Episodes
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Back in 2005, my guest, Shawn Askinosie left a successful career as a criminal defense lawyer to start a bean-to-bar chocolate factory and he's never looked back. Askinosie Chocolate is a small batch, award-winning chocolate factory located in Springfield, Missouri. They source 100% of their cocoa beans directly from farmers across the globe. Askinosie Chocolate was recently named one of the 25 Best Small Companies in America by Forbes and Shawn himself was named by "O," Oprah's magazine, as one of the 15 guys who is literally saving the world. Very cool.
Shawn and his daughter, Lawren, who is the Chief Marketing Officer for Askinosie, recently published a book together called Meaningful Work: A Quest To Do Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul. One reviewer wrote, "'Meaningful Work is not only a book about saving the world, it's about how businesses can and should solve problems in the world, and how positive change begins with individual action." I love it.
Listen To The Podcast:
RESOURCES:
Meaningful Work Book: http://bit.ly/2NU9KNc
Website: askinosie.com
INTERVIEW:
I knew when I heard his story that I had to have Shawn join us for an episode.
Shawn, welcome to DREAM THINK DO.
Thank you, Mitch. Appreciate the intro and I'm looking forward to this.
Me too! You know, I look forward to every interview, but some I look forward to just a little bit more than others. I've been really, really excited about this.
Many DREAM THINK DO-ers, have navigated a career change, or are contemplating a career change. How did you go from defense attorney back in 2005 and decide you want to make chocolate?
The way it started, I loved my job and I think a lot of your listeners can probably relate to what I'm about to say, but I loved it and I loved it for a long time. I did it for almost 20 years. I never lost a criminal jury trial.
Wow!
I specialized in super serious felony cases and built my reputation in the defense of murder cases. To say that comes with a little stress would be an understatement.
No kidding!
When you love what you're doing, it doesn't feel stressful until you stop loving it, and that's what happened. I stopped loving it But I didn't have any hobbies, I didn't have an idea of anything else to do. I'd always wanted to be a lawyer.
The real struggle for me in this transition, which was five years long by the way, was a struggle of choices. I just didn't feel drawn. I didn't feel called. I couldn't find my vocation. It seemed as though the more desperate I became, the further away it was from my reach, so to speak. Then it was just like this vicious circle of, "What's going to happen?"
I really prayed a very simple prayer that went like this: "Dear God, please give me something else to do." I said that, sometimes many times a day, but I said it every day for almost five years. It was just a simple prayer, one born of desperation.
I had no hobbies at first, so I started some hobbies. I bought a Big Green Egg grill and did all the meals on the Big Green Egg and loved it. Then I started baking, making cupcakes. I made thousands of cupcakes. Then I started making chocolate desserts and I had no idea where chocolate came from, zero.
But one day, I was driving to a distant relative, driving to her funeral, and it was out near my grandparent's farm about an hour from here in southwest Missouri. I just had this idea. "Hey, what about making chocolate from scratch?" I had no idea where it came from.
Yeah, where does that come from? Yeah.
And this is the doing part. Within three months of that light bulb, I was in the Amazon, learning how farmers influence the flavor of chocolate by how they harvest the cocoa beans. Then I started to wind down my law practice. I bought equipment from all over the world, completed my last jury trial, and here we are.
That's incredible. I love that. -
My guest is Frank McKinney. Frank is an Ultra-marathoner, he's and actor and a speaker, and he's a “philanthrocapitalist.” That's right, he spends a whole lot of time giving back. In fact, he and his wife founded the Caring House Project Foundation, which is a non-profit that provides housing, and self-sustaining existence for homeless families in the Caribbean, South America, Africa, Indonesia, and here in the United States as well. For example, at the end of 2017, they finished their 24th self-sufficient village and sheltered over 10,000 people in Haiti alone. How cool is that?
Frank has been featured on Oprah, 20/20, CNN, Discovery Channel, Travel Channel. He’s been featured in 2,500 plus TV and print stories.
Listen To The Podcast:
RESOURCES:
The Other Thief Book: https://amzn.to/2NR26jv
Website: frank-mckinney.com
INTERVIEW:
Frank, welcome to DREAM THINK DO!
You know, make that 2,501.
Yes, exactly right, and extra hash mark!
Hey, folks, I'm honored, I'm excited. I'm coming to you today from my oceanfront, tree house office. Too bad we're not on video because I'd spin the camera around and show you. I'm sitting 25 feet above sea level with 12 windows surrounding me in this tree house that I work from. Yes, this is where I wrote all six of my books, where I design my houses, and where I'm talking to Mitch today. Not because of DREAM THINK DO, but because of Mitch Matthews' smile. The guy has the best smile.
I appreciate that greatly, and I wish I was sitting in the tree house with you. And gang, he's literally up in a tree in a beautiful, beautiful office. It's the coolest. Literally. He showed me before we hit record. He showed me his ocean view, which I do not have in beautiful Des Moines, Iowa. So, I love it, man.
We met years ago, I was trying to think of the year where Dr. Molly Marty invited us to both speak at her conference in Chicago. The more I've learned from you and gotten to know you, the more I've been impressed. So I've just been so excited to have you on. I finally get to ask you some of these questions I've wanted to ask. How about that?
I'm ready man.
That's the whole reason I have a podcast, to finally ask the questions I want to ask.
Let's talk about this, now, because I know, you know, DREAM THINK DO-ers as we talked about before I hit record, these are rock stars around the world. These are entrepreneurs, and leaders, and globe changes. A lot of them are fighting back from tough starts, right? They haven't just been given an easy life. They've had to really take a stand and really make a mark wherever they're at. And you are one of those people. You are one of those people who has truly shaped a life that's ... it's trite to say, but it's outside the box. You've blown up the box. But you're doing great things, you're building these million dollar homes, you're helping people all over the world. It almost sounds like you're royalty, but you didn't grow up in royalty.
You grew up in pretty humble beginnings. You didn't grow up in these million dollar homes doing philanthropy as a kid. So, give us a little picture, a quick snapshot of Frank as a kiddo. What I want to hear is what was at least one moment where you decided, "I'm gonna do something different with my life."
Well, first of all, let's start with asking the question, why does there have to be a box at all?
Right!
Either inside the box, or everybody says, you work for a nine-to-five, and you've got a job, then you must be inside the box. There's such a thing that's called and intrapreneur. Somebody who has entrepreneurial but they're inside a company. But they're in a box.
But then you've got an entrepreneur who's outside the box. Forget the box. No box. We don't have a box.
But back to my childhood. I mean, I was in juvenile detention multiple times before I turned 18 before it got real. When I realized if I kept it up I’d end up someplace other ... -
Missing episodes?
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My guest today is Mike Michalowicz, who has just written another great book, and it's going to disrupt this nasty cycle of the grind. The book is called Clockwork.
Here's the thing. Mike can be trusted. If you've read any of his other bestsellers like Profit First or The Pumpkin Plan, you know he's hilarious, wildly transparent, and incredibly strategic, especially as he talks about his adventures of building and selling multiple million-dollar businesses as well as helping many entrepreneurs around the world.
I have appreciated his wisdom and strategies, especially in the area of making your business more profitable, so when I heard he was going after the subject of time... I knew I had to get him on the show.
Listen To The Podcast:
RESOURCES:
Clockwork Book: https://amzn.to/2wOwpkn
Profit First Book: https://amzn.to/2M1bH5F
The Pumpkin Plan Book: https://amzn.to/2NoQKpM
INTERVIEW:
Mike Michalowicz, welcome to DREAM THINK DO, buddy.
Thank you, Mitch, so much for having me on your show.
Absolutely. All right. The new book is called Clockwork. There’s some timeless wisdom in here, but especially for entrepreneurs, helping them to build a business so that they can actually breathe, so they can actually have more of the life they want, all of that. Why go after time? What was the catalyst for you to say, "All right, it's time to go after this subject?"
It's time to go after time.
Right. I just noticed that I did that, right? I was going to break into Time After Time, but nobody wants to hear me sing, so…
Good song.
Yeah, right?
A good song. Anyway, I had a realization when I was reading about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Basically, he said there are these foundational needs we have, which are like food and water, and it builds up to shelter, and belonging, and self-actualization, but if we are missing a base function, like if we don't have any food or water, we will ignore everything else to get that priority. That's the base need of all of humanity.
Well, I believe there's this Maslowian hierarchy of needs for business, for entrepreneurs. I think what the base is, the oxygen, if you will, is sales, meaning we need sales coming into our business to sustain. If there is no inbound revenue, nothing else matters because our lives are in jeopardy, our corporate, our business life is in jeopardy. Once we have some degree of sales, then the next level up, what I consider the nutrition, the food, and the water, is profitability.
Sadly, I discovered something about my own business that I think applies to entrepreneurs in general: When I didn't have profit, meaning there was no money going into my pocket, I thought the solution was more sales, so I'd actually push harder to sell more. In fact, if sales is oxygen and profit is food and water, I was starving to death but instead of getting nutrition, or profit, I was trying to breathe in more air. I was gasping for air, more oxygen, more sales.
What a business needs to move up this hierarchy of needs is sustainable sales. We need predictable profit. That's the next level up in the hierarchy of needs. Once a business achieves those two, then the next level of needs is time. Many entrepreneurs work simply to sustain the business, and that's it. It's a perpetual work. The demands on us are ridiculous. We compromise any form of life. We just work, work, work. Now, once we have sales and profit, now it's all about capturing time so we can bring back a balance so that we can live life the way we want, and we can work in our business the way we want. Instead of doing everything, we can become selective. That's why the subtitle for Clockwork is Design Your Business To Run Itself which, in turn, frees you up to do what you want, when you want in life and in business.
That's beautiful. As I was reading through Clockwork, one of the things that struck me - I've seen that in businesses that are struggling, -
My guest today is Bernie Swain. Bernie is the founder of the Washington Speakers’ Bureau, one of the most successful and well-respected speakers’ bureaus in the world. Since launching in 1980, the bureau has represented US presidents, prime ministers from Great Britain, countless American and world leaders, business and economic visionaries, authors, media personalities, sports legends.
Bernie's bureau represents some of the most successful people and well-respected minds in the world. He knows their well-told and well-known stories as well as many of the behind the scenes stories too. Recently he put all of that in a book called What Made Me Who I Am. In this book, Bernie does an incredible job of collecting a series of lesser-known stories from well-known people. Tales of grit, determination, sometimes involving love, sometimes involving luck, but great stories of real people doing extraordinary things.
So I wanted to have Bernie on to talk about his story and some of his favorite stories from others as well, so let's get to it.
Listen To The Podcast:
RESOURCES:
What Made Me Who I Am Book: https://amzn.to/2NapMPn
INTERVIEW:
Bernie, welcome to DREAM THINK DO.
Thank you, it's great being here. I appreciate the time you're sharing with me.
It’s an absolute honor. Often when I have people on for DREAM THINK DO, they walked out a dream and sometimes it was a lifelong dream. Something they dreamed of doing as a little child, but if I'm understanding your story, you weren't five years old dreaming of someday having a speakers’ bureau.
No.
It sounds like this started in a completely different fashion.
It was totally different. In fact, I was in my early 30s when the change took place. No one in my family, to give you an idea of where I started from, and maybe this will tell the people that are listening to the podcast, that no matter where you begin from, you can succeed in life. No one in my family ever attended college before. In fact, my mother and her family were farmers who grew up in Central Virginia and basically lived off the land. My father, with five sisters, a brother and assorted relatives, grew up in just a two-room house in the poorest of mining towns in West Virginia. When my grandmother couldn't take care of him, he spent part of his childhood in an orphanage. So, when I was in high school, there was never really any conversation in my home about my going to college.
That wasn't a given. Yeah.
My family, I think, expected me to do well and find a job and succeed and be happy, but there was never any conversation. I had a teacher in high school. He was the athletic director and the football coach and he encouraged me to go to college. In fact, I would have never gone if it hadn't been for his input and influence in my life. I wanted to be just like him. I wanted to be something as a football coach or an athletic director or teach physical education. So, he set me on this path and I went to college and graduated from college. My first job was the football coach and the junior high school ninth grade phys ed teacher at the junior high school I had previously gone to.
Wow.
I spent a year there and went back to school to get a master's degree and then went on to become the intramural director at George Washington University, and then the assistant athletic director. I was months away from becoming the athletic director at the university when a friend of mine sent me a copy of Fortune Magazine. In the magazine was a story about this lecture agency called Harry Walker. In the article, it told how Harry Walker went to the Gerald Ford White House and signed Gerald Ford, who was the president at the time, Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig to speak for him after they left office. At the end of the article, Henry Kissinger is quoted as questioning the high commission rate that Harry Walker wanted to charge and says, -
We’re doing something new with this episode. If it works… we may turn it into a series called, “Ask Mitch.”
Here’s the backstory:
I was recently on the phone with a fellow DREAM THINK DO-er, and we were on a topic that I get a lot of questions about. So I asked for his permission to record the call. This is a person with an idea for a business, and he's passionate about it. He's excited about it but he's also a little scared.
We’re going to talk about what to do when you have a business idea but you don’t feel like you have the money to pursue it.
Money is one of the biggest perceived problems that stop people in their tracks. As you'll hear in our conversation we blast past that problem, and talk about no or low-cost opportunities to build his business idea.
The strategies that we're going to talk about are things anybody could apply.
As you listen to the interview though, know that we'll take a little time getting his background, tell a little bit of a story but then we'll really dive into his situation as a case study.
I hope you enjoy it, I hope you benefit from it.
Listen To The Podcast:
INTERVIEW:
That's awesome. So tell me a little bit more about the business.
I started it last summer doing aerial photography. I went to a demolition. I live in Pennsylvania and went to a demolition across the Susquehanna River, and I saw all these drones flying around. I got a card from the owner who is based out of North Carolina. He was doing drone video and I thought that was pretty cool. So I figured I would just go ahead and give it a shot and see what I could make of it.
That's awesome. So you went out and got a drone. I know there are all sorts of certifications that you can get for flying a drone. So you're all good to go on that?
Yes. I actually taught myself. Went through, watched a couple classes on YouTube. You can actually pay to have classes but as a college student, I don't have money for that.
Well, most of the answers are on YouTube anyway, so why not?
I went out there, passed it the first time. I got all my certifications, and I’m set to go.
I know you're just getting started, but where have you been finding business at this point?
I've done a couple promotional things just try to get the business going. I've had one client so far through a co-worker my dad used to work with. I filmed her grandparents’ farm. They were moving out of the farm and wanted just keeps out there as a memory, so I did a video for them.
They were also using it to list the farm for sale but it doubled so they could just have it as a memory.
I know the key to being an entrepreneur a lot of times is the pivot. It's like learning, growing, learning, growing but when you think about this, who would you love to have as clients?
Who would be your ideal client knowing what you know right now?
People in real estate. They know they want something, but they really want someone to put everything together. That's what I did when I did the farm. I walked around the landscape and told them about this one shot with a creek.
It was right alongside the house, and I thought it would be a cool approach. That was their favorite part of the film. Just when they give you the opportunity to just take the lead.
Yeah, so you like to have that little bit ownership to be able to say, "I'd recommend this," and you love it when a client says, "All right, I trust you. Let’s try it."
Yeah because I do all the editing, too. It’s great when you know what is going to look good on a video and they can just let you run with it.
That's awesome, I love it. I have a number of questions but I know when you reached out, you had some questions as well. So what are some of your questions right now when it comes to your business?
Primarily I would say capital. Capital is the hardest thing especially being a college student. I bought a computer with a small loan, -
Today I've got an awesome guest for you. I am excited to bring back my friend Jon Vroman because he was with us – get this – back in episode 34!
Jon is a social entrepreneur and award-winning speaker. He's also a committed husband and father of two. And just for fun, why not? He's an ultra-marathon runner as well. He has an amazing non-profit, called the Front Row Foundation. They create these incredible, unforgettable moments for individuals who are braving life-threatening illnesses. It might be a NASCAR race, a professional sporting event, a concert, Broadway play. They've done it all. They create a video for the person, their family and friends as well. It's just such a gift. It's so beautiful.
Jon has been busy since last we spoke. He's written a best-selling book called the Front Row Factor: Transform Your Life with the Art of Moment Making. Plus, he's launched not one, but two podcasts. The first one called, Front Row Factor podcast. The second one called the Front Row Dads podcast.
Listen To The Podcast:
RESOURCES:
Front Row Factor Book: https://amzn.to/2nqN1cS
Front Row Factor Podcast: http://bit.ly/2M9wcRP
Front Row Dads Podcast: https://apple.co/2ARDV2p
INTERVIEW:
Jon, welcome back to DREAM THINK DO, buddy.
Mitch, this is fun, man. I was looking forward to this all week, and I just came off a pretty stellar three days, and this is going to be a great time. I appreciate who you are.
I love it.
I mentioned the Front Row Foundation. Tell people a little bit why the Front Row is so important, this concept, why do you live and breathe to get people into the Front Row?
What I love about your question is you asked why. We can tell people what we do, and they'll get it in 20 seconds. And I learned from my buddy Clay Iberra that when people ask me what I do, I often say I help people live life in the Front Row. And they say that's cool, what does that mean?
Exactly, tell me more.
Well, I'll tell you a story. It’s the story of Sophie. I got introduced to Sophie about a decade ago, and this is very early on in our work with the charity. Sophie was battling a life-threatening condition, she had a brain tumor, and she was in the midst of heavy treatments. In and out of the hospital, daily, weekly, fighting migraines, multiple surgeries. She's fighting for her life. Our charity goes to work to try to help her see her favorite performer who in this case is Kelly Clarkson, from the front row.
So we start working with the family, and we put together an incredible day. We pick her up at the house in a limousine, little Sophie's wearing a purple dress, we pour her sparkling cider, we treat her like a princess. She is just having an awesome time leading up to this event. She knows that she will eventually see Kelly Clarkson live that night. And by the way, I should mention she is a true fan. The way her mom describes it when she gets in the car with Sophie if she didn't turn on Kelly Clarkson, her daughter would just cry. When the Clarkson comes on, Sophie’s smile always gets big.
Every night before they went to bed, they had a dance party on the bed and danced to Kelly Clarkson. So on this night, she went to dinner at the Rainforest Café, and then off to the show. They had an incredible concert with Kelly, and the surprise came at the end when Sophie has fallen asleep, this is pretty late night for her, especially based on all the treatments that she was going through.
But we snuck her backstage, and we were waiting in a room for a private meet and greet with Kelly. When Kelly walked into the room saying, "Hey, everybody," little Sophie awoke from this nap, looked up and got this beautiful smile, and Kelly and Sophie locked eyes. We have a picture of that moment.
I will tell you, that picture is so important for us, and that's why we do what we do. Because eight weeks after that event, Sophie took her final breaths, -
This week, we have a long-time friend of DREAM THINK DO, Lise Cartwright.
Lise has written 27 bestselling books on the subjects of health and wellness, entrepreneurship, the side hustle, and she also loves to write about writing books.
When I saw the title of her most recent book called Mind The Chatter: Master Your Inner Voice, Gain a Positive Mindset, and Get Your Power Back I knew we had to have her back on DREAM THINK DO. We needed to talk about busting through that negative self-talk so you can make more of your dreams and goals a reality!
Listen To The Podcast:
RESOURCES:
Mind the Chatter Book: https://amzn.to/2AP1pVM
High Performance Habits Book: https://amzn.to/2vNSiip
Dream Job: Redefined Book: https://amzn.to/2OUL3xJ
INTERVIEW:
Lise, welcome back to DREAM THINK DO.
Oh, thanks for having me back. I'm so excited.
This is awesome. This is the third time you’ve been on! I’m super excited about this book. I put it out to the DREAM THINK DO community that you were going to be back, so I got a bunch of questions that hopefully, we'll be able to get to towards the end.
I really want to talk about the new book, Mind the Chatter. You've written on so many different subjects. Why go after this subject of negative self-talk? Why was that important for you now?
Because it's been a large part of my journey as an author. I guess that's probably a big part of most people's day-to-day living; this constant voice. And it's not necessarily that it's negative, it's just that it's not always helpful. Definitely in my experience for the last few years, when I started becoming more and more hyper-aware of the thoughts that were running through my head, I started to think how can I turn them around or how can I frame it so that it doesn't feel like it's always so negative. It's the ultimate self-sabotage when you've got this constant chatter going on inside your head. How can you possibly be super successful if you're undermining yourself at every point?
It's so true, and it's so subtle. A lot of times that negative self-talk is a part of the brain that's trying to keep you safe, right?
Yes.
The same part of the brain that's trying to keep you out of dark alleys and from making bad business deals. It really can creep in. When I saw that this was the subject of your new book and we talked about it a little bit, it just made me smile so much. Because you have helped me publish and you are awesome at writing your own books. You also coach others on getting their book done, getting it published, making it successful. I don't know if you remember, but back with Ignite, basically about the day before it was supposed to launch something went very wrong.
Yes.
There was a big part of me that wanted to shut it down, but you were all about pushing through. So you do know that voice. You know it in yourself, you know it in others, so you're the person to write this book. By the way, we got Ignite out, and launched it on time, thanks to you, and I'm so glad we did.
What I love about your approach is that you dive into some of the science that's out there, but you've taken a creative approach too. You gave this voice a name.
Yes.
What's the name, and why did you do it?
It's so funny. I've had so many people ask about this name. My philosophy is very much that we have conversations with ourselves all the time. I wondered, what would it look like if I gave that voice a name? I need to separate this voice to be able to deal with it. I remember sitting at some point, I think I was going through it coming out to a book launch, and this inner voice was super loud in my head. I remember going, "Neville, shut up." That was just the name that came into my head. It's not specifically directed at a person or anything like that.
You don't have a Neville from your school days.
No, no. Well actually, I do have one from my school days, -
My guest today is Val Vigoda. She started to sing and sight read at a very young age, and then started to play the classical violin at the age of eight. She wound up joining the Army ROTC to pay for school, so she rocked Princeton and went on to serve in the military.
Then she actually made a switch. She continued with the music but began playing the electric violin, and that lead to her touring the world with well known artists like Cyndi Lauper, Joe Jackson and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. She went on to form her own band called Groove Lilly and continued to tour the world with them.
Next, she decided to take some time off from the road so that she could focus in on raising her son, Mose. That's when she spent about ten years writing music for Disney.
Then, most recently, she has won awards for additional musicals, including her most recent called Ernest Shackleton Loves Me.
If that were not enough, she's been touring the country as a speaker, sharing the stage with people like former First Lady Michelle Obama. She speaks with audiences about facing your fears, rising to challenges, pushing your edges, and thriving in uncertainty.
Listen To The Podcast:
RESOURCES:
Website: ValVigoda.com
INTERVIEW:
Thank you so much, Mitch. I'm delighted to be here. Thank you.
Absolutely. I can say, watching some of your performances, it's just so captivating to see you play, and see you sing, and then see you inspire the audience.
I want to hear about all of it, but as I was doing my research, this question kept coming to me; you were classically trained on a standard wood violin. You now use an instrument that is, let’s just say, technologically advanced. What was it like when you made that transition to go from that classical, classically-built wood instrument to something using this level of technology? What was that transition like?
Well, it was actually a gradual thing. The violin that I play now is actually called a Viper. It's a six-string flying V-shaped violin that's sort of strapped onto my body with a guitar strap.
Of course, it's called a Viper. Of course, it is.
Growing up as a classical violinist and also a singer, those two activities were always very separate for me, and I loved both of them. I loved playing the violin. I loved singing. I loved singing in choirs and singing by myself. As I grew up, I realized that what I really wanted to do was combine those two. I wanted to write my own songs, and I wanted to sing, and I wanted to use my violin in that way. So I started experimenting with that. Playing an acoustic violin in more of a pop setting, in a band, can be challenging regarding projecting sound.
I bet.
You can put a pickup on the bridge, and there are many different ways to amplify an acoustic violin that way, but there are also some trip-ups, especially if you're singing. If you have a mic on the bridge, your breathing can be picked up by the violin mic.
There are many feedback issues, and the natural warmth of the instrument is hard to capture when you're doing it in an electric setting, so I started looking at electric instruments. The first couple that I used were sort of like regular violins but just electrified, so it's a resonant chamber on the hollow body. It would be a solid body instrument, and it would be sort of like an electric guitar. You plug it in, and sound would come out. As I started experimenting with that, the violin was sounding pretty good, but I couldn't very well sing and play at the same time. I saw someone very inspiring when I was living in New York. This woman played at The Bitter End. Her name was Allison, and she was amazing because she could play and sing at the same time. I said, "Oh, she can do it. I can do it," so I started working on that.
Then I heard about this amazing inventor, a violin maker named Mark Wood, who makes a bunch of different styles of violin. -
Listen To The Podcast:
RESOURCES:
Dream Job Redefined Book
BIG Dream Gathering
BIG Dream Gathering Facebook Page
INTERVIEW:
I'm going to share some stories I've never shared before. How about that? I’ll be sharing some stories connected with The BIG Dream Gathering, an event that you may have attended, maybe not. If you haven't, I'm going to get you information so that you can attend one in the future. We're doing them all across the country this fall and would love to see you at an event. But I want to share with you three stories that I've not shared before.
Each one is going to have something that I've realized has been so important to me over the last few years. These stories will help you go after your dreams, get more clear on your dreams, stay with it on your dreams. Maybe just as importantly, they’ll help you to help someone else do that. Because if you're a DREAM THINK DO-er, you're all about dreaming bigger, thinking better, and doing more of the stuff you were put on the planet to do.
By the way, I'll just put it out there, one of the stories is kind of embarrassing for me to tell you. That's why I've not shared it before. It's something my wife knows about. It's a business story, you can probably put it in the “embarrassing disasters” category, but I learned something that's guided me now and helped me grow my own business. But more importantly, what I learned from it, I've taught others.
I'm excited about sharing these stories for a couple of reasons.
Recently I've been doing a bunch of podcast interviews. Not for DREAM THINK DO, but on other podcasts around the world. People have found out about Dream Job Redefined, my newest book. If you haven't gotten it, go grab it. It's available on Amazon. Because of that, I've been doing a bunch of interviews with some great podcasts; I love it.
But in that book, Dream Job Redefined, I share about The BIG Dream Gathering. The event that we do around the country. The event that got started in my living room as a happy accident. I didn't mean for it to happen, but I'm very glad it did, and that's turned into something much bigger than I could've imagined. In doing these interviews for the book, I talk a good bit about The BIG Dream Gathering. I realized, as I was thinking back, here at DREAM THINK DO we're on our 187th episode, and I know I've mentioned The BIG Dream Gathering in passing sometimes. But I don't know that I've ever actually told the origin story of how it got started. I don't spend a lot of time talking about it on the podcast.
So with this episode, I want to tell a little of the origin story of The BIG Dream Gathering. What it is, how it got started, all of that, but also three stories, again, that I haven't shared before. Some of the kind of timeless truth that I needed to learn, or at least be reminded of, as a part of those experiences. I want to share those with you now. Because I want to inspire you. I want to encourage you to get clear on your dreams and start to go after those at new levels. I think we all need encouragement to take a second and to permit ourselves to dream, and that's what The BIG Dream Gathering is all about. That's what this podcast is all about.
You may be familiar with The BIG Dream Gathering. If you are, fantastic, I hope you've attended an event. If not, here’s what it’s about: The BIG Dream Gathering is an event that we do all across the country, it kicks off with a little keynote from me. I'm a storyteller, so I tell some stories on the front-end to get people thinking and get them a little encouraged. All of those things. Then we cut them loose to think about some of their dreams, write them down on sheets of paper; we call those dream sheets.
Then we put them up on the walls, and go around and look at each other's dreams. We write on each other's dream sheets - words of encouragement, ideas, suggestions, offers to help. We've had all sorts of crazy, -
My guest today is Greg Layton. Greg is the founder of Chief Maker. For over a decade, Greg has been a trusted advisor to CEOs and executive teams of multi-billion-dollar companies around the globe.
He's the author of a the bestselling book, Chief Maker: How to Rise Above the Pack and Get a Seat on the Executive Team. He's also the host of a popular podcast called “The Inner Chief.”
In addition, Greg has spent 15 years traveling the world to learn and master the world's foremost performance techniques. From living with Shaolin monks in China, all the way to racing in desert ultra-marathons, Greg has spent a lifetime studying the limits of personal endurance, as well as finding the best paths to mental strength and peak performance.
Listen To The Podcast:
RESOURCES:
Chief Maker Book: http://bit.ly/2uusEOW
Website: chiefmaker.com.au
Save an Hour Video Series: chiefmaker.com.au/saveanhour
INTERVIEW:
Let's get to it, Greg. Welcome to DREAM THINK DO, buddy
Mitch, thanks, mate. Great to be here.
I love it, man. All right, so I want to talk about your book. I want to talk about the power of routine, all the stuff you do for managers and leaders. But it's my show, so I get to go wherever I want. And I want to go to the Shaolin monks you hung out within China. How the heck did that happen and what was that like?
Well, it started out as a bit of a journey. One question I’ve had since the early days is, “Who out there is an outlier in performance?” I've seen the Shaolin guys on the telly and even at a circus kind of show once. I always thought they were out of this world. They were sticking swords in their bellies and all sorts of stuff, but it wasn't hurting them. So, who are these guys and how the hell do they do that?
About six months later, I started doing Kung fu feverishly where I was living at the time. Six months after that, I found myself up to my knees in snow in the mountains in a remote part of China at a very small Shaolin Monastery and academy.
I was welcomed into this little Shaolin school, and I can tell you now, it was like going back in time, it really was. The training was 1000 years old, and just nothing seemed to have changed. We trained 12 hours a day, every single day, dawn till dusk. We didn't just do Kung fu, which I found very interesting. They started off the day with Tai Chi and meditation. Even though Tai Chi is actually a form of martial art, the training is that it was a calming process and balancing the body and the mind and the spirit to begin the day.
Throughout the day, we did everything from Qigong to power stretching and conditioning to Sanda, which is China's kickboxing, and also Kung fu. It was dedication to your art form all day, every day.
You were there for three months?
Three months. Yeah, three months. Interesting - I was never injured, and we did some crazy stuff. An example of one of the things I do is we did this thing called power stretching. I love to tell this story. Instead of a brief, gentle stretch, you get nice and limber and warmed up. And then you'd get into a splits position, with your feet out wide.
You might. I don't.
Yeah. I truly do. My first day there, I couldn't do splits. I don't know. I was reasonably flexible, but no, I couldn't do the splits. So, I'm in this vulnerable position with my feet out wide, and my hands on the ground. So, my back is parallel to the ground. And a guy comes in, and he starts sitting on my back because he thinks I'm not deep enough into this stretch. And then another guy, because now I'm finding that like a really difficult stretch, he starts kicking my feet up.
Wow.
It gets to be such a brutal stretch that I can't breathe. I'm in that much pain with the level of stretch; I can't breathe at all. I'm gasping. And then you actually at a certain point, you stop breathing. And then my shifu, my master who they've got a few key things there. One, -
My guest is Calina Mishay Johnson. Calina, or Cal, has been doing some amazing work as an artist in Texas. She's been painting since she was a child, growing up in a small town in West Texas, with a population of 600. That's right, 600 people.
After years of life-dealt hardships, Cal's artistic style started to blossom as she gave herself permission to paint with reckless abandon. Her professional art career began back in 2012, as she started to focus on one-of-a-kind commissions.
Then a few years ago, Cal expanded her work and started tackling urban street art, making these huge, amazing, freakishly cool murals all throughout Texas. She's also infusing new life into these small towns where she's doing these murals. Heck, her next big dream, which I can totally get on board with is to complete murals on walls all around the world.
So, maybe we DREAM THINK DO-ers can help her out with that.
Listen To The Podcast:
RESOURCES:
Website: streetartbycal.wixsite.com/artist
Instagram: instagram.com/Cal_calinamishayart
INTERVIEW:
Cal, welcome!
Hi Mitch, how are you? That was an amazing intro – thank you.
Let's talk about how this mural thing got started. Let's go back, and let's talk about when the art started. Were you an artistic kid?
I was a weird kid. I loved nature; I loved being outside. Like you mentioned, I grew up in a small town. So, we had a lot of freedom. It's like being the last of the Mohican's before anyone had to worry about their kids playing. We were all over town. We built tree houses; I had animals growing up. It wasn't so much that I knew I was super creative, it was just that I would get sticks and make potions in my room. I was always building something. My dad says, "We'd wake up and then we wouldn't see you until it was time to go to bed."
My grandmother saved a painting that I did, like an abstract painting when I was probably four. She had it professionally framed; she still has it professionally framed over her bed, until this day. She had that insight to see that I had that creative mind, it's pretty overwhelming.
I love featuring weird people. I love that you said that. I'm so with you. There are so many people that I've talked with that whether it was a grandparent, or a parent, that saw something. And it probably didn't dawn on you fully back then, but to think about the seed that got planted when someone would take something that you did and put a frame on it, to honor that. How cool to think about that seed that got planted right there, and look at where it's gone now, is really cool.
She was the first to say, "Hey, this was worth investing money into." It could have been a $10 frame from Hobby Lobby, I don't know, but at the time, now looking back on it, I think, "Wow! That's really special.”
That's cool.
I also liked to doodle, and I liked to draw, and I liked to make things, but it wasn't my everything. It wasn't like I was fully immersed. I went to a small school – no art department. It wasn't until a bunch of drama in my later years of high school when I dove into that gift more and more.
http://instagram.com/Cal_calinamishayart
That's amazing. I'd love to talk about that a little bit too. I saw a little bit of your story. I know that you tried to take some art in college, and you'd been experimenting with all kinds of stuff, your grandma had framed something, but you go to take a class in college and it didn't go so well. Tell us a little bit about that.
Oh, man. Okay, first off, I was the first to go to college in my family. So, I went off by myself, I have an older sister, who has a gene disorder, so, used to run and play when we were younger, and then it slowly gets worse, and worse, and worse. Now she's in a wheel chair. Then my family situation fell apart a little bit. I left at a very volatile time to go to college, and I was doing it on my own.
I could have played sports for a couple of smaller school... -
This week, we have a returning friend, Howard Berger. You may remember Howard from episode 74 of DREAM THINK DO. He's an Academy Award and Emmy Award-winning special effects artist.
He and his KNB EFX Group have been involved with over 800 feature films and television shows… including the Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, the Orville, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (which he won an Oscar), Hitchcock, and every Quentin Tarantino movie… just to name a few.
The first film that he worked on was Aliens, and he did that the day after he graduated from high school.
If you go to his IMDb page, you'll realize that he’s touched just about every horror movie that's scared the stuffing out of you the last 20+ years! I can’t wait to talk again, so let’s get to this!
Listen To The Podcast:
RESOURCES:
IMBD Page: https://imdb.to/2z3qVpt
INTERVIEW:
Howard, welcome back to DREAM THINK DO.
Thank you so much. That was a good intro. It was definitely shorter than the last one.
I think so. The last time, I think I went about 10 minutes because the list is so long! I knew I needed to keep this one under five minutes.
I put it out to the DREAM THINK DO community that you were coming back. I said, "Alright, what would you ask Howard this time?" And we got flooded with some great questions, so I can't wait to pepper those in as we go. But what have you been up to lately?
I’ve been busy with KNB, which this is its 30th year in existence.
Greg Nicotero and I own it and run it for the last 30 years. I was talking with someone the other day about how we used to do all movie work, rarely TV. Now it's tons of television, be it Netflix, or AMC, or whatever it is.
TV has become more of a creative venue for us than feature films to some degree. We love working on movies; it's a whole different animal too.
But, it's been great. I started working on Seth McFarland's Sci-Fi drama comedy hit, the Orville. Then I got approached for a TV show called Legion. This was for season two. I signed on to that, then Orville went over.
I had planned for two weeks off. I had three days. I had Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and I was on set Monday for Legion for the next several months, and then I went onto a film with Mark Wahlberg, a film called Mile 22 that's coming out August third.
My wife Miriam and I just got back from Atlanta, where we shot Mile 22. I had four days off, and then started another movie with Mark. Kind of a family comedy called Instant Family that'll be out next year, I think Valentine's Day. We just finished, and I just got home, and I'm just getting acclimated to my house, my bed, my things that I haven't seen in seven months.
Well, you know you've been away for a long time when you get to your own bed and go, "This is the best hotel I've been in for a long time."
Yeah, you feel like you're on location in LA.
That's amazing. It leads into one of my first questions. So, you love what you're doing, but that's a tough schedule for anybody, whether you love what you're doing or not. How do you stay fresh when you're running a marathon like that? What are some of the things you do for Howard to cultivate creativity, to stay fresh as you're doing this?
Well, I’m not getting any younger. I find that what keeps me going is I love everything I do. So, I'm always enthusiastic about the people I work with, and the projects I work on. I always try to have as much fun on everything as I can. But, on my days off, I like to not think about it, and I just need to decompress. I love spending time with my wife. We are big foodies. When we were in Atlanta, I literally would plan Friday, Saturday, Sunday because there are so many great restaurants in Atlanta.
Oh, it's amazing, yeah.
So, we had seven months of amazing restaurants. I think we ate at one restaurant three times. That was the most.
I like just chilling and taking long walks, -
Well, hello there, and welcome to episode 183 of DREAM THINK DO. It's a deep dive, and that means it's just you and me diving in deep on a subject that seems to be growing in importance. We're going to talk about focusing on beating the comparison trap. That's right. Breaking free from comparison. It's that thing that can hit us. It's been around since the dawn of time, but it's really amped up in this day and age of social media, where it's so easy to compare ourselves to others. And I asked for your help on this.
Listen To The Podcast:
RESOURCES:
The How of Happiness book: https://amzn.to/2yxUBuv
7 Habits of Highly Effective People book: https://amzn.to/2K0UTzC
EPISODE:
So we're going to be sprinkling in wisdom from DREAM THINK DO-ers from around the world. You guys sent in some great insights and I appreciate it. So I'm going to be giving you a shout out as we go. Plus, we're going to dive into the science of comparison, a little bit of the brain science, but we're also going to talk through a three-step process for beating back comparison with a big old stick. I think we can all relate to having that negative feeling at some point. So we're going to be diving deep on the science and the solutions to beating the comparison trap.
So let's put the hurt on comparison. I want to help you to break free, especially if you've ever felt the pain of comparison. Sound good? This is a tough subject. It's a big subject. I found it fascinating the more and more I dove into it, and I can tell you I'm at the front of the line here as well. It's something I've dealt with myself, and so it was a passion project for me to go after this. You guys submitted some great information, so stay tuned for that. But comparison has been around since the dawn of humanity. I mean poetry, philosophy, scripture, dating back thousands and thousands of years talk about the temptations and perils of comparison.
It's not necessarily new, but a lot of research coming out to address how we compare ourselves and how we are getting hammered by comparison at new levels because of, and not limited to, social media. For example, a new study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology found that comparing our lives to others, especially when we do it and see it on social media, it's playing a big part in the rise of depressive symptoms and depression. Researchers specifically said it wasn't necessarily the website platform or just the social media necessarily itself that was causing the negative emotions, but more so where the comparison took us in our heads as the result of the content that we're bombarded with.
Another group of researchers from Humboldt University in Berlin looked at Facebook use. They found that the more time people spend browsing Facebook, the more envious people got. They were able to isolate that emotion and link it specifically to Facebook use. And it is not just limited to Facebook. I'm guessing this doesn't surprise you. You've probably heard about a lot of this research. More importantly, you may have experienced it yourself. You've felt that comparison creep in and nail you, zap your joy, make you feel discontent, make you feel less than. And that's why I want to go after it. And some of what we talk about may surprise you because we're going to dig into the science of comparison and realize as we do that, that some comparison between yourself and others is good.
That's right. It's actually good for you. So we're going to talk about where comparison is good and where the lines are and where it goes bad. More importantly, I’ll give you some specific strategies so you can overcome bad comparison and live in freedom. You want to break free of this so you can live your best life. And so we're going to give you the ABC's, literally a three-step process for breaking free of comparison. How does that sound? I hope you're excited. I know that I am. I geek out on this stuff. -
My guest is Travis Ensley. Travis is one of my best friends on the planet. This guy, over the past 20 years has been a successful leader within the tech industry. He's worked with startups all the way to fortune 500 companies.
I can say that he's successful because the companies he's helped have been wildly successful. But I can also say that because I've gotten to know many of the people that he has led. And they love working for and with him. Here's the thing, as you'll see, Travis has this kind of no-nonsense Ron Swanson quality to him, so I'm guessing that he's already bristling at my accolades, but I'm going to go further.
He's been successful in business, but I can also tell you he's successful in life, too. He's an awesome husband and dad, and I'm also grateful to say that he is an “bonus uncle” to my boys, and that means the world to me.
We talk about a lot of subjects, but today we’re going to dive into the subject and focus on one area of expertise that Travis is just incredible at, and that is establishing systems to manage your time, your
tasks, and your priorities. He is a black belt level genius at this. And I benefit from his wisdom on this front weekly, so I wanted to get him on DREAM THINK DO, so you can benefit from it, too.
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INTERVIEW:
So pour yourself a cup of coffee and let's get to this. Travis. Welcome to DREAM THINK DO, buddy.
I'm honored to be here. Thank you.
Absolutely. So, we're going to talk about systems and strategies. I mean, you use technology, but your brain works in this way. There's been a couple of questions I've been dying to ask you as a long-time friend. I assume I know the answers to this, but before we dive into the specifics, I want to start a little bit more in your brain. How about that for being scary? So, I wanted to ask you. You're one of the most organized systems oriented people that I know. But have you always been that way? Like, were you that way in junior high and high school?
There's very little chance my mom will listen to this. So I will say yes.
I've got your mom on speed dial. I’ll check right now.
I was one of those kids who would open the bag of Skittles and organize them by color because it made sense for me to do it that way because I wanted to know exactly what I was doing. I'll tell you that my room was not very clean when I was young, but after high school, I went into the Navy, into service, and they beat that out of me. And so, coupled with that, I like to say that I'm just this side of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The healthy side of it, right? The healthy side.
Yes, the healthy side of it. With my experience in the service, the very regimented leadership they gave solidified the kind of lifestyle that I choose to lead that way.
Absolutely. I wondered if that experience just kind of ground that into you for the first time, or whether that was bringing out natural tendencies. But I assumed it was bringing out those natural tendencies.
It allowed me to understand why I thought that way. I think it encouraged that behavior. It showed me a lot of interesting ways to do it, too.
But it's also interesting to think about how the world of technology that can support systems for helping navigate our time and our task has evolved so much. I've seen you experiment with different things, try different things, so that was something that I was looking forward to diving into with you. I think sometimes technology can be a benefit, but I think sometimes technology, with all of the options, can also start to bungle that up a little bit.
I think in a lot of cases it comes down to discipline. I think technology, in general, can be a huge distraction. It's designed to be that way. Hey, it's a cool thing, or this is the next widget or the next flashy thing that's going to come up, and so everybody has great ideas. In this day and age, it's very easy to take those ideas and translate... -
My guest today is Light Watkins. Light is a former GAP fashion model. He started attending yoga classes and meditation circles back when he was doing casting calls in New York City. Since 1998, Light has been active in the wellness space, first, as a practitioner and then he's gone on quite a journey with meditation.
This journey led to a trip to Northern India, to a little hamlet nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas to become a master in meditation. After about three months there and over thousands of hours of meditation, he completed his training. He now travels the world giving talks on happiness, mindfulness, inspiration, and meditation.
He teaches meditation to A-list actors, big name entrepreneurs and a whole lot of regular people because he does it in a unique way.
He just got a real practical approach. He introduces all of that in his most recent book called Bliss More: How to Succeed in Meditation Without Really Trying which was released earlier this year.
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RESOURCES:
Bliss More Book: https://amzn.to/2kNy6bc
INTERVIEW:
Light, welcome to DREAM THINK DO.
Thanks, man. I'm so excited to be here.
Our mutual friend, Antonio Neves introduced us.
Antonio started talking about your book Bliss More as you were launching it. I started to dig into it a little bit, and I was like, "Gosh, meditation can be such a heady thing."
I loved how you were very transparent in your story. You didn't try to set yourself up as some mountain top guru; you're a regular guy who's had mountain top experiences through meditation, so I love that. It’s a real practical approach. It wasn't that you sat down and immediately had just these incredible experiences. Tell us a little bit about how your journey with meditation got started.
Yes, sure. I got introduced to meditation through taking yoga classes. Everybody always talked about meditation. I was reading a bunch of the new age spiritual books that everyone's familiar with, the Eckhart Tolle book, Power of Now, The Seat of the Soul, The Celestine Prophecy, Conversations with God. There were always mentions of meditation or meditative states, and you figure, if something is hanging around for thousands of years, there's got to be something to it.
Yeah, right. If it's been hanging out this long, then maybe, maybe I should dig into it just a little bit.
My curiosity got the best of me, and I started going to these French meditation circles in New York City. This is back in the '90s, so I didn't know anyone else who was interested in this which kind of made it more interesting to me. You always want to feel like you're in on something that no one else has heard about yet so then you can then introduce everyone else to it.
In those early days, it always frustrated me and fascinated me at the same time that I didn't feel like I was having the experience, the advertised experience. I wasn't going to nirvana. I wasn't having the bliss experience. You don't know what you don't know, so I didn't know that there were different approaches to meditation. I didn't know that there were monastic techniques and there were householder approaches.
I was mainly doing monastic approaches, and that's one of the reasons why I was having such difficult experiences. After three years of knocking my head against the wall, I stumbled upon a teacher who showed me some of the householder, meaning regular people, approaches to meditation where you sit on a couch, or you sit in a comfortable chair, and you meditate there. That's where I finally found the bliss that had been eluding me for a very long time. Then everything made sense.
It started to click. Well, I love that. A lot of people think of meditation, and they think of the discipline, the monk who deprives themselves of all things to have this experience in meditation. How would you say the householder approach is different? -
My guest today is Karen Brown. Karen is a recognized thought leader in the fields of leadership and professional performance, specifically in the areas of the unconscious mind and optimizing your thinking for elevated levels of endurance and success.
She is an ultra-endurance athlete who competes around the world. In fact, one of her biggest recent accomplishments was qualifying for and finishing the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii!
Along with being an expert in neuro-linguistic programming and mental and emotional release, she's also an executive coach, sought-after speaker, and best-selling author. Karen's most recent book, called Unlimiting Your Beliefs: Seven Keys to Great Success in Your Personal and Professional Life, has been winning awards and accolades. It has also inspired me to invite Karen on DREAM THINK DO to talk about breaking through those limiting beliefs that creep in and start to shut us down.
I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
Listen To The Podcast:
RESOURCES:
Free Micro Solution Video Series: velocityleadershipconsulting.com/dtd
Karen's Book: Unlimiting Your Beliefs book
Giveaway: Don't miss the Click Pack Pro Back Pack Giveaway... just for sharing this post and tagging it with #DreamThinkDo
INTERVIEW:
Let's get to it.
Karen, welcome to DREAM THINK DO.
Thank you, Mitch. I'm so thrilled to be here.
Okay. I do want to dive into your concepts on limited beliefs and breaking through those things, but I've always wanted to ask someone who completed an Ironman World Championship, what was it like to round the corner and see the finish line?
Ok, let me set the scene a little bit. I am an amateur athlete, nowhere near pro level, and that is to say that I'm a bit slower than the pros. My time at Ironman World Championships was 15 hours, 45 minutes. When I was rounding the corner, as you said, it was nighttime. It was about 10:30 at night, 10:45 at night. There was total blackness, a sky full of brilliant stars, and two miles away from the finish line, you can hear the roar of the crowd.
Oh wow. Even at night?
Yes.
Hey, and by the way Karen, just so you know, for me to just do the swim, I still wouldn't have been done with just the swim part by 10 o'clock at night. So it's still very impressive.
So you're two miles out, and you start hearing the crowd.
Yes, you start hearing the crowd, and then you can just faintly make out Mike Riley's voice, who has been the voice of Ironman for 30 some odd years now. He's the one that says the iconic, indelibly memorable, "Karen Brown, you are now an Ironman," when you cross the finish line. It was the most magnificent day, Mitch.
Now I'll say the journey to get there was very, very difficult, and there were plenty of times when I wanted to quit and worried that I would quit. We can go into that later. But that specific day, there was never one moment when I wanted to quit. It was joy and bliss and wonderful, and I say this knowing that it was a billion degrees, it was like the surface of the sun hot. It was humid; asphalt was melting, we had torrential rains at the turnaround point in the bike, we had big waves for the swim, incredible crosswinds on the Queen K for the biking portion. So this was no cakewalk. This was very challenging.
The part that I tapped into was my journey to get there. This was a lifelong dream. This was something that I wanted for 28 years. The day that I was there, and I was racing alongside all of my heroes, all of the icons that I had seen over the years on the coverage, specifically the icon that touched off this entire lifelong dream of mine, Julie Moss. It had been 30 years to the day since she had competed originally in the second Ironman World Championships that ever televised, and she came back that year and raced one more time.
Oh my gosh.
She wanted that to be her swan song, and I got to race alongside her.
Wow! -
My guest today is Ryan Carson. Ryan is a longtime entrepreneur who has built four startups, two that got acquired, one that went down in flames, but provided a lot of learning, and a fourth one called “Treehouse,” which is currently doing about $15 million in revenue annually.
Treehouse is an online tech school with about 80,000 enrolled students. Their goal is to take people from zero to job-ready and to teach them how to code, amongst other things.
He was voted EY's Entrepreneur of the Year, and he's been a guest on some of the top podcasts, shows like Entrepreneur on Fire, Mixergy, This Week in Startups, and Bloomberg's Game Plan.
Listen To The Podcast:
He's doing some awesome stuff, but Ryan popped onto my radar because he's a longtime DREAM THINK DO-er. Like many of you, he reached out a number of times to offer some encouragement and some feedback. After Episode 171, specifically, he sent an email about the five-minute moment concept.
We started going back and forth on that, how it was working for him, and that opened up a whole new subject on the power of “why,” and how being clear on your “why” makes all the difference.
Welcome to the show, Ryan!
Thank you so much.
This is fun. It's weirdly like a family reunion, but this is the first time where we're actually talking, so I love it.
I want to talk about the power of “why,” because I know it’s something that's really helped you to get on track with life and career. But I want to go back a little bit and talk a little heart and head stuff first.
We have a lot of entrepreneurs on DREAM THINK DO. We're all about helping people get clear on their dreams and goals - so one of the things I wondered, did you always want to be an entrepreneur? Was that your dream as a kid, or was that something that that hit you later?
No. It's kind of strange. I hear these stories from other entrepreneurs about selling lemonade to their friends in fourth grade and buying bubblegum in bulk so they could then make a profit on it by selling it to their friends, and I didn't do any of that. This is why I'm excited to talk about my “why,” because the truth is, I'm not really an entrepreneur. I'm someone who is motivated to get a specific thing done in the world, and I've realized that building a business to accomplish that is the best way I can do it. I'm not one of those guys that stares at spreadsheets and obsesses about growth.
Right, so for you the entrepreneurial journey is more of a means to an end as opposed to an end itself.
Absolutely.
That's a great insight.
I'm extremely mission-driven, so I can't wait to kind of dive into that more.
Great. Now, this is somewhat of a loaded question, but I have to ask it. You've got three startups that anyone would define as successful. I mean two got acquired. One is rocking, right? And one went down in flames.
Yes.
I don't know of an entrepreneur that doesn't have one of those stories, but what would you say? Which of those experiences helped you the most in getting clear on why you were put on the planet?
I think the failure was the most transformative. I was born and raised in Colorado and actually started off in a very religious home. I'm not particularly religious now. My parents did a really good job of driving into me that people are the most important thing in the world, and serving people and making their lives better is the highest possible calling. I continue to believe that. People are people and stuff is stuff, and I try to keep that really clear. I have some nice stuff now, but it has nothing to do with what's good, or what's right, or what makes me happy. So I had this upbringing, and I actually thought I was going to be a pastor for a long time.
Interesting.
I thought, "I love people, I love helping people. Gosh, if I can serve people like that, that sounds really rewarding," so I was going down that path. I ended up studying computer science in colleg... -
My guest today is Chelsea Moore. At age 22, Chelsea co-founded a company called BOXFOX with two of her friends.
BOXFOX is a cool, personalized gifting service they launched with the mission of connecting people and creating stronger relationships through giving. It's a unique service that allows you to put together a perfect gift, for any occasion.
Each BOXFOX box is then hand packed and sealed with a written note before it's shipped.
She and her friends started this company when they saw a gap in the lifestyle and services space. They wanted to be able to deliver a higher quality gift and make it easy for people too.
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To date the company has delivered over 45,000 boxes to over 20 different countries around the world!
I do want to talk about the company, but the big reason I wanted to have Chelsea on was to talk about the idea of pursuing a dream with your friends, because that sounds awesome. And sometimes it's the absolute right thing to do. But going after dreams with your friends is not always easy.
So I want to talk to her about how they've done it and what tips she has for clarifying the dream together. Deciding on how to go after it together and then just as importantly, maybe even more importantly, how do you stay the course. Especially with the wild twists and turns that can come with any dream journey.
So I'm excited to have this conversation, let's get to it. Chelsea, welcome to Dream Think Do.
Thank you so much.
Absolutely. So how do you describe BOXFOX?
We are a gifting company that specializes in bringing personalized and custom gift boxes to people everywhere. And our claim to fame is our Build a BOXFOX platform that enables you to build your own custom gift and care packages that are specifically created from all the best brands. It’s all in one place, brought together for the specific recipient and the specific occasion. Anything from new moms to birthdays, to sympathy to get well, to just because, to congrats on your new job. The reasons are truly endless. We have taken that authenticity to scale with the corporate concierge B2B side of our business as well. We take the same care and detail oriented attention to detail for our corporate clients as well.
That's cool. I have to say one of the great things about having a growing podcast is you get pitched by lots of different people. But we went and checked out your website and everybody was really impressed. You have a lot of different offerings but it just feels nice. It feels real like you said, it's a very personalized experience where you really can deliver something nicer than hey, sent you something through Amazon Prime. I love Amazon Prime but this is a different type of experience than that.
How did it get started? What was the catalyst for the idea for you guys?
I was about six months out of college in 2013 and a good friend of ours had been hospitalized. I was working crazy hours. I couldn't leave to go to five different of my favorite stores and the post office. I to put together something really thoughtful. I had the intention and the want and the need, but not the time. And so it sparked this idea – what do you do on those occasions when flowers don't cut it? Amazon Prime doesn't cut it. How do I put together a meaningful gift box or care package with the next level essentials that somebody actually would need in a specific situation? How do you physically be there for people when you can't actually go to them and be there?
That’s what sparked the idea of Build a BOXFOX. Being able to use our platform to create these custom perfect, well presented gifts in high quality, nude or black gift boxes, topped with your note handwritten by our fulfillment team. Personal, as if you had done it yourself. We make it easier, streamlined with all the best brands available to you.
We launched with prepacked offerings because some people do like to shop that way and just t... -
Hello, there. Welcome to Dream Think Do. I hope you're doing fantastic no matter where you're at in the world. Welcome to Episode 177. We just keep heading right towards 200 episodes. It's crazy to think about. It's been an awesome journey so far and I’m super stoked about where we're headed.
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Recommended Books:
Here's the list of books suggested by DREAM THINK DO-ers:
John C Maxwell's: "Thinking for a Change."
Henry Cloud: "Never Go Back."
William Paul Young's: "The Shack."
David Schwartz's: "The Magic of Thinking Big."
David Millman's "Way of the Peaceful Warrior."
I'm not sure if you can tell, but we're really trying some new things. Trying to just continue to experiment and take things with DREAM THINK DO to the next level. And you, yes, you, are helping to do that, so thank you so much for that.
In fact, this is a very special episode. I tried something different. We crowdsourced some great ideas for this one. That's right. We are going to talk about a really important subject. It's the subject of letting go, specifically around the subject of worry. I don't know if you deal with worry, if someone close to you deals with worry, but one of the strategies that has helped me involves letting go; letting go of worry.
I put it out there to Dream Think Do-ers around the world, and maybe you participated just to say, "Hey, what works for you?" on the subject of letting it go. Because the idea of it is so nice, so powerful – but in practice, it's not always easy. So we're going to talk about that. How do you, in fact, let it go? And we're going to get specific with some strategies. I'm also going to share some quotes, some books, all sorts of good stuff that comes from you, the Dream Think Do-ers. So stand by for that.
Let me give you a little background about why we're talking about letting go. Way back in Episode Two of Dream Think Do I talked about worry. Worry is just one of those things that if you're going to dream bigger, think better and do more in the world, do more of what you were put on the planet to do, you’ve got to let some stuff go. As we dream big, there's a good chance that worry, negative thinking, those things that keep us awake at night has been a factor. I can tell you, worry has shut down more dreams than just about anything else.
Maybe you're not a worrier. If you're not, then continue to listen on behalf of somebody else in your life. But I'm guessing you can identify with being worried from time to time, especially when it comes to going after the big stuff, new stuff, stuff that's important to you, stuff that feels like you're supposed to do it, but you're not quite sure how it's going to work out. You know what I'm talking about?
Back in episode two, I shared a strategy that a lot of you loved. It's something I called a "three-bucket strategy." It's something that was introduced to me by somebody in the audience of a talk that I was giving on the subject of – you guessed it – worry. During the break, this person came up to me and he was a big guy, a bit intimidating, to be honest.
I found out later he was in the military, had definitely lived through some battles; literally and figuratively. He let me know early on in our conversation that he was a cancer survivor. I told him immediately, "My wife is a cancer survivor." Before I even realized what I was saying, I said, "Bring it in for a hug," which I think surprised him. He was so tall I felt like I was hugging his belt buckle for crying out loud.
We talked through some of the strategies that I'd been sharing in my presentation, but then he said, "I've realized, especially with going through cancer, through going through the battle, through now leading a team - I just need three buckets."
I asked, "Three buckets? -
My guest is my long-time friend, Susan Baroncini-Moe. She is the author of the bestselling book, Business in Blue Jeans: How to Have a Successful Business on Your Own Terms in Your Own Style.
Susan has worked with clients on four continents in a wide range of industries. She’s a sought-after strategist and has been featured on ABC, in Redbook magazine, USA Today, MSN, Yahoo Finance and I could go on and on.
She is the host of 2Questions.TV, a YouTube show and podcast, where she interviews celebrities, best-selling authors as well as esteemed experts and entrepreneurs.
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She is a freakishly successful executive coach and business leader with over 16 years of experience.
She’s a great encourager. You’re going to love her...and like I said...I’m excited to share this conversation with you because I know Susan will help you shift some of your perspectives — and — get out of your own way.
You can go to suebmoe.com/mitch to find out more about Susan and get some goodies just for DREAM THINK DO-ers.
So let's get to the INTERVIEW.
Susan...welcome to DREAM THINK DO:
Thanks for that great introduction, Mitch!
As you know, Susan, we've got a lot of people that listen to DREAM THINK DO who are rocking it. A lot of them that are already leaders, entrepreneurs, and globe changers. But there's a lot of people that they've got this idea for a business or they want to launch their business.
Susan, “Business in Blue Jeans” came out of some particular circumstances in your life. So tell us about that season of life. I mean, you've created this great business, but tell us about the season where you weren't doing things on your own terms.
Yeah, we've never talked about this by the way. Thanks again for having me on your show. I have had a season in my life when I was not doing things on my own terms or in my own style. I think you know, that I studied sociology and social psychology at the University of Iowa.
Right. Iowa ties!
I actually paid my way through school by working in one of the tech labs and it was back when the Internet was new and I was really interested in, fascinated by it. So I learned at light speed and, and I just learned so much that I taught web design and development classes to faculty, staff, and students at the university.
The university liked me and they liked what I was doing and so they recruited me. So my first job was in academia and really, I loved it there and I might have stayed there, but I got recruited by a magazine publishing house in Des Moines. They made me a really interesting offer and painted a really beautiful picture of what my future would be like. So I went there to help them take their printed content and turn it into salable digital content online back when doing that was new.
Oh, yes indeed. Those world wide webs. Who knows whether it's going to work or not?
Right! I liked the work that I did, but I found very quickly that the environment was “Intrapreneurial”, meaning entrepreneurs inside of a company. I came up with some really cool ideas that I loved and, and what would happen is I would come up with big ideas that would get taken out of my hands.
So for example, I came up with this really great idea. Let's do some videos. And so my boss thought it was a great idea and he sent me to Chicago for some in-depth video training. When I came back from a training, I found out that this big player in the company had taken a special interest in my idea and decided his department was going to implement it… and I didn’t get to work on it. And that bummed me out. And that kind of stuff happened a lot.
And I also found that I would come home from work late in the evening and I felt like I was losing my life. And you know, I think this is a concept we get wrong a lot. Just we in general...humans...get it wrong and we have this idea that you go to work, you spend your day and then you come home and you have thi... - Show more
