March 14, 2023 • 54 mins
What if sharing the authentic story actually got us better results? What if being real was more important than being perfect?
Jason Cercone joins me on the show today for a conversation about brand authenticity and storytelling. Although imposter syndrome might keep us too afraid to share the good, bad, and ugly, doesn't it also make us human? The journey to hitting our goals or building a platform like a podcast (which happens to be Jason's speciality), is not linear...
It takes putting ourselves out there even when it's scary and learning to befriend failure as a teacher. As Jason shares in the episode, it also takes commitment and perseverance. The myth of overnight success might be alluring, but authentic relationships of trust are built in the challenges along the way. To share the authentic story is not only healing for us as individuals, but it gives others permission to be their whole human self.
In this episode:
- Why authentic storytelling gets better results
- The importance of building trust as a brand
- The connection between personal evolution and brand evolution
- Why staying in integrity yields better results
- How play and curiosity keep us going when mastering a craft (like podcasting)
Meet Jason Cercone
With nearly a decade of experience in the podcast world, Jason Cercone has built his brand around the consumptive power of storytelling and simplifying podcast guesting. He helps leaders craft their authentic story and tell it with confidence as a podcast guest while simultaneously maximizing the value of each guest appearance and establishing thought leadership in their niche. You'll also find him hosting Evolution of Brand, a podcast featuring stories and strategies for building an authentic personal brand.
Learn more: https://jasoncercone.com/podcastguestingsimplified/
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Meet our host, Nicole Bellisle:
https://www.nicolebellisle.com
https://www.youtube.com/nicolebellisle
https://www.instagram.com/nicolebellisle/
https://www.tiktok.com/@nicolebellisle
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
Hey leaders, I'm joined today by Jason silicone. Jason
(00:03):
is a podcast branding strategistand he supports people to find
their authentic voices throughpodcasting, he supports people
to find their authority, findthat their thought leadership
and really have that shinethrough in their respective
niche through the reallypowerful platform of podcasting.
(00:23):
In today's show, we're gonna getinto the power of storytelling
as both a technology and amedicine, for revealing the
often unseen aspects of thehuman journey towards success,
and towards reaching our goals.
The journey to becoming athought leader and finding your
authentic voice, shining yourlight out in the world can be a
(00:44):
difficult one. Often, thejourney of entrepreneurship is
actually a spiritual journey ofpersonal transformation, and
self discovery. Because we arefaced with our biggest fears,
our insecurities, the impostershows up at every turn, when we
are about to grow to the nextstage of our evolution. Inside
(01:05):
the episode, we're getting intoall of that, and more. And we're
not shying away from the hardstuff that can come up on the
path to evolving your brand,which is really evolving
yourself, our brand ourbusinesses, what we stand for,
this is all an extension of whowe are as leaders. And today,
Jason has a lot to bring to thetable around how we can be
(01:27):
thinking about this, and usingit in both the evolution of our
brands and the evolution ofourselves. Let's get into it.
Jason, welcome to the show. I'mso excited to share your gifts
and your wisdom with ourlisteners today. Thanks for
being here.
The call, thank you so much forhaving me. I'm really looking
forward to hanging out with youtoday and having a great
conversation.
(01:48):
Likewise, Jason, one of thethings that I admire so much
about the work that you do isthe way that you're connecting
the journey of branding, and allthat comes with that all that
comes with investigating thatpersonal brand, helping it grow,
having an impact in the world,and the connection that has with
the personal transformationjourney. And I want to I want to
(02:11):
start by asking you, How did youchoose this as as your life's
work? Like why is this your why?
And what are some of yourfavorite parts of doing this
branding work with people?
Well, we and we should clarify alot of the branding work that I
specialize. It's in thepodcasting space. And I feel
that this platform allows somuch freedom to explore your
(02:35):
stories to explore yourauthentic self. And to have all
of this come into the world in away that can be easily absorbed.
And something that I've beengrabbing very tightly to lately
is the fact that I get to have aphenomenal conversation in this
moment. As we sit here right nowyou and me in a call this is one
on one. And I get to connectwith somebody that's like
(02:58):
minded, we get to share ideas,we get to learn about one
another. And the byproduct isthe fact that the audience is
now hearing the conversation andthey get to experience it and
learn from it as well. So I lookat podcasting as a phenomenal
platform for buildingrelationships. And to me, that's
what life is all about. Sothat's why I love what I do and
(03:20):
how I got here was not planned.
And I always tell this story. Igot into podcasting back in
2015. Well, after I'd finishedmy undergrad studies, well after
I went to I went to DuquesneUniversity here in Pittsburgh
for my master's degree inleadership. And podcasting was
something that I never evenreally knew what it was I had
got my first iPod. And there wasa little section that said
(03:44):
podcast and I remember thinkingwhat the hell is a podcast. So
pretty much just breezed over itfor many years until 2011. I met
someone that did a podcast andhe told me more about it. I'm
still friends with him to thisday. And then in 2015, my friend
and I launched a podcast. And wedid so for the wrong reasons. We
did it out of spite, because Ifelt that I could do better than
(04:05):
this guy who was trolling me onTwitter about something else I
was doing in my professionalcareer. It was very, very silly.
When I look back on that, I lookback on it with fondness and I
always smile because I say itgot me started. But it was the
worst reason to start a podcastand never should I be comparing
myself to others, especiallywhen I had no experience. But
what I've learned in my time inthis space and connecting with
(04:29):
so many people, whether it bejust through having these
conversations through themicrophone or working with them
more intimately. Everybody has astory to tell. Everybody has
this authentic side to them.
Sometimes they need to tap intoit a little deeper than they are
sometimes it takes a little bitmore effort to get to that
(04:50):
authentic story. But once youbring it out and tell it to the
world, and it starts hitting theright people in the right way.
You can see a person make a bigbreak through. And I can't get
enough of that I love seeingother people succeed. I love
seeing people take their brandto the next level, because
they're utilizing all of thesetools that have been inside them
(05:11):
the whole time. So to wrapthings up, that's why I love
what I do. And I can't getenough of that fact, I get to do
that every day. It's prettyfriggin awesome.
It's amazing. And as someone whohas struggled with finding my
authenticity, and my voice, isat least in the beginning of my
journey into podcasting intobigger expressions of leadership
(05:35):
over the years, I can reallyhear the pain in that moment
that you that you're alluding towhere, you know, you have
something authentic to offer,but you don't yet know how to
communicate it to the world. SoI guess, talk to us a bit more
about what is that suffering inthe people that you're noticing?
(05:55):
What what are some of thosepains that they're feeling? And
then what's the transformationthat that you've seen them go
through on their journey tohaving greater impact,
essentially, because this is areally powerful journey for each
of us to go on of really gettingto know ourselves and then
translating our authenticityinto impact? So what have you
(06:15):
seen in in the people thatyou've been working with,
I think the biggest thing thatholds people back at the very
beginning is imposter syndrome.
And that creeps up often. Andsometimes even after you've made
major breakthroughs, and you'vereached many different levels of
success, it can still creep in,it can still be a very nasty
culprit. And I think a lot ofthat makes people say no one
(06:36):
wants to hear my message. No onecares about my story. What do I
have to offer that somebody elsehasn't already said 15,000
times. But what people fail torealize in the very beginning is
yes, your message, yourknowledge base everything, you
know, that may have been put outthere. But it's been with
somebody else's story tied toit. Nobody's heard it with your
(06:56):
unique spin on it yet. So onceyou find experiences that have
happened in your life, andyou're able to tie that together
with what you do, I mostentrepreneurs start their
businesses start their brands,because they discover a problem,
they feel they have the solutionfor it. And then more than
likely they've experienced thatproblem themselves. So they have
(07:17):
stories that tie into whatthey're trying to accomplish.
Once they get to that point,where they realize that their
spin on this is unique. It'sdifferent. And it might appeal
to person A, when person eightheard that same message from
somebody else and said, Thisisn't for me. It's all about
attracting the right people andpeople love stories. I love a
(07:38):
good story. Nicole, you love agood story. It's why we watch
movies. That's why we watch TVshows, it's why we get invested
in the content that we consume.
So when you're telling yourstory, maybe the break, or I
should say not maybe absolutelythe right people are going to
resonate with your message, thewrong people may turn away, and
(08:01):
that's okay. You don't have toappeal to everyone. And if you
try to, that's a fool's errand,you just can't do it. There's
just no way to satisfy 100% ofpeople 100% of the time, you're
going to have detractors. And assoon as you can make peace of
that, and start focusing more onthe value that you have to give,
that's when the transformationstarts to take place. And that's
(08:23):
when the breakthroughs happen.
And that's a big thing. And as Isaid, I applaud and push people
towards the podcasting platform,because there's so many
opportunities to find shows intheir niche, where their
passions lie, and connectingwith like minded individuals
that are creating content basedaround those passions. If
(08:43):
there's a connection, andthere's synergy, and you do it
strategically, you do the wholeprocess, right? magic can
happen. And that's when yourstory starts to resonate with
the right people. And they startto come into your world where
you can continue to bring valueto them. And then when they know
it's the right move for them tomake a purchasing decision, or
invest in something that's goingto change their life, they now
(09:05):
trust you as the resource that'sgoing to help them reach that
transformation. So in thebeginning stage, it's it's
overcoming that impostorsyndrome. And once you get to a
point to where, you know, theright people are going to
resonate with your story. That'swhen things start to unfold in a
very powerful way.
I love it. I think this pointabout not diluting your niche in
(09:30):
favor of trying to get everyoneto like you basically, I think
that is so key because whatyou're pointing to here is a
level of trust that is embodied,at least that's what I was
really hearing what you weresaying where if you're embodying
your authenticity and very clearthere it was standing in the
truth of your niche. People willfeel that and they trust you
(09:54):
because you are trustworthy,basically, right? Like you're
you're standing In that truth ofyourself, and I do think that's
such an attractor. And I thinkback to moments when, when I've
looked out at the landscape andmaybe done a competitive
competitive analysis, or startedto look to people or accounts on
(10:17):
social media that I've reallyadmired. And you started to get
into that emulation game alittle bit of how do I be like
them? How do I replicate whatthey're doing? Like I am seeing
their version of success? Andmaybe I'm wanting a piece of
that. But in emulating that to atee? Am I sacrificing a piece of
(10:39):
myself? Or am I missing? What myauthentic niche would be that
that part like you said that noone else can contribute to this
world? Because that is that isyour unique gift that no one
else has? No one will say it inthe way that you do. No one will
show up to the challenge and theexact way that you do. So yeah,
(11:00):
I'm really appreciating thatdistinction of don't get caught
in the comparison game. shiningin your uniqueness is part of
the journey to success, and theinner transformation that comes
from being with your innerimposter or befriending your
inner critic. I mean, these arereally difficult things to do.
(11:22):
And I'm curious in what you'veseen, how have you personally
overcome that? Or how have youseen others overcome the hurdle
of, of the imposter syndromewhen that does creep up, because
you're right, even when you havemore and more success, it does
always show up again, and we goto that next level?
Well, it's the old adage of,there's always a faster God,
(11:43):
right. So even if you've reacheda high level, somebody else is
probably higher. And when yousee that, you might say, Oh,
God, I'm not there yet. Butagain, you have to almost
develop tunnel vision, to wherethose highlight reels that
you're seeing, no matter whereyou're at, in your journey. If
you get captivated by thesehighlight reels, you're not
(12:03):
going to truly appreciateeverything that went into the
whoever created that highlightreel, like what they had to do
to get there. And that'ssomething that I advise anybody
that's looking at social media,if you see somebody that's
talking about all these grandthings they've accomplished, I
applaud them for doing that. Butyou don't know exactly what it
(12:24):
took for that to happen. Or ifthat's just what they're putting
on the surface, because youmight pull the curtain back and
discover chaos at everyjuncture. So you can't get
fixated on what somebody else isdoing. And live in a highlight
driven world. You have to writeyour own story and keep your
(12:44):
focus on what it's going to taketo make that story come to life.
And you develop it as you go,you get more confident in the
message you're bringing to theworld, and you don't let outside
forces dictate what you need todo. That requires patience. It
requires a dedication andcommitment to what you're trying
(13:05):
to accomplish. And if you startto venture outside of that,
that's when those highlightreels and all these things that
other people are accomplishingcan really start to mess with
your head. And it can tell youthat you're not good enough. And
that will throw you off anythingthat you might be doing. If
you're starting your ownpodcast. If you look at somebody
else has been around for 20years with this massive
(13:25):
audience, and you wonder why youdon't have one? Well, it's
because they've been around for20 years. You can't expect that
to happen overnight. Many, manypodcasters do come into this
thinking, I'm gonna start a showand everyone's gonna listen to
me. But then when they don'tthey get disappointed and think
they're not good at it. No, it'sthe wrong way to look at it. You
have to start from the beginningand get good at your craft and
(13:46):
develop captivating content thatmakes people want to pay
attention to you. When peoplestart to pay attention to you,
they start telling others to dothe same. That's how you grow.
That's how you build anaudience. But so many people
want that quick fix because theysaw a highlight reel. And they
don't get it and they walk away.
And that transcends podcasting.
That's something that affects usat a lot of different ventures
(14:09):
that we have in our world. LikeI said, I've just gotten to a
point where I spend less time onsocial media. Because what I've
discovered and this is more of apersonal thing, I could be
wrong. I could be right. But itdoes vary from time to time. But
we're in a very algorithm drivensocial media world now. So reels
and tiktoks and algorithmstrying to predict what we want
(14:32):
to see. And at times, I couldscroll through three or four
reels and say, well, thealgorithms off today they have
no I don't want to see this.
This has no bearing on my life.
And it's not helping me grow.
But other times for whateverreason, they'll feed me a bunch
of motivational stuff. That'sthe kind of thing I'd like to
pay attention to. So again, thatalgorithm is trying to figure us
(14:54):
out and bring us this message ofwhat we want to see But there's
more to gain from just keepingour eye on the ball, not letting
that throw us off course. fixateyourself on the right things.
That's how you'll grow. Andthat's how you can overcome any
of that impostor syndrome thatmight creep into your life at
any point in your journey.
(15:15):
This is incredible advice for somany reasons. And I feel like,
yeah, putting the blinders onand having that devotion to your
craft, as you named. It isn't afair comparison to compare
ourselves to someone who's beendoing it for 20 years. And yet,
we totally sensationalize theovernight success, the
(15:37):
entrepreneurs on Shark Tank,the, I mean, even falling in
love, right and having this big,love story, and it's quick and
all Yeah, now you're in it. Andit's just not just not what the
journey truly is, the journeyoften looks more like a
squiggle, which I know there aremany frameworks out there that
kind of point to this. But wecertainly use that terminology
(15:59):
in the sustainability ExecutiveEducation course at Harvard that
I'm a part of. And it's amazingwhat happens when you
acknowledge that the journeyisn't linear, because I think
people relax into, Oh, I'm not,I'm not behind, it's okay to be
human. It's okay that I tookthis detour. And then this thing
(16:23):
happened in life. And now all ofa sudden, I'm having the to be
over here. And oh, I tried this,I prototyped I got got it wrong.
And seeing that not actually aswrong or as a failure. But I
think this whole overnightsuccess culture and the
devaluing of failure as a formof learning, keeps us stuck in
(16:47):
that highlight only culture andonly showing the positive not
showing the dark shadow work,even the the difficult inner
moments where maybe you'recoming off of a zoom call or
shutting down a podcast and youdon't love how it went. And now
you're crying and having to pickup the pieces or really nurture
(17:09):
that inner child or whatever itis. Those are the stories that I
hope we tell more of as medicinefor our humanity of it's okay,
it's okay to to be messy. We arekind of messy as a species.
It's okay to embrace failure tobecause if you learn from it,
(17:33):
there's no shame in it. Andthat's where I feel that we've
lost that message as we've movedon. And as a society, and
personally, as we've grown upinto adulthood from childhood.
It's like we had this, I don'teven know what to call it. This.
This is a complete mindset shiftabout how we embrace failure and
learn from it. As we sit andrecord today, I posted a new
(17:53):
episode of my podcast onLinkedIn. And part of the
message that I put along with alittle video to push people
towards listening. It was it wasan episode about pricing and
charging what you're worth. AndI put in there full
transparency, I struggled withthis big time. But getting help
with it and understanding how tocharge what I know my value is
(18:14):
has changed everything. It makesme feel better about the work
that I do. I know that so manypeople struggle with that. So I
don't want them to think thatit's always been right. For me,
it's always been perfect. No,I've gone through the same pain.
And I've grown from it. Ilearned from that mistake. Think
about infants, infants don'tjust come out running down the
(18:37):
road at full speed, swaddledthere, we handle them with such
TLC, we don't want anything tohappen to them. And then as they
start to get a little older,they start to move, then they
figure out, they can roll over,then they crawl, then they start
to pull themselves up and theywalk and they fall 100 times.
And we look at that and saywell, that's they're just
trying, they're just trying toget better when every time they
(18:58):
fall. That's a failure. But theywe obviously don't have they
don't have the logic conceptbuilt yet. So they are going to
follow them to try again andfall and try again. And then
they get it and they startwalking and they start moving
faster, then you can't keep upwith them. And they're taking
off in the store. And there'sthis evolution of how a person
goes from hardly moving towalking. And there was so many
(19:20):
failures along the way. But wenever think twice. Fast forward
to adulthood. We try to run sofar from failure, because we
think we just can't put thisblemish on the world because
it's going to completely demeanus as a person. No, it shows
that we're human. And it showsthat we are going to try
(19:41):
something we're going to make amistake and if we do make a
mistake, we're going to evaluateit, determine what worked and
what didn't and then say okay, Ican take a little bit of what
worked and apply it to how I trytomorrow. I'm going to be much
wiser. I'm gonna gonna be a muchbetter position to succeed.
That's what we have to embrace.
No matter what you're doinganything in your professional
(20:02):
journey, even your personaljourney, if you aren't willing
to accept that failures areinevitable, and they can be
treated as learning experiences,you're going to hold yourself
back in a major way, because youwon't try things. Because you're
going to be afraid of a negativeresult, you have to look at that
negative result as a teachingmoment, that will make you a
more well rounded, professionalor more well rounded person. And
(20:24):
then you utilize all of thoseskills to just blow things out
of the water as you moveforward. takes time, it takes
patience, and it takesperseverance. But it also takes
a strong will and mindset ofunderstanding that even if I
fail, doesn't matter, thinkabout I always compare this to
golf. I don't play. I mean, Iplay a ton. I'm not the best
(20:46):
golfer in the world, I put myfair share of shots in the
water, so does Tiger Woods, wedon't just throw our golf clubs
away and stop playing the sport.
We look at that mistake and say,Okay, what do I got to do to
improve and get better from thatshot, Tiger Woods has the best
rule, you're allowed to be madat yourself for 10 yards. After
you get 10 yards from where youhit that shot, you can't be mad
(21:07):
at yourself anymore, you have tostart thinking about what's
next. I think we start treatingour failures with that same
respect, okay, I'm gonna allowmyself to be mad for a minute.
But I got to start thinkingabout what's next. That's gonna
put us in a better position tosucceed on our next drive.
I love that mentality of I'mgoing to feel this, but I'm
(21:28):
going to put a time limit on it.
And then I'm gonna think aboutwhat's next that that
relationship to, to failure,there's a couple of things in
what you said that are reallystanding out. One is it let's
just stick with the golfmetaphor for a second. Golf
isn't only hitting balls iswaking up early, having the self
(21:50):
responsibility to get a tee timethat you want it is knowing how
to drive a golf cart andeverything that came before
that, and so on and so on. And,and then there's the relational
aspect of who are you with on,you know, out there playing golf
with and what are thoseconversations that are
happening. And I think oftenwhen we look at work, or when we
(22:12):
look at the output only theproduct only, we're not seeing
the other half of the cycle. Andwe talk a lot about this on the
show, because a lot of ourlisteners are doing things like
cycle thinking, they're startingto design their business models
in more seasonal ways as a wayto mimic nature, instead of
(22:34):
being in this mechanistic viewof seeing our organizations only
as a machine. Instead, we'restarting to see them as living
systems. And nature has spent3.8 billion years prototyping
and failing and learning anddoing exactly what we're talking
about here. And she has figuredout the power of seasons in in
(22:54):
many places, right, and so tohave a season of rest, or to
have a season of reflection,feeling and then getting back
out into the action, and onlythen getting back out into the
producing or the harvesting is avery different mentality than
then we're used to. But I thinkone thing that you're really
(23:17):
hitting home, for me here ismaking the unseen, seen through
through the stories of trialsand challenge. And that it
actually for me, there's a layerof integrity or dishonesty if
we're only telling the glorifiedpart of the story. And we're not
sharing the vulnerability ofwhat it actually took to get
(23:42):
there. And what did I have toovercome? And what mindsets did
I have to break through to evenbe able to be this version of
myself who can now stand in theface of this next fear? Because
the neck like next will alwaysbe there. It's we're always in
constant motion. And so when wethink about our relationship to
fear and some of those mindsetbreakthroughs, you've pointed
(24:04):
out a couple of kind of mindsetshifts that that seem to have
either worked for you or workingamong people that you support.
Are there any other majormindset shifts on this journey
from discovery, reallydiscovering your brand, all the
way up to having that fullyembodied, authentic impact that
(24:25):
we're talking about here? Likewhat are those breakthrough
moments that we can be lookingforward to or figuring out how
to nurture ourselves throughbecause we know it's not going
to be all pretty phased out ofwhat we're saying?
I think a big part of it andthis is where a lot of people
fall short is lack ofcommitment. You have to be
(24:45):
committed to what you're doing.
If you say that you'repassionate about something, and
then you walk away from whateveryou're doing in that space a
month later. You're notpassionate about it. You think
you see an avenue to quick readChis without having to do the
work that gets you there. If youcan find yourself in a field,
where you're passionate aboutyour message, you can wake up
(25:07):
every day excited about the workthat's in front of you. That's
passion. That is commitment. Nowgetting to the front, you're
getting to be from a, in orderto do it effectively, you don't
want to rush it, obviously,because we talked about what you
can learn on the journey, youmiss a lot if you're just trying
to reach the destination. Butyou have to be committed to
(25:30):
whatever your project is. I'llbring podcasting in as an
example. Because we see this somuch in the podcast space.
People hear podcasting, oh, thisis sexy, I want to start a
podcast, then they get into itand realize how much work is
involved. On that front end,they never made a commitment to
say, I'm gonna put a year'sworth of my time into building
(25:52):
this podcast, I'm going to getbetter at my craft, I'm going to
connect with some great people.
And along the way, not only do Iget to have those powerful
connections and have greatconversations, I'm now creating
content that I can share with myaudience. And they're going to
get further in direct andfurther invested in me and my
(26:13):
brand. They just look at it andsay, Okay, I'm going to start
this podcast, and we're going totalk for a little bit, we're
going to put it out into theworld. And it's going to be
great, you know, I know thatmentality exists. Because I did
that in the very beginningmyself. I didn't put we didn't
put any planning into thingsjust started the show. And for
whatever reason, I was ignorantto the fact that you gotta be
(26:34):
really good at this to makepeople want to listen. Of
course, we got some people totune in. But overall, it wasn't
what it could be. Because I wasvery green. And I needed to
learn and I needed to getbetter. And then I finally
realized that down the road, andI took time to educate myself
and get better. So I learnedfrom my mistake. But too often
we attack anything that's infront of us with little to no
(26:57):
commitment about seeing itthrough. And that's where we end
up falling short, because we endup saying, well, this isn't
working, I'm gonna shift course,I'm gonna go this way, I'm gonna
try this new, shiny object. Andwe're not thinking about the
fundamentals that are going toget us to that end line and
inline might even be the wrongthing to say, because I look at
(27:17):
it as a constant evolution, youcan reach certain points and
certain benchmarks, but then youneed to push yourself to get to
the next level. And then to thenext level. That's how you
remove complacency from yourlife. And if you're, if you're
committed to a project, ifyou're committed to a brand, if
you're committed to a business,if you're committed to a
strategy, whether it bepodcasting, video, social media,
(27:41):
you name it, you have to thinkabout the long term and you have
to think about the journeythat's taking place and what
you're going to learn along theway. Something I say on my
podcast often is a big sportsfan, not to bring another sports
metaphor into things. But herewe are, you can watch sports
center and see the touchdowncelebration, or you can even
watch the game. And when theplayer scores, they get to
(28:02):
celebrate. Oftentimes, that'swhat we fixate on. But what
about the 99 yards? What aboutthe drive? What about all the
mistakes? What about the nearinterceptions? What about how
things almost completely changedalong the way? How did the
players persevere as they worktheir way down the field to get
to that point, those are thelearning moments. And when we
embrace those, that's what'sgoing to allow us to excel in
(28:26):
everything that we're doing, andultimately take our brands and
our own personal stories to newheights. That's where it's at.
That's where the magic takesplace.
It's so interesting to, to lookat it through this lens because
I see the sickness of oursocietal culture when it comes
to instant gratification,external validation. Wanting it
(28:50):
now, but not knowing how, like acute little rhyme just came
through there. But yeah, it'slike we just we want the shiny
thing we want the the touchdown,as you're saying. And I think
one thing worth noting is that,yes, it takes hard work. And
yes, it takes the devotion ofshowing up and really mastering
(29:11):
the craft like to really mastersomething is a lifelong journey
or it can be and it's it'sbeautiful. There's beauty in
figuring out how to mastersomething, I think at the same
time. And this shows up for me alot as someone who can fall into
the category of perfectionistor, you know, I just I want to
(29:32):
do it right. I want to do it theright way. And I'll sometimes
sit down and I'll be so overlydiligent. I will be hyper
vigilant about the details ofsomething that it's actually to
a detriment. And I've learnedrecently that this is actually a
trauma response, which has beengreat information for me on my
journey. So I've learned how toor I'm really I'm learning into
(29:54):
how to bring play into thelearning how to how to use that
as kind of Like the equal butopposite energy of Let Me Be
devoted and do the super hardwork. But let me have some
frickin fun with this. And it'slike having conversations like
this and building relationshipsand, and I often you kind of
said this in the beginning too.
But it's really interesting tothink about how the audience is
(30:17):
in conversation with us rightnow as well, even though they're
not here live with us, they'regoing to hear this at a later
date. But what this conversationkicks up in other people, and
what they then go share withothers are the new thoughts that
they're having the aspects oftheir evolution that are now
catalyzed by conversations likethis, this is so fun. To me,
(30:38):
this is the fun part of having acraft and being in devotion. And
I mean, I can only imagine howmuch fun you've been having
working with podcast guests, andin particular, because it's
quite, it's quite a journeybehind the scenes, but then you
do get to show up and you get tobe in that touchdown.
(30:59):
Celebration moment. And, andthat's beautiful. That's also a
beautiful part of the mastery100% It's, it's not putting the
cart in front of the horse. It'sabout appreciating everything
that you need to do to get tothat level. But not trying to
get there so fast that you missthings. I preach to everybody
that I've ever worked with, orever spoken to in any capacity.
(31:20):
Podcast, guesting is an absoluteblast. If you can think of a
more fun way to grow your brand,please tell me because I want to
try it. Because I've been havinga damn good time getting to make
connections just like this. Iget to join like minded
professionals who have a missionwith their podcast who are
(31:41):
looking to grow somethingspecial. And I can contribute to
help them do that. And in doingthat, I get to establish my
thought leadership as someonethat knows what they're talking
about, and someone that canbring more value to a person.
And as the listeners hear this,when it's live, they can
discover whether I'm a personthey want to know more about
(32:04):
want to learn more from or ifthey want to go a different
direction. And either choice iscompletely fine. But I get to
put my message into the world.
And in a more simplistic level,I just get to have a great
conversation today. In thismoment, as you and I are putting
this episode together, you and Iare just having a great time, we
(32:26):
can let everybody know that wealso recorded an episode of my
podcast before we did. So eventhen it's a great screen time
together today. Yeah. Today,right. And we've learned a lot
from each other. And we've gotto explore a lot of different
speaking points. And again, likeyou said it perfectly. It's so
fun. It's such a blast to makethese connections because that's
(32:48):
what I look at podcasting as youcan treat it transactionally.
And you can show up thinkingthat you have to sell or you
have to close somebody, or youhave to make this grandiose
performance, not the case,podcasting is all about
establishing strongrelationships. And it starts
with the person in front of you.
As a podcaster. I know that apodcast, the podcaster is trying
(33:11):
to accomplish building contentthat's going to resonate with
their audience. So it can taketheir brand to new heights. In
understanding that, it allows meto bring value to the mic, so I
can help them do that. I'mthinking long term, I want them
to reciprocate. I want them tocome and join me on my show and
help me do the exact same thing.
(33:33):
But then once the message isheard by the world, like I said
before, if someone resonateswith what I have to say and
would like to connect with me,I'm happy to connect with
anybody and have a conversation,I think it's been revealed I
like to talk. So I'm happy toopen up my door to anybody who
wants to know more about how toembrace this strategy in this
philosophy, to grow their brandand take things to new heights.
(33:55):
And if someone doesn't feel thatway, that's okay, too. They're
allowed to move on and find theperson that impacts them in that
positive way. So you're right,having fun with what you do. It
makes a huge difference. And Ithink it speaks a lot to what we
spoke about earlier aboutcommitment and passion. If you
have fun with what you're doing,and you can wake up in the
(34:16):
morning and look at yourschedule, and instead of saying
I have to do two sales callstoday, I have to do two podcast
interviews, and change that oneword of have to get and say I
get to do two sales calls today.
I get to do two podcasts today.
It makes all the difference inthe world and it's gonna get
talking mindset shift. It putsyou in a much more positive
(34:39):
frame of mind. And when you dothat, oh boy, you can become
unstoppable with what you'redoing.
Agreed. The other secretingredient next to play has been
curiosity, as well. And I thinkthis comes up in the podcasting
landscape. And you mentionedthought leaders, too and so I
want to dig into this a littlebut more because there's a lot
(35:02):
of work that goes into refiningyour message and getting it to
be coherent, and being atransmitter of your purpose
through how you communicate howyou show up authentically, all
all the things that we'retalking about here. And I think,
in addition to the play thecuriosity of talking about
things that really interests me,right, and then going away and
(35:24):
doing a little more research, orI guess, these days, it's
throwing it in an in an AIsearch to see what it kicks back
like that can lead on to anothertopic I know. Ah, but it's that
Curiosity has really kept megoing over the years to have,
instead of looking at this withjudgment, instead of instead of
(35:45):
looking at this with, oh, shoot,I could have done better. It's
like, okay, that was reallyinteresting. Like, how, how do
people do X, really efficientlyand really effectively, like, I
bet I can learn that, let me letme stay in that state of open
curiosity, and have a healthyrelationship with learning so
that, that I can continue toevolve, I love this word
(36:07):
evolution and in all that you doin your brand, and because I
think it, it's so alive, andit's it's an ever unfolding
journey to be evolving into whowe're becoming. And I think for,
for a lot of us who feel thatpassion and want to learn how to
use our voices to communicateour purpose and become a thought
(36:30):
leader. I mean, that's anothercategory, whether whether you're
a podcaster, whether you're anexecutive of a fortune 500
company, once you're at thatlevel of being a thought leader,
because you've done the duediligence, to master your craft,
and now you're out playing onthe edges of okay, I've got this
(36:51):
great base of knowledge, so manyreps of practice. Now I get to
have fun out on the edge. Whatabout this thing, let me try
this thing. And the way thatthat inspires people, when
you're when you're in thatthought leadership seat, it's
it's one of those things, Ithink, similar to podcasting,
that it seems so sexy to be aquote, unquote, thought leader,
(37:13):
like everyone wants to do it,every so many people want to
start a podcast right now,because it's sexy. But if you
can be committed and put in thework, now you have a platform,
now we're holding conversationsthat are built on relationships,
of reciprocity, and trust, andnow together, like we can really
do something with that we canreally have an impact. And so I
(37:35):
want to, I want to dive intothis idea of having a platform
because you're basically helpingthought leaders, find their
authenticity, develop aplatform, learn how to hold
space for impactfulconversations that are going to
shape not only how people think,and what they choose, but it's
really going to shape who theybecome. And sometimes I think of
(37:56):
this as a great responsibility.
But I'm just I'm curious how yourelate to that. And how are
people in your world navigatingsaid responsibility? Once they
have built a platform like whatwhat happens then?
Well, it's all about the valuethat you can bring to the people
that find you. And that's whatgets you to that thought leader
(38:18):
status, when people start tolook at the value that you're
bringing in. This is not eventalking about the value that you
would charge for thought leadersare putting their message into
the world knowing that they'renot going to be splitting atoms
and reinventing wheels. But theyknow that their message is going
to provide impact. And theyunderstand intuitively, that
once a person trust in yourmessage and gets more invested
(38:42):
in the information you'regiving, that's when they'll take
the right the next step and makea purchase. They'll they'll
invest in you, maybe you have acourse maybe you have a book,
maybe you offer coaching,whatever your platform is, you
have to get people there, butyou can't just grab them by the
scruff of the neck and drag themthere. Because everybody
(39:03):
purchases at different times.
Now, when I think about this, Ialways think about when my dad
bought his big screen TV, helooked for the right TV for
maybe four years. And I think itwas finally at a point right mom
just said buy the damn thing.
Because he was just not pullingthe trigger. And he finally did,
he was super happy and I'm moreimpulsive when it comes to
things like that. But it wasthis thing that if you know if
(39:27):
Samsung or a company would havereached out to him in that
moment, he probably would havejust ignored it and kept moving
because he is a more meticulousshopper. So many people have
their own buying patterns. Andthey can continue to get more
and more invested in yourmessage, the more value you put
in front of them. That's goingto establish that thought
(39:47):
leadership and the more investedthey are, the more likely what
happens is when they do take thenext step and they were to join
your course join your coachingprogram join your mastermind.
They might bring a friend, theymight tell another You need to
be here, like I've learned somuch. And I want you to come
with me. So now you're workingsmarter, not harder. So you have
(40:08):
a responsibility as youestablish this slot leadership
to bring value to the world nowwhere it goes next. That's
different for everybody, I thinkit's hard to throw a wide net
over the direction that it goes.
But I don't think anybody canget to a point where they're
experiencing thought leadershipand putting a good message into
the world without finding theplatform that works best for
(40:30):
them, and then consistentlyputting value on that platform.
For me, it's podcasting. Forsomeone else, it could be video,
it could be Instagram, itdoesn't matter what it is, where
you feel the most comfortable,where you can create the most
powerful content that impactsthe right people. That's where
you're going to shine. And thatwill establish your thought
(40:51):
leadership. Once you're there,you can write your ticket, but
you also have to not getcomplacent with the value that
you're bringing to the world,you have to keep that message
flowing in a positive way. Andthat's going to just bring more
and more people into your orbit.
And we are attracted to value,there's no question about that.
And it's very easy to tell theperson that is a little shady or
(41:15):
a little shifty, their messagejust doesn't sound right. Like
when you look at him, that'sreally gonna something's not
right here versus the personthat has people lined up down
the block, waiting to say thankyou, because I had this problem.
And you helped me solve it. Ifyou've got that same problem,
okay, I'm going to trust thefact that this person has a lot
of people thanking them. They'vebuilt a community that they can
(41:39):
speak to. That's how this thinggrows. And that's how this
thought leadership becomesrealistic. And then you can grow
everything that you do aroundthat, but you have to earn it.
And I think that might be what alot of people miss, especially
if they're in the shortcutmindset. If you don't earn it,
it's very hard for anybody totruly respect where you are. And
(42:01):
sometimes that can negate theresults that you experience.
Well said, I see the parallelswith big companies and
executives as well, becausepeople want to work for a
trustworthy organization. Sovery similar, you have to have a
culture of trust, where you canshow up in psychological safety,
(42:22):
to be yourself to get yourlivelihood met all of these
things. And I think people inrecent years have really
developed and deepened theirintuition when it comes to
noticing the shakiness, like yousaid, or the shiftiness and
seeing right through that mask.
And seeing the inauthenticity ofthat there, it's like a big veil
got ripped off of our eyes, inthe pandemic, especially where I
(42:45):
think a lot of intuitive, likeno bullshit meter, kind of
evolved during that time. Andnow, we're making choices based
on trust, we're making choicesbased on the intuition that we
feel in our bodies to go on thisperson's podcast and not this
person's and to buy a product oran offering from this President,
(43:09):
not from this person, or go workfor this company and say no to
that one, because they're notembodying the values, like
there's a mismatch between whatthey're saying and what they're
doing. And something in meconsents that, and that feels
off that doesn't feel anintegrity within myself. So I
love this, this movement, reallyinto more evolved intuition.
(43:31):
heightened levels of ofauthenticity. And I think it's
really going to change the game,the more people get into
learning how to do this, andrealizing that the results are
magnetized by being in in thethought leadership and being in
(43:52):
the authenticity. And so it'salmost like a big divestment
happening right now out of thebullshit out of the toxic work
culture and a reinvestment intothe people who are who are doing
the work like You're like you'resaying, and so I appreciate that
you're showing up in this worldsupporting people to do that
it's part of this much largershift into more conscious
(44:13):
leadership which I know we gotinto on your show a bit, where
we get to have that selfawareness and build that
integrity within ourselves andsupport others to do the same
and then we're so much betteroff quite frankly, we have so
much more abundance to workwith, we don't have to protect
ourselves quite as much becausewe don't have predatory
(44:35):
capitalist predatory capitalism,knocking at our doors being
like, give me all of your moneyand all of your lifeforce like
we're just gonna suck you dry.
Like no thank you that we triedthat model. It didn't work,
dying. And so what what is thenew model? I really think it's,
(44:56):
it's rooted in exactly whatyou're talking about. And I'm
Want to come back tostorytelling as as a powerful
medicine? And perhaps this iskind of where we can bring this
amazing conversation to a close?
Because you're such a goodstoryteller. So I want to ask if
someone was so welcome. It'sYeah, been a joy to be in this
(45:16):
conversation. I'm just imaginingall the other stories that
people you've worked with arenow out there telling, and how
that impacts people. It's,you've got a whole mycelial web
happening now. But if someone iswanting to get started with
unpacking their authentic story,and beginning to tell that to
(45:38):
other people, what advice wouldyou have for someone who's who's
just getting started withwanting to be in that more
authentic story of their lives?
It starts with peeling theonion, to use a popular phrase,
you have to go layers beneaththe surface to really get to
(45:58):
that authenticity. And a lot oftimes that authentic story can
be born from pain. And more thanlikely, it doesn't have to be
massive pain, it could just be asmall nagging thing, but you
have to embrace even the shittyparts that you may have
experienced in your life.
Because those were learningexperiences, even if you don't
(46:21):
look at it. On the surface, orat the time in the moment, as
learning, you can look back onsomething that may have happened
in your past and say, Wow, man,I've really come a long way
since that happened. But theimportant thing to realize is,
even though that happened, andagain, this is subjective, this
is different for every singleperson. That's what makes it
(46:41):
unique. And that's what makes itspecial. But looking at those
factors, and not trying to shovethem under the bed or underneath
the carpet, and actuallybringing them to the surface. It
lets others resonate with youand realize that not only are
you a human being as well, butyou're experiencing something
that they're also experiencing,you're not the only one that's
(47:03):
had troubles, you're not theonly one that's had problems,
you can flip this on its headand use the successful side of
things to you're not the onlyone that's experienced that
either. But once you fullyembrace all of these things that
have happened to you, and youcan bring them together in a way
that when you talk to somebody,you're relaying it in a very
(47:26):
positive way of here's whathappened to me. It wasn't the
best, but I've learned so much.
And now I'm here. Many peopleare going to fall in love with
that, because that's the hero'sjourney. That's what we watch
movies for maybe so I mean, Ilike the heels. I like the
antagonists more than theprotagonist, that's just me, but
(47:48):
in the appreciation of what thehero can accomplish. That's what
we all want. We all want thatmoment of glory are stories that
are built inside of us. Theyhave that component built baked
right in. We just have to bewilling to get past putting
flaws of ourselves into theworld that might make it's going
(48:10):
to make people realize thatwe're not perfect, but guess
what, they probably neverthought that anyway, we probably
had just preconceived in ourmind that we have to put this
shiny, polished product in frontof people. That's the only way
they're going to respond to me.
But you said it before. There'ssome beauty in the messiness. I
feel that you have to learn fromthose experiences and grow
(48:33):
beyond them. And not try to getpeople into your world and teach
them something if you don'tfully understand it yourself.
But bringing the story to lifeis all about tapping into the
things that have happened to youover time, like a big part of
the story I tell about myevolution as an entrepreneur,
started when I was 13 years old.
(48:56):
I was big in the cardcollecting. And I got an
opportunity from one of the cardshops that was down the street
from my house. He needed apartner of his needed some help
at one of the card shows. Andthey said hey, would you like to
set up a table, you got to pay asmall price to have it but you
can sell your cards and you canbe a part of this. And I was
always at those cards shows. AndI was like, Well, yeah, I
(49:17):
understand how this works. Andeven at the age of 13 I had no
idea how to run a business, butI could put a couple little
things together. And it sparkedsomething in me that said, for
the long term, you need to dothis. You need to be doing your
thing you need to be finding thebest way to move forward with
your own possibilities. I lovetelling that story because it
(49:39):
wasn't the most successfulventure in the world. Of course
not I probably blew all myprofits at that same card show.
I can't remember everythingverbatim but I know how my
habits were at the time. But itsparked an entrepreneurial bug
or the entrepreneurial bug bitme I should say. And it sparked
my interest in doing my ownthing as I got older and moved
(49:59):
on through life. That's a bigpart of my past. I love bringing
that story out. But I'll alsotell the story of my last
corporate job. I thought thingswere going tremendously. I had
just interviewed for a corporatemanagement job, I had just a
regional management job, Ishould say, I was given more
responsibility. Even though Ididn't get that job, I was told
(50:22):
that it gave everybody somethingto think about. They wanted to
put more on my plate to bring meup, and I felt things were going
great. And then a month later, Igot fired, out of nowhere,
completely, unexpectedly shockedthe hell out of me. Even
thinking back to that day, Istill think, wow, what the hell
happened. But that was manyyears ago, and I've moved on and
(50:43):
gotten past it. But I'm notafraid to tell that story.
Because it happened. It's real.
We all go through shit. But weall have to look at what happens
within that shit. Take all thepositives, and build something
better for the future. So I lookat that job losses and say,
yeah, that sucked. But I learneda lot when I worked for that
(51:04):
company, I can now apply a lotof those skills to how I help
people today. That's how I tooka negative and made it a
positive. And that's part of mystory. It embodies everything
about who I am and how far I'vecome. And I'm proud to tell it
to anybody, without an ounce offear. When you can get to that
point with your story. Thatmeans you're comfortable, you're
(51:24):
confident, you can tell it withconviction, and you're going to
bring something special to theworld. So that's how you get
started. And then you run withit from there.
Oh, powerful words. Powerfulwords. Wow. Thank you so much,
Jason. It's been so nice to haveyou on the show. And I yeah, for
(51:45):
anyone who has resonated withyou today and wants to either
keep listening to you or learnhow to work with you. Where can
they find you on this thing wecall the Internet.
Best place to go is Jasoncircling.com. Because you can
choose your adventure. Fromthere. You can learn more about
my podcast guesting simplifiedprogram, check out my evolution
(52:05):
of brand podcast. I don't wantto speak to the new podcast, and
I'm bringing out because I don'tknow when our conversation is
gonna be live. So I don't wantto put any false hope in the
world. But everything isconnected through Jason
serko.com. And if you want tohave a further conversation, I
offer free Discovery sessionswhere we can share some ideas I
can get to know more about whatyou want to accomplish. And we
(52:28):
can determine if our valuesalign so we could potentially
work together.
Excellent. Ah, all right,listeners. Thanks for tuning in.
Thanks for being present today.
We'll see you next week. AndJason, thank you again for
sharing your wisdom today.
I appreciate the opportunity tocall this was a blast. Thank you
so much for having me.
Hey leaders, I'm joined today by Jason silicone. Jason
(00:03):
is a podcast branding strategistand he supports people to find
their authentic voices throughpodcasting, he supports people
to find their authority, findthat their thought leadership
and really have that shinethrough in their respective
niche through the reallypowerful platform of podcasting.
(00:23):
In today's show, we're gonna getinto the power of storytelling
as both a technology and amedicine, for revealing the
often unseen aspects of thehuman journey towards success,
and towards reaching our goals.
The journey to becoming athought leader and finding your
authentic voice, shining yourlight out in the world can be a
(00:44):
difficult one. Often, thejourney of entrepreneurship is
actually a spiritual journey ofpersonal transformation, and
self discovery. Because we arefaced with our biggest fears,
our insecurities, the impostershows up at every turn, when we
are about to grow to the nextstage of our evolution. Inside
(01:05):
the episode, we're getting intoall of that, and more. And we're
not shying away from the hardstuff that can come up on the
path to evolving your brand,which is really evolving
yourself, our brand ourbusinesses, what we stand for,
this is all an extension of whowe are as leaders. And today,
Jason has a lot to bring to thetable around how we can be
(01:27):
thinking about this, and usingit in both the evolution of our
brands and the evolution ofourselves. Let's get into it.
Jason, welcome to the show. I'mso excited to share your gifts
and your wisdom with ourlisteners today. Thanks for
being here.
The call, thank you so much forhaving me. I'm really looking
forward to hanging out with youtoday and having a great
conversation.
(01:48):
Likewise, Jason, one of thethings that I admire so much
about the work that you do isthe way that you're connecting
the journey of branding, and allthat comes with that all that
comes with investigating thatpersonal brand, helping it grow,
having an impact in the world,and the connection that has with
the personal transformationjourney. And I want to I want to
(02:11):
start by asking you, How did youchoose this as as your life's
work? Like why is this your why?
And what are some of yourfavorite parts of doing this
branding work with people?
Well, we and we should clarify alot of the branding work that I
specialize. It's in thepodcasting space. And I feel
that this platform allows somuch freedom to explore your
(02:35):
stories to explore yourauthentic self. And to have all
of this come into the world in away that can be easily absorbed.
And something that I've beengrabbing very tightly to lately
is the fact that I get to have aphenomenal conversation in this
moment. As we sit here right nowyou and me in a call this is one
on one. And I get to connectwith somebody that's like
(02:58):
minded, we get to share ideas,we get to learn about one
another. And the byproduct isthe fact that the audience is
now hearing the conversation andthey get to experience it and
learn from it as well. So I lookat podcasting as a phenomenal
platform for buildingrelationships. And to me, that's
what life is all about. Sothat's why I love what I do and
(03:20):
how I got here was not planned.
And I always tell this story. Igot into podcasting back in
2015. Well, after I'd finishedmy undergrad studies, well after
I went to I went to DuquesneUniversity here in Pittsburgh
for my master's degree inleadership. And podcasting was
something that I never evenreally knew what it was I had
got my first iPod. And there wasa little section that said
(03:44):
podcast and I remember thinkingwhat the hell is a podcast. So
pretty much just breezed over itfor many years until 2011. I met
someone that did a podcast andhe told me more about it. I'm
still friends with him to thisday. And then in 2015, my friend
and I launched a podcast. And wedid so for the wrong reasons. We
did it out of spite, because Ifelt that I could do better than
(04:05):
this guy who was trolling me onTwitter about something else I
was doing in my professionalcareer. It was very, very silly.
When I look back on that, I lookback on it with fondness and I
always smile because I say itgot me started. But it was the
worst reason to start a podcastand never should I be comparing
myself to others, especiallywhen I had no experience. But
what I've learned in my time inthis space and connecting with
(04:29):
so many people, whether it bejust through having these
conversations through themicrophone or working with them
more intimately. Everybody has astory to tell. Everybody has
this authentic side to them.
Sometimes they need to tap intoit a little deeper than they are
sometimes it takes a little bitmore effort to get to that
(04:50):
authentic story. But once youbring it out and tell it to the
world, and it starts hitting theright people in the right way.
You can see a person make a bigbreak through. And I can't get
enough of that I love seeingother people succeed. I love
seeing people take their brandto the next level, because
they're utilizing all of thesetools that have been inside them
(05:11):
the whole time. So to wrapthings up, that's why I love
what I do. And I can't getenough of that fact, I get to do
that every day. It's prettyfriggin awesome.
It's amazing. And as someone whohas struggled with finding my
authenticity, and my voice, isat least in the beginning of my
journey into podcasting intobigger expressions of leadership
(05:35):
over the years, I can reallyhear the pain in that moment
that you that you're alluding towhere, you know, you have
something authentic to offer,but you don't yet know how to
communicate it to the world. SoI guess, talk to us a bit more
about what is that suffering inthe people that you're noticing?
(05:55):
What what are some of thosepains that they're feeling? And
then what's the transformationthat that you've seen them go
through on their journey tohaving greater impact,
essentially, because this is areally powerful journey for each
of us to go on of really gettingto know ourselves and then
translating our authenticityinto impact? So what have you
(06:15):
seen in in the people thatyou've been working with,
I think the biggest thing thatholds people back at the very
beginning is imposter syndrome.
And that creeps up often. Andsometimes even after you've made
major breakthroughs, and you'vereached many different levels of
success, it can still creep in,it can still be a very nasty
culprit. And I think a lot ofthat makes people say no one
(06:36):
wants to hear my message. No onecares about my story. What do I
have to offer that somebody elsehasn't already said 15,000
times. But what people fail torealize in the very beginning is
yes, your message, yourknowledge base everything, you
know, that may have been put outthere. But it's been with
somebody else's story tied toit. Nobody's heard it with your
(06:56):
unique spin on it yet. So onceyou find experiences that have
happened in your life, andyou're able to tie that together
with what you do, I mostentrepreneurs start their
businesses start their brands,because they discover a problem,
they feel they have the solutionfor it. And then more than
likely they've experienced thatproblem themselves. So they have
(07:17):
stories that tie into whatthey're trying to accomplish.
Once they get to that point,where they realize that their
spin on this is unique. It'sdifferent. And it might appeal
to person A, when person eightheard that same message from
somebody else and said, Thisisn't for me. It's all about
attracting the right people andpeople love stories. I love a
(07:38):
good story. Nicole, you love agood story. It's why we watch
movies. That's why we watch TVshows, it's why we get invested
in the content that we consume.
So when you're telling yourstory, maybe the break, or I
should say not maybe absolutelythe right people are going to
resonate with your message, thewrong people may turn away, and
(08:01):
that's okay. You don't have toappeal to everyone. And if you
try to, that's a fool's errand,you just can't do it. There's
just no way to satisfy 100% ofpeople 100% of the time, you're
going to have detractors. And assoon as you can make peace of
that, and start focusing more onthe value that you have to give,
that's when the transformationstarts to take place. And that's
(08:23):
when the breakthroughs happen.
And that's a big thing. And as Isaid, I applaud and push people
towards the podcasting platform,because there's so many
opportunities to find shows intheir niche, where their
passions lie, and connectingwith like minded individuals
that are creating content basedaround those passions. If
(08:43):
there's a connection, andthere's synergy, and you do it
strategically, you do the wholeprocess, right? magic can
happen. And that's when yourstory starts to resonate with
the right people. And they startto come into your world where
you can continue to bring valueto them. And then when they know
it's the right move for them tomake a purchasing decision, or
invest in something that's goingto change their life, they now
(09:05):
trust you as the resource that'sgoing to help them reach that
transformation. So in thebeginning stage, it's it's
overcoming that impostorsyndrome. And once you get to a
point to where, you know, theright people are going to
resonate with your story. That'swhen things start to unfold in a
very powerful way.
I love it. I think this pointabout not diluting your niche in
(09:30):
favor of trying to get everyoneto like you basically, I think
that is so key because whatyou're pointing to here is a
level of trust that is embodied,at least that's what I was
really hearing what you weresaying where if you're embodying
your authenticity and very clearthere it was standing in the
truth of your niche. People willfeel that and they trust you
(09:54):
because you are trustworthy,basically, right? Like you're
you're standing In that truth ofyourself, and I do think that's
such an attractor. And I thinkback to moments when, when I've
looked out at the landscape andmaybe done a competitive
competitive analysis, or startedto look to people or accounts on
(10:17):
social media that I've reallyadmired. And you started to get
into that emulation game alittle bit of how do I be like
them? How do I replicate whatthey're doing? Like I am seeing
their version of success? Andmaybe I'm wanting a piece of
that. But in emulating that to atee? Am I sacrificing a piece of
(10:39):
myself? Or am I missing? What myauthentic niche would be that
that part like you said that noone else can contribute to this
world? Because that is that isyour unique gift that no one
else has? No one will say it inthe way that you do. No one will
show up to the challenge and theexact way that you do. So yeah,
(11:00):
I'm really appreciating thatdistinction of don't get caught
in the comparison game. shiningin your uniqueness is part of
the journey to success, and theinner transformation that comes
from being with your innerimposter or befriending your
inner critic. I mean, these arereally difficult things to do.
(11:22):
And I'm curious in what you'veseen, how have you personally
overcome that? Or how have youseen others overcome the hurdle
of, of the imposter syndromewhen that does creep up, because
you're right, even when you havemore and more success, it does
always show up again, and we goto that next level?
Well, it's the old adage of,there's always a faster God,
(11:43):
right. So even if you've reacheda high level, somebody else is
probably higher. And when yousee that, you might say, Oh,
God, I'm not there yet. Butagain, you have to almost
develop tunnel vision, to wherethose highlight reels that
you're seeing, no matter whereyou're at, in your journey. If
you get captivated by thesehighlight reels, you're not
(12:03):
going to truly appreciateeverything that went into the
whoever created that highlightreel, like what they had to do
to get there. And that'ssomething that I advise anybody
that's looking at social media,if you see somebody that's
talking about all these grandthings they've accomplished, I
applaud them for doing that. Butyou don't know exactly what it
(12:24):
took for that to happen. Or ifthat's just what they're putting
on the surface, because youmight pull the curtain back and
discover chaos at everyjuncture. So you can't get
fixated on what somebody else isdoing. And live in a highlight
driven world. You have to writeyour own story and keep your
(12:44):
focus on what it's going to taketo make that story come to life.
And you develop it as you go,you get more confident in the
message you're bringing to theworld, and you don't let outside
forces dictate what you need todo. That requires patience. It
requires a dedication andcommitment to what you're trying
(13:05):
to accomplish. And if you startto venture outside of that,
that's when those highlightreels and all these things that
other people are accomplishingcan really start to mess with
your head. And it can tell youthat you're not good enough. And
that will throw you off anythingthat you might be doing. If
you're starting your ownpodcast. If you look at somebody
else has been around for 20years with this massive
(13:25):
audience, and you wonder why youdon't have one? Well, it's
because they've been around for20 years. You can't expect that
to happen overnight. Many, manypodcasters do come into this
thinking, I'm gonna start a showand everyone's gonna listen to
me. But then when they don'tthey get disappointed and think
they're not good at it. No, it'sthe wrong way to look at it. You
have to start from the beginningand get good at your craft and
(13:46):
develop captivating content thatmakes people want to pay
attention to you. When peoplestart to pay attention to you,
they start telling others to dothe same. That's how you grow.
That's how you build anaudience. But so many people
want that quick fix because theysaw a highlight reel. And they
don't get it and they walk away.
And that transcends podcasting.
That's something that affects usat a lot of different ventures
(14:09):
that we have in our world. LikeI said, I've just gotten to a
point where I spend less time onsocial media. Because what I've
discovered and this is more of apersonal thing, I could be
wrong. I could be right. But itdoes vary from time to time. But
we're in a very algorithm drivensocial media world now. So reels
and tiktoks and algorithmstrying to predict what we want
(14:32):
to see. And at times, I couldscroll through three or four
reels and say, well, thealgorithms off today they have
no I don't want to see this.
This has no bearing on my life.
And it's not helping me grow.
But other times for whateverreason, they'll feed me a bunch
of motivational stuff. That'sthe kind of thing I'd like to
pay attention to. So again, thatalgorithm is trying to figure us
(14:54):
out and bring us this message ofwhat we want to see But there's
more to gain from just keepingour eye on the ball, not letting
that throw us off course. fixateyourself on the right things.
That's how you'll grow. Andthat's how you can overcome any
of that impostor syndrome thatmight creep into your life at
any point in your journey.
(15:15):
This is incredible advice for somany reasons. And I feel like,
yeah, putting the blinders onand having that devotion to your
craft, as you named. It isn't afair comparison to compare
ourselves to someone who's beendoing it for 20 years. And yet,
we totally sensationalize theovernight success, the
(15:37):
entrepreneurs on Shark Tank,the, I mean, even falling in
love, right and having this big,love story, and it's quick and
all Yeah, now you're in it. Andit's just not just not what the
journey truly is, the journeyoften looks more like a
squiggle, which I know there aremany frameworks out there that
kind of point to this. But wecertainly use that terminology
(15:59):
in the sustainability ExecutiveEducation course at Harvard that
I'm a part of. And it's amazingwhat happens when you
acknowledge that the journeyisn't linear, because I think
people relax into, Oh, I'm not,I'm not behind, it's okay to be
human. It's okay that I tookthis detour. And then this thing
(16:23):
happened in life. And now all ofa sudden, I'm having the to be
over here. And oh, I tried this,I prototyped I got got it wrong.
And seeing that not actually aswrong or as a failure. But I
think this whole overnightsuccess culture and the
devaluing of failure as a formof learning, keeps us stuck in
(16:47):
that highlight only culture andonly showing the positive not
showing the dark shadow work,even the the difficult inner
moments where maybe you'recoming off of a zoom call or
shutting down a podcast and youdon't love how it went. And now
you're crying and having to pickup the pieces or really nurture
(17:09):
that inner child or whatever itis. Those are the stories that I
hope we tell more of as medicinefor our humanity of it's okay,
it's okay to to be messy. We arekind of messy as a species.
It's okay to embrace failure tobecause if you learn from it,
(17:33):
there's no shame in it. Andthat's where I feel that we've
lost that message as we've movedon. And as a society, and
personally, as we've grown upinto adulthood from childhood.
It's like we had this, I don'teven know what to call it. This.
This is a complete mindset shiftabout how we embrace failure and
learn from it. As we sit andrecord today, I posted a new
(17:53):
episode of my podcast onLinkedIn. And part of the
message that I put along with alittle video to push people
towards listening. It was it wasan episode about pricing and
charging what you're worth. AndI put in there full
transparency, I struggled withthis big time. But getting help
with it and understanding how tocharge what I know my value is
(18:14):
has changed everything. It makesme feel better about the work
that I do. I know that so manypeople struggle with that. So I
don't want them to think thatit's always been right. For me,
it's always been perfect. No,I've gone through the same pain.
And I've grown from it. Ilearned from that mistake. Think
about infants, infants don'tjust come out running down the
(18:37):
road at full speed, swaddledthere, we handle them with such
TLC, we don't want anything tohappen to them. And then as they
start to get a little older,they start to move, then they
figure out, they can roll over,then they crawl, then they start
to pull themselves up and theywalk and they fall 100 times.
And we look at that and saywell, that's they're just
trying, they're just trying toget better when every time they
(18:58):
fall. That's a failure. But theywe obviously don't have they
don't have the logic conceptbuilt yet. So they are going to
follow them to try again andfall and try again. And then
they get it and they startwalking and they start moving
faster, then you can't keep upwith them. And they're taking
off in the store. And there'sthis evolution of how a person
goes from hardly moving towalking. And there was so many
(19:20):
failures along the way. But wenever think twice. Fast forward
to adulthood. We try to run sofar from failure, because we
think we just can't put thisblemish on the world because
it's going to completely demeanus as a person. No, it shows
that we're human. And it showsthat we are going to try
(19:41):
something we're going to make amistake and if we do make a
mistake, we're going to evaluateit, determine what worked and
what didn't and then say okay, Ican take a little bit of what
worked and apply it to how I trytomorrow. I'm going to be much
wiser. I'm gonna gonna be a muchbetter position to succeed.
That's what we have to embrace.
No matter what you're doinganything in your professional
(20:02):
journey, even your personaljourney, if you aren't willing
to accept that failures areinevitable, and they can be
treated as learning experiences,you're going to hold yourself
back in a major way, because youwon't try things. Because you're
going to be afraid of a negativeresult, you have to look at that
negative result as a teachingmoment, that will make you a
more well rounded, professionalor more well rounded person. And
(20:24):
then you utilize all of thoseskills to just blow things out
of the water as you moveforward. takes time, it takes
patience, and it takesperseverance. But it also takes
a strong will and mindset ofunderstanding that even if I
fail, doesn't matter, thinkabout I always compare this to
golf. I don't play. I mean, Iplay a ton. I'm not the best
(20:46):
golfer in the world, I put myfair share of shots in the
water, so does Tiger Woods, wedon't just throw our golf clubs
away and stop playing the sport.
We look at that mistake and say,Okay, what do I got to do to
improve and get better from thatshot, Tiger Woods has the best
rule, you're allowed to be madat yourself for 10 yards. After
you get 10 yards from where youhit that shot, you can't be mad
(21:07):
at yourself anymore, you have tostart thinking about what's
next. I think we start treatingour failures with that same
respect, okay, I'm gonna allowmyself to be mad for a minute.
But I got to start thinkingabout what's next. That's gonna
put us in a better position tosucceed on our next drive.
I love that mentality of I'mgoing to feel this, but I'm
(21:28):
going to put a time limit on it.
And then I'm gonna think aboutwhat's next that that
relationship to, to failure,there's a couple of things in
what you said that are reallystanding out. One is it let's
just stick with the golfmetaphor for a second. Golf
isn't only hitting balls iswaking up early, having the self
(21:50):
responsibility to get a tee timethat you want it is knowing how
to drive a golf cart andeverything that came before
that, and so on and so on. And,and then there's the relational
aspect of who are you with on,you know, out there playing golf
with and what are thoseconversations that are
happening. And I think oftenwhen we look at work, or when we
(22:12):
look at the output only theproduct only, we're not seeing
the other half of the cycle. Andwe talk a lot about this on the
show, because a lot of ourlisteners are doing things like
cycle thinking, they're startingto design their business models
in more seasonal ways as a wayto mimic nature, instead of
(22:34):
being in this mechanistic viewof seeing our organizations only
as a machine. Instead, we'restarting to see them as living
systems. And nature has spent3.8 billion years prototyping
and failing and learning anddoing exactly what we're talking
about here. And she has figuredout the power of seasons in in
(22:54):
many places, right, and so tohave a season of rest, or to
have a season of reflection,feeling and then getting back
out into the action, and onlythen getting back out into the
producing or the harvesting is avery different mentality than
then we're used to. But I thinkone thing that you're really
(23:17):
hitting home, for me here ismaking the unseen, seen through
through the stories of trialsand challenge. And that it
actually for me, there's a layerof integrity or dishonesty if
we're only telling the glorifiedpart of the story. And we're not
sharing the vulnerability ofwhat it actually took to get
(23:42):
there. And what did I have toovercome? And what mindsets did
I have to break through to evenbe able to be this version of
myself who can now stand in theface of this next fear? Because
the neck like next will alwaysbe there. It's we're always in
constant motion. And so when wethink about our relationship to
fear and some of those mindsetbreakthroughs, you've pointed
(24:04):
out a couple of kind of mindsetshifts that that seem to have
either worked for you or workingamong people that you support.
Are there any other majormindset shifts on this journey
from discovery, reallydiscovering your brand, all the
way up to having that fullyembodied, authentic impact that
(24:25):
we're talking about here? Likewhat are those breakthrough
moments that we can be lookingforward to or figuring out how
to nurture ourselves throughbecause we know it's not going
to be all pretty phased out ofwhat we're saying?
I think a big part of it andthis is where a lot of people
fall short is lack ofcommitment. You have to be
(24:45):
committed to what you're doing.
If you say that you'repassionate about something, and
then you walk away from whateveryou're doing in that space a
month later. You're notpassionate about it. You think
you see an avenue to quick readChis without having to do the
work that gets you there. If youcan find yourself in a field,
where you're passionate aboutyour message, you can wake up
(25:07):
every day excited about the workthat's in front of you. That's
passion. That is commitment. Nowgetting to the front, you're
getting to be from a, in orderto do it effectively, you don't
want to rush it, obviously,because we talked about what you
can learn on the journey, youmiss a lot if you're just trying
to reach the destination. Butyou have to be committed to
(25:30):
whatever your project is. I'llbring podcasting in as an
example. Because we see this somuch in the podcast space.
People hear podcasting, oh, thisis sexy, I want to start a
podcast, then they get into itand realize how much work is
involved. On that front end,they never made a commitment to
say, I'm gonna put a year'sworth of my time into building
(25:52):
this podcast, I'm going to getbetter at my craft, I'm going to
connect with some great people.
And along the way, not only do Iget to have those powerful
connections and have greatconversations, I'm now creating
content that I can share with myaudience. And they're going to
get further in direct andfurther invested in me and my
(26:13):
brand. They just look at it andsay, Okay, I'm going to start
this podcast, and we're going totalk for a little bit, we're
going to put it out into theworld. And it's going to be
great, you know, I know thatmentality exists. Because I did
that in the very beginningmyself. I didn't put we didn't
put any planning into thingsjust started the show. And for
whatever reason, I was ignorantto the fact that you gotta be
(26:34):
really good at this to makepeople want to listen. Of
course, we got some people totune in. But overall, it wasn't
what it could be. Because I wasvery green. And I needed to
learn and I needed to getbetter. And then I finally
realized that down the road, andI took time to educate myself
and get better. So I learnedfrom my mistake. But too often
we attack anything that's infront of us with little to no
(26:57):
commitment about seeing itthrough. And that's where we end
up falling short, because we endup saying, well, this isn't
working, I'm gonna shift course,I'm gonna go this way, I'm gonna
try this new, shiny object. Andwe're not thinking about the
fundamentals that are going toget us to that end line and
inline might even be the wrongthing to say, because I look at
(27:17):
it as a constant evolution, youcan reach certain points and
certain benchmarks, but then youneed to push yourself to get to
the next level. And then to thenext level. That's how you
remove complacency from yourlife. And if you're, if you're
committed to a project, ifyou're committed to a brand, if
you're committed to a business,if you're committed to a
strategy, whether it bepodcasting, video, social media,
(27:41):
you name it, you have to thinkabout the long term and you have
to think about the journeythat's taking place and what
you're going to learn along theway. Something I say on my
podcast often is a big sportsfan, not to bring another sports
metaphor into things. But herewe are, you can watch sports
center and see the touchdowncelebration, or you can even
watch the game. And when theplayer scores, they get to
(28:02):
celebrate. Oftentimes, that'swhat we fixate on. But what
about the 99 yards? What aboutthe drive? What about all the
mistakes? What about the nearinterceptions? What about how
things almost completely changedalong the way? How did the
players persevere as they worktheir way down the field to get
to that point, those are thelearning moments. And when we
embrace those, that's what'sgoing to allow us to excel in
(28:26):
everything that we're doing, andultimately take our brands and
our own personal stories to newheights. That's where it's at.
That's where the magic takesplace.
It's so interesting to, to lookat it through this lens because
I see the sickness of oursocietal culture when it comes
to instant gratification,external validation. Wanting it
(28:50):
now, but not knowing how, like acute little rhyme just came
through there. But yeah, it'slike we just we want the shiny
thing we want the the touchdown,as you're saying. And I think
one thing worth noting is that,yes, it takes hard work. And
yes, it takes the devotion ofshowing up and really mastering
(29:11):
the craft like to really mastersomething is a lifelong journey
or it can be and it's it'sbeautiful. There's beauty in
figuring out how to mastersomething, I think at the same
time. And this shows up for me alot as someone who can fall into
the category of perfectionistor, you know, I just I want to
(29:32):
do it right. I want to do it theright way. And I'll sometimes
sit down and I'll be so overlydiligent. I will be hyper
vigilant about the details ofsomething that it's actually to
a detriment. And I've learnedrecently that this is actually a
trauma response, which has beengreat information for me on my
journey. So I've learned how toor I'm really I'm learning into
(29:54):
how to bring play into thelearning how to how to use that
as kind of Like the equal butopposite energy of Let Me Be
devoted and do the super hardwork. But let me have some
frickin fun with this. And it'slike having conversations like
this and building relationshipsand, and I often you kind of
said this in the beginning too.
But it's really interesting tothink about how the audience is
(30:17):
in conversation with us rightnow as well, even though they're
not here live with us, they'regoing to hear this at a later
date. But what this conversationkicks up in other people, and
what they then go share withothers are the new thoughts that
they're having the aspects oftheir evolution that are now
catalyzed by conversations likethis, this is so fun. To me,
(30:38):
this is the fun part of having acraft and being in devotion. And
I mean, I can only imagine howmuch fun you've been having
working with podcast guests, andin particular, because it's
quite, it's quite a journeybehind the scenes, but then you
do get to show up and you get tobe in that touchdown.
(30:59):
Celebration moment. And, andthat's beautiful. That's also a
beautiful part of the mastery100% It's, it's not putting the
cart in front of the horse. It'sabout appreciating everything
that you need to do to get tothat level. But not trying to
get there so fast that you missthings. I preach to everybody
that I've ever worked with, orever spoken to in any capacity.
(31:20):
Podcast, guesting is an absoluteblast. If you can think of a
more fun way to grow your brand,please tell me because I want to
try it. Because I've been havinga damn good time getting to make
connections just like this. Iget to join like minded
professionals who have a missionwith their podcast who are
(31:41):
looking to grow somethingspecial. And I can contribute to
help them do that. And in doingthat, I get to establish my
thought leadership as someonethat knows what they're talking
about, and someone that canbring more value to a person.
And as the listeners hear this,when it's live, they can
discover whether I'm a personthey want to know more about
(32:04):
want to learn more from or ifthey want to go a different
direction. And either choice iscompletely fine. But I get to
put my message into the world.
And in a more simplistic level,I just get to have a great
conversation today. In thismoment, as you and I are putting
this episode together, you and Iare just having a great time, we
(32:26):
can let everybody know that wealso recorded an episode of my
podcast before we did. So eventhen it's a great screen time
together today. Yeah. Today,right. And we've learned a lot
from each other. And we've gotto explore a lot of different
speaking points. And again, likeyou said it perfectly. It's so
fun. It's such a blast to makethese connections because that's
(32:48):
what I look at podcasting as youcan treat it transactionally.
And you can show up thinkingthat you have to sell or you
have to close somebody, or youhave to make this grandiose
performance, not the case,podcasting is all about
establishing strongrelationships. And it starts
with the person in front of you.
As a podcaster. I know that apodcast, the podcaster is trying
(33:11):
to accomplish building contentthat's going to resonate with
their audience. So it can taketheir brand to new heights. In
understanding that, it allows meto bring value to the mic, so I
can help them do that. I'mthinking long term, I want them
to reciprocate. I want them tocome and join me on my show and
help me do the exact same thing.
(33:33):
But then once the message isheard by the world, like I said
before, if someone resonateswith what I have to say and
would like to connect with me,I'm happy to connect with
anybody and have a conversation,I think it's been revealed I
like to talk. So I'm happy toopen up my door to anybody who
wants to know more about how toembrace this strategy in this
philosophy, to grow their brandand take things to new heights.
(33:55):
And if someone doesn't feel thatway, that's okay, too. They're
allowed to move on and find theperson that impacts them in that
positive way. So you're right,having fun with what you do. It
makes a huge difference. And Ithink it speaks a lot to what we
spoke about earlier aboutcommitment and passion. If you
have fun with what you're doing,and you can wake up in the
(34:16):
morning and look at yourschedule, and instead of saying
I have to do two sales callstoday, I have to do two podcast
interviews, and change that oneword of have to get and say I
get to do two sales calls today.
I get to do two podcasts today.
It makes all the difference inthe world and it's gonna get
talking mindset shift. It putsyou in a much more positive
(34:39):
frame of mind. And when you dothat, oh boy, you can become
unstoppable with what you'redoing.
Agreed. The other secretingredient next to play has been
curiosity, as well. And I thinkthis comes up in the podcasting
landscape. And you mentionedthought leaders, too and so I
want to dig into this a littlebut more because there's a lot
(35:02):
of work that goes into refiningyour message and getting it to
be coherent, and being atransmitter of your purpose
through how you communicate howyou show up authentically, all
all the things that we'retalking about here. And I think,
in addition to the play thecuriosity of talking about
things that really interests me,right, and then going away and
(35:24):
doing a little more research, orI guess, these days, it's
throwing it in an in an AIsearch to see what it kicks back
like that can lead on to anothertopic I know. Ah, but it's that
Curiosity has really kept megoing over the years to have,
instead of looking at this withjudgment, instead of instead of
(35:45):
looking at this with, oh, shoot,I could have done better. It's
like, okay, that was reallyinteresting. Like, how, how do
people do X, really efficientlyand really effectively, like, I
bet I can learn that, let me letme stay in that state of open
curiosity, and have a healthyrelationship with learning so
that, that I can continue toevolve, I love this word
(36:07):
evolution and in all that you doin your brand, and because I
think it, it's so alive, andit's it's an ever unfolding
journey to be evolving into whowe're becoming. And I think for,
for a lot of us who feel thatpassion and want to learn how to
use our voices to communicateour purpose and become a thought
(36:30):
leader. I mean, that's anothercategory, whether whether you're
a podcaster, whether you're anexecutive of a fortune 500
company, once you're at thatlevel of being a thought leader,
because you've done the duediligence, to master your craft,
and now you're out playing onthe edges of okay, I've got this
(36:51):
great base of knowledge, so manyreps of practice. Now I get to
have fun out on the edge. Whatabout this thing, let me try
this thing. And the way thatthat inspires people, when
you're when you're in thatthought leadership seat, it's
it's one of those things, Ithink, similar to podcasting,
that it seems so sexy to be aquote, unquote, thought leader,
(37:13):
like everyone wants to do it,every so many people want to
start a podcast right now,because it's sexy. But if you
can be committed and put in thework, now you have a platform,
now we're holding conversationsthat are built on relationships,
of reciprocity, and trust, andnow together, like we can really
do something with that we canreally have an impact. And so I
(37:35):
want to, I want to dive intothis idea of having a platform
because you're basically helpingthought leaders, find their
authenticity, develop aplatform, learn how to hold
space for impactfulconversations that are going to
shape not only how people think,and what they choose, but it's
really going to shape who theybecome. And sometimes I think of
(37:56):
this as a great responsibility.
But I'm just I'm curious how yourelate to that. And how are
people in your world navigatingsaid responsibility? Once they
have built a platform like whatwhat happens then?
Well, it's all about the valuethat you can bring to the people
that find you. And that's whatgets you to that thought leader
(38:18):
status, when people start tolook at the value that you're
bringing in. This is not eventalking about the value that you
would charge for thought leadersare putting their message into
the world knowing that they'renot going to be splitting atoms
and reinventing wheels. But theyknow that their message is going
to provide impact. And theyunderstand intuitively, that
once a person trust in yourmessage and gets more invested
(38:42):
in the information you'regiving, that's when they'll take
the right the next step and makea purchase. They'll they'll
invest in you, maybe you have acourse maybe you have a book,
maybe you offer coaching,whatever your platform is, you
have to get people there, butyou can't just grab them by the
scruff of the neck and drag themthere. Because everybody
(39:03):
purchases at different times.
Now, when I think about this, Ialways think about when my dad
bought his big screen TV, helooked for the right TV for
maybe four years. And I think itwas finally at a point right mom
just said buy the damn thing.
Because he was just not pullingthe trigger. And he finally did,
he was super happy and I'm moreimpulsive when it comes to
things like that. But it wasthis thing that if you know if
(39:27):
Samsung or a company would havereached out to him in that
moment, he probably would havejust ignored it and kept moving
because he is a more meticulousshopper. So many people have
their own buying patterns. Andthey can continue to get more
and more invested in yourmessage, the more value you put
in front of them. That's goingto establish that thought
(39:47):
leadership and the more investedthey are, the more likely what
happens is when they do take thenext step and they were to join
your course join your coachingprogram join your mastermind.
They might bring a friend, theymight tell another You need to
be here, like I've learned somuch. And I want you to come
with me. So now you're workingsmarter, not harder. So you have
(40:08):
a responsibility as youestablish this slot leadership
to bring value to the world nowwhere it goes next. That's
different for everybody, I thinkit's hard to throw a wide net
over the direction that it goes.
But I don't think anybody canget to a point where they're
experiencing thought leadershipand putting a good message into
the world without finding theplatform that works best for
(40:30):
them, and then consistentlyputting value on that platform.
For me, it's podcasting. Forsomeone else, it could be video,
it could be Instagram, itdoesn't matter what it is, where
you feel the most comfortable,where you can create the most
powerful content that impactsthe right people. That's where
you're going to shine. And thatwill establish your thought
(40:51):
leadership. Once you're there,you can write your ticket, but
you also have to not getcomplacent with the value that
you're bringing to the world,you have to keep that message
flowing in a positive way. Andthat's going to just bring more
and more people into your orbit.
And we are attracted to value,there's no question about that.
And it's very easy to tell theperson that is a little shady or
(41:15):
a little shifty, their messagejust doesn't sound right. Like
when you look at him, that'sreally gonna something's not
right here versus the personthat has people lined up down
the block, waiting to say thankyou, because I had this problem.
And you helped me solve it. Ifyou've got that same problem,
okay, I'm going to trust thefact that this person has a lot
of people thanking them. They'vebuilt a community that they can
(41:39):
speak to. That's how this thinggrows. And that's how this
thought leadership becomesrealistic. And then you can grow
everything that you do aroundthat, but you have to earn it.
And I think that might be what alot of people miss, especially
if they're in the shortcutmindset. If you don't earn it,
it's very hard for anybody totruly respect where you are. And
(42:01):
sometimes that can negate theresults that you experience.
Well said, I see the parallelswith big companies and
executives as well, becausepeople want to work for a
trustworthy organization. Sovery similar, you have to have a
culture of trust, where you canshow up in psychological safety,
(42:22):
to be yourself to get yourlivelihood met all of these
things. And I think people inrecent years have really
developed and deepened theirintuition when it comes to
noticing the shakiness, like yousaid, or the shiftiness and
seeing right through that mask.
And seeing the inauthenticity ofthat there, it's like a big veil
got ripped off of our eyes, inthe pandemic, especially where I
(42:45):
think a lot of intuitive, likeno bullshit meter, kind of
evolved during that time. Andnow, we're making choices based
on trust, we're making choicesbased on the intuition that we
feel in our bodies to go on thisperson's podcast and not this
person's and to buy a product oran offering from this President,
(43:09):
not from this person, or go workfor this company and say no to
that one, because they're notembodying the values, like
there's a mismatch between whatthey're saying and what they're
doing. And something in meconsents that, and that feels
off that doesn't feel anintegrity within myself. So I
love this, this movement, reallyinto more evolved intuition.
(43:31):
heightened levels of ofauthenticity. And I think it's
really going to change the game,the more people get into
learning how to do this, andrealizing that the results are
magnetized by being in in thethought leadership and being in
(43:52):
the authenticity. And so it'salmost like a big divestment
happening right now out of thebullshit out of the toxic work
culture and a reinvestment intothe people who are who are doing
the work like You're like you'resaying, and so I appreciate that
you're showing up in this worldsupporting people to do that
it's part of this much largershift into more conscious
(44:13):
leadership which I know we gotinto on your show a bit, where
we get to have that selfawareness and build that
integrity within ourselves andsupport others to do the same
and then we're so much betteroff quite frankly, we have so
much more abundance to workwith, we don't have to protect
ourselves quite as much becausewe don't have predatory
(44:35):
capitalist predatory capitalism,knocking at our doors being
like, give me all of your moneyand all of your lifeforce like
we're just gonna suck you dry.
Like no thank you that we triedthat model. It didn't work,
dying. And so what what is thenew model? I really think it's,
(44:56):
it's rooted in exactly whatyou're talking about. And I'm
Want to come back tostorytelling as as a powerful
medicine? And perhaps this iskind of where we can bring this
amazing conversation to a close?
Because you're such a goodstoryteller. So I want to ask if
someone was so welcome. It'sYeah, been a joy to be in this
(45:16):
conversation. I'm just imaginingall the other stories that
people you've worked with arenow out there telling, and how
that impacts people. It's,you've got a whole mycelial web
happening now. But if someone iswanting to get started with
unpacking their authentic story,and beginning to tell that to
(45:38):
other people, what advice wouldyou have for someone who's who's
just getting started withwanting to be in that more
authentic story of their lives?
It starts with peeling theonion, to use a popular phrase,
you have to go layers beneaththe surface to really get to
(45:58):
that authenticity. And a lot oftimes that authentic story can
be born from pain. And more thanlikely, it doesn't have to be
massive pain, it could just be asmall nagging thing, but you
have to embrace even the shittyparts that you may have
experienced in your life.
Because those were learningexperiences, even if you don't
(46:21):
look at it. On the surface, orat the time in the moment, as
learning, you can look back onsomething that may have happened
in your past and say, Wow, man,I've really come a long way
since that happened. But theimportant thing to realize is,
even though that happened, andagain, this is subjective, this
is different for every singleperson. That's what makes it
(46:41):
unique. And that's what makes itspecial. But looking at those
factors, and not trying to shovethem under the bed or underneath
the carpet, and actuallybringing them to the surface. It
lets others resonate with youand realize that not only are
you a human being as well, butyou're experiencing something
that they're also experiencing,you're not the only one that's
(47:03):
had troubles, you're not theonly one that's had problems,
you can flip this on its headand use the successful side of
things to you're not the onlyone that's experienced that
either. But once you fullyembrace all of these things that
have happened to you, and youcan bring them together in a way
that when you talk to somebody,you're relaying it in a very
(47:26):
positive way of here's whathappened to me. It wasn't the
best, but I've learned so much.
And now I'm here. Many peopleare going to fall in love with
that, because that's the hero'sjourney. That's what we watch
movies for maybe so I mean, Ilike the heels. I like the
antagonists more than theprotagonist, that's just me, but
(47:48):
in the appreciation of what thehero can accomplish. That's what
we all want. We all want thatmoment of glory are stories that
are built inside of us. Theyhave that component built baked
right in. We just have to bewilling to get past putting
flaws of ourselves into theworld that might make it's going
(48:10):
to make people realize thatwe're not perfect, but guess
what, they probably neverthought that anyway, we probably
had just preconceived in ourmind that we have to put this
shiny, polished product in frontof people. That's the only way
they're going to respond to me.
But you said it before. There'ssome beauty in the messiness. I
feel that you have to learn fromthose experiences and grow
(48:33):
beyond them. And not try to getpeople into your world and teach
them something if you don'tfully understand it yourself.
But bringing the story to lifeis all about tapping into the
things that have happened to youover time, like a big part of
the story I tell about myevolution as an entrepreneur,
started when I was 13 years old.
(48:56):
I was big in the cardcollecting. And I got an
opportunity from one of the cardshops that was down the street
from my house. He needed apartner of his needed some help
at one of the card shows. Andthey said hey, would you like to
set up a table, you got to pay asmall price to have it but you
can sell your cards and you canbe a part of this. And I was
always at those cards shows. AndI was like, Well, yeah, I
(49:17):
understand how this works. Andeven at the age of 13 I had no
idea how to run a business, butI could put a couple little
things together. And it sparkedsomething in me that said, for
the long term, you need to dothis. You need to be doing your
thing you need to be finding thebest way to move forward with
your own possibilities. I lovetelling that story because it
(49:39):
wasn't the most successfulventure in the world. Of course
not I probably blew all myprofits at that same card show.
I can't remember everythingverbatim but I know how my
habits were at the time. But itsparked an entrepreneurial bug
or the entrepreneurial bug bitme I should say. And it sparked
my interest in doing my ownthing as I got older and moved
(49:59):
on through life. That's a bigpart of my past. I love bringing
that story out. But I'll alsotell the story of my last
corporate job. I thought thingswere going tremendously. I had
just interviewed for a corporatemanagement job, I had just a
regional management job, Ishould say, I was given more
responsibility. Even though Ididn't get that job, I was told
(50:22):
that it gave everybody somethingto think about. They wanted to
put more on my plate to bring meup, and I felt things were going
great. And then a month later, Igot fired, out of nowhere,
completely, unexpectedly shockedthe hell out of me. Even
thinking back to that day, Istill think, wow, what the hell
happened. But that was manyyears ago, and I've moved on and
(50:43):
gotten past it. But I'm notafraid to tell that story.
Because it happened. It's real.
We all go through shit. But weall have to look at what happens
within that shit. Take all thepositives, and build something
better for the future. So I lookat that job losses and say,
yeah, that sucked. But I learneda lot when I worked for that
(51:04):
company, I can now apply a lotof those skills to how I help
people today. That's how I tooka negative and made it a
positive. And that's part of mystory. It embodies everything
about who I am and how far I'vecome. And I'm proud to tell it
to anybody, without an ounce offear. When you can get to that
point with your story. Thatmeans you're comfortable, you're
(51:24):
confident, you can tell it withconviction, and you're going to
bring something special to theworld. So that's how you get
started. And then you run withit from there.
Oh, powerful words. Powerfulwords. Wow. Thank you so much,
Jason. It's been so nice to haveyou on the show. And I yeah, for
(51:45):
anyone who has resonated withyou today and wants to either
keep listening to you or learnhow to work with you. Where can
they find you on this thing wecall the Internet.
Best place to go is Jasoncircling.com. Because you can
choose your adventure. Fromthere. You can learn more about
my podcast guesting simplifiedprogram, check out my evolution
(52:05):
of brand podcast. I don't wantto speak to the new podcast, and
I'm bringing out because I don'tknow when our conversation is
gonna be live. So I don't wantto put any false hope in the
world. But everything isconnected through Jason
serko.com. And if you want tohave a further conversation, I
offer free Discovery sessionswhere we can share some ideas I
can get to know more about whatyou want to accomplish. And we
(52:28):
can determine if our valuesalign so we could potentially
work together.
Excellent. Ah, all right,listeners. Thanks for tuning in.
Thanks for being present today.
We'll see you next week. AndJason, thank you again for
sharing your wisdom today.
I appreciate the opportunity tocall this was a blast. Thank you
so much for having me.
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