Dov Baron: Excavating Your Purpose

I've got a killer app for you. It's called Process Street. You know your business lives or dies by its processes. You got to do it right and you have to have the team following it consistently. We know that in house and that's why we implemented Process street and I encourage you to do the same. Process street is the easiest way to manage your team's workflows and recurring processes. In fact, it even comes with pre made templates for things like client onboarding, employee onboarding, sales processes, marketing processes, content publishing, promotion, customer support processes. You name it, the system has it. And now you'll have a consistent deliverable for your company. Do what we did and implement Process street in your business. Plus, I got a deal for you. If you sign up now at our link, you get 20% off. So go to mikemcalowitz.com processstreet that's mikemicalitz.com processstreet and if you're struggling spelling Michalowicz, you're not alone. Go to mikemotorbike.com processtreet don't throw that superfluous slash at the end that messes everything up. Go to mikemotorbike.com processstreet and get 20% off. Today it's time to strap on your round toothbrush because we're about to discuss the heroic journey to purpose. You're about to hear that and so much more on today's episode of Entrepreneurship Elevated. That's entrepreneurship elevator. This totally bastardized. You know, when you want to bring energy. Yeah, a little off the rail, but when you want to bring energy to a situation, the more you, the more energy it has. That's the way I've been watching. Who's that UFC fighter? Conor McGregor.

Yeah.

Bow wow. And he walks around, you can't understand a word he's saying and just angry. But he's a showman. My name is Mike Michalowicz. I'm an author on a mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. Join in studio with Kelsey Ayers.

Thank you, friend. Thanks for listening. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a rating wherever you found us.

And J. Colone's here.

Yes, I am. Thank you.

Do you watch that Ultimate Fighting?

I was actually really excited about this fight. I didn't watch the fight, but I was really disappointed. Did you see the results?

He won in 40 seconds. I heard.

Yeah. And he hasn't fought. The last fight was to Khabib. I can't pronounce his last name, but that dude was awesome. And Conor McGregor got killed. And he hadn't. I think he hadn't fought in, like, 15 months. And then he comes back in 40 seconds.

I just watched it. I read the news. I don't watch the footage. It's actually too gruesome for me. It's.

The shape that those guys are in.

Is, oh, they're amazingly fit. But the brutality is just. I cannot watch it. But I'm sure this hearkens to a day past. Like, you know, that was the. The gladiator equivalent, right?

Yeah.

Well, I think what it is for a lot of the guys is this is something I wanted to do bjj, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for a long time, which is like the ground game stuff.

Yeah. Which is like grappling.

Yeah. Because, like, I used to do wrestling, which. Which seems fun. I think a lot of guys start in that, and then it just progresses till they get so good they master that, then they move on. Next, then boxing, and then before you know it, there.

So we had an episode of entrepreneurship elevated. Do you remember this?

Yeah. Clay Heinz.

Yeah.

Wow. Clay. Yeah. Super nice guy. He was a UFC fighter. It was just interesting to hear from his perspective, which it didn't sound like brutality, and. And he didn't come across as, like, oh, it's like the nicest, warmest guy. Oh, my God. I want to, like, hang out with him, but God forbid, like, he's like. Like, there's a little dispute over who's paying the bill. Like, you're done.

Yeah, There's, I think, Daniel Fagella. Do you remember him? We had him on a couple times.

Yeah.

He was also a. I want to say it was BJJ Fighter two.

Yeah, there's a. I sold a Christmas tree to UFC fighter in my hometown. There's a guy who was in. He's in the ufc, but he's. He's going to retire, so I won't mention his name, but he. Really. Super nice dude. Really awesome.

Here's a hokey transition. Let's get into fighting for purpose. So I do. I think that was pretty bad, right?

Yeah.

There's not much more cheese I can put in that. His name is Dove Barone. He is a man with a finger.

On the pulse of the Baron.

Who writes this? Who writes this copy? Dove Baron.

Cannot blame that on copy.

No, the copy says pronounce it Barone. They put. All right, cut. Do not cut that part out. His name is Dove Baron. He is a man with a finger on the pulse of the evolving world of next gen leadership. He Is a best selling author of several books. His latest book is Fiercely How High Performing Companies Develop and Retain Top Talent. He's the host of a national TV show here in the US Called Pursuing Deep Greatness with Dove Barone Baron on Roku TV. He is also the host of the number one podcast for Fortune 500 listeners globally. Dove Baron's leadership and loyalty show on iTunes and on FM and AM radio stations across the U.S. dove, sorry about bastardizing your name. Welcome to our show, sir.

Welcome.

You. I'm honored to be here. Always a fun time with you guys. Thank you. Thank you for calling my name. I. It's okay, Mike, because it's revenge because I killed your name when you were on my show.

Yeah, but that's. That's part of it.

Course I murdered it, chopped it up and left it under the stairs somewhere with Baron.

Hey, so let's talk about purpose versus passion. A lot of people equate those and you're like, no, dude, I don't get it. Talk to me.

No. As you and I talked about previously, they are vastly different things. And we're all very excited about finding our passion. It's a lovely thing because when we're in our passion, we feel like, oh, you know, everything's great and it's moving along and that's wonderful. And I, you know, I encourage you to be in your passion. That's lovely. But your passion and your purpose are vastly different things. Your passion is the thing that usually is transitory. So the way to think of your passion is it's the vehicle that transports your purpose. And so if you're an entrepreneur, we know that your listeners and viewers are entrepreneurs. They probably feel like, you know, I'm a bit of a loser sometimes because my. I lost my passion. And now I'm off on another tangent and maybe I'm just unhinged. No, no. The passion is the vehicle. The purpose is what's transported in the vehicle. So it's quite natural that your entrepreneurial passions will shift.

Is. Is there a way to find purpose? So many people say that. I don't know why purpose is.

Yeah, you and I had a chatty about this in the context of your new book, and it's. It's so important for us to grasp that purpose is vastly different than passion in this simple one piece of understanding that your purpose is hidden behind your pain. So your passion brings you joy, it brings you laughter, it brings you happiness, but your purpose is buried in your pain. You've got to look towards the pain. And until we are willing to turn into what I call the dragon's fire, which is that pain will never find the purpose. The purpose is always hidden behind the pain. So if you want to find it, you got to say, okay, so what is the pain? I'm not looking at what is the pain that I am avoiding? What is it that is has always bothered me and that I look at the world and think, I wish that somebody, you know, of course not you, but someone else would fix it. So you're going to look for the things that irritate you, the things that viscerally upset you, and the things that you have not confronted yet about your own history. Because sometimes the pain is not your own, it's someone else's. And to the brain, pain is pain is pain. What I mean by that is physical pain, emotional pain, mental pain, or the pain that's developed through the mirror neurons of experiencing somebody else's pain. Okay, light up the same area of your brain. So it doesn't matter what kind of pain it is. If it's pain, that's where you got to look.

That's where you find so many of us. And I'm speaking myself, I want to avoid pain. So that's the last thing I want to look at.

Absolutely.

But. But now I'm quite a quagmire because I don't have purpose, because I want to avoid my pain. How, how do I find purpose and how do I immerse myself in finding that pain?

So again, first thing you look at is what am I avoiding? What? So for me, always the when people say to me, you know, that was in the past, My response to that is, your past is leaking all over your present and about to pollute your future. So consider that for a moment that we know this is not my opinion. We know psychologically, scientifically that we are formed in the first seven years of our lives and that's our formative years. And then there's a secondary formative light years, which go up to about 16. Those years are incredibly powerful in that the they tattoo on our brain evidence of who we are, but that's not the truth of who we are. So we find this internal battle between the messages we received and the truth of who we are as we get older. We like to say, you know, that was in the past and so that's gone and I'm dealt with it. But it's not because it's been indelibly printed on your brain, on the neurons of your brain, of the neural, neural pathways of your Brain telling you who you are. So you've got to look at this, the contradictions. So for instance, 74% of executives, so we're talking about people who are top level, making more than the average person, that's for sure. 74% of them suffer from imposter syndrome. They doubt that they're really, you know, they're like, oh, I shouldn't really be here. Somebody's going to find me out. Well, why is that? Their abilities, their skills has risen them to the place where they can do the job, and they got the job and they're probably doing very well at it. But the original conditioning is that they're not good enough, they're not smart enough, they're not bright enough, they're not lovable enough, they're not something enough. And that's the original conditioning. You have to go back and look at that. You look to look at the pain. But you're absolutely right, Mike. Nobody wants to look at pain. And that's okay. You don't have to. But until you do, you will never find your true purpose.

So say I go through that process and I discover it, how do I then leverage the fact I've defined purpose, something that I really feel called and. And compelled by, but now I need to take action on it?

Yes.

How do I go about that?

So here's the thing, is that when you face the dragon's fire, when you face that pain, you're not changed, you're transformed. So here's the thing that I want to explain something here about the hero's journey that will make this make sense. We are compelled to change via chain, via pain. That's not my opinion. Again, that's psychology. Two primary factors will move us. One is pleasure, the other is pain. Pleasure moves us short term, pain moves us long term. So what happens is we find ourselves in a situation that is painful. And maybe that's the potential of going bankrupt. The potential of a partner leaving us horrible diagnoses, whatever it might be. Loss of a loved one, loss, you know, could be anything. But that catalyst of pain makes us say, this sucks and I've got to do something about it. Once that catalyst has taken place, we are usually motivated to say, okay, I got to do something. That is where we start looking at, well, where's the pain buried and what do I need to do? And then we start the work. And I know that when I work with a client, as you know, I only work with a few clients a year. And I have to say I'm going To warn you up front, you're going to love this work. You're going to be so excited about. You're going to want to tell everybody about it for a while. And they go, what do you mean? Because then you're gonna hate it and you're gonna hate me, and I'm gonna be the worst person in the world. And they go, why? I go, because I'm gonna make you look at what you don't want to look at. Because that. The change in and of itself is not. Who cares? It's transitory. We're not. So the first stage is the pain. Then after the pain, comes the catalyst. After the catalyst comes a place where you use now start to see things and you get some solutions. And it's like, wow, this is so much better. Oh, my God. And you run around telling everybody, oh, my. This is great. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna live my purpose. I'm gonna be doing this. I'm gonna do that. It's. Oh, this is amazing. And then the next stage comes, and this is the stage that's called Much Worse. So it's much better than much worse. And people go, well, why would it get worse? Because you can't dance around the pain. You actually, as. As Bradshaw said, the only way out is through. You've got to go through. You've got to look deep into that because it's formed you, it shaped you, and there's a part of you you left behind. And as Yoda says, you've got to go into the dark cave. As Campbell said, you've got to go into the dark cave. As Carl Jung said, you've got to face that darkness. And it is that darkness of the dragon is within us that we got to look into, because then we get revealed in it. But that is terrifying for most people. And what happens at that point is something called identity crisis. Because now I no longer see myself as just a husband or a CEO or an entrepreneur or whatever. All those. That outer shell falls away and we start wondering, well, who the heck am I? If I'm not that, who am I? And that feels much, much worse. But in the words of Winston Churchill, if you're going through hell, keep going. Because on the other side, it's not much better, but much different. That's when you're living your purpose.

Over my 12 years of being an author, devoted to the small business entrepreneur, I've discovered the biggest challenge. And you know what it is? It's profitability. That's why I wrote Profit First. And that's why I'm now hosting a two day workshop here at my offices in Boonton, New Jersey where I will teach you and my, my team will teach you how to become permanently profitable. Go to profit first live.com right now to get details. Again, profit first live dot com. Find the dates that work for you and I'll see you here at my office. That's powerful. I mean, that's the whole journey. Succinctly said.

Thank you.

Let's talk about the business application of this. Can entrepreneurs channel that pain into purpose and leverage it in some form of business and make money at it? Is that fair to make money at it?

It's a great question. And what I know is without doubt, it is the best form of making money. I know that personally and I know that from my clients who many of whom have not just five or ten, but many hundreds of times up their, their, their income through doing this. But you know, you've got to go through them much worse to get to the much different. So yes, I mean, think about it for a minute. If you look at anything in the world that's an innovation, where did that innovation come from? It came from a pain. You got sick and tired of seeing this, whatever it was, and feeling like, you know, everybody just sees this as all the price of doing business. Well, you know what? Let's change that. Let's change that. If, you know, we all know the story of Netflix. The guys who started Netflix went to Blockbuster and couldn't get the video. Somebody had left a box but not returned. And they were like, this is stupid. It was pain. Now is it a major pain for them? No, it was a minor pain, but it's a pain. Let's take another example. Steve Jobs. Everybody knows Steve Jobs, right? And his whole thing was make a ding in the universe. But what was he really about? If you look at the psychology, which I do, of a leader, what I know about Steve Jobs is what was more important than anything to Steve Jobs was to create a culture. Wasn't actually about innovation. That was what happened as a result. But what was most important for him was to create a culture of innovation. A culture. What does that mean? It means you get to belong. What is Steve Jobs or what was he? He was an orphan.

Psychological, Right, Right.

An orphan. Drove him to create community.

It's, I, I guess I can see the driving purpose for him and his drive was, you know, beyond notable. I mean, it's, it's the, it's the essence of so many stories about him, but sometimes I see his products come out. I saw this little holder they make when you're flying on an airplane for your. Your iPhone or for your iPad or tablet so that you don't have to bend your neck anymore. I can't imagine the person invented that is like living necessarily a purpose through that. Can you have a successful business without purpose?

Oh, I think you can, but I think. But I. Absolutely. We know all kinds of people who have successful businesses that don't have purpose. But will it ever reach the full potential of what it can be? Absolutely not. Can you. Is it ever going to reach the stratosphere of what's possible? Absolutely not. So this is a way to magnify and intensify your business. And what's more is it's what will get you up in the morning. Because, look, you know this. Even as you're listening to this, you know this, that if you're getting out of. If you are getting out of bed in the morning to go make another dollar, it doesn't take long before you run out of steam because it's like, okay, you know, I've got clients who are. Who've got hundreds of times more money than I do, who come to me and go, how come it's not working, dog? Like, what's, what's missing? I've got the. I've got two houses now. I've bought. I've bought another yacht. I bought another Rolls Royce. I bought the wife a new set of hoohas. I've had my hair transplants done.

Another set of hoohahs. Four hoohas. Or six, maybe.

Yeah, exactly. Something back.

So, yeah, so that, that sounds. That's the, I guess the traditional definition of financial success. But it sounds like an empty life. Is life without purpose empty?

It's not empty. I don't. I think. I think that's a. See, I'm not about absolutes. I don't believe in absolutes. I'm old enough to realize absolute yes or no, right or wrong, just nonsense. The tr. That everything's on a gradient and there's a bell curve to it. But what I know is that your life, you can have. So I'm going to tell you my, My sequence. We grow up in a world where we're told to get more success. We all grow up in that. Like, be more successful. Now think about who told you that. It was likely the generation before you. And they said, you need to have more success. And you said, why? In some form. And they said, because. Because we want you to have more than we have, what does that translate to? That translates to comfort. So more success, so you have more comfort, therefore less struggle. That makes sense, right? So we go success. And from success we go to comfort. And then we realize, well, I'm kind of bored with this now. It's not really doing it for me. So what's the meaning of this? And we go, look at a meaning. We realize it's meaningless. So, oh, I know what's missing. I need more success than I had. So we expire towards more. More success. Then we can have more comfort. And we realize it's more meaningless. And that cycle repeats until we get into enough pain about this cycle and we go, oh, this is painful. Because now, as I said, I've got all these things and I'm miserable. So I've now got no meaning in my life. So now what I've got is pain. And if you. And here's the. Here's the. I'm going to give everybody the understanding of this. If you add to pain curiosity. So see, what most people do in pain is they shut down. That's why they don't want to do it, because they shut down. They feel like they won't be able to function. No, no. Add curiosity to it. When you add curiosity to pain, it's an alchemy and it transports you into a different dimension. In that dimension, instead of going from success to comfort to meaningless, you go from. Because this is. You suddenly realize that meaning, it's. There's no truth in it. You don't find truth in comfort. Truth is not found in comfort. You have to go to the discomfort, which is that pain. In that pain plus curiosity, you now start to find truth. When you've got, you start looking into truth. Then you get meaning. And when you've got truth plus meaning, that takes you to fulfillment. Oh, wow. So the more fulfilled you become, the more you desire truth. The more you desire truth, the deeper you go into meaning. And the more meaning you have, the more fulfilled you. And this is why this cycle is so rich.

Dov, you are the authority. On purpose. We got a role. Where can our listeners get more information about your teachings?

Thanks for asking, Mike. You can find out more about me@fullmonteeleadership.com or you can just go to Dov D O V A R O N.com Dove Dove Baron.com is my private email address. You can write to me there, but my actual website is dov baron.com or.

Fullmontheleadership.Com Dove Baron the patriarch of purpose. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you.

My absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me on. It was a joy.

So Dove is awesome. I've had him on other interviews too. I just love his raw energy and belief in this. And, you know, sometimes you need that person. That's the drill sergeant of extracting stuff out of you. I, I, I've met other people that like, oh, purpose. It'll find its way and, you know, Kumbaya.

Yeah.

And it can work for some, but other times you need someone's like, let's stop BSing around. Let's get this done. Okay.

What. What accent was that?

Let's get this done. That's like my. I'm kidding. I know. Dubs. Yeah, I know. I'm not that. I don't know. What accent is yours?

My accent is actually labradoodle. I was born in the UK and I lived there until 40 years ago. Then I was in France and Italy, then east coast Canada for a year. Then I was living in Asia, Indonesia, then in Australia for many years before moving to Canada. So it's a Labrador.

I was going to say I was getting UK with a hint of Australian.

Yeah. When I'm in the uk, people think I'm American. When I'm in Australia, people know I'm a pomi, British. And when I'm in America, people, I'm Aussie. So who knows?

Now is covered.

Now we know. So here's what we do. I want to recap what we learned today, but first I want to thank nextiva. I got to do another punch. Voice over ip, phone system, CRM, all integrated into one really sophisticated technology at a low cost point. All right, was that your call? You gotta go?

No.

Okay, Kelsey, you're not gonna go first because you steal from everyone else. Kelsey ruins everything. Oh, there's a show called Adam Ruins everything or something on tv.

That's where that came from. You don't.

No, I just say I didn't know that.

Oh, my God.

No, it was I the one who called her. Kelsey ruins everything first.

No, I did. And then you stole it from me. I really come up with this stuff. You steal it, I get no credit, and then you.

Dude, I am pathetic. I didn't know that.

I didn't know that either.

Play the tape. We have it on video.

So you invented it. I. I'm a thief and I deny it. So I wonder if that makes me a thief. In my mind, I thought I invented it.

You thought you invented it?

Did you write my Books.

I mean, I did.

I know. Where's my.

Where's my royalties for the book?

Oh, my God. Jacob Loan. Jacob Loan. What did you learn today?

Well, I started in the beginning, where he's like, you know, passion's the vehicle that transports purpose.

Yep.

And to find the. The pain, you got to go behind the purpose. I. I think that's really cool.

I liked just the whole mapping of pain to catalyst. Catalyst to the much better. Or I call it the clarity stage, where you see solutions, you're excited, but then you go to the much worse stage. It's. It's weird. You're on this climb and you drop back down where you have to immerse yourself into the pain and really explore it, which sounds terrifying. And it is. And then you get to the much different isn't an interesting conclusion to the journey. It's a much different.

Exactly.

As opposed to much better. And I wonder if that people avoid the much different because they're seeking much better, and that's why they're stuck. Much better, much worse, and volley around there.

Yeah. I think that's so true. I think we have this impression of what we think our lives should be. And until you let go of that impression and embrace who you are and the gifts that you have and how you can serve people more effectively, like, that's where then you can be fulfilled because you're not stuck. Stuck on this illusion.

That's awesome, Cal.

But no, listen, my takeaway was.

Oh, I thought it was your takeaway. I was trying to fade you out.

The past pollutes your future. I love that because I feel like if there's one thing that I've learned about humanity is that we all cling to these insecurities from our childhood. And it peppers everything that we do, all of our interactions, all of our relationships. So until you actually address those issues, it's going to. In every aspect of your life, it's going to keep haunting you.

I agree. I agree. All right, Ready for a game?

Ready.

You ready?

Yeah.

All right, this is you two. Jay Kablone and Kelsey. I'm going to give you millennial terms. Now, why is it so important to entrepreneurs? Is we're hiring millennials? Or maybe you're a millennial yourself, running a business. If you don't speak the language, how can you be trusted? So I'm going to give you five words here, and you should give me the definitions for each one. So they're all legit, at least from the.

Keep in. Keep in mind, when Kelsey and I are technically both considered millennials. But we don't.

Right. Millennial.

We don't identify.

You were born in the 80s or after, I think.

Yes. Yeah, I thought it was like, 81 and 80.

81 and after.

Okay, yeah, so I'm not a millennial, so technically.

But I don't feel like it resonates with me.

These words confuse my simpleton mind. Let me go for the first one here. Goat. This is the only acronym. Oh, we have two acronyms. This is one of the acronyms. Goat. It stands for something. If you're. Dude, you're the.

We know this one.

We. We were gonna rename the podcast this to Goat.

What is it?

Greatest of all time.

That's right.

Yeah.

All right, all of you get one point. Fubbing spelled a ph.

Just.

Oh, I know this.

I don't.

What, did you guys look these up earlier?

No, this is the one I asked you originally. Although I've already forgotten it.

What is it when you're fubbing someone? There's the whole hint. Dude, you're. You're kind of a fubber at times. Actually, you're not much of a fubber. Kelsey isn't either, but I've seen. I've been fubbered right in the face.

Did you just scratch your head? Is that. That was a clue.

That was a hint. It was not a hint. That wasn't a clue. Oh.

Oh, you mean when you confuse somebody.

Close, It's a bastardization of phone and snubbing. It's.

That's it.

When you snub someone to pay attention to your phone, you're fubbing them.

That's it.

Snub someone.

Dude, here's an easy one.

That's good.

Yeah.

So, like, you're talking to me, and I'm like, okay.

I don't do that.

An easy one. That's cray. That's cray. Crazy. Crazy. Yep. All right. That's an easy one. Suh.

Oh, what's up, Sa.

Yeah, I should have done the head knot. I did the head knot with it. If I went sir, you wouldn't have got it. If I went sir. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so you got. You guys are three for four. But this is the big one. If you get this one, you win the game. If not, you lose the game. It's an acronym. Jomo. What's that stand for?

J. Oh, Joy of missing out.

Genius. You've nailed it.

I was looking at these right before. Guys, I'm not actually.

You can hire. And this is a very popular millennial song by the way you can hire millennials. All right, Kels, get us the hell out of here.

Thank you guys for listening. And don't forget to review us.

Do you have to say more than that? Sometimes. I don't know. Sometimes to fill some space.

Sometimes it's okay.

Yeah, sometimes. Not all the time. I want to invite you, you know, the call to action questions. Have you done it? Go to mikemicalitz.com or mikemotorbike.com Click on Get the Tools. Why? We have lots of entrepreneurial resources sitting there right now waiting for you. It's time you up your entrepreneurial game. And we want to make it simple. Doesn't mean we're going to make it easy, but we're going to make it simpler. All right, go do that now. Mikemotorbike.com See you guys later.

Bye.

It.