How to Win Back Lost Clients, Beat Burnout, Reinvent Yourself, and Become Irresistable

Hello and welcome to the Better Life Better Business podcast, where we have conversations to help you live a better life and build a better business. I'm your host Shawn Ellis, founder of The Speakers Group, and as always, we've got some great advice coming your way with today's special guest expert. Today's episode is especially relevant if you're in sales, but even if the word sales is not officially in your title, I'm betting you'll find something valuable here because we're all selling in one way or another, aren't we? If you're a leader, you're selling your vision to your people. If you're a parent, you're selling your kids on the value of doing homework or cleaning their room. If you're in a position of influence, you're selling. And today's guest can help you do it even better. Jon Levesay has been called the Pitch Whisperer by Inc. magazine, and he spent 20 years in sales himself, but I'll let him tell you about that. The main thing is, if you want to learn how to make your pitch in a more compelling way, if you wanna go from invisible to irresistible, then Jon can help. He's an expert in the art of using stories to pull people in rather than having to use information to push your message out. I've loved getting to know Jon and I know you're gonna love him too. So as always, grab a pen and some paper so you can take notes, unless you're driving of course. Take a breath and be on the lookout for that one golden nugget that could transform your life or business today. Let's go. Hey, John, welcome to Better Life, Better Business. Thank you for being here today. I'm so excited to get some of your insights and your expertise.

John, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, I feel like you are the storytelling guy, so I feel like it's only right starting out that I ask you to share a little bit of your story. I've given our listeners kind of a brief overview and introduction, some highlights from your bio, but I'd love to turn it over to you to start and just kind of hear a little bit about your story of how where you started and kind of what got you to where we are today.

Well, it first started when I was hired to sell mainframe multimillion-dollar computers in Silicon Valley in the '80s, back when Apple was starting, and you could be in your 20s and have some credibility because everybody was new and young. And I learned how to take complex topics like You need more disk drive space to handle all of everything. And I thought to myself, what can I use that people could understand that in a way that would make sense? And I said, you know, it's kind of like your wife's closet, right? She never has enough room for all the clothes and the shoes. And it gets all jammed in. And that's what's happening to your data. And people would laugh. And they would get a little sense of, oh, OK, that's why we need more disk drives. So I started using storytelling as a skill to sell these multimillion-dollar pieces of equipment, and I realized, ah, I think I'm on to something here, as opposed to just talking about features and benefits. And that really was the start of my selling career. And then from there, I was transferred down to Southern California and got a job working at an advertising agency, which is all about storytelling. Advertising is all about persuasion and pulling people in in 30 seconds on a TV spot. And it was positioning movies to be viewed on videos even before DVDs existed. And I loved doing that, Shawn, because sometimes the movie wouldn't be successful theatrically and we could reposition the commercial and make it seem like a comedy when it wasn't or vice versa and learn what worked and didn't work that would get someone to want to rent the video and then eventually buy it. And I— so I did that for a while and then I transitioned from that into selling advertising for Conde Nast. And it seemed like those roles were completely separate. But the irony about this was they would say, "You know, there's this thing coming out with a website that we're going to have to have our own website for the magazine. Our advertisers are going to have websites. Does anybody know anything about web computers?" And I raised my hand, right? Yes, I do. And then they said, you know, we're gonna not just have models on the COVID of the fashion magazine now. We're gonna start put celebrities on the covers, and people are gonna start asking celebrities about what they're wearing on the red carpet. Does anyone have any entertainment background? And I'd raise my hand again. So I think the big lesson was you think these experiences, these stories, if you will, will never connect. And for me, the computers and the entertainment world And now the magazine media sales world, all of it just continues to dovetail into doing that. And I was successful and happy selling advertising for big brands like Lexus and Guess to get them to advertise in W, which is a big luxury fashion magazine. And then back in 2008, the needle kind of scraped against the record. You know that sound?

I do.

And I got disrupted. And the economy kind of tanked and luxury in particular was hit hard. And they said, you know, we're going to have to lay you and all the other outside offices— I was living in LA— off. And I had to reinvent myself. And that was a big, ah, what am I going to— I'm going to have to learn how to sell digital ads. And I realized, you know, it's kind of like what happened in the movie industry when there were silent movie stars. And some of them learned to become talkies and some didn't. And I had to make that transition and figure out if I was going to learn how to learn to sell and speak digital. It was not easy, but I did it and got a job at the Daily Beast. And I had to take a big pay cut and figure out something new. And after a couple of years, I got some traction and got some of my advertisers from Conde Nast to come on board. Then ironically, Condé Nast called me and said, "Hey, we have a new editor, we have a website now, and the people that we've had replace you haven't worked out, and we're wondering if you'd come back." But the big aha for me there was, had I not learned how to sell digital, I wouldn't even have been qualified to come back and do my old job again because you had to sell print and digital. So I did, and then the life lesson for me there was I'm not going to have any fear when I go back. Because I'd sort of always lived with the fear of, "Oh, if I don't make my quota, I'm going to be laid off," or, "The magazine industry print is dying. Is the magazine going to close?" But this time I said, "If I come back, I'm not going to have one day of fear because I've already lived through it. I've been laid off and I figured out how to survive and thrive." So with that attitude, I was able to actually win Salesperson of the Year, not just for the magazine, but for the entire company of 400 salespeople. That is the big journey for me of no matter what's happening to us on the outside, whether we're being laid off or winning an award, we're still the same person. That's what I love about being a keynote speaker now is really getting that message out to people. That's a little bit of my story.

Wow. Thanks for sharing that. There's so many interesting layers to that and I want to get into some of them, but it's just the one thing that jumps out to me as you share all that is just resilience, just going from one direction to another, just never knowing exactly where the curves in the road are going to be, but adapting to, to each one. What— well, let me back up. I know our audience, we have a, you know, diverse audience. Some, some people are in sales, some are sales leaders or business leaders in other departments, entrepreneurs and business professionals. So we'll kind of get something for everybody here, but I want to talk some, talk some sales stuff in a little bit. But on a Just on a broader note, I think everyone can relate to what you talked about, being disrupted and having to adapt. And I think being in sales for as long as you've been, you've seen— obviously you started with mainframe computers to technology being what it is now. I mean, that's just a great picture of how things change right there. How mentally, how did you— how were you so resilient? How did you manage? You talked a little bit about the fear aspect, but could you just share a little bit more about the mindset as far as how you adapted through the years?

Sure. The way to look at life— like when I was laid off in 2008, a lot of my friends said, "Oh, it's in October. Just take the rest of the year off. Figure out what you're going to do." And I thought, "Mm, that doesn't feel right for me." Maybe it's right for other people, but it wasn't for me. And I've just been someone who's always been curious about life. So I thought, "You know what? I'm going to have to figure out how to learn How to sell digital. And I think a lot of it has to do with always going above and beyond what other people do in order to be successful because of the why. Why do you want to do it? And for me, in the case of getting that job at the Daily Beast, the website, I had to overcome a lot of objections which were, you know, there's other people that are younger than you are, they will work for less money than you want. And they have experience. So that's a lot of nos. So I realized I had to get in front of them. And I said to them, "You know, I'm going to be in New York over the holidays. Why don't I just come in and meet you face to face, and I could tell you some of my ideas of how I could potentially get Lexus to advertise on the website?" And they had nothing to lose. And of course, I had to pay for my own flight and hotel using some air miles to get to New York during the holidays. It was the day after their Christmas party. Their streamers were still on the lobby floor, and people were a little hungover. But I got my foot in the door, and that was the extra that got them to know me and get me on the consideration list. And they ended up hiring a recruiting firm. And I kept saying, you know, if you hire me, you don't have to pay that recruiting fee. So the resilience is not taking the first no. And I think for me, it's never taking rejection personally throughout my entire career is the secret to being resilient.

Wow, that's a good one right there because I work in sales and have done sales for years, and I think anyone in sales, it's easier said than done, I guess I would say that, to not take it personally because it is easy to go up and down. You're as happy as your last sales call, you might say, whether it was up or down. Anything practical in terms of how you would talk to yourself to to remind yourself not to take that personally?

Absolutely. Well, you sort of referred to it a little bit there. It's, it's that self-esteem roller coaster we can get on as salespeople. I only feel good if my numbers are up, and I feel bad if my numbers are down. And it's a very up and down, sometimes hour by hour feeling. And for me, I realized that the secret to not taking rejection personally is to never reject myself. So in other words, if I would go talk to Lexus and I'd say, "Hey, would you like to advertise with W?" and they're like, "Eh, I think we're going to be in Vogue or Vanity Fair," then my self-talk would sometimes sound like this: "Wow, maybe those other magazines are better than mine," or "Oh, I bet another salesperson could have gotten them to say yes." And I'm like, what am I doing? I'm rejecting me and I'm rejecting my product. And so I don't have to agree with the no or the rejection. I have to just say, alright, it's no for now, and maybe it's not the perfect fit, but there are going to be other models coming out from Lexus that will be the perfect fit. And that is the key of not taking rejection personally, is to never reject yourself. And you just say, aha, I'm still who I am, what I have to offer is valuable, people want it, and they were willing to pay for it. If I can just get into the right room with the right message, I'm going to get a yes.

That is— that's so good. And I was going to ask you, one of my other questions was going to be how you sustained in sales for such a long career, uh, just because I know how difficult sales can be and burnout and all those issues. I'm guessing that right there had to be a big part of that, just being able to, to recover in that way.

It was, uh, because there's always something else coming up next, right? If you, if you zoom out and get off that self-esteem roller coaster— and for me, it's a bigger zoom out. It's who I am is bigger than what I do for a living. So once I don't look for that to be my identity, then it's— now again, it's not always easy, as you said. Like when you get laid off, you're like, whoa, I am taking this personally. But a great book is about Four Agreements, right? It's don't take things personally. And then I love helping salespeople when I give keynote talks learn how to not take rejection personally. And once you do that, it prevents the burnout. And when I've spoken to Land Rover and Jaguar, you know, there's a lot of rejection in selling even luxury cars. And I would say to them, you know, after you get a no, call a client that bought a car from you recently. It's good customer service. They might give you a referral. But your intention is just to check in to see how they're doing as a person. Are they enjoying the car? Any questions they have? And remember that feeling of how happy they were and how happy you were when they bought from you. And that's how you hit the reset button, Shawn, before the next person walks into the dealership or before you pick up the phone to talk to the next person.

That's, that's really good. Such a practical tip. Like you said, it's great customer service, but it does, it resets you mentally. That's amazing. That's awesome.

Mm-hmm.

What, uh, during, during your career, you mentioned, uh, being recognized as Salesperson of the Year. I was going to ask you about some of the accomplishments that stuck out to you during the time. That one's got to be a big one. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Yes. Well, it happened that Guess Jeans had been an advertiser in W magazine for years and years. And when I left the company, the relationship that I had built up with them over those years also went with it. And unfortunately, they brought in a new editor. CEO of Guess Jeans was not happy with the direction that new editor was taking the magazine. He actually put Kim Kardashian on the COVID of W and Paul Marciano, the CEO of Guess, thought that was too radical. Of course, now looking back, that was just slightly ahead of its time. So they lost the Guess account when I was gone. And then when they rehired me, one of the goals was, can you get the Guess account back? And guess what? They're really mad at the new editor. He was friends with the old editor and the old editor got let go and that's part of the reason he was just looking for any excuse to pull the ads because he didn't like the new editor. Of course, the new editor is mad that he pulled the ads, and so there's a total blockage in communication. Can you come in and fix that, please? So I said, wow, all right, how am I going to win back the Guess account? And I realized that I had to start somewhere. So I— the key was, how am I going to restore and rebuild a relationship? And I started working with the VP of sales who'd been a friend of mine for years saying, "What are we going to do to get them in the same room?" And I said, "What if I could get the editor of W Magazine to have a meeting with Paul Marciano that had nothing to do with advertising but to do with what Paul cares about, which is he creates the ads?" And so he cares about photographers, he cares about models, and of course as the editor of W Magazine, he's got his pulse on the latest photographers and models that he features in the magazine. And that would be their topic of conversation. Conversation. Nothing to do with advertising or selling, but I think they would— if they could just get in the same room, that would be an interesting conversation. So it took a little bit of maneuvering and ego massaging to make that happen, but he agreed to talk to him on a Sunday. So I had to convince the editor to fly in from New York on his weekend to have that meeting, and they connected as creative people. And once that started, He then agreed to run a few amount of ads back in W Magazine. So I had my foot in the door again. So then I said, well, how am I going to get them back to the level of advertising and revenue where they were? And I said to the client at Guess, what if— and Shawn and I find the best solutions come with asking that question, what if— I said, you know, what if we did a joint celebration? Your 30th anniversary is coinciding with W Magazine's 40th anniversary. And I've noticed that Some of the models that have been guest models, like Drew Barrymore, have also been on the COVID of W Magazine. And we could do an event where we would have Drew's photo as a guest model and her cover of— on the W Magazine next to each other and do multiple versions of that and get all kinds of celebrities to come and press around that, and it would be really beneficial to have that joint promotion as opposed to each of us doing our own celebration. And they loved it and they said, "Well, okay, we're gonna create a special magazine, little mini insert supplement of 30 pages. Every year is a different Guess model, polybag, shrink-wrapped to the W 40th anniversary to tie into that event." And that was exclusive advertising. That was exclusive PR. And that's what won the Guess account back in a big way. And that's what allowed me to win Salesperson of the Year for the whole company.

Wow, that's, that's brilliant. I would say that recognition is, is well earned based on the creativity and the boldness that it took, uh, to put that together. And I know that now part of what you do— companies hire you and bring you in to help them bring back these lost clients. I know you've called yourself a bit of a cold case detective as far as bringing these, uh, these lost clients back to life. What are some of the practical lessons that came out of that that somebody who's listening might be able to replicate? Because I know that's such a big thing. If you've, you know, you've got— there's the saying that 20% of your clients create 80% of your revenue. So if you lose one of those big clients, I mean, that can be a big deal and represents a huge opportunity if you can bring them back. So what are some of the practical lessons you can share out of that?

Well, first, I think the big lesson about winning a client back is you got to make sure you want them back, right? And if it represents a lot of revenue, instead of having to go get 10 new clients, you could get this one back, then it's definitely worth the strategy and the effort. And it all starts with having collaborative conversations and getting everybody on the same page and finding your inside brand ambassador, I call it. Your inside cheerleader who wants to believe that this could be saved. When I've worked with another company that's an architecture firm, they had lost a client about a year ago and they got invited back to come and to explore the possibility of working together. And I said, well, what is your thought? Well, we're going to go in and present some research of what's been going on in the marketplace since we've worked with them. And I said, they don't want to hear that. They want to hear that you own the problem, you have a strategy in place that the problem would never happen again. It's about restoring and rebuilding the trust first in order to get them possibly consider hiring you again. So in that particular case, you know, the people that had made the mistake weren't even at Gensler, the architecture firm, anymore. But the new people had to own the behavior of the previous team. So you literally first have to check your ego at the door, right? Even though I didn't personally cause the mistake to happen, we as a company take responsibility for it. We understand that you didn't feel like you were being listened to during the problem., and we're going to make sure that never happens again, and here's what we're going to do to earn a place back on your thing with an idea that is so what I call irresistible, like the Guess example, that it makes you say, "Got it." But it's first restoring and rebuilding the relationship before you go in and pitch anything.

Yeah, that's such an important thing and easy to skip over that. I thought that was brilliant what you did, setting up that meeting with Guess that had nothing to do with advertising.— as opposed to jumping right back in and asking for the sale again.

Exactly. It's coming up with some creative concept of providing value, and believe me, research is not considered that. It's more an emotional thing, and that's the whole value of storytelling is it tugs at our heartstrings, and then you can get people to open their purse strings. But there has to be an emotional pull that makes people want to even listen to what you have to say. 90% of the time, people leave is they just didn't feel that you listened to them. And if you don't feel like somebody listened to, I'm not feeling comfortable, I'm concerned, I, you know, don't worry, it's gonna be fine. And of course the deadline doesn't get made. And then of course, I told you so, I'm pulling out because you made me look bad, right? You didn't have my back, or at least I didn't feel like you did. So letting people vent and putting your empathy hat on, that's what I call it, What's it feel like to be in their shoes instead of you just talking about how you felt? That's the key to winning back a client.

Very good. Well, so let's use that to just transition and talk, talk more sales then. You've shared, shared a couple strategies there. And again, I know you speak to sales forces now and you help sales professionals become revenue rock stars. So one of the great things obviously is you've been in their shoes. So when you speak to a sales force, you're not just sharing theories, but they know, okay, here's, here's Here's a guy who's actually— he's lived this. He knows what this is all about. What are some of the other big lessons or keys to success that you share with Salesforce? Obviously, we don't have a full session for you to do your whole keynote, but maybe just give us some hints or some clues about things we can do.

Sure. I think one of the big tips is really getting comfortable with silence. The old way of selling is whoever speaks after you ask a quote closing question loses. And people can pick that up, Shawn Ellis. You know, it's like, "Oh God, here we go, the silence game." So if you ask somebody, "Do you want to buy the house? Do you want to buy the car? Do you want to buy whatever, right? Our services as a design firm?" The secret is, "I'm patient and calm." If you say that to yourself 3 times while you're waiting for that person to say yes or no, as opposed to the negative self-talk, "Oh my God, I need this commission," then you get uncomfortable with the silence and you blurt out, "Well, if we throw this in, would you buy it?" You, you miss this, the opportunity for them to say yes or no. But if you are patient and calm— so the way to get comfortable with the silence in the room is to get comfortable with the silence in your head. And real estate agents are selling twice as many homes as they were without doing anything else but just giving themselves an extra 5 or 10 seconds of silence where the person feels the energy that you're letting them decide without playing the silence, whoever speaks first game. Does that make sense?

It does. And, and I love that being able to say to yourself, I'm patient and calm, telling, telling us how to, how to fill that silence as opposed to, you said, just letting it sit there in this uncomfortable sort of way. So you're actually strengthening yourself or empowering yourself as you do that.

Yeah, that's one of the big, uh, tools of separating yourself. And of course the other one is storytelling. That's the big secret sauce. The old way of selling is to push your message out. Here's our features. Maybe if you're lucky, I'll talk about the benefits. One sales presentation just sounds like another. We've all heard it before and it's boring and it's not memorable. If you become a storyteller— in fact, Plato said, "Storytellers rule the world," and it's just as true today as it was then. Stories, we go, "Oh, you're going to tell me a story. I'm not being asked to analyze something." Then we relax. Maybe this will be interesting, and, "Oh, God, if it's entertaining on top of it, I'm really in." Right? Then we can process the information that way, and people are going to remember your stories much more than your numbers. Of course, it all starts with selling yourself through your own story. Can I give you an example?

Yeah, I'd love it.

When I work with Gensler, they have to go in, and they pitch to get a new client just like other architecture firms. It's back to back, just like it was in my days of selling ads. They had rep after rep come, and the same thing is true in many, many different kinds of selling environments. And the team slide comes up, and before working with me, they would say, you know, my name is George, I've been here 10 years, I do X, Y, and Z. And I said, oh, you know, that's boring and not memorable. Now I pull out the stories. What inspired you to become an architect? Well, I used to play with Legos when I was 11 years old, and that's what made me want to become an architect. And now I have a son who's 11, I still play with Legos with him. And I bring that same passion to your job. And now I'm going to introduce you to Susie. Susie is the best person I've ever worked with when it comes to interior design of an airport. Susie goes, you know, before working here at Gensler, I was in the Israeli Army, and I bring that same discipline and focus to making sure your project comes on time and under budget. Well, those are stories. Suddenly those people that are deciding which team they're going to hire know a little bit about those teams. They remember that Lego story or that that person worked at the Israeli Army. And what I also teach them how to do is edify each other before the other one speaks. Talk— why is it before Susie even opens her mouth, this guy's already said, George, that she's the best person he's ever worked with in this particular interior design of an airport? So that's the secret sauce of how storytelling really pulls people in and makes them memorable and ideally irresistible.

That's really good. And I know just from, from years of helping people with their sales meetings, some of the, some of the challenges that I hear people talking about in sales are either, you know, there's, there's more and more competition in, you know, in the marketplace, so how do we stand out with the competition? Or feeling like that they're becoming or they're being seen as a commodity, or how to compete. Do they end up competing on price alone? All these types of challenges, it sounds like storytelling is a way— at least I'm imagining that that's a way to rise above all that, because your story— you are the only one who can have your story. Is that right?

That's exactly right. And, you know, once you start competing on price and being a commodity, or you have to justify your price— you know, Conde Nast always had a premium price associated with their advertising. Gensler has a premium price associated with their design. I really shine in helping people justify their premium price and part of it is coming up with the story and the solution that makes it irresistible because it's so compelling and memorable that people no longer worry about the return on investment because they're so inspired that they gotta have it.

That's good. I'm, you know, I'm imagining some people may hear this and think, yeah, that sounds great, but maybe feel a little bit nervous about telling a story? Like, I'm more comfortable talking about my product. I can talk about the facts and figures and everything that's on the brochure, the PowerPoint slides. Telling a story that sounds a little bit more vulnerable, a little bit scary. Can anyone become a storyteller?

The good news is yes, anyone can become a storyteller, Shawn. I love helping people do that. That's actually one of my big passions in life is to try and help as many people as possible learn how to tell a story There's different storytelling genres. There's stories that you can pull from your life. So let me give you an example.

Sure.

Travel. That's a place that most people can go, okay, how do I take an example of a trip I did and pull it into a story that could make me memorable without necessarily being— feeling scary? So one of my goals was to get a dog sled ride on the glacier in Alaska. I read about that and I said, "Ah, that sounds like an adventure I want to go on." So I booked a trip on a cruise ship to get to Alaska, booked my excursion. We get all the way up to where we're going to do it and the seas are so rough that they can't even pull the ship into shore or even get us on these tender boats to get us to shore. So the whole thing gets canceled. Like, ah! So 5 years later, I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna do it again. So I booked another cruise to Alaska, which I highly recommend anyway. It's incredibly beautiful up there. And they go, oh, that excursion is already booked because, you know, there's 2,000 people on the ship and only, you know, 30 people get to do it. Is there a waiting list? Well, yes. So that day, boom, good news, you made the waiting list. Great. So then I I get on shore, I get in the helicopter, and the helicopter guy goes, "You guys are so lucky. Yesterday it was so foggy, we couldn't land on top of the glacier." And I thought to myself, "Man, you gotta really wanna do this." And of course, taking a helicopter and flying over waterfalls and glaciers and then landing on this glacier, there's 100 dogs out there, there's only 20 people that stay weeks at a time with no internet, all living in these little igloos. They've got an American flag, standing up there. You feel like you're on the moon because you're completely surrounded by ice and mountains. And it was just exhilarating to have these dogs/wolves pull you on a sled, and it was worth every moment of it. So I highly recommend that. So that's an example of a story that's under travel. It's a quest story, and ideally it gives you a sense of who I am, that I have some kind of resilience and persistence persistence in me, but I didn't say I'm someone who doesn't give up. I told a story that showed that, and that's the difference.

That's really good. It makes, makes total sense. Uh, well, good. Well, for, for someone who wants to learn more, because again, I know we're just scratching the surface here, you mentioned speaking. Obviously, for someone who wants to bring you in to speak, uh, we can help with them with that here at The Speakers Group. They can reach out to you personally, your website is johnlivace.com, and we'll make sure that's spelled out here with the podcast episode. When you do go in to speak, let's say if it's an hour, 90 minutes, whatever the presentation may be, for somebody who's listening who plans meetings or knows somebody who plans meetings, what can someone expect when they bring you in for a, let's say, for a keynote presentation? What kinds of things do you, do you cover, and what are some of the takeaways from that type of session?

Well, I like to cover what's the big problem that the audience is facing and how can they get some immediate takeaways to start implementing those solutions. So in certain situations, in the case of Gensler, they didn't have any skills around empathy, which is likability. They didn't prepare enough so they could use some tips and confidence. They didn't have any storytelling skills. So they wanted to have better relationships with their clients, and at the end of that keynote talk they felt like they knew exactly what to take to their team to make sure that they'd be more confident, more focused, and have a new tool in their toolbox to win more sales. So that's an example of how I give people a customized presentation that fits their culture. I learn their buzzwords and acronyms and really do a deep dive into how I can customize my talk so that it's relevant and resonates with them, and they're gonna not just be inspired but actually learn learn some strategies they can start using right away.

Very good, very good. And, and again, for someone who wants to learn more, they can go to your website, johnlivisay.com, or we've got a separate interview where you and I talked in our In the Spotlight series where you talk more about specifically what you do as a speaker. So all those resources are available. But I love what you've shared today. I've been taking notes, notes myself, and I've got a note about not taking rejection personally how to win back clients, first of all, by, by make sure you want to win them back, but then also by taking responsibility and then looking for a way to, to connect, to remember the value of silence and to say, I am patient and calm, and then to look for ways to, to tell stories. So I've got some great stuff here, and hopefully those of you who are listening, hopefully you've got some great notes as well and some, some action items. I encourage you after this session is over to take some time and think about how you can apply this to not just say, well, that was a great, a great podcast, but really look for ways to, to improve your life and business. And again, if you want to reach out to John, johnlivace.com. I also encourage you to listen to John's website if you've enjoyed hearing from him today. He's got amazing guests, or his podcast, I should say. He's got amazing guests on his podcast. It's heard in over 60 countries, called the Successful Pitch Podcast. Where you can hear more and more of these ideas. And John, before we go, you know, the theme of this podcast is the Better Life, Better Business podcast, where we have conversations to help people live a better life and build a better business. And, and I'm honored to sit on this side and, and hear the wisdom and expertise of thought leaders like yourself. But I always like to kind of turn the table. You're always giving advice to others. How do you take care of your your own life or your business. I'll kind of leave that open-ended, but I'm just curious to know kind of what, um, when you're not advising others, what, uh, what you're doing on, on your own side, just to get a little personal before we go here.

Well, I'm always taking my own advice. I don't take rejection personally. Um, and I think the real secret for me is I focus on what I'm grateful for, because for me, Shawn Ellis, when I'm focusing on what I'm grateful for, then I can't feel fear. It's one or the other. Either I'm focused on, I'm grateful for this, I'm grateful for my two King Charles Spaniels that wake me up in the morning, I'm grateful for my health, I'm grateful for the opportunity to know someone like you, I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak, I'm grateful for the feedback I get after I speak, and I focus on all of that, and then all the fear stuff really dies down.. And I think if we all focus on what we're grateful for, it's a secret sauce of letting go of fear, as opposed to having the fear thoughts come in and then just letting them take over. You're like, wait a minute, I'm the thinker thinking the thought, so I can say cut at any time like a movie director and refocus what I want to think about.

That is so good. Well, John, thank you again for being here. This, this has been just really, really great. I've enjoyed it, and, and I just want to thank you for your time. Time and your wisdom today.

My pleasure. Great talking with you, Shawn Ellis.