A (3:07)

I have an opening question for you. Okay, four minutes in. Why is high performance a standard for some, but yet so elusive for others?

B (3:18)

So I think it's a great question. I think that we all want to be higher performing, but I think that there's probably a few reasons. One of it is high performance requires a lot of us. It requires a level of discipline that most of us don't have. It requires to be consistent to show up. It requires a level of skill development, development that causes us to dig deep. And it requires a level of self awareness to be able to recognize where. What holds us back. What particularly I need to be able to perform higher. Where are my blind spots? Seeking feedback, some of those things. So in short, it's kind of painful. It takes quite a bit from us.

A (4:03)

My experience with performance is. That is unclear to me what the best method is for me to improve my performance. On one hand, getting inside my own echo chamber with a book with the things that I already know to do, but I'm not doing. Coming to the end of the year, we're sitting here in November writing a painted picture of my life for 2026 in great detail. Sitting back and thinking retrospectively about the things that I need to stop doing, futuring about the things that I aspire to do, trying to create some bonds between where I am and where I want to go. And then putting a plan in place that I commit to. And then sometimes I'll do so I will do that every year. And then I'll go out into a group like Strategic Coach or Genius Network or ypo and I'll test that and I'll find out that I was wrong in some of my thesis and my approaches. You know, it was. It was me answering me about what I thought. So the question is, is what's the balance between just isolating yourself with what you know, making a commitment, getting up every day, having a morning routine, which I have, focusing on using my calendar, not a to do list, focusing on the vital few things that matter the most, that are going to give me the most lift. And then Going out and using comparison to others, which is dangerous, and getting outside of myself and having other people, you know, using other people's journeys to inform my journey. So it's almost like you're. It's almost like you're changing your perspective from what's right in front of you to what's right out, what other people are doing, and then trying to find the balance between the two and trying to find what's right for you. You know, Dan Sullivan, I was with him a few weeks ago, and he gave this incredible talk about ambition. And I think people. People negotiate between their ambition and their comfort. I'd like to do this. I'd like to 10x my business. I'd like to be. I'd like to go out and speak and be paid for it. I would like to do all these things. But how's that going to. Or what are other people gonna think? And what is my current business? How is that gonna suffer? And, you know, Dan's thing was you should always be more ambitious next year than you were this year, because that is where capabilities are discovered, capabilities are honed, and then you identify capabilities that you don't currently have that you might need. So it's. It's this. I mean, I hate to. I hate to get philosophical about performance, but I mean, I always get that way at the end of the year. So I'm interested for you to, you know, expound on the things. Various things that I just shared there. But also, when you think about performance as you come into the end of the year, what do you do to level up for the following year?

B (6:50)

Yeah, it's interesting what you said, you know, comparison, obviously, I think naturally has kind of a bad rap. And I think what we do often is, you know, we compare ourselves and. And we're. We don't live up to the best of somebody else. Especially when you put it in context of social media or some of those things, it's not a fair comparison. But I think we also can gain inspiration from others. We can g. Insight from others. We can. So as an example, I was just telling you, I was in Charlotte last week and I was with a group of speaker friends who were unbelievable people. And I came away very inspired to take my business, myself to another level. Right. Because there is an element of comparison in that, where I'm looking at it going, okay, look at what they're doing or how hard they're pushing or some of the things that they're doing and. And in different areas. Right. I was with a friend who was unbeliev fit. And I went, okay, I'm ready to, like, double down and like, let's be more consistent. Let's get after this a little bit more, right? So I. I do think we can gain from that. But one thing I think often we do is we try and take those insights from a distance. And the closer we can get to them, the more insightful they can become, right? So it's one thing for me to watch you from a distance and that to inform my journey. And I go, okay, I think I should do it this way. It's another thing for us to have a conversation where I can get mentoring, where I can actually learn from you. Go, you do seem to do it this way. Why? What is that working? How has it shown up for you? What can I glean from that? And then it can inform a better practice for me. And maybe I, as we have the conversation, I can go, you know what? That actually isn't for me, right? Like that. That wouldn't fit my path or what I'm trying to create. So I think often we try and take information from a distance and. And if we can get closer, it becomes more valuable. And so that would be one thing. I like what Dan Sullivan said about ambition. And yeah, I do think we. We need to level up. I mean, we all fall back into comfort, right? I speak on this all the time, and I look at areas of my life, and I'm guilty of it too, in lots of different areas. But I also, I. I think the world needs more of us. I think being able to share, develop talents and skills that can impact the world in a bigger way. I think that that's why we're here. I think we're here to grow. I think we're here to continue to develop and to continue to level up. And I think we all have way more capacity. And the greatest loss in life, I think, is the difference between human potential and actual performance. And that's where we get lost and we get stuck.

A (9:34)

That is such a great soundbite right there. That is such a. Can you say that again? The greatest loss in life is the difference between human potential and actual performance. Actual performance. Yeah. That's a tweet. Should be a tweet. Interesting what you shared about comparison and observing people from a distance and then getting closer. Here's my experience with that. I was getting ready to embark upon a path multiple times in my career to emulate a strategy that I believe somebody else was having success with. And when I asked them a Couple of questions. They told me it didn't work. It's like, no, we're not going to do that anymore. This is what we learned. So it's really. You blame social media for it but I think observationally it's just marketing in general. People are marketing a program, they're marketing a certain way and if you're lazy you'll look at it and say, well then let me just emulate this. That's why I think the book well was a good to great. The greatest point out of good to great was be a hedgehog and don't get overly concerned about your competitors because why do you think they have it right?

B (10:51)

Yeah. The other thing that I think is interesting is what we often do is we, we look at our competitors and we say okay, I'm gonna do that with just a little bit more focus. I'm gonna do that with and just push a little bit harder. And that may work for a moment and maybe you do have a little bit stronger work ethic and so you can incrementally grow just a little bit faster. But I, we just did a research study on high performance and for me I was looking at it going how do we redefine the game? Right? How do we look at it and understand things that aren't just like how do I push and grind a little bit harder but how do I show up in a totally different way? Because I don't know about you, but I, I want to redefine what high performance looks like. I want to be able to do it without burning out because I've done that plenty of times, right. I've had that. You get to this for me, speaking wise, I've had those years where I am just going crazy and speaking starts to slow down toward as you get into Thanksgiving, Christmas time for me, I'm not like your Christmas entertainment guy, so I'm not doing a ton in December. I had some of those years that I was like, I couldn't even see straight. I was just exhausted by the time I got to this point of the year. I don't want to do that. I, I want to be able to perform at a very high level and impact the world but also maintain some sense of me and be able to show up for my family and all those things. So I wanted to redefine my what that looked like and not just grind a little bit harder than what I see the next person doing.

A (12:23)

Do you ever suffer from any self limiting beliefs and if so, how do you overcome them?

B (12:29)

Yes, for sure. And even it's interesting because even with, you know, I mean, some level of success, right. I've sat down just recently with other, like my main business is, is speaking. Right. I speak for companies all over and sitting down and having conversations with others who are further along. Their fees are big, the stages that they're on are bigger and them pushing me. And I like, I had a conversation just a few months ago with a speaker friend who, his fee is almost double what mine is, which is shocking to me. Mine's pretty solid. And he pushed back on me and just was like, why? What's the difference between. And like the reality is he's not twice the speaker I am. And so yeah, putting yourself out there in certain ways or making those connections. Yeah, we all limit ourselves. And in the research that we did, when we looked at barriers to high performance, almost all of the main barriers to high performance were self inflicted. The things that came up in the research were fear of failure, were taking criticism personally, were lack of consistency, the inability to adapt in comparison. Those are all things that we do to ourselves. They weren't, it wasn't like, oh, it's because they're in this industry. It was, we hold ourselves back.

A (13:52)

What's the silver bullet for that?

B (13:56)

Well, the, the main drivers of high performance that we found were preparations, right. Doing the actual work in the unseen hours, the growth and learning how to adapt. I think adaptability, our research found that it's the most crucial skillset for success in today's world. Um, and when people think about adaptability, I don't think it's just the ability to change, it's the ability to learn. It's being able to continue to learn, develop and therefore be able to handle the world in which we now live. The situation as it continues to evolve.

A (14:38)

Particularly with respect to fear, how would you encourage people to reframe it so that they can take that out of the equation?

B (14:48)

So you mentioned in my introduction that my two sons, Tanner and Drew, they are nationally ranked ninja warriors. They compete all over the country, have been on the show and often join me on stage. And we use ninja as a metaphor. It's a very visual sport. It's awesome in that regard. But I think one thing that's really fascinating to me, if you and I were to line up a hundred people and say like diagram failure and success for us, just like, what does that look like? I think most people as they do it, they would put failure one direction and success is the other direction. Right? Like those are opposite ends of the Spectrum. If you were to sit down with my boys who are 15 and 17 and say, diagram failure and success, they would go. They're the same direction. Failure leads to success. Because in ninja, if they see a new skill, they want to develop a new skill, they're going to go and fail over and over. Like, there is not a single skill that they just walk on, jump up, swing on something, and they get it the first time. Like, that is not happen. It's like a joke within ninja, they're like, first try, it's like 150,000 tries, right?

A (16:02)

Well, that's what I think about figure skaters. When you watch a figure skater, how many times did they bust their butt on the ice doing that triple axel? A thousand. Before they were able to land it consistently and probably still fall?

B (16:18)

It's just. So I do think we have to reframe it. Interestingly, you were talking about the things that you should do that you don't, which we all do. Right. In our research, 75% of people said that embracing failure was important. Like they knew that. Right. But then we asked those same people, how often do you do that? Drop down to less than 40%. Right. In research, that's a performance gap, the difference between what you know you should do and what you actually do. But there's also research that shows that to innovate, to create your very best work, most people are what we would call experimental innovators, meaning they have to tinker, they have to play with it, they have to try things, they have to fail, they have to go through the process, actually through failure, that you create your very best work. Right. It's. That's how we learn. It's how we go through it. And so I, I would try and reframe it, but also learning to embrace it and recognizing it. And we maybe do that in certain areas and then we don't in other areas. Think. I think social media has also made it so that we're worried about even more so how we look. Start something and look weak. We don't want to look like we don't have it all together. Right. So we don't allow ourselves to be beginners. If you make a choice, you want to do something, like you're going to suck at it for a while and that's okay. But is that innate?

A (17:45)

Is that innate? If you. So in your book Storytelling Three Methods. Mindset Skill Set Tools Toolkit, Tool Set. Carol Dweck wrote the seminal book on mindset. Just a brilliant. I was fortunate enough to read that 1520 years, long time ago. And it always stuck with me and that, you know, a fixed vic, a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. And the fixed mindset is their ego is such, and I'm paraphrasing and getting it wrong, but the concept was their ego is such that they didn't want anyone to see them fail because they were always told that they were smart or they were bright or they were number one. So they really couldn't tolerate failure. So even they would just cheat or lie if in the face of an exercise or lie about how many push ups they did or say that they solved an unsolvable problem where people with a growth mindset were like, I couldn't solve this. But there was no ego inside of it. They weren't, it wasn't an affront to their being that they were unable to accomplish this task. They were just curious about understanding why couldn't I solve this or why did it take me so long. And at the end of the day, I mean if people don't try because they're trying to maintain some facade that they're perfect, they could be lazy as well, I guess. But I mean for me, I'm very ask assertive. I mean, I never think that my answer is automatically the best answer. Now sometimes it ends up being just based on experience and the room that I'm in. And if I've got a bunch of people in my company and generally I've done it before and they haven't, I'm going to be closer to the target. But from the perspective of fear of failure, I mean you need to, we have a set of family values and it goes, live fun, be humble, respect others, be a servant, leader, never panic, trust yourself to take chances, fail fast and move forward, and always do more than is expected. So that's our family. But two of them have to do with failure?

B (19:55)

Well, I love that. And the reality is I think that's not necessarily how we teach things. So as an example, if you were to go to like any kids sporting event, and I'm guilty of this too.

A (20:08)

Oh, you're one of those parents.

B (20:11)

Parents cheer for though. Like we're not cheering them on for the process, we're cheering for the result, right? We are like, oh my gosh, you made that shot. Not like you took that shot. You face that fear and stepped up in that situation, right? So I think it is reinforced. It's reinforced in society. It's like we celebrate all those things and I don't think we're gonna change all of that. But the antidote to all of that is what you just mentioned. It's curiosity. It's recognizing that growth is continuing, is a continual process. It's asking questions. It's coming into it with a. Ego is going to get in all of our way at some point in, in different situations, right? And I, I think we, we all have times that we don't let ourselves look dumb, feel dumb, whatever it is, right? Our ego protects us, even on the highest levels. I'll give you just a quick little anecdote. So Wilt Chamberlain, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, 7 foot too dominant for 14 seasons, killed it in the NBA. His only major weakness was free throws. He was horrible at shooting free throws. Like, overall career percentage was in the 50% range, right? And so if you're an opposing team, this guy's going to destroy you. You foul him, you put him on the free throw line. So in the season of 1971, 1972, Will was teammates with a guy named Rick Barry, who famously is one of the best free free throw shooters of all time. Shot the ball underhanded. Granny sty, right is what we call it, right? So he convinces Will Chamberlain to shoot underhanded. He's like, dude, you suck at this. Why not try it a different way? And he's like, okay. And it actually worked. That season, Wilt had the best free throw percentage of his life. And there was a game on March 2 that year where Wilt scored a hundred points, right? Famous game, most points ever scored. What most people don't know about that game is that that night he shot 28 of 32 free throws. 28 of those, a hundred points came from the free throw line. He was incredible. At the end of that season, he literally fixed his problem, right? He's performing at the highest level he's ever performed. At the end of that season, he went back to shooting it the normal way. And in his autobiography, people, he wrote about it and he said, I actually felt like a sissy shooting it underhanded. So one of the greatest basketball players of all time could not handle his ego, couldn't handle the fact that some people thought he might look dumb. And so he chose to perform lower in his given. Like, it's crazy to me, it's crazy. But also, we all do that, right? We do that in different ways. Maybe not so obvious a way, and maybe we don't look at it and go, but we do say stuff like, I look dumb doing it that way. I'm going to do it this way. Well, that way actually works.

A (23:04)

I'm likely to react differently in a new room of peers or business people versus people that I'm comfortable with and I work with every day. I have no problem looking like a fool amongst the crowd, pursuing a new idea, making a mistake with people that I'm comfortable with. But if I walk into a new room and I'm meeting, I'm not going to roll over on my back and expose my belly right off the bat, you know, I want to, I want to demonstrate competence, capability, those types of things before vulnerability more than likely. Question for you, how have you integrated your family into your business and who has benefited the most?

B (23:45)

Well, the easy answer to the end of it is, I think I've benefited the most. But you might get a different answer from each of those. So over the course of my career as an entrepreneur, I've had several different businesses. The first being in direct sales. My brother was my partner in that. And there was good and bad of working with family. Right. I think all of us have probably experienced that at different times. I sold him my half of the business. And as I started speaking, my, you know, balancing. We have five kids, so my wife is very busy, you know, trying to help take care of kids, run the household, all of the things and so balancing that. But I'm still trying to do that. We literally, my wife and I had a sit down yesterday that she was asking for more conversation and planning around some of the speeches that we have coming up and just what it takes. And specifically because my sons are part of that. Right. And so it's just kind of the whole family's mixed into it. My boys being part of speaking now has been fascinating and amazing. That kind of came out of the fact that during COVID they were way into the sport of Ninja Warrior. And I don't know if I found myself bored or what it was, but I ended up buying a couple of Ninja Warrior gems along the way and got into the sport more and supporting them. But then we realized there was something we could do with it. I personally, I. I mean, I just love being around my family. Right. So the more I can incorporate that, the better. There's very, very positive things in terms of the opportunity that I've given, especially my sons, and the conversations and experiences that we get to have that I don't think we would normally have, you know, as. As teenagers. But I don't know. That's an interesting question. I think. I think there's some things I've done really well, in that. And there's some things that I haven't done as well and I'm constantly trying to learn and correct and, and make it better. But I'm a big, especially with my kids, I'm a big, like lots of communication, open communication. I treat them as very, very capable and I want them to be part and exposed to as much as possible just, you know, so that they have more knowledge and experience and see where it takes them, you know, see where they, what they end up doing in their lives.

A (26:09)

Do you let them see you for who you really are, including all the flaws?

B (26:19)

I think sometimes, you know, like genuinely, I think, I think there's times I don't think I do that unbelievably well. Right. Like, I think that I'm a very confident person and that's kind of my lead. Right. And in our research we identified three specific mindsets that I think high performers really have. And one of them we call confident curiosity. And, and it's this balance kind of what we're talking about, this balance of how can you be confident where you have a surety to move forward and take action, but also leave yourself open to different possibilities, to growth, to wanting to learn and develop. And I think I do that well. But the vulnerability of showing the mistakes or showing where I've misstepped and all the course corrections, sometimes I just do that, take it on. And I'm not as open with that. Right. So there's a good reminder for me. But yeah, that was a, that's an area that I don't think I do as well as I could.

A (27:19)

Yeah, I have three children, 27, 24 and 21. They're all doing their thing, they're all different. I'm really happy with the way that it ended with them. They all treated us extremely well. They're all independent. And you know, I've come to kind of this model people would ask different, you know, I meet people, oh, I've got a five year old and a seven year old and an eight year old. And I really thought, well, I should put a model around this so I can have this conversation quickly and be done with it, basically. So I came up with this model of truth, triumph and self determination. And basically I, because of the way I grew up, I mean I was working in a Mexican restaurant when I was 12 and 13 years old, till one in the morning in Chicago. We were, you know, our family didn't stay together. So you know, I had a lot of responsibilities at 14, 15, 16 years old, taking Care of my younger brother, that kind of stuff. So I grew up in a very candid environment, let's just put it that way. Unstructured, unmanaged, no rules, you know, out all night if I wanted to be doing what I needed to do, working, making cash, that kind of stuff. My wife, on the other hand, grew up in a very, very structured, tight nuclear family. Everybody's up everybody's butt about everything and so that that blend. But one thing I never thought of was to lie to my kids and to protect them. You didn't make the team or the cat ran away. No, I ran it over. It's not, we're not making posters because it's not coming back from that. I mean, I barely had a tail to grab onto. So, you know, and, and I just, and. But I would see that in peers as they would have a thousand conversations with the coach before game. You know, they just wouldn't. You just saw them changing the truth. And my view of it is if kids know that you'll lie to them, then they expect that you're lying to them and then you've kind of lost them in terms of really being able to influence them with hard truths. And then the other one is triumph is just don't rescue them. Don't rescue them. Look, sometimes my kids got screwed out of positions and it was because the other parents advocated more. But I didn't want my kids to see me going to battle to fight their battles. I'm like, well, you're just going to have to beat them. You know, you're just going to have to win it. And then self determination is. I've always been very careful not to create a path to make sure that if they asked me for advice that I would just share my experience and just say, well, I think if you go this way, my experience is this is what it's going to be like and if you go this way, this is what it's going to be like. And that's a big deal. When kids are picking majors and paths, you know, do I want to be a physical therapist or a lawyer? I'm like, well, those are going to create very different outcomes for you. And they're both, they're both great. They're both great. You know, it's whatever you're passionate about, but let them. Because for me, I was all, I was forced into self determination, but I always felt like in control and really good about what I was doing. So I like to ask people that. I was fascinated.

B (30:34)

I like that model. No, I Like that to me the thing that stands out about what you're saying more than anything is that you have thought about it and you have clarity. Like even before that you can clarify the values that you have as a family. Most people, if you sit down and talk about the values you have as family, who knows? Right. Like and therefore. But then those same people may often be upset that their kids don't live the values that they wish they would. And well, what are the values? Right. Right. I'm curious to ask you what you, when you have that value set, how did you reinforce it? Like what are some of the things that you did as a family or in conversation or some of those cross points where you're like where those values were reinforced.

A (31:21)

First of all, they were on the refrigerator. We in our little bonus room that we converted garage area on the wall is always do more than is expected and huge 2 foot tall cursive letters. We, you know, you don't, you don't realize that it's getting into them until it, until they parrot it back to you at some point years down the road and they use it as a decision filter or a criteria. So we would have family meetings early on, but we really stopped that practice. I don't know why. I think there was. We would have family meetings and I would do something a little educational or about whatever it was, whatever I was learning in a book, I would bring to them. But that practice really didn't get legs for whatever reason. But I think it was more just constant rein. I was, I would constantly lay our challenges against what was in a little pyramid. If you actually lay those out, it's a pyramid. I'm ocd is you can. Can. I mean my. Everything, everything on the desk in front of me is lined up in perfect relation to one another on this desk here. So. But. So it's a pyramid. And it was just, it was on the fridge and it was hanging around and you know, it would. I mean, look, live, look. If you're not enjoying life, you're not doing it right. Live fun. The second thing is be humble. Like nobody likes the asshole. Just don't be one. There's no reason for you to be mean. There's no reason for you to be hurtful. Then you know, respect others. So it just kind of starts right on with the daily and you just as you're getting in situations you would reference one back kind of loosely and then there was other little frames that we would have. One is never sit back and watch somebody else work. So that's a, that's a powerful statement. And if you're at somebody else's house and they're, you ate lunch there and they're doing the dishes, you don't sit there at the table, you know, it's a little thing or you don't, you know, I can't tell you how many times we would be doing something and the kid, you know, be it 11 or 12 or 13 year old kid there, they just stand there and watch us as parents move everything. And my kids would jump right in and say, oh no, you can't watch somebody work. So just little things like that. And then I think you. And then I told them, I said, the age of accountability is 14. I'm done. I'm done with you. Now you can ask me questions and I'll make observations and there'll be consequences if there need to be. But interestingly, there never had to be. Almost I can't even remember having to discipline my kids. And I just turned it over to them. I said, you're kind of on your own now. If I don't have it into your skull by now, then you're not going to get it. The world will have to teach you the rest of the way through consequences. So have at it. So I don't know, but like, that's probably not stuff you're going to find in a parenting book, but it was a direct reflection of how I grew up.

B (34:16)

I love it. I, I just, I just think there's some intentionality there and I think that's, that's the biggest piece to it. I think understanding, purpose and having some specific intention in terms of how you approach it, I think makes a huge difference. So kudos to you.

A (34:36)

Well, thanks. I had an outcome and it was, I want to deliver capable, independent, contributing kids to the world. That's it. Very cool storytelling. What makes a great story? I just told you one. None of that's true.

B (34:50)

Well, it doesn't have to be true.

A (34:51)

Like it doesn't have to be true to be valuable.

B (34:54)

No, it doesn't.

A (34:56)

But I think what makes a great story.

B (34:59)

So from a model perspective, I think influential stories follow this model of struggle, the solution. Struggle, solution, meaning there's something in our bodies, in our DNA, that we respond to. Struggle, to conflict, to challenge it naturally engages us emotionally. Right. You can think about it from a movie perspective. Let's say you go to a movie this afternoon, you've seen the previews, it's supposed to be amazing and you can't wait. You sit down, you've got your drink in one hand or popcorn in the other and you just watch this movie, but it ends up being about a guy that just merely skips through life. No ups, no downs, no challenge, no struggle. We would all leave and go, that is the stupidest movie I've ever seen.

A (35:35)

Yeah, it's like watching golf. It's something to sleep to.

B (35:39)

But the problem is that's how we tell stories. And I think it goes back to this conversation we were having about vulnerability. Right? But we tell solution to solution stories. I mean, most business stories all sound the same. We say, you know, we're great and we've always been great and we'll always be great and if you work with us, that'd be great, right? I mean, what is real about that? And so I think that from a connection standpoint, the struggle is the relatability of a story story. And the solution is the credibility of a story. And so if it's a personal story, if you can share, not just here's the solution, but here's where I learned this solution. Here's where I was messing it up, here's how I saw it and here was the shift in my thought process that becomes transformational. If you can share, here's what our customers are dealing with on a regular basis and it me as a potential customer, I'm listening, going, oh, you're describing me to a table, then the solution of the product is going to be exactly what I'm looking for. Right. I think that model of solution or struggle to solution is really how you craft an influential story.

A (36:51)

How important is using stories in the sales process and how much sales coaching and sales training do you do?

B (36:59)

So I speak to a lot of sales teams. I speak to both sales and leadership teams, but I speak to a lot of sales teams, do some one on one coaching, especially with salespeople, presentation skills coaching. I'm limited on how much I do, but I, I do some of it and have done quite a bit over the years. I think storytelling is one of the most underrated skills in business and sales in particular. I think learning how to tell stories that validate the points, that show examples and when I think sometimes people who are not natural around stories, they think of it as this big process or this big piece and sometimes it's just a small little anecdote, right? It's as you're talking about the product. You know, the other day, one of our customers and boom, here's the quick little story. I'm just throwing it in. It just Humanizes it. It's. It makes it real, it makes personal, it makes it relatable in different ways. So I think that as a salesperson, if that's the role that you're in, you are in the business of trying to influence people, move them to action. To do that, you need to embrace them or connect with them emotionally. And stories are one of the best tools to get there.

A (38:12)

Oh, a hundred percent. I watched Simon Sinek open a conference one time and he just came out on stage and he walked all the way to the edge, just right to the edge of the stage. He kind of quarter turned to the audience and looked up into the right as he was recalling something and he started saying like it was 1938 and. Right. And I was just like, wow, that was a really cool way to open a talk. What's your opening strategy? Do you use stories right at the get go or how do you, what's, what's your formula for the first time, 10 or 15 minutes to get people engaged in what you're talking about?

B (38:51)

Yeah, so I typically open with a story, but before I do that, I tend to open with a question. So here's my reasoning is I think some people can pull off and in the right setting, you can pull off just jumping right into a story. Right. It was a cold November night, or it was 1930 or whatever it is. But I think there's a simple process that if you ask a you focus question, meaning the word you is in the question, then what I'm doing is I can tap into your world with a question, and then I can bring you into my world with a story. So it creates a simple commonality. So I might walk out on stage and say, depending on the context of what it is. Right. How many of you have ever. Right. And you set up the reason for that story to have relevance and then you're gonna dive right into it.

A (39:43)

So about them, about their current state or potential challenge. And maybe you've set that up with the company, you've done your research and you've lit. You did that.

B (39:55)

Yeah. And before that, if there's, if there's right setting for it. So I'm a big believer that you don't want to start with pleasantries. Right. Like it's great to be here or reintroduce yourself or anything, because I've just been introduced. Right? Yeah. So sometimes I think you have to win them over. So I want to jump in right away. So quick question. Jump into a story. And we're diving into it because I'm trying to build a thesis around the idea of here's what we're talking about, here's where we're going, but also paying attention to. Depending on what's happened in the conference and what has taken place right before, there's often something, especially something funny that you can call back to. And that might be my opening because it's personal and shows that I know what's going on with them. Right. So I'm just trying to think of a recent example, but if there was something that, you know, the CEO who spoke before me said that just really resonated, or you could just, you're like, take a little twist on and, and bring it up as kind of an opening line and everybody laughs, you know, then it just builds rapport quickly.

A (41:05)

How much humor do you use and how does that impact your relatability to the audience? And does it ever. What's to avoid when you're using humor?

B (41:14)

So I try to use as much as possible. Humor is something I've continued to study. I think there's quite a bit in my speeches now. But humor is something I think you have to uncover more than insert. So, you know, within like the stories that I'm telling, there's naturally little funny parts and sometimes that takes a couple of times delivering the story for you to realize, oh, there's a connection point here. There's a funny little line you can insert in here, that kind of thing.

A (41:42)

And is that on the fly for you? Basically?

B (41:45)

Sometimes, yeah. So if you study kind of the principles of humor, there's a great book by Judy Carter named the. By the Comedy Bible that like breaks down formulas of humor. I think that you can kind of get some of those in your mind. And then I record virtually every speech I give and literally sometimes I go back and I'm like, I gotta laugh here. And I kind of remember what I said, but I want to hear how I said it.

A (42:11)

Yeah.

B (42:12)

Because yeah, sometimes it just comes out because sometimes I'm watching a facial expression and I react certain way to that person sitting on the front row and it lands really well and I'm like, awesome. And so in, in areas to avoid from a humor standpoint, I don't think you want to put. At least in my context, I'm not, I don't want to put people down. I don't want to make other people the butt of the joke. Right now there's some.

A (42:39)

Are you ever, are you ever self deprecating?

B (42:42)

Yeah, for sure.

A (42:43)

Okay.

B (42:44)

You know, it's interesting just as you said, that is, I use a fair amount of self deprecation. My agent one time, we were putting together a new demo video and she didn't want the self deprecating jokes in the video for marketing purposes. And I was like, those land really well. And she goes, I get that. But that's not the position. Like, that's not the first thing I want people to see from a marketing standpoint. I was like, okay, I get that. But yeah, I think there's definitely spaces for that. But also I think that sometimes when we think about speaking, humor is fantastic, storytelling is fantastic. Both of those are skills. But overall what we're talking about is engagement. There's lots of forms of entertainment and ways to keep people engaged. So if you're funny. Yeah. Lean into it. Be even funnier. If you're not, you know, you can learn how to add some of it, but it probably isn't going to be the main way to engage and entertain people in your speech. That's okay. There's lots of different speakers out there that engage in different ways. Right. But it might be through stories telling, it may through be through group interaction right there or whatever it is that's set up. Ultimately, I want to make sure that people are engaged on a regular basis. And interestingly, I have now with what I do, I have several friends who are comedians or speakers who are very, very funny, have studied comedy and used to be comedians. And so I will have like comedy sessions with them. I'll reach out and be like, hey, I'm working on a joke here. Can I just spitball some ideas with you? Right. And play around with some of those things?

A (44:15)

Oh, that's cool. And so is this anything? Is this anything?

B (44:19)

Yeah. Or like, I feel like approaching this topic. How would what's funny in there? Like, do you have any thoughts of, like, how I could bring something into this section and. Yeah, yeah, that's been kind of a cool process. One of my favorite comedians, Mike Birbiglia, he has a podcast called Working It Out. But on his podcast he has other comedians and they throw material at each other and like, like work on their jokes together, right? And they're like, okay, here's what a bit I'm working on. And they're like, okay, I like that. What if you tried this tag? And like, what if you added this? And it really is kind of this.

A (44:52)

Communal process that might be my new favorite podcast. And I've never heard it, but I'm got a big star.

B (45:00)

Perfect. Yeah, he's great.

A (45:01)

So we have about. We, we have, we're a franchise brand, franchise platform company. We have five brands and we just had our event. About 400 people came to our annual meeting. And in the years past, I've written in a couple of jokes. One didn't land quite so well, probably shouldn't have gone there, but I had it. I had the whole room there and then whack, you know, right over to the side and, you know, it was fine and everything, but for this one in particular, it's really critical time in the company. We've got everything moving in the right directions. We've got franchise owners. Overwhelming majority of them have figured it out. I mean, we're a brand new platform, like three years old. I mean, 260 owners. We've grown exceptionally fast. So the first year, you know, everybody's just getting started. The second year, everyone's trying to figure out are they going to go up the hill or down the hill. And you know, this year, okay, this is what I need to do. Okay, I'm going to commit to doing that. Yeah, but I needed it to be. I want, I didn't want to be a clown. I wanted to be very precise in my language and I wanted, I did the Steve Jobs thing and I had three hours, by the way. I opened with three because they wanted the comments where they wanted more of me than the first just hour and 15 minute state of the Union. So, so I led the first whole half of day. I did do a panel for the last hour of it, which was great and that. But I only had four things that I talked about the entire time and everything was built around it. And we had one video from a c. From a really good CEO in franchising. And the video ended and just not even thinking about it, I just went to the edge of the stage, I looked at him, I said, I know exactly what you all are thinking right now. Why can't we have her?

B (46:49)

You know?

A (46:49)

And it's, it's just. But I mean, like, that's how I naturally talk. So I went back and somebody said to me, man, all your jokes landed today. And I'm like, I didn't write any joke. I didn't have any jokes. And they're like, no, you had, you constantly had little things worked in there. And so my speech pattern is, I enjoy to have a good time. I have that eye where everything to me is funny. Like everything is funny. But I've never even slipped about saying anything that was inappropriate, anything that was offensive, anything that was cutting somebody Else down. It almost always comes back to self deprecation or just situational observation or very softball type stuff. And I gotta tell you, if I didn't have that stuff in there, I don't think I could hold people. I mean, if they're not laughing. Now in my keynotes, I've got five or six really good singers in there and it's the same ones. I got two keynotes. I have a leadership keynote and then really a kind of a sales keynote. And I've got those two keynotes and I got, I got my crushing lines in there. Now they're kind of, honestly, they're probably from, they're a little bit like borrowed, but you know, that's okay.

B (48:04)

No, it's, you know, it's funny because my boys are part of most of my speeches now. They've heard the same jokes, right? They've heard the same lines and they're, they come on and off stage, right when they come out and do ninja and then they're off stage and they're usually backstage saying out loud to each other the jokes and like making me as I'm saying it. But yeah, I think, I mean there's an old saying in speaking that you don't have to be funny, but if you want to get paid, you probably should be right. Like so I think it's a skill that, that can be developed. I think ultimately storytelling and humor are two probably the most essential skills around speaking that you can build.

A (48:46)

Just a quick note on communication. What is the bridge between interpersonal communication? Face to face, one on one small group talking to an audience and then translating that to online communication, social media, what you want to get across. Like you said, interpersonally you're going to use the self deprecating humor. But in the marketing video your marketing person said no. Is there a communication style that there's a through line between what you're going to do in person and what you're going to do online? Or how do you, how do you manage, how do you manage that? Are you good online? I mean, I assume that you are. You got a great website. I was able to find you over. You get a lot of stuff on YouTube. It's all good.

B (49:29)

Yeah, we're, we're trying to be consistent. Right. In terms of what we did. I actually noticed this morning that. So every Monday I put out a Monday morning mantra which is just a quick video. I've been doing it for I don't know, 12 years or something. And my post that went up this Morning was my 4,000th post on Instagram, I just noticed this morning. So I'm like, okay, we've been pretty consistent, you know, um, on that platform and you know, other platforms as well. I think that most of it is very similar. I think there's nuance to each platform that you're on. And when you go online, I still think that there's space for you to tell some struggle to solution stories and to keep that arc there. But it has to be much more condensed. Right. The, the touch points, the anecdotes, those things like they're not going to be the same as when you're in person and you're telling the story. And then there's some that I've tried to translate and go, okay, how does this story go online? And at least for now I haven't found it. Right. Because it's just too involved too long or something. Right. It doesn't fit the same way. Brevity becomes extremely important, I think when you were communicating on any kind of digital platform.

A (50:42)

Yeah.

B (50:43)

Keeping it very simple and straightforward. And then within that everybody finds kind of their voice and their brand too. I think you're going to do a little bit different than I'm going to do it. I think that's fine. But principally, I think we still the principles around good communication in terms of how do I make it about them, how do I convey something that connects both emotionally and intellectually. All of those principles, I think remain the same. And so I always try and go off of principles and not practice because I think it applies differently.

A (51:15)

What are you going to do between now and the end of the year? We've got six weeks left to set yourself up for 2026.

B (51:24)

Yeah. So I have made personally, my main focus is speaking bookings for 2026. We're already moving in the right direction. We've got some good momentum going. And so I have, I mean, literally, if I pulled up on my phone, I have a specific list that I'm getting through between now and the end of the year that I'm personally doing. That doesn't mean that my team and others are reaching out as well. And some of that's, you know, just reaching back to past clients, relationship building, lots of different groups in that regard. So I have carved out time every day that I'm reaching out and prospecting. And so that's, that's probably the biggest main goal. And there's others as well. The other thing I'm doing is finishing up all. I've got a new book that Will come out in 2026. Going through edits right now, manuscript and all that. So I've got some time frame, timelines on how I. I need to get all of that done. But, yeah, those are the two main things for me. If I've got enough momentum around bookings, you know, going into 2026, obviously there'll be some that happen, you know, as the year continues and then moving into 2027 and then everything being set up for my next book coming out. Those are the. The two biggest focuses for me, ideally.

A (52:46)

How many talks will you give next year?

B (52:49)

45.

A (52:50)

Okay.

B (52:51)

I'm. I'm limited with the speech that I give with my boys. I can only book 25. Yeah. Just based off of their schedules and we're. So that's, you know, the main focus right now. I think we have 10 of those, 25 booked already. So, you know, moving in a. A good direction there. And then I'll speak 15 to 20 times outside of that, just. Just me. Yeah. But with some of the other businesses that I own, the gyms and other things. Yeah, I. That, that's the right amount for me is right around 40, 45.

A (53:27)

Yeah. That's four a month, roughly.

B (53:31)

Yeah.

A (53:32)

Maybe a little less in the holiday months, right?

B (53:35)

Yeah. Just kind of depends on the month. Right. There's certain months like January, we're already, you know, a little bit more than that. Just some of those months that get a little bit busier. But, yeah, excited about what we're doing. The speech that we put together with the boys is like the most fun I've ever had in my life speaking and just brings a different element to stage, a different energy. It's. It's seriously unique. And so that's been very, very fun. And we've got some really good momentum going with that, so it's great.

A (54:09)

Yeah, I've seen that. I found it online somewhere and I saw some little clips of it, and it looks absolutely fantastic. And there's some stories to go with it. I know one of your sons, obviously, they're not identical, equal. So one of the sons has had more opportunities with the sport and another one has had less opportunities with the sport. And I. I heard you talking about how, how they handled that. You know, it was really, really interesting. So, yeah, I really resonated with what you're doing, and I'm so super impressed that you're integrating your family into your business.

B (54:37)

Appreciate that. Yeah, it's been super fun and they. They make me better. We could break that down in all the ways, but I want to show up better because they're part of it.

A (54:50)

Well, look, Ty, I think we need to tug on the reins a little bit and turn this gently nudge this podcast towards the barn. But before we do, tell people how to best get in touch with you.

B (55:02)

I'm pretty easy to find if you search Ty Bennett. Tybennett.com is my website. I'm on all social. I love to connect in any of those. And yeah, if you just search Ty Bennett, I. I should be pretty findable.

A (55:15)

Great, powerful speaker for your powerful events.

B (55:18)

Thank you.

A (55:19)

Yes. All right, I've got a curveball and a fastball for you right down the middle. You feel like playing?

B (55:26)

Oh, let's see how we do.

A (55:27)

Okay. All right, here's the curveball. Gun to your head. Something important to you at risk. You are forced to start a new business in the next 30 days, and it cannot be something that you're currently doing. Where do you see the market and the opportunity? What would that business be?

B (55:52)

I mean, I think there's huge opportunity in AI. I have a couple of friends who are. Have started something moving in that direction. I don't. That's one of those that when I say it, I don't feel like I know enough to feel like I'd have any kind of game plan, you know, to move forward. But I think the market definitely has a space there for sure. I also think that. So with what I do, I think there's a lot of adjacent businesses that my skill set would work very well. Things like if I were to go and be. I'm a financial advisor or go into real estate or some of those, I think I could do. I think I could do well. Right. I think I could apply the same skill set in those ways, and so I could see myself going in one of those ways, too.

A (56:42)

Awesome. All right, last question right down the middle. If you had one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life, what would that be?

B (57:00)

One sentence to make an impact in somebody's life. And. I'll come back to, you know, we. We. We shared this earlier, but I think the greatest loss in life is the difference between human potential and actual performance. I think everybody has more in them than they realize, and I think that the pursuit of that potential is the coolest part of the whole process.

A (57:30)

Perfectly said. Ty, thanks for being on.

B (57:33)

Yeah. I appreciate your time.

A (57:35)

I'm Jeff Duden. We've been here with the incredible Ty Bennett, and we have been on the unemployable podcast. Thanks for listening.