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The Beliefs Sabotaging Your Leadership and Purpose—with Shawn Sommerkamp · Profitable Christian Business

• 0:15
  Let me ask you something.
• 0:16
  How many goals have you set that just slowly faded out?
• 0:19
  It's not because you lack motivation.
• 0:21
  It's not because you're lazy.
• 0:23
  It's because you don't have a system for execution.
• 0:25
  That's exactly why we built the goal getting app.
• 0:27
  The execution system for Christian Robs who are done thrifting.
• 0:31
  Inside the app, you don't juggle 10 goals.
• 0:33
  You lock in one clear 90 day focus.
• 0:36
  Then we help you break it into weekly needle moving actions.
• 0:39
  Stay consistent with daily execution.
• 0:41
  and actually follow through, even when life gets busy.
• 0:45
  This isn't about doing more.
• 0:46
  It's about finally finishing what you start.
• 0:48
  Clarity, execution, momentum.
• 0:51
  If you're ready to stop drifting and actually move forward, go to GoalGetting.app slash reset and lock in your next 90 days today.
• 1:00
  Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Profitable Christian Business.
• 1:03
  I am your host, Doug Greathouse, and I am so pleased to have my new friend, Sean Summercamp, with me today.
• 1:10
  Sean Summercamp has been a Christian executive coach for over 15 years, but I'm gonna let him explain that a little better about all that he's been doing.
• 1:20
  Okay, I'm going to keep this brief.
• 1:22
  As I mentioned before, I'm not really into talking about me too much.
• 1:25
  I was in the Navy for six years, got out, went into the corporate world.
• 1:29
  God allowed me to be very successful.
• 1:31
  And then one of those companies, I got my own executive coach when I was at GE.
• 1:36
  And at that point, I realized that's what I'm supposed to be doing for the rest of my life.
• 1:41
  The clouds kind of part of the angels singing.
• 1:43
  So I got certified as a professional coach and then opened up my business 15 years ago.
• 1:49
  Well, one other fun thing that I know about you before we dive right in is that you live in one of my favorite places ever in the Charleston area.
• 1:59
  So tell me your favorite thing about Charleston.
• 2:03
  ~ The people I do love that I did this very complicated thing to determine where I was going to be living and Charleston ranked number one with Chapel Hill ranking number two
• 2:16
  all across the US and I came here to visit and Just fell in love with the people.
• 2:22
  They were so amazing.
• 2:23
  It's a charming town.
• 2:24
  I've been here now 11 years It is very hot, but I'm originally from Tampa so I can deal with it
• 2:31
  Outside of July and August, it's paradise.
• 2:33
  Amazing.
• 2:34
  Yeah, I just had a friend that I was talking to the other day.
• 2:38
  I live in the Greenville area, which is upstate of South Carolina.
• 2:42
  But I had a friend who was visiting and they went to Mount Pleasant and they said, I think it was last week or even earlier this week, was like, the heat index was like 112 or
• 2:53
  something crazy like that.
• 2:55
  tell all your friends if you're listening to this.
• 2:57
  Do not come to Charleston in July or August.
• 3:00
  It's not worth it.
• 3:02
  Right, that's why I don't go to South Florida that time either.
• 3:05
  exactly.
• 3:06
  Exactly the same.
• 3:09
  Awesome, awesome.
• 3:10
  So you've spent years helping leaders change how they think.
• 3:13
  What's one belief you personally had to unlearn before you could help coach others ~ overall?
• 3:20
  Yeah, I would say it's the belief that I knew what was best for someone else.
• 3:26
  I mean, as an individual, people would come to me long before I was a coach and ask for my advice.
• 3:33
  And I would give them my advice.
• 3:35
  That is something I had to stop doing.
• 3:38
  And it took a little bit of ~ practice.
• 3:41
  The thumb rule that we kind of say in the coaching world is
• 3:45
  People will learn and retain infinitely longer what they discover themselves over what they are told.
• 3:51
  Blaise Pascal said that, but he said it more poetically.
• 3:55
  That's what I do now.
• 3:56
  I ask questions because I don't know what's best for that person.
• 3:59
  How could I possibly know?
• 4:01
  They do, and I help them kind of unlock it.
• 4:05
  That's so good.
• 4:05
  And that is also some sales psychology as well, because when you just try to shove your solution down somebody's throat without understanding how they operate, like what their
• 4:18
  actual needs are, the best salespeople listen more than they talk, right?
• 4:23
  I think it's the same way with coaches.
• 4:25
  Listening is so much like loving.
• 4:27
  It's hard to tell the difference.
• 4:30
  I love that, I love that.
• 4:32
  So ~ I've experienced this a little bit even as you were coming on the podcast today before we started.
• 4:38
  You use humor and audience participation when you speak.
• 4:42
  What's the funniest or most unexpected thing that has ever happened during a presentation?
• 4:47
  ~ well, the audience really, really loves to get into it.
• 4:53
  They love that because I speak mostly to large church audiences, not a Sunday sermon.
• 5:00
  do this workshop on a Saturday, but it's usually up in front, you know, and they're used to just kind of listening to a lecturer.
• 5:07
  So I get them engaged, but I used to do, I don't do it anymore because of this, but I used to do this demonstration that I learned from someone in the coaching world somewhere
• 5:16
  where.
• 5:17
  I get someone to hold their arms out and I try to push one of their arms down and I can't and then I get them to think of something negative and then I try to push their arm down
• 5:28
  again and it just goes down very easily.
• 5:30
  Well, one of these times it was a super, I said this works with everybody.
• 5:34
  So this jacked guy got up huge and he's like, would it work with me?
• 5:39
  And I'm like, yep, it will work with you.
• 5:41
  So I did the demonstration when it came time to him thinking of something negative.
• 5:45
  He's like, yeah, yeah, I got it.
• 5:47
  I'm like, now put your arm back out.
• 5:49
  And then I went to push it.
• 5:50
  It did not budge a micro, a millimeter.
• 5:54
  And nobody laughed, but for me, it was the funniest thing.
• 5:57
  I couldn't stop laughing.
• 5:58
  I'm like, all right, go ahead and sit down.
• 6:00
  I've never done that demo since.
• 6:02
  So I get to enjoy it at my own expense.
• 6:06
  I love that, I love that.
• 6:08
  So one of the things that I love to talk about as well is the ability to recharge, right?
• 6:15
  ~ There's so many people out there talking about the hustle culture, like you gotta hustle, hustle, hustle.
• 6:22
  I know from experience both sides of that, right?
• 6:26
  When I've recharged, how much more productive I am on the other side of that.
• 6:32
  So what do you do to recharge?
• 6:36
  Me personally.
• 6:38
  I do work a lot, but I love it.
• 6:41
  It's a thing for me.
• 6:43
  Studying the Bible in the morning to start each day definitely recharges me, but for my brain dead time, I'm a movie guy.
• 6:50
  I love movies.
• 6:52
  And because I'm German, summer camp is my last name.
• 6:55
  I love yard work.
• 6:57
  So when it's not July and August, I really get into making my lawn look amazing.
• 7:03
  That's great.
• 7:04
  regeneration for me and then movies.
• 7:05
  love to analyze.
• 7:06
  get a bunch of guys to come over.
• 7:09
  Some love it.
• 7:09
  Some don't.
• 7:10
  So the don't stop coming, but we'll pause Ruby and analyze scenes together.
• 7:14
  And that is just a blast for me.
• 7:17
  It's weird.
• 7:18
  It's different.
• 7:18
  Yeah.
• 7:19
  Any particular genre or does it cover all of them?
• 7:23
  It usually depends upon what they're in the mood for.
• 7:25
  I will watch anything as long as it's well done.
• 7:28
  We do take chances on things and end up watching some really stupid movies.
• 7:32
  we become, you by any wild chance know what this is, mystery science theater.
• 7:37
  Do you know what that is?
• 7:39
  So if we happen to pick a bad one, we become mystery science theater and just dog on it, but it's every genre.
• 7:45
  We're kind of in the horror movie.
• 7:48
  realm right now.
• 7:49
  So we all went to the movies and watched Obsession.
• 7:51
  Have you been, have you seen Obsession?
• 7:54
  I have not.
• 7:55
  more of a, I like ~ historical pieces ~ and I love epics.
• 8:02
  I love action, adventures, ~ occasionally a comedy, more the historical epics.
• 8:08
  Gladiator is my favorite movie of all time.
• 8:10
  So you're going to go to Odyssey Tonight to see Odyssey Tonight.
• 8:14
  tonight, I have a family birthday that I'm attending tonight.
• 8:17
  And I don't usually go on opening night for any movie.
• 8:19
  me either.
• 8:20
  Yeah, I'm not a big crowds guy.
• 8:22
  Yeah.
• 8:22
  there was something, so Mystery Science Theater, just for the audience, because we may have some people that never heard of that, so they're like, what is that?
• 8:30
  Look it up on YouTube, you'll laugh, you will laugh.
• 8:33
  So just take a moment, take five minutes out of your day, look up Mystery Science Theater on YouTube, I'm sure there's some clips on there.
• 8:41
  It's all ad hoc.
• 8:42
  It's not scripted.
• 8:43
  That's the best part.
• 8:45
  And they're very funny when they do it.
• 8:47
  It's hilarious.
• 8:49
  So just speaking of comedy, think that's one of my favorite types of comedy is improv, right?
• 8:54
  When they let an audience member just throw something out and they just act out and it ends up being very, very funny.
• 9:01
  One of my favorite shows for a long time, Was Who's Line, is it anyway?
• 9:05
  brilliant.
• 9:06
  Yeah, the thing for me, ~ I love watching it, but I've learned a lot from professional comedians that I've used kind of what they do to hone my own public speaking.
• 9:18
  They know their material dead cold.
• 9:20
  So I don't go up with notes.
• 9:22
  I master the material before ever getting in front of an audience.
• 9:26
  And it's because of like Jim Gaffigan, one of my all time favorite comedians.
• 9:30
  Love that guy.
• 9:31
  He's so.
• 9:32
  Prepared and well timed and Brian Regan is my another one love those guys
• 9:38
  Hot pockets!
• 9:40
  Yeah, hot pocket.
• 9:42
  That's the dude.
• 9:42
  So you're into it.
• 9:43
  He came here last year to the in the Charleston.
• 9:46
  I forget the arena, whatever we have.
• 9:48
  I forget what it is, but I didn't get to see him.
• 9:50
  But a lot of my friends did and he's great.
• 9:53
  I think this is, I know it seems like we're just jabbering on here for the audience, but I think there's some context here that we can kind of go with and you just kind of alluded
• 10:02
  to it with the speaking.
• 10:03
  I think the best speakers, you don't know that they were so well rehearsed because it just seemed so off the cuff.
• 10:10
  When I look at a comedian, I just think he's just making stuff up on the spot a lot of times, but he's just, he's probably went through that set a hundred times.
• 10:21
  And let me tell you, they have a technique where they pick a scene like walking into a house and they remember their set.
• 10:28
  First joke, they're grabbing the doorknob.
• 10:30
  Second joke, the door opens.
• 10:32
  Third joke, they step on the ~ mat carpet and they do their whole routine connecting it to some image in whatever scene they choose.
• 10:40
  I do that with a room and a house, but they have their own way.
• 10:44
  It's brilliant.
• 10:45
  Never knew that until I started researching it.
• 10:47
  Wow, so let's stay here just for a second because one of my favorite things to do on these podcasts is take practical application away from it for the audience.
• 10:59
  So can you kind of, if somebody's interested, like maybe they're an aspiring speaker that is starting out or maybe they want to do a podcast like this or they just want to get in
• 11:07
  front of more people, but the greatest fear anyone has is public speaking, right?
• 11:14
  So no, no, inform me.
• 11:18
  He tells the joke and he's like, yeah, I heard that the greatest sphere is public speaking.
• 11:23
  And he says, so imagine you had a funeral.
• 11:25
  That means the guy speaking would rather be in the coffin than speaking.
• 11:30
  Yeah, it's
• 11:33
  Yeah.
• 11:34
  can you, what I was alluding to is can you give anyone that, basically some tips, kind of like what you just did, but can you give them some practical steps to kind of ease that
• 11:44
  fear?
• 11:45
  Yeah, there is no fear when we are well prepared.
• 11:49
  Yeah, you'll still be a little bit nervous when you walk out, but my thumb rule, all that I do and all my coaching is I create these little simple heuristics so people can remember
• 11:58
  things easily.
• 12:00
  If you've got a 10 minute or less speech, practice that thing like 14 times.
• 12:06
  If you've got something 45 minutes or more, you wanna practice it 30 times.
• 12:12
  And you want it to be...
• 12:14
  So it's second nature to you without having to go look at your notes.
• 12:17
  And then if you can get a few friends to come over and listen to you while you do it, what a great little exercise to do.
• 12:23
  Preparation will get rid of the jitters for sure.
• 12:26
  Just imagine that.
• 12:27
  It takes work.
• 12:29
  It's work ethic.
• 12:31
  Yeah, yeah, you
• 12:33
  know, the best part about it is if you write it all out, a lot of people write outlines and then wing it when they're up front.
• 12:41
  I don't I write it word for word, just like a comedian does exactly the same and then practice it over and over again.
• 12:47
  It becomes so rewarding.
• 12:50
  You forget the hard work that went into it, you know.
• 12:53
  Yeah, let's move to our fill in the blank question.
• 12:58
  So we do a fill in the blank question on every Prophet Christian Business podcast.
• 13:02
  I always, and I'm usually very surprised by the answer.
• 13:06
  I usually think I know what this person is gonna say, but I'm always surprised.
• 13:10
  let's see what, so this is the fill in the blank.
• 13:17
  The biggest thing quietly sabotage, see, let me start over.
• 13:22
  The biggest thing quietly sabotaging most people's career is blank.
• 13:26
  It's the belief that things external to them are what's causing whatever their quote unquote issue is.
• 13:34
  It's not.
• 13:35
  It's always inside.
• 13:37
  Yeah, there are external blockers that we can't control, but once we know we can't, let it go and then focus on what we can.
• 13:43
  And that's usually 90 % of the time something negative we're telling ourselves.
• 13:48
  We sabotage ourselves by speaking horrible things to ourselves.
• 13:54
  Do you feel like it is sometimes hard for people to recognize that for themselves?
• 14:00
  Yeah, nearly impossible.
• 14:01
  Many of my clients, when I first start working with them, they're like, yeah, that's really, really hard to believe.
• 14:07
  So I'm like, OK, let's practice a few things.
• 14:10
  And as we go, you'll start to really grasp it.
• 14:13
  We are in control of how we feel.
• 14:15
  The saying I have that I developed, we feel the way we feel based on what we tell ourselves about what's happening, not because of what's happening.
• 14:24
  And there happens to be a ton of scripture that supports this.
• 14:27
  One of my favorites.
• 14:29
  The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.
• 14:35
  Why is that quote unquote wicked person running away?
• 14:39
  No one's pursuing them.
• 14:41
  It's because they're telling themselves, hey, someone's after me.
• 14:44
  That creates physiological response.
• 14:46
  That's one of many examples.
• 14:49
  Yeah, I think I want to go here a little bit because you've kind of planted the seed.
• 14:55
  What God told, like we often forget that who we are in God's eyes, right?
• 15:00
  And a lot of our lack of confidence, our self-doubt, ~ our fear, right?
• 15:07
  There's so many verses in the Bible says there's no reason to be anxious or afraid.
• 15:13
  So.
• 15:14
  I don't even know what question I'm asking, but if you could give some insight around your thoughts.
• 15:19
  Yeah, there are four internal blockers.
• 15:22
  It's represented by the acronym FAIL.
• 15:24
  F-A-I-L.
• 15:25
  Fear, assumptions, interpretations, and limiting beliefs.
• 15:30
  Fear is the thing that we most believe will always be true about us, and it can be looked at kind of like a gremlin.
• 15:39
  ~ It's only a matter of time before people realize that I'm just a fraud.
• 15:45
  Or I'll never be able to be a leader of a big company because I'll embarrass myself all the time.
• 15:50
  Whatever that fear is, that stays with us.
• 15:52
  We can start to untangle that by changing a couple of very simple phrases.
• 15:58
  I'm going to tell you a couple now.
• 16:00
  I don't want to take too long with this, but if we want to practice getting rid of the negative, fearful thinking, stop saying the following words.
• 16:09
  Need to have to should or must.
• 16:13
  There are no such thing as that.
• 16:15
  When I ask people, hey, test me.
• 16:18
  What is one thing you think I need to do?
• 16:20
  And almost everybody says, well, you need to eat.
• 16:23
  You need to breathe.
• 16:24
  And I'm like, no, I don't.
• 16:26
  They're like, yeah, you do.
• 16:27
  And I'm like, no, I don't.
• 16:28
  And then they say, well, you will die.
• 16:30
  And I'm like, yeah, I could die.
• 16:32
  So you don't want to die.
• 16:33
  And then I say, no, I don't want to die.
• 16:36
  I want to live.
• 16:37
  So if we get rid of need to have to should and must, we're getting rid of the
• 16:42
  fear-based thinking need to have to should and must means if I don't something bad will happen Instead, let's just say I want to I will or of course the greatest one I am Those
• 16:56
  are projecting looking forward and we're not captured by a fear of a sudden catastrophe.
• 17:03
  Let's
• 17:04
  I've always heard also, get to, I get to, like I'm privileged.
• 17:09
  yeah, that's beautiful too.
• 17:11
  Blue Country wrote a song called I Get To, Christian song.
• 17:15
  It's a great song.
• 17:16
  That's another great one.
• 17:18
  Anything to get rid of, need to, have to, should or must.
• 17:21
  Yeah, just get rid of.
• 17:23
  to kind of flip that on its head, you teach that lasting change does not come from positive thinking.
• 17:29
  So give us the key to lasting change.
• 17:33
  so you're picking up on this idea.
• 17:35
  It's on my website or something somewhere.
• 17:38
  The power of positive thinking beautiful book by Norman Vincent Peale or 5.2 million copies he sold, but it is warped today.
• 17:47
  People say, oh power positive thinking man and what they're doing actually is saying something that's quote unquote positive, but it's not true.
• 17:58
  Like if there's someone that has.
• 18:00
  made enough errors at work that they're about to get fired.
• 18:04
  And someone says, hey, power positive thinking man, and you go to work, I'm not going to get fired.
• 18:09
  They love me here.
• 18:11
  Right?
• 18:12
  Wait, you're like a lie.
• 18:14
  And the human body is not designed to lie to ourselves.
• 18:19
  This is the essence of codependency, know, alcoholism, addictions, those types of things, what we want to do instead.
• 18:27
  is speak what is true to ourselves.
• 18:29
  And I say, do a core values assessment.
• 18:33
  Find out what your core values are, how God made you.
• 18:36
  And then anytime you're thinking about a negative thought, use one of your five core values.
• 18:41
  You can go to my website and type in core values.
• 18:44
  have an assessment there.
• 18:45
  That's Philippians 4.8.
• 18:47
  Whatever is true about you, noble about you, excellent, admirable, praiseworthy about you, think about such things.
• 18:55
  That's at least my philosophy.
• 18:58
  There's so much scriptural sound that's ~ underlying in all of that.
• 19:02
  Just the anchor to the truth.
• 19:05
  Wow.
• 19:07
  it's Jesus, the truth.
• 19:09
  And then, by the way, be gracious with yourself.
• 19:10
  Jesus came in truth and grace.
• 19:13
  But don't tell ourselves things that we don't know if they're true or we know they're not.
• 19:17
  So can we get, I'm gonna say this is controversial, it's borderline controversial, let's just say that.
• 19:25
  So there's a bunch of, and maybe it's faded a little bit, but there was a era, for lack of a better word right now, of people saying, that's my truth.
• 19:34
  So it's not, it's not true, but you could say it's your truth.
• 19:41
  How do you handle that when someone says that to you?
• 19:43
  I'm asking you now.
• 19:45
  Oh, I to be put on the spot.
• 19:47
  was like, well, let's, let's, sometimes it depends on the person.
• 19:50
  It's all contextual, right?
• 19:52
  If it's somebody I, I sometimes I just brush it off like, okay, go ahead and believe that.
• 20:00
  If it's somebody actually care about, right?
• 20:02
  I will say, let's dissect that a little bit.
• 20:04
  Let's, where are you, where are you getting the basis for your truth?
• 20:09
  Right?
• 20:10
  Yeah, that's good.
• 20:11
  That's an open ended question where that's good.
• 20:13
  gets them thinking in the right hemisphere.
• 20:15
  That's great.
• 20:17
  I always say that's a little T truth, but there are capital T truths and let's pursue what the capital T truth is.
• 20:26
  And then I asked them, what do you think an overarching truth is in that area?
• 20:32
  Well, that just means they're going to be willing to look at opposing points of view.
• 20:36
  Doesn't mean they have to own it or make it their own.
• 20:39
  But when they realized, true for me is small t.
• 20:42
  What are other things that could be true?
• 20:45
  And then you explore that, you know, that's at least how I.
• 20:47
  One of the reasons it rubs me the wrong way ~ is because I feel like often it is used to defend sin.
• 20:56
  Yeah, exactly.
• 20:58
  And it's, ~ that, and you know what?
• 21:02
  It's, that's pride, most of all, rearing up because it's, it's my truth.
• 21:06
  It doesn't matter what the Bible might say, right?
• 21:12
  It matters what I feel.
• 21:14
  It matters about my feelings and my thoughts.
• 21:17
  So anyway, I'm just going to give everyone the basis.
• 21:20
  Yeah.
• 21:21
  this is where Matthew seven comes in, where Jesus says, do not give to dogs what is sacred.
• 21:25
  Don't throw your pearls before swine.
• 21:27
  If that's someone who's saying, yeah, this is my truth.
• 21:30
  like, OK, I don't I don't want to drag them to a place they don't want to go.
• 21:36
  I just kind of let it go.
• 21:37
  But if they are a brother or sister in Christ, I say, may I share share my perspective?
• 21:44
  If they say yes, then I'll say, what does the Bible say?
• 21:48
  If they're like, no, I just wanted to vent a little bit.
• 21:50
  I'm like, OK.
• 21:51
  But it's not worth wasting our time over.
• 21:54
  I think that's a good segue into my next question.
• 21:58
  So we talked a little bit about sabotage before.
• 22:02
  So people often sabotage their purpose, their careers, et cetera, without realizing it.
• 22:08
  So have you picked up on two or three behaviors that kind of cause that to keep them from getting greater influence, greater responsibility, or making a bigger impact?
• 22:18
  Yeah, okay, yes.
• 22:21
  The first one that comes to mind is saying no when asked things, asked for help.
• 22:27
  There's this idea of, we gotta be careful of our time and draw boundaries.
• 22:32
  And we can't say no to everything or we'll get burnt out and we don't wanna be a yes man or yes woman.
• 22:38
  Okay, there are elements of truth to that, but it's way more nuanced than that.
• 22:42
  What we want to get into the practice,
• 22:45
  and purpose of saying is yes without saying no, but in a sense, meaning not now.
• 22:54
  Hey, can you help me with?
• 22:55
  OK, yes, I can.
• 22:57
  My next available slot is next week at three o'clock.
• 23:00
  You know, we want to always get into saying yes so that people know I'm willing to help.
• 23:05
  And then another one is in this one held me back for a while.
• 23:09
  I had a certain amount of nervous energy where I felt like I was supposed to.
• 23:14
  speak up in every meeting I was in.
• 23:17
  And I talked way, way too much.
• 23:19
  Sometimes, many times, it's better to not say anything at all.
• 23:24
  And until I realized that I wasn't getting promoted and I never understood, and I asked this one boss, Gail Van Bremmer at GE again, coincidentally, she's like, yeah, just
• 23:35
  sometimes go try to go a whole meeting without saying anything.
• 23:39
  I'm like, okay, I don't know what you mean by that, but I'll try it.
• 23:43
  And it's because I was being nervous and fearful and trying to sound smart.
• 23:49
  It's better to, what's the saying?
• 23:52
  It's better to not say anything instead of, and not know what you're talking about than to say something and reveal it that you don't, you know.
• 24:00
  Yeah,
• 24:02
  I believe there might I might be wrong but I believe there's a scripture line maybe in there somewhere too
• 24:08
  yeah, yeah, even the foolish thought wiser to keep silent.
• 24:11
  Yeah.
• 24:12
  Yeah.
• 24:13
  Yeah.
• 24:13
  So I want to push back a little bit on maybe not push back, but let's open it up a little bit more about saying no or saying yes.
• 24:21
  And I was kind of giving my perspective on it.
• 24:23
  And it's something that I've had to learn over time is I was I am just I want to help everybody.
• 24:29
  Right.
• 24:30
  So I'm saying yes to things that tend to eat like eat up my time, et cetera, et cetera, until I learned that no is a
• 24:38
  very powerful word and sometimes no serves that person much more than me saying yes.
• 24:45
  So I guess the guardrails that I kind of put around that is does this follow under what my purpose and my alignment right now, right?
• 24:56
  Is it something that serves us both by me saying yes to?
• 25:01
  So can we dive into that a little bit?
• 25:04
  Yeah, so you're talking about the win-win.
• 25:06
  So I want to ask you a qualifying question, if I may.
• 25:09
  In that little brief scenario you gave, were you possibly thinking about like a church setting or a neighbor setting or a family setting, or were you talking about work?
• 25:23
  thinking about business.
• 25:24
  ~ So that maybe context probably matters.
• 25:28
  okay.
• 25:29
  you did.
• 25:30
  So you did say business.
• 25:31
  That means let me tell you what I think I hear you saying and then say if I got it right.
• 25:36
  As a business owner, people want you to do something.
• 25:40
  And you believe in many cases, or not many, but in some cases, it might be good to say, no, I'm not able to do that.
• 25:48
  Is that what you're meaning?
• 25:49
  Yes, maybe even give more concrete examples.
• 25:52
  Maybe somebody seeking a partnership or ~ me tagging up with them to do something, right?
• 26:01
  To help them in that, in essence, but it may not align with what I'm currently on mission to.
• 26:06
  Okay, yeah, then I think your pushback is very right.
• 26:10
  ~ The context I was only thinking in and now that you pointed out, see, probably should have, could have made that more clear in the workplace where you are an employee or a
• 26:22
  leader in a company and your boss or the company is calling on you or you're in the military or in the US government or in a not for profit.
• 26:31
  As a business owner, you can't do it really because you
• 26:35
  We can't just say yes to everything.
• 26:37
  Now, I will say in a business, unless something is way out of the bounds, if someone comes to me to ask something, I do entertain it and look at what I will refer to as risk
• 26:50
  sharing.
• 26:51
  But yeah, there are lots of times you say no in business.
• 26:54
  That's a good pushback, yeah.
• 26:56
  Nice, I'm just glad that we opened it up because we're gonna have both people in the audience, right?
• 27:02
  So there's business centers, think, but I also get your perspective, like especially when you're an executive or you're trying to rise to the level of executive, if you're
• 27:15
  anything, not that you wanna be a guest person, but you want to serve, right?
• 27:20
  Just go back to the Bible again.
• 27:22
  That's one of the servant leader.
• 27:26
  One of the best things that we can do is serve others.
• 27:30
  Yeah, that servant leader concept that's not from the Bible, even though we can backward integrate it.
• 27:37
  was a guy named Robert Greenleaf that read this book, Into the West, and which I won't get into that right now, but he developed this concept of servant leadership and developed the
• 27:48
  servant leadership foundation.
• 27:51
  I'll tell you briefly, Into the West is about these wealthy people that were trekking across
• 27:58
  mountains and valleys and they had this almost like a Sherpa along with them that took care of all of their food and clothes and meals, prep, but was also the life of the party,
• 28:10
  made it fun.
• 28:12
  you know, about three months through their journey, the Sherpa ended up leaving and leaving them on their own.
• 28:18
  And then the band, the party kind of broke up over time because the glue that was there wasn't holding them together.
• 28:25
  So one of the guys says, I've got to find this
• 28:28
  this, you know, Sherpa guy.
• 28:30
  So he spent all these years looking for him.
• 28:33
  And when he finally found him, he was the king of his own country.
• 28:38
  He was a ruler, but he would, he always had that mindset.
• 28:41
  I want to serve everybody first.
• 28:43
  That's where Robert Greenleaf, who happened to be a Quaker, he didn't even get it from the Bible.
• 28:48
  He got it from into the West.
• 28:49
  Anyways, there you go.
• 28:51
  Useless knowledge.
• 28:53
  know I don't think it's useless at all.
• 28:55
  And I think a lot of the reference goes to Jesus, the way that he led.
• 29:01
  Right.
• 29:02
  ~ That's at least that's where I've always picked it up is like, if we want to go ahead.
• 29:08
  Why did he allow them to go to the market and get him food?
• 29:12
  Why did he send them to get the donkey?
• 29:14
  Why did he send them to set up the upper room?
• 29:17
  He gave the one example in John 13 through seven, I think it was John 13 and 14.
• 29:24
  Did he mean in every area of life though?
• 29:28
  It's very interesting.
• 29:29
  Maybe he did, but it's interesting he had them do so much for him.
• 29:34
  You know?
• 29:35
  yeah.
• 29:36
  And I think if we really want to pinpoint like where most people pick it up is Jesus washing the feet of the disciples, right?
• 29:44
  Yeah.
• 29:46
  You know, if the leader should be willing to serve at, you know, at that level.
• 29:53
  I don't know.
• 29:54
  How about in a Fortune 500?
• 29:56
  Should the leader be washing people's feet?
• 30:00
  Maybe, I don't know.
• 30:03
  in the comments, if you're realistic in this and you've got this part of the episode, in the comments, answer that question for us.
• 30:10
  Like, what are your thoughts?
• 30:12
  I'd be interested to read those.
• 30:16
  So let's talk about brain science and scripture because we've talked about scripture a little bit, we've talked about brain science a little bit.
• 30:23
  Talk about how you meld those in what you do.
• 30:27
  ~ Maybe one of the more prominent ones I do now is personality, where I look at the personality assessments.
• 30:33
  have all of my clients take one.
• 30:35
  But a very big one is the idea around the way God made us a two-hemisphere being.
• 30:42
  In fact, all beings are two-hemisphere beings, but we have specialization.
• 30:49
  And when we realize what the specialization is, we can actually intentionally choose to think
• 30:57
  This is ~ metaphorically in one of the other two hemispheres.
• 31:01
  The left hemisphere is about tracking patterns.
• 31:04
  God designed us to constantly look for patterns.
• 31:07
  This is the left hemisphere doing it to survive.
• 31:10
  And when a pattern is broken or a pattern doesn't exist, the brain dumps cortisol and adrenaline into the bloodstream.
• 31:19
  So if we are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, the science shows, it's only because you don't have a pattern.
• 31:26
  Take a little bit longer to practice it, recognize you don't, and then explore more to develop a pattern and sure enough, the fear goes away.
• 31:34
  If we can think in the right hemisphere, which is where language is formed, we can explore new opportunities all the time to keep ourselves kind of ~ advancing and growing, not just
• 31:47
  sticking with what is familiar to us.
• 31:50
  Knowing that, right hemisphere, we're not gonna understand the pattern.
• 31:54
  We'll feel the stress, but let me go try something new.
• 31:57
  I spend a lot of time with my clients on that aspect.
• 32:01
  I love that one of the things that I bring up a lot is structure and clarity, right?
• 32:07
  A lot of that fear can go away like it's it's kind of just like you said when it's something new We don't have any structure to it.
• 32:13
  We don't have a clarity to it But once we start to develop that structure and clarity I just put out something the other day.
• 32:23
  It's that you don't necessarily reach your goals you fail to the level of your systems, right and if you
• 32:32
  You've got to keep building systems as you go because one system builds on top of another.
• 32:40
  Yeah, what's interesting there is people that have a low conscientiousness on the big five traits, openness, agreeableness, sex diversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism can't build
• 32:50
  those systems.
• 32:52
  So knowing that great quote that you just said, you're only going to be able to rise to the excellence of your systems and you can't do that.
• 33:01
  You want to find a resource on your team or external to you to help you build those.
• 33:08
  knowing we don't have the conscientiousness, we'll never have it invest in finding someone to do it or using an outsource tool, let's say.
• 33:18
  is so valuable information.
• 33:20
  And now within the age of AI, there's even ways to do that through AI.
• 33:27
  I've known so many, because so many entrepreneurs are visionaries, they sometimes do lack that, I can't put structure to it.
• 33:34
  I have the dream, I have the vision, I have the passion.
• 33:37
  can drive the train, bus, whatever it is, but I need somebody else to back there building the engine.
• 33:45
  That's what happened with Apple.
• 33:46
  If you've ever read the biography of jobs, he traded a disruptive product for the whole market, but didn't have that high level of conscientiousness.
• 33:58
  So eventually the market caught up to him.
• 34:00
  They fired him.
• 34:02
  They brought in, I think it was the CEO of Pepsi, but I might be wrong on that.
• 34:05
  That guy was 98th percentile conscientiousness and built all these systems around Apple, got them to be one of the biggest companies in the world.
• 34:14
  did not know how to disrupt the market again.
• 34:19
  So they fired him and brought jobs back in.
• 34:21
  It's so great if an executive team could build the right team that has both.
• 34:28
  Yeah.
• 34:29
  Well, let's dive into faith and calling and purpose a little bit.
• 34:33
  ~ How can a Christian recognize the difference between simply making a living?
• 34:38
  So many people feel, this is to sound like a long question because I'm just going to kind of, because I'm kind of ramble a little bit while asking the questions is basically what I
• 34:49
  mean is so many people out there feel lost in what they're doing.
• 34:55
  is this what I really should be doing?
• 34:57
  They feel out of alignment, but they feel again fear comes back into this a lot, right?
• 35:02
  They're scared to do what they really feel they're passionate about or what God's calling them to do.
• 35:07
  So how can Christians recognize the difference between whether they're where they should be or
• 35:13
  OK, so there is that magic word should right?
• 35:17
  If we start thinking should I be here that we've introduced fear?
• 35:20
  We're basically telling ourselves if I don't.
• 35:23
  Find another thing.
• 35:24
  Something bad is going to happen.
• 35:27
  I am of the belief there's this really great Prager you video from the guy that did dirty jobs.
• 35:34
  What's his name?
• 35:35
  ~ I.
• 35:37
  ~ mmm.
• 35:41
  Mike Rowe?
• 35:42
  Micro, that's it.
• 35:44
  Micro did this video.
• 35:45
  Don't follow your passion.
• 35:48
  And he basically gives this great philosophical argument that the best thing to do is always keep your eyes open for opportunity and then bring your passion with you.
• 35:59
  We don't get passion from what we do.
• 36:01
  We get passion from what we tell ourselves about what we're doing.
• 36:06
  If we can get rid of the negative self talk.
• 36:09
  And by the way, this is where I do recommend again, go to my website, motivation here.com.
• 36:14
  Do you mind me sharing that?
• 36:15
  Okay.
• 36:17
  ~ Yeah.
• 36:20
  you're watching this or you're listening to this, wherever that is, you're gonna find some accompanying text that will have those links nearby.
• 36:31
  Yeah, I just did a setup for myself, but I didn't play it out good.
• 36:36
  said, I should have done that.
• 36:38
  It was kind of a joke anyways, but at motivation, your.com motivation, er.com search for core values assessment and then take that core values assessment.
• 36:48
  And what we want to do is see if what we're doing is aligned to our core values because there might be a situation, no matter how truthful your thinking is, you could be in a
• 37:00
  place that
• 37:00
  constantly conflicts with one or more of your core values, then it might be better to leave.
• 37:05
  But for most of us, it's because we go to work with a negative self-talk.
• 37:09
  I'm never going to be anything here.
• 37:11
  They don't even notice me.
• 37:13
  I don't know how to negotiate.
• 37:14
  I'll never get paid.
• 37:15
  Would we ever say that to one of our close friends?
• 37:19
  And yet we always talk to ourselves like that.
• 37:22
  So I recommend and this is my motto.
• 37:26
  Your career is not just a way to make a living.
• 37:28
  It's a way to transform the world.
• 37:31
  So ask God for wisdom, Lord, what do you have me here for?
• 37:36
  Help me to live to your purpose and shine the light for as long as you want me to here, God.
• 37:41
  And if you want me to leave, please make it clear and I will leave.
• 37:46
  That's, think, let's pull God into it.
• 37:49
  So two things one happens to be something I saw yesterday that I kind of a fold into this conversation But before that let's talk about scripture again I hope that you can pull the
• 37:59
  scripture out of your head if not, we'll make sure to reference it below but There's a verse in the Bible that says do your work unto the Lord Right that seems exactly what
• 38:10
  you're talking about Like you're not you're not complaining like if you're doing your work unto the Lord you are ~
• 38:18
  doing it to his glory, right?
• 38:19
  And you're finding joy in that.
• 38:22
  Right on, man.
• 38:23
  Yeah, that's in two of Paul's letters.
• 38:26
  He mentioned it word for word in Ephesians and Colossians.
• 38:29
  preached definitely Ephesians or definitely, I think it's Ephesians and Colossians.
• 38:32
  He mentions it.
• 38:33
  Work as if we're working for the Lord.
• 38:36
  Perfectly well said.
• 38:37
  Yep.
• 38:38
  The other thing I heard was something kind of new that I heard and funny enough it was in an advertisement.
• 38:46
  But the guy was explaining why he failed to be successful until he found this out because he was troubled.
• 38:53
  He's had trouble falling into his purpose is basically what he said.
• 38:58
  And it wasn't his because of his bigger values like faith, family, et cetera, et cetera.
• 39:04
  There were micro values that
• 39:07
  really are what fueled his passion.
• 39:09
  And when he got aligned to those micro values, that's when he excelled.
• 39:15
  ~ So I was like, that is so, so good.
• 39:21
  ~ So I think for people listening, yes, we all can like rattle off our top tier values, right?
• 39:32
  But really start to dissect what are those micro values?
• 39:37
  that you ~ may not really think of off the top of your head, but that is really where your passion is fueled.
• 39:45
  And we can figure that I love that and we can figure it out by if our energy is constantly drained.
• 39:52
  Be aware.
• 39:53
  What is it that happened right before I felt like?
• 39:56
  ~ Not that that external thing is causing it, but that external thing happens.
• 40:01
  It confronts one of our values, even micro values, and then we start to think negatively.
• 40:07
  Yeah, that's good.
• 40:09
  Yeah, and I apologize whoever's ad that was, it great ad for one.
• 40:14
  It made me watch the whole ad video.
• 40:16
  ~ I don't remember what company it was for or who you are, but if I remember or I see the ad again, I'll make sure to reference and give you credit below.
• 40:27
  Yeah, I will give you a citation because that was one of the things I hadn't heard ~ before and I thought it was very, very good.
• 40:35
  ~
• 40:37
  Let me ask you this, Sean.
• 40:39
  So it seems everything, when you come down to it, goes back to the Bible, right?
• 40:46
  Even if people don't realize it.
• 40:48
  So can you talk about maybe one leadership principle that the business world, it's just a corporate belief or a corporate standard type of thing.
• 40:57
  But when you get that back down to the nuts and bolts, it's really biblical.
• 41:01
  Yeah, I would say I, in fact, I do say anything that we experience in the marketplace, we can trace it back to the ancient truths in God's word.
• 41:10
  So business principles.
• 41:11
  ~ Yeah, I can't think of anything off the top of my head on that, but I will say one thing I reference all the time with my senior leaders, executives, if they're running into
• 41:24
  conflict with some of their senior team or someone on the board of directors.
• 41:28
  There's a beautiful passage in Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes 1020 that says, not revile the king even in your thoughts or curse rich in your bedroom, lest a bird of the air carry
• 41:42
  your words or bird on the wing, report what you say.
• 41:46
  And that principle is if you're thinking negatively about your senior team or you're thinking negatively about that one board member who always gives you a hard time and
• 41:57
  puts you on the spot and questions you, you're gonna walk into that room and they're gonna sense it.
• 42:03
  There's not a bird that can read your mind and then speak in human language to them.
• 42:08
  We give ourselves away.
• 42:11
  It's so important.
• 42:12
  This is the essence of ~ executive presence, which is a very, very big thing in the corporate world today.
• 42:19
  The most important one, this idea of gravitas, it's always being aware of what we're telling ourselves about the other people.
• 42:26
  And if we can arrest that, we won't give ourselves away and we can build the trust that a team really requires to grow.
• 42:34
  The Speed of Trust, I think, is a book.
• 42:36
  I've never read it, but I heard it's great.
• 42:38
  That's very, very good.
• 42:40
  And while you were saying that, I thought about how much better teams operate when that is the mindset going in, right?
• 42:49
  It's not about, I'm circling back to serve, right?
• 42:54
  It's not about the negative things.
• 42:58
  Like it's not about how can I ~ show up this person or that.
• 43:03
  It's like, how can we build the synergy as a team?
• 43:07
  and come together, but it's so good.
• 43:10
  up.
• 43:10
  I don't remember where it's at, but it's this concept.
• 43:13
  Misfortune pursues the center, but prosperity is the reward of the righteous.
• 43:19
  If we're on a team and all we focus on is we didn't get that done, we failed on that.
• 43:24
  Hey, they're not doing their job over there.
• 43:27
  Everything becomes misfortune.
• 43:29
  But if we say, look, let's start out looking at what we've done, been doing great.
• 43:34
  Then we can go to instead of saying, what have we been doing bad now?
• 43:39
  What can we do a little bit better?
• 43:41
  This is Kaizen Kai meaning goods or change Zen meaning no.
• 43:47
  Kai meaning good Zen meaning change or change for the better continuous improvement.
• 43:52
  If we can speak an aspiration on that team of what we want instead of what we don't want, that changes the velocity of certainly the mood in the meeting, but the velocity of the
• 44:03
  team together.
• 44:04
  Yeah.
• 44:06
  and this might be oversimplifying it a little bit, but it's focusing on problems more than solutions, right?
• 44:16
  Perfect.
• 44:17
  ~ You know, when the team is focusing on problems more than solutions, of course you're not going to make much traction.
• 44:25
  And especially if the leader is focusing, this is kind of the vision that I got, not the vision, the, yeah, for lack of a word, the vision that I got in my head as you were
• 44:34
  speaking about that is ~ a leader that goes up to people and just tells them everything that they're doing wrong, never offers a solution, never offers a way out, never offers
• 44:45
  anything constructive.
• 44:46
  ~
• 44:47
  How long will that leader last for wine?
• 44:50
  Yeah, exactly.
• 44:53
  And how long is that employee going to stay there listening to it?
• 44:56
  I teach my leaders how to ask questions so that the other person can discover how they can improve.
• 45:03
  And usually they get some thinking into the right hemisphere.
• 45:06
  I can get really nerdy about this.
• 45:08
  ~ We can go on to the next question.
• 45:11
  Well, the next thing I have is a shameless plug here.
• 45:15
  We have a thing called the Goal Getting app.
• 45:16
  You might see it on the screen behind us.
• 45:18
  And so I've always wanted to start.
• 45:20
  This might be the first podcast I'm actually doing it in, is bring in a segment about goal getting.
• 45:27
  ~ So my question for you is around that.
• 45:30
  So based on your experience helping leaders change the way they think and work, if someone wanted to make meaningful progress in their career or leadership over the next 90 days,
• 45:38
  What is one truthful question they should ask themselves first?
• 45:42
  Yeah, this is not going to be as powerful because that word truthful, it's so profound, but it does go to where do I want to be?
• 45:52
  What do I actually want to achieve?
• 45:55
  Once we have whatever that is in front of us, then we want to define how we will know if we've achieved it.
• 46:05
  We don't talk enough about measuring success.
• 46:08
  So.
• 46:09
  Ask ourselves what is it I want to do and how will I know I've done it once I got there?
• 46:14
  I bet your app does that.
• 46:16
  It does.
• 46:19
  I did yeah
• 46:20
  I'm plugging you too.
• 46:22
  Thank you.
• 46:22
  ~ And I just love that, that you said that because one of the things when I talk to most entrepreneurs that tend to be struggling is lack of clarity.
• 46:36
  Lack of clarity.
• 46:37
  Because when you have clarity, have, you're, once you have clarity, you're on mission from that point, right?
• 46:44
  And the problem is like, it's,
• 46:49
  got to the point like it's just cliche about the shiny object syndrome, but they start on one thing, they never get clarity around it, they jump to another thing, they don't have
• 46:57
  clarity around it.
• 46:58
  They keep bouncing and bouncing and bouncing and never being on mission because they don't, sometimes clarity doesn't, I think they expect clarity to happen instantly, right?
• 47:10
  But it takes, sometimes you gotta get in the process ~ to get clarity.
• 47:15
  I agree.
• 47:17
  In fact, we try to go off of intuition too much and we think, yeah, it was clear because I sense this was the right way to go.
• 47:25
  And we undermine ourselves because, hey, let's dig into the details.
• 47:29
  Let's do some planning.
• 47:30
  Let's develop a strategy long term and then tactic short term, which is where goals I'm sure would be perfect.
• 47:38
  So you mentioned having a benchmark to reach, right?
• 47:42
  So that you know that you've reached something.
• 47:45
  So too often, again, I think people don't do KPIs.
• 47:51
  And sometimes they set, I'm all about setting stretch goals, right?
• 47:57
  You set a stretch goal, you feel like it's going to
• 48:00
  Like you may not hit it, right?
• 48:02
  But the beautiful thing is you're going to get close.
• 48:06
  Even if you don't hit it, you're going to get close.
• 48:08
  So let us if it's I don't think you can set too easy goals because then it's you're not really making progress.
• 48:16
  The type of progress that you really want to make the more you stretch yourself and grow, the more momentum you're going to get.
• 48:25
  So I love some insights, ~ any insights that you have around that.
• 48:29
  So there is, I think, a little bit of a dichotomy there.
• 48:33
  One is, you're a leader that's leading teams.
• 48:36
  We always, as leaders, want to ask our employees to reach even higher.
• 48:41
  Because psychologically, everyone holds back a little bit when they don't know what's around the next corner.
• 48:47
  So we, as a leader, knows, hey, yeah, it's a quote unquote stretch goal.
• 48:52
  I've been doing this a lot today, I think.
• 48:54
  But.
• 48:55
  let's call them to reach even higher because there are things in them that they don't know or resources that are there that will get them to retire.
• 49:02
  I am a fan, however, for my own personal goals of making them smart, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound.
• 49:10
  And in that mode, I do tend to like to make things that are achievable.
• 49:17
  Where I can grow off of it is say, once I achieve that one, I will have this one in line to keep it going.
• 49:25
  as opposed to one milestone and then go to that stretch because for me, if I don't hit a goal, I get over analytical.
• 49:34
  So if I can set a series of goals that build on themselves, but they're all achievable, that's for me the Kaizen.
• 49:42
  Constantly improving, knowing we'll never get to the best, but we'll do it a little bit better.
• 49:47
  That's good, better, best, never let it rest until you're good as better and you're better as best.
• 49:52
  I try to incorporate that into my goals, but leading a team, am definitely putting, we're stretching, we're gonna reach as high as we can.
• 50:02
  Nice, nice.
• 50:03
  ~ The other thing that I tend to harp on quite a bit is consistency.
• 50:07
  ~ And anytime you're starting out anything new, you're not gonna be great at it, right?
• 50:14
  ~ And some people, because they're not great at it initially, they quit too soon.
• 50:19
  And it's just like ~ if you're bad at sales and you have two sales calls and neither one go well, and then you never take any more sales calls, right?
• 50:28
  You need to put in the reps.
• 50:30
  And often,
• 50:32
  The problem is it's not a lack of wanting to do it, it's lack of doing it enough, doing it consistently ~ over time.
• 50:42
  ~ I'm sure there's a time when you say, okay, I'm really not any good at this, I need someone else to do it for me.
• 50:50
  ~ But most often, I feel like there's not enough reps.
• 50:57
  And if you're not that I say I'm saying you are so I'll ask you.
• 51:01
  As you're saying that, are you also thinking about as a business and entrepreneur business owner?
• 51:06
  That's always usually my frame of reference.
• 51:08
  Yeah.
• 51:08
  Okay, I will say I am bad at selling.
• 51:12
  I don't like it.
• 51:14
  I used to be in sales years ago.
• 51:15
  Once I realized I hate it when people look at me like I'm trying to steal money from them.
• 51:20
  When I walk into a company, I got into the operational side and that's where I spent the last 25 years in the corporate world operations.
• 51:29
  I now for my business, instead of selling, I developed an automated client acquisition strategy.
• 51:38
  So I don't have to because have to is fear based.
• 51:42
  If I could set up automation where there's a drip campaign or automatic texts, it's way better for me.
• 51:49
  Then I could just go around giving away this great high value stuff, winning trust from them, getting them into my list and letting my drip campaign sell them.
• 51:58
  That's just how I do it because I hate selling.
• 52:02
  And sales was just ~ one thing, right, that it could be.
• 52:08
  And I agree with you, and it's just funny how things come back around.
• 52:12
  You build a system, right?
• 52:13
  ~ And what lit my eyes up as you were talking was you give away high values.
• 52:22
  I think you said something high value, right?
• 52:26
  Another thing that I harp on all the time is value lead, right?
• 52:30
  How can you show someone value right away?
• 52:32
  That makes sales really easy.
• 52:37
  I've already helped you.
• 52:38
  What makes you think I can't help you some more?
• 52:40
  right?
• 52:41
  And especially if it's a high value thing, they're going to say, how could Doug be giving that away?
• 52:48
  Either he's crazy or he's got a whole lot more to do for me.
• 52:52
  And they will tend to go for he's got a whole lot more.
• 52:55
  Let me get into this with him.
• 52:57
  So here, again, I'm gonna always try and look for the practical takeaways for people in the audience.
• 53:03
  So ~ think about something that you can deliver.
• 53:08
  You may be, here comes fear again, you may be afraid to give that thing away, but what if it means it just propels everything else?
• 53:19
  If you're able to give that one thing away and it helps you grow from there.
• 53:24
  But again, it has to be high value.
• 53:26
  can't be.
• 53:27
  just some ordinary little PDF like the five, you have to really give this some thought.
• 53:33
  You have to really think you have, and this is the other piece of it, you have to really know the person that you're giving it to, your avatar.
• 53:40
  You have to know that this will help this person take a step forward.
• 53:46
  Speaking to our business owner listeners, your business owner listeners, understanding our ideal client profile, ICP, also known as an avatar, it's the most important thing because
• 53:57
  they're on a journey.
• 53:58
  Their journey always starts with awareness of pain.
• 54:01
  Then they consider how to resolve it or they show an interest in resolving it.
• 54:05
  Then they consider how to, and then they make the decision.
• 54:08
  We want our content in that very high value giveaway upfront to meet them right where their pain is without selling them anything.
• 54:17
  It's not a, wonder if it would be good for me to give this away.
• 54:22
  No, give it away.
• 54:24
  Believe me, give it away.
• 54:26
  You will develop more.
• 54:27
  And then the other thumb rule I use from, coach a lot of business owners develop three new products every year, no matter what.
• 54:35
  Every year, three new products focus on it.
• 54:39
  Cause you don't know which one's going to explode.
• 54:40
  is Ecclesiastes 11 six ship your grain across the sea.
• 54:45
  Invest in seven ventures.
• 54:46
  Yes.
• 54:46
  And eight.
• 54:47
  for you to know which one will succeed.
• 54:50
  Three products every year, yeah.
• 54:52
  That's good.
• 54:53
  That's good.
• 54:54
  I can't help but share this.
• 54:57
  I had this visual in my head.
• 55:00
  And sometimes people like to hear a ~ visual and kind of explain it.
• 55:05
  So imagine someone that's on their journey pushing a boulder uphill, right?
• 55:12
  And they just can't get it.
• 55:14
  And here you are.
• 55:16
  You come by with a crane, take that boulder out of their way, and then
• 55:21
  then you offer to help them get further up the hill.
• 55:24
  Right?
• 55:25
  They're going to be.
• 55:25
  ~
• 55:28
  to use my big crane and I'm going to move that boulder for you.
• 55:33
  That's a great analogy, great vision.
• 55:36
  Yeah, so what is your bolder mover for the people that you help?
• 55:42
  Because if you can move that bolder for them, they're gonna want you to help otherwise.
• 55:47
  on my website, I give away an ebook.
• 55:50
  It's 30 pages, lots of science, lots of research on how someone, even without hiring me as a coach, of course, can learn to manage their own thoughts one thought at a time.
• 56:01
  If we can master, unblock, this is called internal blockers, if we can unblock ourselves, the minute we do, we have a paradigm shift.
• 56:10
  That book is designed
• 56:12
  mean, the first two or three years I was in business, everybody's like, Sean, you got to take that down.
• 56:16
  You cannot give that away.
• 56:18
  Do yourself a favor, Sean.
• 56:20
  You got to start charging for that.
• 56:21
  like, I don't know.
• 56:22
  It doesn't seem right.
• 56:23
  I want people to know that I'm legitimate.
• 56:25
  How are they going to know unless I let them all have it?
• 56:29
  So that's my one big thing.
• 56:32
  But then I travel all over the United States and I speak at churches for free.
• 56:37
  It's like my my my true passion.
• 56:40
  I do a three hour workshop.
• 56:42
  That's where I really help any church community learn how to get their members into a focus of accelerating in their career without compromising their faith.
• 56:53
  Those are my big two.
• 56:55
  Yeah.
• 56:56
  ~ so here's the other thing I I was thinking too.
• 57:00
  ~ we're telling people to to give away that value.
• 57:04
  At the same time, it's important that you have other value to give, right?
• 57:10
  ~ you need to like I I don't know what the best way to say this.
• 57:17
  I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings, right?
• 57:20
  If if all you have is that one boulder mover, you need to develop some more some
• 57:25
  Maybe those three new pro those three other products, right?
• 57:27
  You need to have something else on the other side of that boulder to offer people.
• 57:31
  ~ because otherwise you have nowhere to go from there.
• 57:35
  So
• 57:36
  And here's a quick way to just figure that out.
• 57:38
  Depending upon your business, I mean, like if you're in retail, you know, that's maybe a little bit harder, but if you're in a professional services based business, just think
• 57:46
  about for your next two or three products, what do people always come to me for help with?
• 57:53
  What is it that I have consistently been delivering to people?
• 57:57
  Or if you have a business that you've been in for a little bit and this concept of giving away a high value thing to develop trust is brand new, what is stuff
• 58:06
  All of my friends always ask me to help them with and make that a product and then start bundling.
• 58:11
  You could ~ do a little nuanced product change by bundling or changing the pricing on it, making it a tier.
• 58:22
  That could be initially a second or third product.
• 58:27
  Yeah, and ~ to kind of piggyback on that, you should probably do a three tiered escalator anyway.
• 58:33
  You should know like but that thing at the bottom of the tier cannot just be a throwaway.
• 58:39
  It needs to be high value.
• 58:41
  And then you already know what the next two steps are.
• 58:43
  Bravo right on.
• 58:45
  That is a lot of that's something a lot of my clients have never heard of before.
• 58:49
  They have one price.
• 58:52
  One entry point I'm like.
• 58:54
  Yeah, I'll tell you why not a lot of people buying it.
• 58:56
  They don't have a choice.
• 58:58
  Yeah.
• 58:59
  Yeah.
• 58:59
  If if you're all like I could see this like you you only have the total package and nothing else.
• 59:05
  It i think about it in reverse.
• 59:07
  Start stripping some things out of that package to offer it at lower levels.
• 59:11
  Introduce it maybe even as a freemium model.
• 59:13
  You give away some things for free, but to activate the other things that require them to use it for two or three months.
• 59:20
  That's freemium.
• 59:21
  A freemium business model works really great, especially if you're in software like you are Mr.
• 59:26
  Great House.
• 59:28
  ~ just a side note, ~ I I meant to say this earlier.
• 59:32
  You have your your last name is German, but my last name is German as well.
• 59:36
  It was Grauhaus.
• 59:38
  So ~ I think G-R-A-U-T-H-A-U-S.
• 59:42
  ~
• 59:45
  rot.
• 59:47
  I would have thought you were like Norwegian like because they had the great house that German huh?
• 59:52
  ~
• 59:55
  dot com.
• 59:55
  Maybe I'm not right.
• 59:56
  Maybe my family some of my families lied to me.
• 59:58
  It turned out some my my wife thought she was a certain thing for a long time and she found out later that she had she had some other ~ characteristics.
• 1:00:07
  So
• 1:00:07
  I'm definitively
• 1:00:08
  German, so much a kampf.
• 1:00:09
  There's an F in the motherland.
• 1:00:11
  There's an F.
• 1:00:13
  Nice.
• 1:00:13
  Sorry, audience, for taking you on that little ~ little trick off off of our off of our mission, but ~ Sean, it has been awesome having you here on on the Prophet Christian
• 1:00:24
  Business Podcast.
• 1:00:27
  as I know all the time, there's usually stuff that you wanted to say that you that some some more value that you wanted to leave with the audience.
• 1:00:36
  So I never like to leave without making sure that gets out there.
• 1:00:40
  ~ so you what put
• 1:00:43
  W of course we're gonna invite you to ~ invite people, other people to what you're doing, but before we do that, what is the what is one something some wisdom that you'd like to
• 1:00:55
  pass down that maybe we didn't get to talk.
• 1:00:58
  OK, I love your questions.
• 1:00:59
  I told you that multiple times, but I'm going to say again you have great questions.
• 1:01:05
  God designed into us.
• 1:01:08
  The human sigh.
• 1:01:09
  Have you ever talked to someone who sighs a lot?
• 1:01:13
  That means there are things on their mind that are unresolved.
• 1:01:17
  One thing we can get into the habit of doing is practice practicing a very simple breathing exercise to center ourselves.
• 1:01:27
  before the stress builds up and we're sighing on our own.
• 1:01:31
  Lots of them out there, can just go do centered breathing and start practicing that all the time, especially before meetings, ~ after work, before you get home and open that door
• 1:01:42
  and there's your family.
• 1:01:44
  Just practice some deep breathing and that will make the huge difference.
• 1:01:48
  This is the meditation, the breath.
• 1:01:50
  The word for breath is hruach in the Old Testament.
• 1:01:54
  in Pneuma and then new, it's the same word for spirit as in Holy Spirit.
• 1:01:59
  Let's just breathe and get really great at intentionally doing that.
• 1:02:03
  That is that is so cool.
• 1:02:04
  I've I've and I've seen kind of ~ some more people talk about this and it was kind of a ~ lack of a better I I love using lack of a better word.
• 1:02:14
  A mystery to me.
• 1:02:16
  ~ like what are they talk of breathing?
• 1:02:19
  Like now you've you've really made it make sense ~ of of why it's so so good.
• 1:02:24
  ~ so how do people find out more about you and how you can help them?
• 1:02:29
  ~ where do they go?
• 1:02:31
  All that good stuff.
• 1:02:32
  So motivationeer.com, motivationeer.com, there is a sign up there for 72 weeks of inspiration.
• 1:02:41
  When you sign up, you'll get one new email a week for 72 weeks, packed, packed with free stuff, executive presence, self-assessment, ~ action priority worksheet, core values
• 1:02:51
  assessment, career wheel, tons of stuff.
• 1:02:54
  And then go to my YouTube channel.
• 1:02:56
  It's also YouTube Motivation Ear.
• 1:02:59
  You know, I give away.
• 1:03:01
  I teach lots of stuff on that channel too.
• 1:03:03
  That's another great way to find.
• 1:03:05
  Awesome.
• 1:03:05
  Well, thank you so much, Sean.
• 1:03:07
  And I highly encourage anyone that's looking to move ~ move forward, as I keep saying, keep moving forward.
• 1:03:15
  ~ Sean's gonna really help you help you do that.
• 1:03:17
  Whether that's in your if you're in a career and you want to level up in that area, ~ you're leading a nonprofit or you're part of nonprofit.
• 1:03:26
  I'm sure Sean can help you there too, or you are running a business and you need some ~ help ~
• 1:03:34
  there as well.
• 1:03:35
  So Sean, thank you so much.
• 1:03:37
  All those links will be below for you to check out.
• 1:03:40
  ~ make sure to ~ check out Sean's website.
• 1:03:43
  And until next time, keep moving forward.
• 1:03:47
  Thanks, Doug.