Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - Confidence Classic: Reprogram Your Mind for Exponential Success with Aaron Bare

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

What if the limits you see in your life are simply habits you learned that you can unlearn? In this Confidence Classic episode, I sit down with Aaron Bare to talk about how your thoughts create your reality, why unlearning and reprogramming are the first steps to growth, and how exponential leaders are made from the inside out. Aaron shares the seven universal truths that unlock personal and professional success, how to shift from linear to exponential thinking, and the mindset strategies used by visionaries like Elon Musk and Bill Gates. Get ready to reprogram your thoughts and start thinking on a much bigger scale. In This Episode, You Will Learn Why your INNER DIALOGUE determines how the world responds to you. How to ESCAPE linear thinking and build exponential habits for business and life. The SEVEN UNIVERSAL TRUTHS that shape your mindset and outcomes. Why FAILURE is feedback and how to enjoy the “suck” phase of your journey. How to SURROUND yourself with people who expand what you believe is possible. The DAILY practices that keep your thoughts aligned with your goals. Why THINKING BIGGER starts by unlearning your limiting beliefs. How to REWRITE your story and take back control of your future. Resources + Links Grab your copy of Aaron’s Exponential Theory: The Power of Thinking Big HERE! Learn more about Aaron Bare HERE! Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/monahan Download the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning at NetSuite.com/MONAHAN. Want to do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic? Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com/MONAHAN. Get 10% off your first Mitopure order at timeline.com/CONFIDENCE. Get 15% off your first order when you use code CONFIDENCE15 at checkout at jennikayne.com. Call my digital clone at 201-897-2553!  Visit heathermonahan.com Sign up for my mailing list: heathermonahan.com/mailing-list/  Overcome Your Villains is Available NOW! Order here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com  If you haven't yet, get my first book Confidence Creator Follow Heather on Instagram & LinkedIn ​​Aaron on Instagram & LinkedIn

How you talk to yourself is how the world's going to treat you, too. So if you really embrace this idea of your past, you have all these things you've learned, what do you need to unlearn or reprogram? You're actually perfect the way you are. There's nothing wrong with you. It's just the matter is that you may be picked up some bad habit. We are our habits. So if we always talk to ourselves in a way, all these things like a war going on and COVID

and all these things that we put limitation on ourselves, that's always going to create our future because the only thing we control right now is the thoughts we have, and our thoughts end up becoming words, which ultimately become actions if we take them, that create results. Come on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals. We'll overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close up.

Tell me, have you been enjoying these new bonus confidence classics episodes we've been dropping on you every week? We've literally hundreds of episodes for you to listen to. So these bonuses are a great way to help you find the ones you may have already missed. I hope you love this one as much as I do. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet Aaron Bear. His life's purpose is to create one million exponential leaders.

He is the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of exponential theory and the creator of the XMBA exponential mindsets, beliefs, attitudes, group coaching program. Beyond traveling to over 90 countries and all 50 states, I don't know how he has time for that. Aaron has facilitated innovation and strategy at over 500 companies. He's highlighted as 10 leaders to watch in 2022, listed on 50 under 50 liters, 40 under 40, 35 under 35 entrepreneurs, and his company has been awarded most innovative company in the U.S. His award-winning digital strategy firm has clients such as Google, Council for Foreign Relations, Coca-Cola, Maybe you've heard of a few of these.

Harley Davidson, Emerson, the list goes on and on. He's also a certified big historian, certified professional philosopher, and was the creator of the Oxford Leadership Online Certified Coach. This is insane. He's a former entrepreneur and residence at Thunderbird School of Global Management and Singularity University at NASA. He currently focuses on helping individuals explore ancient wisdom, repeating histories, and modern science through his ex-MDA.

program that focuses on unlearning, re-programming, and creating the growth mindset to ultimately create exponential mindsets, beliefs, and attitudes. Aaron, thank you so much for being here. So excited to speak with you. Thank you, other. Thanks for having been looking forward to this conversation for the last few weeks. So glad to finally get to it. Okay, that is a crazy bio. And my sense was, you know, any time that I interview someone who's very, very successful

in business or has written a strong business book, there tends to be a lot of. of tactical business takeaways, tactical, you know, strategies around business, but what was different about your work, your book, you know, your content is there is a very strong through thread that I saw in regards to growth mindset, personal development. I haven't seen before these merged together in such a way. Do you see yourself and is a little bit different in business and success leadership in that regard? Yeah, so Heather, I got a, I mean, I'm probably an overthinker, and that's where I've spent a lot of time thinking about these things of how to build a leader.

And leaders, I think you start personally, you know, and then professionally, then organization. The book really represents some of the organizational strategies of exponential thinking and theory, but we start really in the book at the personal level. Like, how do you, you know, have the belief systems to actually create exponential things? it's part of an architecture that over a time, if you're going to be an exponential thinker and really think big about the world, then you've got to start with yourself and your own limiting beliefs. What are your beliefs about the past? What trauma that you're holding on to? What baggage? What are your limitations? Your regrets? All these things that we're learned

and I think you learn guilt and you learn shame in some of these very negative things where we need to unlearn it because we're perfect as human beings when we come into the world. we come in as love and you know sometimes we're beating down into these people that have you know resistance to all the things around us and then thinking about the future we have stress worries anxieties that it won't go the way we think instead of just being in a moment where we control that and that's part of my ex-mba group coaching program is really to get people so they're really in that current mindset so then they can then start thinking bigger and every day we're in that program is to challenge people to think bigger than they did yesterday and and it's the idea that 1% gain every day gives you a 37x result in a year. So part of that is that becomes an exponential curve pretty quickly as long as we can get you out of the past and not worried about the future or doubts or whatever it is that you think won't happen because the reality is you and I right now, there's no other moment that matters because we're right here right now and we're making the best of this we possibly can.

And if we're not, we shouldn't be in this moment. I agree with everything you said and I'll tell you something funny came to mind and everyone listening knows this is I had a moment where I think I think bigger than anyone and everyone out there. I think every day I wake up and it's almost to a detriment of me that I'm always pushing the envelope to what's the next thing and how can I turn my new book into a movie and how can I drive myself crazy going bigger. However, I learned a couple weeks ago, I was on a call with, I have a creator manager at LinkedIn. His job is to help creators grow exponentially on LinkedIn. And at the end of the call, he said, well, what can I do for you? And I said, well, I know,

I need you to get me featured for women's months on the LinkedIn feed in front of the 400 million audience and the entire platform I want to feature on me. His response was, Heather, don't you think you should think a little bigger? And it was one of those mic drop moments, Aaron, that it made me have a realization. Sometimes we only know what big looks like to us, right? We don't understand what that other person might know.

I didn't understand. He was in charge of casting a TV commercial for LinkedIn that was going to play in front of billions of people because of their ad budget. And to him, he thought my idea was so incredibly small when I could have been pitching to be a star in this commercial and reach billions of people, not 400 million. So what are your thoughts on? Sometimes we think we're going so big,

but it's only because we're lacking knowledge. Well, I think that goes to who do you surround yourself with and how do you spend that time? So if you look at the five closest people to you, are they actually pushing your barriers or are they becoming your villains? to your book, you know, at the end of the day, you spend a lot of time with probably five, give or take, one or two people. And in that, are they actually saying that you should be bigger than your thing? And that goes to have a mic drop moment like you did with the

gentleman from LinkedIn. It's just to think of people that, you know, it seems like you cross pass with a lot of important people that could open the door for you greatly. I think it's you just putting out there, like you by putting out there as much as it was big for you, by planning the seat, to be on this, he was able to grow that. And that's the type of people that you want to surround yourself. You know, they see in you, your greatness, probably beyond what you do yourself. Because at the other day, part of our own limiting beliefs were built on all the things that we learned. And people wanted to shrink us into a world so that we'd be a cog and a wheel that, you know, we'd grow up to be middle managers and we'd just be happy with two weeks vacation and some of these very limiting thought

processes and when we're tired, you know, maybe we have like three to five years left in our life, you know, and that was the goal or whatever historically. Now you see this generation that, you know, values time, energy, values energy more than time even, where you can spend that in the right way. So the energy that you put out there by saying to you a big goal created someone else to say, well, I even have something bigger for you. I think it's part of that manifesting. You know, at the end of the day, we, you know, there's affirmations. There's all these ways that visualizations, things, you know, what you think you will create. And that's, that's in my book and my first chapter really around the personal piece of it is to think is to create. And I think

we, we have to be careful with our thoughts because a lot of times we build ourselves up and then we get right to the point of like almost creating it. And then we pull ourselves back by saying, ah, well, you know, I don't really need to do that. Or we, we want to pull her back to a reality that that already exists where what you did is you actually got outside of your own comfort zone asking something and now it's even expanded more that's part of thinking big is pushing yourself because once you think bigger you'll help other people think bigger for you just by putting it so actually at the beginning of your book i had printed this out you give seven universal truths and the first one is we are always right to think is to create your perception is your reality which you just mentioned

and for me it makes perfect sense reading that however like so many people listening right now and I think that you'll empathize with this when you're in the grind and busy at work and you've got kids and you're racing home and there's a pandemic and there's a war and there's someone you're not stepping back from everything to think wait a minute pump the brakes these thoughts I'm putting out to the world and universe right now are actually creating my future how do you get people to embrace this woo idea of manifestation because a lot of people see it as something so bizarre and not applicable to business or success. Well, I think, you know, my goal, it's one of the things our team is like to make the woo-woo sexy, not to make it woo-woo.

The end of the day, what you realize is how you talk to yourself is how the world's going to treat you, too. So if you really embrace this idea of your past, you know, and you have all these things you've learned, what do you need to unlearn or reprogram? You're actually perfect the way you are, you know, and that's where self-help really is, is not, and it's why it's not a self-help book. At the end of the day, you know, self-help says there's something wrong. with you, where there's nothing wrong with you. It's just the matter is that you may be picked up some bad habits. So if you look at universal truth, if you go down a couple more, we are our habits. So if we always talk to ourselves in a way, you know, with all these things like a war going on and, you know, COVID and all these things that we put limitation on ourselves, that's always going to

basically create our future. Because the only thing we control right now is the thoughts we have. And our thoughts end up becoming words, which ultimately become actions, if we take them, that create results. So the basic of making this sexy is the fact that if you can really be careful with your thoughts. And Lao Zhu has a quote in my book that I put in there that, you know, is 2,000 plus years old, you know, that goes back before him that says words became actions, became destiny, become your character. that right there will tell you that your future really relies on what you think now. So anytime that you say I want to put yourself out there, your example is a perfect one of saying, you know, hey, I want to be on this because that would be huge for me. You're actually putting out there where people will surprise you with bigger ideas. So your ability to already think bigger is going

to help you expand that mindset because we never know exactly how it's going to happen. I'll take the woo-woo out of it. It's just the fact that persistence and determination of thought. So if I think something and, you know, and I think Voltaire has a quote that basically says, no problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. And that's exactly to this idea of how you think about yourself. So if you just think about yourself that you're going to be exponential, that are you going to be big? It doesn't really matter. You're going to spend time on that and energy. And if you don't let anyone get in your way of that and you just continue that thought process, it's an exponential curve. It may take some time. But a

eventually you're going to have an infliction point where things are going to start going your way. Along the way, you're going to have lots of obstacles, but that's where most people give up. They're like, well, it wasn't meant to be. Where the reality is once you overcome those obstacles, then you start seeing some of the success of your labor. And that's whether you're building a social media platform, whether you're building a company, whether you're building your friend network or, you know, anything, your podcast, whatever

it is, it's your belief that if you continue to do this, that it'll make a difference. And the reality is the stories we tell, whatever that story is, if it, like, right today, being on this podcast, if one person takes something from this, we've expanded our mindset. We're on, I'm part of growing my own exponential vision of creating one million exponential leaders. And today is the first day of that, as Jeff Bezos says is day one, every day is. So if I start over every day saying that I'm going to create one million exponential leaders and I just continue on that. that path, then I will eventually get there. Whether it takes me two years or 20, it doesn't matter. I'm enjoying doing it. So it's just part of a process of enjoying the journey, which is another universal sugar in my mind. And I very much live those principles because they're very much,

I see them over and over again. In fact, in a thousand plus business books and self-help books that I've read, I bulleted it down to those seven. I was diligent at taking journals and notes. and it always came back to these seven things that I have in my book that I start off. It's like, hey, here's some universal truths that you can apply throughout this book. And then the book itself helps expand your mindset based on the world's leaving companies and exponential leaders like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, you know, all these people that have now created, you know, really trillion-dollar companies. How did they do it?

Because beyond what anybody thought at the time when they were creating it, they were able to see a vision much bigger. Like in 1976, Bill Gates said, hey, we're going to put a computer in every hall. Well, at that time, there weren't even computers in the workplace. Well, now you can only say that Bill Gates underestimated his ability because there's a computer in every pocket. But that goes to Elon Musk in 2006, right in a blog post,

that basically outlined how he was going to get to where he is now in Tesla, is he put it out there. And he didn't say it was going to happen in short term. it generally happens a little bit longer. Like Bill Gates has a quote that says, in one year we often overestimate what we can do, but we almost always underestimate what we can do in 10 years. So part of my ex-MBA is to help people think a little bit longer term

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You bring up one of your universal truth, which is around enjoying the journey. And I have to tell you for me that that's a hard one. And I think some people listening, will feel the pain on this. When you're in the suck, right, before you've had the inflection point, whether, you know, it was for me when I first started in the radio business, I had no clients on. I wasn't an exceptional salesperson. I was learning the product and services. I had no strategy to what I was doing.

But I knew I wanted to get to the top of the company. You know, those first few years were hard. And I didn't have a lot of money. So it wasn't like, oh, on the weekends, I'm enjoying my big life. and during the week. I'm in the grind. This is so much fun. It sucked, right? It was like, I don't live where I want to live. I'm not living my best life. Everyone else is going and having this great life and I'm working, working, working. Granted, it paid off in the end. I made it to the C-suite. I made it to where I wanted to go. However, that journey part was not so fun. And I've

actually had to, as a newbie entrepreneur now, remind myself of that. Like, okay, you've seen this movie. You know the suck. It's not great right now. You know where you're going to go. You know you're going to get there. There's zero doubt in my mind. But how long does that suck have to go on for? And when I had Gary V on my show, he was all about enjoy the journey. And, you know, I said the same things. I'm so easy for people to say. And I'm sure I used to say it when I was at the top of the media business. You know, you've got to enjoy when you're learning. It's easy to say when you look back, but when you're in it, Aaron, it's hard. I agree. But I think you make a key point there is when you look back, you realize that there's not a point in your life. And I've had many, you know,

peaks and valleys again, as we all have. But once you hit that peak, it's not necessarily the peak that like, hey, I hit my goal. It's the fact that what you did to do it is really enjoying the journey. If Gary V said this, it's like looking back, you know, at what you say, the suck. I'm just saying, well, what did I learn there and how did I learn it? The bottom line is the faster you learn these lessons, the faster you, and we have this kind of saying around here and the companies I have is either you win or learn. There's no failure. And that's a hard one. And I used to run the National Association of Sales Professionals. So I've been through every sales training there is and, you know, learn sales from, that was really

my chosen career because I felt, you know, I really embraced sales as like the best career there is for an entrepreneur. And ever since I've been an entrepreneur, just because I can sell. But the bottom line of selling is going out every day and improving that process 1%. And enjoying that journey is that you'll never make those mistakes again. You learn from them. You know, failure is, is your biggest key and indicator to help you succeed. The more times you fail, the faster you're going to succeed. To what you just said about yourself, you went through that exponential curve and you had that persistence of termination.

But through that, looking back, is to understand is to celebrate the little things. And if you get to a point where you can celebrate the little things, and actually in any of my companies, I have this rule, that if you do three great things in a day, you can leave or do whatever you want. What's crazy is if people come into work and they have something they want to do,

I'm from Arizona. So it's spring training, baseball. So every afternoon, there's spring training games. Generally, this time of year, everyone starts doing three great things. They stand up in the company and they share with everyone else these three great things. And they're great things, but they're doing by 10 a.m. because they want to get out of it. And it's just a fact that it's, don't punch a clock, just do great work. And once you put that energy in, and then every day you improve 1% and you take, what did I win today or what did I learn, then the grind doesn't become such a grind with a sock because and that's just a you know how do you enjoy the process of learning to say I'll never make that mistake again but don't hold on to it as baggage and I think that's

where so many people hold their trauma close to their vest and say hey I want to keep this trauma with me always it's mine where instead of letting it go which is another universal principle is just how do I get to a place where you know I can take that and actually learn from it versus like really fail in it. Because the only time you really fail is when you keep doing the same thing over and over and over again and you don't learn from. And that's the goal of my ex-MBA, which is a group coaching program. That's a goal, you know, when I coach people in my companies, it's like, hey, you know, today you're going to either learn or win. And the great thing about that is let's celebrate either of them. And let's talk about the things that you learn. Because

in those may be failures. And the reality is when you go to any entrepreneurship conference, everybody loves the failure speeches, right? It's like, you know, and I've failed at more companies than I've sold 12 companies, but I've failed it more than that. And when I say more than I'm saying a couple dozen companies, I failed that. So when you really look back, you know, all those I did learn from those. And now I fail a little bit less and I'm learning or I'm winning. And I think that's part of just my own mindset that I've come bring into my companies. And it creates a mindset within my employees, as well as my coaching program, if people are in the coaching program, they start to adapt this. They're like, okay, at the end of the day, is do a little reflection

because, you know, we are so busy running ragged because of the 24-7 news cycle and social media always, you know, endless scroll and cancel culture and compare culture and all this crap going all different which directions where at the end of the day, we have to really think about our own mental health, which I think we're entering a period where mental health is a serious, serious issue, not just for, you know, what we'd say, consider, I'm saying for all people on this planet because of the stresses of social media of cancel culture, compare culture. I talk about that in the book because it's part of creating that exponential mindset is to take the positives from things, but to leave the negatives behind because there is so much negative in the world. And,

you know, and candidly, there's more people that are probably glass half empty than are glass half full. And they're going to want to, you know, take water, take a drink out of your drink as much as often. So how do you avoid that by how? helping move forward where you want to go to your long-term purpose, your massive transformative purpose is what we talk about in the book or, you know, a purpose that mine is creating one million exponential leaders. Well, that's such a big purpose that I could work on that the rest of my life and be completely satisfied in the grind or the journey of that. So it's also creating a goal so big that you can just continue to work on it. It's not like saying, hey, I'm going to create a million

dollars in sales and then six months later i do that and then i'm what the next thing it's creating a goal so exponential that you realize that i really got to step out of my comfort zone every day to get so it's so interesting you're bringing us up a friend wrote a book about money and how to manage and grow your wealth and one of his strategies that he shared which i actually deployed on one of my clients and it worked beautifully to your point is when somebody's not motivated or they're detached from what they're doing and you're trying to get them to go bigger because you see that potential within them. You know they can do it if they can engage is aligning that bigger, massive goal like yours, which is very much true to you. It's mission driven. You're doing good in the world.

Finding something that they believe and that they care about that is mission driven, maybe totally separate from their business, but that you can tie that goal back to that when you hit this revenue number, you can do a give back that gifts the charity or that funds this operation, but really making it about doing good. in business and it worked unbelievably well because so many people aren't tied to some big mission in their life. That would be to me part of a celebrating the win, right? Like, so I'm going to celebrate in this way. And candidly, the one thing that we found I have a charity called Arizona Foundation is we get more intrinsic value from giving money away than we do anything. So

there comes a point where teething or, you know, really just giving back or helping others. And that's my mission is that. But, you know, beyond that, you know, I have a foundation that does all kinds of different work in the community. Very satisfying, but you can just see the people in that community, how much they get from the value, you know, of just being involved in this greater mission. You know, I think that's the other part of the book, exponential theory, is really, you know, how do you create a mission that others can align to and get involved? And that's a big part of, you know, when you're creating a movement,

which I really consider exponential theory, a movement. If I'm going to create a million exponential leaders, I've got to create a whole bunch of other people that are helping. that as kind of part of my process. Well, Aaron, let's get into some of the business examples that you provide in exponential theory because I'm so interested to learn more of them. And let's jump in with the concept of exponential virality. I love this example, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Black Lives Matter movement. What is the business or strategy behind going viral? It's to just what we just launched off on. I mean, part of it is finding a common interest, a universal interest, with a

group of people and then really creating a common piece of content around. So, you know, a lot of times people attempt to, I take as like, if I just went out and I asked for donations and I just went around door to door, you know, that's an old model that will work. It's kind of linear, you know, you're going to just knock on a lot, a lot of doors or whatever. The LS ice bucket challenge was something very, very different where ALS was this disease that they ultimately created this ice bucket challenge. And if you remember, it was very trendy and very social media and created 100 million dollars of you know even though most of the people that did the challenge did not donate they created this awareness for it and that was the virulness of it is everybody started to do it remember my at the

time she's my daughter's 13 she's probably like seven or eight at the time she's like i want to do the ls ice bucket child so i'm in the backyard getting an ice bucket she's pouring over her head you know and all of a sudden i'm doing it too and you realize then you're posts on social media and now people are having a conversation about als that they weren't having before so it shows that other groups. Movember is another one. If you, you know, where you grow a mustache in November, that went very, very viral. And then every November, this foundation, I actually worked with them in the past. Basically now, you know, creates a lot of interest in what they're doing, you know, just by taking a piece of content and make it important. So content's king online.

So creating something that's common that everyone can do. And it's, it's where TikTok, you know, you see any trending meme is doing the exact same thing. So we've gone into hyper content or certain songs, certain things you do, certain dances, you see them over and over and over again. That's really around the virality. One of the chapters I have is the viral loop, which basically talks about how companies create their viral loop is how easy is it for them to grow. And a viral loop, there's something called the viral coefficient, which now I'm getting a little technical, but a viral coefficient is if I invite you to my network and you invite three people, then we have a three X viral coefficient. So then those three people would invite three people and you

see the numbers go out. Facebook is the best example of a network that grew by a viral loop because you could not ignore it. You could not get it off of it. You know, even the people that dislike Facebook aren't able to like really relinquish it, especially after they bought Instagram and WhatsApp. But you see this is that they were tied into your high school, tied into your college. So all these pieces of content, again, content is king. Facebook realized is making relevant content was going to pull you back in. So even those people the left eventually came back and we are where we are today, there's a lot of issues with it that I talk about it in my book of where we are and some of the issues because the algorithm start to choose what we

see and start to separate, you know, your ability to have your own opinion, which is probably politically one of our biggest problems today is because we have a very decisive world that sees one point of view and doesn't believe in another point of view because they see it over and over again and just the belief systems are created. And, you know, then here we are today with a very polarized and extremely opinionated public on, you know, whatever issue there is out there. If you're like me, trying to find the right candidate is not very easy these days. Sorting through resumes, trying to get in touch with them and follow up. Finding the right one to begin with seems to be the biggest challenge.

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I've never had anything like ALS challenge, obviously hashtag goals. But the first time it happened to a piece of content of mine where I received over a million views on something, that was a couple of years ago. I remember thinking, oh, wow, this is possible for me. I had never set that as a target. I had never thought, like, okay, let's go for viral pose. I didn't even know, you know, I just, I never thought that big around my content. But once I saw it happen, I remember watching tick, tick, tick, tick, and the numbers just kept going so fast.

Once I saw that, then I kept envisioning every post that since I've worked on that one, every post I look at it. I'm like, does this have the potential? No, I bet this one doesn't. This one could. Like, we've got to go all in on this one. You start thinking bigger once you have these micro big moments, right? Yeah, no, it's success breed success.

So it's also a belief system that you're expanding. So the fact that it opened your mind up to this, if you can create it as an expectation, then you start actually creating the habits to create that. So it's, again, learning every day about how do you get back there. But it's not to say that it can happen every time. And candidly, what social media has done over the last three to five years is really lock that down. You know, it used to be able to you could go viral on your own. Now social media is going to say, hey, we want to, well, money if you're going to go viral.

So we're going to limit this. So it becomes much, much harder to go viral. That's by TikTok, which doesn't have an advanced algorithm yet. It's starting to get it. As Instagram didn't have it three years ago, as Facebook didn't have it seven years ago, you know, LinkedIn even LinkedIn has an algorithm now that, you know, your content barely gets seen by anybody where you could have 17,000 people, but I can put a post out that's seen by 100 people because of algorithm.

So unfortunately, like we're battling a system that is really controlling what we see. I think that's part of the overall inherent issues with some of these control mechanisms that have been put in place. Now, they make good business sense. Don't get me wrong. I understand why they did them. It's just candidly our own ability to control our future. Now we have to buy into that future.

And part of it is creating the habits to do that. So there's so much more that goes into it today than there used to be. My own digital strategy firm I sold in 2015. And I feel like I'm a newcomer. When I talk about social media, I'm very much the newbie. where in 2015, I probably knew more than just about anyone there was at that point, but that just showed you how different it is. Oh, that's so true.

It's changing so quickly. Okay, why linear companies will eventually die in how to embrace the new circular economy by implementing the Rhodium rule? What does that mean? Linear companies, generally companies that are fairly large, they grow at, you know, their goal is 3 to 10% growth, which is a linear line. Companies always grow at that. What the problem with that is is that you have,

of all these other companies in different industries or inside their industry that are growing exponentially. What it means is they're doubling and tripling and they're hitting this curve. They're going to start buying market share because there's not infinite market share. So, you know, it goes to companies like Mercedes-Benz, which has a very quality car, but then you think about Uber, think about Tesla, and you think about all these other externals that you wouldn't think maybe takes market share from them, but every time they grow a little bit, they're actually taking market share. In very urban markets, you know, younger demographics, you know, teenagers aren't getting cars like

they used to. I'm not even getting a driver's license, which I find crazy because that was the most exciting, probably more of my life when I got my driver's license. But they're not thinking that they want to grow up and have a Mercedes as a car. That's not even part of their thought process. So as a company like Mercedes, they've got to reset, really think about how they can. So they're a linear company that actually is growing, you know, fairly considerably good line. But there's all these exponential companies.

And over the last year, they've really felt those pressures. The circular economy to the point of the rhodium role is you've probably heard of the golden rule, right? Heather, treat others as you want to be treated. Then there's the platinum rule, which is treat others as they want to be treated, which I think today is demanded with Me Too and all these different movements, cancel culture in general. But then there's the rodeoom rule, which is you have to think about the entire ecosystem, which I think is for leaders today

a very important part of being exponential. You're going to think big. You cannot think about people that look like you are your religion or everything. You've got to think about all people. And I think that's a very important part to growth of society, you know, in a culture, in a place where, you know,

we have to start thinking about the greater good of all people because it actually hurts each one of us when we're not thinking about all people. And I think that's where for far too long we've had a few decision makers, think about themselves and, you know, their friends and their families and not think about the rest of the world. So we have to actually start to think about those biggers. And if you look at some of the large tech companies, they've actually started because they represent all people,

it actually has made them more conscious than their policies and their decision. And so it really is around conscious capitalism or conscious business. Capitalism should not be in question. It's just how do we make it conscious so we start thinking about. Even BlackRock, the $7 trillion asset, manager, you know, has basically put out some calls to consciousness around, you know, how do we diversify board of directors? How do we actually invest in companies that are not for the deterioration of the plant around climate change? So some of these things are whether or not the reality is in the long run of where we see the future, how do we think about things differently? Because what we've done hasn't necessarily worked perfectly now. How could we

think about something bigger and better? I think that's an important part of leaders in very big companies and some of my clients that are boards and different things is how do we actually take a customer base? And if we're going to go exponential, we have to start thinking about customers that we've never had before because we have to grow on a different way. And that's an important conversation I have at the board level and the C-suite, as well as with startups. Because at the other day, if you can find a meme or a discussion to really drive your business, we see those companies being more successful every day. Again, content is king. And that's where some of these companies that actually stand for something versus a company that stands for nothing,

we see the difference in them in the marketplace. You know, one, we're in a period of persecution where you're not doing the right thing when no one's looking, you're going to be found out sooner or later. I think that's an important role of social media is how do we actually level the playing field and how do we actually give a voice to those that have never had one? And not only a voice, but give them a seat of the table, but also start to listen. Because I think for so long where we've given a lot of talks to diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI, but the reality of it is until we actually start to listen and drive

business in that direction, that's where companies really can reap the rewards because if we look at it, we live in a more diverse culture than we ever have before. We need as companies and what I do with very large companies, help them really think through, how do I actually embrace that diversity because that's part of my future? How do I actually help those people understand that we're part of that? Well, it's by making decisions for all people, not just for the people that are in the boardroom or family out on the farm or whatever it is. As a female board member, I'm all for more females

at the table because typically, as you know, it is elderly white males and it's about time for some fresh voices there for sure. All right, parting gifts here. What can you share with everybody about thinking big? What do you want to tell them about the power of thinking big that we didn't touch on already?

You know, we touched on a lot. And I think the key points that I would take from is once you get digital, once something comes digital, it becomes exponential. You know, it's just a matter of time. So obviously embracing the digital future, you know, companies that haven't. We've seen them perish. That's a big part of it.

And then just having a longer term vision of who you want to be personally, professionally, or organization, you know, however you're looking at the world. And then, you know, as you grow in the world, it's obviously adopting new beliefs. You cannot hold on to beliefs from the past that have been limiting if you're actually going to, you know, move into an exponential future. So the fact is for you, Heather, is just to continue to ask for those big things because I, obviously, you've already created a lot of big things for yourself and been in, you know, in front of all these different audiences and had all these great guests and been on all these different podcasts. It's like just continuing asking and creating that and expanding your own mindset is only going to bring unbelievable things for your future as well as all of your audience members. So it's just it's part of creating that confidence, you know, overcoming your villains, you know, not to wrap it into.

what you're doing, but it's going through that process to enjoy the journey because every day you went or learned and just having a long-term vision on that because at the end of the day, you know, success doesn't happen overnight. Now, if you believed it would and you had no resistance to that, it probably would. It's just you have to work through your own self-talk and demons, but reprogram them and unlearn some bad habits and limitations and regrets and, you know, really unlearn all these things that were brought to limit us and put us in a box is how do we expand that box. I think the most important thing to thinking big is just to know you have every piece of equipment, everyone on this planet has every piece of equipment that everyone else does.

It's just a matter if they actually can create the mindset, beliefs, and attitudes. A lot of that is who they're surrounded with. So there are different societal elements where people are born into different neighborhoods or different races that may cause additional boundaries. But regardless, we've always seen, and we always love those story of the hero's journey. of the hero actually coming through and winning. And that's why we love these stories of people that were down and out and obviously found their way to this conundrum and overcame it and then found success. I mean, that's part of my ex-MBA group coaching program is to write your own hero's journey

because at the end of the day, if you're a hero to yourself, you can be a hero to the world. And any way you want to choose to change the world, you just have to see it. And that's part of, you know, writing your own story and not letting others write it for you. it's so many we like to turn the pen over to someone else instead of just writing our own chapters and say this is what the next chapter is going to be and today's the day today's the only day you can do that so starting right now I love that and to paraphrase from Kanye West documentary

that's out on Netflix right now which for anyone that wants to go bigger you got to watch this when Jay-Z says to him a closed mouth doesn't get fed you would have gotten nothing if you hadn't asked And that guy asked his way onto Jay-Z's hit single. You have to open up your mouth and then start asking bigger, just like Aaron said. And if you really want to go bigger, you've got to pick up exponential theory, the power of thinking big. Aaron, where can everyone get your book? Well, it's been on Amazon, Barnes & Noble.

You can always go to exponential theory.com or Aaronbearer.com and learn more. Well, thank you so much for all the work that you're doing, making the world a better, bigger, more fabulous place. We're so glad that we got to be with you today, Aaron. Thank you. Thanks, Heather, for your time and appreciate everything you're doing for the world as well. All right, everyone.

Make it today. Today's the day. You're going bigger. Shoot me a DM. Let me know how you're going bigger after this episode. If you love the episode, share it, tag me and Aaron,

and we will repost and reply. Till next week, keep creating your confidence. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're going to hear, start learning. and growing. Inevitably something will happen. No one succeeds alone. You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it. I'm on this journey with me.