Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Greatness isn't built
in a single moment.
It's forged in the extra milethat no one sees, in the
consistency that compounds overtime and in the humility to
always ask how can I do better.
Welcome back to the man thatCan podcast.
I'm your host, lachie Stewart.
If you're watching on YouTube,you're probably seeing I'm in my
(00:21):
bedroom right now.
I have had a monster day oftravel.
I flew down to Melbourne andthat is what is going to be
today's topic.
I want to talk about being great.
It is something that many of usstrive to achieve.
Greatness, what is my potential?
How can I be the best at what Ido in a way that allows me to
(00:44):
live the life that I want tolive?
It's a question I always askmyself, and the reason why I
went down to Melbourne was forthat exact thing to chase my
greatness.
You see, growing up, I wasalways missing out on certain
things.
I would get dropped from theteam from injury or, I like to
say, politics.
But if I accept responsibility,I just wasn't good enough and I
(01:06):
just kept thinking if I justhad the shot, if I had a chance
to prove myself, I know I coulddo it, because I always worked
harder than anyone else in theroom.
For me, in order as the worldgets busier and I think about
the life that I want to live,I've just decided that I want to
be great, because when I feelgreat, the negative emotions
(01:29):
that come through in my head andpop up on my shoulder that I'm
not good enough, that I'm weak,that I'm failure, that I can't
be successful they get louderand louder and louder.
So, for me, I want to be great.
I want to chase my potential.
It helps me focus on the things, the positive things, that are
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going to move me towards that.
And when I'm in motion, whenI'm working towards things, I
feel incredible, I feel worthy,I feel good enough.
And it's not always.
I still have my bad days, but Iwould take that over everything
.
So today I flew down toMelbourne because I have just
(02:12):
jumped on board with SaxtonSpeaking Bureau.
When I finished the run, onething that I really wanted to
commit to doing was being aworld-class keynote speaker.
Why, for me, I have alwayswanted to continue inspiring
people.
10 years ago, or 2014, I sat inan event listening to a keynote
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speaker and the words that cameout of his mouth I resonated
with and it moved me so much.
I remember my mom was sittingnext to me and I turned to her
and I said I'm going to do thatone day.
I didn't really know what thatwas that I was committing to,
but looking back, I wanted toinspire people to change
people's lives, because I was insuch a rut at that point in my
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life.
I didn't feel worthy, I didn'treally want to live and I didn't
know what was next for me.
But hearing that he hadtransformed his life, hearing
how he'd done it, inspired me towant more from my life, to
believe that someone who didn'tknow what he wanted, someone who
didn't feel worthy, could turnhis life around.
And here I am, a decade later,still pursuing that, because I
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don't want to see men takingtheir life.
I don't want to see marriagesfalling apart, I don't want to
see men just wasting their timeaway.
I heard a quote the other daymost people die in their 30s and
they aren't buried untilthey're 80.
And if you're listening to this, you may feel like that could
be you, and I don't want you tobe like that.
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I want you to know that thereis still more out there for you.
You haven't even scratched thesurface of what you're capable
of.
I flew down to Melbourne, as Iwas saying, because I want to be
great.
My management team most of them, are based in Melbourne.
I had a 45-minute meeting tointroduce myself to the team, to
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put a name to the face, so theyknew what the story was, what
we were going to do together andeverything like that Could it
very well be done on GoogleMeets or Zoom.
I decided I was going to flydown.
Why?
Because I want to be great, andI think when you decide that
you want to be great, one of themost important things is to go
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above and beyond, go the extramile, do things that others
aren't prepared to do, to standout.
To many.
It's very easy to say, hey,don't worry about that, just do
the Zoom.
It's just as easy.
But I know that they willremember the fact that I flew
down from Brisbane.
I took a two and a half hourflight.
I then had to catch a traininto the city in terrible
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weather, the freezing, cold day,just to sit with them for 45
minutes.
Effort goes a long way.
Do not forget that if you wantto be great.
I sat there and I was talkingto everyone.
It was so awesome.
We were having a laugh, gettingto meet, share some stories,
find out what their goals were.
Some of them were running theMelbourne 10K.
I'm going down for theMelbourne Mara hearing where
(05:05):
they've come from, what the goalof the company was.
And that was just awesome,because I do not believe you get
that when you're on Zoom andone of the ladies, not believe
you get that when you're on Zoomand one of the ladies she was
actually the CEO, lovely lady.
She turned to me as I wasgiving a bit of a brief and she
said Lockie, do you feel likeyou have achieved everything
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you've wanted to set out to do?
Because I told them much of thestory I've said here.
Years ago I decided that Iwanted to chase my potential,
because when I'm chasing mypotential which I don't think we
ever reach, but I'm just alwaysstriving for more I don't have
those negative voices creepingin.
I don't have the I'm not goodenough, you're weak, you're a
failure, you don't belong here.
All of that doesn't rear itshead as much.
(05:49):
So I turned to this lady and Isaid look, a decade ago I made a
decision.
A decade ago I was decidingthat I wanted to be a good
father and hell, I was not eventhinking about being a dad at
this point, but for me, that wasjust the benchmark as a role
model.
For me, learning isn't justabout improving my own life.
(06:11):
It's about helping other peoplepeople like you who are
listening to this to be better.
The skills that I learned, theenvironments that I put myself
in, the people and the ideasthat I get to learn about, I
hope to pass on, and maybe oneof them resonates with you.
Maybe one of these episodesthat I do is the one that leaves
that aha moment for you.
(06:31):
I would love that if that werethe case.
So, as I continued to finish it,I said I've set out to do these
things.
I'm proud of the man that I am.
I have an incredible marriage.
I've built a career that isflexible and does allow me to be
a present dad for when thattime comes, but I'm not there
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yet.
I don't think it ever stopsbecause the transformation I've
had in my life.
I know that there are so manymen who are where I once was and
my job is never going to bedone, because my job, what I
believe I'm here to do is tohelp people who are in the
position that I was, to chasetheir potential to improve their
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life one step at a time, and sothat, to me, was a powerful
experience that I maybe wouldn'thave gotten asked that question
.
I would not have gotten tothink about that had I not gone
the extra mile to get down there.
So, if you're wanting to begreat in whatever it is that you
do, what does the extra milelook like?
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What does the thing that somany people are avoiding doing?
What is that?
What do you need to do?
Because, as the quote said atthe start, which I just got
chachi piti to make based off ofa couple of things I wanted to
talk about, greatness isn'tbuilt in a single moment.
It's forged in the extra milethat no one sees.
(07:56):
For me, in my marriage, it'sbringing the coffee in every
morning.
No one sees that and it's notreally that big a deal and I'm
going to keep talking about it,but it's so important in our
relationship, it's so importantin our marriage because I could
be doing anything else.
I stop whatever I'm doing as asI'm not in Melbourne, and I
make that a priority.
(08:16):
So go the extra mile.
The second thing be consistent.
One of the ladies said today,lucky actually has speaking
goals, almost as if it's likepeople don't do that.
And I turned to her and said,well, anything that I do I wanna
(08:38):
be great at, because why wouldI invest time in something and
this is from a career standpointI'm speaking about, obviously
but why would I invest time insomething where I'm taking time
away from my family, I'm takingtime away from my hobbies, if
I'm not gonna do it to the bestof my ability?
And how do I know if I'm goingto do it to the best of my
ability?
You've got to have goals andwe're not here to talk about
(09:01):
goals today.
We're here to talk about beingconsistent.
But for me, when I decided thisis the thing that I want to do,
the consistency is in doing thespeaking, is in booking the
keynotes, is in developing newtalks, is in allocating that To
get better at the craft ofkeynote speaking.
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It's why I love still havingthe podcast and I'm doing more
solo episodes than ever, becauseI do believe that every time
I'm behind the microphone, I'mpracticing the skill, I'm
flexing the muscle, and it'sconsistency.
It's not about leaving it tothe last minute, it is about
doing a little bit Every singleday To deliver the outcome to
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greatness.
And if I get clear on whatbeing great means as a keynote
speaker, it means I need to beable to tell great stories.
I need to be able to engage anaudience with my voice and how I
use my body Okay.
And I need to continue to sharethe story and reach out to
audiences and have people notonly go wow, that made me think
(10:06):
about things, but wow, I felt ashift, just like I felt all
those years ago in that event.
And that is what I'm committedto doing.
Maybe I'm a long way off, Idon't know, but I'm committed to
doing that and I'm going to dowhatever it takes.
And this leads me to my thirdand final point.
The third and final point,ladies and gentlemen, is to
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always ask for feedback.
When I was signing off in themeeting today, I looked around
to everyone.
I said, hey, thank you, guysand ladies, so much for allowing
me to come down today andgiving me some of your time.
But I want to be honest.
I'm new to this speaking thingand if there is anything that
you see, I can do and I'm goingto send you my talks, but if
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there is any opportunity to get1% better, please do not hold
back.
It may not be always what Iwant to hear, but it is what I
need to hear to get better.
But it is what I need to hearto get better.
It is what I need to hear toimprove.
And so don't take feedback as apersonal attack.
If people are strong enough andcare enough to be able to give
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you feedback on where you canget better, it is so important
in order for you to be great,because greatness has blind
spots.
I'm going to think about thisas I speak out loud.
But when we get so focused ondoing something, what worked to
get us from, let's say, levelone to level three may not be
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the thing or the process or theskill set that will get us from
level three to level five, whichmeans we need to grow.
But if we don't look outside ofourself and if we don't take
feedback on or even review ourown efforts to go, hey, I'm not
making progress, then that iswhere it is so important to get
feedback.
So, for me, every talk that Igive, I send out a feedback form
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, I hang around and I speak tothe room.
What did you enjoy?
Were there any moments thatmaybe I lost you?
Were there any moments that Icould have gone into more detail
?
How was the energy?
How did I use my voice?
All of these things areimportant and so, for your
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career and whatever you're doingin the areas that you want to
be great.
What does that look like?
What feedback do you need?
I even did this, and I still dodo this, with my clients.
We do a 360 degree feedback frompeople in their life from my
client's life, so it might bewith their spouse, it might be
with their children, theirfriends, even colleagues, to get
feedback on how they're showingup in their life.
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From my client's life, so itmight be with their spouse, it
might be with their children,their friends, even colleagues,
to get feedback on how they'reshowing up in their life.
And it is one of the mostpowerful tools because, as I
mentioned, we all have blindspots, and how we think we're
showing up or the results thatwe think we should be getting
may not be actually what's goingon.
So, to have that feedback, wecan then decide whether we want
to take it on board and then ifwe go, yeah, I'm definitely
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gonna take that on board.
We can then work out someaction steps in order to move
forward.
Very important stuff, but theyare my three steps that I
thought about today in order tobe great.
It's why I went the extra mileto fly down to Melbourne.
It was a thousand000 investmentfor a 45-minute meeting.
It also took a full day out ofmy week, which I desperately
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need at the moment.
I feel like I'm under the pump.
To me, it was worth it.
It was definitely worth itbecause, in order to be great,
you've got to go the extra mile,you've got to be consistent and
you've got to ask for feedback.
I'd love to hear from you whatdoes being great look like for
you in one of the domains?
Now, if we say great across thepark, it's very different to if
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I just say what does beinggreat mean in your career?
What does being great mean inyour relationship?
What does being great meanfinancially?
And if you want to go into moredetail or depth or have a bit
of an understanding, I createdthe man that Can Scorecard,
which is a 14 question quiz.
Right, scorecard?
It'll help you see where you'redrifting and where you're
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thriving across the sevendomains and give you a little
bit of a roadmap, and one thingthat maybe many of you don't
know is that you'll get somefollow-up emails.
Those follow-up emails arepretty cool because they're
written by me, but the coolthing is I do invite you to take
a bigger one If you want moredepth and more detail.
It's about 30 questions, so Ilook forward to seeing more of
you take it.
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I look forward to being able tohelp you improve your quality of
life, because the things thatI'm learning from my coaches,
the things that I'm learningfrom my clients, I wanna
continue sharing, and I dobelieve you should go the extra
mile.
So if you wanna give me somefeedback, even on the episodes,
on the podcasts, it goes a longway.
It means a lot that you takethe time out of your day, but it
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also helps me add more value tothis show, because if one of
these episodes or one of mytalks can change people's lives
the way that I was impacted whenI listened to that keynote all
those years ago, then I'll be sohappy.
I'm signing off.
My name is Lachlan Stewart.
Thank you, guys for tuning in.