Through the rises and dips of the path to success, where is the most powerful place to derive our motivation and validation from? Do we find it in the faces of people we aim to please or is it possible to get all the fuel you need from within? On this episode of Pursuing Results, we discuss this with coach Marc Mawhinney, in connection with the book, Thick Face, Black Heart by Chin Ning Chu.

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There are going to be people who want to drag you down and try to ruin you. If you can wrap your head around that, you can respond better. -Marc Mawhinney

Takeaways + Tactics

• Sometimes you need to leapfrog the haters by jumping to a different, and perhaps larger pool.
• Confidence and sense of self should come from yourself and not outside validation because so much of it is out of your control.
• Detach yourself from the outcome, and treat your life like it’s someone else’s to fortify yourself from getting bruised easily. if you’re not concerned about the outcome, you experience no fear.

The most successful people have experienced their fair share of failure and possibly some haters hell bent on knocking them down. They survived and went onto thrive by accepting the existence of these haters and going after their bold dreams regardless. They bounced back because they detached themselves from outcomes, leapfrogged over the haters, played up their strengths and had the kind of dreams that were scary but well worth the ride.

On this episode we covered:

• The struggle many successful people face when they try to transition to coaching, and how that has to do with wrong expectations
• Working on your weaknesses vs. improving on your strengths
• Why the best validation comes from within
• The power of detaching from outcomes
• The leap frog theory and why it could be what helps you rise above the haters

Guest Bio

Marc works directly with a select number of clients who want to build successful coaching businesses that impact the world. Marc’s online programs helps clients grow their coaching businesses. Natural Born Coaches,” is the podcast launched to help coaches with their businesses. With over 500 episodes of the podcast, Marc talks with well over 1000 coaches every year (on-air and off-air). To get in touch with Marc, go to NaturalBornCoaches.com. Go to TheCoachingJungle.com to join his group.

Most people are terrified to face the truth of who they are and this stands in the way of growth and change. How do we move beyond fear and change the language of our minds so that we can imagine and create success? On this episode of Pursuing Results, we discuss this in conjunction with Richard Bach’s book Illusions, with founder of The Ageless Wisdom, Michael Benner.

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pursuingresults/PhilGerbyshak.mp3

Fear is the feeling of not understanding things, dangerous or not. At the center of what we don’t understand is the self. -Michael Benner

Takeaways + Tactics

• It’s important to look at the direction you want to go and not the direction you wish to avoid. If we focus on what we want to avoid, we create it.
• All business development is personal development especially when you enter the entrepreneurial space.
• We believe that fear is a signal of danger, then we carry stress and anxiety with us because of the myth that we need fear to be careful.

Confucius said, “The man who thinks he can and the man who thinks he can’t are both right.” Positive thinking is so much more than psychology, it has a direct effect on our minds and the path that meets us. We create what we put focus on and life conspires to support the mindset we nurture. “Life is what you’re make it” is more literal than you might think.

On this episode we covered:

• How many of us are confused about success and think it’s a path to happiness.
• How we are far too oriented to pleasing other people and gaining their acceptance than being true to who we are
• The importance of facing and loving our true selves if we want to successful
• The myth of fear and how fear can be used to guide us to our own success
• How to make sure life conspires for your success

Guest Bio

Michael Benner is best known throughout Southern California for his popular talk radio programs. Since 1977, he has hosted news and talk shows on KABC-AM, KLOS-FM, KLSX-FM, KCBS-FM, KRLA-AM, and KPFK-FM. His KPFK talk show was the only radio program featured in the L.A. Weekly’s “Best of 2000” issue. In 1987 Michael left broadcasting as a full-time profession to begin his own business, Personal Development Strategies. With offices in Glendale, he provides consulting and training to individuals, couples, and businesses.

The customer has become empowered through innovations like social media and that means how we sell to them has to change. What methods do we need to employ to move away from the sell, sell, sell mentality? What should we be leading with? On this episode, we discuss this with speaker, coach and fellow podcaster Phil Gerbyshak.

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pursuingresults/PhilGerbyshak.mp3

Learn to persuade people in an ethical way. When you believe you’re the right person for the job, put it across in such a way that makes it a win-win. -Matt Johnson

On this episode we covered:

• Positive persuasion vs. manipulation
• The power of giving people an out when you talk to them
• The importance of transparency
• Structuring a win-win deal and prepping for speaking engagements
• The benefits of thinking collaboratively

Takeaways + Tactics

• The goal of speaking and coaching is to influence and inspire people to take an action, and move them from aspiration to inspiration.
• Sometimes in sales, no does really mean no, at least at that time. If you’re too pushy the no will become a never.
• Being transparent about your availability and your calendar displays your value and priorities.

The “always be closing” mentality is fast becoming obsolete because the customer is now in the driver’s seat of the transaction. As a service provider, it is your job to get business through positive persuasion and not fear, scarcity and intimidation. Lead with value and the intention to solve the customer’s pain points and you will be rewarded with business. This will help you win the people conversation so you don’t have to fight a people battle.

Guest Bio

Phil Gerbyshak is a speaker and a trainer, who delivers programs on the power of technology, social selling and connection. With a unique speaking style—part technology and sales expert, part entertainer—Phil keeps his audiences awake and engaged while providing micro-tactics to help you get more leads, earn referrals, and improve your business. When he’s not traveling, speaking, or making new connections, Phil writes. He’s published 5 books, including 10 Ways to Make It Great and #TwitterWorks, more than 2,500 articles, and has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Financial Times, and more. Go to www.PhilGerbyshak.com for more information, or go to ConversationswithPhil.com to listen to his podcast.

In a market that’s so flooded, how can entrepreneurs set themselves apart and sell to their target audience through value? This week we discuss this subject with Dr. Jeffrey Langmaid, founder of The Evidence Based Chiropractor and find out what he’s learned from Paul Arden’s book It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be.

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Have actual specific market expertise and if you don’t know, spend the time before product launch gaining market expertise. -Dr Jeffrey Langmaid

At the start of the episode Jeffrey introduced himself and told us about his work, and what inspired him to start The Evidence Based Chiropractor. This led to a discussion about the success that comes from creating products that are spurred by opportunity and development instead of the rush to make money.

Next we launch into a discussion about the book It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be by Paul Arden. Jeffrey came across it in the early days of his business and it’s a book that is packed with quotes and tidbits for great new ideas.

The key things he’s learned are:

• The importance of having a good product that has market fit and solves a pain point for your consumer 
• Building your audience
• Providing value and providing it consistently
• Being product focused and audience focused
• The importance of social proof

Takeaways + Tactics

• If I’m having this problem so is everyone else, if I solve it I’m going to be way ahead of them.
• Have a good product that has market fit and solves a pain point for your consumer.
• Content has to be valuable because people’s clickbait tolerance has gone down.

We went onto discuss the methods Jeffrey uses to build his list. He relies on opt-in landing pages that give people valuable content when they sign up. He believes in giving people something real, especially considering how people’s tolerance for clickbait content has reduced. In his field people won’t click on work that looks too good to be true. It’s necessary to have specific market expertise which you can use to provide more value. Towards the end of the show we discussed the benefits of co-authored and co-ventured content.

Providing value and providing it consistently is an important part of marketing successfully. If you are product focused and audience focused that will allow you to zone into the pain points of your target audience and create opportunities. When a product hits a pain point and there’s a market opportunity, that’s the sweet spot.

Guest Bio

Jeffrey is the founder of The Evidence Based Chiropractor, a leading speaker, writer, and thought-leader regarding interdisciplinary communication and marketing. To get in touch with him go to TheEvidenceBasedChiropractor.com.

The life of an entrepreneur is laden with demands and commitments. If you can’t take the time to live in the moment, you can get weighed down and become miserable. How do you prevent this? We talk to entrepreneur, author and fitness/anti-aging expert Jay Campbell about Eckart Tolle’s book, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment and pick his brain on state change and outcome detachment.

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The difference between being happy and being complacent is knowing when you have enough. -Jay Campbell

At the start of the episode Jay Campbell shared how the book The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment came into his life and the lessons he gained from it. The main thing he learned was the power of detaching from outcomes and learning to embrace the benefits of going with the flow. He also gained a lot of insight through meditation and mindfulness training. We went onto discuss how people can still motivate themselves when they are no longer attached to the outcome. Jay said, “you should envision success in your mind but you can’t have a defined outcome from a standpoint of “it has to happen this way.”

Jay reminded viewers that success will never happen exactly how you envision it, and when we obsess over it happening how we want, the ego mind takes over and the result is sorrow and misery. Most people live in the future or in the past and that robs them of the present moment. Jay went onto talk about how we should react to the ups and downs of life, “what if your reaction to everything was is that so?” Towards the end of the show we discussed state changes, trigger words or phrases and how the book changed Jay’s daily life.

Takeaways + Tactics

• To overcome a negative moment, ask yourself what you can do in that moment to change your state of mind.
• Not being attached to the outcome isn’t an excuse to fear the outcome.
• Don’t have a defined outcome from a standpoint of “it has to happen this way.”

Everything in life is a continuum, including happiness and sadness. How you react to those things is within your control. You set yourself free by detaching from the outcome and avoiding misery by embracing and living in the present moment. Rely on state change and your own power over negative states of mind. Remember that you can achieve something if you perceive it.

Guest Bio

Jay Campbell is a Champion Men’s Physique Competitor, entrepreneur and the best selling author of The Definitive Testosterone Replacement Therapy MANual: How to Optimize Your Testosterone for Lifelong Health and Happiness. Learn more about him on trtrevolution.com and join his group The Decoders of Truth on Facebook.

The quest for knowledge and truth is something that drives us forward and inspires innovation, but what holds us back from discovering truth and advancing to an even higher level of understanding? This week, we talk to Tim Stafford, who gives us his perspective on the book The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson.

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The Medici effect allows you to push things together and reverse the assumptions you have that certain things only have to go certain ways. -Tim Stafford

At the start of the show, Tim told us about the Medici Effect and a bit about when it came into his life. He talked about the need to rethink the box and the fact that we are often held back by the assumptions and things we believe and hope to be true. In order to find that truth, we do have to admit that we’re wrong about the beliefs we currently have. An example Tim gave was the belief that you can have too many ideas. He reminded us that once you make that assumption, “You start narrowing down the number of ideas you can have and it stymies you from finding something that might be very unique.”

The central teaching of The Medici Effect is reversing assumptions in order to inspire innovation. We went on to discuss how the book helped him stretch what he can do and exponentially make a greater impact. He also shared how he generates new ideas and remains open-minded.

Takeaways + Tactics

• In order to find the truth, we have to admit we’re wrong about something.
• If you believe you can have too many ideas, you’ll start narrowing down the number of ideas you can generate.
• The idea of innovation is that new ideas come from ideas that already exist, but they are just put together in a different way

The greatest lesson we can learn from the Medici Effect is how powerful it is to constantly take yourself out of your own comfort zone of knowledge. To cross that line, reversing limiting assumptions is necessary. You can inspire innovation by seeking knowledge outside of what you already know. Read on topics that have nothing to do with what you already know and talk to different people as much as you can. There’s much to gain when you step out of the box!

Guest Bio

Tim has more than 25 years of experience in the areas of educational leadership, instructional design, educational technology, curriculum and development, adult learning, professional development, and accreditation. To get in touch with Tim, email his at [email protected] or book him for a free coaching session by going to bookdrtim.com

Life-Changing Book: Miracle Mornings by Hal Elrod. Mornings set the tone for our days. Whether we are proactive or reactive during our workday is heavily influenced by our morning routine. How do we ensure that our morning routine supports our goals? On this episode, entrepreneur and coach Isaac Stegman shares how Miracle Mornings has impacted his life through an ever-evolving morning routine.

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When you feel like you’re being pulled apart, there’s usually some sort of lack of structural integrity in your life, or decisions that are not in alignment.  -Isaac Stegman

At the start of the show we presented the six “SAVERS” from Miracle Mornings- silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading and scribing. Isaac shared how he implemented these in his own daily routine, and how he was able to overcome the challenges of learning a new system. For him personally, silence was the biggest challenge, but he is driven by accepting evolution. “Anything you do over an extended period of time is going to be an evolution because you change. Your habits, wants and needs will change.”

Next, we discussed how he successfully implements affirmations by injecting music into his daily routine. He began this by asking himself, “what do I want to tell myself about myself?” Every morning, he listen to songs that have the message that he wants to hear and believe. His take on visualization is built on the “be, do and have” concept where he puts his focus on the person he wants to be and not the things he wants to have. He added, “when you look at who you want to be, you have to be honest first about who you are right now.”

Takeaways + Tactics

• Allow your morning routine to evolve – Don’t get too hung up on the same structure.
• In our quest for continual improvement, we often overlook elements like environment and structure.
• Silence can be meditation or some alternative form like active appreciation or box breathing.

Isaac also shared his approach to journaling and how he makes the process intentional. His way of journaling allows him to reflect and celebrate the accomplishments of the day. He has reinforced his journaling by using these four words as a guide: environment, purpose, integrity and contribution. We went on to discuss reading and why it’s important to go beyond reading and to actually work on mastering a book. We also discussed exercise and how it can be the anchor of the day and why it’s necessary to evaluate environment and structure when it comes to improving our lives.

There is a radical difference between being reactive and being proactive about your day. The Miracle Morning helps you nurture the structures that set up your mindset, energy and actions for what’s ahead. Use the value of positive messages to inspire you, see the right picture and help yourself follow through. Use exercise to anchor your emotional and mental state, master the content of the books you read and journal to reflect on your progress. Through all of this, be aware of environment, your purpose, the structural integrity of your life and the contribution you make.

Guest Bio

Isaac Stegman is an entrepreneur, speaker, and coach. He has personally recruited and trained hundreds of individuals in the sales and marketing field, and is considered an expert on building business relationships. He is consistently in the top 1% of his industry and has achieved numerous sales awards and accomplishments. Isaac’s current projects include business development projects, speaking and teaching engagements, business coaching, and networking with other talented business leaders. Go to applyforfreedom.com to apply for coaching and find Isaac on Facebook for more information.

Customer experience has become an important part of the decision making process in brand marketing and operations. How do you understand your ideal client and understand the decisions they make, so that you can tailor an experience that isn’t just transactional? We talk to author, professor and customer experience speaker Jeofrey Bean and discuss Class: A Guide Through the American Status System by Paul Fussell.

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If you want people to advocate for you, you’re going to have to offer more than a quick transaction. -Jeofrey Bean

On this week’s episode of Pursuing Results we discussed Paul Fussell’s book Class: A Guide for the American Status System, with our guest Jeofrey Bean. He shared his background and how got started in customer experience design. He was interested in how people make the decisions and choices they make and why they buy what they buy. His interest in the companies that were excelling at customer experience drove him to start working on an article which evolved into a book.

Jeofrey explained that companies like Apple and Netflix want to understand the consumer in an insightful way so they make better business decisions. These companies ask, watch, listen, anticipate and innovate and they’re already plugged into changes in society and clued in on the technology that’s coming.

Takeaways + Tactics

• Understanding people in an insightful way helps you make better business decisions.
• Healthy growth isn’t necessarily linear growth.
• Successful brands understand behavior, emotion and economics – sometimes better than the customers themselves.

We went onto talk about the book, which Jeofrey first encountered in 1983. Jeofrey was interested in the way Fussell worked to understand the motivations behind the decision to buy something. When people buy different car models, what lies behind these decisions is information that brands can use to better understand customer needs. We went onto discuss ideal strategic investors, stressful innovation and how the customer experience changed the smartphone market.

Customer and user experience revolutionized the smartphone market and illuminated the value of thinking above and beyond transactions. It’s important to ask the economical and emotional “do fors” that drive customers to become advocates. It comes down to providing a value that customers can perceive clearly. If value isn’t perceived, it isn’t received. Value in customer experience is created by asking, watching, listening, anticipating and innovating.

Guest Bio

Jeofrey Bean is the author of the books Customer Experience Rules! and best-selling The Customer Experience Revolution – How Companies like Apple, Amazon, and Starbucks Have Changed Business Forever, with Sean Van Tyne. He is a leading customer experience and internet marketing expert and excels at helping companies determine, develop and deliver extraordinary customer experience along the entire customer experience continuum. Jeofrey is also the part-time Professor of Business Management and Marketing at UC San Diego Extension. To buy Jeofrey’s books visit his author page on Amazon.

The image many have of an entrepreneur is an individual who is juggling too many things and is busy to the point of having way too much on their plate, but is this a healthy model to aspire to? On this episode of Pursuing Results, Matt and Greg speak with real estate investor and podcaster Matt Aitchison about the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less and how stripping down can actually give us so much more in life.

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Your life by is design unless you choose it not to be, and if you don’t say yes or no to the right things you’re letting someone else design your life by default.   –Matt Aitchison

The podcast launches with an intro of Matt and some details about who he is and what he does. Matt Johnson introduces the book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less Book by Greg McKeown, which the guest Matt A. says led him to a very different path. His goal was to build wealth and always be profitable but also maintain a quality of life and the ability to do what matters. The book taught him that bigger wasn’t always better and after a working life of chasing goal after goal he found that he was losing his luster and that forced him to reevaluate.

He decided that he wanted to be his highest and best self at what was most fulfilling to him and that meant being honest about was his own end goals were. That meant having an honest conversation with his partner. Greg asks Matt A. what it was like to have that conversation, and he says what made a difference was that he and his partner had always been honest with each other. “The relationship is the conversation, whether it’s the conversation you are having or the conversation you aren’t having.”

Takeaways + Tactics

• Just because you’re saying no, doesn’t mean that you don’t appreciate that person or that opportunity.
• Successful people are intentional and ruthless about how they spend their time
• The relationship is the conversation. Every conversation you have or don’t have will end up dictating the direction of your relationship

The co-hosts and guest also discuss the amount of caution that must be paid when it comes to entering a partnership. It only works when people want to walk to the same place and the same page. When it came to refocusing, Matt A. says he was passionate about wealth building and decided real estate was his vehicle. He used that as the basis of designing his life as opposed to having a life designed by the expectations of others. He learned the art of the graceful no and holding onto one’s own standards.

The chat winds down with a discussion of entrepreneurs being too attached to being busy, and the ego that drives that. Matt A. states that there’s much more to life than reaching a certain level. Ultimately, it’s important to be able to inspire people to be much better than they were the day before and that’s what essentialism comes down to – focusing on what’s necessary, important and most fulfilling.

People tend to over-value a lot of the non-essentials in life and the book Essentialism aims to help entrepreneurs strip down to what adds the most value to their lives. In a culture where being busy is romanticized, aim for sustainable entrepreneurship to avoid burning out and robbing yourself of the relationships, opportunities and moments that make life something exciting to wake up to each day.

Guest Bio

Matt Aitchison is the CEO and President of Vault Investment Properties, a Sacramento based real estate investment company. The company redevelops homes and neighborhoods through win-win opportunities via real estate investments throughout the community. Matt also hosts a podcast called Millionaire Mindcast. To find out more or listen to episodes go to millionairemindcast.com.

Subscribe to Pursuing Results Weekly, with the latest podcast interview opportunities, life-changing books, takeaways and tactics from the previous week’s interviews, and excerpts from our partner podcasts.

Personal growth is aided by the ability to remove the stumbling blocks that stand in the way of success and fulfillment. Sometimes the biggest ones are in our own minds and they come in the form of limiting beliefs that we accept as truth. What are these limiting beliefs and how do we overcome them? On this episode, Matt and Greg discuss the subject with business coach David Taylor-Klaus who also provides some key takeaways from,The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pursuingresults/DavidTaylorKlaus.mp3

We all reach a level where each new level of professional success can come at the expense of personal success.   – David Taylor-Klaus

Matt and Greg kicked off the chat and introduced listeners to David Taylor-Klaus, a business coach who helps reintroduce successful entrepreneurs and executives to their families.He believes in ensuring that professional success does not come at the expense of personal fulfillment. He also provides opportunities to recenter leaders and the teams that they lead because the behaviors of leaders often trail behind to the people they lead.

In his own life, David has benefitted from what he teaches his clients. He says his breaking point  was when his stomach would sink when he’d turn the door knob to get into work. David adds that there’s a problem when “you hear your spouse say they hate their job more than you do.”

Takeaways + Tactics

• If you judge yourself for the failures, you won’t be able to learn from them.
• There’s no objective best or objective truth, it’s situational at best.
• If you measure your life with money it’s really hard to evaluate where you’re really successful.

The chat turns to the book, The Four Agreements which David came across during his training to become a coach. The book is about limiting beliefs and an important point is that being successful doesn’t have to come at the expense of other things. The 4 agreements are internal or cultural assumptions we take as truth and they shape our lives.

David says the book was a wake up call and he believes that people should aim for life-work integration and not work-life balance because he had reached a point where he hardly saw his children and that was a problem. He asked himself “what part of the problem am I?”

Matt points out that we shouldn’t internalize blame, we should try to compartmentalize it. “Successful people have the ability to take on the responsibility of something without it knocking down their self-esteem.” David adds that it’s all about having compassion and being objective. “If you judge yourself for the failures you won’t be able to learn from them. It’s important to reframe failures. Screwing up doesn’t make you a screw up and failing doesn’t make you a failure – make every mistake a new one.”

The co-hosts and David take on Don Miguel Ruiz’s second agreement learning not to take things personally, because it is the maximum expression of selfishness. By making everything about yourself, you’re making yourself the hero of everyone’s story. When we deal with what happens to us, we shouldn’t turn to anger first because we then miss the opportunity to really deal with the issues. Additionally making everything about you is the epitome of self-abuse. We each form the maps of our minds, and that means there’s no objective truth – just perception. David added “there’s no objective best or truth, it is situational at best. ”

How we look at success creates pathways for our best lives. When we only see money as the one currency that drives our lives we miss relationships, value and experiences. “If you measure your life with money it’s really hard to evaluate where you’re really successful.” It is necessary to decide on the life you want to live and built your life or business around that. David said “we’re not on this planet to make money we’re here to make an impact.”

Guest Bio

David is a business coach whose clients are entrepreneurs & executives achieving success professionally but seeing that growth cause problems personally. His specialties include life coaching, executive coaching, entrepreneur coaching, leadership coaching and team coaching. To get in touch with David or find out more about his work visit DTKCoaching.com

Subscribe to Pursuing Results Weekly, with the latest podcast interview opportunities, life-changing books, takeaways and tactics from the previous week’s interviews, and excerpts from our partner podcasts.

Building the awareness of what you want out of life is a daily pursuit that requires dedication, passion and constant self examination. With so much information at our fingertips, how do we narrow down to our core values and core ideals so that our true goals reveal themselves? On today’s episode, Matt and Greg chat […]