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Welcome to "Visionary Voices" the podcast where we dive into the minds of business owners, founders, executives, and everyone in between.
Each episode brings you face-to-face with the leading lights of industry and innovation.
Join us as we uncover the stories behind the success and the lessons learned along the way.
Whether you're climbing the corporate ladder or just starting your business journey, these are the conversations you need to hear - packed with visionary voices and insights.
Let's begin.
So Bob, welcome to today's episode.
Could you give us a top level view about what it is that you're working on right now and
your journey so far?
And I'll say thank you so much for having me on, Akil.
I really appreciate it.
My wife and I run a public speaking company and we focus on a niche within that market,
which is helping our clients to achieve transformational growth.
That's the thing that is what I would say our calling.
And that's what we're focusing on is how can we not just help our clients with things like
filler words or eye contact, but really help them to feel.
deep inside that magic of transformational growth, both in terms of confidence and skill
development and in terms of feeling deeply connected to the audiences that they have
identified.
Amazing.
mean, I love to unpack this and so much detail of this episode.
But how did you get started in this niche?
Because again, it's very interesting niche to work in, you know, the public speaking area
and the transformation space as well.
So how did you get into that?
What was that history there and that journey like getting into it?
You know, we could spend a lot of time on that, but I'll say I'll never forget when I was
in college, walking up to a microphone and looking at an audience that was adults for the
first time, I started getting interested in ideas in college and I was ordering books on
philosophy and economics and just got super into it.
And I got invited to give this talk in Columbus, Ohio at an organization.
And I walk up to the microphone, I turn around and I look at this crowd.
And I'm absolutely terrified.
Like I'm the youngest person there, I think by a bit, right?
A lot of gray hairs in the audience.
And I give this talk where I'm pulling together all these ideas I've been thinking about
that are exciting me so much.
And I put so much work into it.
And when I finished, they loved it.
like I got people came up and hugged me and told me how much they liked it.
And it just, I felt.
this incredible connection to this electricity, this like magic.
And I did good enough that they actually nominated me to be the vice chairman of their
organization, which was wild, right?
And I thought like, this is it.
This ability to get on stage and take these ideas and feelings that you are passionate
about and connect them in a way.
with your audience so they feel it as well.
And you get this deep connection and it just feels magical.
And I thought like, this is it.
And so many years later, my wife and I started this company where we help people to
achieve this transformational growth, right?
Like one anecdote here, I recently worked with a woman who was arguing a case before the
US Supreme Court.
And she has a whole team of amazing attorneys that are helping her with every aspect of
the law.
I'm helping her just to feel totally clear and confident and connected.
And before she goes on stage, she says to me, or before she goes to argue, right, she
says, I'm not nervous at all.
I'm excited.
And this was a huge case, right?
And after the argument, she absolutely crushes it.
And after the argument, her mom who went to see the case, she goes to the restroom and her
mom is in the restroom and a woman talks to her and says, I work here and I've seen all
these arguments.
And that woman who just argued that case did the best I've ever seen.
Which is incredible, right?
And then the ruling comes back.
And even though we think of the court in our times as being very polarized and divided,
Christina, her name's Christina Martin, the case was called Tyler v.
Hennepin County.
Christina did so well that she got every single justice to rule with her.
Nine to zero, landmark ruling, literally making the country better by securing important
rights.
for Americans everywhere, right?
And that ability to not only craft a compelling legal argument, but to also effectively
communicate it in a way that it makes the world better.
Like, that's it.
That's so interesting, how that skill of being able to communicate properly can have such
a huge impact at such a high level.
Like you just explained, that's literally changed the law, the country.
It's had such a huge impact from nailing down on that skill.
I guess where can people start when it comes to public speaking, a lot of people have that
fear of speaking in public, even in a team, in a meeting, trying to speak up and...
Not only to speak up but also speak clearly and effectively and all these different things
So where can people start if they want to go down this road of transformation and to
improve this skill of communication and speaking Where do they start and what does that
look like in terms of a game plan for them?
Sure.
I'll preface this answer by saying, I think that now is an excellent time to pay attention
to this because for all of human history, there's been this super premium placed on
intelligence.
that has been a key indicator of status.
And I think that that's going away in very quick order because when everyone's connected
to an absolutely brilliant AI large language model,
The idea of intelligence as something to distinguish you is going to be less important.
It's going to diminish.
And the ability to deeply connect with people and see them, I think there's going to be a
premium on this.
And lots of people are saying this, not just me.
And so the ability to cultivate your social skills, I think, is going to be, has always
been important and will become exponentially more important for the rest of our lives.
Social skills is a very broad category.
There's a lot of different things that pack into that.
But I would say that you can boil them all down to one skill, one primary social skill
that will be increasingly important for the rest of our lives.
And that is this, the ability to honestly understand another person and to have them feel
deeply seen and to honestly and accurately and deeply see them.
And that's it.
Yeah, definitely, definitely.
I guess it's being authentic as well within the within the way you communicate.
Because I feel like a lot of the time is, you know, lot of people when they're having
these discussions and I definitely found a lot through the podcasting side of things,
because it's literally just a conversation, is that, you know, you can be listening, but
then there's also the active listening part where the active listening is where you're
again, you're going down that road of deeply understanding what the other person is
saying, and really taking it in.
And for me, like talking about my own experience, I've been okay with speaking in front of
crowds overall, but I'd say when I came to the podcasting and interviewing, you know, I
definitely struggled with it for the first few interviews that I did and the first few
episodes that I did.
But it wasn't until I kind of slowed down a little bit more to really understand what
people are saying and then form the response to that.
it's being, I guess, having the ability to slow down so you can take that time to actually
understand people.
I think that's where a lot of people might fall down is where someone might say something
and they don't give themselves the time to really take it in and understand it before
they're formulating that response onwards.
Is that something you found as well through like the people that you've spoken to and the
people that you've taught as well?
Yeah, it's an excellent point.
And let me answer this.
Let me first ask you, what was it for yourself where you thought, okay, I am making
progress in figuring out who these people are, where they are, what they're talking about,
what they're feeling and thinking, what they're yearning?
How did you cultivate that yourself?
To be honest, it was just through just doing it more times, having more conversations.
And I found every conversation I had, I was looking less at some of the prep that I had
done, right?
And the questions that I laid out before and just let the conversation flow naturally
rather than it being just question, answer, question, answer, which it definitely was for
the first kind of few episodes that I did.
And so it was moving away from that.
And now it's a case of not getting flustered when someone says something, I'm not sure how
to respond.
because I need to understand it a little bit more.
It's taken a bit of a pause to understand it first and then give my response rather than
filling the space with words that I don't need to use.
I just fill out words and whatever that's going to be.
And so it's become a lot more just easier, I guess you could say, as time has gone on with
the more reps I've done with it so far.
And what would you say distinguishes an average conversation from an exceptional
conversation?
Ooh, that's a good one.
I think the best conversations has been when both parties have had authentic interest in
the topic itself, if that makes sense, where a lot of the times, you might have a
conversation with someone and everyone's kind of half in the conversation, not, they don't
really enjoy the conversation, they're just kind of half in the conversation.
But the best episodes have been where both parties are fully involved and you can tell.
they're both excited to talk about this topic.
You know, it's getting them both to think about different things in different ways.
I think those are the best conversations because those are the most authentic ones,
because that's when the natural curiosity comes out.
And you can tell that within the conversation itself.
when both parties have some sort of a maybe a passion connected to the topic and they're
realizing it and sharing their thoughts.
Yeah, definitely.
I love it.
There's a woman, one of the world's leading experts in conversations.
Maybe you can interview her, but her name is Alison Brooks and she runs, she's a
researcher that does research at Harvard, runs a popular class there called Talk.
She has a new book out.
It's super good on conversation.
Talk is an acronym, right?
And T stands for topic of conversation.
And she has this insight that I never thought of before that I'll share with you that I
think you would really appreciate.
She explains that part of the magic formula in really good conversations comes from Dan
Kahneman's insights in thinking fast and slow.
Are you familiar with Dan Kahneman?
I'm not, I feel like I've heard of him before, but I'm not sure about concepts.
So he was a psychologist that actually won the Nobel Prize in economics.
He's the only person to win the Nobel Prize in economics that's not an economist.
He actually had never taken an economics class in his life, but he's brilliant, right?
But so he wrote this, he put all of this years and decades of research into this layman's
book called Thinking Fast and Slow.
And that's where all of the, like so much of the insights are.
that he had were in this book, and then he had a follow up book called Noise, and they're
both fantastic.
the basic thesis of thinking fast and slow is that we have all these different ways that
we process information.
And an easy heuristic for thinking about our brains is to think that we have two brains
instead of one, and to think that we have a fast brain and a slow brain.
And this distinction of two brains, or two minds has existed for thousands of years.
The Buddha called
called the fast brain, the elephant, and the slow brain, the rider.
And Buddha would say, your mind is like an elephant with a rider, and your quick thinking,
emotional, intuitive brain is hard to control, like an elephant.
It's gonna pull you where it wants to go.
You get mad or whatever happens, and you have that rider on top, and that's your
rationality and your logic and your clear thinking, but it's slower and it's harder.
It's trying to control the elephant, but it's tough, right?
And so Kahneman doesn't say elephant rider, he says fast and slow, right?
And that it's really important for us to distinguish between the elephant and the rider or
the fast brain and the slow brain and get them in sync.
and Alison Brooks, Harvard researcher's contribution to this is to apply this thinking to
conversations.
And she says that we default to allowing the elephant to run the conversation.
We default to just whatever we're thinking, whatever we're feeling, that fast random brain
just is throwing up topics of conversation.
And when you're at a networking event or a group of people, the loudest one, the biggest
elephant bully, whatever it may be, starts directing everything.
But she says the key, the most foundational key to instantly elevating every conversation
you have is to put the rider in charge, to put the slow thinking brain in charge.
And so you say, I'm going to show up with a few topics that the writer has selected.
And I'm not going to try to plan everything, but I want to say, I'm talking to Akil.
Like, he's an expert in this.
He's excited about this.
He's worried about this.
And so I'm like, audience focused back to our first point.
And, and I'm coming.
I'm using the slow thinking writer part of the brain, the logical part of the brain to
think about those.
And then maybe you pause the podcast halfway through.
And then you come back and you allow a few minutes for the slow thinking brain to think up
more stuff or whatever it may be.
But you try to allow the slow thinking brain to have as much power as possible over the
topics of conversation.
Yeah, I guess it comes down to the subconscious part of the brain, right?
Where once you plant a seed in that subconscious part of the brain, you know, it will, it
will create those topics or conversations or those talking points or whatever that's going
to be.
But you need to give it time, right?
That's the caveat too.
I guess the slow part of the brain is it does take time for it to kind of create those
thoughts.
And so I think
part of what you said, right, is maybe half of the podcast, right, you kind of pause it,
wait a few minutes and wait to see kind of where you go next with it.
I think that's a really interesting point and not something I've thought before, kind of
adding that into the podcast side of things, because I think that'd be so useful for not
only me, but also the guests as well.
Because I've also noticed with guests, know, we slow down a little bit more, the topics
conversation are much better and much more authentic and better for the listener as well.
And so that's definitely an interesting point and something I'm going to
actually look into to see if that's something we can add in.
That's really cool.
done, I've never hosted a podcast before, so I don't know how it would work, but it just
intuitively makes sense to me, right?
That if you can do that, it's harder to do that at a networking event.
Okay, everyone just stop, right?
For two minutes, right?
But it doesn't take long.
It takes like 30 seconds.
There's another classic book that came out a couple of years ago called Super
Communicators by a researcher named Charles Duhigg.
And he's most well known for his book on habits.
The power of habit was like a super best seller.
smarter, faster, better.
He's written some classic books, but his new one's super communicators.
And he says that, and again, we'll tie these two points we're making together, audience
focused and put your rider in control, is he says that even if you take 30 seconds before
your next conversation and just say, hey, what's one thing that I really want to talk to
this person about?
And what's one thing that I think they would really like to talk to me about?
What are they interested in?
What are they worried about?
What's happening in their world right now?
And how can I help to see them?
How can I help them to exhale?
How can I help them to share?
Maybe lift the burden off them or whatever it may be.
And in like 30 seconds, you can activate your slow thinking brain and just write down one
or two things.
And like that's it, right?
And it's like, and so if I can do that before every conversation, just trigger my rider to
think about what are they interested in?
How can I help them?
And what's something that I want to share with them?
Yeah, I guess when you go down that route as well is the conversation from the guest point
of view or the person what you're speaking with their conversation, but then they'll be
more excited for it, right?
Because ultimately then you really take the time to think about, okay, what did they care
about?
What would they love to speak about?
And you've tailored the conversation around that, which yes, like that also helps me
because we've planned it a little bit more.
I mean, kind of got these big ideas in motion, but at the same time for the guest, it's
making sure
it's fluid for them, right?
And it's authentic for them.
And you're actually, you're also kind of helping that side of the conversation out.
I guess when it comes down to, you know, these networking events where it is fast paced
and things are moving very quickly, what can people do to communicate better within those
instances?
Because I know for myself, it can be very challenging, you know, when I go to a networking
event, explaining what it is that I do, and if I'm pitching them, pitching them super
quickly and not, the words aren't coming out coherently, say.
How can someone
practice for those things or train for those fast moving events where they don't really
have the time to practice or the time to prepare as well.
Years ago, I got to facilitate a dinner conversation at the Willard Hotel in Washington,
DC.
It's right by the White House.
It's this iconic hotel where all these many presidents have lived there.
Every president has done events there.
It's this super awesome, badass hotel.
And so I'm on the second floor, closed dinner.
There's a dozen of us sitting around a table, two current senators, U.S.
senators, some heads of commissions, some VIPs, and I'm facilitating this conversation.
The guy to my right.
isn't saying anything.
And I'm thinking, I wonder if he's just scared, right?
I mean, this is this all these high status people.
Halfway through the dinner, he still hasn't said anything.
And I think, I try to like get him to talk?
But then the conversational ball lands in his lap.
And he absolutely knocks it out of the park.
So he gets another question, knocks it out of the park.
The rest of the dinner was just people leaning in and asking this guy questions.
When the dinner ended, everyone got up and hovered around him.
rather than the senators, which is unique in DC.
And after everyone left, I talked to him.
said, how did you do this?
The guy's name was Adam Thier, and he's a scholar that now works at R Street in DC.
And he said he's been doing research for over 20 years on all sorts of interesting stuff,
generally connected to new technology.
And he said every time he finishes his research, he pulls together
the best stories that he's come up with, the best examples, the best analogies, the best
proverbs, if you will, and he saves them into a document in the cloud.
And then when he said when he was on the lift ride over, the Uber ride over to the
Willard, he said he took maybe five minutes and pulled that document up on his phone and
just flipped through it and thought again, being audience focused, who am I having dinner
with?
And which one of these stories and ideas do I think would most resonate with them?
And he just puts them into his head.
So then when the ball comes to him, he's ready to talk about stuff in terms that interest
the audience.
Right.
And so I'm actually writing a piece I'm going to publish next week called how to build
your story catalog.
And this is something we work with our clients on because if you show up to the networking
event and you're not prepared, your elephant is going to take over.
You'll be insecure.
You'll go wander over to the bar and get a drink and then go talk to the one person that
you know, and then hide.
And then you're not going to do as well as if you have.
worked over time to pull together the stories and the ideas that are most important for
you and they're ready and they're top of mind, right?
And then when you go into these conversations, if you're focused on them rather than you,
it gives them an opportunity to be seen and to talk about the stuff that they're
interested in, right?
And so I would say our whole business is about long-term relationships.
and long-term skill development.
And I think that's the correct approach for networking.
It's not to approach it as what can I sell this person right now?
It's about how can I help this person to feel seen and see if I can create value for them?
And then how can I maybe build a relationship that ends up being mutually beneficial,
right?
One of the great truths of life is that life is a positive sum game, not a zero sum game.
So it's not that I have to try to get something from them, but it's how can we create
value for each other?
And I'm gonna focus on
figuring out how can I be useful to them rather than how can they be useful to me.
Yeah, I completely agree.
And maybe in the marketing space, you know, we've definitely seen this in the last few
years, you know, a lot of people, and especially in the B2B space, they've become very
transactional in the way they're approaching, know, growing their business and getting new
clients on whatever that looks like.
And then losing that relationship aspect right where you're just giving out value and
don't expect anything in return, but things will actually return if you do that.
But they've kind of lost that train of thought and they've gone more transactional
overall.
So it's interesting you also noticed that.
The other thing as well is it's interesting you mentioned about stories because one of my
questions was going to be how important is storytelling within conversation itself?
Because I know for me, when I've been looking at more business processes and how are we
going to grow in terms of sales and everything, we found the sales calls, all those
conversations where we do have these stories and everything, the client is way more
engaged and we actually get a really good result at the end of it.
from using storytelling within our presentations and the work that we do.
So how important is storytelling in that aspect as well when it comes down to, you know,
even sales or those other business operations, you know, to keep people engaged and to
actually educate them and all those different things that have to do as a business owner.
can go all the way back to the most important book ever written on communication.
Thousands of years ago, the Bible of effective communication was written by Aristotle.
And Aristotle said that to effectively communicate with people, your communication has to
have these three components to it.
And this is literally the father of logic, right?
And he says to effectively connect with people, you have to have what he called Logos,
Athos, and Pathos.
And he said there was more, but these are these three core pillars.
And we learned these in grade school.
But Logos is logic, facts, figure, statistics, right?
Ethos is about your status, your credibility.
And then pathos is about putting your audience in the correct frame of mind so they're
willing to listen to you.
Pathos is what everyone has a fence up, a wall up, protecting their mind from other
people.
And I don't want that person to infect my mind with their ideas, right?
Because I want to infect their mind with my ideas.
What pathos does is it lowers
the gate and allows other people's ideas into your head, right?
It allows your ideas into other people's heads.
So pathos is about putting your audience in the correct frame of mind.
So they're willing to consider what you're saying, right?
And so really effective communication as a default heuristic, two thirds of your
communication should be pathos.
It should be taking your ideas and putting them in a context.
So the audience is willing to listen to them and consider them.
The absolute timeless gold standard pathos machine is stories.
And what stories do since the dawn of time is they create a structure that creates meaning
and excitement so people are willing to allow the idea into their head.
The absolute model of this was one of Aristotle's mentors that he really looked up to was
Asip.
Right?
And we think today of Asip's fables that are
just as popular today as they were 2,000 years ago.
And it's a simple story with a clear moral.
That's an excellent example for all of us.
What's the big idea that I want to get into my audience's head?
It doesn't matter how complicated it is.
We work with tech startups.
We work with legal firms.
We work with lawyers and economists and academics.
Take the idea and boil it down to the simplest possible thing you can, like a proverb,
like A $AP would do, and then wrap that in a story.
And that is likely going to stick in people's heads.
Yeah, definitely.
It reminds me of a TED talk that I watched a few years back, and I'm sure you've seen as
well, Death by PowerPoint, right, where he talks about, and that same guy's done a few
other ones, and he talks about storytelling and how throughout, you know, telling a story,
you can engage so many different emotions, right, like serotonin, dopamine, whatever it's
going to be, throughout the whole storytelling process to keep people engaged.
Kind of what you said there, right, is, yeah, you kind of think about what is the big idea
that we want to draw down into someone.
then how can we wrap this story around it?
And throughout that story is keeping them engaged and make sure it's relevant to obviously
them and they can connect with it as well.
And like when you, you create emotion within people, they're more likely to connect with
something and obviously retain it as well.
So I think, yeah, think storytelling is very, very critical in all processes within the
business, not only from sales, but also employees, right?
Sharing the mission of the company, all these different things.
And it's something which
I don't think it's very obvious to a lot of new business owners.
know for me as well, when I started, it definitely wasn't obvious that this was a skill
that you do need to learn when it comes down to business in general, if you want to
succeed within it.
But I mean, that takes me on to my next question, which is when it comes down to your
business journey, what are some of the significant challenges that you faced along the
way?
Because being an entrepreneur is tough and you've been doing this for a little while now.
So I'd love to see what challenges you had over the last
five years and have you overcome those as well.
will never forget this moment that I had where I was out camping with a really good buddy
of mine.
Every year we would take a weekend and kind of do this Sabbath where we would just unplug
from everything and spend a few days just in the woods, just kind of processing through
the year and thinking about the year ahead.
Just like awesome experience.
We did it until the pandemic and now trying to start that up again.
I think it's really important to have, to have rest periods every day, every week, every
month, every year, right?
Where we just disconnect and just our present.
And
I'm there and normally I'm a pretty happy content guy.
And I'd started the business, I don't know, a few months earlier and it was going well.
Like my first day, had two year long contracts.
never had to take out money.
I never had to dip into savings or do a loan or any of that stuff.
Cause I was able to line up some contracts right out of the gate, year long contracts.
so it, and which was, I'm like super grateful for and
I realized I'm sitting there, I'm all happy.
And then all of a sudden I got this like deep feeling of anxiety and I really experienced
anxiety.
Thankfully.
What is going on here?
I'm just kind of sitting with it and trying to process it.
And then I realized it was this anxiety that I had to send invoices that I hadn't sent,
which is so silly, right?
Cause it was like, I, I, I had no anxiety about going and interacting with these.
DC big shots and doing all day conferences with them or getting together with them one on
one.
Like, no, that was fun for me.
But then sending them an invoice afterwards was causing me this, this like deep rooted
stress.
And I realized my, my now wife, then girlfriend had said to me, like she's, she's getting
her master's degree.
She works at a research center with me and she said, Hey man, I'm happy to help with
anything.
And I was concerned, I don't want my girlfriend to be involved in the business, because
then I could end up ruining the relationship.
And I was so into her.
And I realized the answer to my problem is not for me to become good at invoices, but it's
to accept the help that's being asked of me.
And then I came back from that trip.
said, hey, would you be willing to help me with the company?
And she was like, of course.
And as the company has grown, it's helped each of us to grow into what each of our
callings are.
I want nothing to do with money.
I'm terrible with money.
I'm terrible with finances.
I'm terrible with invoices and all this stuff.
I'm good at coaching.
I just want to read, write, think and coach.
She is now the CEO of our company.
She has turned it into a real company.
We employ other people.
It's her company and she's grown it and she's organized it and she's made it successful.
And then I get to do the thing that I'm good at and love to do.
Right.
And so this basic idea from strength finders, which is
Don't spend all your time trying to minimize your weaknesses, lean into your strengths,
and then interact with people in a positive some way.
So each of you can do what you're best at and what you love to do.
And so like that has been it is every time there's been a problem, it's not like life is
about solving problems.
And so it's just, how do we, how do we bring someone on as a contractor or an employee or
direct some of our time and attention?
in a way that it is in sync with someone's strengths.
And then that's it.
I guess it comes back to the power of delegation in a way, which I think for entrepreneurs
is it can be a difficult thing.
again, I know for me it was, it's been very difficult to delegate and let people in on
what it is that I'm doing and some of the process like, Oh no, it's fine.
I'll just do it.
Cause I know how to do it type of thing.
But it seems like with you, early on you noticed, you know what?
I'm feeling a certain type of way about these processes.
Someone said, actually they can do it and they're knowledgeable in this area.
Let me just let them do it.
Like why should I go through trying to figure it out when they can just do it for me
anyway.
And then you've grown with that mindset, right?
So you've got the strengths of two people rather than one person spread thin.
And I think that's a good differentiator between some new entrepreneurs like myself where
in the start, right, it's just we spread thin on all different areas, right?
Whether it's the marketing, the sales, the service delivery, the product development.
If you've got a software, right, developing the software, it's like so many things that we
spread thin on that.
it's hard to get really good at just a couple of those things.
So I think very early on, I think that's a differentiator that you've had and that you've
noticed, which is really cool to see, versus some of the other entrepreneurs which have
struggled because they're they're spread so thin.
That's an excellent point, right?
And then I'll add there, like, there's no central path to success.
Everyone's unique.
Everyone's different, right?
And yet there are probably some principles and heuristics we can apply.
And I do think that there's this classic business book called the E-Myth Revisited, where
the guy says that most businesses fail, or a major reason businesses fail is because
people spend all their time working in the business.
They don't spend enough time working on the business, right?
And so it's important for us to say, how are we getting all of these different pieces
done?
And so to the extent that you're able to find a way to offload some of this stuff
increases the ability of you to create value in where it's where you can leverage your
time and attention the most.
There's this really important principle in economics called comparative advantage.
And the basic idea is let's say you and I are both
We're both really good.
Let's say when I worked at the law firm, I worked at a law firm for eight and a half
years.
And there was a guy that I'd work with there, Bob McNamara.
He's now one of the top attorneys.
Bob was extremely talented at writing legal briefs.
And I worked on the communications team.
He was also much better at writing press releases than me.
He was just brilliant.
He's processing at a totally different level for me.
So my job was to write press releases.
His job was to do legal briefs.
He was better at both.
Should Bob McNamara spend his time doing both?
And the answer is absolutely not.
Even though he's better at press releases, his comparative, it's called absolute, his
absolute advantage, he's better at everything.
But comparative advantage, it's better for the world if he spends all of his time doing
legal stuff and then allows me, and maybe it takes me five times as long to write the
press release and maybe it's only half as good.
But it's still.
creates more value for the world if he can focus on legal writing and then allow someone
like me to do the press release, right?
And then over time I get better at press releases.
But even though he's better at both things, the world benefits from him just focusing on
what he's best at, right?
And so for entrepreneurs, I think that's really important is to say, what are you doing to
create value for the universe?
Lean into that and focus on that.
And then to the extent that you can delegate everything else, do it as,
best it's possible.
And the cool thing is when you think through that lens, then you'll start noticing the
opportunities of potential people to come in to fill those areas and those roles, right?
Because the first step is to understand what is it that I'm good at that that makes sense
for me to work on what moves the needle and what makes sense to get other people in for to
do that role.
But until you start having that conversation with yourself, you're never going to find
those people.
And so if you're constantly spread thin, right, you're not going to be going out and you
don't know what you need.
So you need to stop take a counter.
what am I working on?
Does this make sense for me to be working on these things?
Figure out what are the buckets of work that I'm doing right now?
And then what makes sense for me to work on?
What makes sense for me to find other people to come in to do that?
And then you open up the void, right, to be filled with people who can do those things.
But it first comes from the awareness of those buckets.
Yes, it's so important, right?
And the thing that you hate doing is very likely the thing that someone else loves doing.
Right.
And so now we have four paid employees, our company employs four people, and then we have
different contractors we work with.
Right.
And so and so each of those four people, we want each of them to feel like what they're
doing is really fulfilling.
And yet if we reverse like I have an executive assistant, she's amazing.
Right.
She does all this stuff that I'm terrible at doing.
If I had to do her job, I would hate it.
And if she had to do my job,
she would hate that, right?
But we're each doing the thing that we are good at doing and that gives us fulfillment,
right?
And so like that's so important.
And then back to that E-Myth revisited idea is we tend to spend so much time working on
the business, don't, or in the business, we don't work on the business.
And so if we're able to have other people help us, then it frees, it ends up making it so
there's more minds collectively that are working on the business.
And it makes it so you are able to create more value doing what the business actually
does.
Yeah, definitely.
From your business journey, have you come across any mentors that have helped shaped your
thinking, right?
Because you're thinking in a way which makes so much sense for a business to think that
way, but have mentors come into your life and help shape that mindset that you have right
now.
Oh, yeah.
mean, like everyone there.
I mean, there's so many right in I could mention from family like parents and brothers and
to good buddies, you know, I will say that there are certain moments that are highly
leveraged, right.
And so like I had, I had a buddy that I met named Aaron Day at a conference and he lived
in DC and he made me believe that I could land on my feet in DC.
And big cities are so important for people to spend some time living in because there is
so much wealth that is created there.
And I mean that in every sense of wealth, intellectual wealth, social wealth, your ability
to build your confidence, to build your network, to build your skills is just
exponentially improved the larger your network is.
And in a city, even in a totally interconnected era like we live in, to physically be face
to face with people on a regular basis, there's just nothing, there's no substitute.
And so like,
He made me think, believe that I could make it in D.C.
And then I had a friend named Jude who said, hey, come stay on my couch for free.
Like when I moved to D.C., I had no job.
had no money.
I went door to door my first day there, just taking any job that would hire me.
My first week, I actually played a flute with a homeless person in DuPont Circle to get
money so I could get on the train to go to a sales job that I got.
And so I had like nothing when I got there, but he gave me a place to stay.
Right.
And then my buddy Jeff taught me
it like inspired me to achieve physical and mental excellence to say continue to build
your body, build your mind, build your skill set, right?
and, and having people like that in your life, I think are extremely important.
And then in terms of specific mentors on like skill development, communications, public
speaking, listening conversations, well, the beauty of that is, is because we have books,
we have the ability to
be mentored by the most brilliant and exceptional and incredible people in the history of
our species, right?
And so I could say, yeah, we could start naming off mentors like Frederick Douglass, who
we named our firstborn son after, like the greatest public speaker in American history.
And there's a thousand lessons we could spend hours talking about Douglass.
But I would say Douglass taught teaches me that you can use your voice to help make the
world better.
You can unite with anyone to do good and no one to do bad.
You can refuse no matter what you're facing to adopt a victim mindset.
You can resist even in polarized and difficult times that is the push to criticize and
condemn and complain and to call out injustices and yet to resist righteous indignation
and instead most importantly show with clarity and compassion.
the correct path forward and to believe and inspire and other people a belief that they
can improve and that the world can improve.
Those are all things that Frederick Douglass teaches you if you spend a little bit of time
with him.
I love that concept of finding a mentor in pretty much anything, right?
And that's the amazing thing of the world we live in today is knowledge is everywhere and
you can find mentors in everything and anything.
And so I love how you've taken that and you've really learned a lot from even just books,
right?
And people that you've read about, but then at the same time is having that network of
people around you to also support you as well.
think that is, as you said, been very, very important for the development of your career
over time.
and is very important, especially for entrepreneurs, because it's such a tough journey.
And it definitely is that having that support network there is just so important and
cultivating that and making sure they're pushing you and you're also pushing them.
I think it's just, it's just needed within the path that we're going down.
love it dude, 100%.
How about yourself?
Who are some people that come to mind for you and you think about people that have helped
you get to where you are today?
So, I mean, the obvious is going to be my parents, right?
It's definitely my mum and my dad, because both came from India.
They, again, didn't really have anything.
Then they got master's degrees in different things.
My dad was in the RAF, worked in business now as well.
So they've had a very interesting life, right?
Working their way up the ladder, say.
And then my brother and sister, right, who are both pilots as well.
again, seeing how much they've worked from an academic standpoint.
pushing me because I'm the youngest has been very cool to see.
And then the support that we've had like just as a on a family level, right?
So this is just within the walls that we have here.
Then from a from a business point of view, it's quite interesting.
I've had some mentors which where maybe the relationship didn't pan out in the end as
well.
There's been a couple that comes to mind there, which has been quite interesting, right?
Because there's a lot to learn and a lot to take away from it.
Both positive and negative, I guess you could say.
And so, so that's been quite interesting over the last few years is, you know, having
mentors in certain areas, but understanding there weren't, there weren't supposed to be
mentors forever, right?
You can outgrow certain mentors in, you know, in the period of life that you're in right
now.
Right.
So for example, when I was 19, I had a mentor within the financial trading space who
definitely helped me, right?
Gave me a job.
I've worked within his company, helped scale his company.
I learned a lot of the marketing principles I know now from the exposure had there.
But at same time, right, I wanted to go off in a different direction and start my own
business.
And so there was, you know, a bit of separation and conflict there.
But so it's interesting, right, is a mentor can help you get to the next step, the next
step, the next step.
But then eventually you will find a fork in the road where they can only get you so far.
And I think that's been one of the biggest lessons I've had from mentors specifically is
there's always going to be a fork in the road at some point.
And so it's having the awareness that this could come up.
And if it does come up is do what you think is best or what feels best.
you know what path you need to take.
That's been a big lesson for me in the last few years.
And what inspired you to become an entrepreneur?
You have this background in your family, are there pilots and they do these amazing things
and yet you've become an entrepreneur.
Where did that come from?
So when I was 14, I was in there, right?
So I was going around and I was building drones and selling drones.
And so again, very weird for 14 year old to be literally coding and like soldering out the
drone.
Yeah.
And at the time as well, you couldn't just buy them off the shelf, right?
It was all, you have to make this thing.
And so like I made it and...
I just enjoyed building things and that's been the biggest thing as well.
I've noticed it in entrepreneurship now is I love building things out, whether it's
software, technology, products, whatever.
I love the building phase of it.
And that goes back to when I was 15, where I was building out these drones, spending hours
and hours doing it.
And then I just put one up for sale on eBay and it sold within like 24 hours.
And I was like, ah, that was pretty cool.
And then I did that a few more times that year.
And I think that first year I made 10 grand.
It's like 14 year old.
And I was like, this is
Yeah, I like, this is crazy.
Like this is...
are you living?
Where are you living?
You're 14, are you, where are you?
I mean, I was at home.
living at home, like studying and whatever it was just in my bedroom.
Also, was I live in a place called Swindon.
So that's where the family home was back in the day.
And so it's just just like a normal house, right?
Just in my bedroom, soldering all this stuff up, selling it.
And yeah, that first year made like 10 grand.
And from there, that's where I the bug, because one of the first customers I had, said,
hey, can I pick this up in person and
I sold it for two grand, right?
So it was a lot of money at the time.
And he said, okay, cool.
I'm going to just give you half that in cash now, and then I'll transfer you the rest
later.
And so 14 seeing a thousand pounds in cash, and the most I had seen like 50 pounds before,
I was like, this is, this is crazy.
And so since then it's always been a case of, I've always known I wanted to make money or
at least have the control to make my own money and my own, you know, decisions.
And I did also test that because I went to work in corporate for a little bit.
I've had a few jobs in between as well and I've always found there's a disconnect there
from what it is that I want to be doing.
so yeah, so that's what got me into the entrepreneurship side of things.
And it's been building on that ever since.
love it in building drones is different from running a podcast.
Like what do you, how did you make that transition in, in what do you love the most about
podcasting?
Yeah, it's interesting.
So the podcast inside of things was, it was something I had in the back of my mind for a
long time.
And, back when I was working the startup four or five years ago, he actually started a
podcast.
So I was actually on that podcast as well.
And, uh, I remember during those periods, I didn't even say a word, right?
I was like, so scared to even talk on this podcast.
I was just, I just wasn't in that mind space to, to, actually have these conversations.
But then a few years later.
one of my clients had a podcast and I saw it, you know, he's speaking to some really
amazing entrepreneurs and individuals.
I want to do that as well because I love having these types of conversations with people
because I just learned so much myself.
And so I was like, you know what, I want to go into this and just learn as much as I can
from all these amazing people and then see what I get to from there.
And so the first episode I recorded was literally a year ago today, in person went to
record the first like three episodes.
And, and since then it's just been.
It's just been great to speak to these people and just learn so much from them.
So that's the thing I love the most is the conversation itself, right?
Is the conversation can end up anywhere, right?
As you know, right?
We put together these potential questions, talking points and stuff we can go through, but
nine times out of 10, we use 5 % of that.
And then we end up somewhere completely different through the conversation.
And I love that side of it, where you never know where we're going to end up with the
conversation.
and what I'm going to learn and what I'm going to take out of it.
And then of course, hopefully the listeners can take things out of it as well.
And so for your specific listeners, what would you say that that's that journey that you
went on from building drones for fun to realizing the universe values them to then
translating that to becoming a podcast entrepreneur?
What would be that?
What's the key insight that we can kind of distill to its essence?
What what is the teachable lesson for for us?
the key insight is...
It's just listen to your gut is when you have a feeling inside that this feels right is
lean into it as much as possible.
And that's in all areas, right?
Not only business, but also, you know, relationships, you know, other areas of life for
sure.
But if you have that feeling in your gut, you need to lean into it.
I think that's the biggest, the lesson that I have myself, but also the lesson that I've,
I've learned from all the people I've been speaking to, right?
Same with you.
had that feeling, do you know what this, this makes sense for me?
And you lean into that and all the top entrepreneurs I'm working to, they've all had the
same thing.
where they feel they just got this feeling.
And sometimes it's not logical as well, because you make a not very logical decision by
either quitting your job and leaving something very comfortable to go to something very
risky.
But it's that feeling within your gut, which you lean into.
And when you do that, that's when the results show, which is amazing.
dude.
I love it.
Can I build on that?
I think that that nails it.
And this gets to when I was talking about how important it is to create space, create
space to rest every day, every week, every month, every year, right?
To create space.
Because we spend so much time having other people's thoughts and feelings get pounded into
us, especially now with all the glowing rectangles everywhere, phones and TVs and
everything everywhere.
constant news and social media and rage all around us, that it ends up preventing us from
listening to ourselves.
And then we get on these hamster wheels of, I've got to get more clicks, I've got to get
more likes, I've got to do that.
We get on hamster wheels of fortune and fame, that we end up not actually listening to
ourselves.
Carl Jung, one of the great philosophers of the 20th century, he said, it's the privilege
of a lifetime to become who you truly are.
And like, that's it, right?
Robert Green, classic modern author, says that you were born with a calling and your
purpose is to figure it out and bring it to life in a way that creates value for the
universe, right?
In Japanese, in Japan, there's this concept called Ikagi.
And it's this idea of the intersection, you know this, right?
Between like the thing that I love to do, the thing that the universe values, the thing
that people want to pay for, right?
And the thing, right?
And it's like, you should bring all these keep opponents together.
Right?
It's like I've had over 40 jobs in my life.
I've worked in factories.
I've delivered pizza.
I've sold pizza coupons door to door for pyramid schemes.
And I've had one career and then I've had one calling.
Right?
It's like the ascending level of job to career to calling.
And when you're doing a calling, your labor is deeply fulfilling and you're creating real
value for the universe.
Yeah, there's so many golden nuggets here.
So I've really enjoyed this episode.
And one of the final questions we always ask people on this show is if you can go back to
your 18 year old self and only take three lessons with you, whether it's a mindset piece,
some technical knowledge or just some philosophical knowledge, what are those three
lessons be and why would it be those three things?
If I could go back and talk to my 18 year old self, I absolutely would never do it.
Because I love where I am today, right?
Like I wouldn't change anything because I love my wife, I love my child, I love my
business, my home, my life, my family, my friends.
And so I would never ever, ever in a thousand years ever do it.
That being said, the spirit of the question is maybe what would be good advice for a young
person today?
And to think of three things would be hard, but what I would say is this.
First and foremost is you can achieve transformational growth.
You can discover and become who you truly are.
That is the privilege of a lifetime.
There is no human being.
There's no book.
There's no course that will teach it to you.
You have to figure it out yourself.
You have to look in, not look out.
You have to shut off everything else and look within yourself and create space for your
ideas and feelings and your true self to emerge.
And like that is really important and difficult work.
And it's super fulfilling, right?
And so it's, it's make space to come to understand who you are and to cultivate those
skills.
And then I would say, related is in addition to you can do that.
It's Max Rosa, the philosopher from the UK has this great line where he says the world is
awful.
the world is amazing and the world can be much better.
Or the world is awesome, the world can be much better.
The world is awful, the world is much better, the world can be much better.
All three things are true.
If you're logged on to media and social media, you only get the first one, the world is
awful.
The truth is the world is fantastically better.
It's an amazing place and it's rapidly getting better.
And you could look at almost any statistic to back this up from, for all of human history,
half of all kids died.
And now it's like,
less than 4 % in the UK, it's less than 1%.
Right.
And so the world's rapidly getting better by most metrics.
And so to understand that one, you can become who you truly are to the world is rapidly
getting better.
And you can use your skill set to help it to get even better.
Right.
And three is all of the most important things in life are things that you cannot buy.
And they're things that nobody can give you even if you
we're born to the wealthiest family in the world, even if you're Elon Musk's son or the
prince of so-and-so's son, doesn't matter because all of the most important things in
life, you have to build them back to your point on building.
Whether it's building a home filled with love, building deep, fulfilling relationships,
building a peaceful mind, building a fit body, building a fulfilling career that becomes a
calling.
You have to build your life.
The good life is a life that you build.
amazing there's some great lessons there for the listeners so thank you so much for taking
the time today where can people find you if they want to learn more about the work that
you guys are doing and maybe connect with you on LinkedIn as well
100%.
So I have a sub stack that is free and we put a lot of our, put a lot of effort into
writing that sub stack.
And so if this conversation is interesting, please check us out, subscribe to our sub
stack.
That's talking big ideas.
And my name is Bob Ewing, B-O-B-E-W-I-N-G.
Our company is the Ewing school, E-W-I-N-G school.com.
And so you can find us both on sub stack and.
our website and then I'm on LinkedIn.
If just Bob Ewing Ewing School, can find me on LinkedIn as well.
Amazing.
We'll link everything below, but thank you so much for taking the time.
I've really enjoyed this conversation.
Likewise, I appreciate you.