How To Make an IMPACT | Mark Levy

Everyone listening, your products, your services, your ideas, the things you talk about in speeches, you just don't know where they're going to go into the world and the impact that they're going to have on people. It could be huge. You might have no idea what is ordinary to you may be extraordinary to your marketplace if they only knew about it. And I promise you there are things whether you're a giant. I work with multi billion dollar companies and I work with individuals. And I promise you that often, like there is gold just lying on the ground.

It's not often that you get to meet someone of your caliber that's done so much incredible work and helping people really, really stand out in such a noisy, crowded world. I'm curious before we jump into the tactics and a lot of the strategies you use to deploy that to help the audience, how did you even find yourself into this field? Because obviously you're, you're a funny guy, you enjoy life, you enjoy, you enjoy relationships and people and you know. So how do you, how do you kind of find your way into helping people actually discover their core?

Oh yeah. So I was in the book industry. I was the director of sales or special projects for the third largest book wholesaler in the world. We would buy millions of dollars worth of books from publishers like Random House and Simon Schuster and Doubleday. And then we'd sell them to independent book shops and chain bookstores. And I helped them sell over a billion dollars worth of books. Not too shabby, right? Exactly. Hard to do because back then books were very, very cheap. They're a hard cop was like $19. So it's very hard to do. And so what I did all day essentially was phone sales. I had accounts, I wasn't cold calling. It was phone sales. And essentially I would see every single book that was ever released. Every book. And I had to up quickly about what it is that was important about it and why it might sell or it wouldn't sell or what had happened in the world that had changed since the book was first published and so forth. I had to make all these calculations and then I had to get on the phone in real time and pitch it.

Yeah.

And so I construed that over the, the decade plus that I did that job that I did over 25,000 live pitches for money.

Oh wow.

That ended up helping total to over a billion dollars type of thing with, you know, the teams I led and so forth. And so I, I had reached the heights of what I could reach there. I couldn't go any Higher. And so I left and I essentially became a consultant. And I would look at people's businesses or their personal brands as if it were a book. Nice. Whether they were writing a book or not. Like, in other words, this is metaphorical. I would say here's the quote, unquote book Stephen has written with his life. Here's what the main idea is. What are the ancillary ideas, what are the satellite ideas, what are the stories he likes to tell about things? What are some of the lessons from some of the stories he may not seeing be seeing what's obvious that he's not, and so forth. What if we moved an ancillary idea or a smaller idea up to the four, or we put together two ideas that hadn't gone there before and we move that to the four? Would it be a better selling book?

Yeah.

And now how would I teach him to go about pitching that book to people?

Yeah.

And that's all I did. And I ended up working at the highest levels for the biggest companies you've ever seen and for the top individual. And I really just do the same thing. It's. It's essentially what here is so cool that would go nuts to hear it. Like, it's just so important. And now how do you evangelize around that idea? How. What are the. Not in a manipulative way, but like, what is it that you can fall in love with? And how do you tell stories about that thing you love and get other people to tell stories about it? Because Love it too.

Yeah. No, absolutely no. That's so cool. And love that. You know, it's interesting that, you know, I remember it was probably, maybe, gosh, it might have been 10 years ago. I'm dating myself and my comment I'm about to make. And I stumbled across the Start with y video on YouTube. I think Simon had just maybe had just done it about that time. I think it was a TEDx style talk, I believe the one that's really kind of TEDx. And it exploded. And, and then, you know, as I'm getting to know more about your career and kind of like getting to know more about you and understanding more about what you did and then figuring out, okay, this guy actually helped Simon understand the why behind Start with why, like, which I think is pretty. Which is a pretty incredible thing. What do you think is standing in the way so many times of people really getting to that. That innovative concept, that innovative idea? What's like, what are the two or three things that really kind of like.

Stumble people up.

So I would say for one thing, that.

Often.

They, they're looking at their lives or at their work or at their business, that there are obvious things that, that are in front of them that are important, that they're not giving heed to, that if they just saw their lives in a much more like if they drain stuff of meaning almost.

In certain parts of their lives in new ways, interesting ideas would jump out at them. So that's for what. And by the way, I can tell you a quick story about this, if it's a story I often tell in my keynotes. But I love the story and it illustrates what it is. I mean, so over 100 years ago, there was a famous advertising man named Claude Hopkins and used to the advertising for Wrigley's gum and so forth. And Claude Hopkins got a call from the Schlitz brewery. The head of the Schlitz brewery and the guy From Schlitz said, Mr. Hopkins, there are eight big breweries in the United States. And on that list of eight, we're number eight. We're in last place. We need your help, Florida Hopkins, I'm positive I can help you. I'm certain in order to help you, I'm going to have to take a tour of the Schlitz Brewery. And the guy from said, Mr. Hopkins, you're not going to find anything if you take a tour, but if it's necessary, just come here and we'll give you the tour. And what he did, he went there from Chicago till Milwaukee, and they gave him a tour of the Schlitz brewery. And what he saw astonished him. The first he showed him was an artesian well 3,000ft deep. The reason why they went that deep is that they wanted to make a pure beer. And they thought the purest water on earth was that deep. And by the way, artesian well meant that the water was spewing out like a geyser from earth. Pure water. And like, yeah, like Hopkins freaking out. And then they showed them a machine that triple steam cleaned every bottle before they poured the Schlitz beer into it. Triple steam plate. It would go through over forget. Then they showed him under lock and key, underground in a vault. It was what they called a single mother yeast cell. It had taken Schlitz brewers and scientists 10, 17 experiments to create the single mother yeast cell. This essentially had the exact flavor that every bottle of Schlitz that ever had been made tasted like this thing.

Wow.

And every bottle of Schlitz that would be this was the master.

Like, yeah, it's like the master recipe and all the things.

That's exactly. It was a physical thing. And like, Hopkins was freaking out. He was saying, oh, my God, this place is a wonderland. Why aren't you telling people about these wonders? And the guy from Schlitz said, this place is not a wonderland. These are no wonders. I told you, you wouldn't understand. This is how you brew beer at scale. Everyone listening to this should listen very closely to what I'm about to say. This is how you brew beer at scale. This is how we brew beer at scale. And this is how every one of our seven other competitors brews beer at scales. We do the things identically. There's no difference. So what we're doing here is nothing special. What we're doing is very ordinary. And Claude Hopkins said, yes, but the public doesn't know that. Wow. And so Hopkins proceeded to write a series of advertisements detailing every single thing he saw. This, the general, the triple steam cleaning bottles, 10, 17 experiments. And Schlitz, in less than a year, went from being in the last place to being tied, at least for number one.

Yeah.

So to me, the moral of that story is, what is ordinary to you may be extraordinary to your marketplace if they only knew about it. And I promise you, there are things, whether you're a giant, I work with multi billion dollar companies and I work with individuals. And I promise you that often, like there is gold just lying on the ground, people are just walking right over. So that's one thing you said, what's the problem? People are ignoring the gold that's lying on the ground uncovered. A second thing that they're ignoring is, and this is part of the same thing, part of the same idea. But since you asked me such a beautiful question that no one ever asked me, I, I wasn't prepared. But I'll tell you what's coming to mind and is that, is that people.

They, they, this is a similar answer. They forget what it was like to first be doing the work that they do and experiencing the work they do. Like, they become inured to it, they become callous. And so another way to access that kind of freshness is, is to think about every single way that your work surprises people. So in other words, when you're speaking to clients or. So what do they get surprised at? What do they laugh at? What do they get shocked at? What do they get angry at? Or also, by the way, in doing the work you do, what do you get surprised at? Or what, you get surprised at it first. So in surprises, because surprises are Moments where expectations are defeated. We thought everything was going this way and suddenly it went a different way. So there's always there are anomalies. So where anomalies are, There was an AI scientist named Roger Shank who said anomalies are where the action's at. You need to look for the anomalous things, the surprising things, the things that. Like what? And there's always something interesting there. A final thing because you said two or three things, so I'm greedily going to take three.

Yeah. Is that there's organic meaning to who you are. So there's obvious things that you're ignoring. There are surprises that you've become inured to that you're not seeing. And your differentiation may be there, it may be part of who you are already, but sometimes you need to create a new point of differentiation for what it is you're doing. And I often find organizations think like, well, either we have to create differentiation from what already is, otherwise it's phony differentiation.

Yeah.

And I would argue with you that everything that you've been that you want to create differentiation from was once new.

Yeah.

Like it's just a time lapse thing. If you look at today, at the present, you can easily create something brand new to differentiate around. And then in the future that will be the old thing.

Yeah.

Does that make sense? No.

I love all of it. In fact, I was just thinking it's, I think it's why your work is so powerful and so important and why folks should consider working with you. You need that outside perspective. You know, there's, I always say that a lot of times there's a, there's a framework that I use that I funnel business and life through. Right. And it's a decisional. I can use it as a decisional framework. It's, it's super simple. So small acronym, four letters. You know, G stands for game perspective. Right. So it's, it's looking for the anomalies, it's looking for the surprises. This is looking for the things that are impeding progress or you can, that can elevate progress or whatever. Right. So it's try to look at things from as many different angles as possible. And one of those angles, oftentimes I tell people is an outside source, an outside third party opinion that's not close to your, not close to you or your, your work or anything that can come and say, well, this is what I got from it. And every time I've done that exercise, even with my own stuff, my own businesses, whether it's unstoppable startup. Whether it's helping thought leaders, it doesn't matter. Every single time I get that, I get a surprise from them that I wasn't expecting. Like their takeaway was totally different than what I was positioning for, if that makes any sense. And the R stands for remove roadblocks. Right. So look for the things that are roadblocks or obstacles or kind of in the way, so to speak, and then, you know, start looking for ways to, you know, remove the roadblocks. The O is organize a plan and the W is work the plan. So grow, right? So game perspective. Remove roadblocks, organize a plan, work the plan. And when I do that with folks, all it is is a tool to do exactly kind of the things that you just described. As you were describing, I was like, this is why this process has been so helpful for people, because it's helping them find these different differentiating factors, finding these different surprises, you know, and like looking at it from a whole different angle. I don't know, it's just a unique epiphany, if you will, you know, because in the thought leadership world, you and I both serve awesome thought leaders with great messages and stuff like that. You are helping them really craft kind of the core message and kind of really what they should be known for in many respects. And I'll tell you as a absolute thought leader, if you want to call it that, for the last decade, basically, in the only last two years, have we started getting a lot of extra traction. And it's because I got clearer and clearer and clearer and clearer. I wouldn't say we. I wouldn't even say we're 100% clear yet. Right. But as you get clearer, it becomes easier to broadcast a wider net, wider message. In my thought leadership world, one of the things that I didn't realize was so prevalent was most thought leaders, what, that have massive messages that the world actually needs to hear, don't actually know how to grow and operate and scale a business. They're really good at the artistry, if you will, of the idea and the concept. And as someone who has built and now sold and exited a business, I realized that if I come alongside of them and help them understand the frameworks and the parts and the pieces and the tools, I can help them monetize their brand and then help them go from monetization to then reinforcement of their brand with people like yourself and other ads, other assets to help them kind of do something amazing. The reason I say all that is is because the number One phase that we do when we start working with people, period, is what we call data mining. Like, we're with data mining. We want to meet with them, we want to get to know them. We want to know how their mom is, how their dad is, like where the dog. Where the dog, you know, poops in the. Like, we want to know as much information about them as humanly possible in an effort to serve them the best way humanly possible. And I know you do that with, like, excellence, which I love. One of the things I heard you say on another podcast that I really appreciated was. And I'm. I might say this a little bit wrong, but you'll understand the concept is the ability or the desire or the importance of creating an aspirational sales message. So talk to us a little about the importance of shaping that message, kind of what that entails. Because I find that people try to sell a product good or service without necessarily telling the person they're trying to sell it to why it's so beneficial to them and why they need it kind of thing.

Yeah, people.

We tend.

We tend to get lost in the features of what it is that we do. And way talking about the features of something to me can be really important. Like that's how the work gets done. That shows that what you're doing that you're not just selling people a bill of goods that you're just not making. So people who get stuck. And this happens constantly in sales literature. It doesn't like in sales literature. Seems like.

No, it's marketing. 1960s, 101.

Right. Right. I'm telling you, I've worked with thousands of people. It is the most common thing in the world. And I know that when I'm looking at a service where I'm not expert in, I don't really know, want to know too much about how they're going to do it. I just want to know what it is that's going to happen at the end and why and how I'm going to benefit from it. And I need to trust that they know how to do that.

But I kind of like a trans. A transcendent result.

Yeah. Explain what you mean by transcendent.

Well, you know, I call it the two from category. So you're transcending one destination to another destination. So if, if you're in pain now, but yet this is going to promise pleasure. I'm using, you know, 2p just for fun, because my brain thinks and fortune cookie, you know, there's a. There's a destination. So If I'm. If I'm. If I'm working with someone in problem mode, I need to be able to communicate to them the transcendent to the. To the pleasure mode, so to speak.

Right, that's interesting. I tend to refer to. Transcendent is too fancy for me. I appreciate that. I love what you said.

But transformation, which is really just term from chemistry, is really just like you transform one liquid to another.

So.

Sometimes people. Their differentiation suffers because we don't know what the beginning state was. So you need to let people know. Here's what the beginning state looks like. You're in this situation, you feel this way. Like, here's the situation and now here's what people have tr. Here's what they've transformed into, or here's what the business has transformed into. So to me, it's just very important to have the. The before and after.

Yeah. Yeah. 100%.

Because otherwise if you don't have the before, then people don't know how far the journey was to get to the after.

Yeah.

Right. Like if someone. If someone wanted a million dollars, it's like, well, if you start with 999,000, like, it's hard to get to. So need to know where you're starting from. But you talked about a transcendent result and it's.

And you said. I had said something on a previous podcast. I don't remember what that was, but the idea of. Of you need to talk about what the state is that you're. That your work is going like what we're driving towards.

Yeah.

And you want to be very careful that you. That you don't oversell.

Yeah.

That you become like a flim flam artist or. I'm not saying the one listening to this would be. But I'm always very cautious about, like, what's the vision that we're going after that's going to. I mean, it's the idea of the moonshot. The interesting. The moonshot vision and imagery was. We got there.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, like, what's a place that we can aspire to that we can grow to, that we can actually get to?

Yeah.

I actually see people have visions sometimes that they sell people on and the places that you. You can't really ever get to.

Yeah.

So I'm that cool.

I think you can also. I mean, if you think. If you use the moon. The moon example, like it's also a vision that. That you can unify people around. That's right. But you're not. It's not a vision you're now carrying on your own or an aspiration now.

It's.

I love that.

Beautifully put. That's right.

Thank you.

I love that.

I want to pivot back to personal branding for just a second. That was a study done. I don't know, it might have been brand builders groups. Good friend of mine, Rory and A.J. b. They're out of Nashville, Tennessee. Love those folks. They're great. They did a study probably about maybe a year, maybe two years ago. And in the study, they, they, you know, hired outside agency to do the study, do a complete, you know, workup analysis of personal branding, where it's headed, why it's important, who needs it, who doesn't need it, you know, all this kind of stuff. And one of the things that they discovered in that is that people are 100 times more likely to actually get work done from a doctor, regardless of what it is. A physician, if that physician had a relative, personal brand or attorney. It's almost like the personal brand in many respects are now. Is now leading the businesses were, you know, back in the 60s, 70s and 80s, it was the businesses that had, you know, figureheads, but they weren't really talked about and discussed. So if you look at the contrast of the two, it seems to me that it's never been more important now to get super clear on this differentiating idea, concept or, or orchestration of the personal brand.

Right. In the past, in the 40s, 50s, 60s.

They didn't play up the person, they played up the corporation. They. They elevated the organization to like kind of cult status. And people know, though now that businesses and organizations. I like to say that an. Or that a business is really just paperwork. Like it's in your computer, in your filings, process, lawyers. It's just, it's a bunch of papers that are signed. It's bringing people together to get things done that they couldn't have done on their own. So it's always the, yes, there are processes involved and things like that, but in the end, the. The organization is more just the legal entity and it's the people who actually make the things happen. And people understand that that's the case, that a great leader can help bring an organization to the fore or so like.

Well, with. With your work, because I know you very successfully sold a business. How did you go about using your personal brand as.

Yeah, so I was actually kind of fortunate in that. Long before that was transpiring.

I just, I went to. I was at a speaking event, got invited to speak. People wanted to hear more. I then about around 2014, released my first book, which is a bit more of a memoir of my journey from homelessness to kind of where, where I was at the time.

And then from there we discovered that for some reason the audience began gravitating towards me to get, get questions answered regarding startups and businesses and stuff like that. Life mastery, mindset, you know, overcoming limiting beliefs and stuff like that. So, or I think it happened more for me organically. It wasn't less unintentional. I did, however, have aspirational brands, people, personal brands that I aspire to in some ways be like or emulate to some, to some degree, you know, people that I respected in the marketplace. I just thought they were wonderful. Simon was actually one of those at the time. This is like close to 10 years ago because I again, his idea was so different than anything else anybody had ever seen before. Right. And you know, I think at that time, then you go on the search for this idea. You know, what is this unique? Because there's lots of people that could talk about businesses and startups. There's. While it's very difficult to do, to start a company from literally the trash piles of a construction site and you know, have a, have an eight figure nine, almost nine figure business at the end of it and there's a lot to do there. There are a lot of entrepreneurs that have started with nothing and built amazing businesses, you know, so if so, okay, so that's not the, that's not the skill, that's not the topic, what's the topic, you know, kind of thing and start shaping that. I say all that to say that my personal brand journey was a bit more organic and less intentional. But over the last five years it's been a lot more intentional, it's been a lot more, okay, what type of content is uniquely congruent with who I am as a person? How does that congruency align with an audience that could easily be equally as congruent with me? So there's an actual, there's an actual benefit to the audience that's watching and listening. It's why we're so selective when we bring people on the show like yourself that we know that can feed the audience with new wisdom and new knowledge to help them kind of move the needle a little bit. So I've kind of always lived from the inside out. In the last several years, it's like, okay, this is what's inside of me. How can I broadcast this in such a way that's beneficial to the world, the world at large. Again, you, you, you get, you find your audience by sharing your message. You don't share your message, then find your audience. Like you have to get out there and start just sharing and, and sharing your ideas. Right.

You know, so for me, the personal brand journey became necessary. I actually was one of the people that used to fight it. So I had original organization that was called the Journey Principles Institute, which was named after my first book, the Journey Principles. And I fought the personal brand thing for a really long time because I didn't want to be a figurehead. I didn't want to be.

Seen as. Because I, because I know, because you and I know this as people that have built and shaped businesses. There are a lot of people that go into building a business. And I always felt guilty a little bit about being the figurehead or getting to win all the credibility and all, you know, all the hurrah, you know, when I know there were so many people working behind the scenes. So I focused on the organization that ultimately 100% yeah, and, and ultimately that never really took root until I did take three steps forward and say, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do it with this, with the, with the most humble heart I know how to do and to give reference to the team and, and stuff as much as I can. But the idea is I did realize, and Rory Vaden helped me realize this. Actually.

I was the one coming up with the ideas like, you know, I'm a person of faith, so I have a, I believe in God and you know, God, you know, shares revelation or whatever. And as a result, it's like I'm, I'm, I'm sketching out schematics and I'm writing, you know, quotes. And the one thing that we have no shortage of is content. I'm constantly thinking, constantly creating, you know, and so then it just became osmosis. So what I've discovered is, is some of the most thought provoking thought leaders on the planet right now have done the work that you are saying that they need to do, which is finding out what that idea is. You know, Marie Forleo was everything is figureoutable. Right? The core message is you could figure it out, you know, and that is, that is where I think the meat and potatoes are. So it's a long winded answer to say that I was organic.

But I also value the people that have come alongside of me, like yourself, to help me understand clarity, getting super clear. Because there's a big sexy idea out there for everybody. I believe. And you. And it takes a guy to find it. My personal opinion.

Well, beautifully put and interesting. From what you said.

The more successful your organization is or the more kind of cutting edge all your wisdom needs to be. You know, and I see that. Like, for instance, Gary Vaynerchuk, who I adore, like, I love Gary stuff or whatnot. His. Gary can put out an idea. We're talking about personal brands.

Yeah.

And ideas. Gary can put out an idea that's common sense. And it'll have thousands and thousands of like.

Yeah.

And so when I say this is not knocking it whatsoever, I'm just saying it's that. It's that the oomph of the idea comes from Gary's life and what he's demonstrated in. In building the wine store from 2 million to 20 million from starting VaynerMedia, from doing, you know, all these other ventures he does and whatnot. So it's who he is and is what provides the electricity.

Yeah.

And so the less known you are, the more the idea itself has to be electric on its own.

Yeah.

People get to know you. So it really needs to be a big, sexy idea because it goes out ahead of you and it acts as an emissary and a missionary for you out in the world. And then you become connected to that and become bigger. But if the personal brand is elevated, like if you've really done big things.

After a while, but lifting is not as hard.

100. Well, and that's 100 true. I think the other flip side of that is myself and other people that have done some. Some really nice things in life with a lot of work and a lot of sacrifice. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna downplay that a bit in the world.

You know, yes, it's easier because you have the credibility, but in some cases, it's more difficult because what we talked about at the beginning of the show, which is obviously you're so close to it. You don't know. You don't know what.

You don't know.

You know, I was in some of these meetings I've been in recently with clients and. And whatnot. I'm just being me. I'm just sharing from experience or, you know, I'm on a whiteboard drawing stuff out. Help them, you know, help them figure out their thing. And, you know, and they're. And they're just. It's funny because they sit back and they just go.

Not in. In a. In a way of.

Pleasant surprise, but not overwhelming as. Not as. Because I think some Ideas can be so big that the person feels overwhelmed either side. How will I ever implement that kind of thing? This is more along the lines. This is the step by step process. Lay out 10 steps. And they're like, they were like, I guys see light bulb. Like that makes total sense. Why haven't I done that already kind of thing.

Right, right. Well, related to what you just said, a very big deal to me is unless if you're selling something big or you're trying to make a big idea come across, people will always hesitate because they're not sure that that idea is going to work with them.

Yeah.

So the biggest deals that I have ever been involved in or whatnot, we've always. I won't say always. That's. That's wrong. But many times it's. You want to show the person that things will work with their stuff.

Yeah.

So it's always going in and saying, what's your situation? And. And saying, here's what that looks like for you. Like, not just an aspirational way. Here's some things you should be doing.

Yeah.

As fact, it's very common. Like for me, in a sales meeting or so I might say, look, whether you hire me or not, what I'm going to tell you is something that I really think you should be doing. And I mean that sincerely. And I'll give them like real ideas.

That's free value.

That's right. Well, but to me, because I want that. Like, I've always, always been very big on sampling.

Yeah.

Like you actually need to sample the thing itself. And the closer you can get to sampling the actual thing itself without some intermediary standing in the way. Like. Like it's one thing to have a blog post about something or a video about something or whatnot. All that stuff is great. But the closer you can show me what it looks like exactly with my material and with who I am, that's when I'll get really excited about working with you. That's when all the barriers drop.

Yeah.

Like just find it. And I'm saying this almost as if it's like some kind of transactional technique. I don't look at it that way. I just look at it as kindness.

Yeah.

I just look at it as service. Yeah, as service. That's right. There was. There was.

A CEO about 15 years ago, I can't remember who said it of a smaller company, but the person said, your marketing should be so good that it's confused with service. Nice that people should, like, be. That's what it is. That you're going out and you're just. It's marketing, but you're genuinely helping people.

Yeah, well, people don't want to be sold. They have no problems being served.

That's right. That's a beautiful way to put it.

Yeah.

So me to anyone listening, like, the more you can work with people's real stuff and help create a transformation right then and there where you are, it doesn't mean you have to give away the store.

Yeah.

But like it's doing good in the world and more likely to have people trust you and want to work with you and want to recommend people with you. But the more distant you stand, at least with me.

Yeah.

The more it's. I don't know. I sure worked for your friends. I don't know it's going to work for me.

Well, I mean, clearly your, your clientele list and the people you've helped, you know, get their big ideas has gone out to substantially benefit their careers.

Yeah.

You know, we just. You continue using Simon as an example. Start with why the message, the video, the core concept to this day is still one of the most transformational concepts. I was doing a speaking event in, in Dallas just a few days ago for a, an industry that I was connected to back in the day when I was, when I was still on the other other business and it was a, it's a siding manufacturer, but it's a, you know, it's a multi billion dollar business. And they were having their national sales meeting and a number of years ago the guy that brought me in to speak sat me. We just, we hadn't count. We hadn't caught up in probably five or six years and we're sitting there talking, right. And he's like, do you remember like almost like, you know, 10 years ago I came to your office and I was trying to figure out what the secret sauce is because, you know, secret sauce from how we operated our business and, and whatnot. And I was like, he was like, yeah, I think I remember that. He goes, do you remember this one time that I was really trying to understand and you were trying to help me understand it and you turned around a video and you played it of Simon Siddic of start to why that conversation just happened two days ago. Just happened two days ago. And then he went on to say, he goes, I want you to know that I played that for my sons. And my sons who were struggling at the time, found their purpose and their passion and now are top producers at the different companies they work at. Oh, wow. Because of that. So I guess what I'm getting at is the cool thing about an idea is it's, it's infinite. An idea is infinite. Right. An idea that's worthy of being heard or shared or implied or it has its own, it has its own eternity built around it. You.

Beautifully put. You don't know where your ideas like they can be days from now, weeks from now, years from now. They can be on other continents. They can be used in ways that you never realize. Very quick story. I had co written a book many years ago with Joel Bauer who the Wall Street Journal online called the chairman of the board of corporate trade show rainmaking. Like Joel would these trade shows, you know. Okay, so Joel. Anyway, this was a book on how to persuade but how to persuade in a big and entertaining way. And both. Joel. I have backgrounds as magicians. I create magic. So there's some magic in the book and so forth. We call these things transformation mechanisms that change the reality. Anyway. But it's a business book with magic tricks in it, whatnot. Here's why I'm saying all this stuff. I still remember that we once got an email from a guy saying I want to thank you for writing your book how to Persuade. People don't want to be persuaded. I run groups for people who are suicidal.

Wow.

That they've tried. And he said the thing about people who are suicidal is as you can just imagine, they're profoundly depressed and they are very self focused. They're not like open out into the world a lot, just shut down.

Yeah.

And he said so what I did was I read your book and I used some of your transformation mechanisms to them essentially their tricks with a model with them and I use them and suddenly they open up. I get their attention and it allows us to have meaningful conversations. It allows us to take this and so like this idea that like we wrote, I, I'm not saying this for self praise. It's this idea of like I did not write that book with the idea that it was going to help people who would. Who had suicidal tendencies. Like you just don't know. Everyone listening. Your products, your services, your idea, the things you talk about in speeches. You just don't know where they're going to go into the world and the impact that they're going to have on people. It could be huge. You might have no idea. Like you're like you could be saving someone's life with your work and you don't even. And you may never even realize it.

Yeah, well I think, I think that's you know, as we're wrapping up the show, I think that's one of the. I think that's one of the things I'd like the, for the audience to kind of sit with, whether you're, whether they're watching us talk or, you know, or they're listening to the audio version, is this core concept. This is why it's important.

To do the work, to discover the idea so the idea can be shared. Because you, you don't know how far it'll go. And in a roundabout way, not putting in the work, not taking the steps, not discovering what that is, or even just even taking the steps in general to share an idea, you're actually, in theory, based on what we just discussed, you may be making. It's not even making less of an impact. It's. It's actually not making the impact that you actually need to make to better the life of someone else. Because of the way that an idea shapes the world. The entire world is based on ideas.

That's right. You may be holding on to an idea that is going to alter the planet for the better. And I mean this sincerely. Yeah, you know, I have lots of these things. You may be holding on to something and just for some reason you don't want to talk about it. You don't want to appear brash or whatnot. You're holding on to it. And like, like that might be a big mistake for humanity.

Yeah. No, man. So good. Well, I know we're at the tail end of the show, but I wanted to a couple, couple of things. Where can anybody learn more about you and maybe try to work with you? Also, we didn't get a chance to talk about your amazing speaking, but you're very gifted and talented speaker and for those audience, we. My audience does events and stuff like that. So I highly recommend you in both categories. Where can I find out more about you?

Yeah, so my website is levy innovation.com L, E, V Y and then the word innovation, no S at the end. I'm only capable of one innovation at a time dot com. Right, exactly. You can also find me on LinkedIn. You know, I'm on LinkedIn or so. And as far as my thank you so much my speaking goes, you know, I speak on creating big sexy ideas and how to talk about your business so that people care. Like you've got to be able to talk about things so that people give a damn about them. Like otherwise there's no reason to do it.

That's right. Amen to that. Well, Mark, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show, dude. Anything we can do to serve you, we're happy to do it. You've been an absolute blessing to the audience. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right, take care. I hope you liked that video. And if you did, make sure you check out this next video right here.

You have the ability to control your mind, and that is, like, mind blowing for some people. Like, they just don't get that you. You don't have to keep the thought that pops into your mind, and you have the ability to choose something different that's going to then make you feel a different way and take action.