Revealing Our Next Big Leaps

You know, my greatest fear right now is getting stuck and not evolving. Am I good enough? Am I worthy of working with the next level person? And where are they going to come from? All these things line up and it's like 10 miracles in a row. And then there's the guilt that can go along with that as well.

I think because of the way we are as human beings, we think of ourselves more as a shaper of reality and than as a pure experiencer of reality. My commitment is to expand my genius every day so that I experience more abundance and success and contribution to other people. And I mean, if you can think of a better life than that, call me collect. Hi, this is Gay Hendricks. Join us for this week's episode of the Big Leap podcast where Mike and I take on our big leaps. Our next big leaps.

One of the things that happened in this episode that's super exciting is, well, I got a little bit raw and I told Gay about some of the things that I'm really fearful of that I, I'm not even sure what they are. Well, Gay was able to disassemble them, told me exactly what was going on, and I experienced a couple genuine transformations. I probably could guess that you go through the exact same thing. And Gay has his fact tool that he shared today that was super powerful and interesting. How about you, Gay?

Well, I love what we did with your process, but I also love being able to speak about what some of my big leaps are right in the present, but also in the really big picture called being a 77 year old guy toward the end of his life.

So that's all that and more heavy, heavy stuff. Thanks for watching the Big Leap. Here it goes.

All right, Gay, we're talking about your next Big Leap. And you know, it just makes sense that reinventing yourself on an ongoing basis. And one of the things I've wanted to ask you for a long time is thinking through the big blue ocean when you feel stuck. I would like you to help me think a lot bigger. And I had someone say to me last week, mike, I think you're thinking too small. And at first it was a punch in the gut, but he had, he stopped me mid, you know, like in a mid conversation. And he said, do you know how beautiful you are? And it, I couldn't receive it. And then he said, I've listened to what you're doing right now. It's really impressive, it's really great.

But I think you're thinking too small. And I just didn't know how to receive it at first, and it wasn't an insult.

Yes.

But I didn't know how to think. Right.

So.

Yes, I have a thought about that, and it's a very foundational one. And what I hear in that is that stuckness. Feeling stuck is so close to the pure, open, creative space of raw creativity that what. What it is is getting tripped up with some little old crystallized bit of fear that's down in the machinery that keeps you from surrendering in the sense of really opening up all your cells to those oceanic vistas inside yourself that are all about being connected to the universal whole of creation.

Take a breath and digest that, everybody. That's a lot to pack into a sentence. But, yeah, here's the. You know, like what I've noticed that when I get stuck, I'm always holding myself hostage to some little bit of fear. And, you know, it's a mistake to think that you get rid of all of that stuff as you grow more enlightened more and in love with life. But what I think it's like a spiral that in the beginning, you spiral tightly around the same set of issues. And then as you begin to love them and appreciate them and love and learn from them, your spiral widens. But you still are going to pass by now and then the same kinds of little things that used to trip you up 10 years, 25, 30, 40 years ago. And so the way I think of it is that we're all in this process of what I call the genius spiral, which is opening up more and more and more to our natural genius. And in that process, you're going to come across those little crystallized bits of fear now and then. So right now, from wherever you are, what does it feel like you're. What is that crystallized bit of fear? What am I afraid of? I'm afraid that.

God, I was just talking to Vivian about this. I'm going to frame this up a little bit with a big win. But it led to this. Okay, because. And then we can go backwards into it. So.

Yesterday.

I tried something out. I had. I was just at an event where I had two people walk up to me, and they knew who I was. They had been watching some successes I've had publicly, and they just walked up and said, I want to work with you. And Price wasn't an issue. And right now, I just increased my rates to do my workshop to $150,000. Okay. And then yesterday, I had a couple guys call me up or we scheduled an appointment and had one call. Price was no Object. Now, they had just been. Someone tried to buy their business for a couple hundred million dollars, and they said, we're going to wait until it's worth billions. And leading up to that, literally days before, I was with Vivian after this conversation, this friend of mine, his name's Dane, said, you're thinking too small. I told her, you know, my greatest fear right now is getting stuck and not evolving. And I felt as though, you know, when you work with a certain level of person.

And you serve them, in other words, like if you've got a consulting or a business coaching that you're doing gay, you can elevate them to a certain level and you can help them see a larger version of themselves. And then they're going to go to whatever their next level may be. But then when you're working with someone who's super expansive and they've got a strong emotional vocabulary and, and they've been successful, they've got courage, they've got confidence, they've got clarity, they can get to another level. And what I was fearful of is.

You know, am I good enough? Am I worthy of working with the next level person? And where are they going to come from? You know, it was like some little voice of a younger man, and I could hear myself giving myself my own advice, but I was still stuck in a small place of fear. And I. And I in. And I can't tell you. I know exactly what it is that that's part of the thing is like, you know, you can't stare at your own belly button and give yourself a diagnosis. I'm too close to this to even know what the hell I'm afraid of. I just know I felt that pang of, am I good enough? Am I ready? Do I have enough to offer? And.

I also have this desire to play at a different level and have bigger conversations with people who are more successful than I am, because I found that when I push myself in a constrained place, that's unknown. Magic always happens. And. But, you know, what got you here doesn't get you there. And then I started getting afraid of, well, why do I want that? And why is it important?

And am I, you know, is that a healthy want?

So those are the first things that pop into my head. So thanks for listening.

Yeah, yeah, well, for sure. And so it's. It's sounds like a fear that you recognize, but you haven't been able to quite put a name to yet. It's. It still lives in the realm of the unknown for you.

Yeah, it's some Old childhood crap is, is my guess. And then maybe a sense of guilt because, you know, I have the best year of my life, probably the, one of the most profitable years. I mean, it's just been non stop greatness.

You know, I had a, I'll tell you this brief story as an example, but I had a guy who I've known for 12 years, he's been a long time client bumped into him and he said, great news, I'm finally selling my business of 15 years. And I'm like, great, what are you going to do next? And he goes, I don't know. But I know myself well enough that I need to do get set up and do the next thing even before the deal's done. I go, great, that's a good excuse for us to get together. And we had a little brainstorm session and we came up with some ideas. Then we did our usual three day workshop, walked out with a brand new business we literally invented from scratch. I introduced him to a guy I knew who worked for a pretty big firm, but it was time for him to leave and he made an introduction to a firm and they closed a $35 million deal just weeks after it. So we built this amazing business together in three days, a pitch, the offer and boom, he goes out and it was like, wow, what a win, right? And it's not about the money. It was the transformation because the look on his face. I watched him as he was doing the wire transfer with his buyer of the previous company on top of this. It was like what? It was pretty miraculous. And it was like, wow. It was a big deal.

So there have been wins, not quite like that, but very similar throughout the year where we're just playing improv and inventing cool things that are successful.

And so what strikes me about all this is you're right in the middle of what I call an upper limit problem. You've had this fabulous year, as I have, and when you're having that kind of fabulous year, you need to really pay attention around the edges for those old fears that will start coming up. Am I worthwhile? Do I deserve it? That's probably the biggest one, the one in the big leap. I call the fear of feeling fundamentally flawed in some way, that there's some kind of thing, I'm not good looking enough, I'm the wrong skin color, I don't have a high enough iq, I'm crazy and people don't know it, you know, whatever, all of the above and.

Or they're talking, they're talking about Me behind my back. I know they know I'm crazy.

Yeah, yeah. So all of those things come up again to be welcomed and purified and accepted and loved. And so you know my healing algorithm, F A C, F A C T. The F stands for first facing, you know, like just being willing to face and feel that old fear down there. And then the A stands for accepting and accepting it, you know, just. Oh, that's part of me. Yeah. Wow. Welcome. What can I learn from you? Wow. You know, like John Muir, when the 1906 earthquake hit, he was in a cave camping in the Sierras. And in his notebook he said there was a great rumbling in the earth. And I ran out to find out what I could learn, you know. And so when you feel that rumbling down in there, run toward it, you know, what can I learn from this? Ah, breathing with it. Fear is excitement without the breath. Just breathing with it and feeling it and savoring it. That's the move that opens you up and gets you into that universal state of creative flow that's down there. It's right. It's the next floor beneath fear.

Yeah. You know how the Romans used to have streams running through their houses so they could go down and freshen up down in the basement? Well, you've got this huge stream of creative energy running through you that's, that's lay backable into, you know, you just lay back into it and let it take you where it takes you. You're one of the most creative guys I've ever run into. You know, you just bristle with creativity.

And that's why it's so important for you to give yourself plenty of rest time every time you have a big win rather than plunging directly into the next one. You know, like even as, you know, like Henry Ford, he's my great example. When the first Model T rolled off the assembly line, good old Henry pulled out his stopwatch and clicked it and gave everybody 60 seconds to celebrate and then click back to work again.

That sums up the industrial age for you. Yeah, let's modify that a little bit. Let's take a few moments to stretch out into ourselves and celebrate when we have a big win and ah, give ourselves a little rest time. Katie, Katie pointed that out to me when we first got together that I would have some great thing happen and I would take about two seconds to say, oh, that's great. And then I'd get right back into whatever I was doing again. And so with her assistance, I've become much better at savoring and Celebrating these kinds of things. So I don't charge right into the next one before because it's a, you know, each, each moment of celebration is its own energy experience. There's a beginning to it, a middle to it, and an into it and to give it its due. To really celebrate your October, you know. Yeah. You know, before we got on the air today, I was telling you that we have one of the greatest months of our whole life, as you asked every. Every which way. And so it's always no matter where you are, it's a challenge to integrate that and let that through and. Or if you were on the other end of things, you know, somebody out there had a bummer month the likes of which they've never had before. But it's the same process because you have to, ah, open up and savor it and celebrate it and be with it wherever you are in the process.

Well, and. And as I listen to you, I got to make sure I keep it, keep you on track to give us the C and facing. But I realized one of my little fears. I wrote down a few more fears, and then I have another example. But it's like, will this go away? Is this replicable? And I know I've talked to a lot of people who are like successful business owners who are like, yeah, maybe it was luck. I don't know if I could ever replicate this again because so many lucky things happen, so many circumstantial things. And the chances of that replicating itself, of the market being the way it was when this happened, or the meeting or connection I made, or the fact that I got a crazy discount and access to some impossible thing, what are the chances? Right? It was sort of like all these things line up and it was like 10 miracles in a row.

And then there's the guilt that can go along with that as well. So, yeah, that's.

That's part of the upper limit problem. That little mosquito bite of guilt when you're cruising along, you know.

Ow.

Yeah. I grew up in Florida. I know. Mosquitoes.

Yeah. Minnesota boy. Here, State bird. I got it, I got it. Well, what is the C in facing? So we got face and feel that old fear. There's accepting or then there's choosing.

Okay, Choosing the moment of choice. How do I want it to be? I. I accept. And I faced how it was. Now how I want it to be. That's choosing. And then the T is taking action. That's the completion of an energy experience, even if the action only takes 10 seconds, you know, like I. I remember the moment I hatched an idea that I later sold for a little over $10 million. And you know what? Within a minute or so of framing the idea in my head, I made a phone call and described it to a colleague of mine and put it into action. And then we came up with an action step. He thought it was such a good idea that we put it into another action step. And so each moment of inspiration or perspiration is its own energy experience that you have to be with it through the birth of it, through the nurturing of it, and then through the expression of it to completion.

Yeah. What popped up for me is, you know, after the. How do I want it to be? It's like, well, what if I think I want that? But as soon as I have it, I realize it's not what I wanted at all. It's like a complex pain in the ass that has more management involved. And it's got a long tail, meaning if I make the commitment, I might be stuck with it for years.

So that certainly shows up as you're going through this. I'm thinking of another example. So are you ready for another. Another fear that I just realized that popped up. Okay. And it's comparing, and I'll give you two. Two examples that show up for me. So.

I just came back from a Joe Polish event. Genius Network had its annual event. And while I was sitting there.

I.

Was watching this audience. He had like 300 people in the room. And they're really extraordinary people. And for a while I was like, oh, man, I miss being the guy on stage. You know, I. I did events for a long time until it almost killed me. And I always love doing events. I don't like marketing them, filling them, dealing with the logistics or the risks because it's so risky and there's so many things that can break and blow up. And it seems like every time leading up to it, it'll be like, this is the last effing event I'll ever do. This sucks. And then while you're there, the love and the. And the connections and the transformations, you see, and just meet these people who walk up and you can tell it's not BS or like, this was life changing for me. Here's what happened. Or I just met the person. Or I was at your last event and I married someone I met at your event or whatever it is, you know, something amazing.

And.

And now I have people walk up. You know, I had this happen where a guy, 15 years ago, he's in One of my courses, and now he's a multimillionaire. And he says, I got my start from you.

And that, you know, I never would have expected that, but it was, it was awesome. So it. One was the Joe thing. So it's. I don't know if it's comparing. It wasn't envy exactly, but it was like, I'm missing out. And then the second one was I've been visiting with a guy named Roy H. Williams, who created the Wizard Academy in, In any wrote wizard of Ads. And I've been meeting with him every quarter. I go down for a coaching session. And he's changed my brain positively. But one of the things he does really well is he's a performer, he's an orator, he knows poetry, and he understands conservation of words. And I admire his brain so much. And I walk away feeling so like I realized that's not my brain. I'll never be as good at him, at what he's done. But it's like, you know when you watch someone performing on stage playing guitar, and it's like, good God, that's what 20 years of practice gets you. And I mean, I, I don't have that level of discipline, but I admire the skill. And again, it's not exactly envy, but it goes beyond appreciation, you know, where it's sort of like I, I, I think I, I.

What's the word? When you want something, someone has, it's a, it's a breaking a 10 commandment.

Oh, thou shalt not covet.

Covet. Yeah, Covet. Yeah. And I don't know if it's covetous exactly. It's, but it, it's, it's not as kind as admiration. It's more of a sense of missing out, of being left behind, of, you know, like, not good enough. It's that I can't even fully articulate it, but what the hell is that? That little demon.

Yeah. Well, it's, it's based on fear.

Yeah.

And so if you look underneath that for what am I really afraid of? You mentioned a couple of things I'm afraid of. Missing out. I'm afraid of.

Yeah, it's. I see a person expressing their full potential and wow, wouldn't that be great to have that skill? And so one of the trip ups in your particular makeup is that you have the ability to accomplish lots and lots of things in lots and lots of areas. That's how you come wired from the factory. The problem that you start hitting when you're in your 50s is that when you're in your 50s, you start seeing the long shadows and you start seeing, oh, wow, okay, maybe if I take the right pills, I can squeeze another 40 or 50 years out of this thing. But I still, I. I see the shadows.

Yeah.

You know, I remember being stunned one day I was listening to an interview with the Dalai Lama as I was in my car way back a long time ago. And he was only 58 at the time. He's a little older than I am. I think he's in his 80s now, but he was. He said he was only 58, but he was already beginning to plan for the end of his life. And I remember thinking, you know, I was like 50 at the time because I think he's eight years older than I am. And I remember thinking, wow, he's already thinking about that. Of course, he has a big legacy operation going. But right. You know, you're at a stage of life where you're coming up on things happening that show you that your body is aging and that. I remember having this terrible conversation with a friend of mine when I was around 50 or 52, something like that. He's a MD actually, down in your part of the world in, In San Diego. And I was describing this thing that was happening with me, and he said, well, you're at an age when bodies begin to fall apart.

And I said, what?

And so, but if you, you know, if you think about that a little bit, that also contributes to that fear of missing out, because you're going to miss out on a lot.

You're going to miss out on billions of years of future evolution. You're kind of. You're going to miss out on probably the end of our species, you know, because the dinosaurs were around 135 million years before the last one keeled over and died.

Yeah.

You know, and they thought they had it made with a tiny brain and a big body, but that did not work. Now here we got big brains and small bodies, but still, we may come to the end of our usefulness on this planet. We just have to accept that possibility. I think because of the way we are as human beings. We think of ourselves as omniscient, omnipotent, that, that we, we start thinking of ourselves.

More as a shaper of reality than as a pure experiencer of reality. And, you know, that's justifiable to a certain extent because there are things you can shape. But on the other hand, what I've found, master plan unfolds when I begin to stay out of any kind of Future thinking or past thinking and put my attention on what is the aspect of my genius that I need to open up to this moment. So what is the aspect of your genius, Mike, that you need to open up to this moment?

I think when here's what showed up right away is I haven't been afraid of my ability to deliver in years.

Where I'll walk into a total unknown and I just intuitively know exactly what to do, what questions to ask, and I can't think of a failure that I've had a professional failure in a long time because I've taken the time to build a structure like a plan that works. And I've actually gotten really good at managing.

A team. And for a long time I had a story that I said, which is, I'm a terrible manager. I'm not a good operator, but man, I've got a great team right now that's really good at getting stuff done.

So pause there for a moment before you go further. Okay. Let's take a moment and celebrate that. Wow. I created and nurtured and put together a fantastic team. Worth celebrating. Worth a pause to celebrate.

Yeah. And so that's a beautiful thing. And yet you feel that there are aspects of your genius that haven't been tapped yet. Yes. Yeah. And you don't know if you can pull it off.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, congratulations, because that's what you're supposed to do is create bigger and bigger arenas until you're not sure you can do it. You know, like when the Rolling Stones came out of the club for the first time and had to play even in a gymnasium instead of a hundred person club, they were terrified, you know, and I'm sure they had it again when they went from playing an arena to playing a stadium. Right?

Yeah. And so you're right on time. You're feeling a good fear right now. Celebrate that fear. It's taking you to a place of being able to expand yourself to the point where you can go into these new things. Not invincible, but just open to learning. You know, the one thing is great about you is you're so open to learning. And you're also quick to execution. You know, that's a variable that I prize highly, is, you know, somebody takes a suggestion and puts it immediately into work. You know, I've referenced Michael Dell as my all time king of that. He would just see something and immediately down through the whole company, you know. God, I love that. Yeah.

Quick start, quick start.

Yeah. And I think on. Thank you for that. I will accept that gift. So I'm wondering if I could turn the tables a little bit and ask you a question about your next big leap, because I. Here's. So we have.

Like, what motivates you is very different than it did 10 or 15 years ago. And I'm curious what you're motivated by right now and where your blue ocean potential is, because I'll add one other thing. Like what, what I see that turns you on is obviously Katie and your cats and where you live and the control you have in your life. And you love to coach. You love the wins you receive, whether they're financial.

You've. You've stayed relevant and important and valuable for decades and decades. And you had said one of the things besides the big financial win you had, you got big royalty checks. So, you know, the, the, the fact that the big leap continues to be this shower of goodness, financial goodness and abundance.

But what's, what do you believe your next big leap is? Or what do you ache for? Where have you, where are you finding your own limitations that you don't see or you can't solve? That's a lot of stuff I asked, but gives you some variable, variable choices.

Yes. Well.

For a long, as long as I can remember, I awaken every day excited to be here and ready to do whatever I want to be doing that day. And, you know, really, I haven't had to work for money in probably three decades, so. And I don't mind making plenty of money, even though I, I, you know, give a lot of it now to my foundation and things like that. I'm totally fine with being well paid and even wildly overpaid for my skills that I bring to life. So. But to me, it's all about can I learn a little bit more today about how to express my genius? Can I get a little more inspired today? It's all about that thing I put in the big le about expanding every day. My commitment is to expand my genius every day so that I experience more abundance and success and contribution to other people. To me, the best thing about life is doing what I love to do all day and doing something that really appears to help people. And I mean, if you can think of a better life than that, call me collect. I want to know about it. But since I've been doing that for decades now, I really haven't had a dull moment or even a I. I remember feeling depressed for the last time in 1974, and I took notes on it at the time because I didn't want to ever feel that again. And so I appear to have handled it at a time because it hasn't ever appeared again. You know, I feel sad about things, from, sad to say from time to time, but not the kind of thing that gets me slumped over in a chair or anything. So I think my next big leap, frankly is like the Dalai Lama says, how to be with death. You know, how to be with, you know, I'm 77 now and you know, I lead a good healthy life and everything, but also I'm, you know, absent minded from time to time and do things like talk on my cell phone when I ought to be paying attention to something else and all those little foibles that human beings get up to these days. And so anyway, that's, that's one for me that I'm thinking about quite a bit is how do I want to be with my declining powers when they, and if they should come my way. One big thing that's on my mind right now because of that, I think that's bringing all that up is my brother has.

Parkinson's and sometimes Parkinson's dementia. And being with him in that has certainly, you know, like that old saying, ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for you. So seeing my brother go through this, I keep thinking, wow, how do I want to be when I'm 85? You know, and so that's been a big reflection point. And all I keep coming up with that is just keep doing what you love to do. You know, that's, that's, to me the solution to things, life is do more of what you love to do and do less of what you don't like to do.

Yeah.

And keep it simple. And I've been on that mission now for more than half my life. And so by now it kind of comes second nature to me to always be gravitatory, gravitating toward the new, the unfamiliar, the unknown. What can I learn today? Kind of mindset. And I always think that mindset is really mislabeled. It should be really heart set because it really comes from down deeper in your body. Your mindset doesn't just come from here. You have to factor in that gigantic 12 inch journey from your head down to your heart. That's the longest one that people take. Wow.

Yeah, I've never heard you say that before. That is really solid, man. That's a writer.

Maybe we ought to leave it. Yeah, write her down. Or well, maybe you ought to leave it with that giant 18 pound pearl of wisdom then.

And, well, and, and as I, As I listened to everything you said.

You.

Know, I.

I experienced sadness as you were saying that, because I felt this feeling of being left behind, because one of the things, you know, I've known you now, it's, believe it or not, going on 20 years when I first met you, is very close to that. And.

And, you know, one of the things that I realized when you said, you know, can I learn more today about how to express my genius and how can I expand my genius every day? I would suspect that one of the things that kind of has brought us together is, and this is what that guy who told me that I was playing too small said is. He said, you know, he stopped me and said, do you know how beautiful you were? And I was like, wow, that's kind of a weird non sequitur. I knew what he meant, but he said, you've been pulling people up and giving hearts a voice for your whole career. It's one of the things I admire about you. And when I think about our partnership over the years, one of the things that I've always enjoyed doing is finding ways to share Gay Hendrix. You know, it's like how to get your genius out there and be an amplifier with you. And when you think about some of the things that we've done together, we've created together, they've. They've sort of revolved around that.

So I don't know if you've got anything to say, but it made me just realize how much I enjoy our partnership and when we collaborate together.

Yeah, well, when collaboration works, it works great. And I love collaborating with you, so I appreciate you as a collaboration partner. I've been blessed to have some magnificent collaborators in my life. I wouldn't be here without them. And so all glory to them. But thank you. I really appreciate that. And I. I look forward to whatever the next thing is we invent. Who knows what it's going to be? Yes. This didn't even exist until you brought up the idea. So what's next? Well, I love you a lot and I appreciate you a lot, and I want you to just dip endlessly into that vast creative ocean of intelligence and let, come what may.

Oh, well, thank you. And I'll leave everyone this message, which is reach out to Gay and I @big leap podcast.com, if you'd love to share. We'd love to hear. Or just leave it in one of your comments on the podcast, of course, with a five star review. But what's your next Big Leap? Share that in there because Gay and I'll read them. And we always love reading your feedback. So thank you once again for joining us for this episode. And I've been looking forward to doing something like this. And I know I shared it with you not long ago, Gabe, but our most popular episode has been your big leap. You know, what's your big leap? So that seemed like this is a perfect time to do one of these. I think we had a plan on doing one of these every six or 12 months or so. So thanks a ton.

Thank you.

Sat.