September 20, 2025 • 58 mins
John Novello's podcast "As Within, Without" featured Steve Woodworth, renown author & consultant
who shared his journey from astronomy to becoming a clarity expert helping individuals and businesses with branding and communication strategies. Steve discussed his 20 - year career as a solopreneur, emphasizing the importance of clear personal identity and effective communication through his four rules and eight tools framework.
(This aligns with John’s mentoring protocol as one’s inner world only creates one’s outer world when our inner world is clear and focused.)
The conversation explored various aspect s of finding one's purpose, passion, and natural communication style, with Steve sharing his approach to helping clients discover their unique brand identity and messaging while maintaining his own clarity through
collaboration with others.
https://www.loaradionetwork.com/johnnovello
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/law-of-attraction-radio-network--1595897/support.
Law of Attraction Radio Network - https://loaradionetwork.com
who shared his journey from astronomy to becoming a clarity expert helping individuals and businesses with branding and communication strategies. Steve discussed his 20 - year career as a solopreneur, emphasizing the importance of clear personal identity and effective communication through his four rules and eight tools framework.
(This aligns with John’s mentoring protocol as one’s inner world only creates one’s outer world when our inner world is clear and focused.)
The conversation explored various aspect s of finding one's purpose, passion, and natural communication style, with Steve sharing his approach to helping clients discover their unique brand identity and messaging while maintaining his own clarity through
collaboration with others.
https://www.loaradionetwork.com/johnnovello
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/law-of-attraction-radio-network--1595897/support.
Law of Attraction Radio Network - https://loaradionetwork.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to the Law of Attraction Radio Network.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to manifesting your dreams. Join renowned Grammy Award winner,
jazz pianist and Amazon number one best selling author John Novello.
Each week as he uncovers the secrets of the Invisible Architect,
the quantum intelligent energy that permeates everything even us. Discover
how to tap into this inner power to use it
(00:28):
to design the perfect life you deserve. The Invisible Architect
as Within So Without is your guide to achieving your
dream life. And now here's your host, the Jazz Philosopher
John Novello.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Hey, everybody, Jonavello here. Hope you guys you're doing all right.
The Jazz Philosopher is on it. Welcome to my Invisible
Architect As Within Without weekly radio podcast, unincredible Law of
Attraction Radio Network, which I'm really excited to be a
part of. The first part of this lifetime was inspiring
others through playing jazz and music and writing and touring
(01:06):
all over the world, and I've been very successful and
fortunate in that area. So I never thought in my
later twilight years that I'd be kind of more of
a personal and spiritual servant of the creator, and that
happened sort of by accident, well maybe not by accident,
because at three years old, I was sort of visited
(01:27):
by this voice that had me point to the TV
and it started my music career. The details of that
are in my book The Invisible Architect, How to Design
Your Perfect Life from Within. And I've had this intuition,
this higher self, this voice. Depending on your beliefs, it
could be the Holy Ghost speaking to me. It could
(01:47):
be Jesus, could be God, it could be who knows right,
whatever is. I've had this interaction and it's blessed me
my entire life. So my wife and I moved here
in and running in the middle of Covid and from
LA we escaped La I used to now not used to.
I think I used to beginning to call it La
(02:09):
because it was becoming Hell. And this is an amazing place, Franklin, Tennessee,
a very historical boutique town. And I met a lot
of incredible people, one who I've invited to be on
the show, and his name is Steve Woodworf, and he
I became friends. And it's funny because there's about six
or seven boutique coffee houses in the area. And I
(02:32):
don't know if he's following me or I'm following him,
but pretty much two or three times a week we
run into each other at these various coffee houses. And
so we were talking the other day, and he's an author,
and the name of my podcast is as Within Without,
and he'll tell you all about what he does. But
the reason why I named it as Within Without is
(02:53):
because we have clarification and clarity of our inner world
than our outer world has a chance. Hence as Without.
So each week I try to feature guests who have
experience in that area. And this week i'd like to
welcome Steve again because we met and Franklin became good friends.
(03:16):
And so in Steve's words, I help people flip the
script on the corporate status quote by finding their focus
there's that inner world and making themselves clear. I belicit
these are his words. Of course, I believe with the
right tactics, anyone can win at work through better communication.
(03:36):
That's why I wrote a book called Clarity Wins to
teach you how to rise above the noise and get referred.
In my second book, The Point, I train you to
use my Clarity Fuel formula, which we're going to discuss today,
I hope, backed by practical brain scigns to communicate with
clarity and focused and as Steve's career spans three decades
(04:00):
from a sales and marketing director, even creating my employer's
first website in nineteen ninety two, to a trusted consultant
for clients like Pfizer, who is no artist. I don't
think I have heard of them.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
They're another one of the top five pharmaceutical companies. They're
headquarters is in Basel, Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Oh wow, and GSK, but he actually started out at
Vanderbilt University and they're esteemed astronomy program. It's like almost
like you're like me. Here I am playing jazz music
and now I'm trying to be a spiritual guru. It
sounds like at one point you wanted to be an
astronaut or something, and here you are providing clarity to people.
So you must have not been clear enough Steve about
(04:43):
being an astronaut.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Well, that's one of the ironies of it is when
I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut,
and I've always loved all things space, but my eyesight
disqualified me from being an astronaut. You had to have
twenty twenty straight on vision none corrected back then, and
I certainly did not amazing.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Because I wanted to be a test pilot. My cousin
went into the day is the Navy Annapolis and he
became a test pilot and he used to come and
take breaks and he's my cousin, and he would tell
me all these stories of flying these jets and doing
all these different things, and I was like kind of
jealous because I thought that would be really exciting. Then
(05:24):
he ended up being a pilot for FedEx. He said
that was boring, but he's got a great question, So
there you go. Well, anyway, Steve's passion for communication landed
him in sales, where he wrestled with imposter syndrome. Despite
all appearances of success, it was only when he begun
to identify and embrace his unique strengths instead of dwelling
(05:44):
on his weaknesses that is true calling became clear. So
now he gets to focus full time on helping others discern, particulate,
maximize their own strengths as an author's speaker, facilitator, and
trainers team. Welcome to without Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Wonderful to be here, John, and I think it's a
wonderful irony that here we are talking on Zoom and
I've done podcasts with people all over the world, and
we're just about two minutes from each other in the
same neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
But the street here.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, I think this is geographically the closest podcast I've
ever done.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Isn't it crazy? It has to go up into a
satellite and through the whatever and down the river, through
the woods to grandmother's house, and there you are, right
down the street. I should have probably just invited you
over here.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, you know, it's Zoom is handy, and so I
really enjoy being able to do podcasts with a variety
of people. And I remember I saw a Facebook memory
of mine from about maybe twelve years ago where Zoom
had just come out and a guy that I was
near by we were testing it out for like the
(06:57):
first time, and I thought, wow, this is a great platform,
And sure enough it has been your heah.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Yeah, it's a very handy. All right, So listen, Although
I read a little bit about your story, why don't
you give me your abridged version of that, then we'll
get into what you do.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Well, we started with the astronaut story, and of course
I didn't qualify. But then I thought I'd go into
astronomy because I love astronomy. So that's why I went
to Vanderbilt. I grew up in Connecticut but came down
to Middle Tennessee and that dream lasted all of one
semester because I ran into physics and calculus. And it
(07:36):
turns out that a career in astronomy is ninety nine
percent physics and math. It's not just looking up at
the stars and wondering. So I got a rude awakening
to the first time that you know, you can be smart,
but you may not be built for anything. And it
turns out I discovered over time, both in my four
(08:00):
years studying psychology and then in my entire work career
that I'm an ideas and words guy. I love ideas,
I love words. I systematically approach and analyze things, and
other people have that mentality for formulas and numbers. I don't,
but I love words.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
It's really interesting because I've been blessed with both and
what sideline is during college, since I was always quote
unquote really smart and at the top of my class,
all the deans and advisors always recommended because I was
in music on the side. I'd played music, but I
didn't ever think about it as a career. I was
playing in clubs. So I went to college and guess what.
(08:43):
I majored in mathematics and logic. The guy doing advanced
calculus and probability statistics, and I was a whiz kid.
But I never really liked it. It was boring, and
I was about ready to go on for my masters
and I'm going, what am I doing? And during that
time I ended up Because this tells you it was
sort of orchestrated from above. A famous producer discovered my
(09:06):
band and I ended up having a hit record while
I was in college, which gave me the taste of
the music biz. So I was thinking, and I'm going
on for my master's in PhD in math for what reason?
Where is that going to get me? But maybe another
job at another university as a professor. And I didn't
see myself sitting in a little cubby hole like an
(09:28):
Einstein coming up with ekele mc square. So I jumped
off of that and went into my music career. But
my math background is coming handy. Well listen, then, how
did you move to the next step and eventually get
into what you're doing now.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
After college, I figured I thought I was going to
go into the ministry, and so after a couple of
years of work and getting married, my wife and I
moved up to New Jersey for what we thought would
be a four year program in a seminary level school,
and there my love of systematic thought, systematic theology, logic, philosophy,
(10:12):
all of that blossomed. But I did not feel I
was ready for the ministry. After two and a half years,
I left that and then we got stuck in New
Jersey for thirty years. But I then began a career
in sales, which I discovered quickly I could succeed in,
but didn't love sales. I'm not a born salesperson, but
(10:35):
I did like marketing. I started to get a taste
of marketing and branding and messaging, and as my career developed,
it moved more and more into continuing to sell, but
more toward marketing, more toward consulting, and somewhere in my
mid forties, I realized that the keyword that explained who
(10:57):
I was was consultant. If I tried to be a salesperson,
it wasn't going to work. I could do it, but
I didn't love it. But what I love doing is analyzing,
figuring stuff out and systematically putting together an answer. And
so when I launched my own company twenty years ago,
(11:20):
it was as a consultant, as a trainer, and eventually
turned into as an author. All focused on this idea
that you got to be clear on who you are,
which includes who you aren't, and run in that and
know how to put the right words around it so
(11:41):
other people can grasp exactly who you are, where you're going,
what your message is. And that's what I do. I'm
all about crafting the words and helping people get clear.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
So you started doing but did you started doing that
before you wrote your first book.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yes. Yeah, I've been doing that for probably close to
fifteen or twenty years, kind of on the side. At first,
I just enjoyed sitting down with people or businesses and
just figuring out their branding. And I did that with
the first two companies I worked with. I worked with
two small companies for the first twenty years of my career,
(12:20):
and because they were so small, I wore that hat.
And turns out I loved the whole process of naming
and logos and branding and positioning. That's what got me
into it. But during that time I also found the
book Strengths Finder, and that revolutionized my view when I
(12:41):
realized it's branding and figuring out what you're good as
not just for companies, it's for individuals. And once I
recognize that the profile of who you are determines how
you succeed in life, I was completely all in on
that and I have been ever since.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yeah, that's perfect congruency to what I do with my
elite one on one mentoring program. I can work with
anybody and one of the first things that I do
is find out there within world, their inner world, find
the clarity so they have a focus and they ah,
that's just like you discovered through the School of Hard
(13:23):
Knocks who you were and where your thing was. Because
once you have that vision and it's clear as then
then you can start making decisions. And so I came
up with this bee, do you have manifestation for me?
So your b is your desire, your do or all
your decisions based on that, and eventually you will have
(13:43):
you have which is the circumstances in your life. So
it's perfect. So then you eventually, but you were freelanced
these years as a consultant, You weren't necessarily on the payroll, right.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Oh No, I've been on my own as a solopreneur.
So I've been developing clients large and small, doing an
increasing number of workshops about how people can communicate clearly,
as well as working with groups, teams and individuals on
their brand identity. And I see these two things as
(14:19):
wonderfully coexisting. You've got to understand your core identity. You've
got to understand what you're all about, what your strengths,
what your superpowers are. Then you can have a message
that reflects it. If you try to have a message
but you don't really know what differentiates you, you're just
going to blend into the background and be a general
(14:42):
jack of all trades or vague, confusing person. And that's
the worst thing we can be in the world, is
a commodity or vague. We've got to be sharp and
precise about what we're all about.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So not only businesses you work with obviously need in
their marketing message so they can stick out in the
marketplace and attract the client that they want to deliver
their product or service to. But obviously individuals also can
use clarity in their life, even if they don't have
(15:16):
a business. Explain how that.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Would work, well, the process of arriving at that is
exactly the same, and it's the same that you use.
I think you may use different words. But the quote
I've made most famous and I wish it was my quote,
but I don't know whoever who came up with it.
I just found it one day and I thought it
was fabulous. It's you can't read the label of the
(15:39):
jar you're in, and that means we are all subjective.
We have all this jumble in our heads, and we're
actually the worst at understanding who we are because we
have so many filters and biases that we often need
someone from the outside to help us gain clarity, which
is the role I occupy, role you occupy, And for me,
(16:03):
that comes down first to identifying the key words. What
are the key words? For me? Was consultant that summarise,
distill the essence of that person. So at one point
I branded my wife. I don't necessarily recommend everybody do that,
but she has got a good sense of humor. She's
(16:25):
the combobulator and I've always loved the word discombobulation just
because it's so funny. But at one point I thought,
you know what, there's got to be a word combobulation
if there's a discombobulate. So I looked it up and
sure enough, combobulation is exactly what you would think someone
who turns chaos into order. And I said, Sandy, that
(16:47):
explains you. Everything you do. You combobulate, and when you
arrive at your key words one or two or three,
you have the secret to know how to navigate because
you know what you ought to be doing, what's your
best at, And it helps you to say no to
(17:09):
ninety eight percent of the things because you know the
two percent you should say yes to.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
It's like an airplane that takes off without a flight
plan and gets into the air and the navigator goes, so, captain,
where are we going today? And the guy goes, I
don't know, yeah, whatever, why'd you even take off?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Well? I often liken it to a GPS, where you
don't put put in the destination. You know, the idea
of the GPS isn't to just narrate where you're going.
You've got to put in where you're going and then
it'll help you get there. But if you don't know
where you want to get to. And many people go
through much of their career, maybe their whole career, maybe
their whole life, without knowing what the destination could be
(17:55):
or should be.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
I agree. Yeah, I get many people that are even
retired that still don't know. But they know they're retired.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah they got that much, they got that keyword. But
and I firmly believe that we are all uniquely knit together.
We all have a purpose. And that purpose may have
nothing to do with a particular job role, or a
particular industry or a particular company. It's higher than that.
(18:25):
And the best thing I can do with individuals is
help draw that purpose out, help read the label of
that jar so that they can say, oh, this is
where I ought to be, this is what I ought
to be doing. And that is one of the most
mind bogglingly wonderful things. It's my favorite thing in the
(18:45):
world to do.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Oh yeah, when that happens, it's amazing. I had one client,
for some reason, she had it in her head that
she had to have this big, huge, feed the world
cure hunger purpose, and so her real purpose she kept
overlooking because she had a fixed idea. There's that word
that it had to be a very big purpose, right. Yes,
(19:09):
I'm working with her one on one and I asked
her a question one day. I said, so if money
wasn't a problem, and asked her all these filtering type questions,
and she stopped me before I even got through the
rest of them. She goes, Oh, I just like to knit.
I just sit around and I watched TV and I
(19:33):
watched my grandchildren play in the floor, and I like
to knit. So you're probably very good at it, because
I don't know how to knit. She goes, oh, yeah,
I'm really good. I make all these things for the
family and blah blah blah. So she's talking, she's like
lighting up.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
You know, you can see Alora, And I'm going, you know,
in my mentor program, I have a little philosophy that
invisible architect, God source you, versual consciousness or whatever.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
When you light up because there's something that you just
love because you love it, that's the architect talking to
you and attracting you, kind of letting you know something.
So pay attention. What do you mean anyway, I'm not
going to do the whole thing on that. All I
know is is now she knits for a living and
(20:23):
she sells her things, and I said, you're so good.
So she started telling her family members and everything. And
now they got all kinds of people that are always going, hey,
who knitted that? Oh? Surely did? Oh next thing? You know,
she's got her own little solo entrepreneur kind of business
on the side, and she just absolutely loves it. And
here it was right in front of her all the time.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
No, that's that's awesome. And it's the light the light
up moment that I really live for when people can
get the lights turned on and it's like an epiphany. Uh,
the information, the stuff has been in their head all along,
but they haven't known how to put it together. And
that's my job is to help put it together and
(21:06):
then to say, oh, well if I attach these three
words to that, and then I can take who I
am and maybe go in this direction or no, wonder,
I hated that job. I'm not built for that. That
doesn't give me any joy. And if people can live
and walk with joy in their lives because they're doing
(21:26):
the thing that's dead centered bullseye in their sweet spot,
what could be better than that?
Speaker 3 (21:33):
What could be better? I call that the joy of creating.
Some people think creating just means you have to be
a poet or a musician or a painter. No, I
can always tell, and I use this as a barometer
in life. If I'm going to have my car worked,
one I can tell if the mechanic is going to
work on my car as somebody I want to hire
because I can see his joy car as an engines
(21:55):
And who would you rather work on? The guy at
the dealership who goes to work every day and can't
wait to punch out? You want him to work on
your car who doesn't have the joy of engines and
carsn't getting dirty and grease and shape. Or the guy
that loves engines. Obviously he's found his thing and he's
not trying to be out of the box. He knows
what he is doing and he's good at it doesn't
(22:15):
really matter what it is. So I totally agree. So
what is this? Since we're talking about it, we're probably
skirting around the engines this clarity fuel formula, and you've
probably been talking about it, but you want to be
more specific, You want to be more clear on it.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Clear yeah, So we've actually been talking more about the
identity and focus piece of clarity, and then we've talked
a little bit about Okay, now let's put words around it.
The other half of what I do is how systematically,
how can we communicate more clearly as people, as businesses
(22:52):
across the board, whether it's marketing or sales, or project
management or leadership and all that. We're using words all
the time, but there is so much unskillful use of words,
so much overwhelmed, too much information, vagueness. In fact, I
saw this blew my mind this morning. I saw a
job posting, and this was with a farmer company and
(23:16):
they were looking for somebody, and they said, here's the
list of the twenty three key responsibilities for this job.
And it was this massive, undifferentiated, confusing, overwhelming list. That
is bad communication.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Okay, impossible job description. It sounds like.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
It's terrible, and we're full of it. Bad taglines, bag sales, picious,
bad presentations. The world is full of bad communications. So
I for years labored with the idea that maybe there
could be a formula, a simple formula that everybody could
use for every form of communication. And that's my second book,
(24:01):
the point. It's got four rules, eight tools, and it's
I've tried to make it as simple and distilled as
possible that if you want to get into and it
comes down to being what I call brain friendly. The
human brain is your customer. That's where your words go,
that's where your message goes. And if the brain doesn't
(24:24):
like the way it's hearing things, it will shut it off.
But all the best communicators for all generations have known
that you've got to get to the point quickly. You've
got to be relevant right away. You've got to be
engaging by using stories and specifics and snippets. And so
I lay out the four rules and the eight tools
(24:45):
in this book that anybody can apply it. My training
workshops led up to this book and now they're all
built on this book. And so this has to do
with being skillful with one whether or not it has
to do with your focus or identity. It comes down
to can you write a good email? Can you make
(25:06):
a good presentation? Can you design a good website? And
those principles are all out there that anybody can embrace
and apply.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
So when somebody do you work with people one on
one and as well in through workshops.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Most of my one on one work is still on
more of the identity and personal branding stuff and then
the other the workshops, most of them are on communication
formula and how all of you can do that. But
one of my favorite corporate workshops is combining that a
(25:44):
corporate a personal branding workshop where we work with a
bunch of individuals and I facilitate people coming to grips
with their identity and giving each other in put on
their keywords, and oh my goodness, that's a powerful exercise.
I absolutely love doing that in groups because there are
multiple people then looking at the jar that can help
(26:07):
you figure out who you are, and that's that's my
favorite workshop of all.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
And in the process, they're learning themselves because they're interacting
and seeing other clients inside the main a's jar and
they're on the outside and somebody else. It's like a
good friend of mine always said, she's like a brilliant masseuse,
but you know, she can't really give herself a great.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Massage exactly sit there and you just work on your arm,
and yeah, you can't really do it, you know what
I mean, Because it's hard to be objective because you
have to be exterior from the situation to be objective
and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
So yeah, and the irony, the logical and true irony,
is I cannot be clear about myself. So my nickname
is the King of Clarity. But I have to rely
on other people to get clear on me because I
can't be objected. And so I have other people that
I walk closely with who help keep me straight and
(27:09):
give me input, and I run stuff past them because
I'm a total bonehead when it comes to looking at
my own jar. And that's the rule. So, I mean,
that's the way it is. So you know, I can
sit down with somebody in twenty minutes that I've never
met and figured them out. But I can sit and
spin and circle the drain forever on some stupid thing
(27:29):
that I can't see clearly.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
No, yeah, that's just the nature of the isness of
the situation. And I think we all need to get
objective observations to help us clarify certain things. So you
spent years developing this sort of universal formula, do you
actually have a I sort of have my own formula
(27:54):
of communication. To me, communication is cause distance of fact
and then if their communications returned and then it's reversed.
The receipt point now becomes cause, goes across the distance
and comes. And I use that in my artistic world
because as a musician, I've done a lot of Sometimes
(28:16):
I get hired by record companies, not any more and
more more sort of quasi retired. They'll call me up
and want me to go in my heyday listen to
one of the acts that they signed, and I'll go
at their rehearsal and I'll listen, and I'll see the
band on stage and I'll go, well, that's really interesting.
Or at a club, these people are just playing music.
(28:37):
They're not even fully conscious and aware that there's an audience.
They don't care, So that means they're unknowingly being caused
because they have enough expertise to perform, but they don't
have an intention, key word to get it across this distance,
whether it's ten feet or Madden Square Garden to the audience.
(29:00):
And the only reason they know there's an audience is
if somebody booze or doesn't clap, or if they give
them a standing ovation, then they go, oh, well that
was great, But they don't even know why they got
to standing ovation, so they can't keep duplicating the process.
I have to work with them on the communication being
a two way flow back and forth. So what kind
(29:21):
of a communication formula do you work with people? Written?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
So here's the framework, and I boiled it down to this.
So there are two key perspectives up front. You have
to have. Number one is we all have the same competition.
We're all up against the noise and distraction and confusion.
That's that is our competition. It's not some company that
(29:49):
does the same thing as you. We've got to break
through the noise. Okay, So as human beings, eight billion
human beings on the planet, we all have the same
competition noise. But we all also all have the same customer,
which is the human brain. And the human brain has
an operating system. It wants what it wants the way
it wants it. And so if we're going to communicate
(30:11):
to the brain, we got to understand what the brain wants,
how it works. So those two things are the starting point,
and then I boiled it down to four rules on
how you package your information. First, you have to have
a point a destination. This is that destination in the GPS.
(30:31):
But it's true of an email or anything else. You've
got to have a point you go me somewhere. Second,
you've got to quickly get to the point in a
way that the brain says, Ooh I want that, Oh
that's relevant, Oh that's important. You can't just wander around,
you can't just dump everything. You've got to quickly let
people know what the point is or they'll tune you out.
(30:54):
The third is you've got to get the point aross
In other words, I mean something with those words, but
those words may not have the same meaning to you.
I may have to make sure that I define, explain,
and illustrate so that the meaning comes across. And then
the goal fourthly is I want to get people on
(31:15):
the same page. We want to reach alignment and agreement.
Those four simple rules apply to every form of communication,
from a podcast to an email, to a book to anything.
That's what the brain is looking for. And then when
it comes to illustrating and getting the point across and
(31:37):
helping people, you want to paint pictures in people's minds.
You don't want to bore them.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
So I are always good.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah, So I gave eight tools. I put them all
under s's. So the eight tools are statements, snippets, specifics, stories, stakes.
What are the stakes. It's either it's important or it's not.
And if it's not important, I'm not going to pay attention.
Symbolic language, which is the analogies and word illustrations, side
by sides, comparisons and summaries. All I did was arrange
(32:11):
it in a group of eight put s's on it.
But the fact is that for thousands of years, this
is what great writers and speakers have done. They've used analogies,
they've used stories, They've known how to summarize, they know
how to use specifics, they know how to get to
the point quickly. And so you don't have to be
a PhD in communication to be a great communicator. You
(32:32):
just have to apply these simple tools and rules. And
you went.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Exactly so, how would you explain the function of charisma, Because,
especially in my former musical business, there are some musicians
that have so much charisma that that law of attraction
(33:04):
I don't even like the word anymore, but their natural,
organic charisma supersedes almost every rule and everything one can
think of, which means they're either unconsciously so God given
with their talent that they're doing all these things naturally,
(33:25):
or their expertise in charisma is so high that it
bypasses all of this and the audience just gets it
right away. Like, for example, in the speaking world, one
of my favorite speakers used to be John F. Kennedy.
When he started speaking, it was within three sentences he
had you yep, just as rhythmic, flow, poetically his use
(33:50):
of the language, and you can tell his intention was
just there. Clinton another politician was really not his wife
forget her Bill, and various speakers like that. And musically
it's the same thing. I'll go to see. There's all
these rules in music, like you're not supposed to turn
(34:11):
your back to the audience, and you're supposed to pay
attention to this and that the don't. Invariably, somebody like
Miles Davis comes around, turns his back to the audience
and plays notes that he doesn't care if you even
ever understand anything he does. He just does it. And
he's one of the greatest iconic jazz musicians of all time. So,
given the the wide range of rule breakers out there
(34:37):
because of charisma or talent or expertise, what is your
explanation of that.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
I think there are a relatively small number of people
that just have that magic. I'm just gonna call it magic.
But you know what I mean, this magnetic enthusiastic a
way to project themselves. And whether it's musically or painting
or speaking, it's a very small percentage, and it is magic.
I mean, it's wonderful to see. But how about the
(35:06):
rest of us. The rest of us need to communicate
effectively and so and I would hold that those people,
those magicians, would be even better if they obey the
other rules, but in some kind and sometimes they're just
going to succeed no matter what.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
So but sometimes if you give them too much, too
many rules, it messes them up because they start getting
distracted because they don't know what they're doing when they're
doing it, and think about it, it messes them up.
I had that happen with a prodigy that I was teaching,
and I had to be very careful when I taught him.
I had to teach him in a different way because
(35:41):
the more rules of music that I got him into,
which I thought would help him, were starting to hinder
him because he had so much natural talent. So then
I had to change my whole way of teaching him.
It was a real challenge. I did it, but it
was a challenge.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yeah. Well, I think even the most charismatic person can
benefit from saying you know what, I got to get
to the point or people going to tune me out.
They're subject to the same principles that the rest of
us are, and they can also if they try to
say too much too fast without you know, giving people
(36:17):
space to process, they're not going to succeed as well.
So charisma is not a be all, end all, But
for most of us, we just have to learn how
to apply the basic principles and practices that work. But
I think if you go back to what we were
talking about before, John about identity, the most charisma that
(36:40):
we're going to be able to unleash as individuals, it's
going to come out when we find our sweet spot.
That's when, even if I'm only a ten percent charisma person,
that ten percent is going to come out when my
eyes are lit up and I know what I'm doing
and I know what I'm saying, and I know I
belong here. So reaching that sense of clarity about who
(37:02):
you are is at least going to unleash probably the
most charisma you're gonna have yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Agree, except that what I was kind of almost saying
is there are some people that are so natural, whether
they're past lifers which is another podcast, and their abilities
to come through or God's blessing, whatever, they just naturally
always are in the zone, always have their sweet spot,
(37:27):
and naturally the moment they play or pick up the instrument,
it's just goose pimples all the time. What I'm saying
is is I've met many of those people in my
business because who I am, and I've learned a lot
from them, and it's real interesting those type of people
like Chickory was one of my best friends, one of
the greatest jazz penists who have ever lived, and he
(37:48):
passed away with three and a half years ago. He
used to send me students because he had no clue
on what he was doing when he was playing. I'm
a real good pianists and so is he, but he
was this natural. I had to study a decent amount
to get to my level of ability, and I have
(38:08):
natural talents as well. He had natural talent, but he
didn't have to hardly study very much. He just did it,
and so when he would play, he didn't know what
he was doing. As a guest in one of my
music workshops and a couple of people asked him a
question and he just looked at me and said, John,
g the idea, how to tell this guy what I'm doing?
Speaker 1 (38:30):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
So it's it's it's it's real interesting. But I've learned
a lot from that that I apply into my mentoring.
And because when you do, you're right, those are extra
ets God knows from where. But what about the rest
of us? And so if we can break down some
(38:53):
fundamentals and help have those people find out their clarity
and their sweet spot, then they have a good chance
of being able to rise to a higher level of
what their purpose is.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
Absolutely, I agree.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
This is an interesting you actually mentioned this. So how
does your focus on clarity, because now that you become
an expert in that area, how has it impacted you
and your family? H Because well, family, if anybody is
families can really have problems.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
You know, Well, we've already found out that my wife
is the combobulator. We had five boys and they're all
grown up now, and we even when they were young,
and even before I had hammered out all this clarity stuff,
we our perspective was We're not going to force these
kids into any path. We're going to look at who
(39:48):
they are, find out how God made them, and try
to draw out their strengths and then guide them into
what will be best for them. And that's what we
did with with all five. And they're very different from us.
My wife and I are both college graduates. She's got
a master's degree, I did graduate work. We've only had
(40:10):
one of our five sons complete college. They weren't wired
for academics, and that's okay, But a lot of other
families would have pressured their kids into, you know, be
a doctor, be a lawyer or whatever. I think that's terrible.
But one of the greatest examples my oldest son was
adrift for a while after school and he was just
(40:31):
working in restaurants and working in bars and just kind
of you know, living, not going anywhere. But he developed Actually,
he and I together at the same time, developed the
fascination with whiskey, learning about bourbon and whiskey, and this
was something we got to team up together as adults,
and he became fascinated and he ran with it, and
(40:53):
he was always personable, and so he started networking his
way and meeting people and learning about and pretty soon
he developed a career as in being a brand ambassador.
And then he created his own online presence called Whiskey
with a View taking beautiful pictures another one of his
gifts of Whiskey out in the wild, and he gained
(41:16):
over eighty thousand followers, and he parlayed all of this
into multiple positions and now he's being backed by venture
capital to create his own brand and launch his own brand.
So all of this driven by this passion, this thing
that took hold of him and that he ran with.
(41:38):
And it's just been delightful over the years to see
this workout in my own kid and for him to
go off on his entrepreneurial journey. And he, because of
his passion, because of who he is, has so many
people have been drawn to him to help him succeed,
(41:59):
and he just pours himself out to them, and it's
it's the most rewarding thing you can do as a parent.
See your kid, see your kid just take off like that.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Yeah, that's the law of attraction sort of work in
the magneticness of passion. Because the normal concept of law
of attraction is we might have talked about this the
other day is a very narcissistic I am wealthy, I
am this I and they've they've disconnected themselves from source
(42:29):
or God or the power and don't realize that we're
the distributor of this power. And so the passion that
God gave us, and you can have passion for more
than one thing, but the passion or passions that God
gave us. When we discover those, what happens is is
(42:50):
God gets behind you because you're paying attention to what
he's giving you as compared to not paying attention. God's
sitting there, going to there is again going off doing
this and that, and that I gave him this and
he's not listening to me. So one of my exercises
is going into the silence. I don't want to use
the word meditation, but going into the silence because God,
(43:12):
the architect whatever operates a very high frequency. So just
like a radio station, if you want to listen to
a certain jazz station, you first have to know there's
a radio, and you have to know there is a
jazz station, and then you have to know what the
call letters are of the gyan station, and then you
also have to like you use the word, the noise,
all the distraption. You have to tune out the noise.
(43:34):
I mean, if I want to listen to a jazz
station and there's a party going on in my house,
I'm going to have to either go in the other
room or tell everybody to shut up and kick up
so I can listen to this station. And most people
aren't listening to the voice that is there. Because when
I get people working one on one and they go, well,
you were blessed at three years old. God talked to you.
(43:56):
God didn't talk to me, never talks to me. It's
one of the common I get when I work with
people and I said, no, what if I said, God
is talking to you and you're not paying attention because
of abc D you need and they never thought about it.
So once I get that happening, they start paying attention.
Next thing you know, they almost all start to have
these little religious experiences. Some people call it intuition and
(44:18):
telepathic communications because it's true. Words are everything with the language,
but there's other forms of communication. Telepathic communication doesn't sort
of use words. There's concepts that come just appear to you,
and sometimes you have to feel those concepts. As a musician.
When I go to play, the audience may be out
there and I may pick up this audience collectively feels
(44:42):
like they need this emotion. So then I would start
playing the blues certain way, and next thing, you know,
the audience is like, WHOA, what's he doing right? And
so these concepts have to be paid attention to. I
(45:03):
call them cosmic whispers. We're always having cosmic whispers. And
then if you learn how to do what you're doing
the key words of those cosmic whispers and turning those
words into clarity intention, I think you got the best
of both worlds, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Yeah, it's wonderful when you might struggle. Many people struggle
for years and they don't exactly know what they're here for.
They don't exactly know what their best best use of
their abilities, and that can be really real downer actually is,
particularly as you get older, you get into your twenties
(45:39):
or thirties or forties, you start to say, man, I'm
not even sure if I want to do what I'm doing.
And a lot of times you do have to back
away from all that stuff and take some time, and
you may need some help with it too. To say
all right, And I love the question you used it earlier.
I mean, if money mad, if money was irrelevant, what
(46:00):
would you want to do? And a lot of times
then you'll you'll find the passion it's it's been sitting
there all along.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
It's not but usually you invalidate it because when it
pops up, you go, well, that's not going to make me.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Nobody's gonna care about my knitting. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, and
so and clarity. You know, you can have clarity, but
there it evolves too, because you know, now I'm in
this sort of twilight years. I'm in my mid sixties now.
I've been building a business that had a lot of
corporate elements to it for twenty years, and I am
(46:33):
now shifting. And the direction I'm shifting to is uncertain.
I know I want to work more with individuals. I
know I want to work more with consultants, small businesses.
I know clarity can be applied in like a thousand
different ways, and I'm not sure right now what the
next ten years are going to be. I know it'll
(46:54):
be me being me doing clarity, but I don't know
what form that's going to take. And so I'm in
the middle of this evolution right now in my life
where I'm asking the question, Okay, what now? And I've
got all these abilities and these experiences, and I've got
all this stuff, but how do I go forward with
it now? And I'm I'm in a kind of a
(47:16):
six to twelve month discovery period trying to figure that
out as we speak.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
You need somebody outside the jar, brother.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
No, it's part. That's part of it. I mean, I've
got I've got a part of a mastermind with some
with a guy actually too, and I am actively talking
to guys just to try. I know. I can't come
up with it myself. I need input from other people
and I'm I'm pursuing that quite vigorously.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
Well that's what I do. We'll have to talk.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
We're talking now, dude. What should I do?
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Job? Why? Yeah, Well, I'll see you in front of
high brow yeap. What's this three level pyramid? To describe
you described earlier, this brain friendly communication design? What's the
three level pyramid? Did we already talk about that or not?
Speaker 1 (48:07):
No, this is one of my favorite things that I
came up with. This, Like in the early early years
of what was called e learning, I was involved in
a company that was developing training, and we were on
the front edge of e learning when training was first
going out on the web, and these companies were just
taking these massive pdaffs and throwing them out on the
(48:29):
web and saying, oh, we've got e learning. You've got
to be kidding me. You've just done an info dump.
That's not e learning. And my exposure to in practice
of web design taught me that you've got to very
quickly hook people. And that's the top. If you think
of a pyramid with three levels, the top level is
(48:51):
the distilled essence or the point. You got to get
to that right now, real simple, real quick. So on
a homepage, on a a speech, on an email, get
to that that hooks the brain says, Okay, this is
for me. Now I know I'm going to listen. The
next level down is a little more context, an outline
(49:13):
or a story, or a little bit more for someone
to say, oh, okay, okay, now I see how this fits.
The bottom level is the details. You don't lead with
the details. You allow a brain friendly progression from one
point to a scattered set of related points to the rest.
(49:34):
And all clinical papers are written this way. For in
the healthcare field. They start with, you know, here was
the study we did boom, here's what happened. Here's a
little outline of how we did it, and then here's
all the data. And even if you think about a book,
the structure of a book, the top of the pyramid
(49:57):
is the title and the subtitle. This is the point.
The table of context is the outliner summary, and then
there's the rest of the book. Turns out we can
use this what I call stratification. It's three level stratification
for designing just about everything because it's how the brain
(50:17):
wants information. Let me know right now why I should care.
Give me a little context. Now I'm ready to go deeper.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
Okay, Bair, enough, so talk to me a little bit.
We have a few more minutes. And I don't think
we covered it. You mentioned it. Keywords. How do you
work with people or companies and finding various keywords in
what you do? Because we know what keywords are when
(50:48):
it comes to Twitter and this man, right word, So
how are you using keywords? How do you find them?
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Keywords? Actually, it's the same thing. Keywords are or hashtag.
So when they came to be called on social media hashtags,
there what's called metadata. So in the computing world, metadata
is information about information. So you would store some stuff
and then you would put keywords around it so that
if somebody would search, it would be oh, that's this. Okay,
(51:18):
So keyword, hashtag, metadata are all the same, but it's
a way of saying, this is what this is about.
So what I do when I help companies or individuals
with clarity is I just ask a whole bunch of questions.
You and I have done this before in our conversations.
You know how I interrogate and how I how I
(51:39):
ask a lot of questions. Well, what I'm doing is
I'm trying to bring your ideas to the surface. And
what always one hundred percent of the time happens is
certain words and themes emerge. They just do, and I'll
ask more questions and it'll come up. And then after
about thirty or forty five minutes, I see the keywords.
(52:01):
It's it's obvious to me and I but they don't
even know they've been saying it because they're so used
to thinking the way they think. But I've drawn out
those keywords, and then I can go back to them
and say, is this really what you're all about and
it's like a revelation.
Speaker 3 (52:16):
So you're using the keywords. In this case, the sequence
is keywords help clarify the purpose.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
Correct, because keywords clarify and summarize, and that is so powerful.
People don't realize how powerful summarization and keywords are. But
if you know, in a very short compass of words,
exactly what you're saying, or exactly who you are, or
exactly what your message is, it's so much easier for
(52:46):
other people to process it, and it's so much easier
for you to explain it to somebody.
Speaker 3 (52:51):
Right, And that's what communication is about. It's a fact.
If you don't have your purpose and you don't know
how to express that purpose, it's never going to go
across the distance. One of the big realizations is one
band had this singer. I said, you are aware there's
an audience. Well, yeah, I said, do you have an
intention to communicate to this audience? Totally didn't get it,
(53:15):
you know, I just sing, I said yeah, but do
you have an intention? Okay, when you're sitting across a
person having a coffee and he's sitting here, are you
like looking down and just drinking your coffee? Or are
you paying attention to this guy and you want to
communicate to him and see if he's getting it. Well,
(53:36):
that's different, I said, no.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
No, it's not the same thing.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
So yeah, we're both barking up the same tree. Well,
anything you want to say to the listener about your
services or books or products and how they can contact
you online.
Speaker 1 (53:57):
And stuff like that, yeah, I can easily be found
on the web at Steve Woodrooff dot com. And that
explains my clarity stuff. And also as far as social platforms,
I was a very early adopter with all forms of
social media, but I've kind of narrowed it down mostly
LinkedIn because of my business. That's been my business focus.
So if you look for Steve Woodroff on LinkedIn, you'll
(54:19):
definitely find me. I make plenty of noise there. Hopefully
it's not all noise. Maybe some of its signal and commute.
You got that right. And so I work with people
in as briefly as one hour, helping them come up
with a way to answer the question what do you do?
(54:40):
How do you introduce yourself in a way that's compelling,
that's top of the pyramid, compelling that will draw people
and I can do that exercise with people in an hour,
but I also spend two hours, half days, full days
with people and companies that want to dig deep into
their brand identity and into their messaging. And then with companies,
(55:01):
the workshops can be anywhere from you know, two hours
to full days to off site on site, multiple workshops,
different topics, touching on specific aspects of communication. So there's
a whole variety of ways I can work with people,
which is really fun because the fact is we need
clarity for everything. Everything needs clarity, and so it's almost like, well,
(55:27):
I like to say it this way, I can help
eight billion people minus one. Minus one is brother Dominic
under a vow of silence on a deserted island. He
doesn't need any help communicating clearly, everybody else does.
Speaker 3 (55:46):
Well, I'm going to push back and say, I think
there's two people you can't probably help, and the second
one might be you.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
That's true, I got you there, that's actually true.
Speaker 3 (56:00):
You may have to call me and I may have
to call you.
Speaker 1 (56:02):
So there, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
Fantastic, Steve. I'm so glad. I wasn't even thinking of
you as a guest until the other day, we had
a great unplanned coffee conversation and then while I was
doing it, my little Invisible Architect voice and said, hey,
I think given our conversation, you should invite Steve. So
(56:25):
there you go. That's how that happened, and I like,
here we are. Well listen, thank you so much, and
I'll put the under the notes. I'll let you know
when this is coming out. In the notes, I'll put
the website and stuff, and people already will hear it
on the thing. So hang on for a minute, ladies
and gents, and thank you so much for listening to
(56:47):
the as Within Without radio podcast on the Law of
Attraction network. I am the jazz philosopher, and remember I
enjoy your feedback. You can also email me at John
at John Novella author dot com. You can text me
at eight one eight seven four zero three seven two eight.
I'm not one of these condescending guys and stuck up.
(57:09):
You can literally text me and I'll answer you back,
and you can set a free zoom call up anytime
you want, and I'll go over my Invisible Architect alignment
protocol and you will get a free copy of my
book and have a free strategy session, So you can
go to my main website to set that up at
go dot johnnovelloauthor dot com, slash register and I'll be
(57:33):
glad to talk with you. So until next week, Flourish
It's your destiny. John Novello, The Jazz Philosopher, Over and out.
Speaker 2 (57:42):
This concludes this week's podcast with the jazz philosopher John Novello.
To learn more about John, visit his website at johnnovelloauthor
dot com. Or to schedule a one on one consultation
with John, visit go dot johnnovelloauthor dot com, com forward
slash register. See you next week
You're listening to the Law of Attraction Radio Network.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to manifesting your dreams. Join renowned Grammy Award winner,
jazz pianist and Amazon number one best selling author John Novello.
Each week as he uncovers the secrets of the Invisible Architect,
the quantum intelligent energy that permeates everything even us. Discover
how to tap into this inner power to use it
(00:28):
to design the perfect life you deserve. The Invisible Architect
as Within So Without is your guide to achieving your
dream life. And now here's your host, the Jazz Philosopher
John Novello.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Hey, everybody, Jonavello here. Hope you guys you're doing all right.
The Jazz Philosopher is on it. Welcome to my Invisible
Architect As Within Without weekly radio podcast, unincredible Law of
Attraction Radio Network, which I'm really excited to be a
part of. The first part of this lifetime was inspiring
others through playing jazz and music and writing and touring
(01:06):
all over the world, and I've been very successful and
fortunate in that area. So I never thought in my
later twilight years that I'd be kind of more of
a personal and spiritual servant of the creator, and that
happened sort of by accident, well maybe not by accident,
because at three years old, I was sort of visited
(01:27):
by this voice that had me point to the TV
and it started my music career. The details of that
are in my book The Invisible Architect, How to Design
Your Perfect Life from Within. And I've had this intuition,
this higher self, this voice. Depending on your beliefs, it
could be the Holy Ghost speaking to me. It could
(01:47):
be Jesus, could be God, it could be who knows right,
whatever is. I've had this interaction and it's blessed me
my entire life. So my wife and I moved here
in and running in the middle of Covid and from
LA we escaped La I used to now not used to.
I think I used to beginning to call it La
(02:09):
because it was becoming Hell. And this is an amazing place, Franklin, Tennessee,
a very historical boutique town. And I met a lot
of incredible people, one who I've invited to be on
the show, and his name is Steve Woodworf, and he
I became friends. And it's funny because there's about six
or seven boutique coffee houses in the area. And I
(02:32):
don't know if he's following me or I'm following him,
but pretty much two or three times a week we
run into each other at these various coffee houses. And
so we were talking the other day, and he's an author,
and the name of my podcast is as Within Without,
and he'll tell you all about what he does. But
the reason why I named it as Within Without is
(02:53):
because we have clarification and clarity of our inner world
than our outer world has a chance. Hence as Without.
So each week I try to feature guests who have
experience in that area. And this week i'd like to
welcome Steve again because we met and Franklin became good friends.
(03:16):
And so in Steve's words, I help people flip the
script on the corporate status quote by finding their focus
there's that inner world and making themselves clear. I belicit
these are his words. Of course, I believe with the
right tactics, anyone can win at work through better communication.
(03:36):
That's why I wrote a book called Clarity Wins to
teach you how to rise above the noise and get referred.
In my second book, The Point, I train you to
use my Clarity Fuel formula, which we're going to discuss today,
I hope, backed by practical brain scigns to communicate with
clarity and focused and as Steve's career spans three decades
(04:00):
from a sales and marketing director, even creating my employer's
first website in nineteen ninety two, to a trusted consultant
for clients like Pfizer, who is no artist. I don't
think I have heard of them.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
They're another one of the top five pharmaceutical companies. They're
headquarters is in Basel, Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Oh wow, and GSK, but he actually started out at
Vanderbilt University and they're esteemed astronomy program. It's like almost
like you're like me. Here I am playing jazz music
and now I'm trying to be a spiritual guru. It
sounds like at one point you wanted to be an
astronaut or something, and here you are providing clarity to people.
So you must have not been clear enough Steve about
(04:43):
being an astronaut.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Well, that's one of the ironies of it is when
I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut,
and I've always loved all things space, but my eyesight
disqualified me from being an astronaut. You had to have
twenty twenty straight on vision none corrected back then, and
I certainly did not amazing.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Because I wanted to be a test pilot. My cousin
went into the day is the Navy Annapolis and he
became a test pilot and he used to come and
take breaks and he's my cousin, and he would tell
me all these stories of flying these jets and doing
all these different things, and I was like kind of
jealous because I thought that would be really exciting. Then
(05:24):
he ended up being a pilot for FedEx. He said
that was boring, but he's got a great question, So
there you go. Well, anyway, Steve's passion for communication landed
him in sales, where he wrestled with imposter syndrome. Despite
all appearances of success, it was only when he begun
to identify and embrace his unique strengths instead of dwelling
(05:44):
on his weaknesses that is true calling became clear. So
now he gets to focus full time on helping others discern, particulate,
maximize their own strengths as an author's speaker, facilitator, and
trainers team. Welcome to without Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Wonderful to be here, John, and I think it's a
wonderful irony that here we are talking on Zoom and
I've done podcasts with people all over the world, and
we're just about two minutes from each other in the
same neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
But the street here.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, I think this is geographically the closest podcast I've
ever done.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Isn't it crazy? It has to go up into a
satellite and through the whatever and down the river, through
the woods to grandmother's house, and there you are, right
down the street. I should have probably just invited you
over here.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, you know, it's Zoom is handy, and so I
really enjoy being able to do podcasts with a variety
of people. And I remember I saw a Facebook memory
of mine from about maybe twelve years ago where Zoom
had just come out and a guy that I was
near by we were testing it out for like the
(06:57):
first time, and I thought, wow, this is a great platform,
And sure enough it has been your heah.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Yeah, it's a very handy. All right, So listen, Although
I read a little bit about your story, why don't
you give me your abridged version of that, then we'll
get into what you do.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Well, we started with the astronaut story, and of course
I didn't qualify. But then I thought I'd go into
astronomy because I love astronomy. So that's why I went
to Vanderbilt. I grew up in Connecticut but came down
to Middle Tennessee and that dream lasted all of one
semester because I ran into physics and calculus. And it
(07:36):
turns out that a career in astronomy is ninety nine
percent physics and math. It's not just looking up at
the stars and wondering. So I got a rude awakening
to the first time that you know, you can be smart,
but you may not be built for anything. And it
turns out I discovered over time, both in my four
(08:00):
years studying psychology and then in my entire work career
that I'm an ideas and words guy. I love ideas,
I love words. I systematically approach and analyze things, and
other people have that mentality for formulas and numbers. I don't,
but I love words.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
It's really interesting because I've been blessed with both and
what sideline is during college, since I was always quote
unquote really smart and at the top of my class,
all the deans and advisors always recommended because I was
in music on the side. I'd played music, but I
didn't ever think about it as a career. I was
playing in clubs. So I went to college and guess what.
(08:43):
I majored in mathematics and logic. The guy doing advanced
calculus and probability statistics, and I was a whiz kid.
But I never really liked it. It was boring, and
I was about ready to go on for my masters
and I'm going, what am I doing? And during that
time I ended up Because this tells you it was
sort of orchestrated from above. A famous producer discovered my
(09:06):
band and I ended up having a hit record while
I was in college, which gave me the taste of
the music biz. So I was thinking, and I'm going
on for my master's in PhD in math for what reason?
Where is that going to get me? But maybe another
job at another university as a professor. And I didn't
see myself sitting in a little cubby hole like an
(09:28):
Einstein coming up with ekele mc square. So I jumped
off of that and went into my music career. But
my math background is coming handy. Well listen, then, how
did you move to the next step and eventually get
into what you're doing now.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
After college, I figured I thought I was going to
go into the ministry, and so after a couple of
years of work and getting married, my wife and I
moved up to New Jersey for what we thought would
be a four year program in a seminary level school,
and there my love of systematic thought, systematic theology, logic, philosophy,
(10:12):
all of that blossomed. But I did not feel I
was ready for the ministry. After two and a half years,
I left that and then we got stuck in New
Jersey for thirty years. But I then began a career
in sales, which I discovered quickly I could succeed in,
but didn't love sales. I'm not a born salesperson, but
(10:35):
I did like marketing. I started to get a taste
of marketing and branding and messaging, and as my career developed,
it moved more and more into continuing to sell, but
more toward marketing, more toward consulting, and somewhere in my
mid forties, I realized that the keyword that explained who
(10:57):
I was was consultant. If I tried to be a salesperson,
it wasn't going to work. I could do it, but
I didn't love it. But what I love doing is analyzing,
figuring stuff out and systematically putting together an answer. And
so when I launched my own company twenty years ago,
(11:20):
it was as a consultant, as a trainer, and eventually
turned into as an author. All focused on this idea
that you got to be clear on who you are,
which includes who you aren't, and run in that and
know how to put the right words around it so
(11:41):
other people can grasp exactly who you are, where you're going,
what your message is. And that's what I do. I'm
all about crafting the words and helping people get clear.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
So you started doing but did you started doing that
before you wrote your first book.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yes. Yeah, I've been doing that for probably close to
fifteen or twenty years, kind of on the side. At first,
I just enjoyed sitting down with people or businesses and
just figuring out their branding. And I did that with
the first two companies I worked with. I worked with
two small companies for the first twenty years of my career,
(12:20):
and because they were so small, I wore that hat.
And turns out I loved the whole process of naming
and logos and branding and positioning. That's what got me
into it. But during that time I also found the
book Strengths Finder, and that revolutionized my view when I
(12:41):
realized it's branding and figuring out what you're good as
not just for companies, it's for individuals. And once I
recognize that the profile of who you are determines how
you succeed in life, I was completely all in on
that and I have been ever since.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yeah, that's perfect congruency to what I do with my
elite one on one mentoring program. I can work with
anybody and one of the first things that I do
is find out there within world, their inner world, find
the clarity so they have a focus and they ah,
that's just like you discovered through the School of Hard
(13:23):
Knocks who you were and where your thing was. Because
once you have that vision and it's clear as then
then you can start making decisions. And so I came
up with this bee, do you have manifestation for me?
So your b is your desire, your do or all
your decisions based on that, and eventually you will have
(13:43):
you have which is the circumstances in your life. So
it's perfect. So then you eventually, but you were freelanced
these years as a consultant, You weren't necessarily on the payroll, right.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Oh No, I've been on my own as a solopreneur.
So I've been developing clients large and small, doing an
increasing number of workshops about how people can communicate clearly,
as well as working with groups, teams and individuals on
their brand identity. And I see these two things as
(14:19):
wonderfully coexisting. You've got to understand your core identity. You've
got to understand what you're all about, what your strengths,
what your superpowers are. Then you can have a message
that reflects it. If you try to have a message
but you don't really know what differentiates you, you're just
going to blend into the background and be a general
(14:42):
jack of all trades or vague, confusing person. And that's
the worst thing we can be in the world, is
a commodity or vague. We've got to be sharp and
precise about what we're all about.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So not only businesses you work with obviously need in
their marketing message so they can stick out in the
marketplace and attract the client that they want to deliver
their product or service to. But obviously individuals also can
use clarity in their life, even if they don't have
(15:16):
a business. Explain how that.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Would work, well, the process of arriving at that is
exactly the same, and it's the same that you use.
I think you may use different words. But the quote
I've made most famous and I wish it was my quote,
but I don't know whoever who came up with it.
I just found it one day and I thought it
was fabulous. It's you can't read the label of the
(15:39):
jar you're in, and that means we are all subjective.
We have all this jumble in our heads, and we're
actually the worst at understanding who we are because we
have so many filters and biases that we often need
someone from the outside to help us gain clarity, which
is the role I occupy, role you occupy, And for me,
(16:03):
that comes down first to identifying the key words. What
are the key words? For me? Was consultant that summarise,
distill the essence of that person. So at one point
I branded my wife. I don't necessarily recommend everybody do that,
but she has got a good sense of humor. She's
(16:25):
the combobulator and I've always loved the word discombobulation just
because it's so funny. But at one point I thought,
you know what, there's got to be a word combobulation
if there's a discombobulate. So I looked it up and
sure enough, combobulation is exactly what you would think someone
who turns chaos into order. And I said, Sandy, that
(16:47):
explains you. Everything you do. You combobulate, and when you
arrive at your key words one or two or three,
you have the secret to know how to navigate because
you know what you ought to be doing, what's your
best at, And it helps you to say no to
(17:09):
ninety eight percent of the things because you know the
two percent you should say yes to.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
It's like an airplane that takes off without a flight
plan and gets into the air and the navigator goes, so, captain,
where are we going today? And the guy goes, I
don't know, yeah, whatever, why'd you even take off?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Well? I often liken it to a GPS, where you
don't put put in the destination. You know, the idea
of the GPS isn't to just narrate where you're going.
You've got to put in where you're going and then
it'll help you get there. But if you don't know
where you want to get to. And many people go
through much of their career, maybe their whole career, maybe
their whole life, without knowing what the destination could be
(17:55):
or should be.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
I agree. Yeah, I get many people that are even
retired that still don't know. But they know they're retired.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah they got that much, they got that keyword. But
and I firmly believe that we are all uniquely knit together.
We all have a purpose. And that purpose may have
nothing to do with a particular job role, or a
particular industry or a particular company. It's higher than that.
(18:25):
And the best thing I can do with individuals is
help draw that purpose out, help read the label of
that jar so that they can say, oh, this is
where I ought to be, this is what I ought
to be doing. And that is one of the most
mind bogglingly wonderful things. It's my favorite thing in the
(18:45):
world to do.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Oh yeah, when that happens, it's amazing. I had one client,
for some reason, she had it in her head that
she had to have this big, huge, feed the world
cure hunger purpose, and so her real purpose she kept
overlooking because she had a fixed idea. There's that word
that it had to be a very big purpose, right. Yes,
(19:09):
I'm working with her one on one and I asked
her a question one day. I said, so if money
wasn't a problem, and asked her all these filtering type questions,
and she stopped me before I even got through the
rest of them. She goes, Oh, I just like to knit.
I just sit around and I watched TV and I
(19:33):
watched my grandchildren play in the floor, and I like
to knit. So you're probably very good at it, because
I don't know how to knit. She goes, oh, yeah,
I'm really good. I make all these things for the
family and blah blah blah. So she's talking, she's like
lighting up.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
You know, you can see Alora, And I'm going, you know,
in my mentor program, I have a little philosophy that
invisible architect, God source you, versual consciousness or whatever.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
When you light up because there's something that you just
love because you love it, that's the architect talking to
you and attracting you, kind of letting you know something.
So pay attention. What do you mean anyway, I'm not
going to do the whole thing on that. All I
know is is now she knits for a living and
(20:23):
she sells her things, and I said, you're so good.
So she started telling her family members and everything. And
now they got all kinds of people that are always going, hey,
who knitted that? Oh? Surely did? Oh next thing? You know,
she's got her own little solo entrepreneur kind of business
on the side, and she just absolutely loves it. And
here it was right in front of her all the time.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
No, that's that's awesome. And it's the light the light
up moment that I really live for when people can
get the lights turned on and it's like an epiphany. Uh,
the information, the stuff has been in their head all along,
but they haven't known how to put it together. And
that's my job is to help put it together and
(21:06):
then to say, oh, well if I attach these three
words to that, and then I can take who I
am and maybe go in this direction or no, wonder,
I hated that job. I'm not built for that. That
doesn't give me any joy. And if people can live
and walk with joy in their lives because they're doing
(21:26):
the thing that's dead centered bullseye in their sweet spot,
what could be better than that?
Speaker 3 (21:33):
What could be better? I call that the joy of creating.
Some people think creating just means you have to be
a poet or a musician or a painter. No, I
can always tell, and I use this as a barometer
in life. If I'm going to have my car worked,
one I can tell if the mechanic is going to
work on my car as somebody I want to hire
because I can see his joy car as an engines
(21:55):
And who would you rather work on? The guy at
the dealership who goes to work every day and can't
wait to punch out? You want him to work on
your car who doesn't have the joy of engines and
carsn't getting dirty and grease and shape. Or the guy
that loves engines. Obviously he's found his thing and he's
not trying to be out of the box. He knows
what he is doing and he's good at it doesn't
(22:15):
really matter what it is. So I totally agree. So
what is this? Since we're talking about it, we're probably
skirting around the engines this clarity fuel formula, and you've
probably been talking about it, but you want to be
more specific, You want to be more clear on it.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Clear yeah, So we've actually been talking more about the
identity and focus piece of clarity, and then we've talked
a little bit about Okay, now let's put words around it.
The other half of what I do is how systematically,
how can we communicate more clearly as people, as businesses
(22:52):
across the board, whether it's marketing or sales, or project
management or leadership and all that. We're using words all
the time, but there is so much unskillful use of words,
so much overwhelmed, too much information, vagueness. In fact, I
saw this blew my mind this morning. I saw a
job posting, and this was with a farmer company and
(23:16):
they were looking for somebody, and they said, here's the
list of the twenty three key responsibilities for this job.
And it was this massive, undifferentiated, confusing, overwhelming list. That
is bad communication.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Okay, impossible job description. It sounds like.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
It's terrible, and we're full of it. Bad taglines, bag sales, picious,
bad presentations. The world is full of bad communications. So
I for years labored with the idea that maybe there
could be a formula, a simple formula that everybody could
use for every form of communication. And that's my second book,
(24:01):
the point. It's got four rules, eight tools, and it's
I've tried to make it as simple and distilled as
possible that if you want to get into and it
comes down to being what I call brain friendly. The
human brain is your customer. That's where your words go,
that's where your message goes. And if the brain doesn't
(24:24):
like the way it's hearing things, it will shut it off.
But all the best communicators for all generations have known
that you've got to get to the point quickly. You've
got to be relevant right away. You've got to be
engaging by using stories and specifics and snippets. And so
I lay out the four rules and the eight tools
(24:45):
in this book that anybody can apply it. My training
workshops led up to this book and now they're all
built on this book. And so this has to do
with being skillful with one whether or not it has
to do with your focus or identity. It comes down
to can you write a good email? Can you make
(25:06):
a good presentation? Can you design a good website? And
those principles are all out there that anybody can embrace
and apply.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
So when somebody do you work with people one on
one and as well in through workshops.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Most of my one on one work is still on
more of the identity and personal branding stuff and then
the other the workshops, most of them are on communication
formula and how all of you can do that. But
one of my favorite corporate workshops is combining that a
(25:44):
corporate a personal branding workshop where we work with a
bunch of individuals and I facilitate people coming to grips
with their identity and giving each other in put on
their keywords, and oh my goodness, that's a powerful exercise.
I absolutely love doing that in groups because there are
multiple people then looking at the jar that can help
(26:07):
you figure out who you are, and that's that's my
favorite workshop of all.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
And in the process, they're learning themselves because they're interacting
and seeing other clients inside the main a's jar and
they're on the outside and somebody else. It's like a
good friend of mine always said, she's like a brilliant masseuse,
but you know, she can't really give herself a great.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Massage exactly sit there and you just work on your arm,
and yeah, you can't really do it, you know what
I mean, Because it's hard to be objective because you
have to be exterior from the situation to be objective
and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
So yeah, and the irony, the logical and true irony,
is I cannot be clear about myself. So my nickname
is the King of Clarity. But I have to rely
on other people to get clear on me because I
can't be objected. And so I have other people that
I walk closely with who help keep me straight and
(27:09):
give me input, and I run stuff past them because
I'm a total bonehead when it comes to looking at
my own jar. And that's the rule. So, I mean,
that's the way it is. So you know, I can
sit down with somebody in twenty minutes that I've never
met and figured them out. But I can sit and
spin and circle the drain forever on some stupid thing
(27:29):
that I can't see clearly.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
No, yeah, that's just the nature of the isness of
the situation. And I think we all need to get
objective observations to help us clarify certain things. So you
spent years developing this sort of universal formula, do you
actually have a I sort of have my own formula
(27:54):
of communication. To me, communication is cause distance of fact
and then if their communications returned and then it's reversed.
The receipt point now becomes cause, goes across the distance
and comes. And I use that in my artistic world
because as a musician, I've done a lot of Sometimes
(28:16):
I get hired by record companies, not any more and
more more sort of quasi retired. They'll call me up
and want me to go in my heyday listen to
one of the acts that they signed, and I'll go
at their rehearsal and I'll listen, and I'll see the
band on stage and I'll go, well, that's really interesting.
Or at a club, these people are just playing music.
(28:37):
They're not even fully conscious and aware that there's an audience.
They don't care, So that means they're unknowingly being caused
because they have enough expertise to perform, but they don't
have an intention, key word to get it across this distance,
whether it's ten feet or Madden Square Garden to the audience.
(29:00):
And the only reason they know there's an audience is
if somebody booze or doesn't clap, or if they give
them a standing ovation, then they go, oh, well that
was great, But they don't even know why they got
to standing ovation, so they can't keep duplicating the process.
I have to work with them on the communication being
a two way flow back and forth. So what kind
(29:21):
of a communication formula do you work with people? Written?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
So here's the framework, and I boiled it down to this.
So there are two key perspectives up front. You have
to have. Number one is we all have the same competition.
We're all up against the noise and distraction and confusion.
That's that is our competition. It's not some company that
(29:49):
does the same thing as you. We've got to break
through the noise. Okay, So as human beings, eight billion
human beings on the planet, we all have the same
competition noise. But we all also all have the same customer,
which is the human brain. And the human brain has
an operating system. It wants what it wants the way
it wants it. And so if we're going to communicate
(30:11):
to the brain, we got to understand what the brain wants,
how it works. So those two things are the starting point,
and then I boiled it down to four rules on
how you package your information. First, you have to have
a point a destination. This is that destination in the GPS.
(30:31):
But it's true of an email or anything else. You've
got to have a point you go me somewhere. Second,
you've got to quickly get to the point in a
way that the brain says, Ooh I want that, Oh
that's relevant, Oh that's important. You can't just wander around,
you can't just dump everything. You've got to quickly let
people know what the point is or they'll tune you out.
(30:54):
The third is you've got to get the point aross
In other words, I mean something with those words, but
those words may not have the same meaning to you.
I may have to make sure that I define, explain,
and illustrate so that the meaning comes across. And then
the goal fourthly is I want to get people on
(31:15):
the same page. We want to reach alignment and agreement.
Those four simple rules apply to every form of communication,
from a podcast to an email, to a book to anything.
That's what the brain is looking for. And then when
it comes to illustrating and getting the point across and
(31:37):
helping people, you want to paint pictures in people's minds.
You don't want to bore them.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
So I are always good.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah, So I gave eight tools. I put them all
under s's. So the eight tools are statements, snippets, specifics, stories, stakes.
What are the stakes. It's either it's important or it's not.
And if it's not important, I'm not going to pay attention.
Symbolic language, which is the analogies and word illustrations, side
by sides, comparisons and summaries. All I did was arrange
(32:11):
it in a group of eight put s's on it.
But the fact is that for thousands of years, this
is what great writers and speakers have done. They've used analogies,
they've used stories, They've known how to summarize, they know
how to use specifics, they know how to get to
the point quickly. And so you don't have to be
a PhD in communication to be a great communicator. You
(32:32):
just have to apply these simple tools and rules. And
you went.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Exactly so, how would you explain the function of charisma, Because,
especially in my former musical business, there are some musicians
that have so much charisma that that law of attraction
(33:04):
I don't even like the word anymore, but their natural,
organic charisma supersedes almost every rule and everything one can
think of, which means they're either unconsciously so God given
with their talent that they're doing all these things naturally,
(33:25):
or their expertise in charisma is so high that it
bypasses all of this and the audience just gets it
right away. Like, for example, in the speaking world, one
of my favorite speakers used to be John F. Kennedy.
When he started speaking, it was within three sentences he
had you yep, just as rhythmic, flow, poetically his use
(33:50):
of the language, and you can tell his intention was
just there. Clinton another politician was really not his wife
forget her Bill, and various speakers like that. And musically
it's the same thing. I'll go to see. There's all
these rules in music, like you're not supposed to turn
(34:11):
your back to the audience, and you're supposed to pay
attention to this and that the don't. Invariably, somebody like
Miles Davis comes around, turns his back to the audience
and plays notes that he doesn't care if you even
ever understand anything he does. He just does it. And
he's one of the greatest iconic jazz musicians of all time. So,
given the the wide range of rule breakers out there
(34:37):
because of charisma or talent or expertise, what is your
explanation of that.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
I think there are a relatively small number of people
that just have that magic. I'm just gonna call it magic.
But you know what I mean, this magnetic enthusiastic a
way to project themselves. And whether it's musically or painting
or speaking, it's a very small percentage, and it is magic.
I mean, it's wonderful to see. But how about the
(35:06):
rest of us. The rest of us need to communicate
effectively and so and I would hold that those people,
those magicians, would be even better if they obey the
other rules, but in some kind and sometimes they're just
going to succeed no matter what.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
So but sometimes if you give them too much, too
many rules, it messes them up because they start getting
distracted because they don't know what they're doing when they're
doing it, and think about it, it messes them up.
I had that happen with a prodigy that I was teaching,
and I had to be very careful when I taught him.
I had to teach him in a different way because
(35:41):
the more rules of music that I got him into,
which I thought would help him, were starting to hinder
him because he had so much natural talent. So then
I had to change my whole way of teaching him.
It was a real challenge. I did it, but it
was a challenge.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yeah. Well, I think even the most charismatic person can
benefit from saying you know what, I got to get
to the point or people going to tune me out.
They're subject to the same principles that the rest of
us are, and they can also if they try to
say too much too fast without you know, giving people
(36:17):
space to process, they're not going to succeed as well.
So charisma is not a be all, end all, But
for most of us, we just have to learn how
to apply the basic principles and practices that work. But
I think if you go back to what we were
talking about before, John about identity, the most charisma that
(36:40):
we're going to be able to unleash as individuals, it's
going to come out when we find our sweet spot.
That's when, even if I'm only a ten percent charisma person,
that ten percent is going to come out when my
eyes are lit up and I know what I'm doing
and I know what I'm saying, and I know I
belong here. So reaching that sense of clarity about who
(37:02):
you are is at least going to unleash probably the
most charisma you're gonna have yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Agree, except that what I was kind of almost saying
is there are some people that are so natural, whether
they're past lifers which is another podcast, and their abilities
to come through or God's blessing, whatever, they just naturally
always are in the zone, always have their sweet spot,
(37:27):
and naturally the moment they play or pick up the instrument,
it's just goose pimples all the time. What I'm saying
is is I've met many of those people in my
business because who I am, and I've learned a lot
from them, and it's real interesting those type of people
like Chickory was one of my best friends, one of
the greatest jazz penists who have ever lived, and he
(37:48):
passed away with three and a half years ago. He
used to send me students because he had no clue
on what he was doing when he was playing. I'm
a real good pianists and so is he, but he
was this natural. I had to study a decent amount
to get to my level of ability, and I have
(38:08):
natural talents as well. He had natural talent, but he
didn't have to hardly study very much. He just did it,
and so when he would play, he didn't know what
he was doing. As a guest in one of my
music workshops and a couple of people asked him a
question and he just looked at me and said, John,
g the idea, how to tell this guy what I'm doing?
Speaker 1 (38:30):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
So it's it's it's it's real interesting. But I've learned
a lot from that that I apply into my mentoring.
And because when you do, you're right, those are extra
ets God knows from where. But what about the rest
of us? And so if we can break down some
(38:53):
fundamentals and help have those people find out their clarity
and their sweet spot, then they have a good chance
of being able to rise to a higher level of
what their purpose is.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
Absolutely, I agree.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
This is an interesting you actually mentioned this. So how
does your focus on clarity, because now that you become
an expert in that area, how has it impacted you
and your family? H Because well, family, if anybody is
families can really have problems.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
You know, Well, we've already found out that my wife
is the combobulator. We had five boys and they're all
grown up now, and we even when they were young,
and even before I had hammered out all this clarity stuff,
we our perspective was We're not going to force these
kids into any path. We're going to look at who
(39:48):
they are, find out how God made them, and try
to draw out their strengths and then guide them into
what will be best for them. And that's what we
did with with all five. And they're very different from us.
My wife and I are both college graduates. She's got
a master's degree, I did graduate work. We've only had
(40:10):
one of our five sons complete college. They weren't wired
for academics, and that's okay, But a lot of other
families would have pressured their kids into, you know, be
a doctor, be a lawyer or whatever. I think that's terrible.
But one of the greatest examples my oldest son was
adrift for a while after school and he was just
(40:31):
working in restaurants and working in bars and just kind
of you know, living, not going anywhere. But he developed Actually,
he and I together at the same time, developed the
fascination with whiskey, learning about bourbon and whiskey, and this
was something we got to team up together as adults,
and he became fascinated and he ran with it, and
(40:53):
he was always personable, and so he started networking his
way and meeting people and learning about and pretty soon
he developed a career as in being a brand ambassador.
And then he created his own online presence called Whiskey
with a View taking beautiful pictures another one of his
gifts of Whiskey out in the wild, and he gained
(41:16):
over eighty thousand followers, and he parlayed all of this
into multiple positions and now he's being backed by venture
capital to create his own brand and launch his own brand.
So all of this driven by this passion, this thing
that took hold of him and that he ran with.
(41:38):
And it's just been delightful over the years to see
this workout in my own kid and for him to
go off on his entrepreneurial journey. And he, because of
his passion, because of who he is, has so many
people have been drawn to him to help him succeed,
(41:59):
and he just pours himself out to them, and it's
it's the most rewarding thing you can do as a parent.
See your kid, see your kid just take off like that.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Yeah, that's the law of attraction sort of work in
the magneticness of passion. Because the normal concept of law
of attraction is we might have talked about this the
other day is a very narcissistic I am wealthy, I
am this I and they've they've disconnected themselves from source
(42:29):
or God or the power and don't realize that we're
the distributor of this power. And so the passion that
God gave us, and you can have passion for more
than one thing, but the passion or passions that God
gave us. When we discover those, what happens is is
(42:50):
God gets behind you because you're paying attention to what
he's giving you as compared to not paying attention. God's
sitting there, going to there is again going off doing
this and that, and that I gave him this and
he's not listening to me. So one of my exercises
is going into the silence. I don't want to use
the word meditation, but going into the silence because God,
(43:12):
the architect whatever operates a very high frequency. So just
like a radio station, if you want to listen to
a certain jazz station, you first have to know there's
a radio, and you have to know there is a
jazz station, and then you have to know what the
call letters are of the gyan station, and then you
also have to like you use the word, the noise,
all the distraption. You have to tune out the noise.
(43:34):
I mean, if I want to listen to a jazz
station and there's a party going on in my house,
I'm going to have to either go in the other
room or tell everybody to shut up and kick up
so I can listen to this station. And most people
aren't listening to the voice that is there. Because when
I get people working one on one and they go, well,
you were blessed at three years old. God talked to you.
(43:56):
God didn't talk to me, never talks to me. It's
one of the common I get when I work with
people and I said, no, what if I said, God
is talking to you and you're not paying attention because
of abc D you need and they never thought about it.
So once I get that happening, they start paying attention.
Next thing you know, they almost all start to have
these little religious experiences. Some people call it intuition and
(44:18):
telepathic communications because it's true. Words are everything with the language,
but there's other forms of communication. Telepathic communication doesn't sort
of use words. There's concepts that come just appear to you,
and sometimes you have to feel those concepts. As a musician.
When I go to play, the audience may be out
there and I may pick up this audience collectively feels
(44:42):
like they need this emotion. So then I would start
playing the blues certain way, and next thing, you know,
the audience is like, WHOA, what's he doing right? And
so these concepts have to be paid attention to. I
(45:03):
call them cosmic whispers. We're always having cosmic whispers. And
then if you learn how to do what you're doing
the key words of those cosmic whispers and turning those
words into clarity intention, I think you got the best
of both worlds, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Yeah, it's wonderful when you might struggle. Many people struggle
for years and they don't exactly know what they're here for.
They don't exactly know what their best best use of
their abilities, and that can be really real downer actually is,
particularly as you get older, you get into your twenties
(45:39):
or thirties or forties, you start to say, man, I'm
not even sure if I want to do what I'm doing.
And a lot of times you do have to back
away from all that stuff and take some time, and
you may need some help with it too. To say
all right, And I love the question you used it earlier.
I mean, if money mad, if money was irrelevant, what
(46:00):
would you want to do? And a lot of times
then you'll you'll find the passion it's it's been sitting
there all along.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
It's not but usually you invalidate it because when it
pops up, you go, well, that's not going to make me.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Nobody's gonna care about my knitting. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, and
so and clarity. You know, you can have clarity, but
there it evolves too, because you know, now I'm in
this sort of twilight years. I'm in my mid sixties now.
I've been building a business that had a lot of
corporate elements to it for twenty years, and I am
(46:33):
now shifting. And the direction I'm shifting to is uncertain.
I know I want to work more with individuals. I
know I want to work more with consultants, small businesses.
I know clarity can be applied in like a thousand
different ways, and I'm not sure right now what the
next ten years are going to be. I know it'll
(46:54):
be me being me doing clarity, but I don't know
what form that's going to take. And so I'm in
the middle of this evolution right now in my life
where I'm asking the question, Okay, what now? And I've
got all these abilities and these experiences, and I've got
all this stuff, but how do I go forward with
it now? And I'm I'm in a kind of a
(47:16):
six to twelve month discovery period trying to figure that
out as we speak.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
You need somebody outside the jar, brother.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
No, it's part. That's part of it. I mean, I've
got I've got a part of a mastermind with some
with a guy actually too, and I am actively talking
to guys just to try. I know. I can't come
up with it myself. I need input from other people
and I'm I'm pursuing that quite vigorously.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
Well that's what I do. We'll have to talk.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
We're talking now, dude. What should I do?
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Job? Why? Yeah, Well, I'll see you in front of
high brow yeap. What's this three level pyramid? To describe
you described earlier, this brain friendly communication design? What's the
three level pyramid? Did we already talk about that or not?
Speaker 1 (48:07):
No, this is one of my favorite things that I
came up with. This, Like in the early early years
of what was called e learning, I was involved in
a company that was developing training, and we were on
the front edge of e learning when training was first
going out on the web, and these companies were just
taking these massive pdaffs and throwing them out on the
(48:29):
web and saying, oh, we've got e learning. You've got
to be kidding me. You've just done an info dump.
That's not e learning. And my exposure to in practice
of web design taught me that you've got to very
quickly hook people. And that's the top. If you think
of a pyramid with three levels, the top level is
(48:51):
the distilled essence or the point. You got to get
to that right now, real simple, real quick. So on
a homepage, on a a speech, on an email, get
to that that hooks the brain says, Okay, this is
for me. Now I know I'm going to listen. The
next level down is a little more context, an outline
(49:13):
or a story, or a little bit more for someone
to say, oh, okay, okay, now I see how this fits.
The bottom level is the details. You don't lead with
the details. You allow a brain friendly progression from one
point to a scattered set of related points to the rest.
(49:34):
And all clinical papers are written this way. For in
the healthcare field. They start with, you know, here was
the study we did boom, here's what happened. Here's a
little outline of how we did it, and then here's
all the data. And even if you think about a book,
the structure of a book, the top of the pyramid
(49:57):
is the title and the subtitle. This is the point.
The table of context is the outliner summary, and then
there's the rest of the book. Turns out we can
use this what I call stratification. It's three level stratification
for designing just about everything because it's how the brain
(50:17):
wants information. Let me know right now why I should care.
Give me a little context. Now I'm ready to go deeper.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
Okay, Bair, enough, so talk to me a little bit.
We have a few more minutes. And I don't think
we covered it. You mentioned it. Keywords. How do you
work with people or companies and finding various keywords in
what you do? Because we know what keywords are when
(50:48):
it comes to Twitter and this man, right word, So
how are you using keywords? How do you find them?
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Keywords? Actually, it's the same thing. Keywords are or hashtag.
So when they came to be called on social media hashtags,
there what's called metadata. So in the computing world, metadata
is information about information. So you would store some stuff
and then you would put keywords around it so that
if somebody would search, it would be oh, that's this. Okay,
(51:18):
So keyword, hashtag, metadata are all the same, but it's
a way of saying, this is what this is about.
So what I do when I help companies or individuals
with clarity is I just ask a whole bunch of questions.
You and I have done this before in our conversations.
You know how I interrogate and how I how I
(51:39):
ask a lot of questions. Well, what I'm doing is
I'm trying to bring your ideas to the surface. And
what always one hundred percent of the time happens is
certain words and themes emerge. They just do, and I'll
ask more questions and it'll come up. And then after
about thirty or forty five minutes, I see the keywords.
(52:01):
It's it's obvious to me and I but they don't
even know they've been saying it because they're so used
to thinking the way they think. But I've drawn out
those keywords, and then I can go back to them
and say, is this really what you're all about and
it's like a revelation.
Speaker 3 (52:16):
So you're using the keywords. In this case, the sequence
is keywords help clarify the purpose.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
Correct, because keywords clarify and summarize, and that is so powerful.
People don't realize how powerful summarization and keywords are. But
if you know, in a very short compass of words,
exactly what you're saying, or exactly who you are, or
exactly what your message is, it's so much easier for
(52:46):
other people to process it, and it's so much easier
for you to explain it to somebody.
Speaker 3 (52:51):
Right, And that's what communication is about. It's a fact.
If you don't have your purpose and you don't know
how to express that purpose, it's never going to go
across the distance. One of the big realizations is one
band had this singer. I said, you are aware there's
an audience. Well, yeah, I said, do you have an
intention to communicate to this audience? Totally didn't get it,
(53:15):
you know, I just sing, I said yeah, but do
you have an intention? Okay, when you're sitting across a
person having a coffee and he's sitting here, are you
like looking down and just drinking your coffee? Or are
you paying attention to this guy and you want to
communicate to him and see if he's getting it. Well,
(53:36):
that's different, I said, no.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
No, it's not the same thing.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
So yeah, we're both barking up the same tree. Well,
anything you want to say to the listener about your
services or books or products and how they can contact
you online.
Speaker 1 (53:57):
And stuff like that, yeah, I can easily be found
on the web at Steve Woodrooff dot com. And that
explains my clarity stuff. And also as far as social platforms,
I was a very early adopter with all forms of
social media, but I've kind of narrowed it down mostly
LinkedIn because of my business. That's been my business focus.
So if you look for Steve Woodroff on LinkedIn, you'll
(54:19):
definitely find me. I make plenty of noise there. Hopefully
it's not all noise. Maybe some of its signal and commute.
You got that right. And so I work with people
in as briefly as one hour, helping them come up
with a way to answer the question what do you do?
(54:40):
How do you introduce yourself in a way that's compelling,
that's top of the pyramid, compelling that will draw people
and I can do that exercise with people in an hour,
but I also spend two hours, half days, full days
with people and companies that want to dig deep into
their brand identity and into their messaging. And then with companies,
(55:01):
the workshops can be anywhere from you know, two hours
to full days to off site on site, multiple workshops,
different topics, touching on specific aspects of communication. So there's
a whole variety of ways I can work with people,
which is really fun because the fact is we need
clarity for everything. Everything needs clarity, and so it's almost like, well,
(55:27):
I like to say it this way, I can help
eight billion people minus one. Minus one is brother Dominic
under a vow of silence on a deserted island. He
doesn't need any help communicating clearly, everybody else does.
Speaker 3 (55:46):
Well, I'm going to push back and say, I think
there's two people you can't probably help, and the second
one might be you.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
That's true, I got you there, that's actually true.
Speaker 3 (56:00):
You may have to call me and I may have
to call you.
Speaker 1 (56:02):
So there, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
Fantastic, Steve. I'm so glad. I wasn't even thinking of
you as a guest until the other day, we had
a great unplanned coffee conversation and then while I was
doing it, my little Invisible Architect voice and said, hey,
I think given our conversation, you should invite Steve. So
(56:25):
there you go. That's how that happened, and I like,
here we are. Well listen, thank you so much, and
I'll put the under the notes. I'll let you know
when this is coming out. In the notes, I'll put
the website and stuff, and people already will hear it
on the thing. So hang on for a minute, ladies
and gents, and thank you so much for listening to
(56:47):
the as Within Without radio podcast on the Law of
Attraction network. I am the jazz philosopher, and remember I
enjoy your feedback. You can also email me at John
at John Novella author dot com. You can text me
at eight one eight seven four zero three seven two eight.
I'm not one of these condescending guys and stuck up.
(57:09):
You can literally text me and I'll answer you back,
and you can set a free zoom call up anytime
you want, and I'll go over my Invisible Architect alignment
protocol and you will get a free copy of my
book and have a free strategy session, So you can
go to my main website to set that up at
go dot johnnovelloauthor dot com, slash register and I'll be
(57:33):
glad to talk with you. So until next week, Flourish
It's your destiny. John Novello, The Jazz Philosopher, Over and out.
Speaker 2 (57:42):
This concludes this week's podcast with the jazz philosopher John Novello.
To learn more about John, visit his website at johnnovelloauthor
dot com. Or to schedule a one on one consultation
with John, visit go dot johnnovelloauthor dot com, com forward
slash register. See you next week
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