't ever try to claim to be. I sure as heck don't. But how do you achieve happiness? How do you stay productive when you're the CEO and you have a business or there's. You're responsible for people, there's all these different things to consider. And it's like you, you know, the business might be growing, but you might feel like you're dying. You might be feeling like you're fulfilled personally, but the business isn't doing so well and you have to. I don't even know what I'm doing here, but it's got to make sense is the point. And that is why I'm so excited to have Dr. Roger hall on the show. And we're going to be talking about neurobiology and being happy and being productive and how this all works together and how you can have more emotional intelligence as a leader. I'm excited to bring him up right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. And that's why I'm launching my new book to help you regardless of where you think your current writing abilities are. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's eapublishing method book.com.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Roger Hall. How are you doing today, Roger?

I am very well, thank you.

I am excited to have you here because I see your.

If you're listening, this is on video. Check it out on the show notes. But I see your book there in the background. Staying happy, being productive. Why is it so important to stay happy and be productive if you're a business owner?

Well, if you're a business owner, you, you just have to look at some research done by a Professor at University of North Carolina named Barbara Fredrickson. And she found out that if people have positive emotion, they are more resilient and more creative. And so if you are a business owner and you would like to. And you have had adversity, and we have all had adversity and would like to bounce back from that adversity, having a positive mood will help you to do that better and you can be more creative. So who doesn't want to be more resilient and more creative?

I. I mean, I. I'll raise my hand right now because I always want to be more creative and resilient. But, you know, life is difficult. I don't even want to say sometimes, because I will say that's downplaying it. Even when I tr. Everything seems to be lining up, like, you know, it's like weeds in the lawn. They sneak in there. What would you say to someone that is dealing with just any amount of them, let alone a large amount of.

Them, with any amount of weeds in the lawn?

Yeah, adversity. How do you get around it?

You know.

I saw this. This guy.

He was a.

He was a public speaker, and he had run across the country from one end to the other, and he had been mugged, I think three times. He'd been chased and attacked by dogs, I think, a half a dozen times. He had been hit by a car twice, nearly struck by lightning. And people asked him what was the worst part of the run across the country? And he said, it was the gravel in my shoes. He said, you know, I'm running along the side of the road and these little pebbles would pop up and they would get in my shoe and. And then I'd have to stop and pull off my shoe and shake it out. He said that was the worst part of the run because it happened every day. Well, what he's pointing out is the stuff we. Almost all of us can handle, the big stuff, but it's that everyday irritation that drives us crazy. And what we know about successful people is that they're able to discipline their thinking so that they look at those and they say, okay, that's just a normal challenge of life. And then they focus on gratitude. And.

So let me ask you this question, Mario. Have you ever had food poisoning?

I'm going to say thankfully not, but I may have gotten sick from eating something. That may have not been food poisoning, but it was. I'll just say probably.

Probably. Do you remember what it was?

No, I think it was just, if it's expired, is it that Food poisoning?

It could be. It could be. Well, anybody I've ever talked to who's had food poisoning, they know exactly what it was. I got food poisoning 1984 from a British cold pork pie. I know what I had. Then I asked the follow up question, what'd you have for dinner last Tuesday?

Hopefully tacos.

Okay, so taco Tuesday. But most people have no idea what they had for dinner a week ago. But almost everyone who's had a bad experience remembers it. And that's the way our brain works. Our brain remembers things that will kill us. And so we tend to focus on the weeds, the gravel in our shoes, the, the British pork pie, or the bad experience. But most of our life is mildly positive. And unless we rehearse that, unless we focus on, oh, I'm really thankful for this thing, we're always, our brain is always going to go to the thing that's going to kill us. And that's why it's so easy to remember the bad stuff. The weeds, the gravel, the, the British pork pie.

If you don't express gratitude, is it possible to overcome your mindset so you still get away from the things that don't kill you?

Yeah, it is. The easiest way is to express gratitude. And what I tell people to do is five things a day. Just write down on a piece of paper five things that you're thankful for. And people always start out with big stuff. You know, I'm thankful for, you know, my family and I'm thankful for, you know, a bicameral legislation, legislature, you know, whatever it is. And eventually after they do that for a couple weeks, then they start to be thankful for the really little things like I'm really thankful for this cheeseburger or in the parking lot of the grocery store, that lady let me in first. And once you start getting to all those little things that happen every day, that's when the real mental change happens.

The second thing I recommend for people, if they want to change their pattern of thinking, is to do a thought monitoring exercise. And there's three steps to it.

I mean, everybody's got the equipment, you've got a phone, and so you set an alarm on your phone from 7 in the morning to 5 at night, and it goes off every hour. And so the alarm goes off every hour for 10 hours a day for seven days. And then you get a little 99 cent pad of paper that you buy at the office supply store and a pen and whatever's on the top of your head when the alarm goes off, you write it Down.

And at the end of that week, you'll have 70 observations of what's been happening in your head. And really successful people monitor what's happening in their head. It's called. In my business, we call it metacognition. But for most of us, we have this stream of consciousness that runs through our head all day long. And we very rarely ever stick a ladle in to that stream of consciousness to find out what's in there. And if we looked in the ladle, we'd find out, well, there's a lot of head trash that I need to filter out. And so if you do this sequence, you'll find first, the first side effect will be you'll find a pattern. And what I see in most of the clients I work with, Mario, is they have a pattern of urgency. I'm so busy, I've got so much to do. I got to get this done, which is a kind of anxiety.

Urgent A, urgent B, urgent C, and urgent D. Yes, yes.

And so you've got this, this, you know, this buzzing in the back of your head of anxiety all the time. And so that's the first thing. But the second thing and the most important thing is that you will have practiced sampling your stream of consciousness. You'll have practiced metacognition so that you can do the second step. And the second step is stopping those. Those urgent thoughts or those angry thoughts or those guilty thoughts, whatever they are. And then the third is to replace those unpleasant or unproductive thoughts with more productive thoughts. And that one, you may need some help with that one. You need a trusted advisor or a family friend or someone who can go, yeah, that's probably not a productive way.

To be thinking because you also can't see in your own blind spot that once you identify it, you have to know, okay, how often is this coming up, that pattern you were talking about?

Right. So you can bring it into your awareness by this alarm system, by the thought monitoring system. And then it's. Once you get good at looking at it, then it. It's about becoming aware. Aware of it and stopping it. But. But the replacement part that most people.

Need help with, you know, it's interesting, I appreciate you for saying this, and it's interesting to me because it's also a little surreal because.

10, 12 years ago.

I was wanting to be more productive. I had just went full time in business in, oh, eight, and it was like, what can I do? What can I optimize? You know, I. I'm very leveraging systems and, you know, I like making things more efficient. I love doing it for my clients and just showing them, you know, especially when we're doing business, book publishing, like, here's how you can leverage your expertise and have a hundredfold return on it. Just by talking, you know, into the microphone or something. And we, you know, we're capturing that. But I was doing this for me and I was like, what am I doing with my day? Because I just felt like I wasn't productive enough. And for a couple days I just made a spreadsheet and it was like every, I think I blocked it off, 15 minutes of time and it was like, what was I doing? And it was interesting because it's like, you know, wake up gratitude, take a shower, brush your teeth, you know, you do these things. And it was always like, I'm spending this much time doing this, even though the first hour is the most productive. Whenever I got stressed, I would go eat. And then it was like the patterns were, you know, the call went good, you know, let's celebrate, have some food. You call went bad.

Get over it. So it was all these things that, you know, with ice cream and there was all these things that were going on and it was just like I go, oh my gosh, I didn't even realize it, but every day at the same time, this, this, this, this. And it was on a 24 hour cycle. So some were early in the morning, some were late at night somewhere. You know, it wasn't just the business day because that's, you know, 8, 10, 12, 16 hours depending. 22.

It was just interesting to see the patterns of what was emerging from it because it was like, here's when I relax every day, here's when I'm in full bore business mode. Here's when, you know, it was interesting to see how it all played on each other. So if someone's willing to do that, how long would you say it takes of gathering that data where they have actionable insights to go, okay, here's what I want to change now, what I.

Think after a week, okay, if you'll do it for a week, I mean, you did it, which is really smart. Most people don't spend any time monitoring their energy levels, their attention levels, and they don't chart it out. And so you were able to see.

I don't know, how long did you chart it out for? Mario? I think a week would be enough for most people.

A cup, honestly, I think it was a couple of days because it wasn't like there was much variances in the Data. It was so similar. I'm like, I think I got my answer. I mean I really don't think doing five, seven or 10 would have made a difference in my instance. But it was also my scenario at the time which was basically wake up, do business. With the exception of church on Sunday, six out of seven days were very similar.

Okay, okay. And the reason I say the seven days is sometimes people have a different sequence on the weekends. Yeah. And depending on when you're.

And especially if you have a family.

Oh absolutely, yeah. And so then you start to look at the energy cycle of the family members. You know, when do the kids get up, when do they go to bed, when are their demands? And so you start to see that cycle as well.

And it would be interesting because I'm just willing to bet I almost made a joke there. And you said the energy cycles of the family and it's like, yeah, drained. It would probably, sorry everyone. Hashtag not sorry, but it's a joke. Relax.

It would be interesting to see the stress and the relaxing correlation of, you know, what, you know, oh, I always feel stressed around lunch. Well, what happens just before that? And it's probably, you know, maybe Johnny or Susie needs a ride to school and you're dealing with the teacher that hates you. And you know, it's interesting when you start looking at it, you can always find the reason why if you don't lie to yourself.

Well, there you go. If you pay attention and then once you've paid attention, if you don't lie to your yourself. And, and I believe human beings are an inherently self deceptive species. We lie to ourselves all the time, which is why we need someone who loves us and cares about us to tell us the truth.

Why do we lie to ourselves? Is it built in? Or we just, we just think we're so smart we'll just outsmart everyone except us.

It's absolutely built in. Human beings have been lying to ourselves since the beginning of time. You know.

We have this rationalization structure that's built into our brains. And when we look at the brain scans of people who are having an internal debate, they're rationalizing. It's called cognitive dissonance. When I hold two beliefs at the same time. We see this one structure of the brain in the cingulate, it's kind of right in the middle light up like a Christmas tree, which is the same structure that lights up when you're having a fight with somebody else. So we're always arguing inside. And that's really as uncomfortable as Arguing with a real person. So we start to lie to ourselves to stop that.

How can I see that without going to a hospital or something?

How can you see what. What's happening in your cingulate?

Yeah, yeah. Like, it would be. I would be very interested to have something on me right now while I'm doing this to be like, okay, what's really going on?

Well, if you did, you'd have to go to a hospital, inhale radioactive glucose, and put you in an MRI machine. But besides that, it shouldn't be any trouble.

Idea for an episode.

Hey, well, think about it. It's called a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan.

So there's no hat or anything with wires I could just plug in.

Those are EEGs. And you could get one of those hats that they could plug in. That'll show you.

Broader amounts of electrical flow, but not the same level of precision that you get by huffing radioactive glucose.

Interesting. You know, I love doing this, so I don't think it would be. It'd probably be a lot of happy centers, but if I were to do that, like all week, and it's like dealing with this versus I actually very much look forward to having great guests on, like you. There are some other things I'm like, yeah, that would be lighting it up.

Yeah. I mean, and. And, you know, the way our brain works is when we're solving problems, certain parts of our brains light up. But I mean, one of the cool things that I found is that when we actually are daydreaming, when we're doing nothing, you know, kind of our mind is wandering. When we're in the shower, this part of our brain turns on, called the default mode network. And it's actually more parts of our brain are active when our mind is wandering.

Really?

Yes. And that's why your best ideas come from that. Those times. Right. You know why everybody has their best ideas in the shower when they're. They've got windshield time, their mind is wandering, and we tend to be thinking about ourself in the future, our relationships, and it's when those creative ideas come. And so when people tell you, you know, we're only using 10% of our brain. Not really.

True.

And in fact, the times when we're. When we're daydreaming, our brain is actually more active.

Where do you think that 10% came from? And do you think we ever get to 7, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90%?

Oh. Our brains are constantly active. And so I don't know why somebody made up with this. We're only using 10% of our brain.

Our brain occupies between 3 and 5% of our body mass, but uses 20 to 25% of the fuel in our food. So this thing is burning all the time. I mean, the calories it's absorbing are going all the time. And so we disproportionately use food for our brain function. So it's just doing things that we never think about, like vision. You and I never think about vision, but, I mean, you're from Detroit, you're at a Tigers game. Think about the 10,000 different things that the outfielder has to do to watch.

An arching pop fly come up over and regulate color, distance, you know, trajectory so he can catch it. Well, that. That occupies about a third of the top of our brain, and it's called the occipital lobe. And a ton of our brain is just about vision. I mean, it's stuff you and I never think about.

Do you ever think about.

You know, like, oh, this arm is mine. I mean, do you ever think about that?

The arm? Not so much.

They work great and they always will. The vision, I can say when I'm filming and I'm doing productions, like right now, I would love if we were in the same room, we could just, you know, chit chat and, you know, have a great interview like we are. But I love it when I do guest interviews because all I have to do is show up and turn this thing, you know, boom, the mic over. Right now there's a lot going on. Lights, screens, all this, the buttons. And yeah, it's more. It's taken a little bit more energy. Even though I'm just, I don't want to say just sitting here or, you know, I think you're standing, but either way, it's like people, when I was modeling and acting full time, as people are, it's like, oh, it must be nice to get your picture taken. It's like there's a lot going on that it drains you. Go, go on stage for 15 minutes and tell me you, you know, 15 minutes, let alone 30, 60, let alone five hours, and tell me how you feel later that night versus the next day. Like, there's a lot of things that when you're doing mental activity.

Yeah.

It can drain you, and if you're not careful, it'll wipe you out for everything else.

Well, it does. And so people look at other people's jobs and, you know, experts make their job look easy, so amateurs look at it and go, oh, that couldn't be that hard. When it really Is.

And so. And most of our jobs are intellectually taxing. So if you're a business owner, you get exhausted by your work and there comes a point in your day when your brain kind of shuts down because it's frankly run out of fuel. You know, you've kind of decided you're decided out. I mean, have you ever felt that way, Mario, where you can't make another decision? Like. Like, what are you gonna have for dinner?

Yeah. At that point, it doesn't matter as long as you remember to eat. Hey, it's working. But yeah, because especially when I'm speaking on stage and traveling and, you know, you're dealing with a thousand people in the audience or more. And it's like.

I always give my best. And I'm not like, well, you know, it's 61 minutes, I gotta go, because whatever. If there's people, I'll talk to them. And there times I've skipped dinners and other stuff and it's like, this is the speaker dinner or something. But I'm still talking with people and it's like, you know, I'm there to serve them. Like. Like we are now. And it's like, if there's 50 people in the room, I'm not like, okay, I'll talk to two. And then it's like. Because I know what it's like being in the other side where it's like, yeah, I did everything I could to get there, to learn and get that one little thing. And it's like, if it takes you or me 10 seconds without even thinking about it. Because, you know, that's how it works when we know what we're talking about. You know, it might take. It might save them a week or a month or a year. I know we both could say stuff where it's like, oh my gosh, that's hashtag gold nugget.

Right?

But at the end of the day, you make it look easy. But, you know, I've had this experience. You go back to the hotel room and you're exhausted. I mean, you've just. You put out as much as you could to give to the people who are around you.

So I always find the hot tubs and relax.

Okay.

Because sometimes the beds there, it's just like, this is kind of boring. Just, you know.

I like swimming into the Point with the Tigers and the Detroit. Like, yeah, boating, swimming, lake water it. Or when you were saying in the shower, it's why I love aqua notes. And, you know, no, no more bad ideas down the drain or Anything. It's like when you. I've built in ways to get back to normal every day so I can go full on out. But absolutely after the first day is good. The second day and then it's like, who third day of this, where's my protein bars and things?

Right? And so we, we gotta fuel that brain so that we can continue to give to the people who, who depend on us.

What would you say for someone who's like, okay, this is great information. You know, how do I deal with this specific scenario of like, someone, Maybe it's not them, but what if it's a team member, their staff, the employees, they're the ones who are just acting a fool. What would you say to them to help them get their mindset right?

Wait, so helping.

So we were Talking about the CEOs and the business owners initially, like, okay, we can do this and I can do this. But what if it's someone outside of your control or basically anyone other than you? What if it's someone on your team that just has negative Nancy syndrome?

If it's. The first question I ask is, are they teachable? Okay, is this a person who wants to receive advice? Because we've all given advice to people who don't want it. You know, I mean, the joke I tell is, what's the difference between a psychologist and a busybody? Well, people ask me for my help because if they don't ask me for my help, I'm not going to tell them because I spend all day telling people stuff.

Same here. Biggest time suck you can get back.

Right? So if the person is teachable, I would ask them, hey, you know.

Is this pattern of thinking giving you the outcome that you want? I'll give you an example. I was talking to an accountant once, and what we know is that optimists live longer, healthier, happier lives and have more friends than pessimists. But pessimists are right more often.

I mean, they just are. I mean, optimists, like, yes, we can do it, but they can't. So I asked her the question. I said, would you like to live a longer, healthier, happier life with more friends or be right more often? And she says, I want to be right more often. I said, so you really want to die sooner alone and sick, but be right? She says, yeah, pretty much. I said, okay, you know, and we were done. There was.

Appreciate the honesty.

Yeah. So, so you, you, you ask Negative Nancy, is this getting you what you want? And if it's. If it is, rock on. And you Know, enjoy. Enjoy your miserable life. I mean, some people, some people really like that. Well, those are not people I choose to be around.

Same here. I thought you were doing so good. You're like, you know, live longer, healthier, but they're not always right. Like, well, whatever. I'll still take that every day of the week.

I'll take it as well. You know, I am an inherent optimist, but I realize that a pessimist will tell me, I don't think we can get this done. Like, oh, yes, we can. And, you know, sometimes I'm wrong, but I'm okay with that because, you know, I just have a better life.

Yeah, 100%. And I. But I. To your point, I do appreciate the devil's advocate of going, hey, you know, just giving a different perspective because I, I can't even wrap my head around sometimes people say stuff and I'm just like, this isn't even in the top hundred that I could even create on my radar. But I literally would have never thought about it like that. And sometimes, you know, it is advantageous, but when it's just constantly negative and there's never, you know, what is it? You can never give enough good reasons to someone who find a fault. It's like, no matter what you say, they're gonna find something wrong with it. And it's like, okay, we're not developing something new where this is like a stress test on a vehicle, where it's like gonna throw out the front suspension or something. You're just killing the vibe of like our life. Not just the party, not just the day, like life. But thanks for being right one time, two months ago, when it was useful.

But internally, and like I said, human beings are an inherently self deceptive bunch. You know, once I. If I spend my life pointing out your flaws, that makes me feel smart and that makes me feel right more often.

And that's part of my identity. And so some people have that identity of always being the critic because they're right more often. Well, yeah, of course they're right more often.

You know, growing up, I always thought a movie critic had the best job in all the world. All they had to do was for two hours, enjoy a movie and at the end give their opinion. The director, the actors, the camera operators, they spent tens of thousands of hours creating it. And all the critic has to do is go, yeah, thumbs down. I didn't like it. And so it's. It's very easy to be a critic. It's very hard to be a creator.

Mm. That's a huge expert authority insight. And it's interesting because I always hate. Still do. And I will say hate, because there's a lot of people or the people that just rip off the good films and make comedies out of them. Some of them are hilarious, and I get the parodies and stuff, but some people, I'm not even gonna say his name, who made series of music, just making fun of everyone else's thing. And it's like, I get it. You know, it's what I love about America. You have the freedom to do what you want, be anything. But. It's like someone, like, you're saying, spent all that time, energy, and money, and it could have been their life's passion, and you're just. Everything's a joke. There's no depth to them.

Yeah.

I. Every time I read a book, I know how hard it is to write a book. Some books I don't like, but I don't share with people publicly the books that I hate because I know how hard it was to put it together, even if I didn't like it. Why spread that negativity? But if it's a book I love, I'm absolutely gonna tell people about it.

Yeah. But I would even give the benefit of the doubt and say, even if you left a review that was like, you know, here's what I think could be improved or something, that's a different approach than just like, you know, I hated the whole thing. It's all, you know what I mean? Also in how you do it. But the other thing is the repetition and the frequency of it. Some people, it's like you can't do anything to please them versus, okay, you know, you're generally positive. But you had a bad experience this one time. And there was someone that I respected, great leader, learned a lot from paid for mentorship, all kinds of stuff. And I was just shocked that they were complaining on Twitter. I'm like, that's weird. But at the same time, it's like, I don't know the depth and the breadth of how deep that one and what it affected in their personal life and business and all kinds of things. And it's like, if you never give any helpful criticism, helpful feedback, we'll call it. How can anyone ever improve? Also. So there's time. Very selective. Also, like, beyond. Very selective. But at the same point, it's like, okay, I think they're really asking. And they are. You know, there's context for it.

Yeah. If they're asking, that's a completely different Thing, you know, and I, I'm in a business where people do ask me my opinion, but I'm not in the grocery store telling people, you know, you need to do something about that kid. I mean, it's not my business.

Yeah, those are times where it's just like, hey, you know what? I appreciate the humor. Every day there's something going on. It's like, wow, really? This is public. Nice.

So I love that we're talking about the staying happy in the productive part of it, but what would you say to someone who is just, they want to do it for the whole business and their customers and everything, but they're just fighting everything they've ever been told. They have just so much mental trash, you know, and they just can't see the forest through the trees. What would you say to them about the upside of, hey, this is how it's going to increase your profits, here's how it's going to increase your business, not just your quality of life, which I think is paramount because there's no amount of money that's going to, if you have a crap life, who cares how well anything else is doing if your health is trash and you hate it? But from a tangible aspect, what have you been seeing in your, your customers and clients and people? Tell me about one of your biggest success stories of like, here's what you can expect when you start actually implementing this.

You know, I, I, I've seen people.

Go to the vert from the verge of getting fired to creating tens of millions of dollars for their, for their organization.

It's not a bad start.

Yeah, I mean, you know, but, but here's the important point.

I can tell one person, I can tell two people the same thing, and it's whether they'll apply it or not. And so I'm not the genius. It's, it's how much does the person apply what they learned? And, and when I see people apply what they've learned, they have these transformational life experiences. They make their, their organizations are making more money, they're having better relationships with their family. But I can tell the same things to somebody else. And, you know, they, you know, they can get arrested for felonies. You know, I mean, I mean, both, both are true. I tell the same things. It's about, do you practice it? Do you, do you wake up every morning and try to apply it?

I like that. That's a great expert authority insight. Because without the implementation, you know, it's just another words on a page or words on a screen. Or in one ear, out the other or whatever.

You can still see me, right?

I can, yeah. I'm still here.

Give me.

30 seconds. I don't know what that was, but I'm going to double check it because this is going so incredibly well. It said something about space.

We can always edit it.

Yeah. Steve and Nick, clearly we're going to have to do something here, so please.

Fix this. Thank you.

We're still good. Boom, boom, boom. Merry Christmas and happy New Year.

This is on me. Here we go. Thank God I built this thing.

It's transferring a couple gigs a second. I got four drives.

But I do apologize. I.

No worries.

It's my fault that this should have been empty before. But we're live, so this is one reason I do it live. Because some people are like, man, everything looks so polished. It's not always perfect. And this is one thing I thought about early, early on was, you know, when, when you're doing stuff back to back, it's like there's probably another 50 gigs that I just did today alone and.

Ran the wrong math because clearly something happened. But no big deal.

No big deal. You know, I, I.

I looked recently at the history of art, and they've got these X ray scanners that scan these real thin slices of paintings.

Oh, yes.

And so you can see where the artist changed his or her mind and painted over it. And I love that because what it shows us is that every masterpiece is a salvage job.

No kidding.

And so anytime there's a mistake, I just think, okay, you know, da Vinci painted over that part and repainted it, and now we have the Mona Lisa. Right. And, and so we're seeing an end product, not the means that it got there. So it always gives me great comfort that, you know, it's always going to be messy.

Yeah. And especially when you're doing stuff live or in business. It's like I'm just thinking about the, the little line. It's like, here's what you want success to be, and here's what it really looks like. And I hesitated even saying that because I feel like I use it so much. It's like I don't want to play it out. But it's so such a good analogy because.

I don't even want to say the name. I have an idea for a book. I've done five already myself, and I have an idea for one. But it has to do with that recovery like you're talking about. Because if I were to narrow it down, and it's like, if you were to say one thing a hundred years from now for a different civilization or something, a time capsule. It's like, what are the three things you would just share with everyone?

I really think one of them would just be can to an extent, and I'm switching the words intentionally. But can you adapt and roll with the punches, so to speak? Because.

We just live watched one real time and I deal with them pretty frequently with people from all over the world, just like, you know, the one thing I want to be able to do is have you in the studio because I can't control your camera, lights, any of that stuff.

Yeah, we all have so little control over anything in our world. In my philosophy, I have control over my attitude and my effort, and, you know, the outcome is not up to me. And so once I divorce myself from the outcome and only started focusing on my attitude and my effort, things went better. You know, we all have to adapt on the fly. You know, there's that. That famous Mike Tyson quote. Everybody's got a plan until he gets punched in the face, you know, and that's how life is. You know, we all get punched in the face. And so we have to adapt once. Once life throws stuff at us because, you know, life is hard and our attitude and our effort can help us adapt once the bad thing happens.

Yeah. It's reminded me of this picture I've seen, and it's this guy meditating on a rock near a waterfall. And it says, stay calm, relax. Nothing is under control.

Yeah.

In my philosophy, I only control what I can pick up and carry, which means I lost control of my children when they were about 8 years old.

And most of my life I don't control. I have influence on it, but I have very little control. And I'm a lot happier person recognizing the limits to my control. And what do I control and what do I influence?

That's another deep insight because I think people are trying to control too much. And, you know, we were talking about all the ways we can change and be better and everything. And I appreciate you sharing the success story of here's what you can expect and all the changes.

It's such a unique perspective that you have, and I appreciate it. I still want to go in the machine. I would like to do an episode. I don't know if we could get cameras and stuff in there, but that would be interesting to see all of that. But I'm feeling your passion for helping people. Where did it stem from to go? I want to do books, I want to do my Business. I want to help people the way that I do. Where did all this start from?

Well, you know.

As a kid, I always like to help people solve their problems. You know, I was a summer camp counselor and I was a communication undergrad. And I went to my professor and I said, how do I learn about attitude change and persuasion and helping high performance people do better? And he said, well, go get a PhD in psychology. And I said, well, you know, I'm almost done with this, this degree. Here I was at the end of my junior year, and he said, I said, can I get like a PhD in communication and do what you do? And he says, I hate my job. No go.

So I went over, I marched over to the psychology department, picked up a double major, applied to graduate school in all the wrong ways, got accepted, and then learned.

In my sub discipline, this peak performance psychology. And so I do what sports psychologists do. They work with elite athletes to help them get their head game together. Because the physical aspects of elite athletes aren't that much different. It's their head game. And I do that with business owners and entrepreneurs and sales professionals and help them get at that elite level. And it's just fun. It's fun to help people do better.

And I started doing the public speaking because it was, you know, I've only got a limited number of hours in the day and I can only influence a certain number of people. So I thought, wow, I gotta, you know, how do, how do I get the word out more? So I wrote a couple books, I've generated, I created an online course, all of which. How do I spread. How do I spread the word and influence people for the good as broadly as possible? Which is exactly what you're doing, Mario.

Well, I'm glad you're doing. I appreciate that. But I'm glad you're out there on the side of good because there's so many people.

They just need the help, whether it's business or not. And I know it all starts with the mindset. I've always loved psychology. It was one of my favorite classes in high school and one of the only ones I went to.

I almost went down the route because I, I was fascinated. And we all have brains, and I knew once you get past some of these things, it's a great way to help a lot of people.

My attention span for school was never very high, so I didn't go down that route. But I have a huge respect for it, and it's always fascinated me because everyone's got a brain. And if you Know how it works. You can help them a lot easier and effectively. Like you're doing well.

I appreciate that. You know, everybody, everybody's got a role. Everybody's got a lane and I've got a role and you've got a role role. And if we each do our part, then we can make the world better.

Yeah. And it's real easy. I joke about this all the time. I was like, I wish, you know, in business you can build a team and it's like you bring the best of the best and you can partner and collaborate and do all kinds of stuff. It's like, I wish we could have done this in school. I would have, could have been a different result. But when it's like, you know, you're getting told you're bad for this, that the other thing, it's like, no, I'm a fricking genius. I just have no interest in this and you're boring me.

You know, I think it was Einstein who talked about if you, everyone's a genius, but if you tell a fish it's stupid because it can't fly. Climb a tree.

Right.

You know, I love partnering and creating synergies and it's like, you know, this isn't my area of expertise.

But I know 10 people who have it. Let me make a few calls.

Let's make some calls. And I think one of the unfortunate things for children is in our schooling we teach a certain slice of what makes people successful. And what I found is that once you leave school, that slice doesn't make you successful in a lot of things. It's all the other things besides getting good grades that make people successful. And there's a great deal of research about the different kinds of intelligences and that the correlation to school smarts and life smarts is not really very good.

Yeah. I think there's a time and place for everything. And I'm thankful for.

I'm thankful for the people who. There are regulated industries. You know, I would think psychology is, I know doctors and lawyers, it's like you can't just start doing open heart surgery if you didn't actually go to school. But I think there's some that could be opened up more.

We could do a whole conversation just on school and the education system in society. But I'm glad you're doing what you're doing because I know you're helping a lot of people. And it's one of the reasons I wanted to feature you on here, to help more people in server, expert, authority world. So I Got one more question for you before we go to the imperfect action round.

And it is the wheel of whatever.

Yellow or black.

Always bet on black.

Oh, good answer. So actually I could just start pointing on the inside instead of trying to line up one of those. That just occurred to me. So we're gonna have some fun with this. You're a psychologist. Tell me what I'm gonna ask you.

What's the question?

What's the question? I'm not Karnak. I mean, I'm not a mind reader, you know.

You're a lot of fun, though.

Well, thank you. Thank you. I have absolutely no idea what you're going to ask me.

Okay. If you did know what I was going to ask you, what would it be?

What's the one thing you'd like people to take away from our interview today?

Close. I was going to ask that in a little bit, but we can address that now, too. What would you like them to take away?

The one thing is, I meet people all the time and they're trying to improve their lives and so they come up with a list of things they're going to change. And my one piece of advice is just choose one habit to change and get really, really good at that. And it's a principle called a cornerstone habit. You change that one thing and once you're really good at that change thing, then you add another thing on top of it and change that. But wait until you get really good at that one change. So that's the one takeaway. Just change one thing.

That's a huge expert authority in sight. Yeah. Too many people jumping around and flip flopping. Shiny object syndrome.

Yep.

Now, since you're so awesome, you get a bonus question too. And. And that is, what do you think it would take to have a global consciousness shift where more people.

Are positive and they are thinking the way we are discussing?

Oh, the, the economy would soar.

People would be happier.

We would solve so many problems so quickly if people.

Worked to make themselves happier and more productive.

Excellent. Thank you for that. We are going to thank our sponsor and come back with the imperfect action round. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours. And it's true. And that's why I'm launching my new book@eapublishingmethodbook.com so you can learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. 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.

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 Ficini or Bill Benner.

I can't make a higher recommendation for.

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 eapublishingmethodbook.com to get your copy and I look forward to hearing your transformation as our next video success story. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. Roger, are you ready to take imperfect action?

Sure. Yeah. Most of my actions are imperfect.

Same here. And that's why I named it that. And it's the same thing I teach my clients because, you know, like you talked about, focus on that one thing. So many people are doing 58 things and it's like you can't do them all successfully even. Even if you try and you're the best at the best. So it's like, don't, you know, like you said, do that one thing. So. And don't be a perfectionist. So in that vein, it's the imperfect action round. I got three. Was that a clap? What was that? It wasn't a clap. It was just.

I don't know. I'm just having fun. But the first question, I got three questions. 60 second or less.

Okay.

What is the fastest path to the profits?

Slow down to speed up.

Someone's been watching cars.

Yeah. Fast is slow. Slow is fast. You know, it's anything you want to be good at. Slow it down, be deliberate, and you'll be more productive.

Excellent. Excellent. I agree 100%. Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

They believe a lie.

That they can't control their emotions and they make bad decisions.

Based on impulsive emotions without the belief that they can change their. Without the belief that they can discipline their emotions, that the angry person says, I lost my temper. You know, like, oh, I left my temper in the car. We all can control our emotions and we become happier when we discipline our thinking and that disciplined thinking will control our emotions and control our behavior like that.

Does the disciplined thinking also breed confidence?

Absolutely.

That's where it stems from.

It's certainly a contributing factor.

Okay, yeah, like that. I can attest it's true too. Number three, it's a good one. What is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Making the decision that in every interaction you are going to create value for that client.

If, if there's. It's always a value for value exchange and if I give a little bit more value than I think I'm getting in return.

Customers, clients will always feel like they gained more and that will create more allegiance, more.

Loyalty, and they'll stick with you longer. So, I mean, show up every day and give it your best.

Excellent, excellent advice. Thank you for that. What books would you recommend to Expert Authority World?

One of my favorite books is a book by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney called Will Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. They came out with a second book called the Power of Bad.

Which actually is a surprisingly good. Way to get happier is to focus on how our brain, and I alluded to it earlier, how our brain wants us to remember the bad and so we have to practice the good.

Excellent. Thank you for those. Yeah, it has been an absolute pleasure. Where would you like people to learn more?

Yeah, if you'd like to learn more about me.

Hit my website, which is DrRogerHall.com, Dr. Hall.com. you can learn about my book at Staying HappyBeingProductive.com and you can purchase it there. And if you have been freaking out, I have a course called freakout course@freakoutcourse.com.

Nice. Well, thank you again. I really enjoyed this and wish we had more time. I have no doubt we could go longer and, and just thank you for being you.

Well, Mario, I'm really grateful to have been invited on your show and glad.

To.

Be invited to speak to all of your listeners. So thank you very much.

Well, again, thank you for the info. You've been great and I know Expert Authority World appreciates it. 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 my new book, the Expert Authority Effect Publishing Method, I take you through my process step by step. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit eapublishingmethod book.com to get started. Now. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com thanks for listening to today's episode. I would love to know what you enjoyed most from it if you haven't done so already. I invite you to connect with me on my new LinkedIn. You can go to it directly at eainterviews.com LinkedIn Once again, that's eainterviews.com link LinkedIn. Lastly, check out the full eainterviews.com site 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 on the next one.