April 29, 2025 • 71 mins
Is life just a grind or are you living with joy, connection, and purpose? In this powerful episode, Kellan Fluckiger sits down with enrichment entertainer, educator, and visionary Ben Corey Feinbloom, who’s been delivering wonder to 3,700+ audiences worldwide—from Microsoft to six-year-olds at summer camp.
Ben shares how he’s helping people awaken the magic within, connect more deeply, and build lives rooted in meaning—not materialism. You'll hear how he’s transforming corporate culture, revolutionizing childhood education through BrainStars Club, and building humans who fail up and rise with purpose.
🔥 Discover:
- Why you're feeling empty (and how to reverse it).
- The "power of littles" and how 3 micro-decisions a day change everything.
- How to rewire your brain for happiness and focus.
- What kids are learning that most adults never do.
From Ben:
🎁 Claim his gift bundle of tools to stay on track: https://gift.bencorey.com
🎟️ Book a show or experience enrichment entertainment: https://bencorey.com
🧠 Help your kids awaken the magic within: https://brainstars.club
From Kellan:
🎤 Want to be featured? Submit your story: https://www.yourultimatelifepodcast.com/contact
🚀 Ready to write your book and change your life? Join the June challenge: https://www.dreambuildwriteit.com
❤️ Subscribe and share the show with someone who needs a reminder that they matter.
🌎 Explore more tools: https://www.yourultimatelife.ca
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the show.
Tired of the hype about livinga dream?
It's time for truth.
This is the place for tools,power and real talk so you can create
the life you dream and deserveyour ultimate life.
Subscribe, share, create.
(00:24):
You have infinite power.
Hello and welcome to yourultimate life.
The the podcast dedicated tocreating the ultimate life.
A life of purpose, prosperityand joy that is within your grasp.
I'm excited to have a specialguest today, Ben Corey, and if he
(00:47):
uses it, all of his names.
Ben Corey Feinbloom.
Ben, welcome to the show.
Hello Kellen.
It is such a pleasure to behere with you today and everybody
watching from home.
Pleasure to meet you.
Thank you for coming to spendsome time with us.
We hope to share with you someinformation and maybe make it a little
magical.
(01:08):
I love that.
So the first time I met Ben, Iwas really excited about him, who
he is, what he's doing, whohe's being in the world and made
me know he was a great, wouldbe a great guest to share things.
And you know what, some of thethings we talk about might seem magic,
but they're not out of reach.
So Ben, I want to ask you thefirst question here.
(01:29):
I want you to not be humbleand not be self effacing in any way.
So tell us all, how has Benadding good to the world?
How am I adding good to the world?
Well, my aim since I was youngwas to take people who were jaded
and felt like they'd seeneverything and sort of disengaged
(01:53):
from life as either kids or adults.
And I wanted to drop magicinto their life so that they had
moments of joy and wonder.
And so somebody who was jadedsuddenly slipped back into that feeling
of childlike wonder that theymay not have experienced for decades.
And then after I begandelivering that to now over 3,700
(02:18):
audiences around the world,virtually and in person.
And at a corporate eventrecently for 550 people singing comedy,
doing magic.
The singing is there to movepeople's emotions and the show is
really not there just ascorporate entertainment or for a
social event.
It's there to help peopleunderstand the importance of what
(02:41):
they're doing so that they canfeel more engaged with what they're
doing.
And on the second side, I tookall of those skills that I used for
developing how I interact onstage, the things that I'm observing
when I'm about to pull comedyfrom something, how I do something
impossible and get to thepoint where I can do magic and how
(03:02):
I connect with people when Igo from one audience to another,
in different contexts, indifferent states, in different countries,
in different age groups, andconnect with everybody.
I took all of that and 18years ago, founded a summer camp
called Creative Magic Camp,where I take all of those skills
while teaching magic.
(03:23):
And I helped 6 year olds getthose same skills that I used to
master the interactions onstage and develop creatively and
find my passion.
And I use it to awaken themagic within.
And so now this is goingnational through Brainstar Clubhouse
(03:44):
and Brainstar Academy, wherewe take all the stuff we developed
over those 18 years and usemany different forms of art as a
medium to communicate morals,character, values, methods that will
help people really succeed inhaving friendships and connecting
(04:04):
with others.
And it's really designed toawaken the magic within.
There was a big problem in theschool system as I was growing up.
I felt like I was just havinginformation bombarded that I had
to remember over and over again.
But I wanted to be creativeand I wanted to be passionate and
(04:25):
I wanted to change the world.
And so I ended up designingthis enrichment program to help kids
become Brain Stars.
Kids who have brain abilitiesare problem solvers, who are creative,
but also have the star abilityto step up and lead.
(04:49):
So that instead of kicking thecan down the road on big problems
in society that will reallyknock us out, Brain Stars can come
in and lead the way.
And by growing up in a cohortof people where that's how we look
at the world and how we dothings, they have friends who will
help them change things,advance things when they want to
(05:11):
build something and they justthink that's what people do because
we start young and that's whatwe do.
I love that.
That's fabulous.
Now you've said a whole bunchof things and there's at least six
or seven that I'd like to digin a little bit more.
So you alluded back to yourchildhood and how information was
(05:36):
poured on you, and yourreaction was feeling like it was
an overwhelming flood.
What.
What was the first thing thatyou can remember that made you think,
there has to be a better way?
Like, here I am exploded withall this stuff, and at some point
you thought, there's gotta bea bit.
There's gotta be a way.
Can you remember when that wasand what you thought and maybe how
(05:59):
that led forward a little bit?
So a whole bunch of ideas justflew through my head.
An example that comes to mind,once I had grown up fully, was thinking
sine, cosine, tangent.
(06:19):
I really mastered thoseelements of math and got An A in
that class.
But when I went to rent anapartment and later buy a house,
I knew nothing about the maththat went into those essential life
things.
So I realized a giant disconnect.
(06:40):
And also in organic chemistryclass, I began as pre med.
I thought I was going to be afourth generation optometrist.
I'm sitting there and doingall of these things with benzene
rings and stuff that they show.
And.
(07:01):
And it was only like inorganic chemistry too, that I learned
that this is not theory.
They actually look at thoseorganic molecules and the compounds
and see that shape throughelectron microscopes.
And I went, wow.
They just took the mostinteresting part and took it out
(07:22):
completely.
And instead we've been sittinghere grinding on this knowledge.
And if I knew you couldactually see it and you could actually
work with it and watch thesethings happen, wow, that would have
been way more thrilling.
And I think kind of one of thelast times is I put a couple things
wrong in a chemical reaction Iwas doing in that same class.
(07:43):
And the solution changedcolor, moved around, formed a little
like a little pile of crystaland changed to bright orange.
And I went, why is that notthe experiment?
So all the way along inscience, we're learning to memorize
(08:05):
things.
This is just one example.
But science is actually aboutan attitude of curiosity and exploration.
A scientist has got to get tothe bottom of what is going on there.
And then there's a process tomake sure our mind and our emotions
don't trip us up and otherscan review what we come up with.
(08:30):
And I thought, what if theytrained people who had the enthusiasm
and attitude of a scientistand they helped people find the topic
that they thought was justgoing to be groundbreaking and so
that that person would then,instead of being bombarded with information,
(08:53):
go, oh, I want to do this.
So I need to collect this,this, this.
And suddenly they're trying toVelcro information to themselves
because they know where theywant to go.
So it's, it's kind of alongthat whole way and I love that.
Great examples.
And what I'm hearing is a com.
One of the common threads ishow do we preserve, rekindle the,
(09:19):
the enthusiasm.
Because it's the enthusiasm,the yearning, the desire to know,
to do, to create that causesus to want to Velcro the info.
Go find it and do all that.
I want to jump.
I know I'm going to jumparound a bit.
But when you go to thecorporate thing, you were talking
about the same thing.
So you got a bunch of peoplein Corporate.
(09:39):
And mostly they come in andthey're like, whatever in most corporate
relations I've ever been in orassociated with.
So why do you think we havecreated a world where the default
mode of everything is kind ofa thing in jobs and even in life,
(10:01):
where we just sort of settlefor mediocrity and kind of think
that's the way it is?
Why have we built that?
So the job of the brain,Kellen, and everybody at home is
to keep us safe.
Now, back when we were beingchased around by bobcats and bears,
that was useful all the time.
(10:24):
But we're still in societywhere we're trying to create safer
and safer and safer all around us.
And then if somebody breaksour safety, we're going to sue the
daylights out of them.
Well, we have actually takenall the excitement out of life and
all of the challenge and allthe thrill.
And the problem on this is sobig that disengagement from work.
(10:51):
I just saw a study the other day.
We lose $9 trillion ofproductivity in the global economy
because people are disengagedfrom work.
So the fact that they're notinterested and not what they're in
doing is really having thatbig of an impact.
(11:12):
And in the United States, asmany as half of the people who are
sitting there at their currentjob are searching for other jobs
while they're working.
About half.
So that's how much people are disengaged.
Now, we have often aimed forthe wrong things, things that will,
(11:34):
like, increase our standard ofliving instead of our quality of
life.
And we don't know by we, Imean most people don't know how to
build happiness into their life.
But there's positivepsychology researchers now, and they,
they know it's well understood how.
And so if somebody is sittingthere and goes and, and says, you
(11:58):
know what?
I want a BMW.
And they got a Geometro andthey dream of the BMW and maybe they
save up for a long time to getthe start on it.
And then they go, and they gostraight to that.
Well, we will adjust to thatpositive thing, just like we'll adapt
(12:18):
to negative things.
So we will then slide back toa moment where we've got that thing
and then we adjust to it andit's not important anymore.
This is called hedonic adaptation.
So we have a world that'sdesigned on materialism, particularly
(12:38):
in the United States, andmore, more, more, more, more.
And we go for that big thingand then we adapt to having it and
we need something else.
And in the longest study ofsocial psychology in history.
They studied over the lifespanof people and then towards the end,
(13:00):
asked them what was mostimportant in their life.
And it was things like relationships.
And so when people are ontheir deathbed, that's what they
care about most.
But right now, by the age of20, most kids do not have best friends.
(13:21):
So we've taken the things thatare really, really important and
those are not what we're doing.
And we've taken all thesechannels of media and if you go on
and watch children'sprogramming or watch things that
are being said in manydifferent situations on tv, on the
news, all the stuff we'relooking at, most of it's crap that
(13:43):
is designed to glue oureyeballs to the screen, but not bring
actual value.
So we're surrounded in thatecosystem of materialism and all
the media that we consume fromevery direction, not enriching our
lives.
And so that is why here'swhere the connection is.
(14:06):
My programs are all enrichment.
Entertainment for corporate,for social, for kids.
That's how they all connect.
I'm taking entertainment andmaking it exciting to have an experience
that enriches your life.
And you know, this is whatwe're doing virtually and in person
(14:27):
everywhere.
And we're going to aim throughevery form of media.
But if everybody is operatingfrom a measure like gross domestic
product, but they're notoperating from gross domestic happiness.
We.
End up off target.
It's like that saying where ifyou take off in Washington D.C.
(14:48):
and are flying towards Londonand you're a few degrees off in the
airplane, you may end up in Zambia.
So that just then brings me to the.
We've trained ourselves in tolive in BMW land or GDP or whatever
it is.
And we have defined that thatwill create us some level of happiness
(15:09):
because we wanted it.
The feeling of wanting, andthen we get it and then we have adaptation
and then it suddenly is nothing.
And so we're looking for thenext thing.
And we know all this, it'slike, this is not news, right?
And so, but we still are doingthis over and over.
The education system, the jobcreation system, the measurement.
(15:31):
And you just told me I'mlosing $9 trillion in productivity
because people hate the jobsand half of them are looking for
new work.
So two questions.
Why aren't we changing it onthe macro scale?
And then I want you to tell mespecifically the audience, what is
something that you do in oneof those sessions to create enriching
(15:55):
entertainment?
So let's get really specific.
So on the macro level, and Irealize it's sort of philosophical,
but what's wrong with us?
Why aren't we changing that?
And then I want you to tell mesomething that you're doing in a
real life thing that aims tomake a dent in that problem.
My first belief is that mostof what we know how to change is
(16:19):
in a silo somewhere like aresearch article or something like
that that isn't getting out to everybody.
So I didn't want to create new information.
I wanted to get the bestinformation to people in the spot
right where they were.
Why are we not changing it worldwide?
Well on the macro scale, if weare driven by a sense of getting
(16:44):
and what can I get for myself?
And it's this me, me, me, selfcentered thing, then that lends itself
to resources, money, thingslike that.
And we believe that will makeus happy.
Well, I was fortunate enoughto learn early that at the time I
had, you know, living at homewith my family as I was in high school
(17:08):
and whatnot and I hadliterally everything.
There were many times I wasthe least happy in my entire life
while having everything.
And so I said wait a minute,something is wrong here.
So I had that moment early andwas fortunate.
And I think a lot of peoplehave never reached that moment and
(17:33):
what I'm doing to change it now.
Let's talk about in a performance.
So the other day I was on for550 people who help, they run their
own separate organization thathelps regulate the 650,000 stockbrokers,
(17:54):
sort of a self regulatingindustry and then they help regulate
the markets and they're allseeing what's happening in the markets
right now and they're likewhole life has been destabilized
this and they're seeing itgoing like crazy right now.
And I used a magic effectwhere it was a mentalism effect.
(18:16):
And the last they selectedtheir answers and they ended up with
a stock market and a, and aworld financial center.
And it ended up being theoldest stock market in the world
in Asia, in Bombay and Zurich,Switzerland, a pure stable.
(18:37):
And then at the end of that Iput a message that was right built
into that mentalism effect,which is that your work stabilizes
the markets for generations.
That organization's been therefor 85 years.
(19:00):
And so if they are seeingtheir life in the context of everything
going crazy at the moment,they're going to go nuts.
If they realize that thingthat's going to take them a year
and a half to roll out will bethere making a difference in 50 years.
They suddenly have a verydifferent feeling about their work.
(19:22):
And I was on for Microsoft theother day and I changed that effect.
And it was a group thathandles their ads for global corporations.
They handle the big accountsand they don't write the ads, they
don't create the systems.
This group handles theaccounts and lets the people know
(19:45):
where they should spend more.
And I shared with them at theend of that effect, your work takes
potential and turns it intoprofits or into reality.
So all the potential that thatorganization that's trying to get
(20:06):
their best products intopeople's hands reaches their hands
more because of the workpeople do now with.
And actually when I said thatover the phone with the team at Microsoft,
she stopped.
She was on the ads team andshe just went, okay, we're getting
you.
(20:27):
So my shows are about astealth transformation and it's about
intrinsic motivation, thedeepest form that comes from within.
Now, when it comes to ourprograms in person and virtually,
I'll give you an in person example.
(20:48):
Starts with connect with youraudience day.
And as we're performing magicor whatever the different program
is going to be, I'm explainingthat you need to connect because
here, let me show you what itfeels like if you don't while we're
presenting this.
Which one do you like better?
And they all like it better,each step more connected.
(21:11):
So we will have them in theroom and we will.
They will crisscross acrossthe room and then I'll say stop.
Turn towards the person who'sclosest to you.
And I have them then make eyecontact and hold it for a little
bit.
(21:31):
Now, initially they're allincredibly uncomfortable because
they haven't had eye contactwith anybody before.
And then we mix it up again.
And as we're doing this, I'madding in lessons like when you use
somebody's name, Kellen, everypart of their brain lights up.
(21:53):
Movement, they'll turn towhere it is, their eyes will turn,
their language centers.
Their whole brain lights upwhen you share one element, but just,
just their name.
And then the next thing I'llteach is how what makes a best friend
is the person who listens whenwe're sharing our life stories.
(22:18):
And so I will teach them howto share a life story with and what
that looks like.
Now they're mixing across theroom, using each other's names a
few times in the conversation,knowing that that's how you remember
it.
And then they share a life story.
And then towards the end, I amable to have them hold the eye contact
longer and longer, triggeringall the feelings of Connection.
(22:42):
And then I sit them down and Iask them to share, you know, what
did that feel like for you?
What came up?
And there was one day a sixyear old looks at me and he goes,
I feel really warm inside,like I just made a best friend with
(23:09):
everybody.
Do you like it?
I love it.
And he switched on a dime.
Why did nobody tell me this before?
I look across the room and Isay, well, now you're on the other
(23:32):
side.
You've learned to connect witheach person as you're even walking
by and then when you talk,when you stop with them, how to connect
deeply.
You're now on the other side.
And I explain a study wheremost people having zero best friends
(23:54):
and then as they were doingthe study, they came up with people
who others would report them130 sometimes as their best friend.
And I share, you know,listening to each other's stories
on their good days and theirworst is what makes a best friend.
And then I teach them aboutfair weather friends.
(24:16):
Most people will just scatteraway when something bad is going
on in somebody's life becausethey don't want that vibe, they don't
want that energy and it'sgoing to drag them down.
Well, they don't know that.
If you stay in compassion,compassion will shield you from sinking
(24:36):
to that person's level andcompassion will add to your happiness
and you can create space andsit there and talk with that person
and hear them through on theirworst, most challenging day of their
life while everybody has scurried.
And then I teach the kids, youare going to have bad days and life
(24:59):
is not easy when it does.
You have a chance for a gift.
Look at everybody else whoscurries, take notes and look who's
still there.
The greatest gift of having aterrible day is you find out very
(25:21):
quickly who your best friendsreally are.
And then if you build yourlife surrounding yourself with those
people, they're going to bethere 80 years later and your life
is going to be enriched bydeep relationships where you have
a personal history, you canshare stories together, you can,
(25:44):
I can bring up jokes with myfriend Ian from when we were six.
And then I'll show them on myFacebook wall.
I'd be like, see all thesepeople who respond to every single
post.
I'll click and show the namesand tell them who each person is
and what they mean to me andwhy they're there.
(26:05):
And it's usually higher than 130.
And so I have the example oflike, I'm doing this, I'm not just
teaching you.
This is what I learned to besuccessful as an entertainer.
But I'm telling you this, andI will tell them this at the beginning.
I'll say, I want you to listenclosely, because you're not going
to hear this anywhere else.
And when you actually applyit, it will change the rest of your
(26:29):
life.
From this moment forward,there will be a before and an after.
So I want to notice several things.
One, I love your demonstration.
I love your experience.
I love the expression.
And there is a before and after.
But I want to do a couple of things.
I just love the way you'retelling stories, moving in and out,
and your hands and theexpression, and it adds to the veracity
(26:52):
and intensity of your expression.
And I love that.
And I'm saying it because Iwant people to see that.
And I'm asking each of you togo back and listen to that expression,
because he's just given youright now a class in creating relationships,
using names, listening, takingyourself out of the picture, being
(27:13):
there for people just becauseyou can.
And he's also talked aboutsomething important.
We've created this society ofdistance, of disconnection, of attachment
to things instead of people.
And all of those are theantithesis to happiness.
Because at the end of the day,as he said, when you're dead or dying,
(27:34):
and at the end, it's the love,the relationships, the people.
That's 100% of the time.
Nobody says, I wish I'd made ahundred more dollars.
No one ever says that.
And so I love that.
And I just wanted toacknowledge the way you're telling
the stories and teaching this thing.
You did exactly what I hopedyou would do.
So thank you for that.
(27:54):
I want to go.
I want to back up a little bitto the development so you notice
these differences.
And I want to do thedevelopment piece.
Then I want to go to the kidsand the brain stars.
You notice this, and you jumpto, when I was an adult, can you
talk me through a little bit of.
(28:15):
Because someone could look atyou now and say, wow, he's good.
And they would be right.
And you weren't born that way.
And there's a process ofgrowth and development.
And one of the things I thinkis most valuable, which is why I
love helping people writebooks and tell stories, is answering
the question, how did you getwhere you are?
(28:38):
Because they see your successand they go, whoa, I wish I could,
but I could never.
And then they have a wholestory about that.
So tell me some of thedevelopmental processes to get you
where you are answer a littlebit of the question, how did you
get to be such a beautifulproduct of the product, meaning you
are a representation of whatyou share with us.
(29:01):
How did that happen?
Well, first, I'm going to turnthis around on you for a second because
this is really funny.
I will build a business thathelps me grow into the person I want
to be.
I will create an artisticexpression that helps me become who
I want to become.
(29:21):
I will involve myself inthings like this podcast that will
transform my life just byhaving the time between us and sharing
with the audience.
So aligning myself in thatway, as I was taking notes on the
various methods that I used, Iput them all down and I had the story
(29:47):
arc, your book on the screennext to me about how to make a book
on the topic of yourself andthe story and how you got there.
And I looked down ateverything I had written as little
bullet points that I mighttalk about while here, and I went,
I just prepared to write anentire book using the story arc process
(30:14):
by preparing to come onto your podcast.
So every single thing in lifebeing kind of focused on aligning
somehow with a bigger vision,something I'm trying to create, allows
it to all come together.
Now I got a new saying and I'malways improving things all the time.
(30:39):
This is now on a post it noteso that it's stuck in the middle
of my monitor.
And I was asking ChatGPT, Isaid, There are really great days
and there are really bad daysand I'm always looking for how to
just make it through those.
What is one thing I could tellmyself when things are at the top
and another thing, when I cantell myself when things are at the
(31:01):
bottom, that will be the samething and help me keep centered as
a human being rather thanflying all over emotionally.
And here's what it came up with.
This is part of the climb.
And I was born to rise.
Now, now, who says chatty'snot intelligent?
(31:23):
Exactly.
The biggest thing I can tellanybody is, and you and I were just
kind of touching on thisbefore, before we began to record,
is that if you want to get mycalculator right here on my phone,
if you take three things in aday that are building towards the
(31:47):
same thing and improving thesame thing, three a day, let's say
30 days a month, that's 90things times 12 months is 10, 80
things times 10 years is10,800 improvements.
So given that I knew from ayoung age I was going to be a magician,
(32:10):
I actually thought I was goingto be a comedian first.
And then I became a comedy magician.
I decided that whatever wasgoing on every single day, there
was going to be three thingsgoing towards this vision that I
had.
Now, I knew by the time I waslike, 11 years old that entertainment
and magic was it.
(32:31):
I'm 45.
So wherever you are, if youstart with three things a day, you
do the math.
Every decade, 10,000 things.
10,800 30 years later, you'relooking at 30,240, 32,400 impacts.
(32:57):
So I had a vision forbrainstars, actually first.
And I'll tie in another storyof my success there.
And there was a program,Maryland Institute for Technology
in the Humanities at theUniversity of Maryland, put on by
a writing professor, Martha Nelsmith.
(33:18):
And I went.
And they were just learning.
This is like 2000.
How do we.
This new Internet is here.
How do we take the arts andall these good things we can send
through this medium and makeit an enriching place for technology
and the humanities?
And I looked at this, and Imet with her and I gave her this
big talk about how everymedium we had was being covered with
(33:39):
trash.
And then I saw that IrvinKirshner, director of Star the Empire
Strikes Back, was delivering akeynote the next day.
I went to the keynote.
Martha was sitting in front ofme, looking back over her shoulder,
because I gave her the samekeynote the night before, and she
introduced us.
And shortly after, I askedIrvine Kirishner, I said, I'm looking
(34:04):
for a mentor who's navigatedthis whole thing and made it, would
you be my mentor?
He was for 10 years.
And at the end of the 10years, at his.
Well, his memorial, really,when he passed away, it was a celebration
of life at the Directors Guildin Hollywood.
(34:26):
His sons came up to me andthey had wondered, how did he end
up with a third son?
How did he end up working with me?
And I just had this day, and Iwas Barbra Streisand there, and every
one of the Star wars actorsand John Lithgow.
The room is filled with everybody.
I'm talking to this woman.
I'm going, how did you know Kirsch?
(34:47):
She said, we were both writers.
I go, oh, what did you write?
And she said, dirty Dancing.
I went, oh.
And then Barbra Streisandright there.
Just a whole day like this.
But this is the moment thatstuck with me the most, when his
sons asked him how I ended upconnected with him.
And he worked with me on everything.
(35:09):
He told them I was the onlyone in his entire life who asked.
Nobody ever asked.
Now, here's another supercrucial one.
The I use a concept called thecritical inch when you are running
(35:30):
a marathon, and many things inlife are marathons.
Having a child is a marathon.
Building a business is a marathon.
Getting an education is a marathon.
If you're running a marathon,there is a red tape at the end.
And if you are running themarathon in first place the entire
(35:54):
time and just one inch orcentimeter, wherever you are in the
world before that red line,you stop and someone else crosses
before you, you didn't win the marathon.
So on all things that I'mdoing, I keep my eyes on the critical
(36:16):
inch.
I know what the purpose is ofwhat I'm doing, how it fits with
the vision and the criticalinch of completing it.
And when I'm going for it,I'll write all the steps down.
I have a project managementapp next to me.
I use ClickUp now, andanything I want to build, as soon
as I decide it's a concept,it's layered in concept in the app.
(36:41):
And I begin to break it downinto little steps and it will slowly
ripen.
And when I look at it and go,you know what?
I know where to go with this.
Now I will then just follow mysteps, which I've written in action
format to carry out.
And so that part of me that isa leader who's leading myself or
(37:05):
others happens in separate times.
And the part of me that isacting and taking action and driving
forward and this is going toget done, that's going to get done,
and this is going to happen,that's not the same as like the visionary
person.
I make those two separate times.
(37:26):
And when I'm doing actions, Iget on a roll.
And here's the crazy thing,there's all sorts of bells and whistles,
let's say notifications,calls, emails, emails, or somebody
else's agenda arriving on your desk.
All of these things pull yourfocus away.
(37:49):
So your power is defined byyour ability to focus exclusively
on one thing.
And so if you have two goalshere, one goal here and one goal
here, they're this far apart.
If you're not focused, you'regoing like this all over the place,
and you may end up back over here.
If you're focused, it's like alaser beam and boom.
(38:13):
So a big part of the secret isfocus for five minutes at a time,
and you are focused more thanmost people are their entire lives.
And here's where you put your focus.
There's an Eisenhower quadrantof urgent and important.
Important but not urgent.
(38:36):
If you can spend your lifefocused on what is important and
not urgent, and youprioritize, A, this is for now, B,
this is for soon, and C, thisis for when I get to it.
If you do the important andnot urgent over and over again, you
(39:03):
are building your future.
Now, I have next to me, likethe core three projects I want to
do at any time.
They're sitting right here.
And I define that for a three,four month period, maybe a quarter
(39:23):
and for a year and for a threeyear period.
And if I come back or when Icome back in August and I look at
where my life is, my businessis and my impact is, and I look back
at that paper, at the stuff Icompleted, my business grew exactly
(39:43):
to the level of those thingsthat I completed that I believed
were super important, not urgent.
But if I got them done, I knewthey would change my life.
So then here's like a, I thinkkind of the biggest secret entertainment
(40:08):
is a little bit like thisbusiness is a little bit like swinging
from a vine and then you'vegot to reach off and catch the next
vine while you're flyingthrough the air.
Okay.
It's not.
I don't go for stability.
I actually go for explosive growth.
And so how do we operate inthis environment?
(40:33):
First of all, fears come up always.
And I have a group of people, coaches.
Kellen, you helped seriously,on the first time before, while we
were talking about doing thispodcast, I learned your power.
So if you're watching andyou're thinking of getting a coach,
just go with Kellen if you canget him.
(40:56):
And masterminds, people whoare successful at what you do and
are all gathered together in amastermind to share the best practices.
And these are people aroundthe world.
Now we get together on zoomand in person.
I have this for magicians, Ihave this for business.
I have a therapist.
So that if not if, when lifegets challenging, I can work through
(41:20):
it quickly so that I can havethe energy and resilience.
Because I believe that as aleader, the leader feels every single
thing that everybody else does.
But if you can feel it deeplyand feel it through fully, you come
out the other side.
And that next emotion is theone that allows you to go forward.
(41:44):
And if you get to the partwhere you are ready to go forward
before everybody else and youbegin to put together a plan, you
are not the leader becausesomebody called you the leader.
You're the leader becauseeverybody else is going, ah, what
do we do.
I'm scared.
What do we do?
And you went through theemotion already and came out the
(42:05):
other side with a plan and actions.
And everybody just goes,follow that lady, follow that guy.
And you're the leader.
Just because you recoveredquickly and decided to come up with
what to do about it.
And behind some of that,there's a process called somatic
(42:25):
therapy where you speak with atherapist and as you're talking about
something, you have sensationsin your body and they're like, where
do you feel that?
And I'm like, I got a knot inmy chest right now.
The person will say, well,what color is that knot?
It's a giant gray knot.
(42:49):
Pay attention to that.
See what happens.
And suddenly you feel thatknot release.
You go, know what?
If I wait on this one thingI'm going to do because it's hard,
it's going to be way harder.
(43:10):
And if I do the hard thingnow, it's going to be way easier.
And after that moment, I justturn and back to that concept of
leaping through the air in theentertainment business.
I succeed on the concept offalling up.
(43:31):
I'm not actually succeeding.
I am at all times failingmarketing material.
You throw out all your moneyand all your energy into your marketing
material.
And for 98% of the people whosee fails, and if you are super successful,
it's 97% and that makes it ahuge success, that 1% difference.
(43:56):
So you're actually failingconstantly and throwing money at
this.
And that doesn't work.
And that creates an experienceof constantly falling.
There's always a don't we wishthat for me, that next corporate
event booked already.
Don't I wish that summer campwas around because it's filled with
(44:20):
impact and it's a great timefor my business because we sell out
like crazy with people comingback and it's just great to see everybody.
And so there's all theseperiods of falling and sometimes
I'm falling and I go, oh crap,I need to get into the emergency
savings.
Other time it's, oh crap, Ineed to use a line of credit and
oh crap, I need to sell some stock.
(44:46):
So creating the conditionswhere you can constantly fall and
in that moment when you'refalling, have a mastermind, a mentor,
a coach, and you need accountability.
Also in that accountabilitygroups is where the real transformation
happens.
People who will tell you, youknow, you said you were going to
(45:07):
do this and you didn't do it.
What's up?
We just lie to all of us.
That'll keep you honest.
With yourself and others.
And so in that process ofconstantly falling up, I am going
towards the next item thatwill be the greatest contributor
(45:29):
to my success.
And no matter what ishappening, I'm working on that.
And a lot of people will talkabout a fallback position as that
safety thing coming again, Iwill use a fall up position.
(45:54):
I was finished pre med andknew I wasn't going to go in that
direction.
And I wanted to study theaterand social psychology, which is the
science of human interaction,which I wanted to use for the shows
and child development andlifespan development so I could understand
all the audiences.
(46:15):
Those were all the things Iwas going to use in college to support
my main thing.
And people say, well, what'syour fallback plan?
I said, I don't want afallback plan, I don't want a safety
net.
I'm gonna make this work orI'm not gonna do it.
And I've decided I'm doing it.
So I'm gonna make it work.
And it's working already whileI'm in school.
So I assume that if I put moretime and effort I'll be better.
(46:38):
But I found a fall up planwhich was if I took the entrepreneurship
courses, the business courses,the marketing courses, then all of
that makes it more likely thatI succeed in what I want to do.
And now I consult with peoplein all sorts of different businesses.
(46:58):
And maybe half my revenue camefrom other businesses this period
of time, one of them acardiology practice.
And so all those businessskills I could apply to myself, I
could apply in other placeswhere if I needed a time to make
(47:20):
more money or, you know, Iwasn't going to meet cash flow wise,
I had this fall up.
And then in accounting there'sa T chart.
It is literally a T is themost essential thing in all of business.
(47:45):
One side of the tea is themoney coming in and the other side
is the money going out.
If you keep it so that themoney coming in is more than the
money going out, you can be inbusiness in whatever you're doing
permanently.
And so when I got out ofschool, I was doing maybe five shows
(48:09):
a month at somewhere around$250 a piece.
So $1,250 a month.
Well, and I had worked theprevious 10 years for other people.
Starting when I was 14 and ahalf, I got a room.
Now, you can't really do thisas easily this time, but I got a
(48:30):
room for $550 a month by thetime I paid for my phone, my health
insurance in my room, I hadenough money left over that I could
eat out for lunch every single day.
And most of the shows wereending up on one weekend.
So I had almost 28 days amonth completely free.
(48:54):
And I just looked at everysingle skill that I would need to
do, and I studied it.
And when I was studying sales,I studied 16 different books on sales.
And by the time I finished,I'm like, these are all the same,
and they're all referring backto listening.
And then I ended up finding alistening textbook and studied 400
(49:16):
pages on listening, becausethat's what the sales textbooks were
all saying.
And that's where great actorswere saying.
And I'm a conservatory trained actor.
They were saying it was thelistening that was important.
And so, like, I've got yourbook Living with Purpose and Power
(49:40):
right here.
And I'm on this.
Chapter two, what do I control?
And so you control what you say.
Perhaps you have habits ofmuttering under your breath without
thinking.
It is still under your control.
You may habitually shout atothers when they cut you off on the
freeway.
It is still under your control.
(50:01):
You have a running monologuein your head about all sorts of things
that is still under your control.
Let me repeat, it is stillunder your control.
So I surround myself withbooks where I will read like I won't
read it straight through.
I'll go to a chapter thatsounds like it's going to resonate
with me and I'll zero in onone thing and then I'll read a little
(50:24):
bit of it.
And when I have a hit, I willstop and reflect on that.
And there's a thing calledstacking order.
Some people read one book at atime straight through.
I've got 15, 20 books spreadall over the place.
I'm like you.
Yeah, I read the section.
I need that day to figure outwhere I'm going right now.
(50:47):
So I'm always.
I view this as like, youlearned everything in your life,
some the hardest way possible,some from others.
And all those people gatheredthe greatest information that they
could ever find.
And you gathered the greatestinformation you ever could find.
And you stuck it in somethingthis big and said, here, you can
(51:09):
get this.
And so I surround myself withwhat I believe is the greatest information
of all time.
And I'm absorbing that at all times.
And I will focus on the thingsthat I need.
And Now I use ChatGPT to helpbring it even closer.
(51:33):
I Here's a prompt.
Ready?
Who are the top 20 experts onthis topic?
Fill in the blank.
Bring Those people into thischat as though they're speaking directly
to me while we're having this conversation.
And I then have a conversationwith the authors of all the books
(51:55):
that I just read.
But ultimately I'm aiming tosurround myself in every way with
people who are way, way, waymore advanced or intelligent than
I am at that topic.
And what you get is earthshattering moments.
One day I'm standing withIrvin Kirshner, director of Star
(52:16):
the Empire Strikes Back, andhe says to me, there's only two things
you can impact, what peoplesee and what people hear.
And through that they feelwhat they think.
(52:36):
Now, if you look at the apodcast or anything you're doing
in your life and you realize,wait, I can only affect what people
see and hear.
You can suddenly cluster everysingle thing you learn into a tight
little package around that.
And you can make sense of anentire body of knowledge around that.
And all right, I can give awayone big crazy secret here.
(53:00):
A book called how to ThinkLike a Genius by Todd Siller teaches
about taking a visualrepresentation of something.
And you can write differentnotes on different parts of that
something.
(53:20):
It could be a waterfall for me.
I used a star frequently and Iwould write a different thing on
each point of the star andthen I would write a question down
the center.
How am I going to make thiswebsite work?
How am I going to advance this relationship?
(53:42):
How am I going to make thissong I'm going to sing in my show
better?
And then I write thecategories of ways I can influence
things on the point.
And I take one point over hereand one point over here and I draw
a line and I say, whatconnects these two things?
(54:02):
I draw a line.
What connects these two things?
What connects these two things?
And so I have this threedimensional thought that forms in
answering the questions I have.
And so instead of coming atthings with a thinly thought through,
(54:25):
or let's say peripheralthinking, which we need peripheral
thinking for the snapdecisions, but for things that really
matter, having them reallydeeply thought through, how do we
get there so that I'm notwishy washy?
I really know where I'm headed.
And that clarity is often ahuge part of success.
(54:48):
I've got that worked out fromthese metaphor, which is taking a
metaphor for what you're doingin picture format and thinking through
it in that way.
And in that process, I wouldfind things that sort of lit me up.
(55:12):
And there's a book called thePassion Plan by Richard Chang that
I got probably in the 90s andit's been on my nightstand ever since.
And it talked about, you don'tfind your passion, you find like
one little ember and go, oh,what's that?
You find another little ember.
Go, oh, what if we put these together?
(55:36):
Ooh, that's warmer.
Ooh, there's another one over here.
So collecting the embers up.
And as your passion getsstronger, which is your emotion side
and your spirit and yourenergy, and you've really thought
things through and created avision and a strategy and a mission
behind what you want tocreate, the biggest secret is that
(55:58):
the universe is going toconspire with you to make it happen.
I was talking about Brainstarswith a friend.
She mentioned an organizationand I said, well, all those people
sound like they're thinkingthat way.
And I joined that organizationand I met Kellen right at the beginning
and I went, he's totallythinking that way.
(56:18):
And he goes, here's my podcast.
And I'm like, this is himthinking that way to share it with
everybody else, just like I amwith Brainstars.
And so the world will conspireto have you succeed when you have
a meaningful vision.
(56:40):
I got this idea in my headfrom a speaker.
At the end of your life, whileyou're on that bed, aware that your
last breath is coming, if your18 year old self walked up to you,
do you want to tell thatperson the story of what your life
(57:05):
might have been?
Or do you want to tell them astory that your life became?
And so the world will conspirewith you for you to succeed?
When you have a meaningfulvision and effort, literally every
(57:28):
resource you need will creepout of the woodwork for it to happen.
And then I use something thatI got from a singing method.
I do sing in my shows and it'sone way that I create magic on a
(57:50):
different way, you know,connecting through song.
A book from it was calledPower Performance for Entertainers,
for Singers.
And it talked about youimprove a little bit before you improve
a little bit during whileyou're actually singing the song
in this case, or while you'recarrying out the business practice
(58:12):
or while you're having thatconversation with your significant
other.
You go, wait, you know, holdon, I can tell I'm blaming here.
Let me try this again.
I don't want to blame you for this.
I'm just saying this is howthis impacted me.
(58:35):
And then you're improving during.
And then after you're walkingaway and you get your journal out,
you think through or you calla mentor, whatever the situation
is.
And I have a mentor for everysingle thing I'm doing.
And you improve after.
So if you improve before,during and after, whatever you're
(58:56):
doing to create 30,000important but not urgent impacts
building towards your vision,you really start to get somewhere.
Now here's the reality.
Everything screws up all the time.
(59:19):
The software screws up that asI got these enormous events, I would
be looking at somebody whowanted to spend tens of thousands
and then somebody would callme who wanted to spend $200 for a
longer performance.
I'm like, ah, that's notreally who I am anymore.
And the big one would take awhile to book.
(59:41):
And it's a very large sum of money.
The little one would havecreated the cash flow, right?
And so now I'm sitting here asmy career is taking off and these
big things are happening andI'm going, oh crap, I see I'm doing
phenomenally right here.
But there's a big gap and thisone's not going to pay for a couple
(01:00:04):
more weeks.
What do I do here?
Software screws up.
You can't get through to people.
You need to get things done.
Team members will come in andwant to throw hand grenades into
your business if they are notfirst attracted to the vision admission
that you are on for yourbusiness or your life.
Every single thing will gowrong all the time.
(01:00:29):
And as quickly as possible,you have to sit back and say, what
is the one thing I need tolearn to outgrow this situation?
It sounds like, how can I failup in this moment?
How can I fail up in this moment?
(01:00:49):
And the most important one,Kellen, every time I got to a bigger
stage, I was more and more scared.
2000 person global virtual conference.
Not only did I learn while Iwas performing for one of those,
if you are ever performing for2,000 people on Zoom, you should
never pick an audiencevolunteer named Alexa.
(01:01:15):
Very important.
But the butterflies go like crazy.
Whenever I feel thatadrenaline, which is really, really
what it is.
Many people think of that as fear.
I think of that as my bodyshifting into the larger than life
mode that's going to get methrough to make it happen, I feel
(01:01:37):
that fear.
I feel that jitteriness.
I feel it coursing through mybody and I go, wow, this feels scary
as crap.
And I stand there and Ibreathe a little bit deeply in my
lower gut and I come back toone phrase that I've used ever since
(01:01:58):
I was a kid, which is, this isso scary.
I bet that right at this spot,this is where somebody else quit.
And.
I make a decision that that's not.
Who I want to be, that's notgoing to be me.
(01:02:20):
Well, and I step forward.
I love that somebody else quitright here.
I love that.
I'm going to take that awayfrom this.
Benjamin, that is an absolute.
I ask you the question, youknow, describe processes, and you
have, and you've given alengthy masterclass on that.
And I love it every single moment.
I need to ask you a finalquestion that's really important,
(01:02:41):
and that is where are yougoing to send people?
Or what do you have?
Because with what you'vetaught, I urge everybody to go back
and go through this andlisten, because he's given you some
concrete practices, somespecific actions, some attitudes,
some words, the importance ofmentorship and getting the right
help, importance of yourinternal dialogue.
(01:03:03):
And all of those things are so true.
And I love the stories and everything.
How do we find you?
How do.
How do people get more of you?
All right, so at the core,enrichment, entertainment, virtually
and in person.
You can find me@BenCorey.comfor all of my shows.
(01:03:26):
I travel anywhere in the world.
Or online, you can findBrainstars Club, which is where we
bring that enrichment.
And this information, I justtold you here, this is what we're
teaching 6 year olds and 7year olds and 8 year olds and 9 year
olds and 10 year olds, you cango to Brainstars Club, fill out our
(01:03:49):
contact form if you have kidsthat you would like to involve in
our programs.
And I want you to havesomething that's been very special
to me to take as a gift.
If you go to bencorey.com atyour event and maybe I'll copy this
(01:04:10):
for you, Kellen, to put in theprogram bencorey.com at your event
gift, I will send you some ofthe things that I used every day
to keep myself on track.
One is a poem that I stuck onmy wall since I was like nine years
(01:04:36):
old.
It's called the Power of Littles.
And it starts with great things.
We often find on little things depend.
And I kept that on my wall sothat as I focused on that one thing
I was going to get done, thenzeroed out every single other thing.
(01:04:58):
I knew that that one thingwould add up over time.
So if you fill out the form onthere, I'll send you an email with
that poem.
And then I think there's acouple other things that go out.
I had not thought about thatonline gift for a very long time,
so I don't even know what thesecond email is, and I'm going to
(01:05:23):
go afterwards and Change it togift.bencorey.com Remember, improve
before, during, and after.
Because I thoughtgift.bencorey.com is going to be
way easier to find than theway that I wrote it before.
(01:05:45):
I'm literally living exactlywhat I was talking about in this
moment.
I love that.
That's a fabulous example.
And one of the things, youknow, you've talked about it and
you've done so well.
I want people to hear that.
Because the moment of discovery.
The moment of discovery andthe moment of execution, when we
(01:06:05):
can shorten that time, themoment of discovery and moment of
execution, when we can reducethe time in between those things,
we fall up, we fail up, wemove forward quickly.
And one of the keys is no drama.
So it's not like, oh, that wasbad, and you make yourself bad.
So drop all that.
This is just growth.
Because when you're committedto your project, every possible improvement
(01:06:28):
is exciting.
And it's not an indictment.
It's not an indictment becausethis is part of the climb.
And I was born to rise.
I love that saying.
So thank you.
That's fabulous.
One thing just on what yousaid, social psychologists, that's
what my degree is in.
I use it every day.
(01:06:51):
They discovered they wanted totest if somebody is berating themselves
or others for not achievingsomething or getting something right.
Do they then get a better result?
And it turns out that you canberate yourself for everything going
wrong and you can berate other people.
(01:07:16):
All it does is drains yourenergy and you don't get anywhere
with it.
So you can take your hand andjust put it on your chest.
A wonderful speaker told meabout this and just go, okay, Ben,
I recommend using your namefor this.
Okay, Ben, that didn't workthis time.
What's going to work better?
(01:07:38):
And instead of going into thatplace of criticism, go right into
that direction and then lookfor the people who are criticizing
you in your life.
And this is a formercommunication director from Disney
told me this.
Those people who arecriticizing you in your life and
making you feel terrible inthis way, learn how to just sort
(01:08:01):
of step away.
You had a relationship withthem, but now you're just going to
step out and you surroundyourself with people who are like,
this brainstar thing Ben isdoing is amazing.
How can I help him find peopleto join?
These shows are entertaining.
How can I get people tobencorey.com who might need that
(01:08:21):
show?
You find the people who arelike that and you surround yourself
with those.
In that case, today it was Kellen.
I'm so blessed that you sharedyour audience with me today.
I was thinking, I'm reallypassionate about helping people have
their best life, which is thesame thing Kellen is.
(01:08:42):
And his audience is reallypassionate about having their best
life.
I was like, maybe they wanttheir kids to have their best life
too.
And there's like this amazingalignment there.
Absolutely love it, Ben.
Thank you.
Just spectacular.
I've really enjoyed listeningto you.
I've really enjoyed learningyour processes and your growth.
It was instructional.
(01:09:03):
And again, I advise all of youto listen to this a couple of times
or more.
Take it apart.
You know, you can downloadpodcasts, so have it.
Thank you for sharingeverything with us today, Ben.
You're welcome.
And now that I have writtenall the things that I wanted to say
and realized, wait a second, Ihave 40 hours of podcast material.
(01:09:25):
And I went, I'm going to needthe story arc book now to use Kellen's
method for putting that into a book.
And then I pop on and thefirst thing Kellen wants to tell
me about was a challenge thatyou have coming up where for free,
you'll help a group of peopledevelop their foundation for their
(01:09:47):
story arc.
But I was like, you see, whenyou're in alignment, it all just
piles up like that.
Boom.
Boom is the first thing you said.
And I had the book sittingnext to me on the screen.
That's what happens whenyou're living your life in alignment.
Everybody listen, I want youto go back and listen to this a couple
times.
I really do that.
I say that on different shows,but really he gave us a masterclass
(01:10:09):
on personal choice to creategrowth and failing up and several
other things that areavailable to you now today as you
move forward and create yourultimate life.
Never hold back and you'llnever ask why.
Open your heart in this time around.
(01:10:32):
Right here, right now, you'reopportunity for massive growth is
right in front of you.
Every episode gives youpractical tips and practices that
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(01:10:52):
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Welcome to the show.
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(00:24):
You have infinite power.
Hello and welcome to yourultimate life.
The the podcast dedicated tocreating the ultimate life.
A life of purpose, prosperityand joy that is within your grasp.
I'm excited to have a specialguest today, Ben Corey, and if he
(00:47):
uses it, all of his names.
Ben Corey Feinbloom.
Ben, welcome to the show.
Hello Kellen.
It is such a pleasure to behere with you today and everybody
watching from home.
Pleasure to meet you.
Thank you for coming to spendsome time with us.
We hope to share with you someinformation and maybe make it a little
magical.
(01:08):
I love that.
So the first time I met Ben, Iwas really excited about him, who
he is, what he's doing, whohe's being in the world and made
me know he was a great, wouldbe a great guest to share things.
And you know what, some of thethings we talk about might seem magic,
but they're not out of reach.
So Ben, I want to ask you thefirst question here.
(01:29):
I want you to not be humbleand not be self effacing in any way.
So tell us all, how has Benadding good to the world?
How am I adding good to the world?
Well, my aim since I was youngwas to take people who were jaded
and felt like they'd seeneverything and sort of disengaged
(01:53):
from life as either kids or adults.
And I wanted to drop magicinto their life so that they had
moments of joy and wonder.
And so somebody who was jadedsuddenly slipped back into that feeling
of childlike wonder that theymay not have experienced for decades.
And then after I begandelivering that to now over 3,700
(02:18):
audiences around the world,virtually and in person.
And at a corporate eventrecently for 550 people singing comedy,
doing magic.
The singing is there to movepeople's emotions and the show is
really not there just ascorporate entertainment or for a
social event.
It's there to help peopleunderstand the importance of what
(02:41):
they're doing so that they canfeel more engaged with what they're
doing.
And on the second side, I tookall of those skills that I used for
developing how I interact onstage, the things that I'm observing
when I'm about to pull comedyfrom something, how I do something
impossible and get to thepoint where I can do magic and how
(03:02):
I connect with people when Igo from one audience to another,
in different contexts, indifferent states, in different countries,
in different age groups, andconnect with everybody.
I took all of that and 18years ago, founded a summer camp
called Creative Magic Camp,where I take all of those skills
while teaching magic.
(03:23):
And I helped 6 year olds getthose same skills that I used to
master the interactions onstage and develop creatively and
find my passion.
And I use it to awaken themagic within.
And so now this is goingnational through Brainstar Clubhouse
(03:44):
and Brainstar Academy, wherewe take all the stuff we developed
over those 18 years and usemany different forms of art as a
medium to communicate morals,character, values, methods that will
help people really succeed inhaving friendships and connecting
(04:04):
with others.
And it's really designed toawaken the magic within.
There was a big problem in theschool system as I was growing up.
I felt like I was just havinginformation bombarded that I had
to remember over and over again.
But I wanted to be creativeand I wanted to be passionate and
(04:25):
I wanted to change the world.
And so I ended up designingthis enrichment program to help kids
become Brain Stars.
Kids who have brain abilitiesare problem solvers, who are creative,
but also have the star abilityto step up and lead.
(04:49):
So that instead of kicking thecan down the road on big problems
in society that will reallyknock us out, Brain Stars can come
in and lead the way.
And by growing up in a cohortof people where that's how we look
at the world and how we dothings, they have friends who will
help them change things,advance things when they want to
(05:11):
build something and they justthink that's what people do because
we start young and that's whatwe do.
I love that.
That's fabulous.
Now you've said a whole bunchof things and there's at least six
or seven that I'd like to digin a little bit more.
So you alluded back to yourchildhood and how information was
(05:36):
poured on you, and yourreaction was feeling like it was
an overwhelming flood.
What.
What was the first thing thatyou can remember that made you think,
there has to be a better way?
Like, here I am exploded withall this stuff, and at some point
you thought, there's gotta bea bit.
There's gotta be a way.
Can you remember when that wasand what you thought and maybe how
(05:59):
that led forward a little bit?
So a whole bunch of ideas justflew through my head.
An example that comes to mind,once I had grown up fully, was thinking
sine, cosine, tangent.
(06:19):
I really mastered thoseelements of math and got An A in
that class.
But when I went to rent anapartment and later buy a house,
I knew nothing about the maththat went into those essential life
things.
So I realized a giant disconnect.
(06:40):
And also in organic chemistryclass, I began as pre med.
I thought I was going to be afourth generation optometrist.
I'm sitting there and doingall of these things with benzene
rings and stuff that they show.
And.
(07:01):
And it was only like inorganic chemistry too, that I learned
that this is not theory.
They actually look at thoseorganic molecules and the compounds
and see that shape throughelectron microscopes.
And I went, wow.
They just took the mostinteresting part and took it out
(07:22):
completely.
And instead we've been sittinghere grinding on this knowledge.
And if I knew you couldactually see it and you could actually
work with it and watch thesethings happen, wow, that would have
been way more thrilling.
And I think kind of one of thelast times is I put a couple things
wrong in a chemical reaction Iwas doing in that same class.
(07:43):
And the solution changedcolor, moved around, formed a little
like a little pile of crystaland changed to bright orange.
And I went, why is that notthe experiment?
So all the way along inscience, we're learning to memorize
(08:05):
things.
This is just one example.
But science is actually aboutan attitude of curiosity and exploration.
A scientist has got to get tothe bottom of what is going on there.
And then there's a process tomake sure our mind and our emotions
don't trip us up and otherscan review what we come up with.
(08:30):
And I thought, what if theytrained people who had the enthusiasm
and attitude of a scientistand they helped people find the topic
that they thought was justgoing to be groundbreaking and so
that that person would then,instead of being bombarded with information,
(08:53):
go, oh, I want to do this.
So I need to collect this,this, this.
And suddenly they're trying toVelcro information to themselves
because they know where theywant to go.
So it's, it's kind of alongthat whole way and I love that.
Great examples.
And what I'm hearing is a com.
One of the common threads ishow do we preserve, rekindle the,
(09:19):
the enthusiasm.
Because it's the enthusiasm,the yearning, the desire to know,
to do, to create that causesus to want to Velcro the info.
Go find it and do all that.
I want to jump.
I know I'm going to jumparound a bit.
But when you go to thecorporate thing, you were talking
about the same thing.
So you got a bunch of peoplein Corporate.
(09:39):
And mostly they come in andthey're like, whatever in most corporate
relations I've ever been in orassociated with.
So why do you think we havecreated a world where the default
mode of everything is kind ofa thing in jobs and even in life,
(10:01):
where we just sort of settlefor mediocrity and kind of think
that's the way it is?
Why have we built that?
So the job of the brain,Kellen, and everybody at home is
to keep us safe.
Now, back when we were beingchased around by bobcats and bears,
that was useful all the time.
(10:24):
But we're still in societywhere we're trying to create safer
and safer and safer all around us.
And then if somebody breaksour safety, we're going to sue the
daylights out of them.
Well, we have actually takenall the excitement out of life and
all of the challenge and allthe thrill.
And the problem on this is sobig that disengagement from work.
(10:51):
I just saw a study the other day.
We lose $9 trillion ofproductivity in the global economy
because people are disengagedfrom work.
So the fact that they're notinterested and not what they're in
doing is really having thatbig of an impact.
(11:12):
And in the United States, asmany as half of the people who are
sitting there at their currentjob are searching for other jobs
while they're working.
About half.
So that's how much people are disengaged.
Now, we have often aimed forthe wrong things, things that will,
(11:34):
like, increase our standard ofliving instead of our quality of
life.
And we don't know by we, Imean most people don't know how to
build happiness into their life.
But there's positivepsychology researchers now, and they,
they know it's well understood how.
And so if somebody is sittingthere and goes and, and says, you
(11:58):
know what?
I want a BMW.
And they got a Geometro andthey dream of the BMW and maybe they
save up for a long time to getthe start on it.
And then they go, and they gostraight to that.
Well, we will adjust to thatpositive thing, just like we'll adapt
(12:18):
to negative things.
So we will then slide back toa moment where we've got that thing
and then we adjust to it andit's not important anymore.
This is called hedonic adaptation.
So we have a world that'sdesigned on materialism, particularly
(12:38):
in the United States, andmore, more, more, more, more.
And we go for that big thingand then we adapt to having it and
we need something else.
And in the longest study ofsocial psychology in history.
They studied over the lifespanof people and then towards the end,
(13:00):
asked them what was mostimportant in their life.
And it was things like relationships.
And so when people are ontheir deathbed, that's what they
care about most.
But right now, by the age of20, most kids do not have best friends.
(13:21):
So we've taken the things thatare really, really important and
those are not what we're doing.
And we've taken all thesechannels of media and if you go on
and watch children'sprogramming or watch things that
are being said in manydifferent situations on tv, on the
news, all the stuff we'relooking at, most of it's crap that
(13:43):
is designed to glue oureyeballs to the screen, but not bring
actual value.
So we're surrounded in thatecosystem of materialism and all
the media that we consume fromevery direction, not enriching our
lives.
And so that is why here'swhere the connection is.
(14:06):
My programs are all enrichment.
Entertainment for corporate,for social, for kids.
That's how they all connect.
I'm taking entertainment andmaking it exciting to have an experience
that enriches your life.
And you know, this is whatwe're doing virtually and in person
(14:27):
everywhere.
And we're going to aim throughevery form of media.
But if everybody is operatingfrom a measure like gross domestic
product, but they're notoperating from gross domestic happiness.
We.
End up off target.
It's like that saying where ifyou take off in Washington D.C.
(14:48):
and are flying towards Londonand you're a few degrees off in the
airplane, you may end up in Zambia.
So that just then brings me to the.
We've trained ourselves in tolive in BMW land or GDP or whatever
it is.
And we have defined that thatwill create us some level of happiness
(15:09):
because we wanted it.
The feeling of wanting, andthen we get it and then we have adaptation
and then it suddenly is nothing.
And so we're looking for thenext thing.
And we know all this, it'slike, this is not news, right?
And so, but we still are doingthis over and over.
The education system, the jobcreation system, the measurement.
(15:31):
And you just told me I'mlosing $9 trillion in productivity
because people hate the jobsand half of them are looking for
new work.
So two questions.
Why aren't we changing it onthe macro scale?
And then I want you to tell mespecifically the audience, what is
something that you do in oneof those sessions to create enriching
(15:55):
entertainment?
So let's get really specific.
So on the macro level, and Irealize it's sort of philosophical,
but what's wrong with us?
Why aren't we changing that?
And then I want you to tell mesomething that you're doing in a
real life thing that aims tomake a dent in that problem.
My first belief is that mostof what we know how to change is
(16:19):
in a silo somewhere like aresearch article or something like
that that isn't getting out to everybody.
So I didn't want to create new information.
I wanted to get the bestinformation to people in the spot
right where they were.
Why are we not changing it worldwide?
Well on the macro scale, if weare driven by a sense of getting
(16:44):
and what can I get for myself?
And it's this me, me, me, selfcentered thing, then that lends itself
to resources, money, thingslike that.
And we believe that will makeus happy.
Well, I was fortunate enoughto learn early that at the time I
had, you know, living at homewith my family as I was in high school
(17:08):
and whatnot and I hadliterally everything.
There were many times I wasthe least happy in my entire life
while having everything.
And so I said wait a minute,something is wrong here.
So I had that moment early andwas fortunate.
And I think a lot of peoplehave never reached that moment and
(17:33):
what I'm doing to change it now.
Let's talk about in a performance.
So the other day I was on for550 people who help, they run their
own separate organization thathelps regulate the 650,000 stockbrokers,
(17:54):
sort of a self regulatingindustry and then they help regulate
the markets and they're allseeing what's happening in the markets
right now and they're likewhole life has been destabilized
this and they're seeing itgoing like crazy right now.
And I used a magic effectwhere it was a mentalism effect.
(18:16):
And the last they selectedtheir answers and they ended up with
a stock market and a, and aworld financial center.
And it ended up being theoldest stock market in the world
in Asia, in Bombay and Zurich,Switzerland, a pure stable.
(18:37):
And then at the end of that Iput a message that was right built
into that mentalism effect,which is that your work stabilizes
the markets for generations.
That organization's been therefor 85 years.
(19:00):
And so if they are seeingtheir life in the context of everything
going crazy at the moment,they're going to go nuts.
If they realize that thingthat's going to take them a year
and a half to roll out will bethere making a difference in 50 years.
They suddenly have a verydifferent feeling about their work.
(19:22):
And I was on for Microsoft theother day and I changed that effect.
And it was a group thathandles their ads for global corporations.
They handle the big accountsand they don't write the ads, they
don't create the systems.
This group handles theaccounts and lets the people know
(19:45):
where they should spend more.
And I shared with them at theend of that effect, your work takes
potential and turns it intoprofits or into reality.
So all the potential that thatorganization that's trying to get
(20:06):
their best products intopeople's hands reaches their hands
more because of the workpeople do now with.
And actually when I said thatover the phone with the team at Microsoft,
she stopped.
She was on the ads team andshe just went, okay, we're getting
you.
(20:27):
So my shows are about astealth transformation and it's about
intrinsic motivation, thedeepest form that comes from within.
Now, when it comes to ourprograms in person and virtually,
I'll give you an in person example.
(20:48):
Starts with connect with youraudience day.
And as we're performing magicor whatever the different program
is going to be, I'm explainingthat you need to connect because
here, let me show you what itfeels like if you don't while we're
presenting this.
Which one do you like better?
And they all like it better,each step more connected.
(21:11):
So we will have them in theroom and we will.
They will crisscross acrossthe room and then I'll say stop.
Turn towards the person who'sclosest to you.
And I have them then make eyecontact and hold it for a little
bit.
(21:31):
Now, initially they're allincredibly uncomfortable because
they haven't had eye contactwith anybody before.
And then we mix it up again.
And as we're doing this, I'madding in lessons like when you use
somebody's name, Kellen, everypart of their brain lights up.
(21:53):
Movement, they'll turn towhere it is, their eyes will turn,
their language centers.
Their whole brain lights upwhen you share one element, but just,
just their name.
And then the next thing I'llteach is how what makes a best friend
is the person who listens whenwe're sharing our life stories.
(22:18):
And so I will teach them howto share a life story with and what
that looks like.
Now they're mixing across theroom, using each other's names a
few times in the conversation,knowing that that's how you remember
it.
And then they share a life story.
And then towards the end, I amable to have them hold the eye contact
longer and longer, triggeringall the feelings of Connection.
(22:42):
And then I sit them down and Iask them to share, you know, what
did that feel like for you?
What came up?
And there was one day a sixyear old looks at me and he goes,
I feel really warm inside,like I just made a best friend with
(23:09):
everybody.
Do you like it?
I love it.
And he switched on a dime.
Why did nobody tell me this before?
I look across the room and Isay, well, now you're on the other
(23:32):
side.
You've learned to connect witheach person as you're even walking
by and then when you talk,when you stop with them, how to connect
deeply.
You're now on the other side.
And I explain a study wheremost people having zero best friends
(23:54):
and then as they were doingthe study, they came up with people
who others would report them130 sometimes as their best friend.
And I share, you know,listening to each other's stories
on their good days and theirworst is what makes a best friend.
And then I teach them aboutfair weather friends.
(24:16):
Most people will just scatteraway when something bad is going
on in somebody's life becausethey don't want that vibe, they don't
want that energy and it'sgoing to drag them down.
Well, they don't know that.
If you stay in compassion,compassion will shield you from sinking
(24:36):
to that person's level andcompassion will add to your happiness
and you can create space andsit there and talk with that person
and hear them through on theirworst, most challenging day of their
life while everybody has scurried.
And then I teach the kids, youare going to have bad days and life
(24:59):
is not easy when it does.
You have a chance for a gift.
Look at everybody else whoscurries, take notes and look who's
still there.
The greatest gift of having aterrible day is you find out very
(25:21):
quickly who your best friendsreally are.
And then if you build yourlife surrounding yourself with those
people, they're going to bethere 80 years later and your life
is going to be enriched bydeep relationships where you have
a personal history, you canshare stories together, you can,
(25:44):
I can bring up jokes with myfriend Ian from when we were six.
And then I'll show them on myFacebook wall.
I'd be like, see all thesepeople who respond to every single
post.
I'll click and show the namesand tell them who each person is
and what they mean to me andwhy they're there.
(26:05):
And it's usually higher than 130.
And so I have the example oflike, I'm doing this, I'm not just
teaching you.
This is what I learned to besuccessful as an entertainer.
But I'm telling you this, andI will tell them this at the beginning.
I'll say, I want you to listenclosely, because you're not going
to hear this anywhere else.
And when you actually applyit, it will change the rest of your
(26:29):
life.
From this moment forward,there will be a before and an after.
So I want to notice several things.
One, I love your demonstration.
I love your experience.
I love the expression.
And there is a before and after.
But I want to do a couple of things.
I just love the way you'retelling stories, moving in and out,
and your hands and theexpression, and it adds to the veracity
(26:52):
and intensity of your expression.
And I love that.
And I'm saying it because Iwant people to see that.
And I'm asking each of you togo back and listen to that expression,
because he's just given youright now a class in creating relationships,
using names, listening, takingyourself out of the picture, being
(27:13):
there for people just becauseyou can.
And he's also talked aboutsomething important.
We've created this society ofdistance, of disconnection, of attachment
to things instead of people.
And all of those are theantithesis to happiness.
Because at the end of the day,as he said, when you're dead or dying,
(27:34):
and at the end, it's the love,the relationships, the people.
That's 100% of the time.
Nobody says, I wish I'd made ahundred more dollars.
No one ever says that.
And so I love that.
And I just wanted toacknowledge the way you're telling
the stories and teaching this thing.
You did exactly what I hopedyou would do.
So thank you for that.
(27:54):
I want to go.
I want to back up a little bitto the development so you notice
these differences.
And I want to do thedevelopment piece.
Then I want to go to the kidsand the brain stars.
You notice this, and you jumpto, when I was an adult, can you
talk me through a little bit of.
(28:15):
Because someone could look atyou now and say, wow, he's good.
And they would be right.
And you weren't born that way.
And there's a process ofgrowth and development.
And one of the things I thinkis most valuable, which is why I
love helping people writebooks and tell stories, is answering
the question, how did you getwhere you are?
(28:38):
Because they see your successand they go, whoa, I wish I could,
but I could never.
And then they have a wholestory about that.
So tell me some of thedevelopmental processes to get you
where you are answer a littlebit of the question, how did you
get to be such a beautifulproduct of the product, meaning you
are a representation of whatyou share with us.
(29:01):
How did that happen?
Well, first, I'm going to turnthis around on you for a second because
this is really funny.
I will build a business thathelps me grow into the person I want
to be.
I will create an artisticexpression that helps me become who
I want to become.
(29:21):
I will involve myself inthings like this podcast that will
transform my life just byhaving the time between us and sharing
with the audience.
So aligning myself in thatway, as I was taking notes on the
various methods that I used, Iput them all down and I had the story
(29:47):
arc, your book on the screennext to me about how to make a book
on the topic of yourself andthe story and how you got there.
And I looked down ateverything I had written as little
bullet points that I mighttalk about while here, and I went,
I just prepared to write anentire book using the story arc process
(30:14):
by preparing to come onto your podcast.
So every single thing in lifebeing kind of focused on aligning
somehow with a bigger vision,something I'm trying to create, allows
it to all come together.
Now I got a new saying and I'malways improving things all the time.
(30:39):
This is now on a post it noteso that it's stuck in the middle
of my monitor.
And I was asking ChatGPT, Isaid, There are really great days
and there are really bad daysand I'm always looking for how to
just make it through those.
What is one thing I could tellmyself when things are at the top
and another thing, when I cantell myself when things are at the
(31:01):
bottom, that will be the samething and help me keep centered as
a human being rather thanflying all over emotionally.
And here's what it came up with.
This is part of the climb.
And I was born to rise.
Now, now, who says chatty'snot intelligent?
(31:23):
Exactly.
The biggest thing I can tellanybody is, and you and I were just
kind of touching on thisbefore, before we began to record,
is that if you want to get mycalculator right here on my phone,
if you take three things in aday that are building towards the
(31:47):
same thing and improving thesame thing, three a day, let's say
30 days a month, that's 90things times 12 months is 10, 80
things times 10 years is10,800 improvements.
So given that I knew from ayoung age I was going to be a magician,
(32:10):
I actually thought I was goingto be a comedian first.
And then I became a comedy magician.
I decided that whatever wasgoing on every single day, there
was going to be three thingsgoing towards this vision that I
had.
Now, I knew by the time I waslike, 11 years old that entertainment
and magic was it.
(32:31):
I'm 45.
So wherever you are, if youstart with three things a day, you
do the math.
Every decade, 10,000 things.
10,800 30 years later, you'relooking at 30,240, 32,400 impacts.
(32:57):
So I had a vision forbrainstars, actually first.
And I'll tie in another storyof my success there.
And there was a program,Maryland Institute for Technology
in the Humanities at theUniversity of Maryland, put on by
a writing professor, Martha Nelsmith.
(33:18):
And I went.
And they were just learning.
This is like 2000.
How do we.
This new Internet is here.
How do we take the arts andall these good things we can send
through this medium and makeit an enriching place for technology
and the humanities?
And I looked at this, and Imet with her and I gave her this
big talk about how everymedium we had was being covered with
(33:39):
trash.
And then I saw that IrvinKirshner, director of Star the Empire
Strikes Back, was delivering akeynote the next day.
I went to the keynote.
Martha was sitting in front ofme, looking back over her shoulder,
because I gave her the samekeynote the night before, and she
introduced us.
And shortly after, I askedIrvine Kirishner, I said, I'm looking
(34:04):
for a mentor who's navigatedthis whole thing and made it, would
you be my mentor?
He was for 10 years.
And at the end of the 10years, at his.
Well, his memorial, really,when he passed away, it was a celebration
of life at the Directors Guildin Hollywood.
(34:26):
His sons came up to me andthey had wondered, how did he end
up with a third son?
How did he end up working with me?
And I just had this day, and Iwas Barbra Streisand there, and every
one of the Star wars actorsand John Lithgow.
The room is filled with everybody.
I'm talking to this woman.
I'm going, how did you know Kirsch?
(34:47):
She said, we were both writers.
I go, oh, what did you write?
And she said, dirty Dancing.
I went, oh.
And then Barbra Streisandright there.
Just a whole day like this.
But this is the moment thatstuck with me the most, when his
sons asked him how I ended upconnected with him.
And he worked with me on everything.
(35:09):
He told them I was the onlyone in his entire life who asked.
Nobody ever asked.
Now, here's another supercrucial one.
The I use a concept called thecritical inch when you are running
(35:30):
a marathon, and many things inlife are marathons.
Having a child is a marathon.
Building a business is a marathon.
Getting an education is a marathon.
If you're running a marathon,there is a red tape at the end.
And if you are running themarathon in first place the entire
(35:54):
time and just one inch orcentimeter, wherever you are in the
world before that red line,you stop and someone else crosses
before you, you didn't win the marathon.
So on all things that I'mdoing, I keep my eyes on the critical
(36:16):
inch.
I know what the purpose is ofwhat I'm doing, how it fits with
the vision and the criticalinch of completing it.
And when I'm going for it,I'll write all the steps down.
I have a project managementapp next to me.
I use ClickUp now, andanything I want to build, as soon
as I decide it's a concept,it's layered in concept in the app.
(36:41):
And I begin to break it downinto little steps and it will slowly
ripen.
And when I look at it and go,you know what?
I know where to go with this.
Now I will then just follow mysteps, which I've written in action
format to carry out.
And so that part of me that isa leader who's leading myself or
(37:05):
others happens in separate times.
And the part of me that isacting and taking action and driving
forward and this is going toget done, that's going to get done,
and this is going to happen,that's not the same as like the visionary
person.
I make those two separate times.
(37:26):
And when I'm doing actions, Iget on a roll.
And here's the crazy thing,there's all sorts of bells and whistles,
let's say notifications,calls, emails, emails, or somebody
else's agenda arriving on your desk.
All of these things pull yourfocus away.
(37:49):
So your power is defined byyour ability to focus exclusively
on one thing.
And so if you have two goalshere, one goal here and one goal
here, they're this far apart.
If you're not focused, you'regoing like this all over the place,
and you may end up back over here.
If you're focused, it's like alaser beam and boom.
(38:13):
So a big part of the secret isfocus for five minutes at a time,
and you are focused more thanmost people are their entire lives.
And here's where you put your focus.
There's an Eisenhower quadrantof urgent and important.
Important but not urgent.
(38:36):
If you can spend your lifefocused on what is important and
not urgent, and youprioritize, A, this is for now, B,
this is for soon, and C, thisis for when I get to it.
If you do the important andnot urgent over and over again, you
(39:03):
are building your future.
Now, I have next to me, likethe core three projects I want to
do at any time.
They're sitting right here.
And I define that for a three,four month period, maybe a quarter
(39:23):
and for a year and for a threeyear period.
And if I come back or when Icome back in August and I look at
where my life is, my businessis and my impact is, and I look back
at that paper, at the stuff Icompleted, my business grew exactly
(39:43):
to the level of those thingsthat I completed that I believed
were super important, not urgent.
But if I got them done, I knewthey would change my life.
So then here's like a, I thinkkind of the biggest secret entertainment
(40:08):
is a little bit like thisbusiness is a little bit like swinging
from a vine and then you'vegot to reach off and catch the next
vine while you're flyingthrough the air.
Okay.
It's not.
I don't go for stability.
I actually go for explosive growth.
And so how do we operate inthis environment?
(40:33):
First of all, fears come up always.
And I have a group of people, coaches.
Kellen, you helped seriously,on the first time before, while we
were talking about doing thispodcast, I learned your power.
So if you're watching andyou're thinking of getting a coach,
just go with Kellen if you canget him.
(40:56):
And masterminds, people whoare successful at what you do and
are all gathered together in amastermind to share the best practices.
And these are people aroundthe world.
Now we get together on zoomand in person.
I have this for magicians, Ihave this for business.
I have a therapist.
So that if not if, when lifegets challenging, I can work through
(41:20):
it quickly so that I can havethe energy and resilience.
Because I believe that as aleader, the leader feels every single
thing that everybody else does.
But if you can feel it deeplyand feel it through fully, you come
out the other side.
And that next emotion is theone that allows you to go forward.
(41:44):
And if you get to the partwhere you are ready to go forward
before everybody else and youbegin to put together a plan, you
are not the leader becausesomebody called you the leader.
You're the leader becauseeverybody else is going, ah, what
do we do.
I'm scared.
What do we do?
And you went through theemotion already and came out the
(42:05):
other side with a plan and actions.
And everybody just goes,follow that lady, follow that guy.
And you're the leader.
Just because you recoveredquickly and decided to come up with
what to do about it.
And behind some of that,there's a process called somatic
(42:25):
therapy where you speak with atherapist and as you're talking about
something, you have sensationsin your body and they're like, where
do you feel that?
And I'm like, I got a knot inmy chest right now.
The person will say, well,what color is that knot?
It's a giant gray knot.
(42:49):
Pay attention to that.
See what happens.
And suddenly you feel thatknot release.
You go, know what?
If I wait on this one thingI'm going to do because it's hard,
it's going to be way harder.
(43:10):
And if I do the hard thingnow, it's going to be way easier.
And after that moment, I justturn and back to that concept of
leaping through the air in theentertainment business.
I succeed on the concept offalling up.
(43:31):
I'm not actually succeeding.
I am at all times failingmarketing material.
You throw out all your moneyand all your energy into your marketing
material.
And for 98% of the people whosee fails, and if you are super successful,
it's 97% and that makes it ahuge success, that 1% difference.
(43:56):
So you're actually failingconstantly and throwing money at
this.
And that doesn't work.
And that creates an experienceof constantly falling.
There's always a don't we wishthat for me, that next corporate
event booked already.
Don't I wish that summer campwas around because it's filled with
(44:20):
impact and it's a great timefor my business because we sell out
like crazy with people comingback and it's just great to see everybody.
And so there's all theseperiods of falling and sometimes
I'm falling and I go, oh crap,I need to get into the emergency
savings.
Other time it's, oh crap, Ineed to use a line of credit and
oh crap, I need to sell some stock.
(44:46):
So creating the conditionswhere you can constantly fall and
in that moment when you'refalling, have a mastermind, a mentor,
a coach, and you need accountability.
Also in that accountabilitygroups is where the real transformation
happens.
People who will tell you, youknow, you said you were going to
(45:07):
do this and you didn't do it.
What's up?
We just lie to all of us.
That'll keep you honest.
With yourself and others.
And so in that process ofconstantly falling up, I am going
towards the next item thatwill be the greatest contributor
(45:29):
to my success.
And no matter what ishappening, I'm working on that.
And a lot of people will talkabout a fallback position as that
safety thing coming again, Iwill use a fall up position.
(45:54):
I was finished pre med andknew I wasn't going to go in that
direction.
And I wanted to study theaterand social psychology, which is the
science of human interaction,which I wanted to use for the shows
and child development andlifespan development so I could understand
all the audiences.
(46:15):
Those were all the things Iwas going to use in college to support
my main thing.
And people say, well, what'syour fallback plan?
I said, I don't want afallback plan, I don't want a safety
net.
I'm gonna make this work orI'm not gonna do it.
And I've decided I'm doing it.
So I'm gonna make it work.
And it's working already whileI'm in school.
So I assume that if I put moretime and effort I'll be better.
(46:38):
But I found a fall up planwhich was if I took the entrepreneurship
courses, the business courses,the marketing courses, then all of
that makes it more likely thatI succeed in what I want to do.
And now I consult with peoplein all sorts of different businesses.
(46:58):
And maybe half my revenue camefrom other businesses this period
of time, one of them acardiology practice.
And so all those businessskills I could apply to myself, I
could apply in other placeswhere if I needed a time to make
(47:20):
more money or, you know, Iwasn't going to meet cash flow wise,
I had this fall up.
And then in accounting there'sa T chart.
It is literally a T is themost essential thing in all of business.
(47:45):
One side of the tea is themoney coming in and the other side
is the money going out.
If you keep it so that themoney coming in is more than the
money going out, you can be inbusiness in whatever you're doing
permanently.
And so when I got out ofschool, I was doing maybe five shows
(48:09):
a month at somewhere around$250 a piece.
So $1,250 a month.
Well, and I had worked theprevious 10 years for other people.
Starting when I was 14 and ahalf, I got a room.
Now, you can't really do thisas easily this time, but I got a
(48:30):
room for $550 a month by thetime I paid for my phone, my health
insurance in my room, I hadenough money left over that I could
eat out for lunch every single day.
And most of the shows wereending up on one weekend.
So I had almost 28 days amonth completely free.
(48:54):
And I just looked at everysingle skill that I would need to
do, and I studied it.
And when I was studying sales,I studied 16 different books on sales.
And by the time I finished,I'm like, these are all the same,
and they're all referring backto listening.
And then I ended up finding alistening textbook and studied 400
(49:16):
pages on listening, becausethat's what the sales textbooks were
all saying.
And that's where great actorswere saying.
And I'm a conservatory trained actor.
They were saying it was thelistening that was important.
And so, like, I've got yourbook Living with Purpose and Power
(49:40):
right here.
And I'm on this.
Chapter two, what do I control?
And so you control what you say.
Perhaps you have habits ofmuttering under your breath without
thinking.
It is still under your control.
You may habitually shout atothers when they cut you off on the
freeway.
It is still under your control.
(50:01):
You have a running monologuein your head about all sorts of things
that is still under your control.
Let me repeat, it is stillunder your control.
So I surround myself withbooks where I will read like I won't
read it straight through.
I'll go to a chapter thatsounds like it's going to resonate
with me and I'll zero in onone thing and then I'll read a little
(50:24):
bit of it.
And when I have a hit, I willstop and reflect on that.
And there's a thing calledstacking order.
Some people read one book at atime straight through.
I've got 15, 20 books spreadall over the place.
I'm like you.
Yeah, I read the section.
I need that day to figure outwhere I'm going right now.
(50:47):
So I'm always.
I view this as like, youlearned everything in your life,
some the hardest way possible,some from others.
And all those people gatheredthe greatest information that they
could ever find.
And you gathered the greatestinformation you ever could find.
And you stuck it in somethingthis big and said, here, you can
(51:09):
get this.
And so I surround myself withwhat I believe is the greatest information
of all time.
And I'm absorbing that at all times.
And I will focus on the thingsthat I need.
And Now I use ChatGPT to helpbring it even closer.
(51:33):
I Here's a prompt.
Ready?
Who are the top 20 experts onthis topic?
Fill in the blank.
Bring Those people into thischat as though they're speaking directly
to me while we're having this conversation.
And I then have a conversationwith the authors of all the books
(51:55):
that I just read.
But ultimately I'm aiming tosurround myself in every way with
people who are way, way, waymore advanced or intelligent than
I am at that topic.
And what you get is earthshattering moments.
One day I'm standing withIrvin Kirshner, director of Star
(52:16):
the Empire Strikes Back, andhe says to me, there's only two things
you can impact, what peoplesee and what people hear.
And through that they feelwhat they think.
(52:36):
Now, if you look at the apodcast or anything you're doing
in your life and you realize,wait, I can only affect what people
see and hear.
You can suddenly cluster everysingle thing you learn into a tight
little package around that.
And you can make sense of anentire body of knowledge around that.
And all right, I can give awayone big crazy secret here.
(53:00):
A book called how to ThinkLike a Genius by Todd Siller teaches
about taking a visualrepresentation of something.
And you can write differentnotes on different parts of that
something.
(53:20):
It could be a waterfall for me.
I used a star frequently and Iwould write a different thing on
each point of the star andthen I would write a question down
the center.
How am I going to make thiswebsite work?
How am I going to advance this relationship?
(53:42):
How am I going to make thissong I'm going to sing in my show
better?
And then I write thecategories of ways I can influence
things on the point.
And I take one point over hereand one point over here and I draw
a line and I say, whatconnects these two things?
(54:02):
I draw a line.
What connects these two things?
What connects these two things?
And so I have this threedimensional thought that forms in
answering the questions I have.
And so instead of coming atthings with a thinly thought through,
(54:25):
or let's say peripheralthinking, which we need peripheral
thinking for the snapdecisions, but for things that really
matter, having them reallydeeply thought through, how do we
get there so that I'm notwishy washy?
I really know where I'm headed.
And that clarity is often ahuge part of success.
(54:48):
I've got that worked out fromthese metaphor, which is taking a
metaphor for what you're doingin picture format and thinking through
it in that way.
And in that process, I wouldfind things that sort of lit me up.
(55:12):
And there's a book called thePassion Plan by Richard Chang that
I got probably in the 90s andit's been on my nightstand ever since.
And it talked about, you don'tfind your passion, you find like
one little ember and go, oh,what's that?
You find another little ember.
Go, oh, what if we put these together?
(55:36):
Ooh, that's warmer.
Ooh, there's another one over here.
So collecting the embers up.
And as your passion getsstronger, which is your emotion side
and your spirit and yourenergy, and you've really thought
things through and created avision and a strategy and a mission
behind what you want tocreate, the biggest secret is that
(55:58):
the universe is going toconspire with you to make it happen.
I was talking about Brainstarswith a friend.
She mentioned an organizationand I said, well, all those people
sound like they're thinkingthat way.
And I joined that organizationand I met Kellen right at the beginning
and I went, he's totallythinking that way.
(56:18):
And he goes, here's my podcast.
And I'm like, this is himthinking that way to share it with
everybody else, just like I amwith Brainstars.
And so the world will conspireto have you succeed when you have
a meaningful vision.
(56:40):
I got this idea in my headfrom a speaker.
At the end of your life, whileyou're on that bed, aware that your
last breath is coming, if your18 year old self walked up to you,
do you want to tell thatperson the story of what your life
(57:05):
might have been?
Or do you want to tell them astory that your life became?
And so the world will conspirewith you for you to succeed?
When you have a meaningfulvision and effort, literally every
(57:28):
resource you need will creepout of the woodwork for it to happen.
And then I use something thatI got from a singing method.
I do sing in my shows and it'sone way that I create magic on a
(57:50):
different way, you know,connecting through song.
A book from it was calledPower Performance for Entertainers,
for Singers.
And it talked about youimprove a little bit before you improve
a little bit during whileyou're actually singing the song
in this case, or while you'recarrying out the business practice
(58:12):
or while you're having thatconversation with your significant
other.
You go, wait, you know, holdon, I can tell I'm blaming here.
Let me try this again.
I don't want to blame you for this.
I'm just saying this is howthis impacted me.
(58:35):
And then you're improving during.
And then after you're walkingaway and you get your journal out,
you think through or you calla mentor, whatever the situation
is.
And I have a mentor for everysingle thing I'm doing.
And you improve after.
So if you improve before,during and after, whatever you're
(58:56):
doing to create 30,000important but not urgent impacts
building towards your vision,you really start to get somewhere.
Now here's the reality.
Everything screws up all the time.
(59:19):
The software screws up that asI got these enormous events, I would
be looking at somebody whowanted to spend tens of thousands
and then somebody would callme who wanted to spend $200 for a
longer performance.
I'm like, ah, that's notreally who I am anymore.
And the big one would take awhile to book.
(59:41):
And it's a very large sum of money.
The little one would havecreated the cash flow, right?
And so now I'm sitting here asmy career is taking off and these
big things are happening andI'm going, oh crap, I see I'm doing
phenomenally right here.
But there's a big gap and thisone's not going to pay for a couple
(01:00:04):
more weeks.
What do I do here?
Software screws up.
You can't get through to people.
You need to get things done.
Team members will come in andwant to throw hand grenades into
your business if they are notfirst attracted to the vision admission
that you are on for yourbusiness or your life.
Every single thing will gowrong all the time.
(01:00:29):
And as quickly as possible,you have to sit back and say, what
is the one thing I need tolearn to outgrow this situation?
It sounds like, how can I failup in this moment?
How can I fail up in this moment?
(01:00:49):
And the most important one,Kellen, every time I got to a bigger
stage, I was more and more scared.
2000 person global virtual conference.
Not only did I learn while Iwas performing for one of those,
if you are ever performing for2,000 people on Zoom, you should
never pick an audiencevolunteer named Alexa.
(01:01:15):
Very important.
But the butterflies go like crazy.
Whenever I feel thatadrenaline, which is really, really
what it is.
Many people think of that as fear.
I think of that as my bodyshifting into the larger than life
mode that's going to get methrough to make it happen, I feel
(01:01:37):
that fear.
I feel that jitteriness.
I feel it coursing through mybody and I go, wow, this feels scary
as crap.
And I stand there and Ibreathe a little bit deeply in my
lower gut and I come back toone phrase that I've used ever since
(01:01:58):
I was a kid, which is, this isso scary.
I bet that right at this spot,this is where somebody else quit.
And.
I make a decision that that's not.
Who I want to be, that's notgoing to be me.
(01:02:20):
Well, and I step forward.
I love that somebody else quitright here.
I love that.
I'm going to take that awayfrom this.
Benjamin, that is an absolute.
I ask you the question, youknow, describe processes, and you
have, and you've given alengthy masterclass on that.
And I love it every single moment.
I need to ask you a finalquestion that's really important,
(01:02:41):
and that is where are yougoing to send people?
Or what do you have?
Because with what you'vetaught, I urge everybody to go back
and go through this andlisten, because he's given you some
concrete practices, somespecific actions, some attitudes,
some words, the importance ofmentorship and getting the right
help, importance of yourinternal dialogue.
(01:03:03):
And all of those things are so true.
And I love the stories and everything.
How do we find you?
How do.
How do people get more of you?
All right, so at the core,enrichment, entertainment, virtually
and in person.
You can find me@BenCorey.comfor all of my shows.
(01:03:26):
I travel anywhere in the world.
Or online, you can findBrainstars Club, which is where we
bring that enrichment.
And this information, I justtold you here, this is what we're
teaching 6 year olds and 7year olds and 8 year olds and 9 year
olds and 10 year olds, you cango to Brainstars Club, fill out our
(01:03:49):
contact form if you have kidsthat you would like to involve in
our programs.
And I want you to havesomething that's been very special
to me to take as a gift.
If you go to bencorey.com atyour event and maybe I'll copy this
(01:04:10):
for you, Kellen, to put in theprogram bencorey.com at your event
gift, I will send you some ofthe things that I used every day
to keep myself on track.
One is a poem that I stuck onmy wall since I was like nine years
(01:04:36):
old.
It's called the Power of Littles.
And it starts with great things.
We often find on little things depend.
And I kept that on my wall sothat as I focused on that one thing
I was going to get done, thenzeroed out every single other thing.
(01:04:58):
I knew that that one thingwould add up over time.
So if you fill out the form onthere, I'll send you an email with
that poem.
And then I think there's acouple other things that go out.
I had not thought about thatonline gift for a very long time,
so I don't even know what thesecond email is, and I'm going to
(01:05:23):
go afterwards and Change it togift.bencorey.com Remember, improve
before, during, and after.
Because I thoughtgift.bencorey.com is going to be
way easier to find than theway that I wrote it before.
(01:05:45):
I'm literally living exactlywhat I was talking about in this
moment.
I love that.
That's a fabulous example.
And one of the things, youknow, you've talked about it and
you've done so well.
I want people to hear that.
Because the moment of discovery.
The moment of discovery andthe moment of execution, when we
(01:06:05):
can shorten that time, themoment of discovery and moment of
execution, when we can reducethe time in between those things,
we fall up, we fail up, wemove forward quickly.
And one of the keys is no drama.
So it's not like, oh, that wasbad, and you make yourself bad.
So drop all that.
This is just growth.
Because when you're committedto your project, every possible improvement
(01:06:28):
is exciting.
And it's not an indictment.
It's not an indictment becausethis is part of the climb.
And I was born to rise.
I love that saying.
So thank you.
That's fabulous.
One thing just on what yousaid, social psychologists, that's
what my degree is in.
I use it every day.
(01:06:51):
They discovered they wanted totest if somebody is berating themselves
or others for not achievingsomething or getting something right.
Do they then get a better result?
And it turns out that you canberate yourself for everything going
wrong and you can berate other people.
(01:07:16):
All it does is drains yourenergy and you don't get anywhere
with it.
So you can take your hand andjust put it on your chest.
A wonderful speaker told meabout this and just go, okay, Ben,
I recommend using your namefor this.
Okay, Ben, that didn't workthis time.
What's going to work better?
(01:07:38):
And instead of going into thatplace of criticism, go right into
that direction and then lookfor the people who are criticizing
you in your life.
And this is a formercommunication director from Disney
told me this.
Those people who arecriticizing you in your life and
making you feel terrible inthis way, learn how to just sort
(01:08:01):
of step away.
You had a relationship withthem, but now you're just going to
step out and you surroundyourself with people who are like,
this brainstar thing Ben isdoing is amazing.
How can I help him find peopleto join?
These shows are entertaining.
How can I get people tobencorey.com who might need that
(01:08:21):
show?
You find the people who arelike that and you surround yourself
with those.
In that case, today it was Kellen.
I'm so blessed that you sharedyour audience with me today.
I was thinking, I'm reallypassionate about helping people have
their best life, which is thesame thing Kellen is.
(01:08:42):
And his audience is reallypassionate about having their best
life.
I was like, maybe they wanttheir kids to have their best life
too.
And there's like this amazingalignment there.
Absolutely love it, Ben.
Thank you.
Just spectacular.
I've really enjoyed listeningto you.
I've really enjoyed learningyour processes and your growth.
It was instructional.
(01:09:03):
And again, I advise all of youto listen to this a couple of times
or more.
Take it apart.
You know, you can downloadpodcasts, so have it.
Thank you for sharingeverything with us today, Ben.
You're welcome.
And now that I have writtenall the things that I wanted to say
and realized, wait a second, Ihave 40 hours of podcast material.
(01:09:25):
And I went, I'm going to needthe story arc book now to use Kellen's
method for putting that into a book.
And then I pop on and thefirst thing Kellen wants to tell
me about was a challenge thatyou have coming up where for free,
you'll help a group of peopledevelop their foundation for their
(01:09:47):
story arc.
But I was like, you see, whenyou're in alignment, it all just
piles up like that.
Boom.
Boom is the first thing you said.
And I had the book sittingnext to me on the screen.
That's what happens whenyou're living your life in alignment.
Everybody listen, I want youto go back and listen to this a couple
times.
I really do that.
I say that on different shows,but really he gave us a masterclass
(01:10:09):
on personal choice to creategrowth and failing up and several
other things that areavailable to you now today as you
move forward and create yourultimate life.
Never hold back and you'llnever ask why.
Open your heart in this time around.
(01:10:32):
Right here, right now, you'reopportunity for massive growth is
right in front of you.
Every episode gives youpractical tips and practices that
will change everything.
If you want to know more, goto kellenflukermedia.com if you want
more free tools, go here.
(01:10:52):
Your ultimate life casubscribe Share in.
The sky and your feet on the ground.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!