Everything You Need to Have a Big Leap Year

Hello, this is Mike Koenigs and I'm Gay Hendricks. And this is the Big Leap. And this is everything you need to have a big Leap year. We're going to be covering a process, a five step process that Gay and I have developed so you can have your big leap year, including a really, really easy concept called the Mary Kay formula. It's one of my favorite concepts and ideas and also some of the ways to increase your longevity. Gay, what do you have that you want to share?

We've got a bunch of things in this episode that are all grounded in our own personal experience and working with people. So everything we talk about here has been kitchen tested, bedroom tested, boardroom tested in every possible situation you can think of.

All right, well, I know you're going to love this episode because we already made it. That's how we're doing the previews. So. Well, make sure you step stand by. We're going to have a blast. There's a lot of great content in here on the Big Leap.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Big Leap podcast. I'm Gay Hendricks, along with my buddy, Mike Koenigs.

Hey, how you doing? This is exciting. I love this because we're going to be doing some planning and it's a great sequel from, from our last episode. Your consciousness is your most valuable product. So, Gay, how do you want to open this one up?

Well, I've been talking to a lot of people lately. One of the big things that I do is respond to interviews and conversations about my book, the Big Leap. And so I probably spend, oh, maybe 30 hours a month doing interviews with various podcasts and radio programs and things like that, talking to them about the big concepts and the big leap, things like the genius zone and the upper limit problem and all those kinds of things. And from a lot of those conversations, there's a lot of people who ask me, how do I get started, you know, if I wanted to turn this next year into my big leap year, how would I go about doing that? And so I've been thinking a lot about how you kind of get started in any kind of big change process. And as I've worked with people over the years, I've come to see that.

There'S no substitute for willingness and commitment, and willingness is really important. Not a lot of people think about willingness, but anytime you entertain any kind of change, the first thing that happens is just a sense of willingness. So, for example.

If you're at work and your business partner says, hey, you want to go out and have fresh oysters for lunch. Well, there's a lot of people that would go, yeah, and a lot of people that would go, ew. And so I'm a little bit more in the ew phase of that conversation myself.

I'm in the yeah phase because I hated them for a long time. But one bad oyster for my first one was not a good way to begin that. But I get it.

I like them fried. I'm not so crazy about them slithering down my throat, though. But just your first take on a question like that has to do with willingness. Would I be willing to do something? Or if a friend says, would you like to go hear Mozart on the weekend? Or would you like to go hear punk rock at a concert? Your first thing is your willingness. No, I wouldn't be willing to do that. So willingness gets you in the door of whatever needs to happen. But it's commitment that really makes things work. And so when I'm working with people, whether it's a couple or a business professional, often it boils down to an issue of commitment. Because unless a person can put themselves on the line there and say, this is what I'm willing to do, this is what I commit to doing, there's very little magic that's going to happen. So if you're going to create a big leap year for yourself, begin first by getting a real good sense of willingness in your body and also get a good sense of commitment. Is this something you really want to do? Do you actually want to transform your life? Do you actually want to live in the genius zone? So you get whole body yeses from things? And that's what you. Those are the things that. The things you're really committed to.

I love that. One of the things that I took a note of gay while you. When you talked about willingness, that's. That's step one is an old story I learned a year ago from one of my mentors. And it's the Mary Kay formula. And for anyone who's not familiar with Mary Kay, those were the pink cars. It was the first.

Business at home or work at home business opportunity that was made available to women and that preceded Tupperware parties where you could actually have a business selling makeup and other products. And they rewarded the top sellers with pink cars. And to this day, you'll still see them out there occasionally. It's not as big as it used to be, but I know for a long time that was a great way for women who didn't have traditional jobs and took care of families. And all the old rules of yesterday. But here are the Mary Kay formula. Number one is, is it easy? Number two is, does it work? And number three is, can I do it or will it work for me? And creating a willingness moment, that transformation where you actually.

Go from willingness to commitment, requires that that conversation of believability.

Pops into place.

And one of the things that I've found after raising a kid and also learning how to overcome my own crap in my head is I have to create a positive context and a positive for frame in order to be willing. And it's amazing how even when you were talking about the oyster, for example, the reason why my first oyster experience was a bad one is because I actually was in Detroit when I was 18 years old, meeting with a bunch of GM executives and they were like, hey, Mike, you ever had oysters before? And we're at the restaurant where Jimmy Hoffa was abducted. They all thought that would be really, really funny to take this 18 year old punk from Minnesota. And I didn't, you know, I was sort of like right off the boat, kind of fresh and new. So the guys are like, hey, you want to have an oyster? And I'm like, I'll try anything once. And of course they bring these things out and I put it in and I didn't know what to do with it. So of course there were broken shells in it. And it was. And my first impression was, ew, this is stinky, nasty cold snot with sand in it. And it tasted and I got a rotten one. Okay, so it was like all the worst things. And I did everything I could to keep myself from gagging. And all these old.

Detroit executives, old fashioned, old school, were laughing at me and thought it was the funniest thing ever. And I was just like, it was a combination of shame, humiliation. And you know, one of the guys said afterwards, ah, we do that to all you punks when we, when we see you here. But, you know, again, I didn't have any context at the time, but it was, it wasn't easy. It didn't work, and I didn't feel like I could do it. But anyway, after that, I was unwilling to try oysters until 20 years later. I mean, it was maybe seven years ago. Vivian and I were out. We had, we got pretty well lit at a restaurant in downtown San Diego. Perfect summer day. I had a couple of tequilas and. And we're at an oyster bar. And I'm like, I'm gonna try one. We ordered some. And I was like, holy cow, These are amazing. And they were these San Diego blondes. They actually have a. A farm here. And the combination of being with my honey, having a couple of nice stiff drinks and these perfectly delicious, you know, and they had champagne mignonette. It just made the medicine go down. It was lovely. And ever since I've been a freakish oyster fan. So willing.

Before you go further, I have to rewind here for a moment. What in the world were you doing at 18 years old meeting with a bunch of GM executives?

So the. When.

You know enough about me to know. I grew up in a very small town in Minnesota. No money, no resources, but I taught myself how to program when I was about 14 years old and I got my first programming job with a company called cwc, or Clear with Computers in Mankato, Minnesota. And we wrote vehicle Simulate. We wrote software that helped dealers build trucks, basically. So back in the old days, if you had to create a dump truck, for example, you'd have to pick a frame and an engine and a transmission and a turning system and a box body and all this stuff. And I wrote software that simulated the vehicles so you'd know how much weight they could carry, what kind of turning radius they had, and if they could actually carry a load. And so I was like this, you know, and I was like a completely uneducated boob. But I was hungry, broke, and I was willing to learn anything. And I ended up. That evolved into me writing video games later on because I was writing vehicle simulation software. Long, long winded answer to the story, but it required a little context.

That makes a lot of sense now that I think about it. But it's a great story, it was fun.

It was truly some of the best years of my life and one of the other byproducts of that. I wound up writing software for the US Navy through a friend of mine whose father worked for UNISYS at the time, which was Sperry Univac Unisys, and flew me out here and went into, literally into the caves in the big hills and Point Loma that a lot of people don't know are basically hollowed out bunkers. And they took me into the deep caverns and I wrote software for submarines.

Weird, weird experience. We learn all these funky things. So anyway.

Back to the big leap year, Bob.

Yeah, back to the big leap year.

So we got willingness, a serious commitment. How about for groups and teams and families getting commitments from them?

Yeah, well, that's really key too, because back in the 80s and 90s, I used to do a lot of on site corporate consulting where I'd go in and follow an executive round and figure out what the issues were and what the problems were. And one of the problems I spotted all the time was that leaders would fail to get buy in or commitment from everybody on the team. They would kind of go off without even defining sometimes what the commitment was. And so often the result wouldn't go be there. And so one of the big things I ended up teaching executives a lot was just how to get people committed, how to look them in the eye and say, is this something you really want to do? And is this something you'd really be willing to do? And so a lot of people aren't willing to have that eyeball to eyeball conversation about is this something you'd be willing to do? So they miss out on getting the person to get full buy in or commitment. And then there's usually wobble later if the person doesn't know exactly what they're doing or what they're committed to. So I A good bit of my work and the same thing is true with couples. A good bit of my work with couples is the same thing that I would do out in business environments. Because oftentimes problems between couples are failures of commitments. Somebody commits to doing something, but then they have a counter commitment that comes up and sabotages themselves. And so learning how to make a sincere, heartfelt commitment and follow through on it is one of the most important things to teach in any kind of organization or family.

So I, while you were describing that, I have a big idea that I've always been super, super fascinated by and interested in.

And it's. So I'm going to come back to this and ask your opinion on what you do for couples, kids and teams. But here's my little breakthrough and I had a moment a couple of years ago where Vivian and I broke through.

A few things that were unrecoverable from a couple's perspective. And it goes back to 10 years ago. But it was just like some horrible stuff that I had done in a relationship that just about nix the marriage and, and some ongoing behaviors that drove her crazy. But one of the things that really kept us together is something that I call relationship velocity. And here's the basic idea is if you've got the same values and one of your core values is growth. So Vivian and I both are all about growth, constant growth. She's about love and connection and contribution.

And I am on a different level. But we have what I consider to be relationship velocity, which is A commitment to the same values and at the same speed. And anyone who's ever been in a bad relationship before that, if you're trying to figure out why does this suck, why do I feel so uncomfortable? It's because one or the other isn't moving at the same velocity and you've outgrown the others and you've got a relation or a values conflict. And I believe that just having the same values aren't enough. You have to have the same speed and commitment so you don't feel like you're dragging someone around or you can't feel like you're dragged along.

And that comes back to getting a commitment from a couple, a kid or a team. What do you recommend or feel is most important, valuable and necessary to get that and make it happen without it feeling forced? Because if you've ever tried negotiating, I've got a. My son turns 18 in a couple of days at this point and like he's a lovely kid, we get along great and we've always had a great relationship and he resists me. Like I've given him so many opportunities and he just has a different relationship velocity, a different growth curve. His values are just different. And I have a general rule which is I'm just not going to force my kid to be miserable because I want him to be a certain way and I'm not going to be miserable trying to lead him in a path he resists.

Yeah, well, that's when it's time to move them out of the house.

And that's the simple solution to that. That's been the time honored solution rather than trying to solve that problem. Distance oftentimes perhaps an east coast.

But seriously.

I've worked a lot, of course with couples and to a certain extent with families. Although I was not a full time family therapist during the years I was doing psychotherapy. But I worked a lot with teenagers, of course, in my earlier years. The thing that I think parents mistakenly do is they.

In their attempt to help the child or the teenager go in a certain direction. They get locked into an authority mode and don't communicate at the emotional level. For example, in a situation like that you're describing with your son, both of you have an emotional connection under there. You're both scared about something and if you can find out what he's scared about and also share what you're scared about, and there may be more than one thing, but once you get underneath the, you know, the master slave relationship that parents, children go through or the one up one down where you've got all the power and they don't. So when those power imbalances are in place, what you have to do is look for something underneath that connects the two of you. And oftentimes emotions that are deeper than anger, they're emotions like fear and sadness. And so communicating at that level and telling him what you're scared about and finding out what he's scared about is often the thing that will unlock behavior change out there on the front lines.

That is really useful and powerful. And the funny thing is I know that, but I forget it in the, in the heat of the moment and where we've had, I'll call shallow breakthroughs, not the deepest breakthroughs, are really realizing that you can't influence if you're judging and then you can't be influenced if you feel judged. And when you look at the massive polarity that exists in our media and our culture in our political climate today is everyone feels judged nonstop. And there is a constant poking and prodding and there's just no way to influence a party when there's judgment going on non stop. So that's very meaningful. Well, why don't we move on to the third phase and the third step of everything you need to have a big year. So we started with willingness, a sincere commitment, and then number three, coachability. Okay.

Extremely important aspect of life is how willing am I to take correction, how willing am I to open myself to feedback?

It's an art giving feedback, but there's an equally important art about receiving feedback. So are you coachable? Can somebody come in and help you and say do this instead of doing that without you spinning off into an ego issue about, you know, why is he making me do that? Or you know, the usual sort of anti authority kind of things that we often get into in the early part of our lives.

That's great. I know you've got a story about Boris Becker on that and I want you to share that. And then I've got a couple thoughts on it too. Because now I spend so much time coaching executives and ultra high net worth individuals on a business and personal level. And this is very different than going from someone buying a book or an information product or doing an hourly session or coming to an event. So I'll go in the, on on a deep level as well. And I know you spend, you spent so much time there. But let's talk about Boris Becker.

Yes. Back in the 80s, Boris was quite a phenomenon because he won Wimbledon, the big tennis tournament at Wimbledon. At the age Of, I believe it was 17, if I remember correctly. But it was an extremely young age and he was an awesome tennis player. And he'd been coached throughout by this one particular gentleman. And I can't remember his name, but I can see his face. He had sort of a handlebar mustache. And so after Boris Becker won Wimbledon the next year, he had a rather precipitous fall. I think it was the next year or the year after. He couldn't even get in the door. He didn't make the finals. And people wondered why, but the answer was pretty simple. He fired his coach. He ended that relationship that had got him there. And there's a whole bunch of articles and books that you can read out there on the Internet about what the personality aspect of was Boris. But you know, a teenager that suddenly has a gigantic winning moment and goes to international stardom from having been a high school student a couple of months ago, that's a huge thing for anybody's ego to handle. And so I think that Boris went in the direction of saying, I don't need coaching anymore. You know, I'm it now. And so that act of.

Shutting off your coachability is oftentimes something that gives you a precipitous dive. And you could use other examples from lots of other entertainment and places like that. But to me, I always think of the Boris example when I think of somebody who's not coachable. And it doesn't have to just be 17 year olds either. I certainly worked with a number of 57 year olds that were difficult to coach because they were at the top of some organization and they thought that what had gotten them there was a certain thing, but they didn't realize that a lot of times, once you get to the top in any field, that's just the beginning. That's the beginning of your unfoldment as a human being. And so when you work, as I have with a lot of CEO types and people in entertainment and that kind of thing, one of the characteristics is they often are very hard to approach because they start surrounding themselves with yes people, people that tell them they're right all the time. And that's almost a suic societal move that I've seen a lot of people make, especially in the entertainment industry.

Right. And not only do they have a lot of yes people around them, they have a lot of no people around them who are not telling them the truth to protect the parasites and the vampires. And that's something else that I've noticed. And, and you and I offline have Talked about some of the celebrities that we've worked with, but there have been a couple celebrities I've worked with, very, very well known, very, very well recognized, surrounded by parasites that prevented quality people from getting inside and they were just protecting their own free money stream. And eventually that individual is left where they don't have a platform and they don't know it and they didn't see it coming. So I have a couple stories along that you really popped something in my head here, which is when I'm working with a high level individual and I have the are you coachable? Conversation I often talk about the importance of a transformation versus a transaction. And what I found makes the biggest difference to get someone in a coachable space.

Is to first of all craft a compelling future for them. And that is future pacing from an NLP perspective. So imagine you and I, we're going to start working together. What needs to happen both personally and professionally for you to feel satisfied with your progress. And I always have them imagine what it's like. And by the way, that's called the R Factor question or the Dan Sullivan question. It's one of the smartest ways to get someone in the right mindset. But the next and really the most critical thing is skin in the game.

And if someone, if it's a comfortable investment, people won't show up. So a couple years ago, when I did my most recent reinvention and I changed my business model to do executive coaching, my minimum fee to work with me was 25,000. It was actually $50,000 and then it went up to 125,000 and now it's 50,000 and 250,000 and actually more in some situations. And what that means when the fulfillment came around is a meeting, meaning a 90 minute meeting. The. If someone looked at it through the lens of how much does that cost per hour, which by the way, I never allow that to happen, is if someone starts equating and buying time, you're already screwed. That's the crappiest business ever to be in, is the selling of time. Even though on some level we're all doing it right. We. But the cost for a meeting was $7,000. And out of the 25 people who I was coaching at that time, guess how many ever showed up late or didn't show up for our session?

Correct. It's zero. Okay. Because they had so much skin in the game. And.

And now that is what I found is, is you could provide the same product, the same service. And on one hand, if it were $500 or $500,000. First of all, it's all a matter of the perception of the potential possibility of roi, which is up to you to craft a story, a message that's relevant to the buyer. Right? So if you show an executive how they can find.

$50 million that's hidden in plain sight by teaching them to think differently, see differently, and tell a different story, and you said, well, if I could bring you 50,000 or $50 million, what would that be worth to you versus someone who's struggling to make 50 grand, can't pay any of their bills, and literally has to run around delivering groceries for 15 bucks an hour in order to survive, they're going to have a very different perception of value.

And again, no matter where you're at. But the point I was getting at here is there's one gentleman both you and I know really well. I can't mention his name for the sake of this conversation, but he has a funny closing line. He says, first of all, the investment to work with me is $100,000, and there's only one guarantee I can give you.

You.

And you're like, well, what's the guarantee? He goes, well, that'll be the last time you ever see that $100,000.

The first time I heard that, I was like, what an a hole. What a jerk. And. But what mattered was just the understanding that by the time you got to that level of the conversation, the person understood that in order to even be accepted, they had to be willing to be coachable and show up. And if they didn't do what they were told to do, they wouldn't get outside of their comfort zone. There are no money back guarantees. That's on you. It's your choice to not be coachable. And there's enough skin in the game where you're actually going to show up. So that really goes down to you've got to feel some massive pain after you've made the commitment. And remember, we started out with step one was your willingness. Step two is your commitment. Step three is are you willing to be coachable? So that leads us to step number four.

And, oh, I know. There was one other thing I wanted to add. You told me not long ago that you prepaid five years in advance for your coach, your fitness coach.

Yes, I've been working out since 2012, the last eight years with a personal trainer named Patrick Lee of Lee's one on one training here in Ojai where I live. And it's always one on one training it's not a gym where there's a whole bunch of people working out. So it's a very different sort of situation. And so I got so much value out of it that a while back, a year or two ago, I had the opportunity to do something good for Patrick and his family at the same time doing something good for myself. It costs about $1,000 a month to do what I do at his gym. And for his services, I go three times a week. And so I consume about 12 of his hours every month, and that's worth about $1,000. So it's about a 10 or $12,000 a year thing for me. And so what I decided to do is Patrick wanted to buy a houseboat for him and his family to live on. They wanted to sell their land place, and their son was almost. So he and his wife wanted to live on a boat. And so I.

Financed a $50,000 boat for them in return for getting five years. In other words, $50,000 worth of training for the next five years. And so I did it partly to help them, of course, but I did it partly for me as a longevity device because I wanted to be able to look out into the future and see myself when I'm 80 or 85 years old. Oh, by the way, I did it when I was 73. And so I'm about two years into it now. But when I run out of this five year commitment, I'm going to buy 10 years, okay? I'm going to buy 10 years out into the future. So I'm looking forward to it. But it gives me something out into the future because I can picture myself at age 80 or 85, still doing the same workout. And so I tell him he's got to be careful, though, because if I die, he doesn't have to give it back, but he needs to keep me really healthy so I can do that hundred thousand dollar one next.

I love that. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. And we're going to go to step number four here, which is resourcefulness. But I do want to.

Also wiggle one more thing in here that you reminded me of as we were talking about it. And it's like, this is a longevity strategy. And one of the things that you and I have put together.

One of our objectives when we started the Big Leap podcast was to find ways to provide value to other people. And also you said it's one of your longevity strategies. And on our website atBig Leap Podcast.com is a screen with a Once in a lifetime experience with Gay and I to help you create your big leap year. And we call it the big leap experience. But there's an application on that. And one of the things that we do together is we combine our combined skills. Gay is going to be coaching and advising you through your big leap and all of the ways, all the upper limits challenges you may have. I bring in my marketing skills and ability to elevate your status, your authority and position you and help you reinvent and reimagine who you actually are. And I love to say, you know, my objective is to help you be comfortable asking for 10 times more than you've ever asked for before to value yourself. Gay's going to prepare your mind, body, spirit and soul. I'm going to help you with some of the mechanics, the messaging, the words that come out of your mouth, and how to attract right fit people. So that's the station identification and mini commercial here. So any comments on that before we jump into item number four?

Yes, I want to hark back to the Mary Kay cosmetics story, her first principle about keeping it easy. You know, a lot of times people think you have to suffer constantly in order to grow, but I think it's important to acknowledge suffering and acknowledge our tendency to get caught up in things that make us suffer and at the same time realize that you can grow just for the sheer heck of it. You know, you can choose to grow in ways that don't require any pain at all. Maybe some things we need to kind of bottom out and create pain in order to motivate ourselves. I don't know. Having weighed 320 pounds, that was quite a motivation to change. I was walking around with an extra £140 on me all the time. So every step I took was a motivation to change. But whatever it takes for you, if it takes your suffering, know that you don't have to suffer forever. You can experience your suffering and then choose something different. Because like one of my mentors said, occasionally the bluebird of happiness is going to crap on your head, but you don't have to let it build a nest there. And so we're always one breath and one thought away from changing our lives, no matter how stuck we are.

I agree completely. So step four, we agreed in the process is resourcefulness, ingenuity and resilience. I've got a few thoughts on that, but I know you do, too. So let's talk about those three big, big things.

Yeah. One of my friends who's a very successful person, he's done hundreds of different deals. And I was asking him one time after like 30, 40 years in business and doing all these deals, and he's taken a couple of companies public and that kind of thing.

What are some of the things you've learned from it? And one thing he said was resilience, the ability to get back up after you've been knocked over and to keep coming back. And there was this.

Toy that my daughter had when she was little. It was Bobo the Clown. You'd kind of knock it over and it would pop back up. And probably all kids have them at one time or the other.

I had Bobo the Clown.

Yep, you did too. But it gives a good metaphor for life because a lot of times people think that if only X, Y and Z weren't always happening, then I'd be better.

But you got to realize X, Y and Z are the business. You know, the fact that such and such of a challenge came up or this kind of a thing happened, those are the moments that actually make a difference for you. Whether you can come up with something, whether you've got enough resourcefulness and enough openness to your creativity that you can come out of that with some kind of a new plan going forward so you don't have to stay flopped over like Bobo the Clown.

Yeah. And going back to one of my favorite concepts and ideas that you have, which is about staying in a state of wonder and wonderment and going, hmm, hmm, I wonder. And I am a firm believer that thoughts are objects which are manifestable and compelling. Stories can cause audiences and groups to move mountains, literally and figuratively. And all you have to do to create more resourcefulness and ingenuity and resilience is imagine your way into and through wonderment to manifestation. So, simply stated, crafting a compelling story featuring the individuals that you would like to have support you in crafting your perfect life. Need to hear movies and stories where they get to be the heroes and you are their guide, their mentor, their advisor, or their guru and or your tool, your service, whatever it is. And when you think about how did Apple become a more than trillion dollar company? They appealed to the wonder and gave you resources and tools that unlock your imagination, your creativity, your connection, and being able to express yourself. And I think expression is such a understood word. To express oneself is the act of crafting and creating inspiration and great stories and building your tools to make that happen. So I think that's.

The biggest thing here. And the other one is knowing when someone's time to hear the message is and I've told you this before, Gay, that I have a rule, and that is my wife and I, we've for many years. And you too, you and Katie are extremely charitable, philanthropic people. You donate a lot of money and resources, but knowing what is your business and what is your charity and drawing a hard line between them is very important. So I have a rule which is I will support the broken, the broken, but I'm not gonna make that my business. So I will find people who are great at providing that and that lights their hearts up. But I work with ultra high net worth individuals because I know I can do much more good by funneling resources and money, in other words, buying time. And my highest purpose is best served there. I don't feel like I'm above it, it's just that it doesn't light me up to be working in a shelter, for example. And I know I can provide someone who is lit up by that, some amazing resources and tools or some guidance that will help them craft and create leverage and massive change. And so don't make your charity a business unless it is your business.

That's really a good point. I think that a lot of people fall into kind of a compassion trap. I mean, compassion is a wonderful thing, but you sometimes can overextend it. One thing I always like to make sure people know is that each human being is 100%.

A lot of times think in a relationship there are two people that get together and each of them is 50% and they make 100% together. But that's a big trap to fall into. Each of us is exactly 100%. And if we don't treat other people that way, if we treat people as if we get over into 150% and start taking too much responsibility for other people's lives, it drains us and it's not doing them any good either.

Absolutely, absolutely. So let's move on to number five in our process here. So I'm just going to review these. We have the willingness, the commitment, the coachability, resourcefulness, ingenuity and resilience and.

A commitment to re evolution and reinvention. And I know you always have a good story and I've got a story as well.

Well, I've gone through a lot of reinventions in my life and I've seen a lot of people go through reinventions where a person has come in who is in the pit. For example, having.

I worked with a person who was very famous in the entertainment business and also very famous for being very much into Alcohol and drugs for a long period of time. And then to see what the power of commitment could do. To watch her make this commitment to a whole different kind of life and then reinvent herself out of that to huge, much more success than ever, than ever she dreamed possible. Those are the kind of things that really touch me deeply, that I get to work with in people. Because to me.

The great thing about being human is the ability to reinvent ourselves. I always say we're only one thought and one breath away from changing our lives. Because if any person can simply launch one single positive thought in an area that they've been thinking completely negatively in, everything changes. And for me, it was that moment when I was 24 of conceiving of myself as a person who.

Who was not in a bad relationship, who was not in a job I hated, a person who had a job I loved, and a person who was in a healthy body. That was for me, a moment of breaking through and forming a positive image of something where I'd only been thinking negatively before. And in one way or the other, every single one of us has access to doing that at every moment of our lives. That's one of the greatest glories and advantages of being a human being, is that we're always on the verge of evolving in a whole different way if we open up our willingness and our intention and make our commitments.

I love that.

And as I'm listening to you.

I know for me what I've found. Whenever I'm working with an individual who's looking for a breakthrough.

I always ask the same question, which is, are you willing to receive all that the universe is willing to give you? Are you willing to release the reason why you can't accept abundance? And it's so interesting when people are given the opportunity to. To grow and receive.

They have a reason why they can't and why they're not ready yet. And the attachment to an old story and a trauma and the reason why you can't is more compelling than a true, compelling future. And so the steps of first of all, realizing that you can reframe any situation and make even the Unbearable bearable is super powerful. I can't remember what. It's one of the greatest stories ever told.

I can't believe I can't think of the guy's name, but he was one of the survivors from Auschwitz who wrote a book and he forgave everyone. What's the name of. Yes, Viktor Frankl. What was the name of the book?

The title Man Search for Me Meaning, there you go.

That is a unbelievable reframe. And recently.

As of right now, it was yesterday, Jeff Bezos came out and he's been grilled by Congress about how Amazon should be broken up. And he wrote this unbelievably emotionally high EQ document about Amazon and also his own past, where his mother was 17 year old when she had him, unwed mother, the struggle she went through, how his father, the man who adopted him, came here from Cuba at 16 with nothing and no support, and how he grew up and, and, and then how he built Amazon and how they're the first company to actually have a minimum 15, minimum wage and the education they're providing and the opportunities and what he's doing. And then he had multiple stories of transformation embedded, supporting what he's saying. And also he backs up his claims with numbers. It's a classic, beautiful reframe. And what he did is he not only told his version of the story, despite all the billionaire haters and how popular that is right now to crap on, on entrepreneurialism in our society at the moment, but how he crafted a vision and a compelling future. And I consider it a masterpiece in a reframe, especially about owning the narrative, the outside narrative and your inside narrative, and being able to repeat this process. And then finally, if and when you are stuck, you've got to be willing to say, I don't have the answers. I need a coach.

Being stuck is a choice. It's often an unconscious choice. It becomes a conscious choice once you've heard these words. When you are stuck, you need a coach. And when you are open, the right one shows up. So gay. Comments, thoughts, feedback?

There have been a number of moments in my own life when a coach showed up that changed everything for me. And the qualities like the one I'm thinking of right now was a professor of mine at the University of New Hampshire when I was getting my master's degree in counseling there. His name was DWIGHT WEBB. And Dr. Webb, he's in his late 80s now and still lives in New Hampshire with his wife. And so in those days.

The gift he gave every student, I think, was a seeing of who they really were underneath whatever stuff they had going on. And so I think that's the Viktor Frankl secret, is to find that place in ourselves, that deep place in ourselves, and make that willing to be seen so that others don't have to dig it out of us. And just a specific thing that Dwight did for me was I wanted to be a creative writer at the time and I liked writing journal articles, which I had to do as a counseling student and all of that, but I also wanted to write poems. And so Dwight did this amazing thing. He said, how about for your master thesis, you write a number of poems about the counseling process? You know, it was like, lit up a whole new room for me. Suddenly I could use my creative talents in the service of this profession that I was coming to love so much. To me, that's genius at work. When a person is able to bring forth a quality like that, that's the true meaning. You know, education comes from that beautiful Latin word educare, which means to lead from inside, to bring forth from within. And to me, that was a quintessential moment in my life of having a coach show up who could open up a whole new vista for me.

Wow. I just had a giant, big aha. As I was listening to that story. And I'm actually going to save this for our next episode on purpose.

But I just want to repeat a little bit. So I teased this appropriately, but it deserves more focus. And the whole idea of what you said is.

When he gave you an idea on how you could express yourself. Expression is the key word here. And use your own superpowers in a way you hadn't imagined before. And it was like, we're expression and creativity and manifestation met a whole new method. But it supported who you were and who you wanted to be. So in a way, it's where a compelling future met with your expression and your willingness to be coached and hear. That led to a fantastic evolution. The fact that you can talk about it even today.

And I think there's a tremendous amount of nuance in there that I'd like to explore in the episode that we have planned, which is called our biggest leaps. And we're going to talk about what they are, how they came about, and we'll deconstruct them together in a way that anyone who's watching this can really go back and think of these episodes we've done as a trilogy, which, just so you know, we began with your consciousness is your most valuable product. Our second one is everything you need to have a big leap year, which is our process. Our third is our biggest leaps and how you can have them, too. So how would you like to bring this baby home today? Because I've got a couple things I want to ask our audience to do. Gay.

Well, one of the big takeaways, I think, from our list of ways to bring your big leap year into being has to do with this issue of coachability. And so I think a real fundamental question we all need to live in all the time time is how coachable am I in every area of my life, how open am I to receive the feedback that will really make a difference for us? Because it's the quality of our openness that invites the quality of the feedback.

I love that. And I think that brings back to what one of the things that we talked about earlier, which is one of your longevity strategies, is by making a giant commitment, a year long commitment and what Gay and I are talking about in our once in a lifetime offer. You can read more about it atbig leap podcast.com Is this once in a lifetime. It literally is that Gay is committed to doing it once. An opportunity to craft and create your Big Leap year with the Big Leap experience. So you can learn more. There's an application form. We need to talk to you and make sure you are right fit and learn more about you first. But head on over to bigleappodcast.com the other way you can get some information on that and the transcript for this episode and our other episodes is by texting the letters BL, which stand for Big Leap 285-8434-5316. And that's what we've got for you. And in the meantime, if you know someone who could benefit from the messages we shared with you today, share it with them. And of course, leave a comment, upvote this. Give us some stars at itunes. Gay, anything else that you'd like to leave our friends today before we let him go?

We really appreciate your participation, everybody, from giving reviews and passing things along because we really want to build a Big Leap community that serves a whole lot of people.

Right on. This is about an ecosystem. There's no doubt about that. I really do believe that rising boats work. So this is the Big Leap. My name is Mike Koenigs.

I'm Gay Hendricks and thanks for joining us.

We'll see you in the next episode. Bye. Bye.