Latest / Authentic Living / Legacy Living and Productivity: Alex Dripchak on Sales, Neuroscience, and Impactful Skills

Transcript

Legacy Living and Productivity: Alex Dripchak on Sales, Neuroscience, and Impactful Skills · Authentic Living

• 0:01
  Welcome to Authentic Living with Roxanne, a place where we have conscious conversations
• 0:08
  about things that really matter in our lives.
• 0:12
  And now here's your host, Roxanne Durhaj.
• 0:41
  Hi everyone, it's Roxanne Durhodge.
• 0:43
  Thanks for tuning in again today to Authentic Living with Roxanne.
• 0:46
  Today I have a special guest, a young man, Alex Striptrack, and he is an author, a speaker, and
• 0:53
  a coach, and has done some pretty interesting things.
• 0:56
  He's about to promote a new book, which we'll talk about.
• 0:59
  He works with as an AI tech adviser, which I'd love to know.
• 1:03
  We're all wanting to know more about AI and a sales leader who has had almost twelve years
• 1:09
  career in tech recruiting and consulting at Oracle, Mercer, and now Bright Horizons.
• 1:15
  His mission is to educate students on how to safeguard their success, accelerate their
• 1:20
  corporate world learning curve, and future proof their financial freedom, which I think
• 1:25
  the present generation is so focused on kind of their futures.
• 1:29
  Alex, I think that this will be a great conversation.
• 1:32
  He's the author of 100 Skills of the Successful Sales Professional, Your Guide to Establishing
• 1:37
  and Elevating Your Career.
• 1:39
  That's it.
• 1:40
  And his new book that's coming out in the next week or two is called Maximus.
• 1:45
  So Alex, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:47
  Thank you so much, Roxanne.
• 1:48
  Atlas, thank you for calling me a young man as well.
• 1:51
  I don't feel quite so young anymore.
• 1:53
  That
• 1:53
  transition Oh, I should do time this.
• 1:54
  No, no.
• 1:54
  You look very young.
• 1:55
  I've got go.
• 1:56
  I'll take it.
• 1:56
  So yes, it's great to be on today.
• 1:58
  And I also understand since it's called authentic living, I've called out a few
• 2:01
  sections of my upcoming book that'll help promote authentic living and leaving a lasting
• 2:06
  legacy, things like that.
• 2:07
  So excited to fuse that in as well.
• 2:09
  But we've got a number of different areas we can go.
• 2:11
  I will defer to you what would be most valuable for your listeners.
• 2:15
  Well, what got you into did you start in sales?
• 2:18
  Is that what you went to school for, or did your path along the way growing up where you my
• 2:23
  path was I was exposed to business people very young.
• 2:26
  Yes.
• 2:26
  What was your path that kind of now you're teaching and you're writing books on sales and
• 2:32
  trying to help students.
• 2:33
  What's tell us a little bit about that path.
• 2:36
  Sure.
• 2:37
  So like yourself, it sounds exposed to a lot of executives at an earlier age.
• 2:40
  So that was nice to be able to get that exposure, build some communication skills
• 2:45
  through those experiences.
• 2:47
  And then from there, I actually my background is more writing.
• 2:51
  So I wrote a lot when I was growing up.
• 2:53
  I used to write in very Shakespearean style poetry when I was 15, 16, 17 years old.
• 2:59
  Very different than
• 3:00
  Steve, that's awfully and Shakespearean.
• 3:02
  I remember having to take Shakespeare in high school and thinking, oh, no, how am I gonna do
• 3:06
  this?
• 3:07
  But you actually must have liked writing in that era.
• 3:10
  I did.
• 3:10
  Yes.
• 3:11
  Yeah.
• 3:11
  So I've kind of written all different forms.
• 3:13
  So I bring that up because poetry was the early days and then morphed into a lot of the
• 3:19
  columnist writing, newspaper writing, and high school and college covered different sporting
• 3:23
  events.
• 3:23
  And I had a business column, things like that for tips and advice, and then really wanted to
• 3:28
  get back into writing.
• 3:29
  I always wanted to come back to it.
• 3:31
  And books is kind of how I fused my professional career with my writing.
• 3:36
  And, yeah, so that's how we're on to the second book now.
• 3:38
  So that's how that came about.
• 3:39
  To answer your earlier question, no.
• 3:41
  Sales was not really on the horizon.
• 3:43
  I think for a lot of folks, we fall backwards into sales.
• 3:47
  So I thought I was going to go more marketing, media, advertising.
• 3:51
  Got my offers in that space.
• 3:53
  And I said, I'm New York City.
• 3:54
  That's going to be a little tough to live on.
• 3:56
  So when I got my offer from Oracle and I heard all about the training program and the skills I
• 4:01
  was going to learn and being out in California for nine weeks was just too good of an
• 4:05
  opportunity to pass up.
• 4:06
  So I said, all right, my brother's in sales.
• 4:08
  Let me give it a shot.
• 4:10
  And so far, so good.
• 4:13
  Interesting.
• 4:14
  So it's a marriage between passion, which was clearly writing.
• 4:17
  And a lot of times, like myself, I'm a psychologist and then eventually I wrote a
• 4:22
  book, but your path was, which oftentimes a lot of authors, that's the path they take, but it
• 4:26
  sounds like your passion is writing first, which is fascinating, right?
• 4:30
  Like I write, I would not say it would be the thing that I would be doing in my spare time,
• 4:34
  Alex.
• 4:35
  Add to what's already there, but clearly somebody like you has enjoyed it.
• 4:39
  So let's talk a little bit about the frame that we're in and the AI age and what do people need
• 4:48
  to know out there about sales and AI?
• 4:52
  I was just on a call.
• 4:53
  I have a writing group that I'm part of.
• 4:55
  I wrote my second book in that writing group over COVID.
• 4:59
  And the biggest thing we always talking about is how do we use this to move the needle for
• 5:04
  marketing, not lose our authentic voice, which is ultimately what I talk about, but to not
• 5:09
  kind of get lost on this carousel that seems to be getting more rapid as we go?
• 5:14
  Sure.
• 5:15
  Yeah, I've been in the AI space or advising AI for, geez, about four years now.
• 5:20
  Actually, almost four years to the day.
• 5:22
  It was early November when I started with this organization.
• 5:25
  So it's been exciting to see.
• 5:27
  So we don't have our own large language model.
• 5:29
  So we're using, there's the likes of Bard and ChatGPT that people are familiar with.
• 5:34
  And just seeing how it's evolved.
• 5:35
  I remember when we first started putting prompts in, was like, okay, I got a lot of
• 5:38
  cookie cutter boilerplate kind of words, right?
• 5:40
  It was a lot about organizational effectiveness and efficiencies.
• 5:43
  And I was like, okay, if I see another word about effectiveness and efficiency, I'm going
• 5:47
  to shut this thing down.
• 5:48
  So it never was at a place in my opinion, up until maybe about a year ago, maybe even less,
• 5:54
  where it really could create, I thought, strong words and language and helpful tips for
• 6:01
  writers.
• 6:02
  I thought it was just good for summarization, good for kind of bullet points, etcetera.
• 6:06
  But now I've actually seen it get pretty creative, pretty funny.
• 6:09
  So I was just using it about two weeks ago.
• 6:12
  And one of the analogies I was using it, I was talking about, so my day job at Bright
• 6:16
  Horizons, we talk a lot about, you have to balance your workload with raising a child.
• 6:21
  And that's where we come in and help with backup childcare.
• 6:24
  So it was talking about sometimes when you're juggling sick kids, you're sick, you have to
• 6:29
  work.
• 6:29
  It can feel like what did it say?
• 6:30
  Juggling flaming arrows while blindfolded.
• 6:34
  Like it had some very clever, key way of speaking.
• 6:38
  So there were some one liners in there I thought were good, some taglines in there I
• 6:42
  thought were good.
• 6:43
  I don't think it'll be a replacement to writers, but I think it's now a pretty strong
• 6:47
  tool for creativity and some good ideation.
• 6:50
  So that's where I'm starting to see it evolve past just summarization of calls and things
• 6:54
  like that and giving you action steps and actually being into create maybe one liners,
• 6:59
  not entire bodies of text, but one liners that are pretty good.
• 7:02
  And maybe one paragraph, two paragraphs, etcetera.
• 7:06
  Right.
• 7:06
  And to spur that creativity, I was playing around with something the other day.
• 7:10
  So in front of my book, have a poem that one of my friends So I'm from Trinidad And Tobago
• 7:14
  originally.
• 7:15
  And so I was dedicating It's a leadership book on resilience and teams to my dad because I
• 7:22
  thought, what a perfect opportunity.
• 7:24
  And my friend is a journalist and just a phenomenal prose writer.
• 7:29
  She would read me these things on a Saturday night when we're having a glass of wine, I'm
• 7:34
  like, oh my god.
• 7:34
  This is phenomenal stuff.
• 7:36
  And the creativity that would come from her, and she wasn't publishing it, so I talked her
• 7:40
  into publishing it.
• 7:41
  So now she's published most of it.
• 7:43
  And I put some prompts.
• 7:44
  I had some things that I wanted to say about my son, And I put this in about some elements that
• 7:50
  I wanted him to know about his path because he's from two cultures and those types of and
• 7:54
  it's the poetry that it spit back out, Alex, I was blown away.
• 8:00
  It's With my feeling, my words, I'm not a poet but I was like wow, I was shocked.
• 8:06
  I'd never thought to do that before.
• 8:08
  And so it's interesting, like you said, those large learning language models, what kinds of
• 8:14
  things, what will they be capable of a year from now?
• 8:18
  I know, I'm a little nervous.
• 8:20
  Maybe people wouldn't want to buy my book if I published it in a year.
• 8:24
  So get it out next week.
• 8:26
  Exactly, here we go.
• 8:26
  Just quite fascinating.
• 8:28
  So tell us about your first book and then we'll jump right into the new book because I think
• 8:34
  that's why I wanted to have you on today.
• 8:37
  So tell us about the new book, sorry, the old book, not old, but first, and then we'll jump
• 8:42
  into the new one.
• 8:43
  Yeah, of course.
• 8:44
  So both had similar backgrounds or reasonings, rationales as to why I created them.
• 8:48
  So my first book, I had traditionally come up in the professional world, I think, like a lot
• 8:53
  of us, and learning management is kind of whatever was pushed on us and not something
• 8:56
  that we would seek out ourselves.
• 8:58
  So at one point I came across and worked the challenger sale, which was recommended by my
• 9:03
  employer at the time.
• 9:04
  Read that and I'm like, wow, there's some good tips in here.
• 9:07
  Some new ideas I wouldn't have thought of, good ways of framing things.
• 9:10
  So I just kept reading, picked up the next book, found five or six tips, 10 tips, whatever
• 9:14
  it might be.
• 9:14
  So I ended getting through about 30 different books.
• 9:17
  And I came back and I said, well, this is great.
• 9:20
  I'm learning the process and the methodology.
• 9:22
  But wouldn't it be great if someone took a skills oriented approach?
• 9:25
  So what if somebody just kind of cut through a lot of what is extraneous or not necessarily
• 9:30
  germane to everyone and just boil down the skills you need to be successful in order to
• 9:36
  succeed in sales?
• 9:37
  So I said, all right, well, be the change you want to see.
• 9:40
  Right?
• 9:40
  So I decided to do it myself, took a lot of great tips from 30 different authors, had some
• 9:45
  great support from those authors, fused with my own experiences and came with this ranked list
• 9:51
  of 100 down to one, two fifty to a thousand word sections, kind of written in more of the
• 9:57
  blog or more pithy, quippy type of format as opposed to more structured like a book.
• 10:02
  So kept it lighter, the tone.
• 10:05
  And, yeah, so that was kind of the book meets blog meets list format of this curation,
• 10:11
  collation, consolidation, all of the Asians.
• 10:13
  And that's kind of how I view myself as like a museum curator trying to present the best
• 10:18
  thinking from others and then just writing as I have a passion for writing.
• 10:21
  So just kind of putting it in my own words.
• 10:24
  So that was how the first
• 10:25
  thing It's less about tips.
• 10:26
  It's less about sales tips and more about processes you're saying that you collated.
• 10:30
  So the pro most of the books focus on processes and methodologies.
• 10:34
  So I said, wouldn't it be great if someone had a skills based approach?
• 10:37
  So we we we
• 10:38
  Okay.
• 10:38
  Okay.
• 10:38
  We pull out the skills that they that are emblematic of success or that we start to see
• 10:44
  across all the different books.
• 10:45
  What are the most common things coming up?
• 10:47
  And let's put it into a skills oriented approach.
• 10:50
  Nice.
• 10:51
  And when you're starting off and you're new to a field, that's the first thing you want.
• 10:55
  Like it's, to your point, can read a lot, but it's like when the rubber hits the road.
• 11:00
  It's like, how do I approach this client?
• 11:02
  Or how do I deal with x y z?
• 11:04
  The practical application becomes the thing that you need really early.
• 11:09
  Yeah.
• 11:09
  I think one of the things for me too is just there's a lot of a stigma around sales.
• 11:14
  You say you're a salesperson and people they're gone up, right?
• 11:16
  They kind of take a step back.
• 11:17
  I need to, you know, lock in.
• 11:19
  I see it at conferences a lot when people are like, oh, you're a I'm an HR.
• 11:22
  So you're what kind of role are you in HR?
• 11:24
  I'm like, actually I'm in sales.
• 11:25
  They're like, oh, And it just, people are very reticent.
• 11:28
  So for me, was demystifying the profession, destigmatizing the profession by showing these
• 11:34
  skills are consultative skills.
• 11:36
  These aren't people that are trying to be a snake oil salesman as the old phrase goes.
• 11:40
  So these are people that are trying to help you and build a relationship and gain your trust.
• 11:44
  So these are folks that are, and these are skills that you're going to need to be
• 11:49
  successful in order to do that.
• 11:50
  So it's more consultative or trusted advisor approach, less trying to push things on people.
• 11:56
  Absolutely.
• 11:57
  And I think of my role and being a psychologist and then coaching and consulting and things
• 12:02
  like that, it's really about how am I gonna help them?
• 12:06
  And then ultimately trying to speak to them, what the issues are, what the concerns are
• 12:12
  within the company, and then how I might be able to assist with my concept is return on
• 12:18
  relationship, which is mental resilience, kind of a force field that you put around you, and
• 12:23
  then ultimately how that impacts everybody.
• 12:25
  Not just tactical, but ultimately the mental resilience of the leader impacts others.
• 12:30
  So I'm just talking about that, which is really, like you said, it's sales, but is it in
• 12:36
  alignment with the pain points that you're experiencing and how might I be off being
• 12:40
  offering a solution?
• 12:41
  If I'm if someone's thinking sales, they're thinking, But I'm just thinking I'm just having
• 12:45
  a chat about how I could help them.
• 12:47
  And that sounds like what the book, the frame of your book came from.
• 12:52
  Yes, it very much is.
• 12:53
  I'm sorry, I'm just curious when you said mental resilience.
• 12:55
  So is this usually through times of change or hardship in organizations or?
• 12:59
  No, just generally.
• 13:01
  Cause I think you are as only as good as the internal space within yourself as a leader.
• 13:05
  So I talk about everything from communication to connection to recognition to awareness of
• 13:13
  yourself as the leader.
• 13:14
  So optimally, if you're able to get the best version of yourself there, oftentimes leaders
• 13:22
  are very good tactically.
• 13:23
  But if I'm able to recognize let's say Alex is the type he's a little bit introverted and he
• 13:29
  likes recognition, but he doesn't wanna be called out at the the town hall about all the
• 13:33
  amazing things he does.
• 13:35
  It's my responsibility to understand what his needs are.
• 13:39
  So I think it's kinda going starting with the leader and understanding how do I like to be
• 13:43
  recognized, but that may be diametrically opposed from what you're like.
• 13:46
  So it's really about so you're manning the ship.
• 13:49
  Tactically, there's expectations, there's strategic plans, there's quarterly meetings,
• 13:53
  there's the ROR, ROI, and I look at the ROR from a they're just a different flip, right, on
• 13:59
  things.
• 14:00
  But ultimately, people are if you're connected to yourself, you're connected to your people
• 14:04
  and getting an understanding of them, ultimately, you're gonna try to deliver as best
• 14:08
  as you can what your teams need to be creative, innovative, present, all those types of things.
• 14:14
  I like that.
• 14:15
  So return on resilience?
• 14:16
  Is that the other r?
• 14:16
  Return on relationship.
• 14:18
  That's Relationship.
• 14:19
  Yeah.
• 14:19
  Return on relationship, how authentic leadership builds resilient teams.
• 14:23
  So that's kind of the space that I I kind of live in.
• 14:27
  Great.
• 14:28
  Right.
• 14:28
  I'll make sure to give some tips.
• 14:29
  I think that might be helpful for that.
• 14:31
  Nice.
• 14:31
  Yeah.
• 14:32
  So let's talk about the new book.
• 14:34
  You said the audio is about to be released next week and the hard copy, like a week or two.
• 14:40
  Have to tell everybody about the book.
• 14:42
  And like you said, there's the same themes.
• 14:45
  What are some of the themes that are similar and how is this second book different and what
• 14:49
  are you trying to do with the second book?
• 14:51
  Yeah, some good questions.
• 14:53
  So yes, the ebook comes out we're expecting here within the next week and a half or so.
• 14:57
  And then the physical copy books will be probably in the early December timeframe.
• 15:01
  People can go on and pre order those.
• 15:03
  We'll talk about that later.
• 15:04
  But yeah, so this book, very similar style.
• 15:06
  It's 100 practices for maximizing your life.
• 15:09
  So this is around productivity, peak performance and purpose.
• 15:13
  So very similar concept.
• 15:14
  It's actually 110 different resources that I've taken from.
• 15:17
  It's obviously cited throughout the book.
• 15:19
  So this is really all things around productivity that I've seen from best practices
• 15:23
  of James Clear's Atomic Habits or Think Like a Monk Jay Shetty.
• 15:28
  It cuts across a number of different authors.
• 15:30
  And then I would say 25 to 30 of the topics are either brand new or close to you've never seen
• 15:37
  it before in the book itself.
• 15:39
  So I'm excited for people to get some additional tips that you might not have seen if
• 15:42
  you are an experienced learner about peak performance and about productivity.
• 15:47
  So excited about that.
• 15:49
  I think how it blends into what you're doing with authentic living and obviously this return
• 15:54
  on relationship or mental resilience standpoint.
• 15:57
  So I have some things that I called out for authentic living beforehand.
• 16:02
  So I have things around getting comfortable first with being different.
• 16:05
  I think a lot of people, if you just go in the day to day of, hi.
• 16:09
  How are you?
• 16:10
  Okay.
• 16:10
  Bye.
• 16:11
  See you later.
• 16:12
  Like, it's just you're never really gonna gain any real relationship, and you're not going to
• 16:16
  be quite as productive.
• 16:16
  You're not going to be quite as memorable, etcetera.
• 16:18
  So one of my favorite network connections, and I had the privilege of sharing a virtual stage
• 16:23
  with her, but Vanessa Van Edwards is a expert on emotional intelligence.
• 16:27
  And she just has a lot of great tips and just reframes.
• 16:30
  How can you get out of the typical humdrum, doldrum that I call it in the book of that
• 16:36
  autopilot, that day to day?
• 16:38
  So how can you branch out of that, actively turn off your autopilot, and really seek to
• 16:45
  connect with others.
• 16:46
  So that's one section that I was talking about for authentic living.
• 16:49
  Breaking that autopilot, that to me is the biggest part of making sure that you're going
• 16:53
  to have authentic living.
• 16:54
  But there's a lot of things we do also around legacy living, leaving is what I call it.
• 16:59
  People probably familiar with Mark Manson's work, the subtle art of not giving a F, which
• 17:04
  I'll censor for the podcast.
• 17:06
  I think we're an adult.
• 17:07
  We might be I think we're in an adult category here.
• 17:09
  She might be able to say that word, but I appreciate you.
• 17:12
  Okay.
• 17:12
  Good to know, but yes, for anybody that's trying to swear less like myself, I'll just put
• 17:18
  the F, you know, with the little star.
• 17:19
  Oh yeah.
• 17:20
  You have that.
• 17:20
  You must have that.
• 17:21
  If you have kids, you have that jar, right?
• 17:22
  Like somewhere in your house.
• 17:24
  And if you don't, and when you do, you'll have to have that jar.
• 17:27
  Yep.
• 17:27
  Yep.
• 17:28
  And then I got my, I got my, anybody who's Christian, I've got my, you too shall prosper.
• 17:32
  You too will prosper.
• 17:33
  Jeremiah 29.
• 17:35
  So anytime I'm also like being more mindful and I'm wearing something that's from the Bible, I
• 17:39
  try and try to be my best self.
• 17:41
  Yep.
• 17:41
  So that's something I'm trying to strive to, but yes, from Mark Manson's book, he talks
• 17:45
  about deathbed meditations.
• 17:47
  So getting to that point in life at the end of your life, and it's, oh my God, what did I
• 17:50
  regret?
• 17:51
  What did I miss?
• 17:52
  What should I have done more?
• 17:54
  Those types of questions.
• 17:55
  But in legacy living, leaving, it's trying to get those things done on a quarterly basis.
• 18:00
  So checking in with yourself, how am I doing?
• 18:03
  How am I feeling?
• 18:04
  Who am I becoming?
• 18:05
  And checking in on every area of your life.
• 18:07
  So if you do this ideally four times a year, you're going to have a wealth of opportunities
• 18:14
  to either course correct or add, highlight different experiences in your life.
• 18:21
  Absolutely.
• 18:21
  It's interesting because I'm all about legacy because I have a 24 year old Alex.
• 18:25
  And when I was writing the book and I wanted to really have it drop down into, I'm writing
• 18:31
  this, but it's a compilation of so many things.
• 18:34
  My brand is me, obviously.
• 18:37
  And it authenticity and connection and legacy is so important because I think of the lessons
• 18:43
  I got from my culture.
• 18:44
  Like, I moved to to Canada when I was 16, and kind of how I lived my life is about connection
• 18:50
  and small community and little bits that you can do day in, day out.
• 18:54
  And I really it kind of is informed kind of what I've done for a living, helping others.
• 19:00
  And I wanted to ensure that I'm living that legacy to the people that it would impact the
• 19:05
  most especially obviously family and people close to you but also your community.
• 19:09
  Am I incongruent?
• 19:11
  Am I inauthentic in my little village that I live in here and then I get in front of the
• 19:16
  camera and I'm talking to an expert somewhere else and is it a thing?
• 19:21
  Is it a shtick?
• 19:22
  And in fact it's not.
• 19:23
  So that's really important.
• 19:25
  I love that you're talking about legacy and I'm sure you've been in circles sometimes.
• 19:28
  You see someone and they've gotten off stage and you're like, wow they're not the same
• 19:32
  person on the side stage that you just kind of delivered in front.
• 19:38
  And it's so very important to be able to check-in and think, am I leaving, when I leave
• 19:45
  a room, am I leaving it in better stead than when I entered?
• 19:49
  And if someone could learn something even if they've never met me by looking in, what are
• 19:54
  they going to get from having had that interface?
• 19:57
  So I I was
• 19:59
  just saying those are great things to check-in with yourself on because people think, oh,
• 20:02
  yeah.
• 20:03
  I'm authentic, or they default to giving themselves the credential.
• 20:06
  And it's nothing against any individual person.
• 20:08
  I just think that so there's something called the Dunning Kruger effect, which basically
• 20:12
  talks about I talk about in the book where we have a tendency to oversubscribe or overextend
• 20:18
  ourselves in how we view ourselves.
• 20:20
  So it's, I think it was 88% of people say they're above average drivers.
• 20:24
  I would be one of those 88% of people
• 20:26
  that's consistent But I probably, I'm lower, I'm sure.
• 20:29
  I've had a couple of speeding tickets we won't discuss here, but
• 20:32
  Right, so I have the drive safe and safe from State Farm.
• 20:35
  So that'll really tell me if I'm an above average driver.
• 20:38
  So finding different ways to make sure that you're not just automatically defaulting to
• 20:42
  giving yourself the label, but actually earning it.
• 20:45
  One So of the things I do every day is I write down a scale of one to 10, you know, was this a
• 20:51
  legacy leaving living?
• 20:53
  Is this a great day?
• 20:54
  And then on a scale of one to 10, how much did I maximize that day?
• 20:58
  Tabulate my averages and things like that and see where I can improve and where during the
• 21:02
  day I could improve.
• 21:03
  But if you just have that autopilot, you've been in the same role for five, ten, fifteen
• 21:07
  years, you have a very comfortable setup at home.
• 21:10
  There's nothing wrong with that, but you got to find ways to make sure that you're actively
• 21:13
  contributing and you're actively thinking about the questions you just thought about, right?
• 21:16
  Getting off on stage and saying, okay, I get off stage.
• 21:21
  Did I make the world a better place?
• 21:23
  Did I give people something to subscribe to?
• 21:25
  Can I help somebody each day?
• 21:28
  So Adam Grant talks about that.
• 21:29
  I believe it's Eric Best is his friend who's he cited for that.
• 21:32
  But was it a good day?
• 21:34
  Well, did I at least help one or two people?
• 21:36
  Then it was a good day.
• 21:37
  So starting to take a focus that's outside of yourself and onto others.
• 21:42
  So you said
• 21:43
  you came up with some unique concepts for Not that I'm negating all these phenomenal books
• 21:51
  that you brought up, Alex, but tell us some new things we should find out would motivate us to
• 21:57
  go out and get this book when it gets out there because we're always looking for the new thing,
• 22:04
  not that the old isn't good and we can't iterate that, but what is new that we should
• 22:08
  know that would be helpful?
• 22:10
  Yeah.
• 22:10
  Sure.
• 22:11
  I'll call out a couple of them.
• 22:12
  So some, you might be like, oh, I've heard something similar.
• 22:14
  Right?
• 22:15
  So something similar might be like so I talk about shortening your time to action and
• 22:18
  checkpoints.
• 22:19
  So there's something Ryan Holiday mentions.
• 22:21
  There's a lot of A to Z thinking.
• 22:22
  People think about the beginning and the end, but there's 26 letters in the alphabet.
• 22:26
  So B to Y, right?
• 22:27
  How do you break that down?
• 22:28
  So I just talk about how to do that, like how to break down your checkpoints and shorten
• 22:32
  those times.
• 22:33
  I get very focused too on your mental headspace, so not even necessarily what you're
• 22:37
  doing, but breaking down your thought space.
• 22:40
  So people estimate 50,000, 60,000, 70,000 thoughts a day.
• 22:43
  So of that, how much is focused on pleasure?
• 22:46
  Things that are entertainment value or different things that are just pleasure?
• 22:50
  How many things are focused on pain, past trauma or physical pain, etcetera?
• 22:53
  So pleasure, pain provision, paying bills, kind of those things that are every day.
• 22:58
  And then the transcendental category would be your purpose.
• 23:00
  How much time do you actually focus on helping others, contributing what you feel is your
• 23:05
  higher power, for me, your God given purpose in life?
• 23:09
  So those are the four categories I break things down into.
• 23:13
  And then I'll start talking a lot about, are you just in motion, like constantly talking
• 23:17
  about what you're going to do?
• 23:18
  Are you taking action?
• 23:19
  Are you achieving breakthroughs?
• 23:21
  So I kind of have a continuum for that.
• 23:23
  But some of the ones that are very new, so I just talk about spending even just one minute
• 23:29
  elevating your heart rate.
• 23:30
  So there's a lot of science out there that'll support five, ten minutes.
• 23:34
  One minute, though, I have seen benefits and a few other top authors have.
• 23:37
  So I just talk about how can you just take sixty seconds to do some jumping jacks or push
• 23:43
  ups or whatever it is to get yourself not only feeling better physically, but mentally.
• 23:48
  You recognize those benefits after exercise.
• 23:50
  And the somatic is so important, right?
• 23:52
  So important.
• 23:53
  And from a neuroscience perspective too, people that get frozen, fight, flight or freeze, I do
• 23:59
  this with CEOs or directors.
• 24:01
  I say if you're a freezer, well, some people are vacillator between hyper and hypo.
• 24:06
  I make them a one minute set your alarm and get down and do some burpees for and they think I'm
• 24:12
  insane at first.
• 24:13
  And what happens is because, of course, if you think about depletion.
• 24:16
  Right?
• 24:17
  So, again, I talk about the overall wellness of the leader.
• 24:20
  If you do that kind of, say, two times in the morning and say three times in the afternoon,
• 24:27
  that gets you out of that that rote.
• 24:29
  Right?
• 24:29
  Like you said, the automatic pilot, and then you're getting in contact with your body, which
• 24:34
  which kind of replenishes, you know, so I do it either or.
• 24:39
  Right?
• 24:39
  So if it's somebody that's a hyper person, shut the windows, stop the screen, close your eyes,
• 24:46
  take a couple of breaths.
• 24:47
  But if they're a freezer movement, I'll get these like texts, oh my goodness, I can't
• 24:51
  believe it's that simple, Roxanne.' And I go, 'Yeah, because when you're leaving your office
• 24:56
  to the element of productivity optimizing, I can go home and see my little children and I'm
• 25:03
  not dragging myself to t ball or hockey or my wife saying, did you go drop by at the pick up
• 25:09
  the laundry at the laundromat?
• 25:11
  And you're like, oh, I forgot.
• 25:12
  So you're more you have something to give at the end.
• 25:16
  So it's all those little tips are so very important.
• 25:18
  Right?
• 25:19
  Oh, they really are.
• 25:20
  Yeah.
• 25:20
  There's so many things I think we need to do to break the autopilot.
• 25:23
  So I'm glad you're talking about that.
• 25:24
  I actually teach my program in Pomodoro.
• 25:27
  So it's strange for people.
• 25:28
  Oh, It's okay.
• 25:29
  Yeah.
• 25:29
  So at twenty five minutes, we take a break and let me do a guided So I'll sometimes I've done
• 25:33
  positive visualization, meditation, exercise.
• 25:37
  I'm just getting outside different vagus nerve resets.
• 25:40
  So I've got about 65 different things depending on which course we're teaching, that kind of go
• 25:44
  in line with
• 25:45
  each your program.
• 25:46
  Tell me a little bit more about Yeah.
• 25:48
  This is what behind me.
• 25:50
  The Commence Foundation.
• 25:50
  If anybody's starting, it's a banner and for students.
• 25:54
  Yes.
• 25:54
  Is there a particular demographic age group that you teach or is it anybody that can go to?
• 25:59
  It's called Commence?
• 26:00
  Is that
• 26:01
  what it's called?
• 26:01
  The Commence Foundation.
• 26:02
  Yep.
• 26:03
  So I teach mostly with schools.
• 26:05
  I've done some new hire programs for corporations as well.
• 26:09
  But yeah, so it is focused on teaching what I call either the life enhancing or the life
• 26:14
  changing skills, the things that will fundamentally And change your life if you knew
• 26:17
  they're not covered during our traditional education, K-twelve or higher ed.
• 26:21
  So like financial well-being, productivity and performance that we're talking about today,
• 26:25
  cold networking, things like that are all covered in the program.
• 26:29
  So that's my baby.
• 26:30
  That's what I'm really excited about.
• 26:31
  We went to a five zero one(three) charity earlier this year.
• 26:34
  So really trying to scale our impact.
• 26:36
  What a nice giveback to people.
• 26:38
  And I think the younger generation, to your point, with COVID and the impact.
• 26:42
  And then, of course, we thought COVID was the thing.
• 26:45
  Now we're in another Who big thing.
• 26:47
  Would have thought that we would have now looked at kind of the tilt that we're at
• 26:51
  globally and of course the economic and stuff between you guys and kind of what's swirling?
• 26:57
  The younger generation is the one that's kind of they're trying to steady themselves.
• 27:01
  Right?
• 27:01
  They're trying to figure it out.
• 27:03
  So having all this capacity to learn these things like regulation, communication, all that
• 27:09
  stuff is very key.
• 27:10
  Right?
• 27:11
  And also the earlier you learn it, the more time you have to benefit from it.
• 27:15
  Right?
• 27:15
  So if somebody learns something, it's great to learn something at 40, 45, 50 years old.
• 27:18
  But you're nearing whatever the end or latter part of your career.
• 27:22
  So when you learn these things earlier, the compound effect, the ripple effect that it's
• 27:26
  going to have across and pervasive across your entire life is remarkable.
• 27:31
  So that's what I'm trying to get people to realize.
• 27:32
  Like, I opened up my retirement account at 15 years old, and life's a heck a lot easier
• 27:36
  twenty years That's one of the things that I try to encourage other people to do.
• 27:40
  You start earlier.
• 27:41
  You're able I always say that it's never too late to start, but it can be too late to start
• 27:46
  smart.
• 27:46
  So that's one of things I try to get other people do.
• 27:51
  What's your goal for Maximus?
• 27:52
  How can we help you with this new book?
• 27:55
  And I'm sure you're thinking, this baby, it's a second well, unless you have other babies, is a
• 28:01
  second birth.
• 28:02
  So how what are you hoping to achieve?
• 28:04
  And for myself and my listeners or viewers, what can we do to help you out with what you're
• 28:11
  hoping to achieve a year from now, three years, and five years from now with this book?
• 28:15
  Great.
• 28:16
  I appreciate that.
• 28:17
  One of the things you asked me what you guys could do, and I I'm gonna come back and say I'm
• 28:21
  doing something for everybody.
• 28:22
  I actually have a little incentive for people that read the book that post the five things,
• 28:27
  their five biggest takeaways, whatever five newest actions you're gonna take from the book,
• 28:30
  and how that's contributing towards your higher power and purpose in life.
• 28:34
  And I'm gonna do a $500 social media giveaway each quarter.
• 28:37
  There is an incentive to read the book.
• 28:40
  So I wanna make sure that peep we are scaling out and helping others and being that change
• 28:44
  that we wanna see in the world.
• 28:46
  So that's one of the big reasons why to read the book.
• 28:49
  As far as my goals for the book, drawing more attention to the foundation and what we're
• 28:53
  doing with commence is a big one.
• 28:55
  I do love writing, so I would love to obviously keep writing and make sure it's not a financial
• 28:59
  strain necessarily.
• 29:01
  So selling copies of the book is always helpful.
• 29:03
  But yeah, other folks just kind of scaling out the message, paying it forward.
• 29:07
  Right?
• 29:07
  So this is something that you read, you recommend it to somebody else for them to
• 29:11
  enhance their purpose in life.
• 29:13
  That legacy living, leaving and other little tips that might just help them.
• 29:17
  So if there's somebody you know and they struggle to get off Netflix, there's a tip on
• 29:21
  there about just pausing your
• 29:22
  entertainment for free.
• 29:23
  Oh my goodness.
• 29:23
  I think everybody needs a book just for that, calling me out.
• 29:27
  So that's one of the things I just put in there pausing it longer than commercials would be.
• 29:31
  So, you know, not two minutes or two and a half minutes or whatever you pay your non paid Hulu
• 29:36
  version is, but making sure it's four or five, six minutes pausing it, getting up, not just
• 29:41
  sitting on the couch, doing dishes, doing something that's contributing your purpose,
• 29:44
  whatever it is, just getting out of the room and then seeing, do I have to go back?
• 29:47
  So there's a lot of
• 29:48
  that That's because, yeah, because once you get into it, you don't go back.
• 29:51
  You're so right.
• 29:51
  It's like you said, the Pomodoro method.
• 29:53
  For anybody that doesn't know Pomodoro method, it's just a concept.
• 29:57
  You do something for twenty five minutes.
• 29:59
  You do something that's gonna get you out of the space of what you've been working on,
• 30:03
  whether it's movement or something different, and then you go back to a new skill.
• 30:07
  And what we know is that the brain is only capable of productivity for that particular
• 30:12
  spirit period of time because most of the other people that kinda sit there, I've been working
• 30:17
  on this project for five hours, they think they're optimally functioning when in fact,
• 30:21
  they're
• 30:21
  not.
• 30:21
  Oh,
• 30:22
  yeah.
• 30:22
  So being able to do that, what an amazing thing.
• 30:25
  Well, Alex, this has been amazing.
• 30:27
  Alex and I had a lot of back and forth, and I'm so happy that we had the time today to be able
• 30:32
  to finalize things.
• 30:33
  Where do they find you?
• 30:35
  If they wanna chat with you, if they wanna follow you, all that good stuff, just let them
• 30:39
  know where they can get a hold of you.
• 30:41
  Sure LinkedIn is probably the best place to go Alex Dripcheck.
• 30:44
  Drip like water dripping down so yeah and then you can find me there and then
• 30:49
  alexdripcheck.com will have some of my resources for books and things like that, so I
• 30:53
  can thank my PR team for putting that together.
• 30:55
  And then, excuse me, commenceyourcareer.com is the name of the website for the foundation.
• 31:03
  Well, thanks again.
• 31:04
  So what am I taking away?
• 31:05
  That we can always learn little tips, right?
• 31:08
  Like I'm an avid reader, maybe not a Shakespearean writer, but I'm an avid reader
• 31:13
  that's constantly learning.
• 31:14
  And I think we all want to learn from what Alex is saying.
• 31:17
  There's lots of little things that we can always can read what's out there, but we can
• 31:21
  also innovate ourself by expanding and and learning and thinking that maybe something that
• 31:26
  you are doing now, to Alex's point, that you can reach out to him on social and say, hey.
• 31:31
  By the way, have you thought about blah?
• 31:33
  And maybe if it's not in his book, it's something that he might consider putting in.
• 31:37
  And for me, what's new, we continue to do the masterclass on the ROR, which is life, teaching
• 31:42
  and coaching.
• 31:43
  We have different cohorts rolling out throughout the year starting in January.
• 31:49
  Basically, it's for burnout leaders.
• 31:50
  If you want actual practical skills to be able to maximize your productivity and mental
• 31:58
  resilience and energy along with life coaching weekly by me, please reach out to roxanne at
• 32:04
  roxanne durajodge dot com.
• 32:06
  Again, Alex, thanks so much for your time.
• 32:08
  For everybody that's listening, thanks for hanging out with Alex and I.
• 32:11
  Please give us a review.
• 32:13
  Go on, like the podcast, give us some feedback so that we can also pass that on to Alex as
• 32:19
  well.
• 32:19
  And it also allows me to bring back amazing guests like Alex.
• 32:23
  Alright, everyone.
• 32:24
  Take care.
• 32:24
  Alex, again, thanks so much.
• 32:26
  For everyone, we'll chat with you again next week.
• 32:28
  Bye bye.
• 32:29
  Thanks for tuning in to Authentic Living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive,
• 32:35
  healthy change.
• 32:36
  Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach.
• 32:40
  To work with Roxanne, visit roxannederhaj.com/blueprint.
• 32:46
  We'll see you next time on Authentic Living with Roxanne.