Terry how you doing I'm doing well I'm balanced and I'm excited to talk to you today so am i I'm excited to talk to you you know we connected through a unique opportunity where we're doing a project for teachable and you immediately came in the room super warm and welcoming sat down to the interview and talked a lot of Brown mindset and for entrepreneurs for consultants coaches tell us how you got into the world of mindset and you coaching yeah it all stems from me being introduced to this psychologist his name's dr. Michael Gervais and he's a high-performance psychologist he also works with the CMC Hawks Microsoft other large organizations and over the course of eight weeks I took this online course with him called finding your best where you learn how to develop a vision for your life a personal philosophy how to learn meditation and mindfulness and I was just amazed at the fact obviously these things aren't new but it took me 40 years to be exposed to it and he makes a really good point in saying you know as humans we can only train three things we can train our body we could train our craft what we do for work and we can also train our mind but we spend a disproportionate amount of time training the first two and that nearly enough training the last one and that which is a turning point for me what I'm like well you know there are ways where you know I can teach myself to thrive even in the most challenging situations just by front-loading these these mental skills these mindset skills to be successful and once I was exposed to it and practiced it I someone to start teaching other people because the process should always be learn it live it teach it not learn it so try to profit off of it right so well as you begin to teach people like what was it for you like what clicked what changed for you they're like oh my gosh I've got to make this more available to more people so historically in my career I've been a consultant I worked internally Adobe I worked at Facebook and I taught people how to make money by selling online so normally ecommerce business like Warby Parker barkbox Guild companies like that and I then transition to teaching people how to do this independently as well as how to grow their own their own agency their own consulting business what I realized is I was giving them tactics and to be successful as an entrepreneur it's not just tactics its tactics and mindset right because I can say okay you need to learn how to protect your perfect your pitch but if you know the mindset to say okay let me stay in the game even when this sounds difficult right let me keep on testing this out even when you know I'm getting turned down so and so forth if you don't have that mindset where you just want to keep on growing and improving as opposed to getting frustrated and giving up it's not gonna work so it's not just tactics because my goal is to teach people these tactics but then in the moments when I'm not there how would they put their own twist on it and how would that manifested to help them get the results they're looking for yeah and would you say there's a certain step-by-step as far as like does mindset come first does tactics come first comes second or I mean what would you say as far as like that progression goes well whenever you're starting a business I think you have to be Purpose Driven and your purpose can be one of two things it can be like you see this need in the world that you want to address and solve for because you have some kind of intrinsic reward from doing so maybe you yourself had that problem before and you want to help other people resolve it but you just really are just connected to the mission of what you're doing another purpose can be hey I want to generate revenue on my own terms because I want to support my family or whatever lifestyle I want so you don't have to necessarily be mission driven like I'm so passionate about e-commerce dropshipping but maybe you are passionate about the lifestyle it affords you where you can work from home still be with your children still explore other hobbies and make a decent living right so it starts with that having some kind of purpose that you want to fulfill and then from there saying okay what are the skills I need to learn to do this because master anything there three things the first is understanding the tactics involved the other is following someone who's already done it before and can afford to take risks in that area because there still have a growth mindset and the last one yes is having that mindset saying okay I'm gonna I'm gonna last you out of this I'm gonna learn this way perfect it's gonna be this is my craft but I'm not gonna be so short-sighted that I get frustrated if it doesn't happen next week next month or next quarter yeah when it sounds like mindsets really the through line for these other pieces right like from tactics to you know all these practical steps we take so what would you say for you like as you've discovered this and actually taught this what have you developed into your own vision for your future yeah and this is something that I think everyone should actually write down not just kind of have in the back of their head but you're gonna think to yourself okay what does my ideal lifestyle look like both in regards to my work life as well as my personal life and Who am I surrounded by what am i doing in the weekends how do i generate revenue how am i seen by my peers and my people that I want to get in front of and on mine I thought okay well I enjoy sharing knowledge because I've taught for years in a university setting and for other private institutions and I like empowering people but I want to empower people to live life on their own terms so how does that associate with my vision well I want to empower my kids to do the same thing to explore whatever curiosity they have about the world and to deploy MP data P empathy to people to help them do the same but feel financially secure and that they can actually do these things because we have this solid foundation that I've established so I have to generate revenue to give my kids more or less the the freedom to explore their curiosity and to express that to other people as well because they've seen what happens when you expose yourself to other cultures or their surroundings so and so forth and they want others to do the same so a very family centric and it really sounds like legacy centric as well and you know I love I love hearing people's personal vision for success it's kind of how I see it and and you hit on something that I kind of chuckle that you talked about like no one wakes up saying like you know this whole ecommerce business is like you know that's my vision that lights me up but to me it like it I heard it through I'm sure remember if it was someone speaking about maybe his Tim Cook or Steve Jobs you know for Apple but how it's probably Steve Jobs right with starting Apple where the vision kind of came down to the simplicity of think different and so any kind of product or service initiative whatever they did if it fit within that vision of thinking differently it might that's that's the term right think different or is they believe so yeah yeah I don't want to butcher it but so like it's so interesting whether it's a big brand or someone starting now or maybe it's just a personal life vision outside of business itself usually when we set that vision right we can do things align with that and so it's like for someone who's got the e-commerce business you know that's not necessarily their vision but the products involved with it can be aligned to what they're building and so I find that super fascinating so for you right you know you've got this vision to empower your children and that generation also those who you serve and so anything you do day-to-day aligns to that from your your habits and your routines and and so I guess yeah speak more to like how do you feel like our actions need to align with our vision I would say this there's this really good book this by Gary Keller it's called the one thing and he has this process that's called goal-setting to the now and you think to yourself okay what's the most important thing I can do this quarter based on the goals I have for my business this month this week today this hour right now and in that moment if you're sayings is not the most important thing I can be doing right now you should be doing something else right so goal-setting to the now just an easy way to continually check to make sure you're doing the most important thing possible to grow your business now on my end since we're both all my kids are out of school right now because we're on lockdown I've been waking up at around 4:00 or 4:30 in the morning to get my most important work done stuff I have to have to critical skill - thinking skills to deploy to finish I do that in the morning before my kids wake up because otherwise it's a madhouse here so when you wake up at 4:30 in the morning it's not hard to say to yourself it's this the most important thing I should be doing right now so I would say that's one way of just forcing yourself in that situation to say look I have this compressed amount of time to get my work done maybe it's between 4:30 and 6:30 or maybe I can things back to quote-unquote normal it's between 9:00 and 11:00 a.m. but whatever has to get done I do right now I'm gonna shut off any kind of notifications any kind of distractions just lock in and get it done because then the rest of the day sure you can do admin stuff you can do you know any kind of like maybe one-on-one communication if that's part of your job as well but when you get those most important things done that are aligned with your vision you're setting yourself up for success long-term it's that I completely agree with that because I you know it's funny you mentioned the lockdown and you know we're we're recording this in May or end of April and you know when nobody knows what month it is don't worry ty I think we're all in the same boat it's like March and April quit by it's such a slow pace but uh but you know I'm sure many people can relate this and but at least for myself you know I definitely quickly got out of alignment sort of speak with my personal vision my business vision when the lockdown kicked in I started eating all food in the house you know and when my routine got thrown off my habits got thrown off and realizing that if yeah we don't prioritize the most important things to happen first thing one day then they don't really happen and you know you find yourself sleeping in or you find yourself doing things that you know the productivity is I mean I think is not always the best word I would say but maybe more efficiently or something that's more aligned to what we should be doing that does help build the vision we have for our own features and and so I noticed you know like to me I know sleaze can recognize the difference when the habits and the routines are definitely out of alignment and out of whack so to speak so for those who do struck like maybe you know for myself as like a case study right for those who do fall of an alignment or start like fall off the horse a little bit from a mindset perspective what would you say to those who are looking to get back on the horse and to do things that are more in alignment I would say remember why you started this routine in the first place so on my end my routine in the morning is I wake up obviously and then I think of a few things I'm grateful for and then I also think okay what would be a really good accomplish it to make this day maybe it's completing something for work maybe it's doing something with my kids and then I just got a bed put my two feet down I'm like okay let's go right so that's that's part of it just that morning routine starting with my day with intent and that I normally once I get to work I meditate for about 10 minutes because I just dropped two or three of my kids off which drives me crazy and then I listen to this this daily coaching by this guy named Darren Hardy and then I plan my day and then I get at it right and for me that's the way I set myself up for success so during the lockdown I just realized I was just perked and I was just like always scrambling is because I got away from my routine so what I did is I just got back into it even if I am waking up at 4:30 in the morning I still went through my first 10 minutes 15 minutes of my previous routine to commit to that and then I would get at my day but in those moments when I was like well I'm actually a piece now I would say it's because you went back to your routine right so I'm making these mental bookmarks like the reason why you're productive today is because you did this then you've got a little workout just like you normally do when you're not working from home and this is the way it it resulted right so I just remind myself like don't forget how you feel right now you commit it to this routine that you want to do in the first place and here's how you feel so tomorrow when you feel like you want to like maybe you know you're too busy to be productive I like to say or efficient you're gonna say no because I remember how I felt on Wednesday and I want that feeling again so it's the best way to get back into it another thing is you can use an app just to track how many days that you actually commit to your routine so you can like just try not to break that chain I use one called a loop habit tracker it's a free app but actually quantify your commitment to these habits that you want to maintain and I want to go a bit deeper on that there's this really good book by Darren Hardy again it's called the compound effect and he says he talks about how doing these small things that are aligned with your vision consistently over time yield great results that's the power of the compound effects so if every day you read ten chapters of the book over the next two years you'll become so much more well-versed and become more successful right but the compound effect can also work against you and that's super important so if you follow these routines that you designed during better times that you are aligned with success you can have it work against you and you need to come out of this worse than than ever in this case so one thing that I realized is I was not learning enough during our this lockdown because I was so busy doing I mean I got a do stuff every day I gotta do it in this two hours I have and I realized I'm not learning enough so I have nothing new to give people talking to you I was recycling stuff from my three weeks ago right I hope you didn't hear that podcast because I go soon same thing right you know so it's like that's what's going on yeah and I was like what's the compound effect the compound effect of this is I get in a routine of just doing doing doing and not learning and as a result of that I can't express anything new to the people that I you know want to get in front of cuz I'm not learn anything new right I'm the same person or worse than I was going into this so that's another reason to commit to these routines that's so powerful and so in Sugie see compound to my mind went to like compound interest right and like it builds upon each other and and I also I mean totally made me think too about this idea of well you know obviously there's good habits bizarre there's also negative habits which you definitely implied around like if we allow that compound effect to take place imagine four bad habits that is like eating more and like that's just gonna like butt pile up right there there'll be exceptions like believe me like I probably maxed out on 4000 calories in a day when the you know the lock does first started but I think you know it's this idea of habits the routine is super fascinating to me and and for those who for those who can I guess quantify I mean for all of us can quantify certain habits in a simple way say like if you're gonna run a marathon you know you gotta hit certain like I got to do these this my last day these miles this day or you also mention like even we can talk about diets right things like that but as far as quantifying mindset transformation or growth there is there is there an easy way to like quantify our improvement of how we perceive or build the vision we have for ourselves and everything that's in our mind which is kind of you know that core piece that we we're talking about a little bit there are ways to quantify how you're building that that's skill so for example meditating for 10 times 10 minutes a day how many days in a row do you do that so you can say I'm committing to this this this this path that's aligned with where I want to be but what you'll see is in moments that may be used to in this case with meditation used to work you may be realized well I'm more calm than it was before oh it's because I've been meditating or if you get turned down for some kind of proposal you sent off you're like alright well what's the next most positive action that can take it's because you started employing these these these mindset skills so I'm sure there are tests you can take like how stressed are you want to scale to wonder whatever and you can say well I'm going down and you know that's another way to quantify it but it's really just this commitment to the path and even when you're meditating right here you can do what's called single point focus we're just focusing on one thing maybe it's breathing so in four seconds hold out six seconds and then hold at the bottom you're gonna get distracted right you're thinking about one thing or another but really the the skill that you're developing is just refocusing once you feel yourself get distracted it's bringing yourself back to that moment and catching yourself because it's almost like flexing a muscle so that's when you notice it in these moments like okay I'm getting better like I caught myself but you know I'll forgive myself as well or there's other things like I was my wife was we have an 18 month old son my wife was changing our son and for some reason she left like his clothes like in the area that she normally doesn't and I'm like knowing I'd be like why'd you put it here and I'm like oh she probably had a good reason for it you know so it's like you can start playing the role of public defender with people as opposed to being like why they do this so that's another mindset scale it's reframing instead of saying oh this person did the wrong thing you can just be curious like I wonder why they did that right and just that's the same thing happened right nothing changed but your perception of it did and that's all based on stoicism right so stole students based on saying okay here's what happened you know how do I react to it and these are also mindset skills that in this situation can save you from arguing with your wife right you know why are the ones he's over here over here but like it's those little things that you will notice tune in those moments you really gotta like wow you know I I would have read it differently a month ago but now I'm just you know playing this role public defender and trying to understand why this happens and they're being upset by it that's so powerful and and I definitely thought of so many examples and I'm sure those listening or watching will realize them too but what I guess what what I'm kind of thinking too is well how can you be self-aware enough at every single moment of the day to be ready for those moments that you know you've got the maybe call it the angel and the devil on your shoulder right like the two sides of you who want to act or react oh yeah but how can you exercise self awareness at every single moment to be ready yeah so you definitely can't do it in every single moment but I would say just like the desire to be present in the moment is what we should focus on so for me one thing I do whenever I feel my mind drifting let's say it's in a conversation or whatever it is I'll wiggle my toes just to remind myself like hey I'm right here I'm not five minutes from now I'm not yesterday I'm right here lock into this conversation so it's really just the desire to be present that's how you can say well Who am I when I'm present well you need to have a personal philosophy established in my purpose or my personal philosophy is to be purpose driven prepared and patient and if I'm present in the moment I'm like wait a second Who am I how do i express myself to the world I'm Purpose Driven prepared and patient so let me think for a second you know why is this onesie over here instead of over here let me take a step back and be patient and think about it instead of jumping to being upset and that's again like you need to have this personal philosophy these words that guide your actions and then lead toward the vision that you want to have for your life that's so powerful so speaking of the vision for your life and kind of stepping back into that person you were before you recognize the importance of mindset what would you tell yourself right before that epiphany happened that I needed invest my focus in the mindset and in these habits and routines yeah what would you tell yourself I think it has to go back a little bit further than that to my corporate career when I was at Adobe when I was at Facebook so on paper it looked like I was successful right I had the MBA and working at these companies and you know things looked well but I always felt like something was wrong I always wanted something more and I could look around it like even people that were above me and say I don't want your job or the job above yours or really anyone elses Geoff here like I'm like something doesn't seem right and I just thought I was ungrateful what relighted realized I was supposed to be an entrepreneur right I'm like if I want to have a thought I want to tinker around with it and see what happens and if it breaks fine but it's on me it doesn't they go through the committee to see if it's a good idea or not I want to vet things myself so that's one thing I just I wish I had known sooner or maybe had to go through that to get here but back to your original point the original question in regards to what I have told myself you know pre this mindset shift or this woke this whatever you want to call it I would have said you know it doesn't have to be this challenging right and I love challenging so it doesn't have to be this challenging or I would say this confusing to achieve the goals you want it's still gonna be challenging it's not gonna be hard but it can be much more clear because if you're more present each moment because you're just thinking right you're more thoughtful and we're mindful you will make actions that are aligned with your vision as opposed to feel like you suppose to be busy doing something all the time because if you're always doing something instead of just being present who you are that can lead to anxiety because you're like in this fight or flight syndrome right like I have to be doing something be honest did this have to be there no like yourself to focus on being who you are and then manifesting that in the work that you do so the doing comes from the being not you don't value or self-worth based on what you're doing that makes sense so I mean that's what I would tell myself but I mean now I'm like I don't regret like the years I spent not necessarily being aware of these things because now I can better communicate with people by saying oh I know what it's like you know like I've been there before too you feel like this here's some simple things you can do that'll make things even easier try that out for a week or so and let's talk some more so I would not have the empathy for the people that are maybe going through it right now if I didn't go through it myself and I think what you just said right there oh I know what you just said right there embodies the power that consultants and coaches have you know other visionaries who can then impart their vision and their their methodologies to others and it the idea that you've been through you've experienced that you have the story to share and that qualifies us I really think so and so so with that and this idea around mindset contributing to the vision we can build for ourselves what do you see as as what people need to take the first step in Dewey when it comes into investing in their mindset if you know like with all for example like with all these solutions out there there's so many like it can get overwhelming you can be constantly doing take the next course you're on the next thing how can you prioritize and focus on that next one thing I would start by just giving yourself the space to think about how you want to take that next step and by that I mean just meditation right so just sitting there for 10 minutes just you and your thoughts breathing or having some kind of single point focus like a mantra or going over but not doing anything except existing and just giving yourself that space right not like well how do I do mine situations like no let me just be myself and then from there you can say okay well I want to invest more Nitta both my vision you know what does that look like I'm gonna do some research on that I mean it takes some more and let that come out oh yeah that guy said something about having a personal philosophy I want that how do you develop that okay I'll do some research and build it out but I would try to be very intentional about it like you don't want to like say oh I'm gonna be by Friday you know it's like that's not something way to do about this it's it's being authentically yourself and however you want to pursue this path so yeah there are great courses like I said the one I took was called them finding your best by this company called compete to create I think it's a great course but you don't have to like walk away with all ten things they learn to say like okay I got it you know like a variety to that yeah yeah I'm certified right you could just take what you need and leave the rest behind and still be in a much better spot because III think about it even with my with my children like you know they're they're all under four years old and at times they're just going nuts but I said to myself no you said you're gonna be purpose-driven prepared and patient so were you prepared to not have them be bored right now if not be patient with them get something to do because you said your purpose was to give them this life where they can be curious they explore it so and so forth so it's like you hold yourself accountable to what you've documented before but you took time to come up with it right you didn't just read in a fortune cookie and say oh that's right so you're saying these are my values is what I believe in now am i living right now no ok we'll forgive yourself but then get back to what you said before that's so powerful and and and one thing that was really interesting too is I also feel like there's this idea that we we tend to mimic or in some ways copy what others have out there as far as like oh I like that person's like word for word vision statement or mission statement or the purpose that they're standing for like I want that so we sometimes just copy and paste you know how easy it is to copy and paste and I think that works for some initial first steps possibly right to kind of like that person seems like they did it right but but truly we requires I think further customization because we are are all different human beings right and so the ability to exist and be present in a way that aligns to our own personal values and vision requires us to let me curate from different sources you know from from a coach from courses from our time to meditate and so as far as ways to ways to impart this this wisdom say to your kids now all being under 4 and really kids at any age as they're growing up and needing to learn this importance of mindset and mindfulness what kind of direction would you provide to them even at a young age to help them do that yeah a few things one is with my daughter I have her practice and meditating even though she doesn't know she's meditating so what I'll do is show lie on her back and I'll put like our stuffed animal or on her belly and I'll say okay no breathe and eat me the meat the bunny go up now breathe out have it go down and I'll ever do that slowly for like two minutes and she thinks it's a game I'm like I keep playing but I'm teaching her how to focus even though she doesn't know it right so these are little things you could do even at young age and they're not gonna last more than two minutes you know it is what it is yeah that's one way to do it another is just reinforcing like who she is and who she stands for so she says a lot of times like oh do I look cute and I'll say like no you look sure you look cute but you also look strong and you look really smart you know so I'm like trying to say like these are some other you know ways to associate who you are as a person to the world instead of just saying I'm a cute 4 year old girl like no I'm strong and you know I'm also really smart so little things and as they get older you know we're progressed towards that you know other steps but just starting from now with intent and I I refer to it as raising your kids on purpose because I think for me with my parents like there's like whatever they like yeah yeah I mean is like the 80s right so with you know I think now like you know if you're aware you can say okay like these are some ways to reinforce positive things and even like when your kids are doing the wrong things like this technology like say hey I know you want to do this but that's not how we do it because of this right instead of saying knock it off right which is what my parents would have said yeah so little things like that I think you know you can you can start at a young age yeah well I love hearing that too because I feel like we're all young at some point in our journey as far as like where we need to start and I think pro Qing it like a child is often a good step if we're new to something particularly like if it's meditations it could be you know maybe we take one of her kids stuffed animals and allow ourselves to begin breathing and slowing down that way so I mean this has been really good Terry as as a wrap-up for those listening who are aspiring to build the future that they want for themselves what would you what would you tell those listening who need additional clarity beyond what you've already provided to to be confident and taking the next steps yes so there's like a gap between where you're currently at or what you're comfortable with and what you are capable of and the size of that gap is directly proportionate to what you're leaving on the table and their regret you're going to have about it going forward right so that's why you need to have a vision and goals so goals and visions are different goal could be to make $200,000 a year a vision is what is your lifestyle look like when you achieve that and when you have this vision you have these goals you'll be more willing to push through the challenges to get to that gap maybe it's the fear maybe it's like you're hesitant to learn these new skills because you know what's in it for you that's why it all has to start with having this vision and goals because that's going to encourage you to close that gap and we call that also a growth mindset but you have to say to yourself well what's in it for me this seems kind of hard oh it's that vision I have right so start there and if you want to achieve that vision more than you want to feel avoid that fear or those challenging times you will be successful however you define that mic drop that was so powerful Terry it's it's a pleasure I mean I love getting to know you more what you stand for the importance of family in your life you know the vision you have and all these things so many good nuggets so I just want to thank you thanks again for joining me and sharing your wisdom here on the show yeah this is been great preciate the time together

‍