B (3:12)

Yeah.

D (3:13)

Yeah.

B (3:13)

No, I love that there's a lot

C (3:14)

more to that, but yeah, of course.

D (3:15)

Yeah.

B (3:16)

We'll dive into a little bit more specifics here as we get. As we get a little bit further.

C (3:19)

But you could do that with anybody. Like, you could do that with an employee. You know, that. That is not, you know, doing something the way you want them to do. You know, you could even. I always talk about building the prospect into the identity of the person who becomes a buyer. Because a lot of salespeople are like, oh, I gotta qualify them. Well, most people are qualified for what you offer. Like, unless you're selling a $20 million solution to somebody that's homeless, it's not like they can't find the funding or funds if they really want to.

B (3:43)

Yeah.

C (3:44)

But right now, where they're currently spending that money is more of a priority in their mind compared to what you're offering. So how do I switch them from where they're currently spending the money to now? Your solution is. Number one priority, is I can build them into that identity of the person who actually becomes a buyer in their mind. So let's say, I mean an example of like it could even be an employee, you know, let's say that is doing something weird and I want to change their mindset. I might, I might say something like wow, you know, you're, you're so smart with what you just said there. Like you're, you know, your, your spouse like you know, or I could even do it like your department head. Like they're lucky to have somebody as dedicated as you are that is that forward thinking and can make those decisions themselves. Because I talk to a lot of people, a lot of employees in here and you'd be surprised how many of them they just don't really care about getting their work done. They just there to collect a check. You know what I mean? I mean for you like being that responsible, like caring for the company, wanting to expand it. Is this something you were born with or something you had to learn? So like you see what I'm doing there? I'm acknowledging like it sounds like when

E (4:43)

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C (5:13)

You're the type of person that's what forward thinking. If I have somebody that let's say gets on a sales call if you're and they're like oh well you know, I've tried this in the past and it never worked out well, what objection am I probably going to get at the end that your thing might be the same thing? It's not going to work out.

B (5:27)

It's a self belief. Objection.

C (5:28)

It's a self belief. So what am I going to do? I'm going to take that and be a positive. Wow. It sounds like you're the type of person that never gives up. So see how I'm reframing it now? It's not a negative thing because they're there with you so they don't give up. Well, it sounds like you're the type of person that never gives up. And you're, you know, you're to say it's a consumer, your spouse, you know, she's lucky to have a provider like you that is that responsible and knows they have to make the hard decisions himself for the family. Because I talk to a lot of people and you'd be surprised how, how so many people let some negative experience from like some bad product or service like completely stop them from getting what they want. You know what I mean? I mean is that something you've have always been like had that capability to be like that from birth or is that something you had to learn?

B (6:12)

Yeah.

C (6:13)

So I'm going positive identity sounds like you're the type person that never gives up. And let's say I'm talking to a guy you know, sounds like you're, you know, you know, your spouse, she's lucky to have a provider. Like you said, the ego provide like you that is that responsible and knows they have to make the hard decisions himself. So what am I, you know, trying to prevent the spouse. Objection. Knows they have to make the hard decisions himself. Nobody's going to disagree with that label. You're like, yeah that's me. Even if they're not like that, that's me. Right. And then notice how I go into negative identity. I talk to a lot of people and you'd be surprised how many of them they just let some negative experience. Let's say if it's you're selling coaching service like you know, negative coach or some bad coaching experience by someone's qualified like completely prevent them from ever following their dreams, they don't want to be associated with that person. Right. And then I reinforce the frame and I say, I mean for you being that forward thinking where you never give up, is that something you're born with or something you had to learn? Whatever they say there, I've always been that way or something I had to learn. Now they're starting to buy into the new identity. See what I'm doing.

D (7:17)

Yeah, yeah.

B (7:17)

It's almost like we could all use a version of Jeremy as an AI.

C (7:21)

Hey, hey, that would not a bad idea.

B (7:23)

Maybe coach us through this.

C (7:25)

So many things you could do. Like you could do that with your spouse, you could do that with, you know, you could do that with your child. You could do like you can build people, you can, I would like I said, I always say build the prospect into the identity. But then I started telling people in departments like you can build your, the people that work underneath you into the version of themselves that they're not there. Like you can build them into the identity of the person who is a great employee, who's a, who's a great decision maker, which is your Job? Yeah.

B (7:52)

As the leader.

C (7:52)

Yeah. So many companies, you know, it's, it's interesting because whenever I hear somebody say like, oh, they're just not a good fit for our culture, I was like, well, welcome to big business. Because, you know, one of the, you know, a couple companies I worked for, we'd had thousands of employees. It's like, there's going to be some people that aren't going to fit the culture. This is not like a, a five person rock band. You know, like you start getting 100 employees plus, like there's going to be some people that don't fit the culture. So how do you build them into that inner the person who does fit the culture? Let's talk about that.

D (8:20)

And you know, it's just words and questions that can reframe that. I remember when I started Soar AI Studio about seven years ago, eight years ago, I had an early partner who invested a little bit and she heard me complaining about pitching investors all the time. I think I said something like, oh, I hate, I've got five investor pitches today. I'm just so tired of doing this. And she worked at Covey Leadership for many years and she said, paul, if you say that you will believe that you will change your words and change your reality. So I started saying, I love investor meetings, I love investor pitches. I've now raised $15 million from over 2,300 investors in the last seven years.

B (8:58)

Wow.

D (8:59)

I literally love every invest or meeting I do. I just had to say I'm going to love it. And now I actually do. Because every investor I talk to has money, the ability to make a decision. They have an incredible life story. How did they get to where they are? And I love to meet them and I love to see if the thing we're building resonates with them. And it's not always a hit. Sometimes it's 20% hit rate or 15% hit rate. But I love meeting these people. And now I'm not sure we're friends yet after one meeting.

C (9:30)

He's the judge of that.

D (9:31)

Yeah. No, but it's so cool because people are awesome. And just the chance to sell to someone or to raise money from someone is a chance to meet another amazing human being.

B (9:40)

Yeah. And you never know where that connection's going to go.

D (9:42)

Exactly.

F (9:43)

You know what I mean?

B (9:43)

It's the opportunity, the opportunity tree that just spawned out of nothing from the chance happening of meeting with somebody. You never know where it's going to end up.

C (9:53)

So true.

B (9:53)

Tell me more about Soar. Yeah. Where did that come from?

D (9:56)

So soar is actually an aspirational phrase from a psychologist in the 20th century that I consider the greatest psychologist of all time, Dr. Donald O. Clifton. In 1952, after coming back from the war where he'd been a bomber, a navigation airman on a bunch of bombing raids over Europe, he wanted to do something good for the world, so he studied psychology. And he noticed in the 40s and 50s that almost every book on psychology was about what's wrong with people. And he actually asked one question in 1952, and then he played it out for 51 years. What would happen if we studied what's right with people instead of what's wrong with people? So just like my dad classified all materials and all parts and processes that could be used to take raw material and turn it into really valuable finished goods. Don Clifton built the largest taxonomy in history of human talent and human potential and the pathway to help people become excellent at something. So for 51 years, that's what he obsessed on. So his first book in 1992 was called Soar with your strengths. So my kind of life goal is to take his work, which 35 million people have discovered their top five cliftonstrengths. But my goal is to help a billion people learn their strengths and live their strengths every day and use it as an operating system to guide their life. So AI will play a key role in that, helping you remember what your talents are, what path would be good for you, what could you be successful at? What experts are there that could help unlock your talent? Yeah. And then that feedback loop that you need to get better and better. Don Clifton actually wanted every human to know what excellence felt like.

C (11:32)

Yeah.

D (11:33)

And he thought everyone had enough talent if they worked at it, that they could become better at something than 10,000 other people.

C (11:40)

So many people just go to work and do something they don't even like. Exactly. They just. I don't think they really understand the direction of where they should go. They don't. They don't have. They just don't have the knowledge. Well, honestly, kind of go through the motions. They're part of the system. They're just part of the system.

D (11:56)

Honestly, the word talent is a big problem in our world today. If you're in K through 12, what is talent to a high schooler?

B (12:02)

Yeah. Something academic or it could be athletic.

D (12:05)

It could be performance art, music. Most people don't think they have any talent.

B (12:10)

Yeah, right.

C (12:11)

Okay.

D (12:12)

Guess what my number two talent is, according to Dr. Don Clifton.

B (12:15)

What's that?

D (12:15)

Input. Have you ever heard of the talent of input, Travis?

B (12:19)

I have not.

D (12:19)

Do you know what people with input do? They're wired to collect things and dispense things. Input, output. And so all my life work of gathering books, gathering data, gathering knowledge and expertise, it became because of my input. But nobody in 9th grade or 12th grade or college says, Paul, you have input, you should do something.

C (12:39)

Focus on your.

B (12:39)

I've noticed an extraordinary talent for your input.

D (12:42)

Yeah, some people collect recipes and they're a resource to all their friends. Like somebody has input for recipes. But there's 34 Clifton strengths and most people would look at those words and say, I never thought of that as a talent before. So Don Clifton saw human potential like no one else. And soar. AI Studio wants to build a series of companies to help people unlock that potential and that talent in every area of life that matters.

B (13:09)

I see. Okay, so you're raising money, you're raising capital for investing into those companies, into the portfolio companies.

D (13:15)

So like Citizen Portal, AI is transcribing every public meeting in the United States and turning it into a news engine and a social network for self government. So we hope to have tens of millions of people joining Citizen Portal someday.

F (13:29)

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