“Life doesn’t happen to me anymore, I go out and happen to life.”
Our guest learned that the hard way after realizing that communicating with humans is not logical, it is biological.Leadership and communication expert, John Bates has a methodology and training that is based in the evolutionary biology and neurophysiology of human communication, connection and interaction.
It not only makes you a far better speaker and presenter, it makes you far more effective everywhere in your life including with your bookkeeping business.
During this interview, you'll discover...
How to create automatic influence using the power of Neurobiology
How to 10x your sales and profits through human biology and connection
Different ways to connect with any audience, anywhere and at anytime
To learn more about John, visit here.
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For his LinkedIn, go here.
For his Twitter page, discover here.
For his YouTube videos, click this link.
Michael Palmer: 01:22 Welcome back to The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. I'm your host, Michael Palmer, and today's show is going to be an awesome one. Our guest is a leadership and communications expert. I heard him speak at the profit con conference in 2018. His talk was titled Automatic Influence, the power of neuro biology. John Bates, welcome to the podcast.
John Bates: 01:43 Thank you. Great to be here, Michael.
MP: 01:46 Well, it's great to have you. And as I mentioned, seeing you speak at prophet con was absolutely awesome. Your, your style of speaking and as well, the content is just, you make it so accessible and I think your story is, is, is just incredibly inspiring. And so, so thank you so much for speaking. So generous. You know, you've traveled, you're traveling all over the world, sharing your message, and yet you've, you've given us your time to come and share your story here.
JB: 02:13 Well, it's, you know, you're very, very welcome and, uh, and I'm happy to do it. I, I, uh, I also appreciate the opportunity. I know your audience. You know, I know who's listening to this from what you've told me. And you know, they're up to big things in their lives. They've got people that depend on them, they make a difference for people. And I'm happy if I can say something that will help them in what they're up to and, and make their lives better. So just glad to be here.
MP: 02:42 Beautiful. Well that a, that response does not come at a surprise. Uh, very generous. Yes. So, John, before we get into digging deep into what you do for a living and how you help people, let's have you share your story leading up to this point, how you became John Bates of today.
JB: 03:00 Okay. Well, you know, Michael, probably, uh, probably the most useful version of how I got to where I am is just a little story about how I've always been the guy who had the soft skills and I was always envious of people who had the hard skills, the people with the finance backgrounds and the people with the engineering and that, you know, the doctors and all that kind of stuff. The engineers and I worked with a lot of those people cause I was always an early stage employee or a cofounder at Internet companies. So I was, you know, always on the Internet for my adult life career. Uh, starting in 94 and worked with those people. But I was always kind of jealous of them at the same time and I felt like they were just, you know, they were more valuable than I was because they got paid more, they had more education, everything. JB: 03:51 And I went around thinking that what I did was less valuable and it was just kind of awkward. And then in 2009, I went to the Ted Conference for the first time and I remember sitting in the audience just being floored by the power of one person with a very well articulated, very well delivered, very singular message person after person after person. That just was an amazing experience. And you know, I'd always been a public speaker because I was always the evangelists so to speak, for the different companies I worked for. And as I sat in the audience, it dawned on me that yeah, I was a public speaker but I have not been doing that. And I got very interested in what was special about Ted talks. And I came back from that, got involved in the Ted community, got involved in the Tedx community, was volunteering at Tedx Santa Monica.
JB: 04:45 And we had a guy come speak who had all the hard skills in the world and he had a very interesting topic. So I was really interested to hear his talk. But when he got up on stage and started to speak, he was so nervous and awkward that everybody in the audience, including me, felt like we were going to throw up because he was so nervous and it was just a terrible experience. And so of course, part of me was, was really just disappointed cause I, it could have been so good and yet it just wasn't. And then the evil part of me was sitting in the back going, ha ha ha ha. Laughing at this guy. You know, cause he had the hard skills and he couldn't do it. And uh, thank heavens for my friend Michael Weiss, you know, guy by the same name, same first name as you.
JB: 05:34 Uh, he came over and he leaned down and he said, John, we got to do something to help people like this. And it really struck me in that mother. That was a light bulb moment, man. I, I realized that if I just got over myself and I stopped honoring the chip on my shoulder and I started honoring the people around me, I could make a difference for someone like that. So I went home and I started working on what I now get to deliver all over the world. It turned out to be a really good approach, purely by accident, but really, you know, good, good idea. Anyway, I based everything I did in human evolutionary biology and human neurophysiology, so I could show people not only, you know, not only people with the hard skills. Turns out everybody wants to know. So I could show people not just what works with, when it comes to communicating with human beings, but why it works based in science.
JB: 06:27 And that makes an enormous difference, especially for people with the hard skills who come from a very logical background and like processes and like to understand why they're doing something. When I give people like that, the principles that I share, they go off and do the most amazing things with it. And you know, before you, I could never get an engineer to tell a story, but once an engineer understands the biology, they're happy to tell the story because they get, it works. You know, I like to say communicating with human beings is not logical. It's biological. And once you understand the biology, you can make it logical again. But if you go in thinking logic by itself is gonna win, you'll just always lose to the person with the logic plus that extra something. So that's, that was that, yeah, kind of what you meant.
MP: 07:20 Yeah. I mean it's the, it's so interesting and a such a, a different approach to influencing people. I mean you're, you're talking about the Ted conferences and, and people, you know, getting there that opportunity to share in 15 to 18 minutes, you know, the whole, their whole life really, which in itself is an art form, but now you're, you're bringing science and I am hard facts to the, to that conversation that's now making it a difference for people to connect and influence other people. Now, this has implications every single day for all of us and especially our listeners who are dealing with many different clients, both sides, right? You've got they, they're dealing with people in the government and the tax department, they're dealing with their, their clients. They're dealing with a software companies like influencing people's extremely important and you're talking about something that every single human being can pay attention to, which is what is the biology doing that's helping us connect with people?
JB: 08:21 Absolutely. You're absolutely right. Yeah.
MP: 08:24 And so what this is now launched, hold a little bit about how your impacting business owners, how do you actually help them harness the power of this biology and start using it in their, and their talks and their, and their connecting with other people?
JB: 08:39 Well, you know, Michael, I'll tell you, uh, just to start out, the end results of this are fabulous. I had a woman that I worked with, there's a woman that I worked with for Michigan State University, School of human. They do an event every year called MSU r x and it's a four, you know, all the supporters of the school of human medicine and the graduates and things like that. And they have speakers and I always work with them to train their speakers and get their talks to be just really great in that very powerful Ted format. They get, some are between 10 and you know, even sometimes eight to 18 minutes. And uh, this woman works on Childhood Neuroblastoma, a really horrible cancer. And she worked with me for her speech for her ted, like speech at this Michigan State University event. And then she went on to 10 x her fundraising for her institute to do her research because the things that she learned about human biology and connection and influence just from doing that Ted like talk with me, made her that much more effective also in her fundraising.
JB: 09:59 So if 10 x in your fundraising or 10 x in your sales sounds good, then this is definitely stuff to pay attention to and think about. And you know, I've had a lot of other instances like that where the coaching that I brought turned around companies that were raising money, they had been out, they had tried everything, they were ready to throw in the towel, they worked with me, went out one more time and got their investment, got all they were looking for and more or got acquired by one of them by dreamworks, you know, that kind of stuff. So, you know, fascinated. It's it, you know, and it's really powerful and it, and it really does work. So, you know, that's why I would say up front some of the success stories because it's not what everybody's thinking about. And it's certainly not the way that we generally get taught to do speaking in business. So I guess I could give you a couple of examples if you, if you want them at some of the, okay. So let's see. W I mean, did anything stand out for you from, uh, from what you remember that you'd like me to start with? Or should I just pick something?
MP: 11:07 Well, I, I think there's a couple of things that stood out for me. You said, uh, there was, you have a couple of ways to connect with audiences, right? Any, anywhere, anytime, which I think is definitely would be interesting to tackle. But one of my favorite quotes from your talk was live in the listening of the people who you, who love you. You are not who you think you are. You are who the people who love you think you are.
JB: 11:35 Wow. Michael, I'm so glad you, you got that just right. I'm so happy that landed for you. I can't even tell you. So can I expand that a little bit? Please do. So this is from that moment in my life where I was at my absolute bottom. I mean, it was one of the absolute, probably the lowest point in my life. I had been an entrepreneur for years. I had gotten to be a part of this company called big words.com. I was one of the four initial co-founders. I was the guy that everybody knew. I was out there in the public a lot and then we raised $80 million. We won all kinds of awards for doing a lot of things really well. But then when the market turned around, our investors told us they didn't think we would be profitable fast enough and they pulled the plug on us after investing $80 million in us.
JB: 12:30 And I just went in a corner and cried. I was so angry and hurt and upset and ashamed and embarrassed and I felt so terrible for all the people that we had, you know, that we didn't end up paying their last paycheck because the whole thing just went like to a screeching halt, you know? And I got kicked out on the sidewalk just like everybody else. And that was just one of the worst experiences of my life. And not long after that I had a really horrible autoimmune disease come on called Steven's Johnson Syndrome. I would just recommend people go look it up because it's very rare, but it kills people a lot because people don't know what it is. Uh, and it's a systemic autoimmune allergic reaction, which is, you know, me attacking my own body with my own immune system. Right. And I almost died of that.
JB: 13:22 I was, you know, in a really, I was recovering from that. I had to sleep 12 hours at night at least. I didn't think life was ever going to be okay again. I thought I was a loser. I mean, I was just in the lowest of low places and I was talking to my coach and she's one of the top leadership coaches anywhere in the world and she's retired now. Her name's Candace, and she caught wind of where I was, you know, and it was pretty obvious that I was down and she said, okay, wait, wait, wait, John, wait, wait, wait. I mean, um, and for people that are listening, this is some of the most profound coaching I've ever gotten in my life. And if you take this on, it will change your life forever for the better. And I just couldn't recommend anything more highly.
JB: 14:09 So she said, John, and you know, wherever you are, Michael, you, you obviously heard something for yourself in this. So whatever the specifics are replaced them with your own specifics. But she said, John, you know, when you go down that tunnel of I'm not good enough and I'm a loser and I'm never going to be okay. And, uh, you know, beating yourself up and being super hard on yourself and all that stuff, that whole world of stuff that you're doing when you go down that tunnel, I just want you to know there is no light at the end of that tunnel. There's nothing worthwhile in that at all. So what I want you to do is promise me, John, that when you go into that tunnel, the minute you notice you're in that tunnel, I want you to promise me whether it's been a day, a week, a month, it doesn't matter.
JB: 15:08 But the minute you notice you're in that tunnel, I just want you to back out. Promise me you'll back out. And I said, okay, Candace, I promise all back out. And she said, here's what I want you to do instead. I want you to live in the listening of the people who love you because who you are is not who you think you are, who you really are, is who they think you are, because that's how you show up in the world. And you know, it made me cry. I just, I mean, it's gonna make me cry right now. I it, it, it was such a beautiful way to see myself, you know, to take a minute and look at myself through the eyes of the people that I know genuinely deeply loved me. Like they light up when I walk in the room, you know?
JB: 15:58 And there are those people in your life too, and that's who you really are, is who they think you are. And to let that in and to just on those days when I couldn't, you know, couldn't really get out of bed for myself. I got out of bed for those people and when I wanted to beat myself up, I stopped because they love me so much. I wouldn't want to treat someone they love that way, including myself. And what became really clear to me, Michael, that got me through the toughest days was that I want to be a safe space for people. It's really important to me to be able to be a truly safe space for people that I love, that I care about. And I couldn't do that if I was not a safe space for myself. So on those days when I was driving down that tunnel and it felt really comforting, like, you know, really nasty, not healthy, but super tasty comfort food.
JB: 16:55 The way that I got myself to back out was to think about that. You know, like I'm going to do this to myself. Then no one around me is going to feel safe until I stop beating myself up like this. So you know, that was a profound moment in my life. And if anyone listening is suffering from an autoimmune disease, I know it's real. I mean, I almost died and that was not, that was not in my mind. But where that came from I believe was in my mind. I think that an autoimmune disease by its nature is me beating up on myself with my own immune system. It's me attacking myself with my own immune system. And when that dawned on me and I started meditating and forgiving myself and living in the listening of the people who love me and backing out when I was in that tunnel of I'm not good enough or I'm beating myself up. As I started to do that, my autoimmune disease diminished dramatically. And I believe that there is a very strong connection between being hard on yourself and having a problem with an autoimmune disease. It's not a one-on-one correlation. I'm not saying that, but it, if someone's suffering from an autoimmune disease and they can be less hard on themselves, I think it can only help.
MP: 18:28 I would agree. And I think it's, you know, it's, it's probably, you know, a couple of handfuls of the other conditions in people's lives. The, the fact that if we just stop and, I mean I can, I can't speak for the listener right now. You, they've got their own story. But for me personally, I can relate to what you're saying. It's like I have been and have been and currently are at times very hard on myself and yeah, if I just stop when I'm in that going down that tunnel that you say, there's no light at the end of it. When I've gone down that tunnel, it is, if I just stop and I'm blessed to have the moment where I can go, okay, what's happening right now? I don't feel well. I feel stressed, I feel tired, I feel pressure. All these different things that are literally, you know, I don't know how the impact that's having internally on me, but it's, it can't be good.
MP: 19:25 It can't be good.
JB: 19:27 No. Right. So there's, you know, it could end up, we, it's like we could all end up in that autoimmune, uh, disease if we're not careful or something else. Like what's this leading to? And unfortunately it's like anything, you know, you, you do something for 20 years and then you, you go, gee, that just happened at, well it took 20 years to get there. Uh, and I'm sure if you look back on your life, probably similar, right? The pressure you put on yourself and all that, it's like, you know, the chain, one of the links broke.
MP: 19:56 Yeah.
JB: 19:57 Yup. I mean Michael, it was like a badge of honor. I mean there are people out there still playing that game of, you know, how much do you, how much sleep did you get last night? Oh, four hours. Well, I only got three. And they think they win because they got less sleep. Like, no, that is a bad game to win. You are losing if you're winning that game and you know, let's bring it back to the very, you know, like very specifically to the world of work and being a boss and having a team and, and having clients and all of that kind of stuff. You know, what I would love to encourage you to do, Michael, is to make those moments when you notice where you are and start really noticing when you're in that tunnel, when you're doing those things, those like when you're stressing yourself out and you're yourself too hard and you're being really hard on yourself and you're not being generous about things with yourself because the more that you can start to get conscious of doing that, the more you can consciously switch into something more productive.
JB: 21:00 And I'm telling you it is going to make a difference. Who anybody that does that, it will make an enormous difference in how their team perceives them, how their family perceives them, how their customers perceive them, how everybody perceives them. And once I got that out of my system, it's not gone forever. Right? But it's, I've made a radical shift in my general mental state around that stuff, and it's made me far more magnetic to the kind of people I want to be around. People are drawn to me because they can tell just something in just something about me. I'm a safe space. They know that. They don't know how to say that, but they can tell that and I've got room for them and their imperfections. And uh, you know, it doesn't mean that I'm going to accept shoddy work, but it means that I'm not, you know, if the work's shoddy, I'm not going to think the person is shoddy. It's just the work is shoddy. How can we get the work to match how great you are, you know, that kind of thing. And, and all that energy that I was putting into beating myself up and being hard on myself and all of that men, that energy is now used in a far more productive way. And I had no idea how much energy that was.
MP: 22:21 Incredible. You know, it's, I, I, I'm so, I'm so happy that we can bring this conversation. And just even that one thing from a, your, your experience with your coach, if, if everyone listening were to just ask themselves, what, how is it that the people who love me think I am and, and be that person and, and that, that, that, that in itself is, is kind of hit the reset button for the way we're thinking in the, and the things that we're doing. And then just even in myself, it's like every day getting myself present to where I'm at, like, what's going on? Uh, I think that's good for all of us to do and I think we have to find our own behaviors and habits around that. But maybe it's going for a walk or you know, when you're having your morning coffee is to go, wait a second, who am I being? What's, where am I at? How am I feeling? And, uh, and, and ask ourselves that question.
MP: 23:14 You know, I love yellow stickies. I put them up when I'm, when I'm working on something like that. I'll put yellow stickies up everywhere. I go and write something to remind me on them and then I'll move them around every year
MP: 23:26 so they don't turn into white noise. You know? I love that idea. I love that idea because I was actually just thinking, I want to put that quote up on my wall and so I might start with the sticky, but I think your quote actually deserves to be nicely hung on the wall because it is. I think there's power in that statement that's accessible to every single person that's listening right now that whatever you're tackling in your business, whether it's growing your business, nurturing your staff, nurturing your customers, that that question is a way that will get us all back to the core essential core of who we are and where we should be coming from.
JB: 24:07 You're absolutely right. Now, Michael, I know we're getting close to the end. Do I have time to say a quick word about the, about a little neurobiology that sort of underpins this?
MP: 24:17 Absolutely. And if we have to go a little longer, if you have the time, I think the audience would be disappointed if we didn't get into all the powerful stuff that this actually leads to.
JB: 24:28 Okay, good. Well, so you know, you, you ran me in cause I, you know, I, I think we weren't in each other and John. Okay, good. So, so here's, you know, underlying this whole idea of who are you being, you know, are you a safe space for yourself so you can be a safe space for other people? Are you beating yourself up or are you giving yourself a little space in a little room? Someone just got a Nobel prize for this, for their work in mirror neurons and human beings. One of the things that, that, that they would say sets us apart as human beings is that we have very strong mirror neurons and those, those are neurons in our bodies that have us feel what we see other people feeling like if someone takes a deliberate action or someone goes through an emotional experience or has something happened to them, we feel that over here.
JB: 25:27 If somebody walks in the room and they're happy, we all of a sudden get happy and we don't even know why. Or if they come in and they're crying, we all decided we, our body sinks down in our face frowns and we start to what's wrong? You know, and uh, we don't even know what's wrong yet, but we've, we already start to feel sad cause we're mirroring them. And if I were doing a cooking show and I have big purple carrots and a big old butcher knife and I was chopping up the purple carrots telling you about it, okay, now you didn't even see that. This is just, you heard it, but you, you heard me cut myself with the butcher and I, and even when I say cut myself with a butcher knife, you feel it because you have mirror neurons and they're always working and they're always on.
JB: 26:10 And what most people don't think about, I think is that other people are always mirroring you. Now, number one, for sure, if you're the boss, they're always mirroring you. Whether you're even there or not, they're mirroring you. But when you walk in the room, no matter where you are in the hierarchy, everybody turns to look at you. Boom, they're mirroring you, you raise your hand, you start to talk, they're mirroring you, you're up on stage speaking. They're definitely mirroring you. And it's scientific proof for the fact that you get what you put out. So who you are towards yourself and towards the people around you that's going to just get mirrored back to you. There are the people who think everyone's grumpy. Well guess what? We're not grumpy unless they're around when they walk in, cause they're so grumpy. Everybody gets grumpy and then they leave again and everybody's fine.
JB: 27:02 But they think everybody's grumpy because everywhere they go, everyone's grumpy. It's just cause everyone's mirroring them. So taking on the fact that you could set the tone and have other people mirror something great if you give them something great to mirror. Well Gosh, that's phenomenal. As a boss, that's phenomenal as a speaker, that's phenomenal. As a mom or a dad or a spouse. That's, you know, and that's, that's one of the physiological mechanisms that I believe underlies why that coaching was so effective. Not only it helped me get over my own immune system, but had me become somebody that people just liked to be around a whole lot more. You know?
MP: 27:50 Amazing. I think that it is fascinating and as well, so accessible, right? It's just a thing that, I mean, if we think of control, right, there's, we could have a whole conversation around control, but if we just actually think about the fact that if we want to alter our life, our world, and our environment, it's just a matter of choosing a new way of being, which other people will start marrying. We'll start marrying them. It's like you're creating a cocktail of greatness versus just adding to whatever we have every single day when, if we just keep beating the same way that we are.
JB: 28:26 I think you're absolutely right, Michael. You're absolutely right. And you know, I think I might've said it at the speech and I, and I know that a m to me, this would have sounded kind of cocky before, but I really don't mean it like that. I just mean it as an actual truly lived experience that I've had after it dawned on me that we all have mirror neurons and I was the one at the heart of my experience. You know, everybody was just mirroring me on some level when I took that on and started living like that was true and really being conscious of what I was giving other people to mirror me life before that felt like life was happening to me. Life after that now feels like I'm happening to life. And that's just a fundamentally positive distinction, you know, that is just a nice difference. Life doesn't happen to me anymore. I go out and happen to life when I have this, you know, when I have my game on and I am conscious of what I'm giving people the Mirror man, I happen to live and that's, and it's that easy. Just like you said, Michael, just exactly what you said. It's so easy. It's just a choice.
MP: 29:49 Beautiful.
MP: 29:51 I, I, I'm, I'm inspired and empowered by this conversation. I can, I can only imagine our listeners are as well. This is something to take on right now. We are happening. Our life has happened. How did you say it? It's we, you are happening. Life is not happening to you. You are happening to life.
JB: 30:12 You can go out right now and, and instead of letting life happen to you, you can start happening to life. I love it because you get that you are in charge of what, you know, what you put out is what you get back. You're in charge of, of how things are going to go for you. It's not that life is happening to you. It's that you're at, you're already happening to life. It's just getting present to it.
MP: 30:37 Exactly. Exactly. And so I encourage every listener make, make it happen now, uh, your happening to life and, and take that into the, the, the day. Take it into the next week. Take it into the rest of your life. Uh, there's great things ahead now to honestly say this is not the last time this conversation's going to be happening. Cause I absolutely love, this is why I love doing these podcasts is I'm hearing sort of another after hearing you speak, it's like, oh, I'm hearing it in an all new way that I don't think I was hearing a at that talk. There was a lot of other incredible thoughts and ideas. But that one right there, that's very empowering. Before I let you go John, I'd love you share the three ways to connect with any audience anywhere, anytime. I thought they were fabulous. And I think a lot of our listeners, their audience would be a networking meetings. They would do business presentations there. There may be not doing a ted conference right with hundreds and hundreds of people, but they're going to have 40 50 people potentially in a room. And it's quite great a often that this would happen. So I think it would be gold if you could let our listener know what those three things are.
JB: 31:48 Okay. The, I'd be happy to. So I mean, and this is, you know, this is the gold here. This is, this is one of the things that I get brought in to share with audiences all over the world. So I'm going to give it to you here, Michael Onto, you're already given us so much gold. I think it's like, oh well this is all gold. But this is like the, the, you know, heavy, big gold bar gold. Yeah, here you go. Here's the goal by me and this was the good news is all three of these things. You don't even have to believe me. I'm quoting people who are phenomenal people who are well established authorities, you know, and I'm giving them my full backing as well. And these are the three ways to connect with an inspire. Any audience, anywhere, any time. And if you build all three of these into your talk or your pitch or your, you know, 10-minute introduction or something, I'm guaranteeing you right now, it will be an out of the ballpark kit.
JB: 32:46 So write all three of these down and anytime you can include at least one or two of them, but if you can do all three even better. And you know it's actually pretty easy because they go together really well. So number one is from a guy named Les Brown, who's one of the most highly paid, most highly requested, phenomenal motivational keynote speakers in the world. And he told me people don't connect with your successes. They connect with your messes. Your message is in your mess. Now, he doesn't mean just get up and complain. That's not, you know, that's nothing new. But if you are someone who is courageous enough to not only share with us someplace that you fell down, that you failed, that you had your heartbroken, something that really was crushing to you at the moment and what you got out of it.
JB: 33:44 That's really valuable information. And I'm going to say Michael, it's one of the reasons I think that that coaching, you know, back out of the tunnel and live in the listening of the people who love you. I think it's one of the reasons that that landed so much for you because I was willing to share with you that came out of a near death experience after losing a company that we had raised $80 million for. You know, so you know, it was a big deal for me and you know that that's something that I really truly got out of that and the fact that I almost died to get it. Well, Hey, now I can share it with you and you don't almost have to die to get it, but if it means something to you, boy, there you go.
MP: 34:28 Exactly. Now, one quick thing about that. I think that's a fundamental characteristic of a great leader because it's easy to be a leader at the buffet table, right? Follow me, I'll, I'll go first at the buffet table, but that doesn't make any difference and everybody would be happy to go first. This kind of thing. No one wants to go first. Nobody ever wants to talk at first about their failures. But man, the minute you do and share what you got out of it and make it a connected experience for them and everybody wants to share, they love to go second or third or fourth, they just don't want to go first. So this is a great opportunity to demonstrate meaningful leadership because no one wants to go first. But once you go first, it opens something up that's highly valuable to everybody. A great it thought lowering of the shield that is, nobody wants, you know, there's so much at stake for all of us, our egos and, and you know, if it's things that we've grown up with but to, to be the one that actually does lower, I made the beautiful things happen when you let down the guard, if you will, or shield or your mask, whatever that is and share from a place of, of truth.
MP: 35:35 I mean it allows, creates, like you said, John, you, you are a master at this. You create safe spaces for people because you're leading all the time. Lowering your mask.
JB: 35:48 Yeah. Thank you, Michael. And it's, and it's a, it is not. It's simple, but it's not easy. It definitely takes conscious effort and it, and it's still scary to me to do that, but it's just so worthwhile that I have made a strong commitment to myself to do that. So no highly recommended. Then number two is the second way is from a guy named Craig Valentine and he was the 1999 world champion of speaking. He's hilarious. He's a great, great, great guy, something of a friend and mentor of mine, and he told me, John, don't make yourself special. No one can relate to a guru because secretly inside we don't think we're a guru. So if there are some guru, then they must be different than us, right?
JB: 36:37 So don't, don't make yourself special. Make the process special. Now, here's what I mean by that. Sometimes you do have to talk about your successes. In fact, in these sales calls, you want to be able to talk about the successes that your clients have had because they worked with you. So if people don't connect with your successes, then how do you do that? We'll, this is the way, instead of making it seem like you're some kind of special guru, you talk about your success and then you pinpoint the process that led to that success. So a quick example for me is that in high school I won every speaking contest I ever entered in my all four years of high school and only one time did I not take first, second or third place in any of those contests. And that was my freshman year. And the judge that gave me that loss found me two years later and apologized to me and told me I should have won.
JB: 37:39 And he had always regretted that decision and he just was glad he could apologize and tell me. So pretty good. Pretty good record in high school, you know, for a second or third, every time I answered anything and if I stopped there, it might seem like I think I'm somehow special. But here's the truth of how that happened. I had a world-class coach at my public high school right down the road at East high school here in Salt Lake City, Utah. I had a world-class public speaking coach. And lucky for me, I thought he was really cool. And so I was totally coachable purely by accident. But I did the things that people that get great at something do, they find a great coach and they are coachable. You know, tiger woods had multiple coaches, none of whom could beat him, but they together had him beating everybody else for a really long time. That's the power of finding a great coach and being coachable.
MP: 38:45 Yeah. So that totally lands, you know, the uh, and I'll let you finish the story, but I just, I just love that story.
JB: 38:52 All I was going to say is, so when you talk about your successes, Michael, and the things that you do really well and the great successes that your clients have achieved, all you need to do is pin that to a process. You know, one of the things I think might be helping your clients is profit first. Applying that system. Boy, that's all we got to do. And Bingo, look at what happens. And so that takes the focus off you being someone like some sort of special guru who they can't relate to and it puts it on the process. And now, Hey, I could do that too.
MP: 39:25 Yeah, absolutely. And in this industry, I mean it for bookkeepers to, to talk about their successes and a pro, I mean, it is a process. They go through a process, make the process a special process and it will, it's also a, you a a unique, uh, it separates you from everybody else, which I just love that, that one's almost get like a couple of great advantages.
JB: 39:49 Huge right there, right? It's your, it's your special process. It's your unique advantage over just the average bookkeeper. You know, the things, the processes there. That's what's going to really turn people on to want to work with you because oh well he's got a process, you know, above it. So then the third one is one of my favorites and this is, I mean, they're all my favorite, what can I say? But this one is from a woman named Nancy Duarte who has, is just a fabulous communicators. She's very good at, uh, using things like PowerPoint and Prezi. So she's a visual communications expert and she's done a lot of the great slides for many of the well-known ted talks. And she says, don't be the hero of your own talk. Make the audience the hero. Now that's pretty obvious in retrospect, but when you make the audience the hero, boy, do things go go.
JB: 40:46 Well. So she says, don't be Luke Skywalker, be Yoda or Obi wan. And the distinction there is that Luke's the hero, you know, he's the one who's out there. He's swinging the Lightsaber, he's doing battle with evil, and he's the star of the show. Well, if you go do a talk like that, everybody will think good for you. But man, it's not gonna mean anything to them. Whereas if you go on stage and you have in your mind that they're Luke Skywalker is very in the middle of their transformative battles and they're on their hero's journey and you're more like Obiwan or Yoda, you've, you've done your journey, you've found some really valuable tools that can help them on their journey. And here you go. I'm going to hand you the lightsaber instead of swinging it around up here and showing off myself. I'm going to give the lightsaber to you and give you a few crucial tips on how to use it well, right? That is what the audience is going to really respond to. So don't be the hero of your own talk. Make the audience the hero.
MP: 41:58 Pure gold. John, this is, this is something that I know is going to not only resonate with our listener, but I know it was going to, it's going to provide impact on their next presentation that they're doing and, and enable them to connect with these audience, whether they're, it's a BNI, whether it's a chamber of commerce, whether it's a presentation to, to a company. Thank you so much for that. Now before I let you go, I'd love for you to share anything about yourself or what you've got going on in your, your life and businesses with our audience in case they want to learn more about you.
JB: 42:32 Okay, so here's one thing, Michael. This is a little gift. I'd like to give people a, it's uh, about a three-minute video and it talks about finding and creating your own superhero origin story. Now it's not about you being a superhero, we just talked about that. It's about your origins. And I think that finding and sharing a couple of your most meaningful, impactful superhero origin stories is one of the most powerful ways to connect with your team, your clients, your colleagues, everything like that. So here's the link. I'll say it twice and I'll say it slowly. bit.ly. It's a bitly link, bit.ly/capitoless, and then all small superhero. So bit dot l, y forward slash, capital Ess, all small superheroes. So ess superhero beauty and people should go watch that and think about their own superhero origin stories and then find those superhero origin stories, practice them and then start telling them and see if it doesn't make an enormous difference in the close rate for your sales calls or in how connected your employees feel to you and how willing they are to take things on and be willing to do the things you asked them and things like that.
JB: 44:00 That story will will tremendously forward all of your influence activities if you get that story well told. And then if people want to get up, get in touch with me or if they want to go see, I've got a lot of free videos on youtube and on Vimeo and things like that, so great place to start for that is executive speaking, success.com that's my website. People can reach me, email me through there. That's all there. And then maybe one other really good would be my youtube channel where I've got, one of the things there that I think would be fun for people is if they're not familiar with the talks that I've picked already, I've got about six or eight of my favorite Ted talks there and they are just fabulous, fabulous values. So go there and make sure you've seen them all if you haven't watched them.
JB: 44:52 And that's youtube.com/xecspeaking, excc speaking. So you know those are great ways for people to connect with me and we, one thing that I will say is I am looking at doing a public version of the bootcamp and I have not done that. I've done, I haven't done a public version in years and years cause I've just been so busy with the corporate stuff. But if people want to come to my website, email me and let me know they'd like me to tell them if I'm going to do a public event, I would be happy to let them know. Probably we'll be doing it in salt lake either in early December or maybe next year. Maybe we'll do both. But if people are interested in that, then I'm the, you know, that would give me a little spur to make that happen. And I'm definitely thinking about it because, you know, I just, doing these closed private corporate events is fantastic, but it means that I don't get to reach a lot of people who can't get, you know, wouldn't be there otherwise.
MP: 45:50 So really well I think it's great. We're going to have, there's a bunch of lengths. We're going to have all of these links down below in the show notes, a so that you could just click and get those. And I would encourage you not only to consume what John has put together and, and, and has work life's work really on helping people connect with audiences all over the world, uh, but take speaking and connecting with others. This is very relevant to growing your business, which we love to see happen. So John, this is, this has been great. You have generously given us so much of your time. I appreciate it. On behalf of our listener. I thank you.
JB: 46:34 You're very welcome, Michael. You know, let's touch base again in a little while and I, and, and maybe we'll do it again. I had a blast and I appreciate being able to share this with the people that matter to you. And, uh, I just hope it makes a difference. So I think it will people take it on. I know it made a difference for me.
MP: 46:47 Ah, so many things. I think there's, we've covered so many. I think it's excellent and thank you. I'd love to have you back and hear what's, what's happening on your, your road around the world, sharing this work with every everyone where and where you go.
JB: 46:58 Thank you, Michael.
MP: 47:02 Well, that wraps another excellent episode of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. To learn more about today's wonderful guests and to get access to all sorts of valuable free business-building resources, you can go to Thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com. Until next time, goodbye.