The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 002: Chris Brogan: How To Take Over And Set Bigger Goals

Starting point is 00:00:00 So I thought, well, you know, there's a lot of weirdos in the world, but not all of them make money. How does entrepreneurship work and how do I explain it to somebody? And all the books out there on entrepreneurship pretty much were like two white guys with ties shaking hands across the boardroom table. And I thought, you know, there's a lot of other ways to get that done. So I decided, you know, I would write the book that my kids might need and turns out a few thousand other people might have needed it too. So that worked for me.

Starting point is 00:00:24 Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made for. determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Hey, welcome to The Learning Leader Show. It's Ryan Hawk.

Starting point is 00:01:00 Our guest tonight is another really special one. It's Chris Brogan. Chris is the world's leading authority on owning the game you most want to win. He's a CEO of Owner Media Group, a very sought-after public speaker. the New York Times bestselling author of eight books and counting, including The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth. We had a really, really interesting talk. Chris is just a very giving and great guy. A couple of things we got into. We talked about his very famous now three-word exercise that he does at the beginning of every year. We talked about why his kids will never work in a cubicle,

Starting point is 00:01:34 very interesting part. We also talked about the conversations he's had with the great Richard Branson. Just a really, really interesting talk, ladies and gentlemen, Chris Brogan. And here we are with Chris Brogan, like I said, really, really excited to have Chris on as a guest. And I wanted to jump right into it. I know people already know your background for the most part. So I just wanted to get to some questions and probably some follow-ups for you based on what you say. I've read a lot of what you've had to write. I've listened to a lot of things you've said on your podcast as well as others.

Starting point is 00:02:12 And so one of the main things that you say that you do is that you equip, owners. And when I hear that phrase, questions come up in my mind. And I'm curious when you say that you equip owners, what does that mean for everybody listening? In my particular case, what I do with that is that I offer education courses, consulting, coaching, that sort of a thing. But I'm basically dedicated to finding the tools and the connections that are going to help people grow their own business. So there's a lot of people taking on different pieces of the puzzle. What I really focus on every single day is what can I do to make somebody else's business work better for them. And I do that mostly through courses, but I also do some coaching. I do some speeches. I've got, you know,

Starting point is 00:02:54 books for people who don't necessarily want to do either of those. And one way or another, I do what I can to serve people and try to help them put their game one level forward. So you've written eight books, right? And the most recent The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth, I'm curious as to one, why you wrote that book and how it got that title. So the idea really came from the thought that I have two kids, my daughter's going to be 13, my boy's nine, and neither one of them are really ever going to have some normal cubicle job. I can already tell. How can you tell that already? They're both pretty different individuals. My girl is, you know, very artsy, fartsy. She comes up with all kinds of characters and tell stories with them. My boy's

Starting point is 00:03:32 a bit of a hacker. He, since he age of five, has been just deconstructing other people's software and putting it back together in different ways and making YouTube weirdness happen. And so, you know, I just don't imagine either of those guys at a cubicle, you know, work in some kind of accounting job or marketing job. So I thought, well, you know, there's a lot of weirdos in the world, but not all of them make money. How does entrepreneurship work? And how do I explain it to somebody? And all the books out there on entrepreneurship pretty much were like two white guys with ties shaking hands across the boardroom table. And I thought, you know, there's a lot of other ways to get that done. So I decided, you know, I would write the book that my kids might need. And it turns out a few

Starting point is 00:04:10 thousand other people might have needed it too so that worked for me is part of them not going to have a cubicle job is that because you don't want them to and so you are leading through your actions no you know listen i think there's a lot of people who you know the office environment is the best place for them and there's you know i have a friend who just the other day we were talking about another guy's book and i was raving about it and he said he think i should buy this book and i said not you i think a lot of people should buy it but not you because he's just sort of a, he's an office guy. You know, he's built for that environment and he's happy. You know, my girl, Jacqueline, my significant other, she took a year to do some entrepreneurial type

Starting point is 00:04:49 projects with me and she didn't like it all that much. Like, I mean, she appreciates the work, but when you're an entrepreneurial type, you're kind of out there, you've got to hunt down every Buffalo yourself. You've got to figure out how you're going to eat. And it gets a little tiring. So she ended up leaving that. She took a job. She's the right hand to the CEO of a biotech company now. So she's leaving. eating investment rounds and helping scientists put their stuff together and they're trying to help people with rare diseases live longer. I mean, that's pretty cool work.

Starting point is 00:05:18 It's definitely office people work, though, just, you know, not the same as kind of freewheeling entrepreneurship. Although, if you look at it, it's huge entrepreneurship just in the multi-billion dollar category. Yeah, I'm kind of glad we went here. So how about for the person who's listening who has an office job, but they don't think that it's for them, but they have a spouse? and kids and a mortgage and responsibilities,

Starting point is 00:05:43 but they have these desires to do things that are outside of whatever it is that they're an accountant, like you said. What do you say to those types of people? So, I mean, you just described me, circa 2006 or so. Okay. And I had been working in the wireless telecom industry at that point. Before that, I was in landline telecom. And I had that whole thing.

Starting point is 00:06:05 I had a wife, had family, had everything. What I decided was, you know, way I would approach it. Well, my first big move was I switched from a wireless telecom to an events organization. So that was, I made the same kind of salary. So I didn't, nobody was in jeopardy. I went from that to working for a different technology and media company. And so same ish kind of salary. And then I started a company wall inside there. And I had them fund it. So still kind of had a salary. Wait, you started a company within while you were still working and they funded it? Yep. Because I took over one of their lesser used divisions. I said,

Starting point is 00:06:40 them. Well, actually, it was the weirdest little story. I was going to tell them I quit because I thought I'd go off and start my own company. And I took them out to lunch and I said, I am taking over. And when the words came out of my mouth, I didn't mean to say that sentence. Like, I just froze. I kind of put my hand over my mouth for a second. It took a breath and what I mean by that, is that here's this lesser used thing that you used to work on and nobody cares about it anymore. And I'm going to make that mine and you're going to make me president. And you're going to pay my salary. You're going to pay my salary. You're going to pay salary two other guys and then the real basics are just revenue in revenue out so those three payrolls plus a little bit extra profit you need to i need to give you back that plus and that's how you know we'll judge this arrangement and they said okay and so i did that for a while so i still had a salary the biggest thing that people get scared about an entrepreneurship is they have this weird feeling that what they're supposed to do is they're an accountant somewhere and they're hey boss i quit and then they go home and they say to their significant other they say honey I just quit my job.

Starting point is 00:07:42 Boy, we're going to figure this out, though. Don't you worry. And that's like I couldn't even think of a worse way to do it. Now, if you get fired, that's how you do it. But that's not really what you want to do. What I did was I just, I started finding different kinds of revenue streams. And then as I started getting better at that, then I could make my own company. When I finally made my own own company, I stayed on as a consultant with the company

Starting point is 00:08:04 that I started and then let that merge into a different company. And so I was kind of riding two horses at the same. time and you know that was even better because I had two salaries one to one to fund my new business and one to pay my rent so you know it's I mean that's what you're trying to aim at what people do horrendously wrong is they either quit their job or they think I think I'll just start a blog and then somehow magically I'll make 200 grand next year so this is interesting I'm again I'm glad this came up so I just spoke recently with the guy that I recorded with named Todd Wagner and Todd was a CEO of broadcast dot com and he sold it him and Mark Cuban

Starting point is 00:08:39 and sold that to Yahoo for $5.7 billion. And he tells me, he told me the first thing he asked entrepreneurs are, have you quit your job, or is this the only thing you're focused on, meaning whatever it is? In your case, it sounds like it started as kind of a side hustle. And in Todd's case, the first question he asked to make sure that they're serious is have you quit your job or is this the only thing that you're doing? And if not, then he doesn't think they're serious. So this is two different viewpoints.

Starting point is 00:09:06 I'm curious to your take when somebody like him says, that. Well, I did it a little bit different, but similar. What I did was when I was running that other company, I was president of the company. So I was the one bringing in all their business. I was the one getting them the revenue. And then I had two other people to help kind of service what I brought in. So I was 100% revenue stream for them that if I didn't do it, they wouldn't be making the money. So when I said to them, I'm going to start a little side business over here. They were like, oh, that's fine. And I said, you know, I won't poach. I'll just kind of go after a different whole piece of the industry.

Starting point is 00:09:39 And they were like, yeah, that's great. And there is really no other conversation besides that. And so that's kind of how I handled that. I could see that there's lots of ways that you could do that not so accurately, not so well, but not the case of mine. Yeah, because some people would say, like, you can't, if you can still see the shore, meaning you leave your comfortable island and you can still see the shore behind you, that you're not maybe fully committed to what's out there or what you're striving for.

Starting point is 00:10:05 and some people say you've got to get to the point to where you can't see it so that your sole focus is on getting to wherever that point may be. No question. And there's just a lot of opportunities for people to kind of try to jump off a diving board and it almost never works. Yeah, exactly. I want to, uh, we kind of got off on that, but I really liked it. I want to talk about your three word exercise though. This is one of the things that I really like and I kind of want crazy on social media. It does every year.

Starting point is 00:10:32 But where you, you do a three word exercise at the beginning of every year. to where you say these are the three things I'm going to focus on. Can you share a little bit behind why you started doing that and how it's affected you? So the way a compass works is you sort of have to know where you are and where north, southeast, and west are, and then you can sort of start to plot some points. And when you have two plot points, you're usually pretty okay. When you have three plot points, you're going to figure it out. And so what the idea of three words is, is that it gives you, you know, people try to set these

Starting point is 00:11:04 weird goals that don't entirely make sense. And instead of going that route, what I do is I show people how to use a series of words to lay out how they want to live with their intentions for the remainder of the year. And so I think that what's kind of a little strange about how folks do that sort of thing is that people tend to make this one resolution that doesn't entirely make sense. And then they kind of forget about it right away because it's sort of like going to lose 30 pounds. And that's it, and they walk away. What I do a little differently is I try to come up with three words.

Starting point is 00:11:38 That could be themes or guideposts or lighthouses in the distance that you can go after. And in that process, people are going to get a much better opportunity to try to triangulate and get themselves to where they want to go. So your three words for this year are plan, leverage, and fabric. Is that right? That's correct. Can you share why you chose those three? Yeah. So plan is always have a plan.

Starting point is 00:11:59 And once you have the plan, work the plan. A lot of times we have these weird things where we know, we know what we're supposed to be. to be doing, but then we kind of wander off the reservation and do something totally different. Or we have a plan in place and we start, you know, looking over the fence at what else we should be doing instead of just actually executing. Yeah. So if there is no plan, make a plan. And if there is a plan, use the damn plan.

Starting point is 00:12:19 I got one offshoot. So I had a great football coach in college named Terry Hepner. Unfortunately, he passed away. But what he said to literally, said to us literally every single day was have a plan, work the plan, and plan for the unexpected, knowing that that's going to happen every. single day of your life. In this relation, it was to football. But I'm curious when you hear it spun that way, what you think.

Starting point is 00:12:40 No, I think it makes perfect sense. And I think that that's, I mean, it's very close to, you know, military strategy. According to a big bunch of research, there's a sort of annual military strategy jam where they try various strategies out in lots of different ways and see which one's going to win. And the one that wins pretty much nonstop is called the Oudaloupe, which is observe, orient, decide, and act. And that's very similar to what your coach laid out and sort of simple or English. And I think it's the best possible way to plan because it takes into account the environment

Starting point is 00:13:12 around you. Yeah, absolutely. So the other two are leverage and fabric. Leverages, you know, make sure you're working on the stuff that needs working on and that, you know, serves the right time. So we can do lots of things to keep us busy, but they're not necessarily the right things to be doing. So I work hard on keeping myself focused on those leverage points that are going to make me

Starting point is 00:13:29 the most success. And that's how that one works. And, you know, leverage opportunities as possible. I mean, I've got lots of really smart, good friends that I forget to talk to, you know, because I'm busy, you know, trying to serve customers. And if you don't talk to really smart people all the time, then you're not going to get the best possible ideas out of what you're doing. Fabric is just to always remember that everything is connected to something else. You know, there's a sort of connective tissue to everything. So underneath your skin, there's this whole bunch of fascia tissue that, you know, keeps all your muscles into a certain order. So, you know, probably when you were really heavy into your football, you'd go get sports

Starting point is 00:14:04 massage and they would kind of work the fascia. And, you know, that actually promotes muscle growth. It promotes better flexibility, all kinds of stuff that people just take for granted. To me, working the fabric is, you know, understanding that everything's connected. So if I'm going to put a move in play, I need to know what else is going to get touched by that. Are these three words? Are these things that you feel you weren't very good at last year? and that's why you want to put a focus on them this year? I was really good with plan, but I wanted to sort of move that one forward. Leverage I was definitely not very good at.

Starting point is 00:14:35 And fabric plus leverage is kind of a nice combination because it reminds me that, you know, if I can help the right people and help them succeed more, you know, it's going to rise all the boats in the water. So I find that using those two together has been really helpful this year. So no, I think it's kind of a combo. Sometimes it's something I'm not great at. Sometimes it's something I just really need to keep hammering down.

Starting point is 00:14:56 I got you. Okay, it makes sense to me. Because I love the exercise. I think it's great. And it's even cooler to see the other people that you've affected in such a positive way where they respond to you on whether it's a Twitter or any social media platform to say, here are my three. And you're retweeting them and letting them know that it's just a great exercise to practice. I really, really like it. Thanks.

Starting point is 00:15:16 So, yeah, absolutely. And so there's a, I heard you on a podcast recently. And I know you do a lot of them so you probably don't even remember. But it really piqued my interest because I see you. as this very, very positive guy who helps so many people. And the quote you said, and I'm not sure you'll remember, but you said, most days I'm awesome, but sometimes I have to sit in bed and ride out the clinical depression. And I was surprised to hear that.

Starting point is 00:15:44 And I was curious to dig into that a little bit more because it wasn't what I was expecting to hear. Yeah, you know, I have a very gentle clinical depression, definite. that I was given a while back. And, you know, pretty much anyone could be diagnosed with clinical depression. It's almost like diagnosing high school kids with ADD, you know, at the peak of your growth, at the peak of all the energy you have, sit perfectly still in a desk and listen to one person bore you. I think we all would have attention deficit problems.

Starting point is 00:16:14 Well, depression is kind of similar, but there's a lot of things that can impact it. So there's a lot of chemicals that'll get in the way. There's a lot of triggers, you know, in our emotions that'll get in the way. And, you know, until you really learn how to manage it partly through your mental states and partly through, you know, chemical work, like eating better, sleeping better, getting a lot of exercise and all that, you know, it can really kind of have its way with you. Now, some people, I always have to make this disclaimer. Some people have depression that's just so far gone that they have to have medication. And I'm not anti-medication at all for mental challenges. But if you're on the mild side of the scale, there's a lot of things you can do to sort of screw yourself.

Starting point is 00:16:53 and you've got to take care of it. So I make sure I get eight or nine hours to sleep every night, which is the opposite of most entrepreneurial people that try to talk about how they hustle and sleep three hours. I find that people who only sleep three hours usually don't have very good ideas. I also make sure I eat really well. If I have too much sugar back and forth in my diet,

Starting point is 00:17:12 even through like breads and stuff, that'll cause me challenges. And, you know, all the mental stuff, I mean, that's just work. I mean, mental toughness and resilience is like going to the gym. You've just got to do lots of sets of exercise. is to kind of keep your brain going where it needs to go. And I think of how friendship plays a role into that. And, you know, there's a famous quote.

Starting point is 00:17:31 I've said it a number of times already on the show that John Wooden said, show me your friends and I'll show you your future. When you think of that and the people you surround yourself with, what's your process like for being a friend and the friendships you have? Very great question and kind of hilarious because I'm horrible. Like, I'm not a very good friend. Really? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:17:50 No, I mean, like, I have to make real efforts to do this. that because I connect with thousands of people a day. I know that number sounds like kind of high, but I don't make one-on-one phone calls, but I might tweet several hundred people. I'll comment on all kinds of Facebook stuff. I'll comment on other people's blogs. I'll answer emails, hundreds of emails a day. I talk to thousands of people. So finding, I'll share a lot of stuff that people don't normally share with anyone but their closest friends. I'll share pretty much anything with anybody, which is a weird way to be, but I've kind of come to appreciate it just because it's sort of like distributed friendship that way.

Starting point is 00:18:26 So I really at the very beginning of this year started to make an effort to get a little more, you know, solid and close with a couple people. But I also, none of my friends are geographically close. I don't like go down to the bar and have, you know, drinks with anybody nearby my house. I would say that I have lots of people that I consider friends, but it's only just this year that I've started to make the effort to try harder to

Starting point is 00:18:48 keep a consistent dialogue going with them. Perhaps that becomes one of your three words next year. Well, it would be the fabric part because Coach Wooden said that, and he meant it, and it was a great, great line. I think also, and somewhat related to that, you know, I've heard that to be a resilient person, you need at least three good, strong adult relationships in your life at any time that are really supportive and nurturing. They don't have to be, you know, it doesn't have to be a significant other.

Starting point is 00:19:17 It doesn't have to be your parents, just three good, solid adults in your life all the way through childhood to grown up to have kind of good resilience. Do you have mentors that you lean on on a regular basis? Well, from afar, I lean on Richard Branson all the time because I think, you know, he's the closest to figuring out what I, you know, what I believe in in business. Funny, as I'm saying this, I'm looking at him dressed like a mere cat at some kind of a tennis rally. That's all that with a Kornikova. Oh, yeah. You know, that's my mentor. Have you talked to him? Yeah, I interviewed him one time. I mean, it's like where, you know, he's not on my speed dial or

Starting point is 00:19:51 nothing. We don't text every day. But I interviewed him for Success Magazine cover story about one of his books. And it was a lot of fun. I mean, it was his first ever Skype interview. And it was just a lot of fun. Did you guys record it? Well, yes, but there's a lot of technical reasons why the actual video never surfaced because it was his first Skype interview and he just wasn't entirely comfortable with it. Yeah. With the medium. So that said, really super gracious guy, super nice conversation and, you know, I'll kind of take it to my grave that I had that. As far as other mentors go, there's a lot of people that I look up to, and a lot of them are not necessarily as established as me.

Starting point is 00:20:30 I think you can learn a lot from people who haven't had the same journey as you unless you're trying to learn a skill that, you know, only somebody above you would have. You know, like if you're at the gym and you're trying to figure out how to squat 500 pounds, if the person is teaching you's only squatted 135, you're never going to get anywhere. You need somebody who can tell you that from three to four is harder because of this. And from four to five, it's crazy because that. And so I think the same is true with business. I think that if someone has not made $10 million, then how are they going to tell you how to make $10?

Starting point is 00:21:03 And for me, like, I can make a revenue. My mark seems to be a million. Like not salary in my pocket, but revenue for the company, I can make a million over and over and over again. And what's after that is two, what's after that is 10. and then what's after that it's 20. So talking to other people, it helps me understand, you know,

Starting point is 00:21:23 what kinds of things you need to do different in your business to hit those next numbers. And so when seeking mentors, I don't seek the best of anything. I just seek the person who's that next step in the road ahead of me. I love it. I love it. And Chris,

Starting point is 00:21:34 I do want to be respectful of your time. How can people get in contact with you? Oh, that's the easiest thing of all. You just go to chrisbrogan.com. And the thing I do every week that I love the most is my little Sunday newsletter. And what's different about mine than a lot of people is, is you can just hit reply and talk

Starting point is 00:21:51 right to me. So if anyone wants to say hi, feel free. Love it. That's awesome. I would highly encourage that I, this is a, you know, I read your stuff constantly. Man, I'm a big fan. So really, really appreciate you coming on, Chris. And hopefully we can talk more in the future, man.

Starting point is 00:22:04 I love it, Ryan. Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate the conversation. Awesome. Thanks, Chris. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Learning Leader Show. I absolutely love doing this show. as I hope you can tell by the passion that I bring to it on a daily basis.

Starting point is 00:22:24 If you enjoy this episode, I'd like to ask one thing of you. You could go to ryanhawk.net. It will launch the show in iTunes. iTunes is the best way to grow the show organically. And a couple things that you need to do once you're in iTunes. It's to subscribe to it. Just simply click on the subscribe button. To rate the show, obviously five stars are the best.

Starting point is 00:22:46 And to write a review. I promise I will read every single review. I will listen to your coaching and feedback, and I will implement that end of the show to make it even better. Thank you so much for being a friend of the Learning Leader Show. I greatly appreciate each and every one of you, and I cannot wait for the next one.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 002: Chris Brogan: How To Take Over And Set Bigger Goals

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