The School of Greatness - 667 The Power of Innovation (Coffee Conversation)

Episode Date: July 16, 2018

“THE KEY IS TO ASSESS WHAT IS AND WHAT ISN'T WORKING IN YOUR LIFE.” Cesar is a recent father and has been by my side pretty much since the beginning. He’s been the business side of my company, helping me push things forward and helping to reign me in when things aren’t working. For this episode, we discuss exactly how you can develop on innovative mindset -- what you need to focus on, and not focus on, to see your business and relationships move forward. If you’re not innovating, you’re standing still. When you stand still the world is leaving you behind. Innovation isn’t about being better than your competition or reacting to what what’s happening around you. Innovation happens before you need to react. Learn how you can be more innovative in all areas of your life, on Episode 667. In This Episode You Will Learn: Why you need to think about reinvesting in the future (6:18) The three things we’ve got coming up (9:27) How you need to think if you want to grow your business (11:09) Ways Facebook is a solid business example (14:04) The power of branding (15:52) Where innovation can come from (17:32) The documentary we’ve been working on (20:49) Our annual event, The Summit of Greatness (24:48) How the principles of business and personal relationships are the same (27:17) The ways investing can give you piece of mind (30:19) What you need to focus on as a business (32:42)

This is episode number 667, The Power of Innovation. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Albert Einstein said, you can't solve a problem on the same level that it was created. You have

to rise above it to the next level. Today, we're doing a coffee conversation with my good man, Matthew Cesarato, aka hashtag Cesar Life, who is the man who runs everything that you see here at School of Greatness headquarters. He's the operations and really kind of keeps everything moving forward at the highest level. And today we do a little coffee conversation. We've done this a few times. You guys ask us to continue to come back to share more behind the scenes, behind the mind of the way I think,

the way we do things as a brand and what we're always working on so you can kind of get that inside look. Today we dive into how we get involved with our audience and know what to improve on in our business on a daily basis. Also, what area of growth I committed to grow in during this particular episode. Also, why it's more important to focus on your customer than your competition, big one that Cesar talks about, and where innovation may not work in your business or your life,

and how to get clear on what you do as a company, as a brand, or as an individual, which is huge for your future. And before we dive in, I want to give a shout out to the fan of the week. We appreciate you guys so much. So many of you have left incredible reviews, testimonials over on the podcast app. And this one is from Mark James Lent, who said, this podcast is thoughtfully crafted to tailor to a broad audience, no matter what age, race, gender, financial status, past or future goals. Lewis's content and guests are thought provoking and stimulating. I left the corporate world to launch my own brand,

write a book and pursue my best life possible. This podcast is definitely one of my go-tos when I need a boost of inspiration. Thank you, Lewis. So, Mark James, thank you, my friend. And again, we've got over 3,200 five-star reviews. If you want to leave one, you'll get a chance of being shouted out as the fan of the week. All right. Welcome, everyone. Coffee Conversations with the one and only Matthew Cesarotto. When was the last time you came on? Months. I think it was months. Earlier this year. Cheers. How old was Bella, your baby?

She was last time. She might have been around six months, seven months. She's almost 11. Almost a year. Yeah. July 28th. July 28th, she'll be a year. Wow, dude. Where did the year go?

One year. It's nuts. I was there for the birth. You were. Now she's almost walking. That was beautiful. That was a beautiful moment. Beautiful moment.

Now she's almost walking. She is. She's standing. She's kind of scaling the tables and things and her playpen and all that sort of stuff. constantly reinvesting in your future. So now that your baby's almost a year old child, it's like we've got, you're thinking about as a dad reinvesting in her future, I'm assuming, right? Of course. It's like, you're thinking about, well, okay, we got to start saving a certain amount for her. College 529. College 529. Yeah. We got to start thinking about, you know, where are we going to live in the next four years for her school, kindergarten, preschool, all that stuff.

That stuff is more real, I think, once you have a child to start thinking about. Yeah. Because as a parent, you're the protector. You're preserving their innocence. You're creating the opportunities that, at least I remember, my parents definitely strove every day to create for me growing up. of every day to create for me growing up. I mean, it's just allowing them to have every possible opportunity for growth and dreaming and being a kid, having fun.

I mean, right now she's not even a year and it's just more so focused on just being there, spending time connecting. I mean, just looking into her eyes every time, every morning just blows me away. When I'm just seeing her pupils dilate in wonder and awe, and it's just, it's beautiful. Wow.

It's pretty cool. Amazing. She's a cutie. Yeah. She's had a lot of sleepless nights, so. Last night was one. Really? Yeah, we ended up having to like just literally bring her into bed with us,

which I know some parents are going to be like, no, don't do it. But she just would not go to sleep on her own. She'd fall asleep, and the second you do that transition moment into the crib, and we can get into this whole topic of, like, child sleep patterns and how to, like, train them to sleep. But we're kind of just going with just instinct right now, Kendra and I. And family always gives you great input because they've been through it first. Absolutely.

But back to innovating business and life. Innovating business and life. We've been, one of the things that I like to do a lot is think about the future and what can we invest in now that's going to be a big payoff for the future. And there's a lot of conversations that I hear from people in our inner circle group or just on social media who are asking me these questions about, you know, how do I get to where I want to be? Lewis, what did you do 10 years ago to where you're at now? Like, how did it happen? And I've constantly been reinvesting in bigger, scarier projects

that I believe will pay off. Now, some of them haven't always paid off. We tried to launch a magazine a few years ago and never launched it. We spent all this time and energy investing in design and development and resources and the team and decided it wasn't the right fit at that time. And we put a pause on it. So some things that you invest in or some things that you try to innovate aren't always going to pay off. But I think that innovative mind will always pay off. Of course.

Even with a few things that maybe not. So we've been working on a few things lately. And we've been talking about some of them behind the scenes a little bit. But I think we'll dive in a little more today. Is it two big things or three big things? Well, we've got three things that we've got coming up. Is it two big things or three big things? Well, we've got three things that we've got coming up.

One is we made an announcement about a month and a half ago about a show that we partnered with on Facebook. And it's called Inspiring Life with Lewis Howes. And it comes out early August. And, again, this has been a year and a half journey, about a year and a half journey. It's been exciting and trying. I mean, just watching you just continue to like beat on that door until it just happened. It was really powerful. And I think that's the cool thing about what I've seen you create in your life and your business is, you know, and even the podcast is just this hunger to try new things, see what works, be willing to test and fail, be willing to try and fail, and be willing to ask for the big potential opportunities to happen. And the Facebook show being one of them.

And I don't know how much you shared or what we can really share about the trajectory of making that happen. But I just remember it was conversation after conversation you would continue to have, connecting with the right people, sharing what the vision and the dream is for the show and how it's going to create an impact for the audience. And that essentially just won out, I think. Timing, the right time for me, the right time for the platform, the right connections, the right experience. I don't think I would have been ready a couple of years prior to this for the opportunity. So I think it was my own experience. So a lot of things had to come together and we'll see how it goes. We'll do

a full recap probably in a few months about everything once it's come out and all the ups and downs and the amazing things that are coming with it. I've decided that in order to reach my vision of reaching 100 million people, I've got to start accelerating the partnerships and the distribution. It can't just be all me working or just our team working on it. It's got to be bigger strategic partners and being innovative in the process of reaching distribution. Not doing it the way that most people do it, but really just trying to think bigger and innovative.

And that's something that we did a year and a half ago that's taken a long process and a journey, but the goal is it's going to pay off big time in helping more people, making our brand more larger known around the world, and impacting lives. Obviously, we want to build our business and grow our business, but really impacting lives. And everything for me has started with the podcast. Like you say, we always go back to the podcast. We're at almost 70 million downloads now. And we launched five and a half years ago.

70 million downloads. And it wouldn't have got there without us being innovative in our approach to Investing in the production quality investing in great people like Tiffany who's running all the video and the content editing and everything like that And investing and innovating in the way that we do things if I would have just kept doing it The same way that I started out on If I would have just kept doing it the same way that I started out on my iPhone, it wouldn't be where it's at. Wouldn't be where it's at. No. We want to attract the right people. We want to reach the right people and it wouldn't be building a business. No, I mean, that's essentially what the podcast is about. It's growth mindset. You don't necessarily want to stay where you're at. You have this dream,

this goal, this vision that you're looking at. And your dream, goal, and vision was to impact 100 million people and 100 million lives to living the greatest life. And so every step you took from being on your iPhone that I've seen in that journey, and that was prior to me even coming on to support the business, was then going, what's the next step to increase the amount of lives that you can reach and connect with? And those steps that you took were steps that increased the growth. I mean, even I asked today, is this just going to be audio? And you're like, no, I want to invest in video. I want to invest in the video content because everybody watches TV, everybody watches content online. And it allows you even this different type of engagement that some people like.

So we have people watching the video, people listening to the audio. Now most of them are listening to the audio. But you've continued to invest in the things that potentially could pay off, potentially could be innovative in your space. And I think podcasters that have allowed themselves to get in the video space have seen that the growth is there. And that also shows about the Facebook show. I mean, they're focused on creating great video content out there for their audiences

with Facebook Watch. And they're doing an amazing job. We just had a call with their team. Amazing, yeah. And we're not allowed to share certain things, but they are really innovating their platform. Look at the growth of Facebook in general, how far it's come over the last 10 plus years. They continue to innovate. And because they're innovating and investing, they're putting a lot of money into original

content and all these incredible shows. And they're putting money into it. They're innovating their platform. Four years ago, I don't even think there was video on Facebook. I think it just started with video on Facebook a few years ago. Now they're putting a lot of their emphasis on video and original content, longer form content. And it's paying off. They're getting their users to stick around longer and it's helping build their business and make an impact. And that was my intention with them was let's find the biggest distribution partner in the world. You know, they've got 2 billion on Facebook. They've got, I believe it was a billion active daily members on Instagram.

So I'm sure there's cross promotion there of people who are, you know, Instagram is on Facebook, but there's probably, and then they got a billion, I believe, on WhatsApp. Yeah. A billion on Messenger or something crazy like that. They've probably got a few billion in their ecosystem. I mean, do you remember – Half the world. Do you remember getting on Facebook? Yes.

We were at Capital University. 2004. It was like the time that we met was the time that Facebook came out. And they were rolling out university after university. And then Capital University was rolled out. And everyone joined. And here we are today. I mean, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. And they've innovated. That's it. They constantly

innovate. Now, side note, there's ways to innovate in your life and your business. We're probably to focus more on the business side of things right here. But I think of other business models, the ones that, in my mind, correct me if I'm wrong, haven't really innovated that much for a long time. I think of one of the most successful ones here in California, In-N-Out, which has been the same thing for, I don't even know, 50, 60 years or something. I don't know how long they've been around. But they have the same model, same franchise.

I guess they don't have a franchise. It's all family owned. It's like five things you can order. Yeah. I don't think they've really innovated that much, but they have lines outside of the building constantly. Yeah. So maybe there's things they have innovated.

I'm not sure. I think their brand is just, they've done something with their brand. I think that is pretty special. I mean, obviously the product, you know when you have it in an Outburger. I mean, obviously the product, you know when you have an In-N-Out burger. I mean, it's just a different taste, different experience. I think what they've done is they've really just done well with nostalgia, maybe, because you go in there and

you feel like maybe you've taken a blast from, you know, step back in time and you're just going back to your grandparents had a burger at this place years before. And I think there's something with nostalgia there with In-N-Out burger. It's also just amazing taste. Amazing product. It's amazing product. Amazing product. So if you've got the best product, you may not have to innovate. The vegetarians out there are not going to love this, but let me tell you, I love In-N-Out Burger. I haven't had it in a while because I know it's not good for me, but it is so good. You're on a health kick. You're trying to innovate your life in a healthy way. I've been fasting. I've been doing a lot of stuff. Yeah.

And it's like if you want to see growth, you have to innovate. You have to innovate somewhere. Of course. Do something different to optimize the situation you're in. Yeah. So that was just one thing that came to mind is like I haven't really seen them come out with new products. You know, like McDonald's comes out with new products all the time. They've got like salads and other things, right?

They've innovated their menu. But... And innovation sometimes comes from listening to your consumer, your customer, your clients. I mean, that's, I think, where a lot of our innovation as a business comes from. People make requests, you know, podcast guests. I mean, you're connecting through social media.

And sometimes you haven't even known about a person. You're like, oh, I had somebody mention this person. Wow, interesting. And sometimes you haven't even known about a person. You're like, oh, I had somebody mention this person. Wow. Interesting. And then you get excited about it. You're like, yeah, I've never knew this person before this moment. One of my social media followers was like, hey, how about this guest? You follow them. You connect with them. They're on the podcast. I think a lot of it has to do with your customers. I think maybe In-N-Out doesn't have to innovate because their customers are like, we love the product. We're still coming.

You give exactly what they want, they expect. And, you know, I mean, they're quick with it. I mean, it's fast food and they do a great quality fast food. Yeah, and there's ways, you know, in business, I think that's the right move. It's like, if you're thriving with your customers and your business is going up, you don't need to constantly innovate.

Yeah. Until you see requests, a constant feedback. That's why you have like comment boxes at restaurants or whatever. It's like, hey, we want more of this. Otherwise, we're not coming back. Yeah. And so you have to be mindful of the customer. So I think In-N-Out has done a great job with that.

Speaking of customers, I mean, I still go back, there's one person that is obviously innovating at a level as a business owner and not only as him, but also in how he's, you know, getting his business to continue to innovate. And that's Jeff Bezos with Amazon. It's amazing. And he attributes it to just customer obsession. That's what he calls it. We're just customer obsessed. And so I think, yeah, that's definitely a place where innovation lies. And it also lies in the visionaries, the leaders, every entrepreneur out there with a dream and a vision. I digress a little bit, but I just know that Jeff Bezos and what he's done with Amazon is really focusing on the customer. They stand out in what they do. Everyone's got Amazon Prime. Everyone orders

something from Amazon. It seems like they innovated by investing in buying Whole Foods to be able to even capitalize even more customers and help their customers even more with Whole Foods. And so they're making that investment to innovate. And which brings me back to what we've been doing with the Facebook show and just the content we're creating in general. Again, we're investing in content because there's so much noise out there in our space. There's so much noise in general out there on social media, on every platform. And if we want to stand out like the Amazon of the industry,

it's like you've got to be willing to invest, acquire content, make different types of content, and create a product that is so great that people have to buy it. You've got to make the product so good. And so that's what we've been doing with this Facebook show. It's like, well, everyone's creating a YouTube show or this or that or whatever it may be, or vlogging. Let's invest in something deeper. Let's do deeper work that's going to take longer time. That's going to be harder to do, but hopefully it hits the right

thing and spreads through the world. And that's the goal. So we've been doing that with the Facebook show. We also have a documentary that we've been filming and editing for the last, is it a year, year and a half now? Almost a year and a half? It'll be coming up in a year, yeah. Year. Since we started filming, right? Like in the summer of last year. And that's been, again, an investment and a lot of money, a lot of time and resources, a lot of energy from a lot of people that we've hired and our team as well. going through hundreds of hours of archived video, spending all that time and energy.

Seeing all those boxes of childhood footage and photos and the pictures your dad took when we were playing football back in the day. It was kind of exciting. It was just cool. I mean, again, talking about nostalgia, just going back and going, wow, look at those pictures of us, you know, in college playing football. And going through that, going through those archives of actual footage that you had from your family, from yourself. Exactly. Was a fun experience to just kind of go back and, you know, step back in the past for a little bit.

Right. It's been fun. But the documentary, I mean, being that that is also something new, I mean, you have to consider new options in innovation. You can't get stuck in your lane so much. And I think that's... And we've never done this. We've never done something like this.

Never done it. Even the trajectory of you, you know, you started very much in the internet marketing game, network marketing and stuff like that. And you have moved forward to becoming a podcaster and have mastered that. And writing a book. Exactly. Writing books and figuring that process out.

So you've definitely chosen a lot of verticals rather than just staying in your lane. I mean, there's just so much variety and options out there. Follow what you're excited about, obviously. And I think that's what you've done and what's served you. what you're excited about, obviously. And I think that's what you've done and what served you. And you were excited about a documentary. I mean, our business has really thrived around what you rally around and what you get excited about. And doing a documentary that continues to always point back to what the business vision and mission is, the impacting 100 million lives, is always where we kind of rely. It's like the cornerstone. It's like everything that you try to do, everything that you want to start and

test and try, kind of falls back on that principle of our business, you know, our mission. Yep, exactly. And the documentary, again, until you do something, it's going to be, if you've never done anything, it's going to be innovative for you. So when I launched a podcast and never done it before, that was innovative for me from being an internet marketer before that. Writing a book was innovative for me because I'd never done that. But the second time I did it, I was already an expert because I'd already done it once, hit the New York Times list. And so we knew what to expect the second time. Same thing with the documentary. This is a new exploration, a new adventure. It's innovative right now until we do it again. And then it's rinse and repeat or it's little tweaks here and there. Which is great. Right. It seems

working. Continue it. Keep doing it. Keep doing it. Until it doesn't work. Of course. Exactly. I could have continued being an internet marketer and put more time and energy in doing that seven, eight years ago, but it wasn't fueling my soul as well as much. And I wanted to do other things. I want to be creative as well. So we have the documentary that we're going to be, the goal is to be shopping it around here soon. We're finishing up the final touches. And my intention is that it's going to be on Netflix featured right front and center.

They're promoting it and it's going to be spread around the world. That's the goal. That's right. That's the vision. That's what I get excited about. When you start saying, I want it on Netflix. Yes. I mean, I rally around that. I get excited about that. Our team gets excited about that. So we'll see. We'll see where things unfold. And then also the third thing that we've got going on right now is our annual event, Summit of Greatness, which this will be the third year. So it's not innovative in the fact that we've already done it twice, but it is innovative in that we're doing a new, bigger venue and stretching ourselves out of our comfort zone. We've done something twice. It's comfortable.

We know how to do it. And I think in order for us to continue to reach more people, we had to get a bigger venue because it only held a thousand people or something. So this new one venue holds like 2,500 plus. If you haven't got your ticket yet, make sure to sign up at summitofgreatness.com. It's going to be incredible. Big speakers announced already. And we're focused on that as well. That's what, three months away? Something like that. That's right. Three months away, October 4 through 6.

And we're constantly innovating everything we do in order to make it better. Right. Some things we're doing the same. The podcast, it's a similar thing for the season that we're at right now until we realize we need to do something different. I think innovation, I mean, it's also just hearing you talk, it's like you have to be so detail-oriented, so micro-focused to really just make the most out of everything. When we talk about summit of greatness and we get on our bi-weekly calls right now it's like we really focus on what are those just micro pieces that are just going to be focused on bringing such an amazing customer

experience that is just going to blow people's minds i mean that's you know that's those are the words that you use the emotional feeling that you give people that they feel like wow this is so worth the investment yeah and it's going to change the trajectory of my life, at least for the next year. Right. There's so many people that have come to the Summit of Greatness who build relationships, business partnerships, or friendships, and they've been connected for the last two years as like their best friends. Right.

And that's cool to see that we created an experience where people were able to come together and build something greater for their life. It's amazing. And that's the whole point of everything that we do with the Facebook show, innovating there, hopefully reaching the masses with the content we have there, our podcast, doing it three times a week, the documentary, the goal would be to just continue to do this in different formats. And then a live experience. Again, a lot of the stuff we do is digital. It's all online. And that's the fastest way to scaling. But we also want to create that intimacy and connection for a lot of people who are willing to make that investment in themselves and willing to make the

trip to Columbus, Ohio. So those are the main things that we've been innovating. And again, some things are going to pay off huge. Other things, maybe they're so-so. Some things that we do in the future may not work at all. Right. And I think that is the key is to assess where you're at in your business or your life and ask yourself what's working and what's not working. Continue to do the things that are working. The things that aren't working, whether it be your relationship, maybe you need to innovate the way you communicate to have a stronger relationship and make your customer, quote unquote, your partner, happier. That's right.

Of course. Make them feel more accepted or loved or heard or seen. And you both have to come up with a vision for your life. Absolutely. You know? The vision's got to be aligned for both people. You don't have to sit there and go, oh, it's like a business. No.

But the same principles apply. You know, I think that's what... Innovating and investing. Investing in the relationship, investing in your ability to communicate better or let go of things better, whatever it may be. Still connect, even though, you know, my wife and I have the most amazing addition to our family, to our lives. It doesn't mean that that needs to be our sole focus. We still have to give time back to each other, invest time in order to continue to innovate our relationship to being the best relationship that we want. Because you're at a different stage now.

You're in the honeymoon, travel phase the first couple years, then living together phase. It's a lot easier when all you have to do is focus on each other. Exactly. Exactly. You know? Yeah. So as human beings, we get to invest and innovate in our personal lives and our business lives or our career lives or job lives

if we want to reach greater results in the future and if we want to keep growing. And if we aren't innovating or investing in our future, it's going to be challenging to grow. And I think that's where I see a lot of people struggling is when they feel like they're stuck. They feel like they're not growing. They're not seeing any progress in their dreams or in their vision or their goals. And that's why it's important to invest. Like you were just saying to me yesterday, like you were telling me that I should invest in a vocal coach to say, you know what, you're going to be doing a lot more TV.

Christine, our producer, had brought it up to me multiple times. And I was like, yeah, I think that'd be a great opportunity. Exactly. And so I'm like, you know what, at a new stage of my life, if I'm going to be on TV a lot more, I should do it. So we're starting that track. It's a place for growth. Absolutely. You know, it's an opportunity for something new to come out you didn't see. I mean, that's, again, innovation. Focusing on something, only one thing for so long, it's going to get you right to be focused on that one thing. But open yourself up for other options and possibilities in your relationship, in your business. And we haven't even shared the other options of innovation that you and I consistently talk about. I mean, potential production company down the road. I don't

want to speak too much about the things that we continue to talk about privately and dream about, but I mean, there are exciting opportunities. And I think it also just gets you hungry to be focused on more than just one thing. That's it. You know, it gives you the option to dream in other areas, business, life. Health. Health. Relationships, yeah. Absolutely.

By investing and innovating in your daughter's life right now for her future, it gives you much more peace of mind knowing that in 17 years when she goes to college, you have the innovation and the investment has paid off. That's a very delayed time. I'm thinking more of a year, two years out in our business. What's the investment we can make right now that's going to help us next year in the future years? Of course. But that's a long way.

And just talking about what you just said, you don't wait to contribute to college or wait to save until the time when you need the savings. Innovation is not about that. It's not reactionary. It's not reactive. It's prior to having to react. It's thinking before you act of opportunities that, you know, lie out there in the future. So, yeah, I think, and I'm not saying a college savings is innovative. Right. But, you know, I think it obviously works. People are doing it because it works. It allows you the comfort now to know that there's going to be something in the future

and not having to be reactionary where it's time for college. We don't actually have anything. We didn't spend the time to be diligent with our savings. So, I mean. That's it. That's the key. I mean, again, for me, we work with our mastermind members, the Greatness Mastermind, and this is something that I talk about with them when we do our quarterly meetings is just, you

know, what are you doing right now that's going to invest in something greater for your future that's going to help your business? You know, we focus on business a lot in that mastermind. What's the thing you're going to invest in now that's going to make you stand out from everyone else in your own industry so that your customers will notice you, they're going to see you standing out by yourself, and they're going to start coming to you and seeing what your products and services are, what you have to offer. And they're going to start paying more attention because you're different and you're innovative. And when you do that, you're going to attract more customers,

your business is going to thrive. And that's the key. It's figuring out how do we innovate to stand out. And when you can stand out and offer a great product, whether it be business or personal life, if you're a great human being, you're going to attract the life you want and the business you want, and you're going to continue to see growth. So that's what I wanted to talk about today. Anything you wanted to add on top of that to finish it? No, I think really, again, as far as a business, focus on your customers. I think you can't go wrong with that space.

Listen to them. If you have a customer support team out there, connect with them. Talk to them. Be willing to see what's going on on the micro level. Be focused on those details because those details are important. They do lead to innovation. I would say that. Watching you, you really weren't driven by focusing on your competitors

because I think businesses can really do that. You can be so focused on what your competitors are doing and trying to do what they're doing. I think I've never really seen you do that. You continue to run your own race, and I think that is a necessary thing. You can get too bogged down with focusing on your competitor. And it leads to no innovation in your space. Stand out beyond your competitors.

Focus on that rather than just focusing on living up to your competitors. Copying them. Yeah. What's the one thing that you noticed that I could be more innovative in? That's a tough question. Maybe you've told me or you haven't told me before. Going where you're uncertain about yourself, going where you're seeing the most problems for yourself.

I don't know what that is. I think business-wise, we're pretty connected on that. Yeah. And I know we're connected very close as personal friends as well. Okay, business-wise. Business-wise. What are we not doing that we can be more innovative in? Or do you feel like we're doing too much innovation?

Because there's a balance of that, too. It's like you don't want to be constantly innovating and not focusing on what's working. balance of that too. It's like, you don't want to be constantly innovating and not focusing on what's working. I think what I just said about focusing on competition and what they're doing, seeing what everybody's doing, trying to duplicate the next thing that everybody else is doing. I'm not saying don't do that, but don't get so hyper-focused on that. What's going to work for your business? Get to know your business. Let's focus on us. Let's look inwards. We have the answers here.

And the answers lie in our customers, in my opinion. Let's continue to focus on relieving that pain point when it has to do with what we're teaching in their businesses. Relieving that pain point when we're bringing on guests for the podcast that are speaking on whatever topics, health, wealth, relationships, spirituality, going where the customer requests are is really supportive. That's it. I would say for you, not being so reactionary maybe. I mean, you have such a vast network, and they give you tons of information and intel. And it's tough to sift

through that because it sometimes takes eyes off the ball yeah and we've done that a lot in the past three years I think we know like something looks exciting and seems to be somebody has has enrolled you into seeing something that they're currently doing that you have to do some of those things have paid off some of them have not. Some of them certainly have not. And some, yeah, absolutely. Paid off big time.

Yeah, of course. So it's really getting excited about something, but also giving it a beat and not rushing it. Taking a moment. Assessing it as it relates to your business. Yes. You know, and connect with the team. Yes.

Outsource that opportunity to say, hey, guys, what do you think? Allow me a minute to check in with the team and say, what do you guys think about this opportunity? Rather than, hey, guys, this is what we're doing. I just talked to Louis an hour ago, and let's just do it. That's it. That's it. Yeah, so being mindful and patient as well of the innovation. I see that in the most loving way because, again, some of the most amazing things for our business happened

with you saying... Because of that, yeah. Let's go now. We're doing this. You're going to be resistant, Matt. You're not going to want to do this. But I do. I'm going to tell you about it.

I know you're going to say no, but I want to do it. What's the thing that I've done over the last... Because how long have you been with running the business now? Was it three years? Early 2015

before the School of Greatness book launch. So it's over three years. Over three years. Yeah. Almost three and a half years. So what's the thing, if you can think back

to the beginning that I've done where I'm like, we're doing this, that... I think I killed the magazine to be honest. I think you might have.

I said okay. It was coming on board and I was like... This doesn't make sense. And I think it serves us because we just did some coaching about our business, focusing on our business goals, where we see our business going, and identifying what business are we in. And right now we identified we're in the podcast business.

Yeah. We're in the show business. We're in the show business. Create a show. Of course. And then that trickles down to everything else that we offer. That's right. Our products and services.

Yeah. But the show is the main driving force. That's what builds the audience and what connects the audience. It's what offers value to the audience. And then our products, services, events, books, you know, mastermind are the things that we sell. Yeah. To keep our business going. That's right.

And allow us the resources to create the value to spread to the audience. Necessary. You wouldn't be able to start the podcast if it wasn't for the resources you gained from your previous businesses. That's it. Yeah. It's good feedback. Good advice. So think about in your business or your life where you can innovate. Think about the place where the most pain is, where you're struggling the most. The skill that you can master to innovate in that space so you don't have that pain anymore. If you have a business, think about what your customers are saying they want more of. And figure out a way to innovate and invest in offering that solution for them.

If you haven't followed our Facebook watch page where the launch of our Facebook show will be, you can follow me on Facebook.com slash Lewis Howes. Go follow that. We'll have it linked below in the YouTube video. If you haven't bought a ticket to the Summit of Greatness, go to summitofgreatness.com. We'd love to see you there. It's gonna be an incredible experience, mind-blowing. Get ready, it's our favorite week of the year.

And yeah. That's it. That's ready. It's our favorite week of the year. And yeah, that's it. That's it. That's it. Coffee Conversations. Matthew Cesarato. Back to work. Appreciate it. Let's get back to work. There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for being here. you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for being here. Again, all about the power of innovation. If you're not doing things to evolve and grow and learn and develop new strategies for growth in your life, then you are slowly declining and you are not

innovating. So make sure to share this with your friends, lewishouse.com slash 667, all on the power of innovation. And again, tag me on Instagram, at Lewis Howes, on Twitter, Facebook, all the great places that you like to hang out online. And as Albert Einstein said, you can't solve a problem on the same level that it was created. You have to rise above it to the next level. That's what this is about, guys.

Doing something different, innovating your life. Be different than the normal individual in the world. Continue to be a stand for a higher standard in your life. This is your life. You've got an opportunity to do something incredible with it right now. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Thank you.