The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 175: Michael Hyatt - How To Get Noticed In A Noisy World

Starting point is 00:00:00 And he says, you know, I really been thinking about this. And in fact, he said, I talked with my wife last night. It was a little bit of a rustless night. The truth is, I made that commitment to you, not the company. And he said, you can't say no to this. And he handed me an envelope. And I opened the envelope. And it was a check from him for the difference in my salary.

Starting point is 00:00:21 He made good on his word. That guy I eventually became a business partner with. To this day, he's one of my best friends. Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through 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 and welcome to The Learning Leader Show.

Starting point is 00:01:04 I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Absolutely thrilled by featured leader tonight. It's Michael Hyatt, former. CEO of Thomas Nelson, publishing one of the biggest publishers in the world. Also, multiple-time bestselling author, his most recent books titled Living Forward, A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want. The first book I read of his that has impacted my life in a huge way is titled Platform, Get Notice in a Noisy World. A Few of the topics we got into. How and Why

Starting point is 00:01:38 You Should Build Your Own Platform regardless of your profession. And then tension is the enemy of performance and how that relates to Bill Murray and golf. Interesting. And then what it means to drift and how to strategically deal with it when you do because all of us will at some point. Ladies and gentlemen, I absolutely love this one with Michael Hyatt. All right, Michael, so excited to have you here on The Learning Leader Show, man. Thank you so much for being here. You bet, Ryan. Glad to be with you.

Starting point is 00:02:17 I got a question to get us rolling. And that's around common themes of leaders that you've spent time around that have seemed to sustain excellence, not just the person to hit successful numbers for a little bit, but they've been able to sustain it. And we all have different definitions of success. So I like to use the term excellence instead. So I'm curious, though, from your perspective, what are some of the common themes or characteristics those people all share? That's such a great question. I should do a blog post on that. I would think one of the top ones is that they have the ability to lead themselves.

Starting point is 00:02:54 I think this is like the prerequisite or the foundation for leadership is self-leadership. If you can't lead yourself, you don't have the right and probably not the ability to lead anybody else. I think also there's a measure of discipline, particularly when it comes to work-life balance. They know that this is a long game and that it's a marathon. It's not a sprint. And if they are successful in their business at the expense of their health or their most important relationships, then ultimately that's going to cascade into their career or their business. So I think most people have that kind of balance where they protect their margin.

Starting point is 00:03:29 They go at it hard, but they also are able to retreat and take care of themselves and the people that they love most. So I think those are two attributes, certainly that the successful leaders I know exhibit. When you think of people who have this great ability to lead themselves, I think of leaders who are extremely self-aware, and then also the discipline to have that balance. It feels to me like from studying your work, as I have for years, that you do that quite well. Who are some of the other initial leaders that come to mind immediately when you think of balanced, discipline, and self-awareness when it comes to leading themselves?

Starting point is 00:04:09 Yeah, I think the first guy that comes to mind and somebody that really helped me find that balance earlier in my career was my co-author of Living Forward, my most recent book, Daniel Harcovy. First of all, he's got self-awareness, which by the way is another attribute that I would add in here. But yeah, he's tremendously self-aware of who he is, what his limitations are, what his strengths are. Another one is my mentor, Dan Sullivan. Dan is great at being self-aware and, you know, kind of staying in his lane. He knows what his unique abilities are. That's a term he uses.

Starting point is 00:04:41 And he doesn't veer outside of that. And that's been helpful in terms of giving me the courage to do something similar. John Maxwell, another good friend of mine. I was his publisher for years. And he's somebody, I think, that has achieved that balance. But at the same time, extraordinary success. So I'm always looking for the people that could win at work but succeed at life. It's really interesting.

Starting point is 00:05:03 I also noticed one of your recent blog posts was that you took a two-week hiatus. Basically, you and your wife went to, I don't know if it was a cabin or a place on the water. in Tennessee and you got off of social media, pretty much all of email except for an emergency account. So, you know, all of those things that are really tough for us to do. And I'd love to hear, I mean, I read the post, but for you to expand upon what that two-week hiatus did for you and if possible how others could potentially do the same. Yeah, you know, it's funny because normally, for the last five years, we've taken a month off in the summer, completely unplugged and really focused on other things other than work.

Starting point is 00:05:42 And surprisingly, there was a whole world out there that exists besides your work. This year, though, due to some things we were trying to accomplish both in our personal and professional lives, we decided to make that only two weeks this time. So it was a little bit abbreviated for us. But I think the thing that happens like in a one-week vacation, and I know lots of leaders, and you probably do too, who won't even give themselves the luxury of a one-week vacation without interrupting it with, you know, telephone calls and email and all the rest. But the great thing about unplugging for more than a week is you kind of get past that initial anxiety of gosh, what am I going to do?

Starting point is 00:06:15 I mean, if I can't be answering email or meeting with people on my team, what am I going to do? And what it's done for me is it's opened up a whole world of other things, you know, activities, hobbies, reading. Like I read on those vacations, but I don't read anything business related. So it's got to be a novel or history or something like that. But I find that when I can fill the well like that, whether it's just cognitive input or relational kinds of stuff, that it really sets me up to win when I get back because my tank is full. And I think too many leaders are trying to lead from empty. And that's just not a good place to be. That's a recipe for a crisis.

Starting point is 00:06:56 Something's going to blow up in your life if you lead from empty for too long. What about people who have what you would call a, we'll get to your backstory here in a second about what you currently do and what you've done leading up to this point. But what about, I'm thinking of a listener who has a full-time job and they work for somebody else, perhaps a big company, and they have metrics they have to hit, whether they're a sales professional. I always lean towards that profession because that's where I've worked a big portion of my career. And there's a lot of pressure, right, to hit numbers, to do what you need to do.

Starting point is 00:07:30 When they're listening, they're just saying, oh, that's great that Michael can do it, but he's this ultra successful former CEO who now runs his own business. He has that luxury, but I don't have it. So how can I, how can I do that? What advice do you give to that person listening? Yeah, the thing I would challenge them to do is to ask themselves, is that a constraint that's being imposed externally? In other words, that's what their boss says. Or is it a constraint that's internal because you have this expectation of your, yourself or you think that it's necessary to get an edge on everybody else. I mean, look at the

Starting point is 00:08:04 performance of professional athletes. You know, those guys don't play that much. They practice a lot, but they've got a lot of downtime. And elite athletes, one of the things that I've noticed among all elite athletes is they prioritize sleep and rest because they know if they're going to perform at peak performance, they've got to take care of the instrument of their own bodies and their own psychology so that when they get on the field, they can really kill it. And I've got a team now. I have an online marketing and leadership training company, and we go through about four launches, really intense sales times every year. And I can tell you, it's all hands-on deck. I mean, it's not quite like a moon launch, but it feels like NASA. You know, everything's cooking.

Starting point is 00:08:46 But then when we relax, we really relax. We ask our people not to work on the weekends. We ask them not to work in the evenings, but to make sure that they're taking. taking care of these things that are like their health or their most important relationships so that when they're at work, they can be fully engaged. Because here's what happens for so many people, I think particularly for high achievers. When they're at work, they're thinking about home or they're thinking about some health problem that may be dogging them. Or when they're at the doctor, they're thinking about what's not getting done at work or

Starting point is 00:09:18 when they're in their family, you know, they're checking email. And so they're not present. And one of the things I think about prioritizing rest and vacations and time off is it allows you to be fully present. And that in this culture is a strategic advantage. If you can be present in the conversations you're having it work, those sales calls, you're able to listen well. You're not distracted by personal problems. You're going to get ahead. And I kind of think, Ryan, it's a little bit like golf.

Starting point is 00:09:46 Are you a golfer? I am, but this podcast has actually made me cut back on it quite a bit. Well, I don't golf as much as I want, but I went through a phase where I was really trying to improve the game. And one of the things I found out, as I was working with a coach, is that tension is the enemy of performance. Stress is the enemy of performance. The more relaxed I held the grip, the better I played. And I think that's true in work. One of the things that I said for myself back when I was a CEO of a major corporation and I had five daughters at home, I've got a big family,

Starting point is 00:10:19 one of the things I said kind of as a non-negotiable is that I would love. leave the office at 6 o'clock every night because I didn't want my family blowing up, but I didn't want my health blowing up. I worked out every morning, and that kept everything in line, and it didn't cause my work to suffer at all. And I think that's a, it's like a false dichotomy, the idea that you've got to choose one or the other. You know, what if you could create a life, design a life that attended to all those

Starting point is 00:10:43 things? Five daughters, man, I need to, we'll probably have to have another conversation because my wife and I are also raising five daughters. Are you really? Yeah, so it's kind of a rarefied air. I'm going to need to lean on you a little bit. Hopefully, at some point to say, how have you done such a good job? I saw the beautiful pictures online, and it seems like they're all very successful,

Starting point is 00:11:02 strong, independent people. And obviously, life is hard. And I realize that I'm sure there are challenges and everything you went through. But I'm going to have to have a separate conversation with you just on how to manage that through your ages are nine to two. So it's a little bit different. But we know we've got a lot in the future coming for us. Yeah, and it's going to be awesome too Because I'll tell you what

Starting point is 00:11:24 The fact that my girls are older now Two of them work for me in the business Three of them are entrepreneurs on their own But man, we are so close And have such a great relationship And there were times when they were in high school That I wondered how all this was going to turn out But it all worked out fine

Starting point is 00:11:38 I was going to say, not to get too off thought Because there's so many other things But now you've peaked my interest Were there were? I mean I'm sure there were But were there moments where you said I don't I don't know what I'm doing Or I'm lost or this is I mean, what was it like through some of those years and maybe when were those tough moments?

Starting point is 00:11:56 Yeah, I think if you have those thoughts, you're normal. I think that's what every, that's what every parent feels because you don't get any training in this. You know, suddenly this bundle of joy shows up and nobody's giving you the owner's manual and you've got to try to figure it out as you go. And I think, you know, everything was pretty great until they got, you know, sort of the pre-adolescent. And then we started to experience the eye roll, you know, when whatever we said, no matter what we said was just kind of stupid. from their perspective. And so you kind of have to work through that and realize that they're becoming individuals

Starting point is 00:12:27 and trying to find their own independence. The teen years, you know, you can get more of that. And then, of course, you add to the whole mix of the dimension of boys. Yeah, that puts the hormones into action and you got all that too. But yeah, there were times when, you know, a couple of the girls rebelled and, you know,

Starting point is 00:12:45 we had to put the hammer down. But overall, you know, I think if you're well-intentioned, if you spend time with it. The biggest issue is is parents who abdicate. And when you abdicate, bad things happen. So I think even if you're not doing it all right,

Starting point is 00:13:03 and you won't do it all right, but if you can stay engaged and keep the channels of communication open and try to listen without judgment, and, you know, I think parenting, I didn't say this, but I think it's really wise. I think the goal of parenting is to de-parent.

Starting point is 00:13:17 Yeah, you're trying to be on their own. successful without you. That's right. And so I think you move from being a parent who's telling them everything you want them to do. And this, by the way, is a great leadership lesson to where you get to the place where they're self-actualized, they can make their own decisions, and then your role shifts to that of being a coach. And that's really what I am now. My kids call me all the time for business advice and I do webinars with them and stuff. But it's really collaborative. And I learned so much from them now. I mean, they're some of my best teachers now. Yeah, it's incredible. I love it. And like I said, that'll be another conversation because we have a lot.

Starting point is 00:13:52 But you mentioned tension as the enemy of performance, specifically when it comes to holding a golf club. I completely agree in how you're viewing that. And I just read this, I didn't expect to bring this up, but I just read this interesting piece by James Altisher. I don't know if you know James. He wrote about, he wrote a lot. He wrote this piece about Bill Murray and why Bill Murray has been able to be successful. And he's obviously a comedian and great actor. And one of the approaches is that he is,

Starting point is 00:14:18 I think worked hard, even though it may not look like at Bill Murray, to try to relieve the tension from his life and to appear as though almost he doesn't care. And one of the quotes he said was, you die on the improv set five times out of nine. So once you get over your fear of dying, nothing else ever really scares you. And I thought that was interesting. It just made me think of that article I read when you were talking about tension and how to manage that in your life, both as a leader and a worker, whether you're in a business. or you own your own show.

Starting point is 00:14:51 Yeah, I think that's, there's some real truth to that. And I think a lot of times we see stress as the enemy, but I don't think we would distinguish between what some have called distress, you know, the kind of distress that's harmful and not productive, and you stress, like EU, which comes from a great route for good, but good kind of stress. Like today I was working out with my trainer, and today was leg day, which is not my favorite day.

Starting point is 00:15:15 And so I was leg pressing more weight than I've ever. ever pressed before. And so he showed me my chart. And he said, here's what you did last week. We increased it by 25% this week. And you did it. Well, that's you stress. That's the kind of stress that makes my leg strong, enables me as I get older to keep my balance, keep my endurance, all the rest. So that's a good kind of stress. So I'm not advocating that we eliminate that kind of positive stress. In fact, that kind of positive stress is necessary for growth. That's why when, and I spent a lot of time in sales too. But I think that so many salespeople and so many management people set their goals inside of the comfort zone so that it's, you know, can be easy.

Starting point is 00:15:54 Unfortunately, what happens is all the research shows, and I have a whole program on goal setting, but all the research shows that that basically guarantees that you won't even hit that goal because it's not, doesn't challenge your imagination, nothing different has to show up in your life. You don't have to innovate. But when you set it outside of your comfort zone, not in the delusional zone, I'm not advocating for that either, but in the discomfort zone where you feel some fear, some uncertainty and doubt, that causes you to play at your very best.

Starting point is 00:16:23 And so that's where I always want to put my goal, something that I'm not quite sure I can hit, not sure I have what it takes, not certain how to get there, but it really inspires me. If I could hit it, that would get me jazzed. You know, Michael, I first heard of you from a friend of mine by the name of John Lowry. He lives in Nashville as well. He teaches an incredible course on negotiation. I've been through his course, I think four times over the years. years. And we were talking as I was preparing to launch this podcast over two years ago and potentially

Starting point is 00:16:55 the things that could come from, you know, speaking gigs, writing, all of that, if your podcast goes successful. And I asked John, I said, you know, how do you, how do you, you essentially created this platform for yourself? And he said, I need to, I need to tell you something, man, you need to read this book called Platform, get noticed in a noisy world by a guy by the name of Michael Hyatt. And so I bought it that day. And, uh, has, uh, devoured it multiple times since, since John told me to do that. And I've, I found the reason that I love it is because it's literally a playbook. It's not these high level ideas that you could, you know, think about and say, oh, that's cool. Yours, while it has great ideas,

Starting point is 00:17:38 it's actually a playbook to where you could implement as you go. And I wanted to learn from you how you were able to put this, this work together. Because I, because I, because I, I'm to get into more why everyone should should create some sort of platform. But I want to learn first and foremost how you're able to put this book platform together. Yeah, well, it's really an interesting process. I was the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, seventh largest publishing company in the U.S. for five years. I actually worked at the company 17, but I eventually became the CEO for five years and then the chairman, one year beyond that. Then we sold the company to Harper Collins. But back in 2004, I started blogging. I actually broke my ankle.

Starting point is 00:18:18 I was laid up in bed. I'd written before, and I thought, you know, this blogging thing looks really cool. And this may be a way for me to share some of the lessons I've learned and, you know, maybe get the visibility of the company up, you know, on the Internet. And I didn't really know. I just, it just was kind of a creative expression that I wanted to get involved in. And so for the first four years, I had about 1,000 readers a month. And then I hit an inflection point in 2008 when I went to 20,000 unique visitors a month. and there's a lot of reasons for that which we could go into, but it just, I hit that inflection

Starting point is 00:18:52 point and it's grown every year since. So now I get about a half a million unique visitors a month, about a million page views a month. And so really that book, Platform, was my attempt to deconstruct what I did and to help people that I knew had an important message that they wanted to get out or they had something to say or to sell, but they had no ability, no clue in how to get heard. And I was faced with this every day in the publishing business with authors that had great manuscripts, had great messages, something they wanted to get out that was very, they were very passionate about, but they didn't have a platform. They couldn't afford TV or radio ads or billboards and free media wasn't available to them. They weren't famous enough

Starting point is 00:19:35 to get booked on any shows. And something happened, though, with blogging and podcasting and sort of the ubiquity of the internet, it made it possible for mere mortals, people like us, to build a following, to find the people that are passionate about the same things we're passionate about, like in your case leadership, and people that would tune in. So now guys like us can build a vast audience, and it really doesn't cost that much because the tools are mostly free, and once you get successful, you'll start investing some. I'm sure you have in podcasting. But then it becomes self-funding.

Starting point is 00:20:10 I mean, I have a multimillion dollar company today. I have 21 full-time employees. I have no debt on the company. Basically, no accounts receivable. And unbelievable cash flow. And that's all been possible in the world of the Internet. That wouldn't be possible 10 or 15 years ago. Wow.

Starting point is 00:20:27 So a really healthy business. So that just made me think of a question. So from a revenue perspective, not to get too business detail oriented, but I'm curious now. where like what are the streams that that come in how many how many and what are they uh when it comes to and maybe even the percentages and without the exact dollar amounts the percentages so from like a speaking perspective coaching writing whatever me i'm curious that is to the the the layers when it comes to revenue streams yeah so let me kind of tell you how it um sequentially developed and then i'll tell you where it is today yeah okay so when i first started blogging i started using

Starting point is 00:21:06 in Amazon affiliate links. And I made a couple hundred dollars a month from that, which paid my hosting fees and some of the basic expenses. But I was, you know, a busy CEO and I wasn't really paying attention to it. I converted to the WordPress blogging platform and the developer that helped me with that conversion said to me, you've got some serious traffic. Do you realize that you could monetize this through advertising? And I said, really?

Starting point is 00:21:29 And he said, absolutely. And he showed me how to do it. And so, I mean, like from the get-go, I started to make it about $6,000 a month just from the traffic I had. then, which was 2010. How much traffic did you have in 2010? Maybe 100,000 unique visitors. Okay, so yeah.

Starting point is 00:21:44 It's pretty serious. Okay, yeah. Yeah, so it was pretty serious. But it was easy. I didn't really have to administrate it. I hired somebody part-time to kind of manage the advertising relationships, but I didn't really think anything about it. Well, after I left Thomas Nelson, I decided that I would start producing some products.

Starting point is 00:22:00 And actually, the first thing, the easiest thing to do was to start speaking. And my book platform came out, hit the New York Times list, a lot. Wall Street journalist USA Today list. So that started generating a flow of leads for speaking. And so, I mean, we just went after it. And so I was speaking for those couple of years following the publication of that book, 60 to 80 times a year, which sounds like the dream. I mean, that's why I left the corporate world was to speak and to write.

Starting point is 00:22:26 The only problem was I really don't like to travel. And I love my family. And I also discovered the power of things like webinars where I can speak to thousands and thousands of people without leaving the comfort of my office. So what I did was I started developing online courses. I use webinars to promote those. So to answer your question today, about 30% of my revenue comes from my exclusive membership site, Platform University. So that was the natural extension of the book, people that were asking all these questions about what's their next step. We created a membership site for them where we produce original video content every month.

Starting point is 00:23:06 So that's about a third of my income. About another probably 50% of it. So let's say that's 30. So then another 50% of it comes from online courses. I have one called Five Days Your Best Year Ever. I have a new course on productivity that launched this summer called Free to Focus. And then I've got one on getting published called Get Published. And so that's about 50%.

Starting point is 00:23:26 The balance of that, the other 20% comes from, I still do some speaking, book royalties, coaching. I have a mastermind group, a paid mastermind that I facilitate, but that's sort of the odds and ends. Wow. I've heard a lot about your membership site from other guests I've had on here, and they talk about it's the model for how anyone who wants to create a membership site, where basically to join. So what is the investment per month to be a part of that? It's $37 a month. Okay. And how many people are in it now? We have over 5,000 people in it.

Starting point is 00:24:02 Wow. Wow. Okay. So, yeah, so we open registration for that just twice a year. Okay. So, in fact, we use this kind of model for all of our products where we have an open registration and then it closes about seven days later. Gotcha. And we do that for a couple of reasons.

Starting point is 00:24:21 One, we know that deadlines drive decisions. Right. And when the product is available all the time, people procrastinate. And so we typically, when we have that seven-day window over. open, more than half the sales will come on that last day because people know the doors are closing. Yeah. And it also allows, another thing, it allows us to really focus on the students so that we're not

Starting point is 00:24:43 constantly promoting. Yeah. My former guest and friend Andrew Brandt, who worked for the, he was the vice president of the Green Bay Packers, was also a player agent said, deadlines spur action. I think it's so true. So true. And that's why it's smart to, I've noticed other people who sell products online seemed when they create deadlines, it seems like at the very end is when they have a big uptick.

Starting point is 00:25:06 And it makes a lot of sense just from a psychological perspective. So I want to get into a platform, Michael, for, I mentioned you prior to us recording the fact that I get a good feeling, a good sense on who is listening. Because it's good to know the numbers, but it's all, it's even better to know who they are. And I get this from emails I get. And a lot of people that I speak with via email, I like to obviously communicate back and forth with, people who are fans of the show, they typically work at a company, sometimes big, sometimes small, usually quite intelligent people on their way up, they're working towards leadership roles or they're already in leadership roles and continually are working for it. But they also maybe have

Starting point is 00:25:48 an additional idea or ideas to do in addition to whatever their daily work is. And so I'm thinking of those people specifically when it comes to building their platform and maybe some advice if if somebody like that came to you and said, Michael, I have a really good job. I enjoy it. I like the people I work with, but I also have bigger ideas. So I want to, I think I need to have some sort of platform. What's some of the advice you would give to people that are in that space right now? Well, I'd say the most important thing to do is to start.

Starting point is 00:26:21 You know, I used to think kind of as a recovering perfectionist that I had to figure it all out and get it right at the beginning and not launch until I got it right. the great thing about the internet today and about the kind of business we're talking about and building a platform is that you can launch and tweak. And so I've approached everything I've done in that way. The first year we did five days to your best year ever. Crazy idea. We had it one month and three weeks later we're in a studio. We recorded the entire course in one day.

Starting point is 00:26:51 And it wasn't right. I mean, there was a lot of stuff that needed tweaked later on. And that's been out there for four years. We've had over 16,000 students go through it. But it wasn't perfect. It got better the next year when we re-recorded it. It got better the next year. And we're about to re-record it again for 2017.

Starting point is 00:27:06 And it'll be better yet. So ship and tweak. That's the important thing. And I think initially you've got to build an audience. People have got, if they're going to do business with you, especially on the internet, they've got to know, like, and trust you. I mean, it's basic sales, right? And so one of the things that an online platform can do is it gives people an opportunity

Starting point is 00:27:26 to know how you think. It establishes your authority. And as you add value to their lives, it begins to build trust. And that's really the seedbed for any kind of sales transaction. So I would say, get out there and offer your expertise free of charge through a blog, a podcast, or a vlog. And I know people that are in corporations now, they have corporate jobs, one of the guys, Brad Johnson, who's in my inner circle mastermind.

Starting point is 00:27:52 He works for a big brokerage company. And amazingly, he started a podcast in an industry where everybody said, well, you can't do that there's too many compliance hurdles. And he said, no, I think I can't. And he did it. And I've got another guy, Jeff Rose, who's also in the financial services business that has a phenomenal podcast. And those guys just started. They didn't stop their day jobs. But they're building this other platform that eventually, in those two cases, they'll be able to monetize, although even now, all they're trying to do is generate leads for their primary business. And they're doing one heck of a job. And then when it comes to, you were doing 60 to 80 speaking gigs a year.

Starting point is 00:28:29 Obviously, I think a lot of people that it's exciting, I don't know if maybe that big of a number because they couldn't do it if they're going to continue with their day job. But maybe they want to, you know, my dad told me at a very young age, he said, you will get an incredible amount of credit if you learn to become a great public speaker. Because so few people, one, want to do it or willing to do it. And then if they actually are forced to do it, they're not very good at it. So develop the importance of developing this skills. I mean, it's part of why I started this podcast. I knew having conversations with incredible people like yourself would help me become a better public speaker and also would give me opportunities to get up on stage because, like you said, you're building a platform, building a brand. And that can then create leads.

Starting point is 00:29:15 And I just got two emails this morning about potential speaking. So I think it's interesting the way it works. So discussing how you become building up this potential little side work of, getting up on stage and then doing a great job once you're there? Yeah, so I think the thing that you've done, obviously, is you're building this platform and you're establishing authority. And so when event planners are booking speakers, they want to go to somebody that's perceived as an authority in their space,

Starting point is 00:29:43 and they know as a thought leader, somebody that can offer up content that can make a difference in their organization. So you're kind of a hired gun in that sense. They're bringing you in to say something that they either can't say or won't say themselves. And so I think establishing that authority is the value of putting free content out there where you become the go-to person for your particular niche. And everybody is an expert in something. That's the key thing.

Starting point is 00:30:04 So becoming the expert, practicing delivering the content, whether it's on a blog or a podcast, is great. I think investing in yourself as a public speaker, whether that's reading books or attending public speaking conferences, the best one that I can recommend that absolutely changed everything for me in terms of communication is one called the SCOR conference. and SCO-R-E. It's an acronym for a method of preparation delivery that is so powerful. I'll use it every day of my life.

Starting point is 00:30:34 ScoreConference.tv, run by my friend Ken Davis. But I think investing in yourself like that, you know, you've got to hold your own against the competition, and it's obviously very crowded. And so what event planners want is somebody that can come in, entertain their audience, educate their audience, and walk off the stage. and this is what a lot of speakers miss, walk off the stage in a way that leaves the event planner, the hero,

Starting point is 00:31:00 for bringing them in. And that's what you've got to realize is that the event planner is really your customer. You're there to make him look like a genius. And if you can pull that off, you get invited back, and you get referrals, and that's how that business is built.

Starting point is 00:31:14 Yeah, I think of Joey Coleman, a friend who makes his living, giving speeches, and he said, he told me, he said, the person that really you're, you know, obviously you want to impact the audience.

Starting point is 00:31:25 That's the goal. But the event planner, their goal is one, to not look stupid and to, two, to potentially impress their boss. And they're going to impress their boss or whoever, their customer, based upon the impact that you can have on the group. So you really have to think about that because that's a little bit different than maybe most people think when they say, I want to go get up on stage at some sort of an event. or for a group of people. Yeah, it's really true. I mean, it's not dissimilar from the business

Starting point is 00:31:56 I was in in the publishing business where our primary customers were bookstore owners and book buyers in large chains. You know, yes, we were trying to reach the readers, but the way that we did that is we had to make an impression on the book buyer, make him or her the hero, so that the books that we put in their stores sold so that they wanted to continue to do in business with us.

Starting point is 00:32:17 I wanted to touch on that. So Thomas Nelson, you grew to become the see. CEO. And I think a lot of other questions I get to are around people and how they can develop and create great careers for themselves, even if it's not as an entrepreneur, but within a company and that, that's what you did for a portion of your life. When you mentor others and they're in that realm, whether it's in publishing or any business, I'm not sure it matters, what some of the tips or advice you give when it comes to saying, like, Michael, like you've had this incredible career before you even did, you know, became a best-selling author and give speeches and have

Starting point is 00:32:55 all the work you do at your own company now. But when you worked for somebody else, what was, what were some of the themes or things we could pull out to learn from you from a career perspective? You know, this is kind of funny. It almost seems trivial. But when you're dealing with corporations, a lot of times you're dealing with people that are embedded in a bureaucracy. And they're slow to respond. They take forever to make decisions. And one of the things that I decided to do early in my career that I think gave me a tremendous edge and ultimately led to me becoming appointed as the CEO of Thomas Nelson. By the way, that was at the time when it was a New York Stock Exchange publicly traded company. But what led to that was just being hyper responsive to people. So I didn't

Starting point is 00:33:42 want my clients who at that time were mostly authors or bookstores to have. To have, have the experience where it took me 48 hours to get back with them. So I got back with them almost immediately and I responded to him even if all I could say is look, I don't have an answer for you yet, but I got your message. I'm on it. People really appreciated that because people that are outside your organization want to do business faster. They got to report to their boss. You know, when the boss says, well, did you call, did you call Ryan and follow up on that? Yeah, I did, but he hadn't called me back. So to make that person look great, I think the other thing is also having courage to act. So many people in corporations think their hands are tied. They've got

Starting point is 00:34:22 this invisible barrier. They can't do this. They won't let me do that. Well, who's the day? You know, sometimes courage inside of a corporation is taking a risk. And you've got to be careful. It's got to be calculated. But there are times when you just got to operate by the maximum of, it's easier to get forgiveness than to get permission. And so to make a decision, and again, this is an art, not a science. I can't tell you where the line is, but to make a decision and put your personal reputation on the line and make a decision that's right. I think another thing, if I give you a third one, it's always, always, always keeping your word, even when it becomes inconvenient, expensive, or just a hassle. I'll give you a good example. Back when I was first

Starting point is 00:35:09 starting in the publishing business, I was working for a man who promised me that, that I came to this work, it was actually a subsidiary of ABC Cap Cities. And he wasn't able to pay me what I was asking initially because frankly, I didn't have any experience. It was in marketing. And he said, but if you do a great job in 90 days, I'll give you a raise. And it was about a 15% raise. So I was highly motivated. I worked hard for the 90 days.

Starting point is 00:35:33 We finally met for my 90 day review. And he said, look, you've done an incredible job. You've killed it. I've been so impressed by what you've done. But here's the problem. ABC Cap Cities. has put a hiring freeze and a salary freeze on all of their subsidiaries and their parent company. So my hands are tied.

Starting point is 00:35:51 I can't do anything. Well, man, I was crestfallen because, A, I needed the money. And B, I'd really worked hard to get it. But I thought, you know what? I'm just going to keep a good attitude. I told my wife, she had the same attitude. She said, look, just keep hitting it. You know, good things are going to happen.

Starting point is 00:36:05 The next day, my boss calls me up to his office. And he says, you know, I've really been thinking about this. And in fact, he said, I talked with my wife. wife last night. It was a little bit of a rustless night. The truth is, I made that commitment to you, not the company. And he said, you can't say no to this. And he handed me an envelope. And I opened the envelope, and it was a check from him for the difference in my salary. He made good on his word. That guy, I eventually became a business partner with. To this day, he's one of my best friends. And it's because he had integrity. And I think, you know, Stephen Covey,

Starting point is 00:36:43 said this and I think he's right. You know, honesty is when we make our words line up with reality, but integrity is when we make reality line up with our words. And that demonstrated to me like nothing I've ever experienced before or since what real integrity looks like. I love it, man. It's so good. Let's press forward a little bit to what you're doing, what you're most recently published work. And I appreciate your team for sending me an early copy of this book called Living Forward, A Proven Plan, Stop Drifting. And I, I, was obviously reading through it and preparing for our time, even though I know I wanted to cover platform and some other things that you've done.

Starting point is 00:37:21 So what brought you to want to write this book with Daniel in regards to drifting or potentially not making sure you're going in the right direction? Well, it's something that happened to me in 2001. And I had taken on a new assignment. I was a general manager for one of the divisions of Thomas Nelson. It was a big job. And out of 14 divisions, that division was dead last in every possible financial metric. The good news for me was I couldn't screw it up.

Starting point is 00:37:54 You know, I can only make it better. It could have any worse, yeah. I know. And so in 18 months, we were able to go from number 14 to number one in the company. But it came at a big cost because I was working like crazy, you know, weekends, evenings. I had stopped working out. I was on the road a lot. I wasn't eating well. Same thing was happening to my team. And I finally said to John Maxwell, who is one of our authors, I said, John, I got to be honest with you. And he was a mentor. And I said, we've got all these great results, but here's the cost, man. And I see where the trend line's going. And I know I'm going to have a health crisis or a marriage crisis or something if I don't get this tended to. And so he said, well, look, you need an executive coach. Somebody that only has your best interest in mind and can kind of help coach you through. this and I want to recommend Daniel Harcovy, who became my co-author for that book. So Daniel started coaching me. The very first thing we did was we went through a process of life planning.

Starting point is 00:38:49 And this is where we basically answered. He had me answer three really powerful questions, like, how do you want to be remembered? So like fast forward to the end of your life, imagine it's your funeral, who's sitting in the room. And what do you want those people to be able to say about you? So this is like the ultimate question of what does your life mean? And so I answered that question and he has your writer eulogy. And then we went through this next question. What's important to you? I knew what was important to my boss.

Starting point is 00:39:16 I knew what was important to my wife. But I'd never really asked the question what's important to me and get a clear set of priorities so that when everybody else outside of my life, who has an agenda for my life, I've got some kind of filter to be able to say yes to the things that are good for me and for my family and no to the things that are. So that gave me a filter. And then we asked the question. The third question was, how do you get from where you are to where you want to be?

Starting point is 00:39:40 And this is kind of the 30,000 foot view of what do I want? And we use this metaphor in the book in our various life accounts. So just imagine, just like you have a bank account that, you know, hopefully there is a surplus in, but maybe sometimes you're drawn out about as much as you're putting in. Other times you might be overdrawn. But all of the accounts of our life are like that. You've got a health account. You've got a marriage account.

Starting point is 00:40:02 You've got a parenting account. And what's the condition of those accounts? and how can you grow those accounts so there's really a surplus and become really intentional about it. And part of that begins with getting really honest about where you are now. It's almost like a GPS system. You've got to know where you are. And then you've got to be able to know or you've got to know where you want to go. And so part of the exercise in that life planning, that life plan portion is to figure out what the destination is.

Starting point is 00:40:30 You know, what would my marriage look like if I really was intentional and really worked with my spouse to create an incredible relationship. What would my health look like? What would have to happen if I was in the best shape of my life? What would have to happen in my career, to have a career that I love where I'm passionate and proficient, and I'm not doing a bunch of stuff that I'm either don't love or I'm not good at?

Starting point is 00:40:56 What would have to happen? So getting clarity around that. So few people, Ryan, have clarity about where they're going. They're just kind of sleepwalking from one day to the next. And inevitably, when you do that, to mix the metaphor, you drift. And for me, and I tell the story in the book, but Gail and I, for our 10th anniversary, we went to Hawaii. And I'll condense a story here. But we went out snorkeling.

Starting point is 00:41:20 And we'd had a great experience learning how to snorkel the day before. So we decided to go out in the lagoon about 5 o'clock in the morning. It was absolutely gorgeous. But we got totally distracted by everything we were seeing under the water. And we didn't pay attention to what was happening with the current. And when we finally looked up, we were, I don't know, Over a mile from the shore, it looked impossibly far to swim to. And I think the end of the story is, obviously, we got back, but we worked incredibly hard to get back.

Starting point is 00:41:49 And until last year, we hadn't been snorkeling since. You know, it was a very traumatic experience. But I think most people go through life like that. And here's the thing. They end up at a destination they would not have chosen. You know, nobody gets up in the morning and says, hey, I think I'm going to totally screw up my marriage. And here's how I'm going to do it. Or they don't wake up in the morning and say, how could I end up 70 pounds overweight and have a heart attack that's catastrophic?

Starting point is 00:42:14 Nobody does that. But people drift like that because they don't take time to become self-aware enough to say, where is this trend going if something doesn't change? And that's what the book is about, is kind of getting that 30,000-foot view, taking a real assessment of your life and planning where it is you want to go and then figure out a plan to get there. How do you want to be remembered? Well, it depends. It depends because one of the things that we do in the exercise is we take you through a process where we help you identify your key constituencies. So, for example, you know, how I want to be remembered by my wife. And I've got this all written out.

Starting point is 00:42:56 But, you know, I want to be remembered by her as somebody who was for her that was her confidant, that was her best friend who, when I'm with her, is fully present, who is more concerned with helping grow fruit on her tree than growing fruit on my own tree, somebody who's generous and is a passionate lover. So writing all that out and getting a clear vision, that's really what a vision is, is what does this look like, you know, 20, 25 years from now, what does it look like? So I've done the same thing with my kids. And as a platform builder, I've even had a thing, how do I be remembered by my readers and the people that listen to my podcast.

Starting point is 00:43:37 How would you answer that one to them? I'm one of them. Yeah. Yeah, let me just pull it up. Yeah. So here's what I said. I want them to remember my transparency, authenticity, and generosity. I want them to remember how I exceeded their expectations and gave them compelling,

Starting point is 00:43:52 life-changing content and resources. Most of all, I want them to seem in me a role model with a life worth emulating. Love it, man. So good. You know, Michael, I could talk to you. for hours, man, but I really appreciate the fact that you're investing your time, especially in the middle of everything else you have it going on. I'm so appreciative and thankful and acknowledge the fact that your work has impacted me in a huge way. When I created the original

Starting point is 00:44:18 list that now has over 400 some names on it of people I wanted to speak to when my podcast started over 160, 70 episodes ago, you were in the top first five names on that list. People who are listening, no, I don't say that to very many guests. I've said it to less than five people. So I really mean that. I mean that. I love that. We've got a chance to do it, and I'm appreciative, and the fact that we have the unique, uncommon commonality of having five daughters to raise.

Starting point is 00:44:44 You're a guy. I'm always going to look to and be ready for potential emails in the future and things come up, man. But I really appreciate it. I have one more question before we take off, and when you heard that you were, I've worked with your team, obviously, to get you to join me here on the Learning Leader show, and you said, oh, I'm going to go on this podcast that has the name Learning Leader.

Starting point is 00:45:03 what was the initial thought that came to mind? I loved it. Because I think leaders that are learning, that are committed to learning, are leaders that are going to grow and figure it out and ultimately be successful. They may fail, but as long as you can stay in a position of learning, you're going to be successful. It's only a matter of time. I completely agree, man.

Starting point is 00:45:23 So thank you so much again, Michael. And where would you send people to learn more about you online? Is there a specific site that you want them to go to? Yeah, thanks for asking. Kind of the hub of everything I do is Michael Hyerner. And that's Hyatt with why Michaelhyatt.com. Perfect. Michaelhyatt.com will link everything up in the show notes to at

Starting point is 00:45:40 LearningLead.com for the books and everything you do. But Michaelhyde.com, too, is a perfect place to go. So thank you so much again, Michael. Look forward to talking to you as we both progress on these journeys, man. Okay, Ryan. All the best. Thank you. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time.

Starting point is 00:46:01 Head over to learningleadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again and we'll see you next time on the Learning Leader Show.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 175: Michael Hyatt - How To Get Noticed In A Noisy World

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