Visualize Communication Success with Justin Ledford

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Speaking, the show about effective speaking in public, to the media, at work, and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

My guest today is as close as it comes to a natural born salesman as I've ever encountered. Justin Ledford is with us. By the age of 18, he'd sold more than $125,000 worth of Cutco knives. I don't know what that is, but it sure sounds difficult. By the time he was just out of college, he'd sold more than a million dollars, almost $2 million worth of other product.

He.

He's also the author of Visions to the A Millionaire's Secret Formula to Productivity, Visualization and Meditation. Justin, thanks for joining us.

TJ thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

So is it a myth or is there such a thing as a natural born salesman?

I think it's a myth because anybody can be taught how to communicate with people effectively and anybody can be taught how to sell a product, especially if they find a passion behind what they're selling. You know, at the end of the day, we're all selling ourself and meeting with people. I mean, we're always selling ourself. And so I believe it's a myth. I fortunately had great training, great mentors, and I literally learned from the best of the best in the business and just followed after them and did what they did and had great success from that philosophy. Follow the best.

I want to hear about your mentors in the beginning in a moment. But first share with us one of your top nuggets from the book Visions to the Top. What are people going to learn from this?

Wow, that's a great question. I truly believe that more and more people need to access their inner spiritual self. What I mean by that is we all have the ability to close our eyes, focus on our breath, and we all have the ability to. Some people call it meditation. It's actually known as visualization. Olympic athletes, they, they all do this stuff. Michael Phelps, he just won the gold medal. Two girls in the volleyball arena in the Olympics, they just won the gold medal as well. And in their interview, they talked about visualization as being the key to their success. Visualization is a practice where you, in the quietness of your home or your office, you close your eyes and you see your day as if you want it to happen. So I have put together the four phases of visualization and basically I teach people how to access a calm state. Phase one is just being focusing on your breath. Phase two is past successes where you're Focusing on. You literally go back in time and you see past images in your mind, images that where you want in life or a moment in time where you were happy, somebody gave you love, a moment in time where you were celebrating, and that's in your past. And you cycle through multiple times of your past. That's past images, future vision. Future visions is phase three. That's where you focus on how you want your day to go. And you see your day as if it's happening right there before you at the highest level of success. What you want to achieve for the week, see those things unfolding before you and what you want to achieve for the month or the year. I go as far as five years, 10 years, 15 years, and the practice is anywhere from five minutes to 30 minutes every morning. And I've studied literally like some of the most successful business people, spiritual leaders, athletes, celebrities, and there's one thing in common, it's visualization.

So let me play devil's advocate with that a moment because I certainly think that visualization can be an important part of any successful person's toolkit. And I've heard Michael Phelps talk about that as well. But I also know that, for example, Michael Phelps has watched in detail all of his gold medal wins from the swimming sessions. He's actually not just visualized himself winning gold, he's watched video of himself watching gold. And he's been able to see the ultimate vision, a video in front of him. So my frustration is when it comes to communication is I often hear so called public speaking experts say, close your eyes, visualize a standing ovation, or visualize your audience loving you. And my point is, don't even think about doing that until you've practiced your speech on video and actually seen a vision of yourself on video speaking the way you want. Tell me, are we contradictory or am I off base?

No, you're absolutely correct. You actually have to practice. I mean, there was a study published by some Russian scientists And they took four group of elders, Olympic athletes. Group one did 100% physical training. Group two did 75% physical training and 25% mental training. Group three, 50, 50 physical and 50% mental. Group four, they did 25% physical training and 75% mental training. And they found that over and over, group four was the one who outperformed all of them. Yes, they did their physical training 25% of the time and 75% of the time they did their visualization. The reason this is because our mind, literally the neuroscience behind it, our mind gets wired even Though we're just sitting there closing our eyes and tapping into those emotions and feelings and senses and imagery, our mind knows no difference. It wires itself as if it's already happening. And yes, you do have to take action. You do have to practice. Some of the greatest speakers, Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, you know as well as I know, tj, they practice their presentation or their pitch or whatever they wanted to come across multiple times before they went on stage.

The book is Visions to the A Millionaire's Secret Formula to Productivity, Visualization and Meditation. Justin Ledford, thanks for being our guest.

You're very welcome.

Okay, stop. Timeout. Let's pull back the curtain. Now, that was sort of the typical length of an interview. If you were on, let's say a public radio show or NBC's Today Show, Good Morning America. Five, six minutes. Now let's step back for a minute, Justin, and tell us, what were you trying to accomplish there? How did you prepare? How do you typically prepare for an interview like that?

How do I typically prepare for an interview like we just had? I literally get in a power pose. There's something called power poses and weak poses. And imagine you're standing there with your chest out, you have one hand on the table, you're focused on your breathing. That's a power pose. And then imagine the weak pose where maybe one hand is on your chin or your arms are crossed and you're slouching over. They've done studies on power poses and weak poses. A person who's in a power pose, their brain releases testosterone and decreases cortisol levels whenever they're in a weak pose. It's the opposite. They lose testosterone and increase cortisol. So long story short, what that means. There was a woman in the Olympics recently, and all 10 girls or 11 girls were about to race and run for the sprint for jumping over those little things. And one of these ladies was in a power pose, jumping up and down. Constant state of a power pose. And the other girls were just standing there, literally not doing anything. And it was mind boggling to me because I knew what she was doing. I knew she was increasing her blood with testosterone and reducing cortisol from the power pose. Long story short, once the gun was fired, she flew down the track and beat everybody. How is this, how is this associated with communication? When you're in a confident state, or also known as peak state, you feel confident, you feel ready. And that's how I prepare. I show up in that state of mind. Confidence in a peak state with my chest out, ready to take on whatever somebody has to offer.

And, Justin, this probably won't surprise you. It might surprise some of our listeners. I'm standing right now. Are you standing or sitting?

I'm standing both hands on my hips, chest out.

Okay. We're two peas in a pod. And we didn't. We didn't coordinate that in advance. The other. Just practical reason, I think it's a good idea to stand for podcast interviews. Radio interviews is your more likely to gesture, move your hands. You're more likely to breathe more deeply. And I'm not someone who historically puts a lot of emphasis on the whole breath thing, but I do think standing and not being all slumped over is an advantage for any sort of spoken presentation.

I agree. Whenever you can breathe in, you have more time to think and respond instead of being so, like, it's easy. I've been on stage before in my first, you know, presentations in business, and I wasn't breathing, and I noticed I started getting nervous. So it's important to take a breath when you're in front of, you know, we have. We have professional communicators here listening to us. It's important to take a breath, calm your mind, and focus on what you need to focus on to close that deal or get your point across.

Let's talk about focus. What was your specific goal in the interview we just did, and what were the three or more or fewer messages you really wanted to leave with the audience?

My specific goal, I really, truly believe I've had a crazy amount of success. Before the age of 30, I've made millions of dollars. I have multiple businesses that produce millions of dollars in business. And it's all because my goal is I want more people to tap into their inner power self, their level 10 life. I want more people to understand that we can all visualize. I give keynote messages all the time, literally twice a month. And whenever I do the visualization practice, I see people with huge smiles. I see tears coming down their face while their eyes are closed going through the practice. So what I want people to realize is we all have a great power within us. We sometimes forget, you know, it's like going to the gym. The first time you go, you might not be so strong. You might run, and it might be difficult. But the second and third and fifth and 10th time, you start to enjoy yourself running. That's your physical body. I'm talking about your inner mental clarity and focus.

And.

And that whenever somebody starts tapping in that regularly, that's when they start to become more powerful. So my purpose is to help people tap into the visualization and meditation ultimately so they become more productive and fulfill their dreams.

So let's ask our audience, let's ask them to give you feedback. If you picked up on those messages from the interview, feel free to, to send a tweet to Justin. And your Twitter handle is. What's your Twitter handle?

Oh my goodness, it's. That's a great question. I my wife and for that, you.

Know, I'm being presumptuous. Shame on me.

My wife does it. My wife handles all that well.

But you don't have to use Twitter. My question should be actually, what is the social media outlet you prefer people communicate with you on it?

So they can find me on Instagram just ledford.com Somebody took Justin. So it's J U S T L E D F O R D. Or you can obviously find me on Facebook Justin Ledford or of course my book Visions to the top. Com. It has a contact form or justinledford.net.

Good rule for those of you hosting podcasts, don't assume everyone thinks the same YouTube same as you do. I'm assuming people like to give out Twitter for instant feedback. But Instagram is a perfectly fine social media outlet where I am profoundly ignorant. So I'm showing my bias there. So thanks for sharing that and go ahead and contact him on Instagram with any thoughts you have on the messages. Now, you mentioned Anthony Robbins. It's been probably 10 years, but I've been to one of his seminars and he does an awful lot with visualization. So do many of the other self help gurus you mentioned. What's different about your approach? How do you communicate differentiation in your brand of, and I don't mean this pejoratively, self help, but it is help for business people in more than just business, but life. How do you differentiate your take on visualization?

Well, one of the things that I do with the audience that is listening to me, whether it's in a keynote environment or if they're reading my book or listening to the audiobook, is there's something called a dreams list. And it's, you know, what does a GPs do? A GPS takes you to point A to point B as fast as possible. And we all have dreams that we might not be fulfilling because we forgot about them. We are busy with work, our family and whatever the case might be. So what I do is I tap into people's dreams and simply put, I allow them to just get out a pen and paper and we write dreams list physical, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, material, psychological. And we go through several others and then we list out three to five per category. And the thing about it is when people don't know what they want in life, how can they expect to get it? When you go shoot a bow and arrow, you have to know what you're trying to hit. And that's the concept with the dreams list. So I tie the dreams list into the visualization practice. And when I'm guiding somebody through the visualization practice, I say certain things where they're able to see what they want to happen in their dream. So I might not be. I'm not a guru or anything. I'm just a normal guy who has had a lot of success before the age of 30. And I attribute that to hard work and visualization.

And our guest today is Justin Ledford. He's the author of Visions to the A Millionaire's Secret Formula to Productivity, Visualization and Meditation. It is available on Amazon. I read the Kindle version. A lot of good nuggets there. I would urge you to check it out. By the way, this program is brought to you by Media Training Worldwide. If you would like free, no obligation media training or presentation training course, more than 100 videos, go to mediatrainingworldwide.com and click on the online school and you can get that no obligation course. Justin, you do several keynote addresses to various audiences, conferences all over the country and the world every month. What is your signature story?

That is an awesome story. So when I was 18 years of age, I was having great success, like you mentioned, selling Cutco knives, which is a really high end kitchen knife that's made here in America. And I cut my. I was about to cut a pumpkin. I sat down on the floor to get better leverage. I pulled a brand new knife out of a sheath. I put the knife inside the pumpkin with my right hand. I put my left hand on the pumpkin and I pushed down. And before I knew it, I dropped the knife for some reason. And I felt this rush of heat go straight through my hand. I stood up and my hand was on fire. And then all of a sudden it just split open from, from my, from my thumb all the way down to near my pinky. And at that moment I said to myself, do not freak out. I literally said that over and over. Don't freak out. Don't freak out.

What? I. I think I would be freaking.

Out and Because I knew I could die if I freaked out. Blood. I mean, I don't. Straight up, man. Blood was Gushing, hitting my ceiling. I was hitting my fan. It was all over me. All over my house, my couch, everything. So I ran inside my bathroom, grabbed a purple towel, rushed, wrapped it around my arm, went outside, started screaming for.

Were you by yourself?

By myself. This is the day after Halloween. I went outside, and I'm screaming, help. Help. As loud as I can. And two people walk by me because my. My apartment was facing the. The parking lot. They thought I was joking. They were literally pointing at me like, oh, that's funny. Good prank. And I'm screaming through, help. Fortunately, somebody showed up by the grace of God, at the nick of time, dropped me off to the hospital and dropped me off at the wrong location. I had to run to the er. And with every run, blood was pumping from my arm. With every step, I get to the window, and I'm like, help.

Help.

The lady said, no, no, you're fine. Just go sit down. We'll be with you in a minute. I remember saying some curse words to her and hitting the window that she was behind because I was dying, you know, And I go to the door, the big blue doors, and I kick through the doors with all my might. I scream help. As loud as I can. And the doctors, they all. They're pushing patients. This is behind the ER where doctors are supposed to go only. And they all look at me and start running to me. I fall on the ground, and. And I'm on the ground, bleeding out. And this guy comes up to me. He takes the purple towel off me. It was blue, but now it's purple. And he looks at my hand. He's like, oh, my God. What cut you? And I looked up at this guy right in his eyes, and I said, cutco. Have you ever heard of it? I was still trying to sell the guy even though it was dying. But that was a great moment in my life. I'd say that was a signature moment in my life. From that moment, I realized, you know, I couldn't make the choice to. Because they were prescribing me drugs because of the serious pain that I was in. I could have made the choice to, you know, be a victim and play the victim mentality and, oh, woe is me. But instead, I realized that we are powerful.

We.

We can accomplish anything we want in life. And I decided to say no to what they're prescribing me and heal through my mind, through meditation, through prayer, through visualization. There's a guy named Dr. Emoto. He studied water and the cells of water, something I highly recommend Your audience look at. And I decided to heal myself. And within the doctor, by the way, the doctor said, you'll never use your hand again. He told me right in my eyes. And I looked at him, I said, I will not accept your diagnosis. And then I woke up. And a couple days later, you know, within a week, I was back out in the field, closing deals, meeting with people, having a good time. Because I live by the five minute rule. If something happens in my life and it's bad or good, let's just say it's bad, it happened, I can't change it. So why dwell on the past? You know, some people get upset and bring it up a week or two or a month later. For me, the five minute rule. I found out when I first learned about this about 11 years ago. I can be super upset, stop my feet, you know, bicker and moan. But then after five minutes, I did that for like 30 seconds. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm supposed to do this for five minutes and I'm already done. I don't have anything else to complain about. So after doing that the fourth or fifth time, I realized, you know what? I can't change it. So let's just focus on what I can focus on and what I can achieve. So that's the moment in my life I'd like to share with your audience. Anytime we go through challenges, those are really just opportunities to see how we're going to take it. Are we going to grow from it or put our tail between our legs and become weaker from it? I chose to grow from it.

So how did you really start selling your career at age 14? Now, I was someone who was more comfortable public speaking certainly than most kids. I was one of these little student government nerds running around giving speeches all the time. I had no problem doing that. But I could never sell anything. I always came in last place for the magazine sales and the candy sales for the various. Your baseball team, your cub scout troop. And I did try to sell. I don't know if it was cut coat knives, but some sort of direct sales thing. I went out three days. I think I sold nothing. I was a Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman for three days, sold nothing. So I have tremendous respect for anyone, especially at a young age who can do that.

How did you do that? Well, I was actually mowing yards and doing odd jobs, painting houses, anything of that nature at a young age. I grew up in kind of a humble background. You know, we didn't have everything. Some of my friends were blessed and Fortunate to have a nice home, nice car. And my family went through divorce at a young age, and it was really challenging. I never wanted that to happen with my future family. So I realized it was mostly about money, the fights and stuff in my growing up. So I realized I never wanted that. So I started as an entrepreneur at a young age. I was that weird guy, you know, selling candy in school. I was, you know, selling the football tickets and just having car washes. And I was always, like, always very entrepreneurial. And one day I was painting a house. I got a phone call while I was on a ladder, and it was a guy named Matt Storm. I can never remember it. He called me. It was super hot outside in Texas and asked if I was looking for work. I spilled the paint all over the house. So obviously I was upset while I was talking with him. But he told me, one of my friends has had a lot of success, which I knew that guy was very successful. I went in for an interview and the rest is history. I just knocked it out of the park once I got trained and started learning under the top people in the business.

And what was the key to that? Just the ability to walk into any store or home and not worry about doors shut in your face or rejection. Is it a numbers game or how much of it is about just being a great communicator and good listener once you've got someone?

Well, you know, in any business, whether you're dealing with CEOs or you're trying to close a prospect, or you're dealing with your wife or husband or children, you have to know, you have to listen to them. And I wasn't afraid of hearing no, because you're right, it is a numbers game. So I'd go in people's houses and just, first and foremost, how to win friends and influence people. It's a great book. I wanted to become their friend first and foremost. And by doing that, if they like you and they trust you, then they'll do business with you. So that's what ended up happening. People liked me because I was friendly and I had a great product. So they ended up buying it.

So how have you continued to improve? You obviously started honing your speaking skills, even if it's just one on one. When you're 14, 15 and selling knives, how do you continue to improve as a speaker? And what. What motivates you? Do you watch TED Talks? Do you watch old Zig Ziglar videos? What do you watch?

Oh, that's a great question. I'd say what motivates me. I listen to podcasts literally every day on my way to my office. I rarely watch TV unless it's something very specific, beneficial knowledge because we are what we put inside of ourselves. And if we're listening to, you know, top performing people speak and we're listening to, you know, the best of the best, then it's going to rub off on us. You know, our level of income is in direct proportion to the level of how much we're growing personally, and we are who we surround ourselves with. So I try to surround myself with, you know, very successful people. I like I said I don't watch very much TV unless it's a documentary or something specific. I do listen to TED Talks all the time. I love your podcast and multiple other people's podcasts. Those are the if you could share.

With and thank you by the way, but share with us some of the names of other podcasts you find particularly helpful.

Very, very good question. I'd say Matty A with Millionaire Mindset is one very good podcast. Another one is Hal Elrod with Achieve youe Dreams. Another one is the Front Row Factor with John Vroman. The Smart Passive Income podcast with Pat Flynn. Those are a couple that just stick out to me, but I'd say the one that inspires me the most is John Vrooman. The Front Row Factor and how Elrod Achieve your Dreams.

Never heard of those, so I will check those out. I certainly have heard of Pat Flynn and do subscribe to his podcast, but the others are new to me, so I will check those out. Can you think of the best speech you ever saw of someone in person? Not necessarily on video or Franklin Roosevelt inaugural address, but someone you saw in person?

The best speech I ever saw in person was in 2008 with a man named Matthew Kelly. He wrote the Rhythm of Life. That book changed my life. He also wrote the Dream Manager. That book also had a big influence on who I am today. Matthew Kelly is from Australia. He's got this crazy awesome Australian accent and he went up on stage and just dazzled me with how he spoke his words and told his stories and it was just great. Man, I left that conference feeling like I was on fire. And that was the best speech I ever listened to.

Okay, and my next question, it's okay to not mention somebody by name, but can you think of the worst speech you ever saw in person? To me, it's Peter Lowe of the whole Success seminars. To me, he always seemed like sort of a bad parody of a motivational speaker, but Is there anyone you can think of? And if you want to just describe them, that's okay too.

I can't honestly think of like a bad speech that I've listened to. I am, I could say that I've seen speeches where people weren't prepared, where they were shuffling through their notes, where they weren't connecting with their audience, where they weren't getting their audience engaged. Those are. I can't nail one person as the worst speech I've ever heard, but I can say those simple things that if you're not connecting with your audience, you know, shuffling your papers, you're not prepared. If you're standing in weak poses, like I mentioned, people can sense this stuff. And those are some of the things that I would say. I've noticed bad speakers do.

Any other major influences on you as a communicator when you were growing up? Any particular TV announcers or politicians you admired or respected because of their speaking skills?

Honestly, my baseball coach, he wasn't like a, you know, famous or anything, but he had a really, really big house and he had a baseball field in his backyard and he was a drill sergeant in some. In the Marines or something like that. And just the way he spoke to us, he was caring, but at the same time he was stern. He was, you know, passionate in the heat of the moment, like when we were in our baseball championship games. But he was also calm and collected when he needed to be. I didn't really watch much TV growing up. Sorry.

Nothing to be sorry about. I'm sure you will not be on your deathbed regretting how little TV you watched. You just gave me a flashback talking about your baseball coach. I remember for completely different reasons the speech of my little league football coach. I was in fifth grade and everything out of the coaches, there were two coaches mouths was an obscenity. And I was brought up in a very sort of cloistered, protective Leave it to Beaver family. Great family and parents were mild mannered, conservative Southern Baptist. And I just had never really heard a curse word other than once every five years in a major crisis. And I just remember it having this terribly like, depressing, almost like a slap in the face when I heard it from the football coaches. So it is amazing the things that can stick with you now. For me, that was more than 40 years ago.

And that's amazing that you brought that up because things are ingrained in our subconscious mind forever. That's a fact. And sometimes we can get rid of those things, but our subconscious is like. It's like the, you know, hey, you say the tip of the iceberg. Well, our conscious mind is the tip. Our subconscious is underneath the water. It's deep, it's vast. It goes on and on and on and on. And that's your subconscious mind clicking and saying, hey, I remember that moment and I truly believe. I mean, I'm not the only one. Like I said, I'm not a guru. If you know how to program your subconscious mind, you can achieve anything you want in life. I learned this 11 years ago when I first started in business, and I've been doing it since, and it's helped out a lot.

Our guest is Justin Ledford. He is the author of Visions to the A Millionaire's Secret Formula to Productivity, Visualization, and Meditation, available now on Amazon, especially the Kindle edition, the one I read, by the way. This is speaking with TJ Walker. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions for guests in the future, criticisms, critiques, send it to me directly on Twitter J. Walker. You can Also email me tjediatrainingworldwide.com Is there anyone else you respect now in the business world, political world, media world, as a communicator, and we're not really talking about their politics or even what business they're in, but just their ability to communicate.

Yeah, as far as ability to communicate, I would say Hal Elrod. He is the creator of the Miracle Morning, which is an incredible book that changed my life. He's one of the best speakers that I've ever listened to. Same with John Berghoff. John Bergoff is not very well known, but companies hire him, like Vitamix. He helped that company go from I think it was 50 million to over 200 million in one year. He's a very effective communicator. I don't really keep up with current events as much as some people do. I'm kind of in my own bubble of personal growth. I like to listen to your podcast and the other podcasts I mentioned and then go close deals with people. That's pretty much what I'm doing throughout the day or giving speeches at conferences.

Let's talk about speeches. You were speaking at an early age, making sales of your painting gigs, everything else one on one. But when was the first time you spoke and said to yourself, okay, that's an actual speech. It's more than five people. It's not just a schoolroom. What was your first speech?

My first speech, I'd have to say, would be actually at a Cutco event when I was 18 years of age. I had an awesome Summer, I produced over $100,000 in sales personally and over $125,000 as a manager. I trained people and taught them how to sell. And I was in a room with 500 people in Arizona at a big conference. And I remember just the feeling of just nailing that conversation, that speech, people standing up, clapping. It was a great feeling, man.

Well, that's. If only we could all have so many nice successes to start with. That is a good benchmark. Some people have great first speeches. Some, like Barbara Corcoran, the famed real estate investor who is now on Shark Tank, always talks about how her very first speech, she stood up in front of a thousand people and her just froze. Nothing came out of her mouth and she ran out of the room. But things turned out for her. She know speaks all over the place.

It's a muscle, T.J. it really is my first speech ever. It was a childhood play in school. I don't know how old I was. I was a sheriff. And I remember being nervous and, you know, feeling anxiety as a kid. I remember these feelings today. And the first time I didn't do so well. And then the second time. And third, you know, you get better with practice. They say practice makes perfect. But I like to say if you try to practice perfectly, that's how you get it perfect.

And any star athletes had bad days, had strikeouts. What are some of your bad speeches? Surely you must have had some that weren't quite as smooth as the first one.

Some of my bad speeches, let's see, I was trying to. I'm trying to think. My, my worst speech.

I've been booed off stages before. I've fallen off a stage before.

That's tough. My worst speech ever happened when I was, I was young, you know, 19 years old. I started to try to sell to real estate agents inside of their office. So I'm used to one on one, person to person. I tried to do business to business, sales. But the thing is I have to go in and do a team meeting where there's like a hundred or 200 real estate agents. And I tried that. And there's people in my business that do that phenomenally. But when I tried it, I didn't do so well. And I didn't have that immediate success that I was used to having. So I decided to stick with my strengths. My strengths were one on one with the people, you know, I've been referred to. And that's the thing with your, with your communicating your audience that communicates. Find out what your strengths are. And focus on those strengths. That's what you want to focus on. That's what I do in my business and in all parts of my life as well. And it's really helped me go very far by focusing on my strengths.

I do agree that that's generally the best way to go. Too many people obsess over the 2% area where they're not doing something right.

So.

So, for example, I am just not a good stand up comic. I took a stand up comedy class 20 years ago. Never got to the point where I really felt like it was working, even with a test audience of friends in the standup comedy class. And you know what? I just don't do stand up comedy. And no one's been disappointed. On the other hand, I was doing an interview at ABC a couple years ago. My wife was with me and she said you started every single answer using the word well. I didn't say ah or, but I said well. So I did have a problem there and I decided to improve. So I wrote out the word well, put the international no sign around it, like no left hand turn, no parking. And I taped that sign on my cell phone, computer and a few other places and drastically reduced it. So we all have flaws. I know I'm certainly not perfect. Do you see any flaws you have now as a speaker? Where are you still trying to improve as a communicator?

Yeah, I feel I definitely have flaws and I feel I always find myself doing things last minute. I like to rush. I like that feeling of showing up in a peak state and just nailing that moment. So I should probably spend more time planning and preparing. And by what I mean by that, I kind of live in the philosophy of ready, shoot, aim. Instead of the philosophy. Instead of the philosophy, ready, aim, fire. So it's helped me in the past, but it's also hurt me in the past. So I should probably be more prepared. That's one of my flaws.

Speaking of not being fully prepared, can you think of your. I'll give you the opportunity to be positive to your worst media interview ever and your best media interview.

My worst media interview ever and my best. Okay, so I'm going to start with my best. My best interview ever or speech ever. It was funny enough. It happened last week. I was a keynote speaker at a conference in Arizona or it could have been two months ago in Houston. They both felt the same. Just awesomeness, if that's even a word. The speech was titled Visions to the Top. Obviously my book. And I basically felt like Tony Robbins because the room was interacting. They were answering questions. People came up on stage, and I did some mental psychological techniques on them. The connection in the room was. It was really on point. At the end of it, people were crying during. And at the end, people were crying with joy. The negative ones in the room, they ended up being cheerful and happy. And the managers of each division, they contacted me afterwards, and they said their teams were noticeably doing better in performance and more productive. So that would have to say one of my best. Training some salespeople in different states, especially.

That last statement, that people were contacting you after the fact, seeing an actual change of performance, because that's the hard part. Getting a tear or standing ovation for a lot of people can be easy, but it's all forgotten, sometimes hours, even minutes later.

Yeah, you got to give them, like, a plan of action, you know. Okay, so what did we learn here today? 1, 2, 3. And then, you know, you get them something to do rather than feel people, they will remember how you made them feel. But if you give them a plan of action with that feeling, they'll go home and do that action, since you made them feel great. Now, my worst interview, man, that's. I don't want to sound like I don't conceit it or anything, but I'm really trying to have a hard time. My worst interview. Okay, so this was. Here we go. I was on Bourbon street at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. It was a keynote message for young college students who were also in sales. And there was just a lot of distractions. I'm gonna blame it on the distractions like Bourbon street and, you know, ADD and these kids. I was the last person to speak, so they were ready to get, you know, go and have fun. So I'm gonna blame it on that. But I also.

That does seem like a less than ideal scenario and format for a serious interview, because I. Well, remember when I was young on Bourbon street, and listening to people pontificate on anything serious was not the top priority.

And, you know, as far as your audience goes, like, if you. I have found that the introduction is the biggest, one of the most important things. The district manager, he didn't introduce me properly. He's just like, hey, this is Justin Letford. He's awesome. Let's hear him talk. Instead of what I'm used to, this guy has succeeded. Da, da da, da, da. He's doing great. And here's why you should look, you know, the introduction, whenever you're meeting somebody or introducing somebody, make that person feel Special. And what happens is they become more receptive to you and open to listening.

This is slightly different, but related. How do you introduce yourself? Let's say you're at a speaker's convention or some conference, and all of a sudden there's 30 people in the room and they say, okay, let's all go up. Let's all stand up and introduce ourselves for 20, 30 seconds. How do you introduce yourself in that situation? Because I know a lot of people who are articulate and accomplished suddenly turn into just the most boring name, rank and serial number people when that happens.

First of all, I would stand in a power pose and I would smile and I'd say, how's everybody doing? And I'd get some interaction with the stage or with the group, whoever I'm talking to. And then if there was no interaction, I'd say, I'm sorry, I can't see very well. And I put my hand on my ear and I'd say, how is everybody doing? And the next thing you know, everybody's like, we're doing great. So I'd get some interaction and then I'd say, guys, my name is Justin Ledford. I'm not a guru. I'm just a young man who has a passion and a dream to help people become a better version of themselves. I've had a lot of success before the age of 30. And I just. I have a message. It's inside my book, Visions to the Top. I teach people how to use visualization, how to use meditation, and ultimately live a dream fulfilled life. You know, that's basically what I would do. I'd say whether. Whether you're super successful in life or maybe you haven't made it to the success that you want. It's like a buffet platter. It has nuggets of wisdom inside of it that can teach anybody at any walk of life. And that's something you're interested in. You should come check. We should have a conversation. And I'd end it with a smile and just waving my hands. People can sense if you're stuck up and stubborn. And, you know, I like to have fun with life. I wear flip flops, you know, I'm just a laid back kind of dude.

I'm wearing Crocs right now myself. We are two peas in a pod, it sounds like.

That's awesome.

I want to hear from you. I don't, certainly don't want to end on a negative note, but I do want to know what you think is some of the worst communication advice out there. Because everybody, anybody can call themselves a communications expert or a communications guru, to use a word that I think you're not a huge fan of. But I want to know what some of the best communication advice you think there is that isn't. It either isn't followed or people just don't stop to think about. But I also want to know what bad advice is out there that you think people should really shun.

Absolutely. That is a great question. And I will say, as far as, like, the best advice goes, you know, there's a quote that I've. I live by. Let's see if I can find it. It's from Jim Rome, and he said, I'm having a hard time finding it. But he basically said your level of income is in direct proportion to the amount of time you spend growing yourself. And as far as communication goes, know who your audience is. That's one of the best piece of advice. Know who they are, know what their struggles are, know what their strengths are, know what they're trying to accomplish, know where they're having difficulties. And if you can, know that come from a place of value. How can I offer value to this audience? Whenever I got that in my head by offering value to people, that helped me in my communication tremendously. So that's one of my best pieces of communication that people rarely follow. Know your audience and offer value to them. Now, did you ask me about the worst communication advice? Yes, I'd say worst communication advice. It's a great question. Going up and not being confident, not looking people in the eye, not connecting with your audience, not interacting with them. These are things I've mentioned before, but I've seen it before when they're up on stage and they're just kind of going through the motions, conceited, like, that's not good. You want to connect with your audience and get them interacted. That would be my tip.

And are there ways of interaction that just don't work? I will be honest with you. I personally just really don't like it when a speaker gets up and says, how's everyone doing today? Or who here wants to make more money? To me, it always feels very contrived and like they're manipulating me. It's like, okay, I have to raise my hand. Say something. How do you make the judgment between the right amount of engagement versus something that can? Maybe half the audience likes, but the other half thinks is cheesy and manipulative?

That's a great question. You really got to feel your audience out and you're Right, tj, There's people who don't like, don't like that stuff. So there's ways around it. What you do is you change their physiology. What I do is when I notice that kind of weirdness in the audience, I'll get them to. I say, everybody stand up, please. Grab all your belongings. I need everybody to take a deep breath in. And a lot of times it's just they need to breathe. And then, okay, next I want you to turn to your neighbor on your right and give them a little massage. Now turn to your left and give them a little massage. And that changes their physiology. It changes their mental state. And then if I see it again in the presentation, I will literally guide the audience. If it's a one on one, we'll go walk somewhere else and change the atmosphere. If it's a group presentation, I'll change it up and we'll go. I'll get them to move into a different location. Whenever it's like a hundred or two hundred or plus people, I'll have everybody switch seats. That changes the physiology of people and it kind of throws them off a little bit and then they're back in peak state.

And final question, Justin, what is it you want my audience to do? Well, I should say the audience. It sounds pretentious to say my audience. What am I, Rush Limbaugh? I've been doing this for 50 years. No, what do you want the listeners of this show to do?

Well, you know, obviously I appreciate you asking. I would love your audience to pick up a copy of my book. I'm actually for your audience. I'm giving away the first two chapters for free just so they can get a feel for it. I want them to read that@visionstothetop.com Again, it's visionstothetop.com and if you like it, be a supporter. Join our Facebook community. There's people all around the world. I never would have expected this. Russia, China, Japan, all over Europe, emailing me every day telling me how this tactic or this technique has really helped them business or in their health. So I want your audience to become the best version of themselves. And that. How does that happen? It happens by personal growth. Whenever people are personally growing, that's when better, betterness begins. It allows them to focus on contribution and living a better life. You know as well as I know, tj, whenever you learn something new, you want to share it with somebody, right? Of course. So I want your audience to be the best communicators possible. Learn how to visualize and definitely pick up a copy of my book visionstothetop.com.

And they can find you on Facebook just by typing in Justin Ledford that is correct.

They can search for Justin Ledford Visions.

Of the Top and that's LED F O R D. That's correct. And Also my website justinledford.net justinledford not.com but net3w's justinledford.net and we'll post a link to that in the show notes as well. Justin, thanks for being our guest today. Again, the name of the book Visions to the A Millionaire's Secret Formula to Productivity, Visualization and Meditation, available now on Amazon.

Thank you tj.

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