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The Impact Entrepreneur

Mike Flynn takes you behind closed doors and invites you into his conversations with game changing entrepreneurs. These conversations go beyond success and failure, beyond product or service or platform, to uncover what is really behind the decisions these entrepreneurs make and what IMPACT they hope to have in the world.
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Now displaying: July, 2016
Jul 25, 2016

Today’s conversation with Bob Burg is packed full of authenticity, empathy and value. He is author of The Go-Giver, a business parable about consistently providing values to others, and he has made a career out of helping others.

“I choose to be in business for myself. I have a much better feeling of freedom and liberty that way. I have a better feeling about myself, and quite frankly I think I can help a lot more people by being an entrepreneur than I can working in someone else’s organization.” Bob’s entrepreneurial success is driven by an innate sense of empathy.

“Empathy can be developed, but I think the first step is understanding why it is important.” Empathy is a major aspect of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is understanding both your own and another person’s feelings, or at least understanding that they have feelings about something, and being able to regulate those feelings. By being able to act in such a way because of, or in spite of, those feelings, you are able to bring the most value to other people. “The single greatest people skill is simply a highly developed and authentic interest in the other person.”

Bob’s book, The Go-Giver, is a business parable that collects aspects of many true stories into the fictional story of Joe. In the story, Joe learns a very valuable lesson: shifting one’s focus from getting to giving, by which Bob means constantly and consistently providing value to others, isn’t just a pleasant way to live, but a profitable way to live as well.

For example, Joe asks a mentor if a product will make money. Joe’s mentor tells him that it’s not a bad question; in fact, it’s a great question. It’s just a bad first question. If your first thought is to ask if something will make money, then you’re not thinking about the marketplace itself. A better question to ask is “Will it serve?” or “Does it add value?”

The Go-Giver also provides five laws to guide the way Bob believes we should live our lives:

  1. Value – Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment. We have to understand the profound difference between price and value. Price is a dollar figure, and it’s finite. Value, on the other hand, is the desirability of an end product.
  2. Compensation – Your income is determined by how many people you serve, and how well you serve them. It’s not just value; it’s also how many lives you impact. Your compensation is directly under your control, and there’s no limit to your compensation because you always have more people to serve. Understand that success is a mindset, you can do it, and that building relationships is a skillset.
  3. Influence – Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interest first. Don’t be a doormat or sacrificial, but make your success about other people’s success. The essence of influence is pull, as opposed to push. Great influencers attract people.
  4. Authenticity – The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself. All of the skills in the world are for naught if you don’t come at everything from your true, authentic core.
  5. Receptivity – The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving. We breathe out, and we must also breathe in. All of the giving in the world is for naught if you do not make yourself available to receive in like measure. “This is why we say that money is simply an echo of value.”

“The Golden Rule of Business is that, all things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to the people they know, like and trust.“ There is no faster, more powerful or more effective way to elicit those feelings towards you from others than by making your win about the other person’s win. It’s moving from an “I” or “Me” focus to an “Other” focus.

Bob’s book emphasizes the role of focus and intention for entrepreneurs. “You have to be very focused on accomplishing what you know you want to accomplish every day, every week, every month, every year. Intention comes right along with that. You have an intention to do a certain thing, and you don’t stop until it happens.” Entrepreneurs need to be flexible with strategy and tactics in order to accomplish what they intend to do.

Bob’s passion for helping others is palpable in this interview. I’m grateful that he took the time to share his thought process and some stories about The Go-Giver. He definitely has a lot of value to offer.

 

SOME QUESTIONS I ASK:

  • What are some ways that entrepreneurs can develop empathy and apply it in our daily lives?
  • What is the premise of The Go-Giver?
  • A character in Bob’s book says, “‘Does it make money?’ is not a bad question, it’s a great question. It’s just a bad first question.” What does he mean by that?
  • How should entrepreneurs think about focus and intention?
  • In Bob’s book, the Law of Compensation says that your compensation is directly under your control, and there’s no limit to your compensation because you always have more people to serve. How can entrepreneurs operate under this mindset and live out this law?
  • How does a go-giver create influence, both personally and in business, and how does that directly relate to new business, or even leadership?

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

  • A greater understanding of what makes empathy an important aspect of a successful business and personal life
  • Why The Go-Giver is a valuable business parable for entrepreneurs
  • The Golden Rule of Business
  • The value of focus and intention
  • How giving can create influence
  • Plus much more…

 

DON’T STOP HERE…

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Jul 18, 2016

Today I have a delightful and authentic conversation with Honoree Corder. She is an entrepreneur, coach, speaker and prolific author. Currently, she is writing her 20th book, You Must Write a Book, for professionals who absolutely should write a book as a differentiator. She calls writing a book “the new business card.”

Honoree was raised with an entrepreneurial spirit. “Being an entrepreneur means you get to eat what you kill.” Your effort is returned to you, and only to you. Entrepreneurs are punished or rewarded based on how much time and effort they put into their businesses.

“Go ahead and start the business, instead of having it as an idea that’s marinating. If it’s been marinating, it’s marinated.” If you start, your business will, over time, take on a life of its own. If you’re currently an employee with the hunger for entrepreneurship, turn your idea into a side hustle.

“Keep going. Be patient. Some day your side hustle will be your main hustle.” Carve out time to do the thing that you really want to do. That will fuel you, feed you and tide you over. If you’re waiting to jump from one situation to the next, you’re missing out on an opportunity for your passion to grow and be nurtured.

Honoree wrote her first book because she had a 15 second mentor. She met Mark Victor Hansen at a conference, and he said to her, “Everybody is a coach and a speaker, you need a book.” She took her most popular presentation and turned it into a book.

Honoree wrote the amazing book Vision to Reality: How Short Term Massive Action Equals Long Term Maximum Results. In order to get from where you are now to your dreams, there are certain steps that have to be taken. You have to take short-term, massive action that will compound, and it will lead to long-term massive results. Four things precede a successful new reality:

  1. Think – If you don’t think you can achieve your vision, you want get to the next step.
  2. Believe – If you don’t believe your vision is possible for you, it will not be possible.
  3. Deserve – If you don’t believe you deserve your vision, you will reach an upper limit to success.
  4. Commit – Finally, you have to commit yourself mentally, and commit your time, to your vision.

Be authentically yourself. Authenticity is so powerful because people want to know that others are imperfect, and that others are vulnerable. Those are strengths, not weaknesses. Honoree invents the word “authentistic” during the interview to describe the act of being authentic and fantastic. You mess up, you have struggles, you are human, and it’s okay.

If you want something, you have to give it away: this can be anything from money to love to authenticity. As an author, Honoree wants good reviews. So, one day she decides to review The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod on Goodreads. Now, she and Hal have a partnership to create The Miracle Morning book series.

“I think that people have the perception that successful people, in whatever they do, are somehow special people, and the only difference between successful people and people who aren’t as successful as they want to be … is that they have done a little bit more a little bit longer.”

Honoree truly exudes authenticity and positivity in the advice and stories she offers during this episode. I had a lot of fun talking to her, and I hope you got something great from it too.

 

SOME QUESTIONS I ASK:

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

  • How authenticity can be a powerful force for success
  • Why, if you want something, you have to give it away
  • How to bring an idea from vision to reality
  • Why you should write a book
  • Plus much more… 

DON’T STOP HERE…

 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Jul 11, 2016

I had a very open and passionate conversation with Tom Bilyeu today. He is the Co-founder and President of Quest Nutrition, a company that endeavors to transform the entire food industry by creating foods that taste as good as they are good for you. In 2014, it was named the #2 fastest-growing private company in America by Inc.com. Tom also hosts the weekly thought leadership talk show Inside Quest.

Surprisingly, Tom says that he was not a born entrepreneur – he was actually inspired by The Matrix to challenge his construct of reality and change his mindset. “The Matrix really gave me the framework with which to begin thinking about my life … I think that our mindset is the real-world equivalent of The Matrix.” To get out of the matrix, you have to change the way you think. “You have to stop allowing yourself to believe things about yourself, even if they’re true, that don’t move you forward.”

Changing your mindset is a battle. For Tom, the process of becoming an entrepreneur was really the process of controlling his mindset and realizing it is possible to take control of destiny – not only realizing he didn’t have to be an employee, but also realizing that financial independence was achievable. Your mind is everything, and the narrative that you tell yourself about yourself is the most important thing in your life. If you don’t take time to construct and repeat a narrative that is empowering, you are doing yourself a disservice.”

Tom’s Morpheus(es), or mentors, are the authors of books. He has a deep sense of gratitude for people who take the time to put their wisdom down in a book so that others can learn easy what they learned hard. “It’s a great tradition to write down that knowledge so that it can be passed on.”

On Tom’s site, it says that companies only have a chance at greatness when driven by a mission. He also says that the mission of Quest was born out of misery. When Tom first started working with his current partners, they were working to get rich. After a lot of success, Tom was miserable. He left to embark on a life of purpose and lasting fulfillment. However, his partners agreed, and fought to keep Tom on board. They came up with a new mantra:

  • Work on something that brings value to people
  • Believe in what they’re working towards
  • Work towards something they want to fight for, even if they’re falling

The mission of Quest Nutrition is simple, but big: to put an end to metabolic disease. That’s what makes Quest more than just a food company. It’s a company that won’t stop innovating until global nutrition has been freed from the stranglehold of junk food. This is not a knock on money, but saying that money can come in the service of providing value to others and in service of a greater mission. “It’s about becoming something, rather than having something.”

When you’re solving a real problem, people are going to pay for that value, and what you’re doing is going to matter. Our world is so interconnected that companies can be punished for either having a mission or not having a mission, and your community cares about what you’re trying to do. “All of a sudden you live in this world where people can learn the truth of why your company exists, beyond your products.”

Tom demonstrates that Quest Nutrition makes decisions based on their mission and community, and people think they’re out of their mind for making some of those decisions. Recently, they switched to a different fiber source that costs a lot more than their pervious source, without changing the cost of their product. It nearly cut their profitability in half. However, the scientific community was questioning whether their previous fiber source was, in fact, a source of fiber at all, and the new fiber is much more metabolically beneficial. “If it’s really going to take us 25 years to end metabolic disease, we have to be relevant that long, we have to be trusted that long.”

The Quest Belief System goes beyond core values to draw the map of how Tom evolved from financial instability to confident business leader. “In all of that, I realized there are some real truths here that anyone can apply to their life to, in my language, ‘escape The Matrix.’” Highlights of the 25 bullet points in the Quest Belief System include:

  • Personal growth is the highest priority of all Team Quest members
  • Mistakes are a great teacher to those who are willing to admit that they’ve made one
  • Build your self esteem around identifying the right answer and pursuing it faster than anyone else
  • Take the red pill

Tom and his business partners at Quest Nutrition are doing some truly impressive things. Tom’s passion to end metabolic disease comes through loud and clear in this interview. We should all follow his lead, and work towards solving real problems.

 

SOME QUESTIONS I ASK:

  • What is the story of Quest Nutrition, and what is it’s mission?
  • What steps can entrepreneurs take to ensure their product or service passes the “soul test?”
  • How does Quest Nutrition you use their community and mission to make decisions?
  • Can Tom tell us how they developed the Quest Belief System?
  • What does Tom think has stirred up this renewed interest in self-awareness and mindfulness?

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

  • How the narrative you construct about yourself influences your success
  • How the Quest Belief System can shape the way you think about yourself
  • Why businesses that solve real problems often find success
  • Why every business decision needs to reflect your mission statement and your community
  • Plus much more…

DON’T STOP HERE…

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Jul 4, 2016

I don’t know if I’ve ever met someone who lives more in the moment than Brian Dickinson, and he shares his incredible story in today’s interview. He is an ex-Navy rescue swimmer, a world-class mountain climber and the author of Blind Descent, the inspiring story about how he summited Mount Everest – alone – and overcame descending the mountain blind.

Brian is still learning the ability to slow down and live in the moment, gathering the courage to be content. Brian’s climbs help him gain perspective on the world off of the mountain, because he experiences how slowly time can feel.

It can be dangerous to start climbing alone. “Not even climbing, but everything. If you can latch onto somebody who has a clue, has made the mistakes, you’re going to learn a ton.” There’s so much in your control, if you know how to control it.

Control, on the mountain and in your business, comes down to preparation. “The success is creating a lifestyle of change,” and then you will always be prepared for that next climb or business endeavor.

I’ve described preparation as the bridge between expectation and reality. Sometimes, that bridge can collapse, and things will go south in spite of your preparation – like when you start to develop snow blindness at the highest point on Earth. In these situations, success can come down to willpower. Sometimes willpower means moving forward, using your training, without overthinking the situation.

Motivation can pull us through the impossible, in our lives and in our businesses. Brian used his family to help him descend Mount Everest and overcome his instinct to panic. Use your motivation to focus on breaking a bad experience down to small successes, keeping a map in your mind of where you are going.

For now, Brian is taking what he learned and focusing on having the courage to be content. There’s no shortage of adventures in this world, and he’s going to go on the next few with his family.

We are put in situations for a reason. Usually it’s not at the top of Mount Everest, but it’s always so that we can share something of value with other people, and maybe save someone’s life, career or marriage through our stories.

 

SOME QUESTIONS I ASK:

  • How did Brian learn the ability to slow down and live in the moment?
  • How did Brian’s military training aid him in transitioning towards entrepreneurship and the tech industry?
  • How important has mentorship been to Brian in his climbing endeavors?
  • What are Brian’s thoughts on preparation and willpower?
  • When Brian was descending Mount Everest and started going blind, how did he not give in to the harsh conditions?
  • How did Brian overcome panic in an unpredictable situation?

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

  • An incredible story about human strength and willpower
  • How preparation is a lifestyle as much as an activity
  • Why it is courageous to be content
  • How to use motivation to overcome the worst situations
  • Plus much more…

DON’T STOP HERE…

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

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