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The Matt King Show
040: Solo Episode | STOP Calling Yourself Average. You Have These Superpowers | The Matt King Show
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All right, we're back in the saddle. Another solo episode today. I wanted to talk a little bit about superpowers. A lot of people think that superpowers are this thing that they're given when they're born and they never have to think about it again. Some people think about superpowers as something they can buy on Amazon, go to school for, and then just get handed a degree or handed credentials that make them exponentially better in the world. At the end of the day, I think it's a little bit of both. But in reality, I think the way that we build our superpowers is by getting out and living life. So as I was preparing for this podcast, I really thought through, what are my superpowers? And a lot of people will say, here is my one superpower. Look, at the end of the day, Spider man had more than one power. I mean, yeah, it's badass. He could shoot a web, but there's a lot of things that Spider man could do. So why do we, as humans identify with only one superpower? So I'm going to take you through the five superpowers that I believe are I embody on a day in and day out basis and that I give most of the success in my life credit for. The first superpower curiosity. My desire to learn, to experience, burns deep, deep inside of me. And if I truly had to think about where that comes from, I would honestly tell you I think it was the way I was raised. My parents are incredible human beings, just amazing people. But they never really gave me anything. They taught me how to find things out myself. Like, there's this old proverb that if you feed a man a fish, you feed him for a day. But if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. And my parents did an incredible job of teaching me how to fish. I remember when I was 19 years old, I wanted to crotch rocket. Stupid idea, I know, but I wanted to crotch rocket, right? Like all the young, cool guys. Great. Great for picking up chicks, which it's not, by the way. But I wanted a crotch rocket. Now, I had never really ridden motorcycles, never really ridd dirt bikes, but I wanted a crotch rocket. So I went to my mom and my dad and I said, hey, guys, I want to crotch rocket. And I'll never forget, they laughed and said, not just absolutely no, hell no. And if you get one, you're not going to live in this house. Well, I knew them well enough to know that they wouldn't kick me out of the house or at least I didn't think they would kick me out of the house for that. But at the end of the day, they weren't going to help me get a crotch rocket. Now, I'd saved up a decent amount of money, but not enough money to buy one for cash. And I used to go to the dealership all the time and look at them. And I was talking to the dealer one day and I said, what would it take for me to buy a crotch rocket? He said, all you need is your parents to co sign. Well, that's not going to happen because my parents said no. So little did they know that by saying no to the crotch rocket, they were actually teaching me skills that allowed me to become the man I am today. Being the curious human I am, I didn't accept no for an answer. I looked up, what does it take to get a loan? Well, takes credit. What does it take to get credit? Well, you have to open credit lines. How do you open a credit line when you're 18? You go to the one department store that will give anybody credit. Kohl's. I went to Kohl's and I opened up my first ever credit card. I'll never forget. The balance or the allotted spend on the credit card was $300. And again, wanting to know how to do it, I looked up how do you build credit? Well, you charge, pay it off. Charge, pay it off, charge, pay it off. Never have a balance month to month and just show that you are good at paying down your balance. So I did that for about six months. I got a lot of socks, I got a lot of shirts, a lot of backpacks. Never really got any shoes. Those didn't resonate with me at Kohl's, but I bought a lot of shit from Kohl's. And I just understood that by buying and paying off, buying and paying off, I was establishing my credit as a human. 18 years old. After six months, I looked up what is the easiest place to get a credit card. Turns out credit unions, especially the local ones, are the friendliest to borrowers. They want to do good for their community. They're all relationship based. And so I started building a relationship with the local credit union. It was called Kohler Credit Union in Wisconsin. And I went in and said, I want to open an account and I want to establish credit and here's what I want to do. And, and I built relationship. Well, fast forward three months after that I was able to get a loan from Kohler Credit Union to buy a crotch rocket. And of course I Didn't just go to the dealership and buy the crotch rocket. I wanted to make it as hard as I possibly could because I was looking for a deal. I went on ebay, found a lime green 2006 Yamaha R6 I'll never forget. Custom painted. That was in Oregon and I'm in Wisconsin. And so I got on Zoom with the seller. Terrible decision, but I got on Zoom with the seller. He started it up, showed me it ran. And I literally got a loan from Kohler Credit union, wired him the money, coordinated a truck to pick up my cross rocket from Oregon, drive it all the way to Wisconsin. All of this without my parents having any knowledge, any understanding. All of this because I was super, super curious from a very young age to find the way or make the way to achieve whatever I desired. And I asked questions and I learned, and I asked questions and I learned. And curiosity has opened up more doors for me in my life than anything else. Even if I look at the longhorn industry, curiosity is what has ultimately taught me more in a one year span than most people will learn in 10 years. Inside of the longhorn industry, curiosity has led to me building a partnership with, with a guy who's been breeding and selling Longhorns for 15 years. And that partnership has now become a friendship. All because I was super curious the entire time. So when I look back on my life, one of my superpowers that's put me in the position I'm in today is curiosity. And the other thing I recognize is that curiosity is what's going to help me get to where I want to go. The second superpower that I identify with is pattern spotting. And I take this all the way back to when I was young. I was the goalie on the soccer team. Yeah, five, six. I was probably five, four and a half, maybe five' five. In high school. Usually the shortest person on the soccer team doesn't play goalie. But in my situation, my dad played goalie. And so growing up as a little kid, I used to go to the games and watch my dad play goalie. He was short too, but he still played goalie. And so all I wanted to do was be like my dad, my hero. And so I wanted to play goalie. But what that required me to do is it would. It required me to be better at all the things inside of the position of playing goalie besides height, because I never could figure out how to grow. But I had to be better than everybody else at everything else. And the one thing that I focused on was Pattern spotting. If I knew where a person had a tendency to shoot the ball or how their hips were pointed meant they were shooting to the right or to the left, I could move just a little bit quicker, I could move my feet just a little bit faster, and that would make up for my lack of height. And I used to have to read the game. You stand in the goal the entire game and wait for the game to come to you. You could go 30 minutes without even touching the soccer ball. But you have to be in the game. And so I made the game a game for me by always trying to recognize patterns. Now, when you take that into business, when you take that into relationships, when you take that into life, I have a unique and uncanny ability to see patterns. I would almost say I have an ability to predict the future, but that's narcissistic and sort of delusional. But I do have the ability to see patterns. I can see things before most others can see them. And I think a lot of that ties back to growing up playing soccer. I was forced to see patterns before they became a reality for me. I was forced to know where the ball was going. I was forced to know where the shooter was shooting. I was forced to know during that penalty kick, when they put their foot this way or looked that way, what did they have a tendency of doing. And those patterns made it far easier for me to act sooner, which meant that I saved a lot more shots. And in life, those patterns, that pattern recognition allows me to get in a much better position. I mean, Wayne Gretzky said it best. Skate to where the puck is going, not to where the puck is. And that's how I live my life. I try to identify what patterns, what things are happening inside the businesses I run, the businesses I own, the things I'm working on inside of my family dynamic, inside of the herd here at the ranch. And how can I take those patterns and use them to make decisions today, in this moment that most others would not be able to because they don't see or identify the pattern? So. So number two, for me, it's all about patterns. And when you really think about it, life is nothing more than a series of patterns. Days are nothing more than a series of patterns. Our habits are nothing more than a series of patterns. When you get up every single morning, what's the first thing you do? 99% of the world, first thing they do is hit snooze. That's a pattern. That's a habit. The second thing they do, look at their damn Phone. Third thing they do, go to the bathroom. Fourth thing they do, maybe brush their teeth. Fifth thing they do, probably look at their phone some more, maybe make some coffee. They don't make their bed. They don't get their workout in. And those patterns, when you look at them will tell you how that human's going to show up in the workplace, will tell you what that human's life is going to look like five years from now. Patterns predict the future. And I believe I have an uncanny ability to see and recognize patterns and then take action because of them. The third superpower for me, man, it's all about people. I think this goes back to the country club. I used to work at a country club in high school, and again, it wasn't glamorous. We worked in the shoe room, basically just cleaning golf shoes and shining dress shoes, making sure the towels were folded and on the shelf for guys that were taking showers, making sure the spray sunscreen was out. Because God forbid, if a guy had to use normal sunscreen instead of the spray sunscreen, they'd be pissed. Now, if you know what we know today, back then they would have all recognized that actually the aerosol in the spray sunscreen is the worst thing for you. And probably all of them have cancer. But nonetheless. I worked in the locker room cleaning shoes at a country club in high school. And one of the guys there gave me a lesson that I've taken with me the rest of my life. He said, there's a million ways to make a million dollars. Now, I never would have gotten that lesson if it weren't for me. Understanding the power of connecting with humans. You sit in this locker room, we have this little pass through window where the guys set their shoes on. And literally, you are the help serving the guys who are members at the country club. But the difference is, if you can find a way to build a relationship, if you can find a way to build connection with them, they hold the keys very often to our future. Whether that's jobs. I got a job from one of those guys. Whether that's opportunities, I got many opportunities from those guys or whether that's knowledge. And I got a ton of knowledge from those guys. And I understood from working at the country club what it was like to connect with humans, but also what it was like to see and understand what they truly want or need. Again, going back to the patterns. But I believe I have an unfair advantage of seeing past people's words and into their hearts and their minds. What do they truly want? What are they truly Saying, how can I listen? How can I be present? And how can I ask questions such that I can disarm them, engage them in a meaningful conversation, and then use question again to help them come to self realization or self actualization. If you look at any business, if you look at any successful person, all of them are very good with people. Now some of them are introverts like myself. I'm introverted. And so on one hand I'm telling you I'm good with people, but on the other hand I'm telling you I'd much rather sit in my room and not talk to people. But here's the thing. For me, I recognize it's a superpower because when I need it, I have the ability to turn it on. And I need it oftentimes. Speaking at gobundance events, speaking on stages for other people, hosting a podcast, getting on social media, connecting with friends and family. Like, I understand that all of us as humans, at our true core, we just want connection. And connection is not possible without people interacting with people. Regardless of what you think about AI, regardless about what you think about video games, connection is people connecting with people. And if you find the way to connect with people and serve them, they in turn will serve you in ways you could never imagine. So for me, one of my superpowers, and Corey said it best before, is people. I just have a way of seeing and connecting with people now. Something I'm working on. Let me be vulnerable for a second here. Something I'm working on is allowing people to connect with me. I'm very good at connecting with them, but the second they start to come to me, the second they try to open my door, man, I slide that deadbolt as hard as I can. I put the do not disturb sign on the door and I just kind of shut down. And I recognize that that is a limitation or weakness that I have is, hey, it's great to be able to connect with people, but do I allow others to connect with me? And that's something I'm working on right now because again, I recognize that being able to connect with people is what humans at our true core want and desire. My fourth one for me is I have an incredible skill, an incredible gift, an incredible talent of both the visionary and the executor. Many people have heard of this thing called eos, the entrepreneurial operating system. Now, I'm not a huge fan of eos, but the book Rocket Fuel is a great book to read. And really what the book talks about is in business, there's A visionary, and there's an integrator. There's a person who says, that's the mountain we're going to go take. And then there's a person who says, here's the plan for how we are going to go take that mountain. Most often for most people, they are one or the other. I've been incredibly blessed and incredibly fortunate that through my time with Pat Hybe and then David Osborne still, with David Osborne now leading gobundance, I have had to do both. At First, I was 100% an executor. I was 100% a doer. I was 100% a driver. I wasn't the dreamer. I was the one in the weeds doing the work. And still to this day, I actually probably more enjoy doing the work. Like, I have a OCD sort of tendency sometimes with the work. And if you looked at my notebook or my journal or my. My cattle log, you would understand that I have some OCD tendencies around tracking and doing the work. But from working with David Osborne, from working with Pat Hyman at a very young age, I was forced to become a very good executor. They were incredible visionaries. I mean, David is probably one of the best visionaries I have ever had the privilege of being around. He has an unbelievable ability to say, that's the mountain we're going to take. See you later and move on. And so I was left there by myself going, how do we do that? How do we get there? Again, I had to use my curiosity, had to use my ability to connect with people, had to also use my ability to spatter, to spot patterns. Because even though he said he wanted to take that mountain, did he really want to take that mountain, or does he want to go to that mountain once we get to this mountain? So I had to use my other strengths too, as well. But I think one of my unfair advantages is I've been in the driver's seat a lot of time in my life. Now a lot of you will hear that and say, oh, that means you're the visionary. No, no, no. The driver is the person that's driving the car. The dreamer is the person sitting in the back with their feet up, working on their laptop, saying, I want to go to X, Y and Z location. I was forced to be that driver. I was forced to get in the weeds and do the work. And then I received the opportunity to become the dreamer. I received the opportunity to become the visionary. Now, I was always working on my vision because again, as a driver, I was forced to think a little bit about vision. But vision, I think for most people is something that comes over time. Like there's a confidence that is needed to have a big, powerful, compelling vision not only for your life, but for your business. And when you try to get others to come along with you on that dream, like you better be confident as hell when you communicate to them because if you're not, they'll smell out the very, very, very quickly. You have to have a belief inside of you that you are going to take that mountain no matter what. You will find the way or make the way. Like that's your mountain, that's your hill. You are going to charge it. And when you can clearly articulate and communicate to your people where you're going, they'll follow you through hell or high water, they'll follow you through a brick wall. It won't matter. And so for me, I've had to sit in both of those seats. I've had to sit in the driver's seat doing the day to day tasks, managing the emails, doing the spreadsheets, handling the paperwork. And then I've also had to sit in the visionary seat and come up with the vision and tell the team where we're going and encourage them and inspire them and course correct along the way. So for me, when I read books like Rocket Fuel, I can tell you without a doubt that I am neither a visionary or an integrator. I'm actually both. And for me, I think that's a superpower because I have the ability to see where we need to go and then I have the ability to look back and say, okay, this is how we're going to get there and then communicate that to the team. Now if I take the time to communicate that clearly, that's a whole nother problem. That's a whole nother question. But I never said communication was one of my superpowers. So let's just stick to vision and doing dreaming and driving. I have this ability to do both. And for me that's a superpower. The last one for me is I'm a college dropout, don't have the credentials most people have on a Resume who are CEOs of organizations don't have the credentials most people have who are running family offices don't have the credentials most people have who have longhorn herd. I'm not that smart. However, because I'm not that smart, I have learned how to take really complex things and make them simple. Simple is how I can understand things. Simple is how I can Take action on things. And for me, simple is the only language that I speak. So whether we're talking about doing a 10 million dollar deal inside of David's family office, or we're talking about speaking in an event to 300 plus GoBundance members, or we're talking about how to breed this cow to that cow, all of them for most will seem and feel complex. And yes, there are a lot of complexities inside of that. But at the end of the day, the simpler I can make it, the easier I can understand. And so from my superpower perspective, taking complex things and making them simple is what has allowed me to get to where I am today. It's also what's going to allow me to get to where I'm trying to go. Most people get lost in the X's and the O's, the A's, the B's, the C's. For me it's all about, let's just keep it to one thing. Is it X's or is it O's, Is it A's or is it B's? How simple can we possibly make this? And I've had to build my own systems and processes over time to do that. Some people have done the same thing. Others, however, just like to deal with the complex because they recognize that even though they don't like dealing with the complex, the complex becomes an excuse for them to not take action. Let me give you a real life example. I manage five to seven different organizations at any given time, somewhere upwards of 50 people. I also have my own family, my own businesses, my own thing. So my plate is really full. And on a week to week basis, the to do list becomes really long. And most of those things I'm not personally doing, but I need to be aware of what's going on. And I remember two and a half years ago, my plate was really full and I was feeling overwhelmed. It was a Sunday and my wife and I were watching football and I thought to myself, I'm feeling overwhelmed managing this many businesses. How does the offensive coordinator feel managing hundreds of plays, hundreds of plays that are different in each situation? Is it third and short, third and long? Are they on their 20 or are they on the other 20? Are they winning or are they losing? Is there two minutes left in the quarter or five minutes left in the quarter with no timeouts, three times outs? Like there's so many situations. And so going back to my curiosity, I said I wonder how they keep track of it all. And so with a fast Google search, I recognized that offensive defensive coordinators in the NFL in college football, for the most part have what they call play calling sheets. And they show you templates online of a play calling sheet and it literally is like first and ten run, first and ten pass, third and short run, third and short pass, short time situations, long time situations, burn the clock situations. Like it gives you all these different situations and then under each one of those categories there's a certain number of plays that they know are good for those situations. I literally took that template and made my own play calling sheet for how I run and manage businesses. And if you want that play calling sheet, all you got to do is email me Matt rkgroup co and I'll send you that template and you can put whatever businesses, whatever opportunities, whatever jobs, whatever you've got going on in your life, you can put it into that template. It's just in Excel, it's super simple. But I started building a play calling sheet from a week to week perspective of the play call plays I was calling inside of each of the businesses and opportunities that I was running to take the complex, which is all these businesses, all these peoples, all these visions, all these investments, all these opportunities and put them on one piece of paper and say, here are the five most important things that need to happen in each one of these businesses this week to move the ball closer to where we're trying to go. If you can identify how to take something complex and make it simple, that also means you can identify what is the first thing you need to do in order to start getting you there. I mean, there's that famous saying, how do you eat? How do you eat an elephant? I think the real answer is you don't eat elephant. But most people will say one bite at a time. So how do you take something complex and get it done one task at a time? Well, how do you figure out what the right task is? Take the complex, make it simple, and build yourself a blueprint and a plan for how you're going to get there. So when you think about your superpower, most people will say something along the lines of I don't know or I don't have a superpower, or my superpower is being able to play video games. Like whatever you think your superpower is, my question to you would be what situations have happened in your life and what track record of success inside of your own life can you look back on and identify what your superpower is? And then how, once you recognize that and become aware of it, can you continue to lean into that superpower day in and day out to stack the odds in your favor. At the end of the day, every single one of us has superpowers. For some of us, it's three. For some of us, it's five. For some of us, it'S 55. Whatever your number is, how can you make sure that regardless of what you're doing, the simple or the complex, connecting with people or spotting patterns, trying to be curious, are trying to figure out if you're a visionary integrator, how can you make sure that you are aligning your opportunities, your life, and your day to day with your superpower? And the thing is, most people, once they recognize that superpower, or like others, call it their zone of genius, they feel exponentially happier day in and day out doing that. I talked to a doctor recently, and I asked him that question, what is your superpower? And he said, it's serving people. I was like, wow, it's serving people. So then why are you in the or? It's like, because I don't enjoy the or as much as I enjoy the pre consult before the operation and the post consult after the operation. I want to really understand that person, what injury they have, what problems that's causing inside their life. Then we go into the or. I solve it for them, and then I follow up with them after the fact, and I make sure that I spend enough time with them. And he also said the number one thing he hates about medicine right now is become an assembly line. How fast can you get patients in your office? How fast can you get them out? He's like, I have no desire to see 200 patients a day. I have no desire to see 50 patients a day. He's like, if I can see 20 patients a day and spend intentional time connecting with them, I'm inside my superpower. I'm inside my zone of genius. And guess what happens when he does that? He's happy, he's fulfilled, and therefore his business is very successful as well. Whatever your superpower is, we all have one. Identify it. Write it down. Ask your spouse. Ask your mom. Ask your dad. Ask your children. Ask friends. Use them to help you identify it. Identify it and lean into it, Embrace it, recognize it, celebrate it. Because your superpower will open doors exponentially faster than anything else in your life. And whether it's connecting with people, whether it's remaining curious, whether it's being a visionary or being an integrator, or taking really complex things and making them simple, if you use that superpower day in and day out, you can stop hitting snooze. You can stop looking at your phone. You can stop waking up miserable to go to the office again. Because you will be in your zone of genius. Everything will be easy. You will feel exponentially happier. And any problem that's thrown at you, you will look at it through the lens of how do I align this with my superpower? Manipulate it so that I can use my superpowers to solve it or achieve it and therefore achieve the life I desire. Total rant today. But I just wanted to really dive deep into the superpowers because I've been thinking a lot about what am I better at than most? And my first answer would always be resourcefulness. I mean, I've solved some of the craziest problems you could ever imagine. Whether it's back in the day when I first started working for David, he called me one time and he said, hey, we're going on a family trip and we want a hotel room with two king beds. I don't know about y', all, but I have very, very, very, very rarely said differently. I have never seen a hotel room with two king beds. It's either one king or two queens. Like, they don't make rooms with two king beds. @ least that I'm aware of. But I solved that problem. I called the hotel. What would it take to get a king bed moved into another room with a king bed? This is what the family wants. Can we pay extra? Do we need to pay for two rooms? How can we make this happen? And when he got there, two king beds inside of his room. So for me, as I sit in this moment saying, okay, great, I'm really resourceful, that's powerful. But let's go a little bit deeper. Let's be a little bit more curious on that. Like, what else is it? What is it that makes me very resourceful? What is it that gives me the ability to solve any problem that's thrown at me? Whether it's people, whether it's business, whether it's cattle, whether it's land, whether it's children. Like, what gives me that ability? And as I sat there and journaled on it, I thought about that. It's my superpowers. It's these five things. If I look at anything that I've been successful at in my life, it all boils back to these five things. Whether it's hiking 29029 or running a multi million dollar organization, or investing tens of millions of dollars, the only way that I've been able to do the things I'm doing today is through these five superpowers. So I'll leave you this question. What's the one thing you can do today that will help you answer the question of what are my superpowers? And then the next question. When are you going to figure it.