Unforgettable Breakthroughs: Top Moments from 6 Powerful Episodes

I think a lot of mission driven messengers that haven't stepped up to the plate yet aren't doing so out of fear of wanting to serve, but fear of not knowing what to say.

Sure.

So kind of let's walk through that a little bit.

Yeah, for sure. Well, you know, our, our full curriculum, we have like 12 different two day experiences.

Right.

Our flagship two day experience is the first one. It's called finding your brain DNA, which you, You've been through. A lot of the content in this book is from that. So this is kind of like the self guided version for 20 bucks. But we work with people, you know, one on one. And if you came through that experience, there's. There's four things we got to get people clear on and it's. It's kind of like four one things. So the first is you got to be clear on what problem you solve in one word. And that's like the genesis. And most people can. They can't even answer that question. What problem can I solve for the world in one word?

Yeah.

The next thing is who do I solve that problem for in one phrase? Then how do I solve that problem in one sentence? Which is what we call your message.

Yep.

And then what? One single revenue stream matters above all others. And if you get clear on those four one things, we call that your uniqueness. And, and it's really important to narrow it because of a concept that we call Sheehan's wall.

Yeah.

And if you think of the metaphor of the wall. Right. Like, okay, if I'm hitting a wall, if I'm swinging a sweat sledgehammer and I'm hitting all these different spots on the wall, nothing happens to that wall. But if I pick a spot on the wall and I hit the same spot over and over and over again and again and again, eventually that paint is going to chip and then it's going to crack.

Yeah.

And then there's going to be a divot, and then I'm going to. I'm going to punch through. There's going to be a little tiny hole and then I'm going to punch through.

And.

And when I punch through and pull back, the entire wall comes crashing down. And that's how you become wealthy and well known.

Yeah.

Because nobody who got rich got rich from multiple streams of income. It's the stupidest piece of advice on the Internet.

That's very true.

I didn't. Yeah.

Everybody. You're a great example. Everybody who got rich got rich from one amazing stream of income. They had one thing they did really well. Right. Like, you know, Messi is a soccer player, Wolfgang Puck is a chef. The Rock in the beginning was just a wrestler. But like in, in the beginning, like, Sarah Blakely had Spanx, Richard Branson had, like Virgin Records. You had, you know, Elon Musk does a lot today. In the beginning, PayPal.

Yeah.

Like, there was one thing. Jeff Bezos, Amazon. Like, there's not an example. Like there's, there's like zero examples of people who got rich from multiple streams of income and there's like zero examples of people who got famous for multiple things. The way you get wealthy and well known is, is you have one amazing stream of income and you become well known on one single topic. Right. If you go, Brene Brown became one of the most influential people in the world. All she did for decades was study a one word problem. Shame. And you can't talk about shame without someone bringing up Brene Brown's name. She owns the topic. Dave Ramsey owns the topic of debt. He has built a multi nine figure business in annual revenue, a thousand employees, one billion podcast downloads, like 17 million people listening to him on the radio. And yet he's been saying the same thing every day for three hours, the same seven baby steps for 30 years, over and over and over. Right. You, you break through the wall by being the world's leading authority on one thing.

Yeah.

And so the discipline is in, is in finding your uniqueness. As Larry Wingett told me early in my career, the goal is to find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service of others.

Yeah.

So what we did was we created a process that curates a multi passionate person through a series of exercises and introspective questions and reflection to where the answer emerges.

Right.

Like, I can't just like, look at someone and go, oh, your uniqueness is one blank. But you go through this process and the process, it's revealed.

I, I would, I would think that the reason people don't go the, the growing route. Right. Of seeking to understand has more to do with the fact that that's going to be a lot. That's just a lot of work, man. I got to stop my day. I got to, I got to not make my spouse still understood in this moment. Like all these different things, there's all these different reasons or what I call.

Repelling factors. So walk us down that a little bit.

Yeah. You know, a lot of times it's not malice. You know, a lot of times what keeps us from moving towards people with understanding. It's often a practical I don't have time for this.

Yeah.

Like, I don't want to take the time. This is a distraction from what I'm supposed to be doing. And so.

But I just think if you do take that time, you're going to multiply your time.

The time you spent, the mental energy, the emotional energy that a difficult person takes from you. It's just like. But if you were to take the time to change that relationship, you're going to be in a much better position. And all of a sudden, because here's the interesting thing about time.

You can spend five minutes with a complicated person and they can ruin your whole day.

And you could spend 30 minutes with somebody that you enjoy being around. And it's just like, man, I could spend all day with this person. And so it's like, it's worth the time to be able to say, man, let me. Let me pause my day for the sake of future days, that I want to have a healthy relationship with this person. And so if you don't take that time, you're actually taking time and you don't even realize it because it becomes a drain on the relationship sometimes. It could be a drain on the room or an entire team. And so I think being able to address those things early, to be able to say, hey, timeout.

Yeah.

Hey, I want us to have a thriving relationship. Hey, I want this to work out. I want to talk about the thing underneath the thing.

I don't want to have to dance around you. I could spend the next year dancing, or we could spend the next 30 minutes talking.

Which one?

You.

You choose.

Yeah.

And so you'd be surprised. And I can just tell you this. I am amazed, absolutely amazed by the amount of leaders that tell me, man, I got this person on my team. And then they'll say, whatever, but then they'll say these. This phrase after I say, yeah, but I can never tell them that. I go, why not?

I just can't.

Is it fear? Is it uncomfortability? I mean, what at the heart of it, what do you think is driving it?

Because a few things. I mean, there's some harsh realities. Maybe you're not good at your job, but you're a really good person. It's hard to fire really good people who are incompetent.

Yeah.

I was working with an NFL team yesterday, and we were having a grand discussion, me, the gm, and a couple of coaches about how to evaluate players and how to develop players at a high level. I asked the question, I said, when we talk about development Are we talking about physical abilities? Are we talking about athleticism?

Are we talking about character?

How can we turn prey drive on? Flip the switch if you will, before we have to go through fear based moments or competition. How do we keep it activated? Turn it on and keep activated.

Well, if you look at the other activators. So fear. You watched the Last Dance with Jordan and Jordan manufactured a lot of things so he could keep his prey drive activated. Okay. So the top entrepreneurs, I would suspect like a millet can manufacture it. Like boom, it's on. An artist that's singing to 55,000 people, they don't feel good that night, can turn it on. The football player on a Sunday who's getting paid millions of dollars can turn it on. Not everybody. Yeah. So I look at exposure activates my prey drive. I do enjoy traveling around the world. I do enjoy having conversations with people like you. Makes me think I was just interviewing Craig Ballantyne right before this about his book. And you know, it's like, that's good, that's good. That activated my drive. That sparked something in me. So exposure activates the drive. Right. That's why we want people come to the Greatness Factory.

Yeah.

See it phenomenal. Like just, just get.

Yeah. I mean for all of us, just for the audience's sake. If you're a, an aspiration, I mean a leader.

Yep.

And you need to get content, like situated, produced. You guys have a little a venue in there like for an actual conferences and everything. Dude.

Yeah.

But yeah, check this out.

Great stack. You know, but this was a dream. God gave me 2016. Said you built great factories for kids. Right. Build a great inspector for adults. Took me eight years.

Yeah.

I always tell people, eight years, four tries and eight million bucks. I failed like two or three times at this. Bought land.

I'm not the only one.

No, no. Bought land. Yeah. Just spent 100 grand on plans, then took it to the city I was in, which is about 30 minutes from here. They said it's too modern. Can you scale it down? Got frustrated, got discouraged and went to another building, built it all out, bought the furniture. Did one event. They kicked me out of the building. The landlord asked me to leave. Said the other tenants don't want you here. It's too much energy. So they told me how too much energy. And now, now I got quarter million dollars worth of furniture. I got no Greatness Factory. I've tried this multiple times and. But I, but I locked into it, right. And I said, I'm going to do it, man. God gave me a vision every time I wanted to quit. I know this a vision you're supposed to do, man. Just stuck with it.

And so when you're. When you're. When you're thinking about exposure, like, you've been around some of the top people in the world, I've been around some of the top people in the world. There's no way. It's like, how could you be. How could you be deactivated? It's like I'm watching, right? Like when I'm watching my. Let speak. I'm sitting. I know the stories he's going to tell. I've heard him.

I know the same talk two or three times.

And it's like he hits it and I'm still crying. I'm like, damn it. Yeah, my lip. It's like, I'm still crying. I'm sitting here crying during this moment. And it's like, he's that good.

And.

And so exposure activates, environment activates. What's the difference? One, I see something when I go somewhere. Okay. Like coming to the greatness factories and environment. Being in the locker room environment. Right. Going to a big concert environment. There's things that trigger you to go, I want to do something bigger. I took my daughter to see Taylor Swift.

Most.

Most watched video I've ever had.

Okay.

Because I was speaking somewhere and I said, I took my daughter's daughter see Taylor Swift. And this was a couple years ago in Kansas city. I paid 3, 500 bucks. We were in a suite with one of my clients, and. And people just hated that I paid 30 $500 to see Taylor Swift. And they just, you're such a terrible father. And she's such this. And she's satanic and whatever. Yeah. Well, I asked my daughter, who was, I think 11 at the time. It was just a daddy daughter weekend. I said, what'd you take away from tonight? She said, dad, I want to do something big in my life. If that's not worth $3,500 to somebody, for her to see that now, I don't know what she'll do with it. But it sparked a dream in her. I want to play bigger dad.

Yeah.

I'm watching a woman in front of 75,000 people.

Yeah.

Like, it. It activated her. Okay? Now, it may not activate her sing, but it may activate her to be great at gymnastics, which is what she does. And so that is exposure environments. And then the fifth one is embarrassment. And I'm such a competitor. Like, if we don't hit our numbers, I'M embarrassed if we don't play to a high level, I'm embarrassed if we don't play at a high standard, I'm embarrassed. So embarrassment is not like I'm comparing myself. I may be watching my lad and go, I got to get better, man. He right, I got to get better. I got to get better storytelling. I got to get better at this. It's not like I'm. I'm comparing myself to him. I'm just like, I can play excellence in the ordinary. I could play at a higher level. So all of those things activate prey drive.

And so what?

I've. What?

I've just.

What?

One of the things that I. That I've seen that your work shakes loose is the false label that you put on yourself. Right? Because I think a lot of us have stories like that, right? Meaning there's at some point in time, the subconscious that kicks in. It's like talking you out of doing the thing you know you need to do. When you need to do it, how you need to do it, is the very same thing. It's just. It's just trying to keep you safe.

Yes.

And it's anchored itself back to 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 5 years ago, whatever. Riding you. Hey, remember when this happened? Well, that made you this. And you're always permanently this. Right. Talk to me a little about how that's not true.

It's not true because there's a phrase we say in one of our pieces of curriculum that says the story that you tell the most is the story that you believe the most. And then flip it. The story that you believe the most is the story that you tell the most. Then I love to add a phrase in there. The story that you believe the most about yourself is a story that you tell yourself to tell the most. So most people that actually all people. The negative talk or the self talk never stops. Ever. You're sleeping subconsciously. You're running like your operating system's running. So if you look at most people, they were to be honest, it's negative. I'm not good enough. I don't belong.

Wrong.

I'm unattractive. What will they think of me? I'm gonna like it is the most ugly self talk. Now, most people act like they don't have that, so they do this fake, false bravado type of thing. And when we help people tell you, like, you only believe that because that is what you have repeated a million plus times. That's what you've seen, you've Looked for evidence. You. You create evidence, and you repeat it so often that that's just your reality. And then I'm like, well, what if you could change that? So the work we do in Game Changers, like, we are going to literally rewire. We're going to recreate a new version of you. And that's one of the greatest things. When people say this thing we call conscious self creation, they're like, oh, my gosh. They go from like, you know, I'm not enough. I'm unattractive, I can never be skogging as we just get by to, I am powerful. I am a beacon of light. I am a lover, a leader, a lighthouse. And we start to create. And it's more than affirmation. It's a creation. It's a declaration, it's a statement. It's a literal creation the moment you say it. And, man, when people start to create themselves based not on the past, but on a desired future and what's really possible.

Yeah.

Oh, it's game over. Game over.

Game change. Game over.

Game changer.

Well, look, you know, one of things we were talking about last night, it was really cool to. When you, when you, when you. When you came to Safe Haven last night, we had a chance to just catch up because, you know.

I was blown away.

I'm like, dude, I had no idea about all this stuff you went through. I was like, oh, my gosh, man.

What processes and systems are you seeing, seeing that allow people to take the mask off, to actually ask for the help they need?

Yeah. Well, I think, again, thank you for sharing that and thank you for the work that you're doing, because as you're going through it, it made me emotional because I'm seeing that too. And it's like, you know, we host these town halls, and when we bring in experts every single month that talk about different areas and, you know, we're going through it. And a lot of ours focuses on the power of a promise, which I want to get back to about the promise that you made. But I think, again, it's giving them the safety, creating the safe haven as you have here. To be able to say it's okay to talk about it, and that's really what we have to do, is when you open up these opportunities and people know it's okay to share and they can really see it, know that they're not broken and know that there's hope, like, that's probably the number one thing. And so what we've decided to do and what we've asked everyone is we want people to make a promise to reach out for help. What does that look like? It doesn't matter. Just promise that you will. A friend, a family member, a resource, AFSP, NAMI, JED, Trevor, the VA or call or text 988, which if people don't know, that's the 911 for mental health. So our big part is making that initial promise because none of these treatments, none of this other stuff matters if you're not here.

It's funny when you. Again, when I say funny, I mean interesting, not hilarious.

I remember down. I was down, actually downstairs in my office here at the house, and I was sharing. You began sharing with me how the promises are made and kept. And I was like, I did make a promise.

You did.

My promise to Susan again, if I didn't share it already, was I would call her at 9am the next morning. She got me from. Out of crisis.

Yeah. And what did she do? She acknowledged you. Hey, I know you're struggling. I know you're here. It's okay. I'm here for you. She supported you.

Mama Bear also came out too. I got you.

I got you. You're not gonna do this. I love you. Stop. And keep in touch. You're gonna check in with me tomorrow. What she didn't realize is the power of a promise. And maybe she did, but that's what we've found, is there is significant power. In fact, general studies show if you make a promise right now, ahead of time, you're up to 60% more likely to keep it when it counts. Now, that's a generic promise, but does it matter? So if I get you to make me a promise, what are you gonna think about? You're gonna go, man, I can't let them down. I don't want to disappoint. My word means everything. There is power in a promise. You know what is a marriage? It's a promise.

Yeah.

What are ways that people check in on you that have been effective, that maybe we can model and begin to use to check in on our people?

Oh, that's good.

I think there are again, I could probably count on one hand too, how many people are, like, actually good at checking in on me and, like, seeing me? I think we're in a very lonely time. I think right now everyone's very individual, very independent.

How's that possible? We have. Everyone's connected on social media.

All right, that's the problem. But that's the thing, is everyone will see your social media and be like, she's doing great. I don't. I don't need to check in on her like, whatever, or everyone is very. I don't want to say selfish. I'll say self centered. Like, everyone's main priority right now just is themselves. So it is really hard to get checked in on, I think. And I think part of the reason that makes my testimony so powerful is the fact that I wasn't really checked in on that much. Because it really was just like me and God a lot. But my family is great. And my best friend Sydney, she is probably like the closest thing to heaven I'll get on earth. She's great. And they all know, because I am vulnerable with them, how to check in on me. And it definitely is just kind of like, all right, like, how are you? Like, what are you doing? And then when I try to blow them off, it's like, no, seriously, like, how are you? Or just validating that they know what I'm going through. Like, they'll be like, okay, like, I know you're carrying this well, but, like, I see that you've been very anxious lately. And if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. But just know that I know.

Yeah, we would call that holding space. You know what's really interesting is I was just thinking this so because I'm. One of the things that I try to do in historical way my brain works is my brain will take common denominators of different circumstances, situations, and then rearrange them in theory in a way in which you go from like, force to flow or go from like, disconnection to connection. Like connect the dots. Right? Because it's no different. You can have an extension cord, it's however long, but if it's not plugged into the wall, there's no current flowing through it. Right. And based on what you just said, I'm curious just your. Your opinion on.

How much of getting checked in on in a meaningful way is also letting your guard down with people in a meaningful way.

100. The only people that can check in with me thoroughly are the people that know me thoroughly. And that is kind of the ball's kind of my court to kind of make that a thing. Thankfully, I am, like, pretty good at being vulnerable, which I think I used to look at as kind of like a weakness, but Jesus wept. So why can't I kind of thing, like, I'll be a crybaby.

It's fine.

I cry too.

Yeah, I'll be a crybaby.

But if I feel it. I feel I'm gonna feel all the feels.

I'm gonna start crying. Start crying. Like, no holding back. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. Everyone knows exactly what I'm thinking, when I'm thinking it. But that's been helpful because now, like, some of the great friends I have and my family can look at me and be like, ooh, like, you good. Like, do you need to talk about something? But then my friends that do put up more of a front, like Vincent. It's way harder for us to even realize they're going through something, because if you were so, like, masked up, which society tells us to be, especially boys. Oh, my goodness. Like, you're not allowed to have emotions if you are a boy.

We gotta slay dragons and never cry.

Right?

And 80% of all suicides are men. And I think that does come with the fact that men feel like they have to carry themselves more strong and.

Masculine, which we're definitely more isolated, Right? Men, historically. Until they're taught better, do better. Right. So a huge chunk of my life, I didn't tell other men what I was going through until I learned it was okay to do so. Which took 25 years, I think, for me to understand that.