The Ryan Hanley Show - 208. The Pursuit of Personal Growth: Navigating Success and Perfectionism with Chris Marr

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comWhat if the only thing standing between you and your highest potential is the right kind of guidance? Dive in as we chat about the role of coaching, its challenges, and how it intricately intertwines with teaching.✅ Get frameworks & mental models for high achievement: https://go.ryanhanley.com✅ For daily insights and ideas on peak performance: https://www.instagram.com/ryan_hanley/✅ Hire me to speak at your next event: https://ryanhanley.com/speaking** Connect with Guest **✅Chris Marr’s Book: https://amzn.to/46a7DsW✅Chris’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theauthoritativecoach/** More about this episode **With our guests providing us with an intriguing perspective on the egocentric aspects of coaching, we seek to elucidate how the right balance of guidance and space for clients to self-discover can be pivotal.As the conversation unfolds, we shift gears to talk about imposter syndrome, confidence, and the perils of perfectionism. We examine how market acceptance and support can fuel confidence and discuss how a dash of self-awareness and anxiety can be healthy.Using the success story of Tim Ferriss, we reflect on the importance of tinkering and experimenting to achieve success and how overthinking can be detrimental.As we steer our conversation toward personal identity, manifestation, and action toward goals, we unravel how we can bridge our inner thoughts with the external world to drive our ambitions. We also share some tips on striking a balance between aspirations and personal values, while exploring the realm of new hobbies and the importance of mindset growth.Listen in, as we explore how becoming a coach-like communicator and worker can lead to transformations and breakthroughs.#findingpeak #confidence #innerthoughts #outerthoughtsLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I love that you brought up that perfectionism is actually a fragile characteristic, not an anti-fragile characteristic. And I think that perfectionism comes from two places, ego and insecurity. Because you either believe that your work has to be perfect or is perfect to begin with and therefore any imperfections are not allowed, which would be the ego side, or you're so insecure that somehow you're going to be judged or not given opportunities if, say, your idea isn't perfect or isn't fully formed that you don't. In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Hello everyone and welcome back to the show.

Today we have a tremendous episode for you, a conversation with Chris Barr. Chris is the Global Coaching Performance Director for you, a conversation with Chris Barr. Chris is the Global Coaching Performance Director for Impact, one of the leading digital marketing agencies in the country. He is also a They Ask, You Answer master coach, and now the author of Become an Authoritative Coach, Stop People Pleasing Challenger Clients and Be Indispensable. And whether you are a coach or a sales professional, this is a book, a leader, a manager, this is a book that is going to change the way you view your, how you listen, how you talk to, how you communicate with any individual in which you have influence over. And I don't mean influence in a nefarious way. I mean, in a very positive way. And this, this book has been game changing for me in the way that I approach my work. I've already

adapted several of the principles and mindsets into my leadership techniques. And sure, as I continue to digest it, I will have even more. Chris is a tremendous guy. I've known him for a while. We have a very good mutual friend in Marcus Sheridan that is where I actually met Chris and our love for content marketing, digital marketing, and really just Chris being a tremendous human. It was a pleasure to connect with him. It's been a few years and learn what he's up to and to really break down this idea of what it means to be an authoritative coach.

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then you are in the right place. Let's get to Chris Marr. What's going on with you, i'm good yeah all good too man just i'm just wrapping up my day actually so yeah it's good to see you yeah you do it's been it's been a while it has been a long time we had my head down doing a lot of work over the last four or five years so yeah that's a good thing it is a good thing it's been great uh I switched over to impact it's over four years ago now and that was when the work really began so it's been like just head down lots of coaching 25 hours a week of coaching or something like that for years. So it's been good.

It's been a lot of lessons learned. It's just been exactly what I needed. It was the right time for it as well. Get the reps in, do more work, get pushed, get challenged. Working with Marcus, obviously, has been a joy as well so it's been a good four solid four years of work

it's been great. And you feel like you found what you're meant to do? I would say that that is still a process of discovery I think. I think the coaching with the ask-you-answer was like, I think that's building a lot of the groundwork for where I'm going. Getting all those reps in was a huge part of the foundation,

building blocks for becoming a better coach. And I honestly think that is becoming my that's becoming a a note in the history book for me i think next is what's interesting i think what that what that builds towards i think is what's going to be the thing that was supposed to be doing um you know i find myself when i'm working with individual high performer leaders, CEO type people and working one-to-one with them. I feel like I have, I feel like that's what I'm doing my best work.

So the coaching side of it is certainly where you think, you know, where you feel like you meant to be. I think the coaching, the foundational coaching skills, art and craft of coaching, all of that stuff is like, is the big overlap. overlap it's the it's where i place it right where am i what am i using those skills for and who am i using them with i think is the is is figuring that out still i think yeah

yeah what is it about coaching that you enjoy so much well i think it kind of overlaps with a lot of things that I've just enjoyed my whole life. I remember even going back to when I was a really young manager when I was 18, 19 years old, having to stand in front of the team and teach them stuff, health and safety, food safety, whatever it was I was doing at the time. I think it's a massive overlap with teaching and helping people and bringing out the best in people bringing out their potential getting them unblocked like i know how useful it's been for me to have somebody like someone that i trust someone that i look up to or respect or value their opinion or guidance you know it can be tough sometimes but you know that it's good for you and i i'm that person for other people which i think is awesome now that's the great thing about being a coach

i think that a lot of people struggle a lot of non-high performers or high achievers that i interact with or people who seemingly struggle to break through, right? Let's put it that way. They tend to be the ones that really hesitate on the investment in a coach or the idea of a coach because they feel like somehow if they can't do it themselves, there's like this weird, I don't know, word is not the right word. There is this very limiting or scarcity mindset idea

that seems to permeate with the idea of a coach or a mentor or insert whatever term you want to use for whatever particular use case you have. What do you think that is? Like when you come up against someone that maybe, maybe they're just, I don't want to call it picking your brain or getting to know you, but they're very coach hesitant.

What are some of the characteristics that you see in these individuals? And maybe what are some of the things that start to change their mind if they do actually have a need, right? Assuming that they have the need and can get value from it. What are some of those limiting ideas? And then where do you start to see that turn for them yes the there's a lot in there actually i think because yeah i think you're right number one is like are they looking for a coach or are they looking for someone to tell them the answer to

the problem yeah right i think that's like a big part of it the challenges i've had with clients in the past is that they didn't really they didn't really get they didn't fully understand that they actually signed up for coaching what they thought they signed up for was somebody was going to tell them what to do that's not coaching that's consulting um and there's a place for both and yes there's an overlap but for you know so but they're two different things and then so there's so there's that understanding and then i think the second thing is like like there's an egocentric aspect to this as well like being open vulnerable enough to have somebody shine a light on the behaviors that are holding you back from being the best

that you can be that takes some level of vulnerability that some people aren't ready for yet right they haven't come to that place themselves and i think i don't know that a coach it's a coach's job to break them like break that like all like it can be quite damaging i think if you if you say the wrong thing sorry if you say the right thing to the person at the wrong time and so i think you've got to watch when you're a coach as well like you can maybe see it but they aren't ready to hear it and if they're not ready to hear it then it's not a good it's like a waste of your time going there if they're not ready for it yet too so there can be a lot of fear tied up in that they might have been burned before in the past so they do a lot of

like especially this is true I think as well very defensive very unwilling to get feedback from anybody about anything and again there could be a whole backstory to reason why that might be for the

person in terms of like fear or they've been burned in the past or they've had a bad experience or they're protecting themselves from something maybe they're it could be a lot just could be a ton of stuff right their jobs at risk they don't they feel like an imposter right so like getting feedback when you already feel like you don't belong is a challenge right so almost like being a coach a big part of it is i find when you're building a relationship with a client for the first time you've got to build up their confidence with themselves and with your relationship that you're having as well so there's a lot of groundwork that

has to be done in the beginning to help someone into the position where that relationship blossoms to a place where you can give people very clear and direct feedback that lands in the right place it might still feel like a gut punch but if it lands in the right place which is you know what you're totally right i can see it what do we need to do together to work on this thing you know and i think that's the relationship we're looking for and i would say that i think that's hard to get like for all the coaching clients i've had maybe a handful have been like the very best clients the ones that really want to work with me for a long time um and value that relationship. The other ones are enjoy the coaching. They get a lot from it, but there's a limit to how far I think you can take it based on where the relationship's at. Do you think that they have to get there themselves or that someone can be convinced

that they need coaching? Let's say you're a CEO and your board comes to you and says, look, you're screwing this up. Or, hey, you're really good at vision, but the way you handle people is just terrible. And we need you to talk. We need to bring in this person. And, you know, they're going to coach you versus a consultant, right? Which I want to get back to that difference because I think it's unclear to a lot of people. It certainly wasn't as clear to me as when I started reading the book, become an authoritative coach, which I want to get to a lot of the stuff in here. I think that was

really early on. That was one of the points that I picked up immediately that I don't know that I had thought about. But let's say it's a coach. Do you think that real good work can be done if a coach is forced or highly suggested or does the person kind of have to be there themselves they kind of have to see the problem and want to engage or it's both can you massage them there i think it's both i think somebody somewhere needs to have like so for example a board i think you're hitting on something here which is like the board okay someone that ceo would listen to right just put them in that category right someone says look yes you're great at this but you need you absolutely need to improve in this we suggest you do x y whatever and they're like right great let's do that i think that needs to happen something needs to happen someone needs to get radically candid direct clear feedback from somebody that they're going to listen to the board perfect um it could

be the boss it could be um an advisor it could be whatever it could be a bad experience as well like this is um you know that somebody in the leadership team gave them feedback on their way out the door right it could be just something happened, like it was a cataclystic event. But either way, I do think that has to happen. But I would also say this, Ryan, is that just because, like, so for example, and say they brought me in and I was hired to coach the CEO, the first part of that conversation is going to be about me absolutely making sure that they're ready to do this work. And I'm going to just you know as a great coach you're not going to just go in and say

great you've hired me now let's get to work there's going to be a there's going to be a lot of what are we here to do why do you want to do this work why is it important to you what kind of impact will it make if you're able to change in these years right let's look at it what is it that you're doing right now so you would want to see and maybe even show them the difference between where they are where they want to get to so i think it's both and is that there needs to be some sort of radically candid moment for them and then when a coach is comes into that relationship the coach is going to spend time making sure that they raise what i call raise the stakes right which is making sure that everything that we're about to do is something

that they believe is important. It doesn't matter how important it is to me. If they don't think it's important, they aren't going to see it through. They aren't going to do the work. There's not going to be the transformation that we're looking for. How do you help someone get past imposter syndrome? I feel like in today's world, where so much of what we do, even the smallest activity is public, right? They're used to, you know, and I think you're a little younger than me even, but I very clearly remember a time when you could make mistakes and people wouldn't really find out. You know what I mean? And I don't mean that in a nefarious way. You could try stuff and have it

not work and be like, okay, that didn't work. I'll do something else. And I think today, so many people get hung up, especially trying big things and things that'll garner any kind of, I don't even want to say criticism because I don't think people have as many haters as they want to portray. I think most people just ignore other people, but everything is public, right? So there's like that sense of, and I even have this, right? Like one of my 2024 goals is I want to have, I want to have a book published by a major publishing house and I want to make a run at being a New York Times bestseller. If I miss, I miss. But I've been outlining these concepts that I have for a long time. I've done the self-publishing thing. I sold just under 5,000 copies of a self-published book.

I feel very happy with that work, even though the cover is like the worst cover in the history of book covers. I was thinking about that today. Yeah. But that all being said, I am writing every day. I'm creating every day. I'm doing the early work. I'm doing research on this book and I'm really dedicated to this and all this stuff. At the same time, even saying this to you out loud on my own podcast, there's a part of me that's like, I hesitated at verbalizing the idea that I think I could write a book that is of the quality to make the New York Times bestseller list, right? Like, I, you know what I mean? I've written a book before, multiple podcasts with tens of thousands of downloads every month, you know, all these things that I've done.

And just saying it out loud to you, I felt myself hesitate. So, you know, in coaching, from the very limited amount that I've even done for people, I know that that tends to be one of the very early things that keeps people, maybe even from engaging with a coach, is, am I worthy? Am I ready? Is the thing I'm trying to take on, is it even a reality or something I deserve that I can hire a coach and spend this money to bring me in and help me get there? Does that make sense what I'm asking you? How do you work through that? It feels like such a big thing in today's world. Well, yeah, I think all those things are valid.

You know, and I think, and somewhat i think it's also healthy like it's i think it's healthy to to check in like if you weren't anxious a little bit anxious at least about this massive project that you're undertaking and what it means to you then you would have to ask yourself if you really cared about it at all so like why do it if you're not good if it doesn't excite you right there's got to be something in there that's driving you as well so i think there's these healthy right because the opposite of that is like the ego takes over and you think you do deserve it and you deserve everything and you know and i don't know i don't know that that's a healthy place to be well people like that as well they're not great people to be around most of the time so a bit of self-awareness around all this is

healthy but then it can also bridge into like you said that that anxiety becomes too much that it actually stops you from doing the work right as well um a couple of thoughts on this really are the idea that the first of all the idea of market acceptance i think as soon as somebody isn't like you said you've got this number of downloads, you've already written a book, you're interviewing me just now, you're interviewing many, many people. People like you, they get you, they like your ideas. You know, so there's a lot of, you've already got a lot of market acceptance, right? So versus somebody that's maybe doing something for the first time, like, I don't know, people are probably going to hate it, blah, blah, blah. The best thing you can do is actually put it out there and get people someone to support like your network will come

in and say this is really great probably is what they're going to say so as soon as you get your first comments or likes or follows or subscribers you can actually get what's called market acceptance right which gives you confidence especially in like knowledge work or expert businesses like ours where we're really working with our head insights and knowledge um market acceptance is really key getting someone to buy your thing whatever it might be that can really be a confidence boost for most people so when you're working with people for the first time it's actually getting them to put something out into the world and realize that actually people really like what they've got to say and like what they're doing um and then once we can get someone to do something like that i think getting over imposter syndrome is getting into like i think

imposter syndrome is possibly uh an outcome of perfectionism as well where it's like all or nothing one or zeros there's no gray and honestly in this world today the people that are getting our head are tinkerers and experimenters they are willing to try stuff right that was we learned we did that thing here's what we learned it was good this was good this was that sucked that sucked never doing that again right let's wrap that all up put it into the next thing and they're just trying stuff they're experimenting they're tinkering versus the person or the group of people who are sitting on great insights and great concepts and great ideas but never actually get out into the world because

it's not perfect yet it doesn't make sense yet it's still got gaps in it you know or whatever i still don't know the answer to these bigger questions whatever it might be but i think there's i just think there's like this somewhere in the middle where you can be insightful knowledge driven expert and be a tinkerer and an experimenter leading to that market acceptance which helps you build your confidence and know that your ideas are good and that they can get better with input from other people around you as well instead of sitting on the thing and i think that can eradicate a lot of imposter syndrome just from doing i'd be my take on it no i completely agree with you you know it's interesting um was um i'm in

the middle of 75 hard and i don't know if you're familiar with that. Hello. Yeah, so two workouts. Part of it is two workouts every day, 45 minutes at a minimum. One of them has to be outside. And what I do for my outside workout is I bought a 40-pound ruck vest, so 20-pound weight in the front, 20-pound in the back, and I just go for a walk.

And it's actually phenomenal for your abs, your stabilizers, your posture, your knees, your hip. It's a wonderful thing to do. I wouldn't recommend running in it unless you are very advanced. But walking is good for just about everybody. And especially I do probably two to five minutes walking backwards during that trip too. So just strengthens everything. It's wonderful. That being said, I don't know why I went down that rabbit hole, but I was listening to Tim Ferris podcast and he was reminiscing with a guy today and he said, and he was talking about this, this very concept when he started his podcast, which just recently crossed a billion downloads all time, a billion. When he started his podcast, it started as a six-episode singular series podcast.

He recorded six interviews. He released two the first week and I think one the subsequent five weeks or four weeks. And that was it. That was all he was going to do. It was going to be six interviews, which were an add-on. It was a test, but it was really just an add-on to the four-hour workweek book that he had done. And then he'd had some other fame. I think the four-hour body had come out at that point too.

But basically, it was just kind of building off that and he interviewed some people and it was just going to be six episodes. That was it. And it did so well that then he kept going. Now he's got a billion downloads. So my point in sharing that, just listening to you and it kind of popped into my head was like,

I think if you were to look at someone like Tim Ferriss, who I really love him and a lot of what he does. I think he is almost too much of a thinker, as much as that might be an issue. Some of his thoughts around things like having children, some of his thoughts that he's had around different things, I think are, he's thought too much about them. You know what I mean? It's like- Right. Yeah. I know what you mean.

Yeah. I know other people like that as well. Yeah. It's like, dude, at some point, but it's funny. So here's a guy who in some aspects of his life is this tinkerer, experimenter. So much of Tim Ferriss' success has been just doing shit. He bought that TV show or he did that TV show and then it didn't get picked up and he bought it and then he put it out on his own and just all these really amazing things from trying shit and seeing

what works and whatever. And then the other side of it is you can see in other aspects of his life, using him as almost like a crucible for this, is that there are certain aspects of his life that he talks about all the time that you can tell he's unhappy about, like not having a consistent love interest, like not having children yet. Like there are other aspects of his life. Like I think it really bothers him that he can't go out in certain cities and get like mobbed, right? There are certain aspects of it. So it's like, there's certain things it's funny that he doesn't tinker with and that he has overthought, but then there's other things that he does and you can see where he's been successful and where he seems to be the most happy are the

places that he's willing to tinker and experiment. I don't know him beyond his podcast, but armchair quarterbacking his psychology and what he says, like you can kind of see that this is probably a universal truth for some form of purpose, meaning, and it's derivation, happiness, is just tinkering and trying shit. And the longer we sit on things that we may like, it... What's up, guys?

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you're not subscribed. And I'd love for you to leave a comment about the show because I read all the comments or if you're on Apple or Spotify, leave a rating review of this show. I love you for listening to this show and I hope you enjoy it listening as much as I do creating the show for you. All right, I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode. Doesn't seem to bring us more meaning, purpose, or happiness. It doesn't seem to do that. It just brings about a fragility in us, I think, which is something I've been thinking a lot about recently is this this idea of how do we move up that you know from fragile to anti-fragile up that spectrum

of things in the way that um talib would say this is like you've got to just reduce the number of things that make you fragile yep and you know so it's like tinkering and experiment is a way to move up the spectrum um generally speaking, trying things and yeah you're right, it's like just got to experiment with stuff and I think a big part of this

is like the real challenge for people who are perfectionists or maybe don't even know that they're perfectionists but they really do, everything has to be right, everything has to be right first time those are the people that are going to struggle the most but but that makes even being a perfectionist makes you brings about a certain amount of fragility yeah doesn't help you build robustness in the future you know so for example like you could like so for example if you look at my book right i wrote my book every week

for a year pretty much it was like every it was a letter every week for a year that became mostly the book now like if i wanted to if i was writing a book like just think about the the like what perfectionism comes around just that that project on its own as well it's like there's loads of reasons for me not to publish every week and if it's just not perfect i haven't got the message quite clear yet but by putting it out and getting some comments on it and getting it edited for its first run sitting on it for nine months a year coming back to reviewing it adding it you know i mean it's like the tinkering and the experiment really helped again market acceptance though there is a

book here people like my ideas let's put it all together i mean it just moves me out of that perfectionism space and into a place where it's actually creating something meaningful yeah i completely agree with you and i and i'm one so people know what we're talking about any fragile is a absolute tremendous book it would be be I don't have a must read list but it would absolutely be on my top 20 must read books. Nicholas Nassim Taleb. Absolutely

phenomenal. It's a heady book and you're going to have to work through it but the concepts are so core to my long-term success. And if you listen to, you know, what's really interesting is once you read that book, the number of people that you probably hear on other podcasts who reference or use derived ideas from that book is insane. It's insane how many people that like, if you listen to podcasts or you read books, if you're that kind of person,

you're obviously listening to this show, so you probably are. The number of people, myself included, who take concepts and either straight from the book or derivations and use them in their daily life or use them in their own work is insane. It's just, it's a core book in my opinion to mental models. But getting back to perfectionism, I love that you brought up that perfectionism is actually a fragile characteristic, not an anti-fragile characteristic. And I think that perfectionism comes from two places, ego and insecurity. Because you either believe that your work has to be perfect or is perfect to begin with, and therefore any imperfections are not allowed, which would be the ego side, or you're so insecure that somehow you're going to be judged or not given opportunities if, say, your idea isn't perfect or isn't fully formed that you don't.

And neither one of those are true in reality. They're real in your head, but not in reality, which I have found to be the toughest thing to get people to overcome is the realities that exist. And this is where my question comes from to you as, you know, the author of Authoritative Coach and having so much experience is, how do you start to talk a client out of the realities in their head, which are real, right? The insecurity that you're feeling is a real thing. It may, it is not actually a real thing in the world.

People are not judging every move you make. They are not going to never read another article you write because you wrote one that has one sentence that's inaccurate or a misspelling or whatever, right? Most people, most days, most of the time are thinking about themselves and not you. Therefore, there are a lot of, so how do you start to,

I understand you feel this way, and that is your reality. But here's what's actually happening in the world. How do you start to bridge that gap for people? Yeah, I think there's probably a few different ways to do it. The first thing, though, is that... Well, why not you? That would be the first thing for me is like why do you, like so for example

thinking about your project Ryan and New York Times bestsellers list publishing a new book, it's like look at all the New York Times bestselling books you have read where do you think they came from? Like it was someone's

first, Ryan holiday wrote his first three books while he's working full-time for somebody else do you know i mean it's like why did he deserve his book to be so great like out of the gate like i think anybody i think it's worth looking at the world around you a little bit zooming out i think the big part of this is like we're two in our own head so it's like part of the coaching conversation is probably going to be about getting out of your own head and having a look around you and seeing who else did it and it's like why not you why could this not be you too this was just another human being in fact one of the things i've recognized is that some of the new york times bestselling books are really not that great yeah right and

you read them and you think actually i could write i could potentially write a better book than this that is motivational i think in a lot of ways to actually just zoom out other people have done this but i think so that's part one the second part is like like you talked about there's no there's no spotlight right no people do care more about themselves than they care about you and they're not going to judge you like you think they will but then i'd say like another way to zoom out here is like like you have you got a friend who's written a book and how did you judge them like were you their champion or were you their critic there's a good chance that you were championing them right and that you were really all for them and then you bought you were one of the first people to buy their book it's like that's what people around

you are going to behave like too probably right um so there's that and then i think the last thing is coming back to what we talked about before which is to me is like raising the stakes issue impact importance right why are you doing this why is it so important to you what kind of impact you want to make on the world kind of problem you're trying to solve for the world if you can have a conversation around this what what we get to is the root it's like actually here's why i'm doing this this is why this is so meaningful for me i'm going to write this down on an index card i put it on my monitor here in front of my computer and that's going to drive me every single day to do this work because i have and i understand why i'm doing it why it's so important why the world needs

it who it's going to be good for and if anything it's really just good for me to get this thing out as well so i think if we can have a sense of purpose and a sense of mission and a sense of sense of meaning around all of this it's going to help drive people out into the world to do the thing that they're supposed to do and that's what coaching is all about it's what we want for people is for them to do their best work to to do the work that they're supposed to do at their highest potential so that would be where i would start do you believe in manifesting yes talk me through that loaded question no it's not it's not it's uh i'll give you some context to that question um and i shouldn't say believe in that Well, I do believe in it. Yeah. I have, I have, I just call it like, to me, it's like a vivid imagination. I dream about shit all the time.

Like there's one, one of my most vivid manifestations was being on a stage in front of an audience that I had brought to a room. And like a couple of years later, here I am, live event, 200 people, you know, it's like big stage, keynote speakers. It's like, I am, I will draw my life out, like imagine it vividly. And like this thing, I know when I, when I do this and I don't mean this in like a cocky ego way. I just know that if I think deeply about something and I can bring it to life in my head there's just

a really good chance that i'm going to bring that to life somehow in my world and so that's what manifest manifesting manifesting means to me is like just very simply vivid real imagination like a creative imagination like being able to bring these pictures in my mind to life that's what i feel like it is to me i don't know how that sits with you but to me i think that's so like if you don't have that what what like i can't imagine a life without it it's like what drives me all the time yeah like that's what drives me i can't imagine not being able to think about what i want my life to look like and then always feeling somewhat like and this again it's like a tough place to be when you're when you have such a vivid imagination it's

like you're always in a tension between where you want to be and where you are right now like that tension always exists right and it's like that that creative tension um and it can be sometimes quite difficult because you are never quite there yet you're never quite there because of it and you have to sit in this place where you're you know you're delaying gratification perhaps for years before you get to that thing before anybody sees the thing or before anybody appreciates your work and yet you sit in it anyway and there's hard days but you get through and i think that to me is what manifestation is all about and what and why it's so absolutely critically important to be able to create visions and manifest them and somehow bring them to life.

See, I know when The Secret came out, there was a lot of both positive and negative around that idea. I think that to me, the concept of manifesting is kind of, I'm going to just give me this little bit of leeway here, but it's kind of analogous to where we are with AI. Five years ago, you used to term AI and everyone thought you were batshit crazy, right? They're like, that doesn't exist. It's machine learning and rah, rah, rah, rah, rah.

You know, you couldn't really talk about it because people would look at you like with the stink eye if you talked about it five years ago. Today, AI is just, oh yeah, that shit's got some, just sprinkle some AI in it. It'll be better than it is. You know, that's the way everyone talked about it five years ago today ai is just oh yeah that shit's got some just sprinkle some ai in it it'll be better than it is you know that's the way everyone talks about it well to me this concept because i read an enormous amount and i listen to a lot of podcasts and um you know i just i'm like a ferocious consumer of personal development and high achievements, whatever. Okay.

So what's been interesting is in the last six to nine months, I'd say more than a dozen, either podcast hosts that I listened to or guests that were on their show have brought up this concept of manifesting. And I had always associated it with, I don't know why, and this isn't my normal way. I normally give things an honest try, but I had kind of written it off as like this foo-foo-y kind of ridiculous concept. And then I started to really dig into it.

And it's funny, the most simplistic and I don't know, contrived example or trite example is probably a better way to put it, kind of hit me, but they're like, when you buy a car, right? Like, let's say you buy, like I bought a used Chevy Tahoe about a year ago. I got two kids. They play a ton of sports. My truck is constantly filled with gear. I'd always had a pickup truck. And then I was sick. For those at home, that slapping sound was me slapping myself in the face because a fly just flew under my face.

That's, you can tell. So long story short, bought this truck. And now all of a sudden, all I see is black Chevy Tahos everywhere I go. There's this black Chevy Tahoe, black Chevy Tahoe, black Chevy Tahoe. Before that, I would have never noticed them, right? And the whole concept behind manifesting in the way that it

was described to me and what changed my opinion on this and why I think it's a vital concept to success, high achievement, and if you're on the coaching side, potentially how you would interact with somebody is that, let's say you want to write a book like I do, right? If I think to myself every day, I'm going to be a best-selling author, right? What do I need to do to get there? Well, one, I got to write. I got to research.

I got to network, right? I got to start reaching out to people, letting them know that it's coming. But if I'm thinking every day, this is who I am. This is who I am. Even if I'm not that thing yet, it forces you to see the world in a way that that thing is a reality. It forces you to do that.

Just like when you buy a new car and all you see is that car. That car is now in your brain. It's not that there are more Chevy Tahos, black Chevy Tahos on the road. It's that my mind is now open to and essentially tagged for seeing Chevy Tahos because I get into one every single day. So like, and when I started to think about it in that way,

it's not necessarily the universe conspiring to get you this thing because I don't actually think that the universe gives a shit about us. What I actually think it is instead is us recalibrating how we interact with the universe to make our path to that thing possible. And that completely changed how I viewed it and really has changed how I start my mornings because now I will spend a few minutes every morning thinking about this thing, right? Not necessarily saying, please send me a bestselling book deal. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about like, if I'm this thing, what do I need to do today? Well, have you written any words? Have you put any of the thoughts focused on this particular project on the page? Have you reached out to one person who maybe six months from now, nine months from now either could help you or possibly you could be on their podcast, could have what you

promote or could make a connection for you or someone, you know, are you doing these things that have to be done? And, and you just start doing them because your mind is thinking about it. If you say you want to be a bestselling author, but you never spend any time thinking about what it means to be an author, or whatever, it's just this dream you have, it never actually comes true. And that's where manifesting started to make sense to me i mean does that framing does that does that seem reasonable the way i position it well i think it's just like you know like you said it's like a dream but you've got the dream with the identity and the identity with action yeah right it's like

it's got to come back to something that you feel like you can control. That, I feel like, is the key there. So you can have the big dream, you can have the big vision. Yeah, there's tons of people that want to write a book, and there's also 90%, 95% of those people will never write a book. And then it's like the people that take it that one step further, it's like, I am

a writer. Okay, well what do writers do they write okay and that's it right I mean you get to go on but really that's the nuts and bolts of it so I think that's perfect that to me

seems perfect I never really connected with the whole the secret thing that didn't speak to me at all I remember going to like a secret workshop way back when oh years like it could have been 15 years ago or something like that whatever it was and i just did not connect with me in the slightest i always feel like i need to get to a place where i have i'm working that thing somehow yeah like i'm doing

something about it um and i think that maybe is just a mistranslation or a misunderstanding or a mislabel or something like that. But it's that, the idea that you're so focused on something that all the opportunities that you would have otherwise missed flag themselves to you

because you're actually looking for them. Yeah, yeah. It's like, yeah, it's like a semantic search in a database if you're a nerd that's all it is is you put the tags in place to capture relevant related items that you would have ordered normally walked past um yeah but it's so powerful though if you think about it it's like you can walk through life not looking for anything yeah and maybe get opportunity and you get lucky and stuff like that but how about going through life actually deliberately trying to find and the opportunities that align with where you

want to go in your life that's that sounds like a happier place to be i completely agree with that i think that there was about a decade of my own life that i just kind of went through just kind of went through it right i was went through it, right? I was alive, had some good times, had some bad times, but I just kind of went through it. There was no purpose, you know what I mean? Like I wasn't trying to be a better really anything. I was just kind of surviving and experiencing. And I don't even mean that like experiencing in a good way.

I just mean I was like, you know, just kind of moving through it. And about half a decade, maybe six years ago now, 2017 is really, was a keystone moment in my life. Um, and I started, I changed, you know, I started to set some standards and boundaries and it's still working on it today, obviously. But man, when you start to say, this is who I am, you know, like one of the things for me is I am a fit person. That's who I am.

Good. I enjoy part of my personal identity. Part of my value structure and standards is I'm a fit person. It's just this. Don't eat cookies and cakes and shit. You know what I mean? I still will. I'm on 75 hard now, so I'm not drinking now, but I'll occasionally have drinks, but not a lot. Certainly not as much as I used to. My diet is pretty regimented in terms of what I eat because that is a personal identity issue. And I think for all of us, what we, you know, like people, another one too.

So an experience I've recently had is I got divorced two years ago. So I think about that and I think about relationships a lot because I haven't had tremendous luck with, use luck as a loose term. I don't actually think it's luck, but I haven't had really a consistent female connection sense. You know what I mean? Had some relationships or whatever, but nothing that's really stuck. So I think about it a lot, right? And I think about like, okay, I was with a woman for 15 years on a drop of a dime. She was willing to kick me out of her life. So obviously something in her life wasn't right. But did I focus day to day? Was part of my personal identity being a great husband? That's an honest question that I had to ask myself. And I'd say that I don't think that it was. I think part of

that too was we were not meant to be together. We're actually very good friends, but she and I as romantic interests were probably never meant to be together. Okay. But I also have to take personal responsibility for the fact that part of my personal identity was being a tremendous dad, and I would put my dad skills up against anybody, but being a tremendous husband was not one of the things that I focused on. It just wasn't. I did not prioritize that. And I say to myself, well, based on the reality I live in today and the choices I've made in my past, I am glad that I am no longer married to that person because we just wasn't, there wasn't, you know, for a bunch of reasons, it didn't work. But if I had said to myself,

my personal identity is to be a tremendous partner to this person, would I have made different decisions? Would I have maybe set boundaries in different places? Would I have maybe done more work earlier so that maybe that doesn't happen. But you know what I mean? And I think you can, so this can extend to any part of your life. If you want to be a great whatever, you have a hobby that you love, right? You love to ski or you love to play the guitar or you love to whatever your thing is.

Do you wake up every day and say to yourself, my identity is I am a great insert the thing, right? Like I'm reading Cam Haines's book Endure. Okay. The dude wakes up every day and says to himself, I'm the greatest bow hunter in the world. Right. Whether he is or he isn't. Right. And I think there's a lot of arguments to say maybe he is.

Right. But like it is a personal identity to him. So and this and this kind of comes back and then I have I have questions about your book. I want to get to you, too. We just go down this rabbit hole. I just find this so intriguing dude that like I just find it so intriguing that like because he says to himself I am the greatest or I will be or I operate you know however he says it I don't want to speak for Cam specifically I don't know him but like

this I want to be the best bow hunter in the world every then decision that he makes during his day is around being a better bow hunter even the time he schedules time with his family so that he can be there for them because being part of their lives

and it is very important to him, but he schedules in a way that also allows him to be a great bow hunter. So he doesn't get to say what so many people say, which is, I don't have time for that. Oh, I wish I had time. He makes the time because that is his personal identity. And I feel like that's one of the things

that we don't do, right? We just operate through life. And I do, I'm doing two 45 minute workouts a day. That's an hour and a half of the day, an hour and a half. The number of people, three dozen at a minimum have reached out to me and said,

I think it's amazing what you're doing because I'm kind of documenting it on Instagram. It's amazing what you're doing. I wish I had time for that. And I'm like, I'm a single dad who coaches multiple sports teams, who owns and runs a business who has other side hobbies and businesses, right? I don't have any more time than you do. You have to make the time because this is my personal identity. So I think I just find that to be, I don't know how we got down this rabbit hole, but to me, this idea of manifestation of-

Don't take me down the rabbit hole with you. Yeah. You're going down this. No, I just find it to be, I find this to be so intriguing, dude, for success. You know, these people who you meet that are so successful,

like even our good mutual friend, Marcus Sheridan, right? Like you talked to him the things that you know and it's something i've envied about him forever is that the things he wants to do he so clearly wants to do them knows why he wants to do them and then sets a plan to do them and yes it is a quality of him that i've been read for a long time that i have struggled to emulate um and and he doesn't he doesn't have any reason to tell anybody either yeah that's the great thing about marcus is he'll just do it without like he won't tell he doesn't need to

tell you he won't ask you he's just off doing his thing and he doesn't need any validation from anybody yeah you know he's so good at that as well yeah doesn't need any validation from anybody. Yeah. You know he's so good at that as well. Yeah. I think there's a couple of things in here that I just add to before we shift gears but like the thing is identity is one thing like the type of person that you want to be in the world right so for example you want to be healthy, I want to be a fit person

I want to be a kind person but then I think there's also like a set of values as well so for example I got divorced as well so for example i i was i got divorced as well um six six or seven years ago and i've had a i've been married again since and one of the things i learned was that it wasn't about being a great husband that was that was not the top thing the top thing was the marriage is the most important thing so it's like how do you so for me it's like the marriage became so it wasn't about you know like that became the thing right uh the marriage

becomes the thing and then it's like i need to work on me for you you need to work on you for me then it's about the kids and then it's about the work and who i want to be at work and the type of work that i want to do and every decision i make is made through that type of lens it's like right okay so if like work want me to go away and speak for two days somewhere or whatever like right okay well how does this affect my marriage how does this affect my family you know there's a lot you know for each each person is different but i think identity is one thing like you can be a fit healthy kind you could be all of those things and still have like they don't have to sacrifice something else yeah it's really important for it as well i think like people talk about balance but it's just about values and coming

back to like the type of person you want to be and just knowing that even just knowing that there's a part of your life that you're not satisfied with yet isn't you know can be enough to just get you working towards whatever that you know whatever happiness in that place looks like um it's not easy i don't think right and i think that if anybody anybody that's tried to get a six pack in their 40s knows that that's not easy to do keep and maintain right it's like so you know for all the people out there that are like i've had this i feel a lot of like your what you're saying resonates with me as well i remember like there's loads of things i've done over the years but two things spring to mind is one is like i left one of my early jobs i i had at work i took redundancy voluntary redundancy but i was like really young i was like in my mid

20s or something like that late 20s and i was like oh i wish i could do that i've got and they were like i wish i could do that but i've got a mortgage. I was like, I've got a mortgage. I'm doing it. You're projecting your own limiting beliefs onto me. Of course you could do this. If you really had something else that you wanted to do other than this thing, you would apply for the voluntary redundancy and you would be doing what I'm doing. That's not my fault.

It's nothing to do with me. Another weird one that i think that catches people out is like i've got really really clear boundaries at work like super clear and and one of the things i did recently back in april was that i gave 40 of my salary back to go down to a three-day week and people don't really understand uh that i could be fully committed to the mission but not work five days nine to five and it's totally possible so it's like these are the things that you start to do like that's a weird that's that's a thing that decision was an outcome of me going i don't have enough time to do other meaningful things in my life that I really need to get done. Write a book, write another book, do all of that stuff. It's like, I had

to find a way. And I was like, well, what if I do part-time hours? Well, nobody else does that. Does that mean it can't be done? No. Well, let's go ahead and tinker with it. Let's experiment with it. It's been seven months. It seems to work. So it's like, I think life is figuring it out, out right that's what life's all about you're just constantly figuring it out and even when you get into your 40s you realize that you're not done yet you're still figuring out there's still a lot to learn and yeah i think that you we dude most days i feel like I'm still in my early 20s. I mean, my body doesn't always feel that way, but my brain doesn't know the difference.

My brain doesn't. Once you become an adult, I feel like your brain is basically the same. Like, yeah, you have more experiences. You know, you have more information to draw off of. But, like, if you told me, if, like, this, if like this if you could if this were like magic was real and i could snap my fingers and just put me in a 20 year old body my brain wouldn't know the difference i'd be like we've been great nothing changes up here i mean like we're you know it's all good so i i think that i love that i think such an important thing though ryan is all to

skip over it but like to have to be young of mind but not naive that's that is key i think and that's the whole deal is it's it's you know for me i'm 42 going on 43 i exactly the same age yeah yeah yeah and i don't i mean there's so many things that i still want to do you know what i mean like i'm doing this um i'm doing uh darren hardy's living your best year ever this year. I don't know if you've ever seen that or done that. I have like two or three years in a row. Yeah. Yeah. I have an accountability partner and we're going to launch. I'm very excited about that, but it's detailed. Yeah. Going through that, putting the details together, you know, and one of the things that he and I were talking about was creating, developing a new hobby

that is outside of our core hobbies, right? So my core things are something physical. I love to ski. I like to work out. I picked up boxing recently, and I really, really love that. But I really just like being physically fit. I like, if you, let's go for a hike,

let's climb a mountain, let's, you know, I'm down for basically anything except for ultra long things. I don't love running long distances. I don't like biking, it doesn't matter. But like, okay, so that's kind of that. And then I have my work stuff that I normally love to do. And I have my personal life stuff that I,

okay, so those are kind of who I am. And we were talking about like, what does it add to your life? When's the last, what we were discussing is when is the last time you picked up a new thing from scratch? Right? Like, like, okay. So the example, the example here would be, okay. I've decided that one of my three, so if no one's ever done this before, you basically have three banner goals for the year. Those are the things you're going for. Okay.

One of my banner goals is getting a book deal and finishing a manuscript with a major publishing house, right? And I've done, I have no problem with self-published. I've just done it before, so this is a new challenge for me. And there's part of the gatekeeper mentality to me is actually part of the challenge, which is why I'm interested. I'm not in this regard. I want to work through the gatekeepers and experience what that's like. Okay. But I've written, I've been writing since I was 20 years old. I've been publishing online since 2004. So like, that's not a new hobby for me. But you know, like for him, it was surfing,

right? He lives near the water, has friends that surf, has never surfed a day in his life. And he's like, you know what? I have tons of buddies who go out there all the time. I can't go with them when they go. It looks amazing. It's physical. It kind of fits who I am. I would love to pick this up. And in 2024, I'm going to teach myself with their help, you know, whatever, get a code, whatever I need to do. I'm going to learn how to surf in 2024 as a new from scratch, know nothing about other one I've seen on TV. Right. So I was thinking like, when's the last time most of us did that? And not even so much to become an expert at that thing, but to re-engage the parts of our brain that we have to fire up, right? The pieces of the engine that we have to fire up

when we don't know shit about the thing, nothing, right? Because that's a whole different skill set than a refinement on something that we've been doing for a long time. And I think going back to your point that we'll been doing for a long time. And I think to your, you're going back to your point that, that, that we'll call it childish or whatever brain, you know, keeping that childlike childlike.

Yeah. I feel like it's a mess. It's necessary to every once in a while, go back and pick something up from zero and have to re and feel what it feels like to absolutely stink at something, to not know what the next thing to do is. I feel like that's a very needed part of our lives that's so, we just kind of disregard it because we don't have time or, you know, oh, I'm too old to learn. Like, so for me, I've always wanted to know how to play a musical instrument. Always. I love music.

I just, it just never happened in my life, just for whatever reason, it never happened. So I was So for me, I've always wanted to know how to play a musical instrument. Always. I love music. I just, it just never happened in my life. Just for whatever reason, it never happened. So I was like, you know, I'd love to, I don't know what I want to do yet. I haven't made up my mind. It feels very cliche to learn how to play the guitar or something like that. But I would love to learn just to learn a new skill and to have it be musical because it's something I never did. So I just think to myself, like, these seem like some of the things that, yes, they're work. Yes,

we have to build time in, but I think the positive impact on our brains and then the success we have in other aspects of our life that come out of these things, because it forces, it's just like seeing the Tahoe. Let's say I do pick, I'm going to teach myself how to play three chords on a guitar. Let's just say that's what it is. Whatever. Okay. Going through say I do pick, I'm going to teach myself how to play three chords on a guitar. Let's just say that's what it is. Whatever. Okay. Going through that process of learning, whatever that takes, if it takes a month or it takes six months or it takes a year. And I'm sure for people who are good at guitar, you know, oh, it takes a lifetime, right? But like, um, my point is when I start thinking about things from a beginner's mindset, again,

I don't just think with a beginner's mindset on just that thing. I start thinking with a beginner's mindset again on all the things that are in my life because I've reengaged that part of my brain. Whatever part of that my brain needs to activate to learn something from scratch. Now that doesn't just turn off when you go back to other parts of your life. Now all of a sudden you start, doesn't just turn off when you go back to other parts of your life. Now all of a sudden you start looking at your spouse and going, Hey, I kind of haven't told her that she looks great in a while. Or geez, you know, I've been on my head and my phone the last three nights with the kids. Like I should be more present there. Like I'm missing something.

You know what I mean? Like I do feel like these things permeate throughout our lives when we do them and that they're important can't go in full circle there a little bit because when you come back to imposter syndrome as well it's exactly the same thing like there's something that like so for example your guy going surfing right nothing's going to be more humbling and express more humility than a wave taking you out on a board that's just like there's nothing more metaphorical than like being floored by the sea yeah right it's like you know so like it's just it's just the same thing like you learn how to play guitar you like suddenly you have a bit more respect for people that play guitar as well because you're like actually this is fucking hard yeah like i never knew how hard this was gonna look my fingers are bleeding

you're like suddenly um oh you know i i want to be like so for example like i want to be a new new york times bestseller like talking about it's easy doing it's really hard now you have a new found respect for everybody that's ever done this before they must have worked really hard um it's like the you know who talks about this is julia cameron and the artists yeah she says for people like anybody that wants to do like oh you want to write you're jealous of anybody that's got a play or you are envious of this or that and she's like go do it and that will eradicate your jealousy that will eradicate your uh imp That will eradicate your imposter syndrome

because you'll realize how difficult it actually was to do it and you'll have more respect for the person and the thing that they did. And that's, again, another sort of thing that speaks to imposter syndrome. It's like you've got to get into the weeds. You've got to do the work because that's where the respect for it actually comes from dude i want to be respectful of your time and that of the audience the book has become an authoritative coach we didn't talk too much about coaching because i want people to go get the book and

i wanted them to hear just how incredible a guy you are how thoughtful you are um and if you you know I'll tell you guys just from reading through the book, and I'm actually, you know, I'm kind of going back through some parts here now. Even if you don't coach per se in the way of like your business is coaching, I can tell you as a leader, right? I've been taking notes here on stuff to do. You know, there's 17 people that work for Rogue Risk. I'm thinking through this in the way of how I actually talk and work through the various... I coach bitty basketball and I coach little league baseball. And this core idea, and I'll come back to it because it really hit me, and it's probably so far my biggest takeaway of the book. And there's a lot here, guys. So go Amazon. I'll

have a link. I'll have a link. But you can also just Google become an authoritative coach or Chris Maher. But the takeaway for me right at the jump that just hit me throughout the whole book was this idea of consultants give you the answer, coaches ask questions. And that core concept, to me, I think the world needs more coaches and less consultants is what I took away from that idea. I don't think that's your point. I don't know that that was the point

you were trying to make and I'm not putting those words on you. But when I heard that, what I said is, we really need more people asking questions than we do just spouting off answers. And I really started to do some self-evaluation and said, as a leader, sometimes I can definitely be, I definitely can over-index on consultant,

consultant in this case. I'll just try just laying down answers for people versus asking them questions to help them get there on their own. And I thought that, I think it's just one of the wonderful takeaways in this book. And dude, I'm so glad that you wrote it. I'm so glad that you're doing the work you're doing. Where can people connect with you more just to get into your ecosystem? Yeah, the authoritativecoach.co.uk. That's the best place really. That's where I do all my writing and that's where you can join the community and figure

out more about what I'm doing just now. So a lot of stuff that didn't end up in the book, as you will know, right? From writing is like, there's lots of stuff that you don't include or you write the day after it publishes yeah yeah uh you know and it needs to go out to the world so you know i continue writing i've got a new book that i'm working on for the next year or so um and i'm sharing that with my core audience as i go and yeah just loads of all my writings around really how to be a bit more coach like i think that's really what you're saying there's like be more coach like in your communication in your work whether you're a leader a manager or a coach but yeah i think that's a nice

a nice little sound bite there you know to be asked more questions um because it's very it means that you don't know the answers and even when you do know the answer it's actually better when somebody else comes up with the answer for themselves because then they own it and then they want to do something about it um and i think if we can be more like that then we're going to have more conversations we're going to have more breakthroughs we'll have more transformations within people we're always coming up with the answers we're not looking for anybody else's input are we yeah um and i think it can shut a lot of people down so if you want to open up people and you want people to do better work and you want them to you know find their own potential then you're better off having more questions than answers

for sure i love it dude appreciate the hell out of you. I'm so glad that you were able to come on the show and it's awesome to reconnect. Let's not make it like seven years between chats. Appreciate the hell out of you and I wish you nothing but the best, my man. Thanks, man. Thanks for asking me on. It's been great catching up. I've loved it.

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