Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Michelle Royal On How to Create Your Innovative Power EP 58

Episode Date: August 31, 2021

What innovative power is waiting to be unleashed by you? Michelle Royal discusses how she uses visualization and facilitation to create breakthroughs in state of mind and behavior. She brings visual stories to life, unlocking the hidden collective power of organizations and individuals. Like this? Please subscribe, and join me on my new platform for peak performance, life coaching, and personal growth: https://passionstruck.com/. Creating Your Innovative Power Thank you for Watching the Passion Struck podcast. In this powerful interview, John R. Miles interviews Michelle Royal, the CEO of RIDG, about creating your innovative power and unleashing the power of ideas and how her family's Subway dynasty of 350 stores spurred her personal journey. We talk today about how her parent's entrepreneurial spirit impacted her own entrepreneurial pursuit, why she didn’t join the family business, her pursuit of art and the creativity is unleashed, the moment she realized her calling and the steps she took to pursue it, how she didn’t listen to the voices telling her she couldn’t pursue her dreams, how you to can unleash your creative power and so much more. She discusses the influence her mentor, Tom Wujec, a fellow at Autodesk, had on her becoming interested in design thinking and business visualization. New Interviews with the World's GREATEST high achievers will be posted every Tuesday with a Momentum Friday inspirational message! SHOW NOTES 0:00 Show Intro 1:22 Michelle Royal Biography 4:41 Her family's journey into owning a Subway franchise dynasty 10:47 She describes the moment her parent's life changed forever 17:22 The importance of having faith in yourself 19:43 How she learned to become resourceful 21:51 Her original path pursuing her passion in the Arts 29:20 How meeting Tom Wujec opened her eyes to design thinking 34:08 Overcoming her critics telling her she couldn't live her passion 37:34 Why no one succeeds alone 44:03 See a compelling future and making it possible 48:38 Why M&A is the new norm company's are using to drive innovation 51:51 Her work in helping with valuation creation teams 54:45 How to create your innovative power 57:30 CURIOSITY (RESOURCEFULNESS x FOCUS) squared by EMOTION = POWER! 1:01:16 Learning to fully trust our own voice 1:07:30 What is the core value that we bring to the world ENGAGE MICHELLE ROYAL Michelle Royal is the founder and Chief Innovation Officer of RIDG (Royal Innovation Design Group). She is an artist self-made speaker, consultant, and entrepreneur, who was raised in the growing Subway franchise empire. Her mission is to co-create a world of One Billion Innovators by inspiring contagious worth and value. Michelle holds a Master of Business Innovation (MBI) from the Deusto Business School in Bilbow, Spain, a Master of Arts in Art Therapy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and served as the first-ever Innovation Coach to the European Union. Website: https://www.ridg.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michellesroyal/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellesroyal/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/discoverRIDG Twitter: https://twitter.com/michellesroyal YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeUrTHu3wZrKcPKdu3BeNKA ENGAGE WITH JOHN R. MILES * Subscribe to my channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles * Leave a comment, 5-star rating (please!) * Support me: https://johnrmiles.com * Twitter: https://twitter.com/Milesjohnr * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Johnrmiles.c0m​. * Medium: https://medium.com/@JohnRMiles​ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_r_miles ABOUT JOHN R. MILES * https://johnrmiles.com/my-story/ * Guides: https://johnrmiles.com/blog/ * Coaching: https://passionstruck.com/coaching/ * Speaking: https://johnrmiles.com/speaking-business-transformation/ * Gear: https://www.zazzle.com/store/passion_struck PASSION STRUCK *Subscribe to Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passion-struck-podcast/id1553279283 *Website: https://passionstruck.com/ *About: https://passionstruck.com/about-passionstruck-johnrmiles/ *Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast *LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/passionstruck *Blog: https://passionstruck.com/blog/  

First of all, innovation isn't the ideation process. That's a piece of it. It isn't the building, the actual idea or solution or product. That's a part of it. It is making sure that every single idea gets into the hands of those who it's going to serve. An idea is also, it doesn't care what it becomes. It's very neutral. It will go to whomever is going to help bring it to life.

An idea has one purpose, and that is to serve as many people as possible. And we are meant to be the conduits for that value creation. Welcome visionaries, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, and growth seekers of all types to the Passion Struck podcast. Hi, I'm John Miles, a peak performance coach,

multi industry CEO, Navy veteran, and entrepreneur on a mission to make Passion Go viral for millions worldwide. In each week, I do so by sharing with you an inspirational message, an interviewing, I achievers from all walks of life to unlock their secrets and lessons to become an actual struck. The purpose of our show is to serve you the listener by giving you tips, tasks and activities. You can use to achieve key performance and for too a passion-driven life you have always wanted to have now. Let's become

passion-struck. Welcome to this episode of the passion strike podcast with Michelle Royal. And thank you so much all of you for being here. I know you have literally millions of other options of other podcast you could be listening to. And it means so much to us that you're here today supporting this podcast. I would just ask if you haven't done so already, please give us a five-star review and if you love today's episode please share it with three of your most like-minded friends so that they can get their dose of passion for the week. Marianne Williamson says in her book Return to Love, our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond all measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, famous? Actually, who are you not to be? What an amazing quote for today's episode that completely sets up my discussion with Michelle Royal. Michelle is the founder and chief innovation officer of Ridge. She is an artist, self-made speaker, consultant, and entrepreneur who was raised in the growing subway franchise system. Michelle has over 23 years working with literally thousands of leaders, 25% of the Fortune 500 companies and more than 60 communities across the globe. Since 2013, her system for transforming unpredictable change into fuel for unstoppable economic growth has helped communities and businesses yield over 750 million and economic value. She lives by one singular truth.

Innovation is everywhere, even inside you. Her mission is to co-create a world of one billion innovators by inspiring contagious worth and value. Michelle holds a Master's of Business Innovation from the Duesto Business School in Valbo, Spain, a Master of Arts in Art Therapy from the School of Art Institute of Chicago and served as the first innovation coach ever for the European Union.

And today we talk about how her parents entrepreneurial spirit and their growing subway franchise system impacted her own entrepreneurial journey in life. Why she didn't just join the family business and decided to pursue a different path? What that pursuit turned into when she turned to attention to art and creativity. That moment she realized her calling and the steps she took to unleash it. How she didn't listen to the voices who told her she couldn't and how she overcame that situation to pursue all her dreams and how you too can unleash your own innovative power and so much more.

A fantastic episode today. and how you too can unleash your own innovative power and so much more. A fantastic episode today. I hope you enjoyed as much as I was excited about doing it. Now, let's become a passion striker. I am so excited to have Michelle Royal on the show today. We've been trying to get this interview for about two months, just ecstatic to be able to talk to you. Welcome to the show, Michelle.

Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here. Well, there's so much I want to talk to you about because you have just an amazing career and so many different sub-elements of it that I want to hit on on today and I know the audience is gonna love, but I thought a great starting point would be for you to talk about your family's

franchise dynasty, how you got involved with that and that path and then we'll kinda jump from there. That's a long way to start. You ever have someone say I'm gonna tell you a story and then they go, you know, when I was born, that's a little bit of wherever's starting. So I was born into family of entrepreneurs. My parents graduated from high school. They had trade skills. My mother always wanted to be a secretary and a mother. Those were her two wishes. And my father went straight into the army after high school, and the two of them got married shortly after high school.

And it was sort of a typical Chicago Polish Catholic experience for them. But my dad worked with his family. He worked with his father and uncle and the meat packing district in Chicago, and then my mother worked as a secretary for the dial corporation. And so they really were living the dream years and years ago. And then there was, as there are many family businesses, a falling out, and my father packed up my mother and my two brothers by that point point and moved them to Theodosha

Missouri, which is a small town of 800 people. And we lived in an A-frame and my father began his entrepreneurship career, which was him chasing one wild idea after another. And my mother, being the other piece of entrepreneurship, which is often the uncommon entrepreneur, which is the person who hears the crazy ideas and says, you know what? I believe so much in you. I know how I'm going to help make this happen. And that was their relationship throughout their entire life. Was my father coming up with one crazy thing after another, including buying a batch of chickens

that he thought he was going to sell, and then they realized that they were hens, and so they couldn't, so they ended up selling eggs, not chickens. I mean, it was just one of those kind of funny things, but that was, it sounds small town and really, really off the charts because it was. So my father had a butcher shop on the border of Missouri and Arkansas. And when I was born, we actually lived in Theodosia. You can hear it probably. We lived in Theodosia.

They had to cross a state and county line to get me into this world. So I was actually born and raised in Arkansas. And shortly after I was born, I was about three years old. My father got sober, which is significant to the story. And two years after that, when I was five, his butcher business burnt down and we went bankrupt. My father was a great negotiator. Yeah, just wild. And my mother was a stay-at-home mom by this point and

My dad was a great negotiator. They had a small house on the border and my dad convinced an Amish family that had a Two-acre farm in mountain home Arkansas, which was the largest city near Near the border of the northern part of Arkansas, convinced an Amish family to trade homes. And I don't know if there was more value in that other house. I have no idea. But from age five to age eight, we lived on this small two-acre farm.

My father had three jobs. He worked as a manager at McDonald's, a butcher at the local town and country, and at a feed store so that we could tend to the farm. And then my mother, she was, she took care of the now four children because we had an oopsie baby number four my sister Kristen. And we were that family on the side of the road that had the hand painted sign that said eggs for sale, her ed full sale, that was us. And my dad went to, as a manager of McDonald's, he went to a conference in Lidurac, Arkansas,

and there was at the time one subway store, called a sea store or a corporate store in Lidurac. And that was how subway franchised. Subway in its initial days was a franchising giant. That's they mastered the franchising system. And they would build a store in a promising area and then they would look for an owner. And my father fell in love with the with the subway. He fell in love with the sandwich. And my very first subway sandwich, I call it the sandwich that changed my life,

was on, I was sitting on the floor of the green shag carpet in our little tiny farmhouse with my brothers and my sisters, and I had a paper plate and a six inch BMT that my father had wheeled in from a cooler in the trunk of his car that he brought all the way from Litter Rock. So he drove three hours with all the ingredients, made the sandwich

for us and then told us that we're moving to litter rock to open up this run this subway. And how my dad, you know, got into that business was nothing, short of a miracle because we had no equity, no credibility, we had no nothing. But my father and my mother, both of them went up to Subway corporate to apply to try to get the Subway store. And Don Fertman, this is maybe a longer story than you wanted. But, but my, Don Fertman, who was then the chief,

he wasn't the chief development officer. He was just the head of development for the franchise system. There were 300 stores in the United States. Now they're supporting 2,000 worldwide. but Dawn Furtman was sitting at his desk and told my father, he said, you know, I'm just having a really hard time because I just got sober and it's only been about six months and today it's just been a really rough day and my father reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin and said, you know, we people who have gotten suburb, we got to stick together. And it became a bonding moment for them.

And my father met legal, my parents filled out all the paperwork to see if they could qualify for the loan of the store because that's what happened. They would loan potential franchisees a store if they thought they were promising. And so they had to do the credit reports. And this was the 80s. This was like 1983. And so the next day, Don went into his office and on his desk was the form that said Conrad and Barbara Straslecki denied. And he looked out the window down at the table where he and my father had had lunch. It makes me emotional still the day. And he said, you know, I could be this guy's second chance. And he literally threw up the paper and threw it in the trash. And he told my father that they were going to loan in the store.

And so the first week of ownership, we made $400. That's now a bad breakfast for Subway. And within three years, my family owned six stores and my dad was asked to be the development agent, which when you want to buy a subway, you go, at the time you went to a development agent to buy the development agent, which when you want to buy a subway, you go. At the time, you went to a development agent to buy the franchise. And that was when he and my mother started working together. And over the, my dad had a goal of 100 stores in 10 years, Fred Deluca,

who was the founder of Subway, slept on our couch as we were going through all the training. I mean, it was that small of a business at the time. Fred Deluca thought my dad was crazy because there were about 80 McDonald's in the state of Arkansas at the time, and he just didn't think that that was even a possibility. And my dad had, we had a hundred stores and built a hundred stores in eight years. And now my brother runs the company. So there was a succession that happened and my brother runs the company now and there's over 350 stores within the development agency now. Which is under your family's jurisdiction?

Yes. In Arkansas region, yeah. Yes, that's pretty amazing. I myself, not many people know this, but I myself, when I was at Dell, I was looking for a plan B to what I was doing then Michigan. And I started doing the due diligence on them because the typical kill winds, you know, they call it the triple threat. It's got a screen, fudge, and chocolates. And I'm like, how can you go wrong

with the triple threat? And their stores were an average doing top line between 1.5 and 3 million with, you know, an 80% margin. So the catch was, I got qualified, the catch was they didn't have the distribution network to get into Texas at that point. So they wanted me to open one in Chattanooga and at the time we were living in Austin, but my parents lived in Chattanooga and my dad had recently retired. So, had he agreed to help me on this endeavor, I probably would own Pillens today, but it didn't end up that way. But it's such a fascinating business. How were you part of it for a while and then left

or did you never play a role in it? So I'm the only child in my family up until recently to go to college. I was actually a very shy child, which anyone who knows me today would find that extremely difficult to believe. Always very creative. I am the oldest daughter, but the third child out of four. And so my brother Scott, who at age 14, started working in the store,

had the most passion for the industry as a whole. We all worked in the subway. I think I started working there when I was 12, don't tell child labor services, but I think I started working there when I was 12. Don't tell child labor services, but I think I started working, I mean, I babysat, but I started earning my own money when I was around 12 years old. And by the time I was in high school,

my desires to go to college had outweighed my desires to pursue in the family business. My brothers one went into the Navy, Scott went into more culinary practice, the oldest brother went into more culinary practice, and so they, like I said, they had more of a passion for having some independence, but then really staying in the family business. And I wasn't directly involved in that part of development, say from the time I was 18, 10 years after the business had been formed and was really successful up until about 12 years ago or so

after I had started developing my innovation consulting practice. And at that point, I assisted with the succession planning for my family. And so I came back to help the family make decisions around, but at that point, my parents were divorced, but they still had the business together. My brothers were working in the business, and so it was more of the legacy planning. What did they want the future to be? So I helped with that. Well maybe before we move on, you could just break down a little bit about having two entrepreneur parents like that.

What were some of the most important lessons that you learned from that experience and seeing this all evolve? It really is an incredible story that, you know, through that one act of kindness, your parents' lives completely changed. Well, my father was always a very charismatic person. If there's anything that we have in common, it's that we don't need a stranger. And he knew how to build a rapport and trust very quickly with people. So even though he was a northern city boy, he did extremely well in Arkansas business climate by really just being authentic and being himself and focusing more on relationships and opportunities and what you can do together.

He had a lot of faith in people because people put faith in him. And I would say that started with his first business partner and my mother, whose deep, deep, deep belief in just their ability to problem solve and get through anything. And that probably was reinforced due to the fact that they had very little for a very long time and beyond made due, I mean, as a child growing up,

aside from having some layaways at Kmart, I don't really remember ever really going without or feeling less than or feeling as though I was missing the thing. But my father was very inspirational. They did everything they could to facilitate the fulfillment of your dream or passion, whatever it was that you wanted to pursue.

And like I said, I was very creative. And my father used to always tell me, and I think this is a lesson I still am learning today. My father used to say tell me and I think this is a lesson I still look and learning today. My father used to say to me, if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will. And that's one of the the fiches is a rolling, scrolling almost mantra for me. Well, it's so true. I mean, if you if you aren't kind to yourself first, if you don't work on yourself narrative and really understand yourself, your strengths and weaknesses and love yourself for them.

Regardless, it's going to be hard to move on because you're always going to be walking in your own shadow of something else that you want to be other than authentic like you. So, what? And my mother just briefly, because I, it's very easy to talk about that certain kind of entrepreneurship. But my mother, she is the one who instilled in me the intense demonstration, the daily demonstration of resourcefulness. So a lot of times in innovation and creativity, we think it's about ingenuity or insight or genius.

And my mother gave me an incredible gift by really living the practice of resourcefulness, which is making the absolute most of what you have. And I think that there is, in today's world, we often miss that incredible teaching. And that is so true. Well, I think the first time I met you has been many, many years ago and it was at the time, I thought you were an artist. I didn't know anything about you, but at that time I was very big

into the art scene and St. Pete. And I can't remember if it was the Museum of Fine Arts or something to do with the warehouse arts district. I better remember meeting you and back then you had much shorter hair than you do now. But you do have a background in arts that I think plays a really big role in your company today, which we'll get into. But how did you pursue that artistic side of you? And I have a friend, Carrie J. as he might know a local artist. And I always like talking to her because she says she's got two sides of her brain.

One is the electrical engineering side, which is what she guided her to green. And then the other side is the creative. And when I read your story, I almost found you have something similar going on. I think there's a creative side. And then there's a completely other side. So, was hoping you could just describe that and that path from arts to finding this niche,

where you're taking that creativity and now applying it to business. Sure, so my art origin stories actually started on the farm when I was in the first grade and I was asked to submit a drawing for the local state fair, actually the county fair. And I ended up winning first place. Like I remember holding my mom's hand in the outdoor covered tent with all the rows of the art products. And then I turned and there's my little drawing of a merry

go round with the blue ribbon on it. And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm such an entrepreneur that I thought will have the market liked at this year. Maybe they'll like it next year. And I drew the same thing in the second grade. And I got second place. But I say we went without, but I did know that we didn't have a lot of money.

So for Christmas that year, I asked for a crayola color wheel. And along with a few other things. And I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to get it. And we woke up, we opened our gifts. And there was no crayola color wheel. I had my Holly Hobby lunch box and my strawberry shortcake, you know, sleeping bag, but norayola color wheel. I had my Holly Hobby lunch box and my strawberry shortcake, you know, sleeping bag, but no Crayola color wheel.

And then we went off to church. And whenever we came home, there was a single gift in the center of the green shag carpet that I told you about before. And the family was like, what is it? And we walked over and I was seven years old. I had two older brothers like I knew that Santa did not exist anymore.

So parents still let your kids hear this if you're still playing that game. Believing in that magic and my name was on it. And whenever I opened it, wouldn't you know, it was the Crayola color wheel. And in my child's mind, I couldn't imagine how a gift would have gotten in the house. It was right by the fireplace literally. And I thought, that's it. I've two things happened.

I believe in Santa. And I knew that I was meant to be an artist. So I pursued non-verbal, visual communication. That's the adult term for today with a passion because it was a quiet place that quiet my mind. I was never diagnosed with ADHD until I was later older in my life. I now personally choose not to pathologize any of the unique gifts that come out of either the hyper focus or my ability to think differently than other people. But I certainly, if that diagnosis existed when I was a child, it would have probably would have been stuck with it. But create creative arts, even dance physical arts,

all of those arts were really important in me trying to understand what felt like a really complex world to me. And I pursued it in high school, and then I went to college, and pursued it in college. And I got a master high school and then I went to college and pursued it in college and I got a master's or I got a bachelor of arts with a minor in psychology and a bachelor of fine arts. I was always interested in applying creative processes with groups of people. I just wasn't sure how I was going to do that. I could just see myself. I could see myself working with

people in business, but I didn't know how it was going to happen. And I always, anytime there was an opportunity at hand, I would take that opportunity and blow it out into something spectacular. Like, for example, my senior year of college, we had to do an internship with an artist, most everyone chose a local Arkansas artist. I picked an artist in New York and went and studied with her, one of the most famous Yale

School of Art, Artists of our Day, Judy Faff. And it was all by just being willing to ask, ask for the opportunity. And then I went to graduate school for Art Therapy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which even while I was there, I wasn't exposed to industrial psychology or organizational design, but I was still always on myself doing something creative in business, never graphic design or marketing

or branding traditionally. I was out with something different. Moving people, moving people through change. And I can't remember if we had talked about it, I was out something different, moving people, moving people through change. And I can't remember if we had talked about it, but I went through a number of challenging life experiences that by the time I was 18, I had developed full blown alcoholism and got sober. And so by the time I went to graduate school, I'd been sober five years, I'd been working a spiritual program for that amount of time. And I was just really pursuing this creative, personal group, all of these different interests simultaneously. But it didn't really come together for me until I went to a conference here in Florida, which is a whole other story, as you can tell, and pack and stack with stories. But I was always gifted

and talented in math. I was always gifted and talented with people. I was always gifted and talented in creative expression and very gifted and talented in communication. And so my purpose has always been to just show up and whatever was created by this universe if you believe in a higher power or to be of maximum service with those talents and skills. So then you parlayed that into getting a master's of business innovation, which at the time you must have been completely on the leading edge of that degree program and not only did you do it, but you did it much of it in Spain. So what led you to that decision and coming out of it,

you ended up becoming the first ever innovation coach for the European Union. So I'd like to hear what led you into it and then what that experience was like. Yeah, so you're getting all of my great origin stories, John. So good research. I actually at the age of 30, the ripe age of 30, after building a real estate business here with my now ex-husband, left my marriage, left my, because I realized we just wanted very different things. So I'd left that marriage, I had left the business and I wanted to do, I wanted to get back to pursuing the creative process in business. And a friend had recommended the Sarasota International Design Summit.

I got involved in this organization that doesn't exist anymore called Creative Tampa Bay. And they were sponsoring this event called the Sarasota International Design Summit. It was held at the risk Carlton Hotel. I was at the time working as a sales associate for a very small local design firm in Tampa. And I had, I mean, I was, whenever I say I was struggling and I thought I'm just gonna give myself time

to find what my next thing is, you know. I was struggling. I had $200 cash to my name, not a joke. My electricity had been turned off. That $200 I used is cash down payment for my room at the Ritz Carlton, which they almost did not accept. So I was rooming with a girl there at the hotel.

I volunteered so I could attend the $1,500 or so ticket so I could attend the conference. And, but I was there. To me, it doesn't matter how you got there, just be there when you're there. So I'm there. I'm underneath the glass chandelier. I'm sitting next to the Chief Innovation Officer of BMW

and the Chief Innovation Officer Phillips, you know, the people who make the most incredible driving machines and the machines that are saving line. And on the stage is Tom Wu-Jack. And Tom Wu-Jack at the time was the Chief Evangelist of Autodesk, which designs Autocad, the software that designs the world. And he was sharing about a process called design thinking and innovation.

And as I looked at his very simple iterative circles with arrows process, it's like an idea knocked on the door of my heart. And it came in the form of a question and it said, what if everyone in the world knew their potential to achieve this? And it what, I mean, you could imagine the room got brighter. That was my moment of aha. And I started to just barrel towards that vision, that vision of everyone in the world having had understanding that you don't have to be. First of all, innovation isn't the ideation process. That's a piece of it. It isn't the building, the actual idea or solution or product, that's a part of it. It is making sure

that every single idea gets into the hands of those who it's going to serve. An idea is also, it doesn't care what it becomes, it's very neutral. It will go to whomever is going to help bring it to life. An idea has one purpose and that is to serve as many people as possible. And we are meant to be the conduits for that value creation. And oftentimes we think that the innovation is about us as the creator and it's not at all. Whenever we say follow and love with your customer, it means remove your ego and play with this idea so it can become the thing that can really, really help

as many people as possible. So I started barreling forward Tom Wujek became my mentor. I followed him at different conferences so that I could learn. I was hungry, I was like a sponge. And Tom visualized everything. So he drew simple pictures to create

the neurological connection, just like I drew pictures to heal. It's a mind-body connection. It retrains your parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system to allow for new possibilities. It is an incredibly, so whenever you yes I'm an artist, I am also a neuroscientist. I am also an agent of change. I am also an orator. You know, there's there's a hundred things that I am to be successful at the work that I do. But I worked with Tom followed every suggestion that he made and within two years I was working with the European Union on an economic development initiative to change

the culture of the subsidized mentality into one of intellectual property creation, partnerships, new distribution channels, seeing your creation is something that isn't just this really nice craft, but something that could really be commercialized. And worked on that project for a short period of time and came back to the United States and started working in the local tech startup scene. And I was interested in pursuing more studies, more formal studies, but nothing existed. There was a school at Stanford partnered with IDO with a design thinking program, but there was a wait list of 1,000 people. Still, today there's a wait list of a thousand people that never appealed to

me. Why would I want what everybody else is doing? That's where all the standard consultants go to. And this program in Spain was an incredibly unique experience with global leaders who were challenged with, in my opinion, what the future of America might be facing if we didn't continue our own, you know, innovation pathways, and it was extremely flexible, and they wanted me to be a teacher as well. So I was teaching visualization and visual thinking as a tool for cognitive prototyping, communication, leading organizational change at the same time as getting my degree. That is a very interesting story from many components. The thing I like about it the most is the passion that you showed in your pursuit of it. Because in many ways that's what it means to be passion struck. You're so consumed by that light bulb that goes off,

that you're willing to pursue it regardless of what it takes, what risks you have to put, what money, what momentum you need, you go after it. And to me, you made that choice and you pursued it. What I found really interesting is that, you know, after you've accomplished all of this, you know, in 2006, you're trying to start your dream business and you start meeting with people to apply this creativity process and you're initially told, it's never going to work because you don't have the credibility. And I just wanted to go there for a second because I'm sure for many of the listeners, they might have had similar experiences

when they were an entrepreneur or wanting to start something and they don't get the best response. I know when I started pursuing passion struck, people are like, you're gonna do what? So, oh, it's in it's, in some ways, it's humbling, but in other ways, I think when, at least for me, someone tells me, I can't do something, especially for a reason like that, it gives me more impetus to want to prove that I can do it. So, I'm interested in hearing your story. Thank you. The great intro to that.

So I do want to stress that there's in the entrepreneurship community specifically, there are some speakers who will talk about, don't pursue what you're not good at. So I want to reiterate, I agree with that. Being good at something or doing what comes naturally to you and pursuing that versus forcing it, I am not a spreadsheet organization person.

I am not going to pursue that, right? But when it came to this vision through the form of a question, through my intense curiosity, through that the knowing, this is it, that thing that I had been searching for, for this link between business, creative organizations, people, change, this is my tribe, this is what I'm here to do. I just don't know the how. That to me is different than don't pursue something you're not good at. So I want to make that clear. When I was sitting down and talking with the mentors for me, they were instructors from universities who also had consulting programs, other consultants.

I was told I would never be able to be an innovation consultant. I described the life that I saw myself living in the work I saw myself doing and they said, you will never be able to do that because you don't come from Deloitte or McKinsey or Bane. And I heard them, and then I went to my actual mentor, Tom Wu-Jack, and just kept doing what he, I thought, find somebody who has been successful doing what you're doing. And if they're willing to teach you, and I remember at one conference going up to Tom and saying, Tom, thank you so much, you changed my life. And he looked straight at me and he said, I didn't change your life you did.

And that's the, that's the believe in yourself because no one else will. Or believe in yourself because no one else will or believe in yourself because if you don't know when else will moment of if this is true for you, find out the how. And maybe there are things that you can't do because it's not your skill set. Find ways to get help. Nobody gets to where no one succeeds alone. You know that. That's a no one succeeds alone. I there's no way I got to where I am today by myself. And yet the hundreds of thousands of hours, hundreds of thousands of hours, not hundreds of hours, hundreds of thousands of hours that I've sat

in my own quiet space showing up one more day for a dream that I wasn't sure whether or not it was going to happen, right? That's what you have to do. There are some things that are craft and skill and that you do. So the European Union project gave me a tremendous lift. In the two years between when I was told you'll never be able to do this and being hired for that experience. I traveled around the country to all of the programs that looked like innovation and interviewed people. So I did that. I was like, okay, if I can't do this, let me find out how it's being done. I talked to this many individuals as I could about innovation or about innovation practice.

I found local places that were doing facilitation that to me looked like an innovation process. And that's where I was exposed to appreciative inquiry and many of the 63 codified methodologies for innovation. I started educating myself as much as I possibly could. And so when the opportunity presented itself, I was ready. Luck is where hard work meets opportunity. That's what that looks like.

So and within once I started bridge, Royal Innovation Design Group in 2013, which was seven years later, I had freelanceed with all kinds of consultants, supplying the visualization and communication and organizational change methodologies and strategy methodologies to promote new ideas and innovation.

But by the time I started my company, then it was around that time that I went to the school, got the Masters of Business Innovation, I was then called in to train executives and work with the executives of PWC, trained to, or called in to work with the executives of Deloitte, to bring to them the gifts that I had been building over the prior seven years. So the exact thing that was the reason why I was never going to be doing what I was doing became the exact thing that hired me to do what they could never do. Well, fantastic story. And I did want to highlight one of the key things

that you brought up. And that is so many times people think that these opportunities just come out of blue and sometimes they do. But I firmly believe that it's you kind of putting yourself out there to the universe. And in your case, you were doing that hard work every day in preparation.

You didn't know when it was gonna come, but you knew what was going to. And so I think, you know, somehow, and this happens a lot when that opportunity comes, and if you've done the work, you're able to say, I can to life changing opportunities. And I think the issue is so many people say I can't, oftentimes, and it's because they haven't done that work,

that prepares them from when that moment comes, they've got the self-confidence to know that they can jump on it. So I think that's a great thing you brought up there. My dad used to listen to Zig Ziglar. I have the original tape set that he used to listen in his car. And Zig Ziglar was one of the first motivational speakers.

And he talked about having an ICANN, create an ICANN, and I took a little film canister for a camera and put an eye on it. And I dropped my dreams in it when I was a kid growing up. Did you know that Forbes Magazine recently cited that 70% of individuals who do personal development, masterminds, and one-on-one coaching, benefited from better work performance,

increased communication skills, and overall better relationships. And we, at PassionStruct, are obsessed with self-development, coaching, and mentorship. That is why we've created a free resource to help you unlock your hidden potential. Because people doing great things in business and life are just like you, only they've had a coach along the way. And we've got that covered too. Let us show you the systems and frameworks that we teach both minded individuals to help them

step into their sharp edges, execute on their passion journeys, and get predictable results time and time again. Go to passionstruck.com slash coaching right now and let's get igniting. I wanted because the audience probably can't visualize what you do. So I have been lucky enough, sometimes I think it's a curse that I am one of these leaders who is able to see what things are going to develop into years ahead of them doing so. And it's great because I can see seven, ten years in the future what the possibilities are. The issue that I have found is there's

probably only about 15% of people who can see that. So when I was in my corporate roles, I would be talking about things in the future and people couldn't make the link from where we are today to where we needed to go. And so I remember my boss at the time, Steve Stone said, you know, John, you've got this gift, but what you've got to do is you've got to break it down into chunks people can understand. So he said, break it down into six months or one year chunks. But I think what you do with your company, and this would apply, I think, both in a company setting and in a personal setting, if you're trying to think of your personal vision, you kind of map this out in a way that I think these ideas

take root on canvas, so to speak, so that you can see kind of the linkages and I think it would help. In many ways lay the groundwork for someone to see the bigger picture if they're not understanding it. Am I comprehending the process correctly? So that is one thing that we do. And getting everyone on the same page or helping them see a compelling feature and believe in their ability to make it possible is one of the biggest first steps. And in a world like today where there's been a lot of disruption and so much noise that it feels very confusing and unknown what the next five years will bring, it's a more challenging to cast a future scenario. It's still possible, though.

For example, in 2006, there was a question that knocked on the door of my heart that still today is an ambition of mine that every single day, regardless of what's happening in the world, is still true for me. So to me, the future is truth. Either it's a small truth that we live in this moment or end it's a bigger thing that we are a bigger ambition. And yet we have to be able to experience how we are contributing to it daily. So yes, that link between that big future thing, like making it to the top of Mount Everest. What am I going to do

today? Oh, I am doing this. This is me making it to the top of Mount Everest. Oh, I'm I'm stair climbing an hour. That's me making it to the top of Mount Everest. Oh, I'm I'm going into a cold chamber twice a week. That's me making it to the top of Mount Everest. Do you see? So corporations and companies and communities and individuals can all do the same thing in the same way. And a way to stay focused on it is to have what we call a strategic story, which is part of an overall communications catalyst package that we offer. And it's a one-page visualization. It's not a vision board, John, I heard you. I'm just kidding, you didn't say that. So one page visualization that is unique to the companies, mark signature contribution to the

world. And so we look at futures, strategies, and trends, and we help them answer the bigger question. Who do we need to become in order to serve our clients in this future state? That sets the ambition. We create really clear objectives, really clear key results, measurable outcomes for people to feel that solid single step on a day-by-day basis. And so we create this holistic picture that encapsulates the entire story and journey. Interesting. I earlier today happened to be listening for whatever reason to sports talk radio. And right now, there's a lot going on in the NCAA, both with athletes now being able to have sponsorships and earn money, but also with Texas and Oklahoma and now rumors that Michigan,

Ohio State, other teams are gonna form a super conference. But what I'm going with this is they all started focusing on Nick Sabin and what they were saying is one of the things that has made Nick Sabin so successful over his careers, that he has the courage and I guess the innovation to continually adapt his program to what he thinks the future is going to be. And you know, it got me thinking before our interview, one of the biggest things that you can help companies do, and I also think individuals, is the companies that I have seen that end up huttering out, you know, and I was with one

Catalina marketing, it's not that they're not a great company, it's that they fail to see the future and, you know, what got them there isn't going to keep them there or get them to where they need to be in the future. And so I think your methodology would be great at helping a company see, here is your proof point, but these are ways that you could extend it or take it into a different direction

because I had an interesting course when I was going through the MBA program and you can almost look at any period of time, but if you looked at the Fortune 500 today and you compared it to 10 years ago, I bet just 70% of the companies no longer exist or have been consumed by someone else. And a lot of that is because they lack that innovation that propels them to keep the market value and shareholder value that they need to over time. So.

Some of it is that, John. Some of it is also that the current trending strategy for innovation is M&A. So some are actually building to be acquired. So that's a big part of it too. And in the private equity world, there's a huge, just over the next three years, there'll be more mergers and acquisitions

than in the history of time. And I would estimate, it's actually, it was two years ago, 50% of the companies on the S&P 500 didn't exist. So, from the last recession to this current state, my estimation is over the next five years, it's gonna double, meaning 50%, it's not gonna take 10 years to get to that state.

It's gonna be over the next five years, 50% of the companies don't exist today. That will be on the S&P 500, that's my prediction. Well, you know the- I'm right. And maybe people are doing M&A better than they were in the past, but I've been through a lot of them. At one time at Dell, we were doing 14 or 16 simultaneous.

And I think that everyone wants to analyze the financials, and they want to give you these, you know, you're going to end up having these synergies. The most often overlooked things that I thought companies did was they didn't look at the core cultures between the acquire and the acquiring company because if you have a huge cultural difference, like in the example of Dell, Dell was a very flat culture. We acquired Perot, Perot was a military, high-erkyle culture and you bring the two of those together and it's a very difficult combination. And I think the other thing is they don't spend enough time really understanding the future strategy and momentum that that company has,

because many companies to your point will build themselves up to a point that they're an M&A target, but they don't have the innovation, the capital, everything else behind it, that's going to propel them for the next 10 years. So my experience was those were two big gotchas that I learned from looking at literally hundreds and hundreds of companies we were looking to acquire. So not sure if there's any way you help within the M&A space, but.

Yeah, so in that case, a specific example anyone who's on a private equity, in a private equity company, or on a board of a company, where they're looking for the acquisition strategy. What is the next company, or what are the next companies that we need to be considering

in order to maintain the integrity of the growth model of the current organization and then expand it to whole new markets is going to expect the executive team to be able to guide them unless they have a value creation team in house, which not every private equity team has. That's what they call them, value creation teams or, you know, value driving teams. So instead of saying innovation teams, it's all about value valuation creation.

So there was a company that worked with that had a 30 year history, 4,000 clients, global brand. On its next wave of growth, they'd identified a whole new opportunity, but it was service-oriented versus commodity-oriented. And so they were like, we're getting a lot of revenue, but we're not sure if it's really sustainable and how many clients we might actually have.

And the board said that they were moving in a direction exploring companies to acquire and if the executive team couldn't make a decision about the future identity of the organization, where the organization needed to go, then they would make their own decisions independent of the executive team, which we all know that that's code for, we'll find people who can. So in a matter of two sessions with our organization, we helped them, we helped them set the context, get situational awareness of what was happening in the world compared to their historical strengths, how they had evolved over time and what

would make not, I say reasonable meaning it would make sense for them to move in this direction and feel natural, feel like the company was moving for their clients, you know, moving forward for their clients. And through a series of processes allowed them to then analyze the success that they've been experiencing over the prior year in this new service model. And loan behold, they were able to cast a whole new identity and vision based on this one opportunity space. And in a matter of 18 months, 15 million turned into around 200 million during the pandemic. And then which was pretty unfounded growth. And then they also were able to make a very large, the largest acquisition in the industry's

history based on the confidence of the executive team to serve the market. And then the pandemic hit. And we were able to reset the identity, reset the communications plan so that they could be prepared for the next three years. And they're deeply involved in designing the future of work, which is, you know, it's a huge theme right now. And we just helped them align with their clients to really look at the uncertainty of the next six months to six years and create partnerships through that process. Leveraging again, let's get everyone on the same page, let's look at this future together. Let's honor each other's unique perspectives and skills,

and if we're recreating or improving the way that we're doing things because it's changing so rapidly, let's do it together. It's difficult to be a large company to be able to make agile, adaptive change, but it's possible. So yes, we do work a little bit with that. It definitely is, but it takes an art and it takes the right willing leaders to be able to pull it off from my experiencing the attempted in companies. I'm gonna switch directions here a little bit because I want to get into more of the show's purpose of trying to help the individual.

And so I really wanted to talk about innovative power. And I know you've got this formula that is curiosity squared by emotion equals power. And I saw that, you know, and curiosity is resourcefulness times focus. And I wanted to understand a little bit, where did you come up with that formula, and how can you apply it? Yeah, so I'm wondering if you're going to end up showing the visual. I was actually over lucky enough to speak to a group of 300 female,

successful female entrepreneurs on the rise of supporting entrepreneurship as a whole. This was around five years ago. And so I decided to tell the story of the unconventional entrepreneur, my mother. And I mentioned my father because when people think about entrepreneurship, they think of the traditional entrepreneur, which would be my dad, you know, he was wild, the wild idea guy who was like life of the party that everyone had like, oh, what create, you know, what I, one amazing idea is he's going to come up with now, but my mom always was off on the sidelines

putting structure behind possibility. I think that's really important, structure behind possibility. I think that's really important. Structure behind possibility. My very, I'm going to switch stories. My very, very, very first mentor aside from listening to Zig Zig, who are growing up, was a man that worked for my father and I was 18 years old and as I'd mentioned, I had just gotten sober and he said, Michelle, I'm going to, I'm going to help you to learn about how to make dreams come real. And I was like, okay, this sounds great. He goes, right down everything you want to achieve.

And it was like, go see the Indigo Girls in Concert and be a world famous artist. And just a whole host of things. I still have my dream book today. And he said, okay, now we're going to break this down into simple steps. And so he taught me the product. I met with him my parents office every week for about three months. And he taught me the basics of dream building. And that formula, the reason why I mention it is because that formula for me was about the holistic, everything you need to make something that seems impossible. It's very hard for us. Our minds are magical machines. It's very hard for us when we are in the world and we're surrounded by our environment, it's called cognitive behavioral therapy.

Our environment affects our thoughts. Our behavior affects the environment. Our environment affects our thoughts. Our thoughts drive our behavior. Our behavior affects our environment. It's the slupe. Very hard for us to get out of that. Those anchors that happen, it literally is hardwired into our nervous system,

throughout all of our, down to our fingers and our toes. And that formula of curiosity, which is about great questions, resourcefulness, which is asking, not how much money do I need, but just what do I have that could help me now? Emotion, do I care about this enough? Do I care about it enough to move forward with it? Do I care about it enough to take the next step? Do I care about it enough to wake up at 5 a.m.

Do I care about it enough to get over the fear of the phone call. Do I care about it enough to write the first words on the blank page? Do I care about it enough to ask somebody for help? Do I care about it enough to build it? That's emotion. Do we have enough emotion? Equals that creative power. And those things when in balance, when we have the,

and it's not like you need a 10, you could have a five and it could be a really good wheel, you know, I'm saying, you don't have to have all of it. But do you have an imbalance, you can't have all curiosity and no action, you can't have all passion, all emotion, and no action, you know, it know, there's got to be, which for me resourcefulness is a lot about, a lot about taking the action that you can take today. But anyway, I was talking about my mother and what she taught me, and that's where the formula came from. It actually came from trying to help these women entrepreneurs understand that the world

didn't necessarily even five years ago, the world didn't necessarily reflect their way of doing business. And that's okay because they're here to change it. Like, I don't, I work primarily with men executive men in a world that was built by executive men, primarily. There's nothing wrong with that. There's everything right about that. They created it and they've, and now invited me to help recreate it. You know what I'm saying?

It's like, if we see a different world, let's recreate, let's create it together. Let's just, let's go to that different place. Any obstacle to overcome. Be more resourceful, ask more questions, learn something new. Rest, resourcefulness is a lot about rest. I'm really against the hustle, by the way. Well, I think that that whole formula

would make a great TEDx talk. Because you could do it in eight minutes and it would be powerful. So I know one of the things you like to do is empower women. You just talked about how much of your audience that you work with are men. But if you are women in the audience,

what would your advice be to them if they wanted to unleash their innovative power? What are some of the first steps that you would recommend doing? So often, there's an interesting phenomenon in the female psychology in which we will often seek others for an answer. And it's because maybe we didn't grow up fully trusting our own voice. And for women, I would say the very first step would be, it's going to sound paradoxical, would be to, if you can't just write on a page and answer the question, this is what I want. And feel that for yourself. Then find somebody to guide you through something like a meditation

or a session to get clear about what you want. I would say, get rid of all the noise. Turn off your social media. Turn off, because a woman who is wanting to achieve either a business or has an idea, they've already gotten inspired. Turn off the noise and listen to yourself. Because first, there has to be some kind of an internal knowing or voice or a dialogue about why it matters to them and hold on to that deeply. My mother, I told you in the very first story, she always wanted to be two things, a secretary and a mother. And by the time she was 30, she had achieved her life's dream. But being a mother was

always her primary. And her desire, her deepest desire was to build and support her family. And that is still true today. There is no dream for any individual that is too small or simple or clean as long as it is yours because what she did with that single passion of building and supporting a family to me is nothing short of extraordinary. We do not have to build the next Amazon. We do not have, it's great if that's your passion. You do not have to do that. Changing the life of four humans on the earth, which are the number of children that she had, loving one person, which was her husband and ex-husband, all of the heart and devotion that she put into that, the sacrifice that she made was enough to make, to change

the lives of thousands of people, right? There's nothing too small. There's no dream too small. In my opinion, I know people like dream big. You want a house dream of a mansion. That stuff was debilitating for me. It honestly was debilitating to me because I had a hard time seeing myself in that. We have to sensitize ourselves into those spaces by visiting, you know, going on tours of Mandeep, that's really what you want, going home tours and tour the mansions, right? Put it in your pair, put it in your nervous system, get it, drive the car you want,

that's what people tell you. But I would say if you're starting, just know that just starting is actually one of the most powerful radical acts we can ever achieve. Yeah, I can agree more. The motto of this whole show starts with make a choice. And that's really the choice that you're going to start. Because until you do that, a lot of people think about it.

Some people think about it for a lot longer than others. But until you make that choice that you're going gonna go after it, you're kind of there and just suspended animation with regrets that you're not taking that idea and putting it to action. So thinking about action, there was another area I did wanna cover with you and I thought it was pretty ingenious. I worked for Booz Allen and one of the things being a strategy consulting firm, you know, that they teach you in right off the bat is in the the business model canvas.

And if a person isn't familiar with this, I mean, you can Google it, but it it basically is a canvas that gets you to think about if you're creating a business, what are all the key components of it. And what I thought was really interesting is you had an idea of how you can take this and apply it to your own personal life. And I think it was called something about business model you. And maybe I have this wrong, but we're maybe we've actually not my that's not my brand actually the business model. Yeah, I know it's not your your brand, but to me, it's an a very interesting concept because you can it's almost I had a guest on a number of weeks ago, Trav Bell, and we were

talking he's called the bucket list guy. And, and so we were talking about, you know, how do you create this bucket list? And to me, you know, representing it on a business model canvas wouldn't wouldn't be a far to departure of how you could go about thinking about what's on that list. and then how you could take it to realization because just as you do that for a company, you could for sure do it with your personal life, but interest there and your thoughts there. Well, so I love the business model canvas.

A local entrepreneur actually, Joseph Warren introduced me to the business model canvas when it was just being beta tested in the world. And Dr. Osterwalder was one of my mentors over the years. He's the creator of the business model canvas, just a genius man, really, really nice too. And so I've played around with it a lot of different ways. And I do think in the idea of the business model canvas we can look at what is our core value that we bring to the world.

How do we want to have relationships with our customers or people that we serve? How do they receive that? So it can be what kind of partners do you need? These are all the different components of the business model canvas. What are my daily activities? What are the resources that I need in order to achieve my dreams? How much is it going to cost? What could it bring to me so there can be revenue that it can bring or it can

bring actual outcomes like unforgettable experiences or if it's a trip around the world, it could be a lifetime dream come true. So I think the tool as it's known can be a really powerful way to unpack and flesh out possibility. What could be possible? Then you can break that down. If these are the five people that I need to talk to. For example, recently I was inspired to go look at Nordic

adventures and go on a trip to Scandinavia and immediately my mind went to who do I know. And my friend, Sari, is from Finland. And so she's here local. I called her up. I said, Hey, can we have a conversation? And that's one of the things, right? So I'm examining all of the different components of this potential Scandinavian adventure that I'm desiring to go on and so that I can go

and have a wonderful, fun free, not free, but free time. So yeah, I think it's a really powerful, really powerful tool. Okay. And for listeners of the podcast today, or watchers on YouTube, if they want to learn more about you, what you're doing with your company, how to reach out to you, what are some ways that they can do that? And I'll make sure I get these in the show notes. Sure. So, um, LinkedIn is one of the best ways to see what's happening in our business. It's where I promote our videos or our products.

You can, so it's linkedin.com forward slash Michelle S. Royale. And then we have at Discover Ridge is our Facebook. Also Discover Ridge is our LinkedIn. Or Ridge is our LinkedIn. I'm doing a really poor job on that one. You can tell I don't spend a whole lot of time on the on social media, but our website is www.richridg.com. And we are getting ready to launch a program, as I mentioned, the Communications Catalyst, which is a way to leverage communications to drive transformative change specific towards innovation and growth.

What helps you flip the script of how innovation is perceived and help move it into the state of ongoing growth and future building for the company, level up innovation skills, and then also make a plan to your point, John, that can be easily followed by team members and get the executives on board. So, period, time.

Well, I'm gonna end with one last question. As I was kind of reviewing your background and looking at your progression for attributes kind of came up to me. Character, grief, character, grit, empathy and ingenuity. And I just wanted to ask you, you know, if you had to pick one of those four that for you, you felt has been the most important to you, what would it have been? Empathy. And why? Ha-ha-ha-ha.

Empathy has been the most powerful characteristic that I have developed and mastered over the years, because we didn't talk about it in depth at all, or even mention it, but I had a pretty troubled childhood and felt extremely alone. By the time I was 14, I thought I had made up my entire life. I had real challenges with identity. And empathy is the core of what, when my teachers saw potential. So no one ever knew what was happening in my world, ever. In my internal world, in my personal world, no one ever knew.

But I was always surrounded by individuals who, when they looked at me, they saw potential. And although seeing potential isn't necessarily empathy, it is a piece of empathy. It is about seeing outside of whatever aberrant behavior or challenge is in front of you and seeing beyond that, seeing the individual be on that and supporting the individual beyond that,

and supporting the individual beyond that. And I was blessed throughout my entire life that even though no one had any idea what had any experience that I had been going through in my life or what this internal dialogue was like or what this internal reality, which was really, really challenging, what any of that was like, I believe that it is empathy that saved me. And it has been an incredible gift to despite what my life experience has been like.

I've shared a lot of incredible stories. But despite what my life experience was like and the internal dialogue that was extremely, extremely challenging, people always looked at me with a little glint of hope. And I believe that that is what empathy does. Empathy allows me to see the wholeness of an individual, the wholeness of an individual, not just what I might be disagreeing with or what I might not particularly like in the moment or how it might be hurtful or how it might not be what I want or how

I, right? Empathy allows me to see the wholeness of the individual and feel with them and to think with them and to feel and to act with them. That is what empathy is. And if we are going to recreate the future together or create a new future together or build a new future together or build new solutions together or move beyond whatever this past year, the pandemic, which was horrible for so many people, myself included, if we're going to be able to do that, then we must have this empathy, which allows me to move with people. I think that's great.

And yesterday, I happened to interview Navy Steel Commander Mark Devine, who is a huge advocate of mindfulness and author of the on beatable mind. But we went through his kind of five plateaus that people take to reaching their full capability. And it's interesting because he and I have come to a similar number where we both believe only about 5% to 10% of the

population is living at their full capability. But one of the biggest issues is that along the earlier plateaus, ego plays such a big part in people's development and until you let go of that ego and become more empathetic and allow yourself to be more instead of servicing yourself, servicing others, servicing the world. It's hard to reach as high of performance as you possibly can. So I think it's a great

ending point. Thank you so much for taking the time. I'm so glad we finally were able to do this. Me too, John. Thank you. We covered a ton today in my discussion with Michelle Royal, and I wanted to break down some of these other episodes that we've done prior to this one. One of them was the episode I mentioned with Mark Divine, the author of Unbeatable Mind, CEO of Cealiff, where we talked about mental health and the five plateaus of growth that you can take in your life to achieving your full capability. A must watch or listen to it if you haven't been there. We also talked about Trabbel, otherwise known as the Bucket List guy in my episode with him where we discussed how you create your bucket list and more importantly how you live it.

I also brought up some other topics including my concept, the B-Internal Effect, which you can listen to a previous episode. I also talk about my episode on the importance of humility, why we need to let go of ego, why it is so important that we don't play small but play big in our life and so much more. They're all there for you to download if you haven't had the chance to check any of those out. And if there's a topic that you would like to hear on this show or guest who you just have a burning desire for me to interview, please DM me at John Armiles. And if you're not familiar with the YouTube channel,

you can check it out also at John Aramiles on YouTube, where we have over 5,000 subscribers and hundreds of thousands of views. Remember, it's up to you to make that choice to live your life differently, and I know you can do it. Thank you so much for joining us. The purpose of our show is to make Passion Go viral. And we do that by sharing with you the knowledge and skills that you need to unlock your hidden potential. If you want to hear more, please subscribe to the Passion Start Podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you listen to your podcast ad. And if you absolutely love this episode, we'd appreciate a five star rating on iTunes

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Additionally, you can listen to us every Tuesday and Friday for even more inspiring content. And remember, make a choice, work hard, and step into your sharp edges. Thank you again for joining us. Music