Latest / Books4Guys / How to Find Your Purpose, Build Your Personal Brand & Create Value | Colby Jubenville

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How to Find Your Purpose, Build Your Personal Brand & Create Value | Colby Jubenville · Books4Guys

• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: Books on the Books for Guys website.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: I've got them spotlighted.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: Very proud and honored to have you on the Books for Guys podcast today.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: We've been trying to do this, I think, for a couple months now.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: We've had some false starts on both of our sides.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: So uh, but we're here, man.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: We're doing it.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's the 4th of July edition.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: You've got your USA hat on.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've got my American row back that I wear throughout the entire week of 4th of July.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a little bit shameful to say that it's a books for guys podcast that I'm on because here's why.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll just leave you, I'll start you with an idea that I've adopted years ago, and maybe some of your uh listeners will adopt as well.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: When I read books, I look for one sentence, one idea to master.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And once I read that one idea and I'm like, that's why I'm supposed to read this book, I put it down.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes that's halfway through the book, sometimes it's in the first sentence.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's a book called The Second Mountain.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And in that book, Brooks, the author, the very first sentence is sometimes in life, I meet people who radiate.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I said to myself, I don't need to read anything past that.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I got it.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I set it down, and then I was so intrigued.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, what did we say past that?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I did read the first uh chapter.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, what a great idea.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: You told me that you do that with uh football teams where young athletes get chosen to uh to pick a book and and then talk about that with their teammates, their coaches.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I love the idea.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I love the platform, and uh, you're right here in the coolest city in the world in Nashville, Tennessee.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for letting me be a part of it today.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's right, man.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: I see all those sports.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: I see the jersey behind you, I see some of the sports photos.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: As a former athlete.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's my son, Jack.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: He he played Division I basketball and stayed for all four years.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: He actually called me a couple weeks ago.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: He just moved to West Palm and uh he said, I think I know the name of my first book, which I love.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you know that I've written two books, and so you you give it away to your kids, but he said, I said, What's the title?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Everybody starts as a walk-on.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Man, I love that.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So he he had a great experience.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Jack, you know, if I took could take that idea of one thing that I learned from playing college football, division three college football, the one thing people ask me all the time, what did you learn the most from that?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: The idea is that what Coach Ranniger taught us is how to use adversity to accelerate growth.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And once you learn how to use adversity to accelerate growth, it becomes your greatest competitive advantage.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Am I proud that Jack played Division I basketball?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Am I proud that he learned how to work out on a team, take direction from coaches, be part of a team, learn and understand what role he was supposed to play?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm proud of all that.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm most proud of is that he started it and he finished it.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think back when we played in the 90s, we started with, I'd say 30 plus freshmen and we finished with five or six.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so to me, I said, when you start, you will finish.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I've got that hanging on behind me, his jersey.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he didn't tell me this, but that uh he chose my high school number from back in the day, old double nickel.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I'm proud of him.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's doing great.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: He moved to West Palm.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: He woke up one day and said, Dad, I'm I'm I'm going.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go chase it and do what I want to do.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and I worry about him all the time, but he's there and doing well.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So and he reads, he supposedly says he reads books.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's true or not, but we'll see.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: No, that's awesome.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, man, I mean, sports can teach us so much.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm a former athlete myself, so I have a soft spot for individuals that that go through what that's like.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we we see these athletes at the highest levels, and you know, the money's one thing, but there's always the struggle, the two-a-days, the the hot practices, the getting yelled at, the building the brotherhood.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: There's so many lessons you can learn on a team.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: And uh that was part of you know the mission of Books for Guys, too, was how can I give back?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: How can I encourage young guys to start that curiosity journey a little bit earlier than me, you know, as as athletes, you're not known to be as much of a reader, yeah, especially kind of growing up, but man, it's so important, and and hopefully we're having a positive impact, uh, especially on young athletes.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: But Colby, man, I would love for you to share a little bit about your story.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're a speaker, you're an author.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: I've got both your books on the website, and uh you consult, I mean, you do all kinds of things, but talk talk a little bit about your journey.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: How did it, how did it kick off and and where are you at now?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, it starts with being born in Mobile, Alabama.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I call Mobile and St.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's the high school I went to.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: I call it the womb of greatness.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we went two and eight when I played my junior year and seven and three my senior year.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then fast forward 20 years later in St.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's uh in Mobile is in the 5A State Championship year after year with names like A.J.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: McCarran and Jay Coker and Marcus Barron.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so I tell people we set the foundation for greatness, and then these guys built it the right way.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So St.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's was such a special place for me because both my parents coached and taught there.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And if I look back on my life, the people that had the greatest impact on me were coaches and those teachers because three things.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: They made me have conversations I didn't want to have and do things I didn't want to do to become something I didn't think I could become.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you pepper in the fact that I was also a middle child, and so my older brother did it first, and my younger brother did it better.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I woke up every day with this need for achievement.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Need for achievement, some some psychologists say you're born with it.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe that.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think achievement is modeled, and and the closer we can get someone to say, this is who, this is the person in my life that modeled achievement for me, and the need for that, the closer we can get them to taking the next step and changing the trajectory of their life.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that for me, that was my mom, Karen Williams, and my stepdad, who's really my dad, his name's Wayne Williams.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I call what he put us through the Wayne Williams School for Better Living and Better People.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: That included on Sundays, he said, I don't care if you watch it, but you will listen to 60 Minutes every Sunday.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Still to this day, every Sunday I listen to 60 Minutes.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and Wayne had such a quiet way about developing people.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: I never saw him have a bad day in 20 years.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think my I think my son Jack's probably seen me at my worst in ways that I don't ever want my dad to know about.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: But but again, we are we are two different people and we approach life differently.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: But his dad's dad was a tank commander for Patton.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so imagine what that would have been like to be under a dad whose dad was a tank commander for Patton.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it really starts with those two.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and at their heart, they're teachers and and and coaches.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so I didn't have a choice.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think coaching and teaching chose me, and I didn't choose it.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went to Millsaps College, and we could we could do an entire podcast just on the things I learned at MillSAPS, playing for Coach Ranniger, calling my mom the first day of practice and saying, I just was assigned 300 pages of reading.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've never read 300 pages in my life.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: I just got beat my head beat in on the football field by some of the best players I've ever seen.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm coming home.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm crying there, sitting on a lumpy mattress.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom said, I said, I'm in the wrong place.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom goes, and being my mom, and this is the coach and teacher.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Nope, I think you're in the exact right place you need to be, and hung up the phone.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so that experience, then going through oral comprehensive exams and no one telling me to graduate from MILSAPs, you had to go through oral comprehensive exams.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And what I learned from that, then going and deciding I'm gonna start a college football team at Bellhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, and calling Norman Joseph, my good friend, and saying, I'm gonna call you every day until you call me back.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he meets me at a Waffle House in Hattiesburg, and then and launching that program for two years and burning myself out and going to Eastern Kentucky and saying, There's a comedian that says, When the world ends, I hope I end up in Richmond because they won't find out about it until 20 years later.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: I made great friends who who knew what I needed to be in, which was a bigger playground.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: They send me to uh MTSU and we thought we'd be here for a year, and 25 years later, here we are.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And to your point, I do have the opportunity to consult and to coach and be a trusted advisor to businesses like John Floyd, who made a million-dollar investment in my Center for Student Coaching and Success at MTSU.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know how much that is about how good I am.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think it might just be indicative of Murphy'sboro and Nashville.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: I tell people all the time, you can sell use chewing gum in both places and be successful.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you just got to show up and maybe just have a little bit of something to say.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: But Chris, I say all that to say this to a young person that's listening to that, to this today.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Where does that all start?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: That all starts with you deciding to take that first step.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: That all starts with you at an early age.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I could not articulate this, but I can today.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: It all started at an early age of understanding that a human being is at its fullest and at its most content and happiest and fulfilled and highest level of energy when it's creating value for other people.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So the question then becomes for that young person, maybe that person that's in their 20s that's sitting there today saying, This is not what I signed up for for my life, how do you want to create value for other people?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that starts with what I created at MTSU, and you can find it on my website, the talent development framework.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: All of us are born into this world with the ability to pattern match and see patterns, and our education system beats it out of us.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: But if we take a step back from that, the odds of being born into this beautiful world are one in 400 trillion.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: When I ask young people that, what does that stat mean to you?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: They say all this crazy stuff, and the only answer that they don't give is, I'm not here by accident.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here for a reason, and it's my job to figure it out.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I know that's a long story and a lot to digest, and hopefully you'll break it up into short form, but truly, those are the stops along the way.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And let me just say this for all the folks out there: Tommy Ranniger, Charlie Miller, Bob Rutledge, Dennis Phillips.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I could go on for days.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: I had good, great coaches that held me accountable.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: I took my first round of my dissertation and I brought it to Dennis Phillips.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: He took it and he he scanned through it.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: He took it and he threw it back at me.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Don't turn this stuff like this into me ever again.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: I picked up those papers to my office, and I'm like, well, okay, let's figure this out.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get version two going.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: So before you can build version two, you gotta build version one, my man.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Isn't it incredible how because I'm the same way, Colby?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: I I think about teachers and coaches who have impacted me all the time.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: And in the moment, you you kind of get it, but you don't really get it or appreciate it to the level necessary until you kind of go and experience things in your life and you kind of learn the hard way.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then you look back and you go, that's what they were trying to say to me.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: This is exactly what they were talking about.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it clicks.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: But it is, man, the teachers and coaches are so important.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: And and being just, I'm so glad that they created some conflict with me at a young age and challenged me, and and like you said, held held me accountable.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of people, it's it's it's kind of a sensitive question.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: You see people sometimes almost tear up talking about how much a teacher or coach meant to them because they realized just how much they cared.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: And parents are the same way.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you butt heads, you think you know everything, and then you look back and go, dang, dad was right.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Dang, mom was right.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I I see it every day.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: I can see it now with Jack, is is down in West Palm.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'll share this quick story with you.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we get him moved in, and I said, You need three source streams of income.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna make this work, you need three streams.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said, What are the three streams?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, real estate.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm going and writing letters to all of the independent schools in the area to say I want to coach basketball.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Okay, good.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, and I'm gonna coach private lessons.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Great.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So he's out running the first day, he's running the parking lot.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, man, and this is in West Palm.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: I go, what are you doing?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Well, you know, I'm trying to stay in shape.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm out here running.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: I said, if you're gonna run, let's go run to the by the water and meet all the people that have that have basketball courts in their driveway.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's running up and down, and he calls me about a week later and he goes, Hey, I said, Yeah, he goes, I found that that basketball court in the driveway.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I said, You did?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Yeah.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Dad was out there coaching his son, and uh I went back to my apartment, wrote a handwritten note that said, I saw you playing with your son, and my dad did the same for me.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I played Division I basketball at MTSU, and I turned the corner by getting a coach that had specialized knowledge.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: If this is what I'm here to do in West Palm, if I can help you, I would love to meet you and your son.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now he did this all on his own.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then he put on the so I have a TED talk called What Darius Rucker and my son Jack taught me about reinvention.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And in that, one of the things that I talk about, and it's my life too, and it's Jack's life, I call it a boy and his ball.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thing that made sense to me at St.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's Inmobile was when I dropped that basketball, it came right back to me.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I need more of that in my life.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: So Jack, and this is without my coaching, which I love.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: He titled the handwritten note, A Boy and His Ball.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, fast forward four days later, the guy calls him and he says, Man, I just got to tell you, I love the message.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: I love the hustle, I love the integrity, I love the desire to help the next generation.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you come see me and we figure this out?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, all of a sudden he's now in a whole nother ecosystem and network of people because he did what?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: He developed his talent, he built his identity capital, and he's creating value in ways that give him energy and give other people energy.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I can hear that passion behind your voice, Colby, especially like helping young people essentially find their purpose.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: And that purpose being, what can you do to add value to other people?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: Because that that that's really, and you you see you hit it spot on.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I and man, it is weird.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's a weird day and age where a lot of people, and I heard this quote the other day, or this question, it was like, are you are you simply existing or are you living?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I it got me thinking of like, what am I doing to create value?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: And what am I doing that wakes me up every day to live with a purpose?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because life is so short, and there's so many people that are just going through the motions, checking boxes, not living to their potential for one reason or another, whether that's somebody's, like you said, education system, a boss has just kind of put them in this box and they've gotten comfortable with it.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, man, how many people out there are not living and maximizing their life to full potential of all the amazing things they can do?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: And there needs to be more people like you, Colby, who are who are out there trying to help, especially young people, find that path.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: And your son, man, it's so awesome that he took initiative and is like, hey, all right, like you just you got to get a little bit out of that comfort zone.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then and then amazing things can happen like that.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just once you experience it, it's hard to, it's hard to go back.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: You won't go back, but it's it's easy to share that with other people and be like, hey, man, just push yourself a little bit.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much potential just past that that line that you're not reaching.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Just come on, man.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Potential energy potential is energy, is stored in the energy that's stored until utilized.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so what happens in most people's careers is we reach something called the Peter principle.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: We tell people, we say at eight, we say, Chris, you can be anything you want to be.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And at 18, our parents say, Hey, Chris, we don't care what you do, just get out of the house.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so, how do we how do we stop that?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: How do we get them to see that agency is a concept that the military military uses?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Agency means that you are both the cause and the effect of your life.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: You are both the cause and the effect.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we tell them at eight they can be anything at 18, they say, whatever you get out of the house, then what do we have to do to get them to see that they in fact have the agency to work through this?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it starts with getting them to see the the typical tradition and the pattern that most people go through.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: In our 20s, they teach us to get in a game.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: They don't say what game to get into.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: They just say, Hey, Chris, get in the game.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what does Chris do?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: He looks around all his friends, he goes, All my friends are doing this or doing this, and they go and do it.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: In our 30s, we move up in a game.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: In our 40s, we try to stay in a game because those 30-year-olds are so damn good.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: In our 50s, what the research is, we finally say, What do I really want?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I built the talent development framework, which is the first piece to lead to value creation to get people to answer, this is what I really want.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the first step.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: The potential works in sports settings because you have a coach whose job it is to pull out the potential of other people.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: It can work in business if the company and the culture is worth making the investment for people like me to come in or people like you to pull out that potential.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: It can happen.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: But if you look at all organizations, here's the agreed-upon reality, this is what's really going on here, here's the agreed-upon future, this is where we all want to go together, and then there's tension.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that tension in the middle is either driven by dysfunction and the dance, I call it, or culture.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And in cultures today, develop me for the first time ever in the history of work has moved in front of clear expectations and resources to achieve those expectations and to keep people engaged at work.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Develop me is now number one.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: I could see that.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, it's interesting too.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: I was thinking about that, you know, as a 18 to 23-year-old, it's okay.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you don't know exactly what you want to do.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: But I love that there's tools that you've created to help.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: Because as long as you're seeking that, yeah, and trying things and trying to figure it out, that's part of the process.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: It it some people are going to find it earlier, some people a little bit later.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: But as long as you don't stop seeking it and trying to figure it out, because man, once you find it, the fire's lit.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: And there's there you can't explain the feeling behind it.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: But if you can just get people to continue to search it out and not give up and get stale in life, I think that's a big key.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it sounds like that's what your program helps with is hey, let me I'll give you all the tools.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Let's figure it out.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: We'll one way or another, we'll, we'll, we'll find what you want to do.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: But let's not, let's not sell yourself short.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the talent development framework is is it's if somebody asks me, what does it do?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: It changes the trajectory of someone's life.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: It starts with narrative-based coaching.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: We all have a story that's either written for us or by us.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know your story, you can't change.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: If I don't know your story, I can't help you change.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I started getting, you asked me my story.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: I started, hey man, I'm from Mobile.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's the womb of greatness.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I wrote an article for Forbes that said, get in the parade.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: You learned from an early age, are you going to sit on the sidewalk or are you going to jump the barricade and get in the parade?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting in the parade.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: I had these coaches and teachers.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they did to me to push me to do this, have conversations I didn't want to have, do things I didn't want to do to become something I didn't think I could become.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was a middle child.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: The more you can tell that story, the more you can say, this is what I want to change that story to.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: But but if you watch, I here's one of my favorite things, and I hope your audience listens to this.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'll go all around the country, I'll say, Do you watch TED Talks?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: We watch TED Talks.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, which what's your favorite one?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you watch them.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, I got 10, man.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: But but one of that I think fits your audience and what we're trying to do here.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: One of my top 10 is Meg J's Why 30 is not the new 20.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And what she says in there is the 20s are the developmental sweet spot of our life.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: The minute that I heard that, that unlocked the entire framework that I built for talent development.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you come into my office today, it says talent at MTSU.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: John Floyd and the his foundation committed a seven-figure gift for me to launch this thing.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: It says talent development is our first responsibility.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that to be true.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Before that, in version one, and I always think before you can build version two, you got to build version one.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Brian Shulman taught me that.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: It said to advance confidently in the direction of our and dream, to endeavor to live a life that only you can imagine, and you will find uncommon success in common hour.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's Thoreau's definition of success.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, where did I learn that?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, some guy gave me a box of success CDs.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Do you are you old enough to remember these things?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Success CDs?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: I had some motivational CDs.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: I used to play.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: It still has a CD player, so it doesn't give you, but I got a CD player.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I would put a Jack, the same Jack who's now 24, is like four.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's just got his juice box, man.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I drive him around in this Honda minivan just to try to get him to fall asleep.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd have an hour apiece, right?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I put these success CDs in him, and I can only imagine what's planted in that kid's head.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I listened to this same one every day for like eight years.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Advance Cockley, the direction of your own dreams.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jack, today when he hears that, he goes, God, I had to listen to that every day for eight years to the clerk.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's success CD.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Where a guy's talking about success.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he's he's talking about we have all these definitions of success.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Pick yourself up off the ground just one more time.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: The continued expansion of happiness, the setting and achieving of worthy goals.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what is success?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: What really is success?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I think the definition that Thoreau gives is what we need to teach young people.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at the definition to advance confidently, the very first thing we have to do, Chris, is to teach them to do what?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Be confident.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what is confidence?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, people say all this crazy stuff.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's this one book by uh Kristen Taylor called Remind.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what she says confidence is asking for help, building trusting relationships, being open to feedback, trying new things.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: To me, you show me an organization that believes these things, you show me a man and a woman that does these things, I'll show you better marriages, I'll show you better organizations.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: So to advance confidently in the direction of their own dream.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the second thing we have to do is get them to say what the dream is.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is the dream for me.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: To live a life that only you can imagine, where you will find uncommon success in common hour.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: If I look at Jack, I'd say he's right on track to do exactly that.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And when I look when I heard that and pulled over and I said, I'm not leaving here until I memorize this, that that moment from St.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's to Millsas to Bellhaven to Eastern Kentucky to MTSU to working and speaking all over the country is me advancing confidently in the direction of my own dream.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: Colby, this leads me to, and I just got a couple more questions for you.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: One thing I was thinking about, and I I love everything you're saying because over time, the the path is still pretty much the same.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's work hard, take chances, get out there, push yourself, you know, get get out of that comfort zone a little bit because that's where all these incredible things can happen.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: You talk a lot about, though, of personal branding and how to sell yourself.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I was thinking, you know, over the last 10, 15 years, yep, and that's the book I was referring to, over the last 10, 15 years, that seems to be one of the kind of one of those uh really spotlighted changes that's happened where it's been pushed out.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like you do have to create your own personal brand to get noticed, and and social media plays a part in that, but just to be able to do what you're what you're supposed to do, that seems to be something a little different than what was probably coached 15, 20 years ago.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: But what specifically do you help individuals with when specifically talking about personal branding?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, great, great question.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so everyone, that is the fifth rung of the talent development framework.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And every one of those personal branding has its own workbook.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if I was going to distill personal branding and the work that we do with people, it's around two simple ideas.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: One is called brand image, and the other one's called brand identity.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: So brand image is this.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: I keep things really simple.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Forsale baby shoes never worn.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Brand image is the feeling that other people have when they spend time with you.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Getting someone to get clear about what feeling you want them to have.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it's conviction.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: I want people to walk out and go, whatever that dude's doing, I want some more of that.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, it's conviction, brand image, feeling that other people have when they spend time with you.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then brand identity is made up of three things: your unique perspective, your unique education, and your unique experience, how you see it, how you know it, how you do it.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I shared some of those moments with you.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Going to MILSAPs and going through oral comprehensive exams and failing and calling your mother in tears and saying, I'll just come home and I'll graduate from South.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom's like, the hell you will.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: You've spent all this money.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna march right over there and you're gonna learn a valuable lesson today.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Don't show up unprepared.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: To go back and go through that, and then to figure out a way to get to the end, where the guy at the last question, McElvane, says, Well, thanks for showing up prepared here today, Kobe.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't last time, but we're glad you did this time.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: I got one last question, so your whole life comes to this one last question.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me how the Wizard of Oz and the Great Depression are similar.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm 21 years old, dude.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: My life comes to this one.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: If I fail this question, I'm not getting a Mill Saps College degree that I paid for.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I simply said, took a deep breath, and I said, I think this is all I can muster up.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think California is the yellow brick road.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, tell me more.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that moment unlocked it.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: You see, Chris, what I just gave to you there was a moment of time in my unique education.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Unique perspective, unique education, unique experience.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Getting people to articulate how you see it, how you know it, how you do it.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Those two things together make up personal branding.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've got an entire 16-page workbook where we walk people step by step.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: I've cracked the code on this thing, man.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've cracked the code.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: If we could get people to get traction, and I'm I'm working at it to build an entire platform that creates a community that marries all of these seven pieces together for uh talent development.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be powerful.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a lot of work, man.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: As you know, starting a podcast is a lot of work, yeah, man.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that but that's part of it.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: You we've we've we've hit this nail a few times now of you gotta put the time in, you gotta chase it, you're gonna have mistakes, you're gonna fine-tune it, but you gotta you just have to do it.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you've got you can't be afraid, you can't be afraid to step out and look like an idiot or or you know, have something not work.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: You just gotta do it.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: When we get off, go search and your and your audience.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I go back to TED Talks, which we love TED Talks.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what's your favorite one?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: This here's another of my top 10.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: It it listen, just listen to the name of this TED Talk, the American Dream Value Menu.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: This guy creates a value menu for the American dream, like you're in McDonald's.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Pick three, okay?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says, Man, we gotta stop lying to young people.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: He says, What we don't tell them is that the American dream, if you will let it, it will take you behind a woodshed and beat the hell out of you, which it does.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: It will.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of being alive.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: What we need people on this planet is to wake up to the chance that they are here.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: My mom used to say things to me like, Well, Colby, I think you need to do more work on yourself.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is her just being the teacher and talking to Colby, that middle child.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Mom, listen, I'm I'm 50 years old.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I've done more meaningful work in one lifetime than most people do in 10.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need to hear that from you anymore.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: I love you, but don't talk to me that way anymore.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: She just smiles, man.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: Moms always know and they always know hell.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: That she never leaves them.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: She's still pushing on it.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: Am I good enough?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Am I good enough?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Am I good enough?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Kobe, you still you still got you still got a ways to go before you meet your potential.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's right, man.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Colby, man, you said as we kicked this off that this was going to be the best podcast conversation I've had.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: And and man, you weren't lying.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: There's so much value in what you just shared, and there's so many things that that young people, anybody could take away from it.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because number one, too, I always tell people you're never too late to figure it out.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: So if you've been stale and and you're tired of it, well, we'll listen to this.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I bet you'll be a little motivated and amped up to to get something rolling.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so I really appreciate just your passion behind the work you do, the energy you bring, and just the message that you're sharing.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: Because I like I said earlier, there needs to be more of that out there that encourages people to step out, to take action, to find the purpose, because there's so much, there's so much amazing things you can do and accomplish.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: And man, they're right there.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: You may think some talking to someone's impossible, or this job's impossible to get, man, they're not.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's act there's just a fine line of you taking action and going to get it, and you you can achieve a lot more than you probably give yourself credit for.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: A boy in his ball, man, rolling up to some$20 million dude's house and put a handwritten note, don't know him, into his uh into his mailbox.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, also, too, I want to say, man, with that USA hat on, we're we're at 250 years.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I love this country, man.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: It is it is the greatest country on this planet.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I I don't I say that with without any reservation.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this country affords opportunities that no other country uh provides.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want my help, uh my phone number is 615-498-6802.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: I the I am not dead or in prison because uh at least yet, because God a lot takes care of people that go out and and try to serve others and change the world, man.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I try to wake up and do every day.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: We'll keep doing it, Colby.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: Excited to see the impact you continue to have and uh very proud to spotlight your work and and proud to have you a part of Books for Guys.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so, man, keep crushing it.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: We're here to support you, and thanks again.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, my friend.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: Appreciate the work you do.