Marcy Axelrod--The Missing Metric: How Your Business Show Up

.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The following is a paid podcast.iHeartRadio's hosting of this podcast constitutes neither an
endorsement of the products offered or theideas expressed. A crowd gathers and everyone
says, oh my goodness. AllI've ever done is just show up,
focus on that one specific moment intime. A lot of people, I
don't think they understand the difference betweenemployment and ownership. I'm Richard Garhart and

(00:23):
I'm Elizabeth Gearhart. You just heardsome snippets from our show. We had
amazing people on listen for the restof it. Want to protect your business.
The time is near. You've givenit heart, now get it in
gear It's Passage to Profit. WithRichard and Elizabeth Gearhart. I'm Richard Gerhart,

(00:43):
founder of Gearhart Law, a fullservice intellectual property law firm specializing in
patents, trademarks, and copyrights.And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, not an attorney,
but I work at your Heart Lawdoing the marketing, and I have
my own startups. Welcome the Passageto Profit everyone, the Road to entrepreneurship
where we talk with startups all businessesand discuss the intellectual property that helps them

(01:03):
flourish. We have a very specialguess, Marcy Axelrod, and she's an
author and a speaker and her latestbook is How We Choose to Show Up.
And then we have Philip Pump whois a storyteller and he has a
book, The Story Selling Method,and it goes on from there. But
storytelling is so important for your business, so I'm really interested to hear what

(01:25):
he has to have to tell theright stories right. You can tell wrong
stories and it won't help. Andthen we have Chad Price and he has
Life Grows Screens, CBD products,Tyke us all feel Better, and he's
written a book too, Preparing forBattle about entrepreneurship. It's time for Ip
in the News before we get toour distinguished guests, and what is the

(01:46):
topic? Does your well? Ifound this from Business insider dot com and
it was written by Hannah Getahun.It's Hot Girl Walk versus Hot Girl Walk
after TikTok trend Starters as a Floridacompany is infringing up her trademark. So
basically she started Hot Girl Walk inDelaware and then these girls in Miami decided

(02:06):
they want to do Hot Girl Walk, so they just stuck Miami on the
end. Of it and decided theycould use her branding, and she wasn't
too happy about that. But guesswhat Hot Girl Walk The original owner had
a trademark on Hot Girl Walk,right, she did and went off end
after that. First, I wantto say what Hot Girl Walk is?
I mean, I you know you'rethinking out Kardashians. No, Hot Girl

(02:28):
Walk is where girls get together andgo on four mile hike. So it's
a hiking brand. It's like ahiking group. Amelia Lynn started it in
Delaware, and Monica Belegas and LuciaDetore started it in Miami. Took her
brand and Amelia said that she originatedit in twenty twenty one and it's fitness
training and inspirational messaging. And whatreally made her upset was that the two

(02:52):
girls in Miami said they originated it, and they didn't. They stole it
from her, so they have nowit looks like rebrand because their Instagram page
no longer exists. So that isour ip in the news. You cannot
just take somebody else's branding and slapanother word on the end. Nope,
that's actually gives your freedom to operateif you want to make sure somebody can't

(03:13):
do that to you. A trademarkhelps a lot. So, Kenya,
what do you think about this girlWalk trademark situation? Well, it's interesting
because you both know that I'm inthe world of fitness right and there's really
not anything new under the sun whenit comes to anything really work out or
fitness oriented. It's kind of agreat area sometimes, and like who really
created and invented what? But Ithink she was smart and that she,

(03:37):
like you said, got her trademarkand got the name secured. So at
least she has a leg to standon because I know with certain trademarks and
ips, it's hard to kind ofget things marked in the fitness space,
so at least she had that inher favor. I think it was a
pretty original name from a branding perspective. So Marcy, what do you think
about this? I think the underlyingfreezing a pot Girl Walk is extremely catchy,

(04:04):
and it's visceral, and it's sexyand it's exciting, so to a
certain extent, I don't blame otherpeople for being a lord by it.
However, clearly taking what was startedby someone else and commendarian as your own
breaks laws. And I think thatwe all need to be very careful because
we all stand on the shoulders ofgiants and we are all impacted by what

(04:26):
we've seen here at all time,So we may not recognize that a seed
was planted and we think it's ourrole, right. So I can see
both sides about why this happened,but I'm very glad that it seems to
be resolving the way that you said, which is that it's trademarked and the
originator will be able to benefit.Yeah, and you know what's interesting here

(04:46):
too, is looking at it frommaybe the Bautique's perspective, the Infredis perspective.
Maybe they saw it on TikTok andthey just thought it was fair game
and they just thought it was aslogan and they didn't realize there was a
trademark on it, and they justthought it was sort of out there in
the general public. But if you'regoing to start a business, you always
want to do a trademark search first, especially if you're going to invest a

(05:11):
lot in your branding your website.They may have had hand tags, they
may have had brochures, they mayhave had packaging all with hot girl walk
on it. They made a substantialinvestment, and you know they may have
to change all of that. Soif you're going to start a business,
it's good to check out the namebefore you commit to it. I think
that's standard trademark attorney advice. Sochat, what are your thoughts on this.

(05:33):
I think copycatting it is the highestform of flattery. So you know,
I think that the Hot Girl Walksshould be glad that they actually copying
it. But you know, whenyou think about it from just a business
or a legal perspective, I'm gladit played out the way it played.
I think there should be circumstances likethat or cases like that in the news,
and I think that kind of setsthe rules for everyone else. As

(05:53):
you know, you can't just addMiami and Texas like you suggested. Everyone
needs to do some type of trademarksearch if you're starting a brand. I
think that's a central part of buildingone is can you actually get away with
selling this in your area or globallyor whatever kind of jurisdiction or geographic area
you're darkening. Yeah, you know, if you do that, then you
can avoid the problems that the storeowners are right across in this case.

(06:15):
So what's your take on all this. I'm actually thankful for hearing that a
little story because me as a smallbusiness owner myself, I feel that this,
let's say trademarks often pushed out thatdecision, right. I'm always like,
ah, eventually I'll look after that. And that's not the right approach,
right At one point we see okay, hey this is going somewhere.
When should just sit down and makeit a priority. But I noticed myself

(06:35):
that hey, all of these otherprojects are just flying in and then I
always push it out. And Ithink this was just a gentle not just
as well to start looking myself againinto all the things that I maybe trademarking
or well I want to get somecopy right on it. So thanks a
lot for sharing that. Well,thank you, Philip, And I do
think that you're right. When you'rein a startup mode, you have a

(06:58):
lot of competing priorities, and youalso have a limited budget, so you
kind of have to decide what comesfirst, and so sometimes the legal piece
gets pushed down the road. Butonce you start spending real money on your
marketing and branding and you really commitit, you really do need to spend
the time and the money to dothe search on your name. It's not
that expensive compared to a lot ofother investments that you would make. It's

(07:21):
certainly less than a possible website substantially. So Kenya did her research on her
brand. Well, it's important,and you guys are helping me with the
trademark for that, So thank youfor all this. I think research is
going to be the thing that kindof makes a break shoot, especially in
my industry. It's going to bethe differentiator. And I think the more
data you have and the more informationthat you can put up there to back

(07:45):
up your brand, it just givesmore credibility in the market place. I
couldn't agree more. And I guessthe lesson of the story is that you
should trademark or investigate your trademark beforeyou start your business, and we have
a website that can help you withthat. If you want to learn more
about trademarks, go to learn moreabout trademarks dot com and you can set

(08:05):
up a consultation with me, orin the alternative, you can download some
free content about how to get trademarksand their importance and their value. It's
a great information source. It's calledthe Entrepreneur's Guide to Trademarks, So check
it out and learn more about trademarksdot com. And now it's time to
get to our distinguished guests, MarcyAxelrod. Marcy is a keynote speaker and

(08:28):
she's a two time ted X speaker. She's award winning author, TV contributor,
and management consultant and her latest book, How We Choose to Show Up,
It's going to be a fascinating read. So Marcy, how should we
choose to show up? Very quick, really short answers. Your question about
how should we choose to show upis that we should actually shoot. What

(08:50):
my research show is starting back innineteen ninety nine and right twenty plus years
of research, is that eighty percentof us just show up eighty percent of
the time. And when I getinto discussions with people about this, I
mean a crowd gathers and everyone says, oh my goodness, I mean all
I've ever done is just show up, And then they kind of look at
me and say, well, howshould we like how can we do it

(09:13):
differently? And often those discussions cango a long time and I end up
with some kind of impromptur focus group. But as we get into things.
I'm going to very much explain howwe as individuals, as entrepreneurs, as
parents, as members of a societycan very quickly choose how we show up
such that we live happy or healthierand work successful lives. I love what

(09:33):
you're doing. You and I hada conversation yesterday. I do want to
say that Marcy is a Gearhart Lawclient. She works with David Basolski at
Gearhart Laws, So thank you forthat. Marcy. We talked about understanding
how showing up works and what itactually means. And I know you've asked
a ton of people this question,so really, what does it mean to
actually show up? I'm going toanswer this by painting a picture for us

(09:58):
about what we all do. AndI want to be very very clear there's
no judgment here. There isn't somuch a right and wrong as there is
an allocation. How much of whattype of showing up is going to be
the right fit for us to livethe life that we want and to leave
the legacy that we want, andto make our business as successful as we

(10:18):
want it to be, and tohave the relationship with our customers and our
team that we want. So effectively, what most of us do, and
what I'm told all the time.This is a direct quote here, I
check my look, the weather,the timing, and I head on out
right. So to a certain extent, this is improv life, call it
default life. We're just wringing it, not quite grasping right, the success

(10:41):
and closeness and meaning that we allsee. I just spoke with a neighbor
who said, mercy, like,if I get, you know, myself
and my kids out the door ontime and i'd half my wits about me
at ten am, that's a success. Now you know what's so bad about
this? Right, Because the reallyimportant meetings and moment and events, we

(11:01):
truly show up to those, right. We show up grounded in ourselves.
We show up ready for the situation, and we show up with an interest
in connecting with the people and theactivity because there's an import there, right,
that's really really good. But withthe rest of our lives we kind
of chat, do and decide,right, we kind of live on this
plane of timing and task. Wedon't go up to the wine and kind

(11:24):
of look down and say, howam I choosing to show up the moment
we do that we actually switch fromour left brain, which is this kind
of simplify and categorize, and it'svery efficient and it's mechanistic. We shift
into our broader perspective, which isin our right hemisphere, and that lets
see how things relate to each other. I think one thing that might help

(11:46):
explain it to Marci is that youhave studied neuroscience and there is a neuroscience
component to this. Could you talkabout that a little bit. Yeah,
this is absolutely huge, right becausebeing very much at our time and task
mode right right as human doings morethan human beings, which our society is
tremendously stuck it. We're far toonarrowly focused. The right brain is the

(12:11):
one that notices the language of thebody, the one that recognizes the implicit
reality of the situation, and thisis what leads us to be magnetic for
the possibilities that are out there.So prompt yourself to ask the question,
how am I choosing to show up? Because the moment you do that you

(12:33):
shipped into in different mode. There'sa continuum of showing up right, three
simple levels. There's barely there onone side. This is when you're just
a disengage, you don't care,you're epathetic, whatever it may be.
There's just showing up right where eightypercent of us do eighty percent of the
time, which, as I'd meantto leaves us. Unfortunately, it leaves
us lonely and stressed and strained andnot quite as successful or happy as we

(12:56):
ideally warrant to be. And thenthere's frully showing up. So just ask
yourself, where on the continuum doI want to be? And you can
use it as a very simple andobjective way to communicate with your team.
So, Marcy, let's revisit theneuroscience. There is something you were telling
me about it yesterday that I foundvery profound. Could you repeat that year
please? Yes, Elizabeth, howthe way we show up moves not just

(13:20):
through the people who are right nextto us, but it actually goes three
levels deep. It turns out thatbehavior and emotions, even thoughts, are
contagious. So the twenty people closestto us are forty five percent more likely
to do what we do and whatI say do, I mean, feel,
think, and act. It doesn'tstop there. So your colleague now

(13:43):
goes home to his or her spouse, that person is now twenty five percent
more likely to do what you do, and then it goes further, so
your colleague spouses daughter is ten percentmore likely to do what you do.
This is the work of Nicholas Kristakisat Harvard. Now he said, yeah,
specifically, things that were studied arereally definitive whether or not you vote,

(14:05):
whether you stay married, the sizeof your body in terms of weight,
whether you choose to drink. Howyou choose to show up goes three
levels deep to people you will nevermeet, and really has a profound impact,
far more than most of us recognize. Marcy Axelrod author and a speaker,
and her latest book is How WeChoose to Show Up And what are

(14:26):
some of the things that you're lookingforward to spread this information about how you
choose to show up? Wow?Gee, I mean the world really opened
up to me recently. So thereis a TV show coming up called Show
Up with Marcy Saturday mornings, tenam. So I'm a contributor on that.
I'll be there across six months.I was just told there's a billboard
believe it or not, in TimeSquare. I mean nothing I necessarily aspired

(14:50):
to because to me, it's theideas that I want out there more than
kind of my face. But there'sgoing to be a billboard and Time Square
early in September promoting the show thebook How We Choose to Show Up,
which is actually edited by George Bush'sformer chief speechwriter ahead of Communications. So
there's a book How We Choose toShow Up that is coming out, and
I'd actually be happy to send digitalcopies to people, because once again,

(15:13):
I'm not about selling a book.I'm about getting the ideas out there such
that people bring a little bit moreintent and choice to how they live their
lives. Well, it sounds likethis concept really rings true with a lot
of people, and it's attracting alot of attention. So thank you for
bringing that up to us. Wehope that you'll stick around for the rest
of the show and help us withthe other interviews coming up. We have

(15:37):
some fantastic guests back with more Passageto Profit right after this. I'm Richard
Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law.We specialize in patents, trademarks and copyrights.
You can find out more and learnmore about trademarks dot com. We
love working with entrepreneurs and helping theirbusinesses grow. And here's our client,
Ricky to tell it like it is. Hi. I'm Ricky Frano, founder
and CEO of Prime six. Wemanufacture high performing, clean and sustainable Fuelspike,

(16:03):
charcoal and logs. We've been workingwith your Heartloft since the beginning,
really and they've helped us figure outthe trademarks, the patents, everything that
has to do with product development andhow to protect our inventions. And we're
extremely grateful for the wonderful team thathas been supporting our business since day one.
Thank you, Rickie. To learnmore about trademarks, go to learn
more about trademarks dot com and downloadour free entrepreneurs Guide to Trademarks, or

(16:27):
book a free consultation with me todiscuss your patent and trademark needs. That's
learn more about trademarks dot com foryour free booklet about trademarks and a free
consultation. Passage to Profit continues withRichard and Elizabeth Gearhart and our special guest
today, Marci Axelrod, who's beentalking about how we choose to show up
and she's got a book coming out, stay tuned for that, as well

(16:49):
as a TV show and a billboardat Times Square. A lot of great
things happening for her now. It'stime for power Move Kenya, who is
our power movement today? So excitedabout power Move because it's a little different
today. We normally do not talkabout politics on the show, and I
won't be talking about politics in thissegment, but I wanted to highlight Newark
Councilman dupre Kelly. He was recentlyon My Power Move podcast. He has

(17:12):
a really great story that I feelis a superpower move where he started off
as part of the infamous hip hopgroup Lords of the Underground and that's really
where he found his calling and communityservice. During this time in the music
industry, he was using his platformto create a more conscious community through music,

(17:33):
and he felt led to make amove into politics and serve as councilman
for the City of Newark. Sonow he's using his influence and platform to
improve public policy and I thought thatthat was a very interesting power move and
play into serving the greater good.So he is our power move for today,
and if you want to hear hisfull story, you can listen to
My Power Move podcast. You haveto have a calling to want to be

(17:56):
a councils grasulation and stay. Thankyou for that. And now it's time
for Elizabeth Gerhardt and her segment onwhat she's been up to. She has
lots of projects and so probably haslots of updates. Yes, I keep
adding new things all the time.But I have a startup called Blue Streak

(18:17):
Directory. It's a video directory ofB to B businesses online and I've been
working on it. I started itin a different form right before COVID and
did long form interviews. Now we'regoing to shorter videos, and I'm pretty
excited because when I started it,the software I needed wasn't really there.
Now the software is because it's beenthree years and so things change so fast,

(18:37):
well two and a half years,things change so fast that now I
feel like I'm really making progress withit. So yeah, the software capability
of Blue Street. Elizabeth let meplay with it this last weekend. And
what it does is help people makevideos of their pitches for their businesses,
and then the directory organizes these pitches. So if you want to if you're

(19:00):
shopping safe for a business coach,you can look at a number of different
business coaches and then based on whatyou hear, you can call them or
contact them. And it's a quickway to screen different service providers and the
software though that teaches somebody how tomake a video. It's just amazing.
Yes, And to Marcy, itreally helps you choose how to show up
when you're trying to get clients online, right in a video, which gives

(19:23):
you much more information than just aphoto. And then I also have the
Jersey Podcats podcast, which I dowith Danielle Woolley, where we talk to
cat lovers and dog lovers. Recentlyhad someone on who's allergic to cats and
so we had a little cats versusdogs thing, which is always so much
fun. We're having a lot offun with it. We upload a new

(19:44):
episode every Tuesday and it's on YouTubeand it's on all the podcast sites,
so that is going really well.We have a lot of people that want
to come on the podcast and andthey're interesting and we have fun with it.
So that is what I am upto. But now before introduced this
next guest, I want to saywhen we started Radio Kenya told us it's
all about storytelling. Our next guests, Philip m that's a great story.

(20:10):
By the way, Palmy is herewith us and he is all about the
power of storytelling. So he isjust such a natural fit for this,
and he has a book, TheStory Selling Method, and he's helping entrepreneurs
take something that would be boring andturn it into a story, which is
really what people want to hear.So welcome Philip. Tell us all about

(20:32):
what you're doing, how you doit. Yeah, thanks love for having
me. I'm a business storytelling coach. So what I do is very much
help leaders sell us and entrepreneurs tellstories in business, mostly to build trust,
connect and stand out in business.And at the end, it's always
funny, right when you come toentrepreneurship, because I've worked by now with
tons of entrepreneurs and usually they aren'tgreat at these technical components. They're great

(20:56):
at building the product, the MVP, all the technical stuff, but when
it comes to even the basic basicthings as sharing a story in a compelling
way connecting to VC, that's wherethey struggle with And most people think always
say, oh, it's so hardright to get into that, But at
the end, if you just dosome hours there, it's a beautiful return
on investment. So that's pretty muchwhat I do is I help entrepreneurs and

(21:19):
leaders tell better stories at work.That's great. Can you give us some
examples of stories that turn sort ofmundane business products into something that's kind of
exciting for the consumer of the seller. I'll give you one that I just
read, and I think it's avery powerful one. It's by Nordstrom,
which is more of a bigger enterprisethat's not a small enterprise. But I

(21:40):
think it's very powerful because it provesthe point. Often when we as entrepreneurs,
we want to communicate our values.So we want to show what is
so great about working with us,right, and oftentimes we just do that,
right, We just say, ah, we're here the market leader for
X, Y and z. Wedo this and this and that, and
that oftentimes is just not very memorable. Now, what example Nordstrom does.

(22:00):
One of their values is to reputthe customer first, and so what they
do is they share stories to makethat point. So let me share a
story that they share there. Innineteen seventy nine, Craig Trouns was working
as a store assistant in Fairbank inAlaska in the Nordstrom there, and on
one day he saw something very veryparticular. He saw a customer or a

(22:22):
man rolling in tires into the store. A little confused, he walk up
to that man him. He asked, excuse me, can help you?
The man said, yeah, Iwanted to return these tires, and Craig
goes, sir, you know thatwe're a clothing retailer. We don't have
tires. No, no, butthat's exactly the place where I bought it
in It turns out that he hadbought these exact tires from the previous tenant

(22:48):
of the same building, but yearsback. And Craig first looked at it,
stood there and thought like, whatam I going to do with that?
Yuh right? But then he decidedto do what felt right. He
called the local tire agency to getan estimate of the tires. He then
collected the tires and gave a refund. He gave a refund for a product
that Nordstrom didn't even have on theirsodiment. Isn't that an incredible story?

(23:12):
And why I'm assuring that it's justanytime when we as entrepreneurs we want to
make these claims, or as leaderswe want to make these claims. What
is so unique about working with us? Instead of just making that claim,
try to find a story that actuallybackseted up. Otherwise anyone can make that
claim. That's an amazing story,definitely worth retelling for sure, above and

(23:33):
beyond what most other retailers would do. So the stories show instead of saying
I'm the greatest, that's telling mayshow how you are the greatest and what
do you think? I think that'sa really cool story. And it brings
you back to the power of testimonialsincorporating those into your brand story. There's
a quote by Jeffrey Gittimer. Whenyou tell your story yourself, or when

(23:56):
you talk about yourself, it's bragging. But when other people talk about you
and say it about it's the truth. So I think that that goes for
people and for brands. My questionto you is what are some must have
in your story or your value propositionwhen you're crafting and you're putting together what
you want people to know about you. When it comes to the must have

(24:17):
as an entrepreneur, you always wantto focus on that one specific moment in
time, those one moment where youhad that moment of realization. Let's say
you stand there, something happens andyou're like, oh man, this is
this is messed up. I gotto work on that. So you always
want to focus and go down inthis one moment that really shows why you
chose to go for that business.Now, when it comes to general storytelling,

(24:40):
there are a few elements that arevery key. One is emotions,
one is visual moments, and oneis surprised. And just to maybe go
into the visual moments, because youmentioned that right now with the Testimoni's Kenya,
if I told you right now astory about a very happy customer and
at the end of say well,the customer was very happy that I helped
him, gross business, that willbe without visual moments. But if I

(25:02):
say instead, hey, two weekslater, Kenya called me and said,
Philip, wow, this was incredible. By now I have grown two times
as much as before. Thank youso much. Right, I use the
direct words that we're used in thatspecific moment, so it's not bragging,
You're just using the direct words.So if you want to make any especially

(25:25):
customer success stories, more visual,use the words that you are clined used
in these crucial moments of the story. That's a powerful tip because it really
instead of paraphrasing it or summarizing it, you're using the actual fact that the
customer injected. And I do seehow that could be powerful. When we

(25:47):
asked for Google reviews from clients.We've just gotten fabulous stuff back, and
that's the stuff we should be turningaround and using in our storytelling, right
Philip, that's it? Yeah,So Marcy, what do you think?
Yeah? I said, the wholevisceral emotional connectedness about it. That's what's
going on. And in my book, I very much do you recommend visualization,

(26:10):
and I recommend things that connect uswith ourselves and therefore with others.
Because Philip, what are really wondering, right, they limit off someone's ability
to connect with others is actually theirability to connect with themselves and truly know
that right, feel a level ofacceptance and comfort and love for themselves.
So what's your thinking on that?Really interesting that you raise that, because

(26:32):
I noticed for myself when I startedon my storytelling journey, I was way
much in my head initially, CONSII was just telling that story about thinking,
ah, how does that person perceiveme? Right now? Am I
telling you? Right? I wasjust worried about old and lean things that
go wrong. And by worrying somuch what could go wrong? I became
much less of a good storyteller.Because the best storytellers they relive the story

(26:55):
as much as possible. So asmuch as you can just get rid of
all the clatter and mental clutter thatis going on and you're just in the
store, you see it in frontof your eyes, the better will be.
Great question on that because I wasdoing a video and actually cried when
I told my own story in frontof hundreds and hundreds of people because I
stutter, you don't hear it.But that's why I'm a professional speaker,
teaching people to choose that we showup. What do you think about that,

(27:18):
like when you feel it so muchand you're in front of people and
you you know, there's like thatauthenticity beyond maybe what you would want.
I think I read in one ofthe books I think from the Moth,
they have a rule of thumb wherethey say it's fine to tell it if
it's a scar. It's not fineto tell if it's a wound. If
the wound is still open, Andanytime that you think about that it makes

(27:41):
you cry, well, then maybethat may not be the right time to
share it. Once it has healed, you still feel emotional about it,
but you can reflect upon it morenutually than is the right time to share
it. Andy, what do youthink that that was really great advice?
By the way, it was,I think it's really powerful. I recently
had an experience like that. Toyour point, I had talked about a
very personal experience or situation that hadhappened to me as a kid in a

(28:04):
conversation a few weeks before I actuallydid an interview. And what's interesting is
I had the prequel to the experiencethat made me cry, and it really
came out in the first conversation.So by the time I got to the
interview part and actually had the conversationout loud, I still wept a little
bit, but it was to yourpoint, it wasn't a wound. It
was like kind of a scar.So I feel like it's healing. But

(28:26):
that's super advice. Question about youhave a good story, you have your
value proposition in place. What isthe best craftiest way to kind of wrap
it all up into a bow andreally deliver at home. One key advice
to the moment that you start justowning and having fun with your own story,
then that's really contagious, and thenyou can even go a little bit

(28:48):
longer. It doesn't matter that muchbecause when people observe that you have so
much fun with your own story,they think, hey, this is incredible
stuff, this must be so goodthat, hey, it's a good story
by default. So that's just acaveat up front. Then second, what
I do to train myself to alwaysfollow a certain structure and not to go
too long. For two years,I improvise a story every single day,

(29:11):
so I follow a four steps storystructure. And what I do then is
I get a random topic that canbe from the previous day or just any
random topic, and I improvise astory on the spot. Improvise it following
that structure and using the elements thatI know by doing that, and that
takes me three minutes every day.But I did that for two years,
and that way, I just trainedmyself to be able to improvise a story

(29:33):
anytime and any time be under prettymuch two minutes, so there is no
risk of really running over there.That's great. What are the four elements?
The four elements context, challenge,response, and result. So contexts
just setting some rough contexts. Whereinwin does it take place. Who's the
main character? Challenge? What hasthat one big obstacle that is in the
way that can be emotional challenge,difficult decision, personal challenge, anything as

(29:59):
long as it's potential. Three response, how does the main character respond to
that challenge? What are the actions, reactions, decision taken to overcome the
challenge? And then fourth, what'sthe result? Like how does it turn
out at the end? What isthe outcome of the story? These are
the four steps. So context,challenge, response, and result, and
you do that in two minutes.I've tried listening to some podcasts and they're

(30:22):
supposed to tell you something, andlike they never seem to get to the
point. I also come from theopposite end where I was very mind,
very self conscious at the beginning.I want to tell that perfect story,
so I always asked, I don'twant to waste anyone's time. So I
think I overdid it at the beginningto always be below two minutes. Right
now, I'm a little bit moreflexible on that, but I think it's

(30:44):
just worth to train yourself to beable to deliver something quickly. There is
a time for longer stories, butusually not in a sales conversation, not
with a VC conversation or just oneon one business more for biggest storytelling.
So suppose you're in a sales environment. Do you aim to tell a story
worry for every point that you wantto make or is it just one story

(31:04):
per contact? Sort of? Howoften do you go in story mode?
Optimally, so stories are more youinject them strategically. It's not that I
will respond on everything with the story. So if I take my customer conversations,
I would aim for maybe one ortwo stories per session, and that
would be maybe one tiny story atthe beginning to build a connection, to

(31:25):
build rapport, then maybe one storywhere I show how I've helped another customer,
and then maybe in another meeting,more of these value stories that show
how I am different. They're greatad on, but they shouldn't be the
main form of communication. The storieshelped build connection and in some cases understanding
right, because lots of times complicatedthings can be easier to understand. Somebody

(31:48):
tells a story about right, it'ssolutely makes it relatable. Philip, how
do people find you? People canfind me. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn
and YouTube and just say Philip humm. And then also, yeah, check
out my book The Story Selling Method. If you are an entrepreneur or you

(32:08):
sell something, then this is exactlywhat I teach there, how to tell
relatable stories in sales. Is yourbook on Amazon? Yes, it's actually
exclusively on Amazon. Great, Sogo to Amazon get the book. I
think I'm going to do that becauseI truly am a strong believer in storytelling.
Passage to Profit The Road to Entrepreneurshipwith Riginalisabeth Gerhardt our special guest Marcy

(32:30):
Axel, right and we will beright back. Hi. I'm Lisa ask
LEAs the Inventress, founder, CEOand President of Inventing a to Z.
I've been inventing products for over thirtyeight years, hundreds of products later and
dozens of patents. I help peopledevelop products and put them on the market
from concept to fruition. I bringthem to some of the top shopping networks

(32:51):
in the world QBC, HSN,E, Vineline and retail stores. Have
you ever set to yourself someone shouldinvent that thing? Well, I say,
why not make it you? Ifyou want to know how to develop
a product from concept to fruition theright way, contact me Lisa Askals the
Inventurous go to Inventing atoz dot comInventing at z dot com. Email me

(33:15):
Lisa at inventing atc dot com.Treat yourself to a date shop full of
networking, education, music, shoppingand fun. Go to my website inventing
atoz dot com. I mertured yourheart, founder of your Heart Law.
We specialize in patents, trademarks andcopyrights. You can find out more at
learn more about patents dot com.We love working with entrepreneurs and here's our

(33:37):
client, Peter, who tells itlike it is. I'm Petrol. We
recently were elected as one of thebest invention of Time magazine for twenty twenty
two. Through this journey, we'vebeen relying on get out Law to guide
us on the right steps to builda right portfolio patent trademarks to support our
lance of our new products. Ithas been great experience working with get aut

(33:59):
Law. I stay at the deepknowledge into the markets both in North America
and overseas, so we make theright choices at the right time. Thank
you, Peter. To learn moreabout patents, go to learn more about
patents dot com and download our freeEntrepreneur's Guide Dependents, or book a free
consultation with me. That's learn moreabout patents dot com. Now back to

(34:20):
Passage to Profit once again Richard andElizabeth Gearhart and now waiting patiently all this
time has been Chad Price. AndChad has a couple of things going for
him right now that he's done.He's written a book, Preparing for Battle,
about being an entrepreneur, and heis an entrepreneur with Life Grows Green.
So please, Chad, tell usall about what you're doing. Yeah,

(34:43):
so me right now, I'm kindof closing out one chapter entrepreneur Journey
and starting another. You know,Life Grows Green is my latest company that
I started. It's a company thatsome people will call it a quote unquote
CBD company. We like to seeourselves, it's quite a bit more than
that, you know, I lookat as a natural product company. You
know, we try to create andfoster natural lifestyles and create products that people

(35:06):
can trust for whatever kind of lifestylethey lead. So that may be some
of your let's say more recreational typeproducts that exist. And that's also health
and wellness products, so you know, supplements and protein powders and different things
like that. So we try tojust really bring everyone together under the same
community that you know, we desirenatural solutions for things over pharmaceutical or commercialize

(35:29):
options. You said that you're enteringanother phase with the company, so can
you tell us a little bit aboutthat. Sure, I must somewhat serial
entrepreneurs, So you know I've soldor closed down on quite a few businesses
over my career. My most notablecompany, Kettle Bell Kings, I sold
at the end of November twenty twentyone, and that company is still undergoing
an expansion. You know, it'sa three acquisition that I started there,

(35:51):
so it's still undergoing that expansion effortsinto kind of global expansions from what it
was here in the States. Withthe sale of that, you know,
that gave me the opportunity to kindof look back and reflect on the things
that I've done so far, andyou know, one of those things was
kind of culminating that into a bookwhich is now for setting Amazon as well
as Preparing for Battle, And it'sreally to help entrepreneurs who are thinking about

(36:14):
starting this type of journey and tryingto get your mindset in the correct place
for starting such a journey. Youknow, I think calibrating your brain and
your behaviors and the patterns that youkind of do on a day to day.
Basis for the journey is probably,you know, one of the more
controllable things I say that you cantake care of before you even start.

(36:34):
You know, a lot of peopleI don't think they understand the difference between
employment and ownership, and I tryto kind of set the tone and get
people to understand and think like moreof a leader versus someone who just you
know, collects a paycheck, ifyou will. I'm curious how you chose
the word battle by the title.I mean, I think my background in
sports. You know, I playedsports my entire life. You know,
I played college football right university,so you know, my my background and

(36:58):
a lot of the experiences I drawfrom personally are going to come from athletics.
When I think of battle, youknow, I think a lot of
people mentioned it today. You know. I think it's kind of just preparing
yourself for whatever may come. Youknow, you can put yourself in a
situation where you're well read on whateversubject that might happen. But I think
when you're starting this entrepreneurship journey,the hardest things come from what you don't

(37:20):
know, and there's so much thatyou don't know that you almost have to
prepare yourself for anything that might comeand kind of preparing you and your team
and especially the close people in thatnetwork, I think is we're really determined
success early on in the business.Yeah, I agree, and I think
one of the hardest parts is ifyou have different people working on different things
for you, is getting them totalk to each other and understand each other.

(37:43):
I just conquered a little battle,for sure, and it is a
battle. And that's why I chosethe word. You know, I am
kind of that type of personnelity.You know, I'm more intense than most
people would be when it comes totackling, let's say, the things that
I'm going after. But you know, I do think there is some sense
of battle and going into hardship together. You know, entrepreneurship is not easy,
especially not if you're trying to youknow, turn something that's nothing into

(38:07):
something that's you know, that's anuphill battle just from the start. So
having people who enjoy and share andthat effort with you, I think is
the hardest part to get started.So the book is really just trying to
give people the ability to create thatsparking people and really define that sparking themselves.
You know, I think it goesa lot to what Philip was saying,
and how do you tell the storyof what you're trying to cultivate so

(38:29):
that other people can not just beinginvested from, you know, their financial
well being, but also you know, an emotional and personal connection to their
work right. And it's hard whenit's something brand new for entrepreneurs because you
have to get buy into something thatpeople maybe haven't done before or used before.
And you can't be too far out. You have to be close to
what's happening now. And so there'sa lot that goes into it. So

(38:52):
this hands like a really good book. Oh absolutely, So what kinds of
bots do you share? What kindof advice do you share with your readers
in the book? I don't takeit lightly, you know. I think
entrepreneurship is something that you know,it leads to world in either a positive
or negative direction. You know,the people that choose to kind of go
out on their own and start theirown businesses are the ones that make significant

(39:14):
change in our culture and the waywe choose to kind of live. So
I try to give people that understandingof importance of you know, is this
something that you really want to do. Is this something that you really want
other people's families responsible for your decisionmaking process, or you know, you
want the well being, you knowof your own family to be such at
risk when you're trying to start thesetypes of journeys. I think it's something

(39:37):
that people should do, but Ithink it's something that you should prepare for
and know ahead of time that thatis the expectation. So, you know,
I try to kind of raise thebar for people who would want to
go into entrepreneurship. Kenya, whatare your thoughts. I'm just curious,
but what made you decide to gointo the wellness supplement realm. It's just
a very crowded marketplace, and I'mlike, it seems like a lot lot

(40:00):
of people are doing similar things,So I'm just curious, like what your
insight is there, and like howare your positioning yourself to do it differently.
It's a very competitive space. It'sa thousand supplement companies opened up every
day. To me, it's oneof those things that, over my journey
of entrepreneurship, I never really realizedhow much my personal beliefs were kind of
overlaid into what I was doing.Starting kindabal Kings in two thousand and twelve,

(40:21):
and you know, selling it intwo thousand and twenty one or two
really in the twenty twenty one.Two thou twenty two was kind of like
a PhD thesis almost for me,because I got to go back and look
and reflect on everything that I haddone thus far and what really meant something
to me. And one of thegaps that we always had was just we
were always able to traditionally help peoplefrom a health and wellness perspective, but

(40:45):
not in the sense of the otherproducts in their life, whether that's the
lifestyle products that they use, youknow, the sheets they sleep on,
the pots and pans they use,to the supplements that they use. And
my idea is not really to bea supplement company, but to form a
community of people who share that kindof like mindedness of you know, if
there's a natural solution to any typeof problem I have in life, I

(41:07):
should lean towards that and lean awayfrom things that are not, as you
know, self sustaining, who arenot necessarily from nature. That makes sense.
And what about you, Marcy,what do you think two very specific
things you've said really resonate and supportyou know, nature's model. How we're
designed to show up leaning out towardsother people, right, and kind of

(41:30):
focusing on the community and side oraspect. Right. That's the third role
in which we show up, andit's really the one that sustains our lives.
We are designed to exist in community. And the other thing is the
extent to which you've related your personalbeliefs on the business, how grounded we
are right and truly identifying what thosevalues and beliefs and principles are. That

(41:53):
is what it gives us choice inthe extent to which we want to bring
them in or even recognizing how muchwe are bringing them in too, literally
what we do with the moments ofour lives. So it really resonates that
you mentioned that because you're you're insightinto all of your roles, You're self
grounding in yourself, the connectedness withsociety, and it's how you show up

(42:15):
in the situation which is this bookand what you teach. So it's all
right there. I love this.Yeah, I thought it was very interesting
hearing you speak earlier because I lookat everything from a very kind of athletic
sports lens, because a lot ofmy experiences come from that and a lot.
You know, I think what sportsdoes is it gives us kind of
simulated battles to go through a repetitively. You know, you have so many

(42:37):
small battles that you've gone through,and you see how teams show up or
don't show up. You see youknow what worked didn't work, and you
looking at it from a more scientificapproach is talking by some of the concepts
that coaches try to get players toimplement anyway, and it's just it's kind
of a nature's way of naturally beingsuccessful on how things flow and work together.

(42:57):
So I thought that was quite interestingoverlap, we work with a lot
of entrepreneurs at your Heart Law,you know, filing their patents and their
trademarks and also trying to support themin other ways on their entrepreneurial journey.
And sometimes those journeys work out,sometimes they delve. But what I think
is important is that the people whoare on those journeys are always learning something

(43:20):
about themselves. They may learn thatthey like being an entrepreneur, or they
may learn that it's not the lifethat they want. But I think entrepreneurship
promotes a certain kind of growth whereyou really have to take responsibility or what
you do in the decisions that youmake, and that can be hard.
Sometimes it's not necessarily easy to chooseto show up in a way that's going

(43:43):
to make that work. I'm veryencouraged that you've written this book. What
else do you tell perspective entrepreneurs aboutthe entrepreneurial journey? You know, I
think one of the things that Italk about quite a bit is the sense
of community, and then the senseof kind of tracking yourself. You know,
I think when you play sports,when you work out, you know
kind of have a sense of whatis right, what is fast, what
is slow, what it's strong.You know, you have this real sense

(44:06):
of measurable success. And it's reallyhard when you first start off in business
to identify all these points, especiallyfor the different people that you have to
work with, and you know,whether that's a social media manager or a
sales team, what are all thesepoints of success? So really trying to
map that out and utilizing today's technologyis a much more efficient way to do

(44:27):
things than to try to just guessin your head. So setting up testing
procedures basically ways that you can trackand measure how well did you do it
today's practice versus yesterday's practice versus youknow, two months ago. Doing that
early on, kind of implementing thatas part of your thought process, I
think will go a long way whenyou're an entrepreneur, because when you don't
know what you don't know, everythingjust starts off as a test and then

(44:47):
you're really not even talking about anythingof substance until you're looking back on what
you did to day before. Ithink the sports analogy is really powerful for
this because if you think about afootball game, so I love watching,
two things I want to say.First, Russell Wilson was like, I
don't know, seventh pick or something, and the coach and the team he
was on. He's on Seahawks.Maybe I'm one of the best quarterbacks ever.

(45:09):
So that's one thing. But theother thing is when you think about
what happens when a quarterback throws aball to a receiver in the quarterback gets
the fame and glory, but thereceiver does too. But you have the
offensive law, and you have allthe other people that are blocking. You
have the whole team working together,and that quarterback and that receiver have to
depend on everybody else to do theirjobs. Right so that they get the

(45:31):
desired outcome. You know, we'velearned the hard way. Maybe your heart
law that, yeah, you reallydo have to depend on other people to
do their jobs right. And withsports, like you look at the tapes
every game, like you're constantly lookingat how people did their jobs. And
I think that's something you have todo when you own a business. Would
you agree a thousand percent? Youknow, one of the things you kind

(45:52):
of get numb too when you playsports, especially football, is you don't
really harp on the things you didright. You know, you go watch
film every single day and you literallyjust watch all the things you did wrong
and you talk about how they couldhave been better, you should have stepped
left and said all right, Andyou know, it builds a builds a
callous if you will on you know, your own personal ego. And I
think when you're an entrepreneur you canlook at your business in a similar matter.

(46:14):
You're not trying to harp on thewrong things of business, but you
are trying to get better in atangible way on a regular basis and getting
your employees, getting your vendors toembrace that mindset. It's the only way
to really get value out of thembecause you have to be better tomorrow than
you were today. You have tobe better next year, more sales,
more customers, and that all comeswith you know, you actually growing as

(46:37):
a as a company. So Itry to talk about that quite a bit
in the book and how you cankind of foster that culture early on,
very similar to the that you dowith the team. You know, you
have to kind of have someone whosets that spark and sets the tone for
this is the way the culture isgoing to be here and people will follow
you kind of behind that just veryquickly before me. And what's so powerful
about this book is most people haveplayed sports, most people understand sports.

(47:00):
It's an analogy they can relate towhen you talk about it in terms of
entrepreneurism. So chat, how dopeople find you? So you can find
me on LinkedIn, chat price,other social channels, real chat price.
You can also find me on mywebsite if you want to connect with me
about the book. You can connecttheir consulting opportunities, anything like that.
It's all through channels on my websitechatprice dot com. Excellent. Well,

(47:21):
thank you, this has been anexcellent show. But we're not done.
Yet. Listeners, you are listeningto Passage to Profit The Road to Entrepreneurship
with Richard Elizabeth Gerhardt, our specialguest Marcy Axel Right, Kenya Gibson,
our media Maven and we will beright there. I'm Richard Gerhart of Gerhart
Law. We specialize in patents,trademarks and copyrights. We love working with

(47:42):
entrepreneurs and here's our client, Anyato tell you what it's like working with
us. Anya. Hi, I'mAnya the founder of Happy Bond and we've
been with Gerhart Law for about sixyears. They've followed our whole patent and
trademark journey and we're extremely happy thatwe had them at our side, especially
because our product is a pet collagenthat has now two patents thanks to them

(48:04):
for the joint of the pets anda new dog food that is extremely new
and has a process that is protectedthrough their help. We really have to
thank them for guiding us through thewhole process and as a startup, made
it possible for us to do that. Thank you, Ania. So to
learn more about patents, go tolearn more about patents dot com and download
our free entrepreneurs guide depends that's learnmore about patents dot com age Passage to

(48:30):
Profit. Now it's time for Alicia'smusic minute. Alicia Morrissey is our programming
director at Passage to Profit and she'salso a fantastic jazz vocalist. You can
scroll to the bottom of the Passageprofitshow dot com website and check out her
album. Let's listen to a quicksample of her music. I took the

(48:52):
one look at you. That's allI meant to do, and then my
heart sit still. My figit stepand walk, my list can move and
talk, and yet my heart sitsstill. Oh, not a single word

(49:15):
was smoking. I could tell youknew that, undel clasp hands told me
so well, you knew I neverlived at all until the thrill of the
moment when my heart stood still.Passage to Profit. It has been an

(49:42):
amazing show. I've learned so muchand enjoyed the company of our guests so
much. Now it's time for thequestion. So Elizabeth has a question for
our guests and we'll see what theysay. Okay, Marcy axel Rod,
you're on the hot seat. First, the question is what's your favorite work
look or outfit? How do youchoose to show up on the outside I
show up on the outside the verysame way I show up on the inside.

(50:07):
Right. I was raised by twophysicians. I started on Wall Street
and then strategy management consulting, SoI've got a very conservative realm, so
I often wear brown. You cansee what my dress looks like. It's
it's kind of one of those oldworld conservative type of patterns. But then
of course the cowboy hat and shiningglasses because reimpact the world far more than

(50:29):
we think, so I feel likeit's really important for each of us to
convey some level of care, excitement, and engagement with each other. Philip,
what's your favorite work look outfit?How do you choose to show up
on the outside. Just two weeksago, I went on this famous retailer
and I bought fifteen times the sameblack T shirt. People keep telling me

(50:51):
to show some colors, but Iresist it just I feel it makes my
life very easy, it makes melook good, and yeah, I just
don't want to spend any time thinkingabout my clothes. The entrepreneur that youwer
decisions you have to make the happenyou are so that I totally get that.
Chad Price, what's your favorite worklook outfit? How do you choose
to show up on the outside.I think I'm in alignment with Philip on

(51:14):
this one. If I could,I would wear the same black shirt every
day, But I usually try towear something that's you know, semiformal business
casual, and then especially if it'ssomething at work, I try to get
you know, T shirts or sometype of option that's branded with the company
I'm working with. So I'm reallybig on like having our own quote unquote
swag, right, Like I wantus to have polos and T shirts and

(51:37):
hats and different things that people canbe proud to wear. So if it
was my choice, everyone that Iever would work with would be wearing the
branded gear that we're working on.FOK, like a true entrepreneur. I
agree. Kenya Gibson, what's yourfavorite work look outfit? How do you
choose to show up on the outside? Always slightly overdressed? You never know

(51:59):
who you're going to run into.You never know, and I feel like
that's worked for me. Anytime Itake an extra step, I usually run
into somebody who's birth meeting, Sothat's been working for me. Like you'd
be on the cover of a magazinea professional. Don't get me wrong.
I love my ripped jeans and Tshirts on the weekends. At this point,
I do want to acknowledge everybody againand their website. So our amazing

(52:20):
guest Marcy Axelrod choose to show Updot com and you can find her on
LinkedIn and she has her foot Wehad Kenya Gibson with her Power Move segment
and she has her Powermove podcast,So wherever you get your podcasts, go
listen to Kenya's Powermove podcast because sheis an amazing interviewer and she's getting incredible
people there. We had Philip mPower of Storytelling power Dash of Dash Storytelling

(52:46):
dot com and his last name isspelled h u mm, so you can
find him on the internet. Andthen we had Chad Price Chadprice dot com
and he has Life Grows Green dotcom and he has a book, Preparing
for Bad At, which I thinkis a very powerful book for entrepreneurs because
it takes something we know about sportsand relates it to how it is to

(53:07):
be an entrepreneur, and so Ithink it makes it be entrepreneurship a lot
more understandable for people. So lookfor his book. I'm definitely going to
check it out and I think it'sgood reading for anybody who's listing and who's
interested in becoming an entrepreneur. Andof course, the one of only Richard
Gerhardt, patent attorney extraordinary patents,trademarks, copyrights. If you want a

(53:28):
free consultation with them, go tolearn more about trademarks dot com. Talk
to him one on one. He'llgive you some rated links before we go.
I'd like to thank the Passage toProfit team, Noah Fleischman, our
producer, Alicia Morrissey, our programdirector. Our podcasts can be found tomorrow
anywhere you find your podcast, justlook for the Passage to Profit show,
and don't forget to like us onFacebook, Instagram and Twitter. And remember,

(53:52):
while the information on this program isbelieved to be correct, never take
a legal step without checking with yourlegal professional. Guar Heartlaw is here for
your patent, trademark and copyright needs. You can find us at Gureheartlaw dot
com and contact us for free consultation. Take care of everybody, Thanks for
listening, and we'll be back nextweek. The proceeding was a paid podcast.

(54:20):
iHeartRadio's hosting of this podcast constitutes neitheran endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed