Ep38 - The Wisdom Of Bill Soroka, The VanGorders, Joe Apfelbaum, Allan Milham, and John Moyer

[00:00:00] Up first is bill Sirocco of notary coach fame. Before he struck it big with notary coach, he had 26 previous business failures. I have to credit bill with persevering and breaking through to find success. Here he gives a very candid answer about what the what the issues were and how he solved them 

[00:00:19] Bill Soroka: so with my personality type I just, I love, I rarely meet an idea that I don't like. So how that translated for me was all of my hobbies. Anytime I'd read a book or heard something new, I'd want to turn it into a book.

[00:00:34] So I did that very enthusiastically, but, enthusiasm will only carry you so far. And what I found after so many flops or things would get hard or difficult or boring, and I would just let it Peter out. And then I bounce off to the next thing. I was very undisciplined. And I resisted discipline.

[00:00:54] I resisted habits and routine my entire life, because I thought it was for boring people. I thought there's, you're missing out on the party. If you go to bed at seven, so you can get trained for your marathon the next day, or took your business so seriously that you forgot. And I paid a huge price for that because what I learned through my results inventory, after, my last business collapsed and my relationships were affected, what I learned was that there was freedom and discipline, and I finally just sucked it up and I said, okay.

[00:01:26] I tried it my way.

[00:01:27] It obviously didn't work. So now I'm gonna just go. I went down this rabbit hole, exploring habits and routine, all the gurus. Talk about it. Anybody who's ultra successful talks about their regiment in their routine and how they just did the things they knew they needed to do. So I bit the bullet and I started doing that and that's when things really started to change for me. 

[00:01:49] Greg Mills: So what, how did you learn about the doing a results inventory and how did that how did that come about?

[00:01:59] Bill Soroka: Yeah. I don't know exactly where it came from. I would imagine it came from a book or something that I did. I read tons of books and that was the problem in that first half of life, because I read everything, I consumed everything, but I did not implement stuff. I was really, really down I think I had six businesses at the time, five of them collapsed.

[00:02:21] They were big endeavors. I had family who have invested money. I had friends that were involved in it. I had a relationship at the time that was really Rocky and it crumbled all at the same time. So here I was at the, at Thanksgiving and I didn't want to be around anybody in my family. So I spent that time alone with a bottle of vodka. And I didn't know which direction I was going to go. I was really down, it could have gone either direction. And I got this inspiration that hit and it was from a book called 'The Answer" by John Azarov, but he has this gap analysis that you do for business. But I was like, I'm going to do this for my life.

[00:03:00] This is my results inventory. Here's what I want. This is what I thought I was smart enough to create. And here's what I've got and what's that gap and difference. And it's it was like the grand canyon of gaps. It was huge, but I was thinking I can do this. If anybody can do this and I've met some really.

[00:03:19] Successful entrepreneurs. However, you decide to define that, that didn't strike me as the brightest bulbs in the shed or the sharpest knives, right? I'm like why can't I create something? Why do I have to struggle? And that's where I slipped. I went into that rabbit hole, seriously, four or five days over Thanksgiving weekend and just consuming everything I can.

[00:03:40] And when I came out of that, I had a plan in place. I said, this is what I'm going to do. I started out with BJ Fogg and his tiny habits, and he used to have a little program at this university where you would send in what you're wanting your habits to be. And they would send accountability emails, and that helped.

[00:03:58] And then I got introduced to Hal Elrod, and that really triggered the the next. Chapter of my life. In fact, I measure my life before "The Miracle Morning" and after "The Miracle Morning" 

[00:04:10] Part of what used to derail bill and earlier endeavors was having too many irons in the fire. 

[00:04:16] Bill Soroka: So what I learned through all this part of the, what I learned is if I'm going to have multiple irons in the fire, It's important that somehow I can connect them. So my brain doesn't draw energy away. And that's how I got, I used to get exhausted. I'd have a poker business, but then I'd have a real estate business trying to bridge that gap was a little difficult.

[00:04:38] Now, most of what I do, who operates under this notary umbrella. So my brain's focused. Jeez, here, sometimes it's a stretch to link them, but I've got a link that makes sense for my. So I do it. So I've got to I've got some investments in some tech companies and then startup as well platform wise on some cool stuff that's coming up.

[00:04:57] We'll see how it goes. But, and then there's all kinds of other cool stuff. I got app ideas too, but I'm trying to pace myself and not over overflow the plate again. 

[00:05:07] Bill talks about using his notary business. This is a sort of vehicle to take him where he wants to go in life 

[00:05:14] Bill Soroka: Yeah, the best piece of advice I would offer is not to necessarily has less to do about the vehicle you do within and more about where and why you're going. So I am very clear about the impact I want to make on the world. I want to be a beacon of love and light. I want to inspire people to get up off the couch life and pursue their dreams.

[00:05:37] Cause I know it's possible. I want to do that. I just happened to be every car Right. now. Like the notary vehicle, then that's how I do it. That's my mask. My business is my masterpiece. It's how I create for the world right now. It's how I feel good about it. And I think that's why I've become so passionate.

[00:05:55] About working in this industry because it feels my legacy, my, my ultimate goals. And I think the reality is you can probably find that in anything with the right mindset, the right attitude about it. I just got fortunate to one that gives me that freedom and that flexibility. 

[00:06:13] My next guests are a married couple from Nova Scotia, Canada. Both bill and Esther van Gorder had retired from their corporate jobs. But decided to open up a business revolving around Nordic walking. 

[00:06:27] Greg Mills: Now, can you describe the Nordic walking itself for our listeners?

[00:06:33] Bill and Esther VanGorder: Well, Nordic walking was originally invented in Finland by the, national cross country ski team as summer training for their elite athletes. They discovered that it was such, such a good workout that they should share it with, with the rest of the population. So it's really to simplify it.

[00:06:52] It's cross country skiing without skis and without snow. It's, just like regular walking, swinging your arms, the poles, your arm is opposite to your foot. So it's that cross gait. And when your arm comes up with the pole, it plants right beside you on the ground and you push yourself forward with each step.

[00:07:11] And that engages all of your, your upper body muscles right down to the core. So if you think about, what a cross country skier looks like or a snowshoer but instead it's somebody walking down the street or down a trail. Of course the beauty of it is, is walking up Hills for instance, is much easier.

[00:07:31] One of the interesting things about Nordic walking is what the researchers called the perception of exertion. The how hard do you think you're working? Because you're spreading the work out over so many muscles. It doesn't feel like you're working is as hard. So people find it easier to walk and especially easier to get up Hills . So I think one of the things that attracted us to it was it's something we could do together. So that whether we were out teaching classes or in the house working, it was something that we could, could do it enjoyed and something we were both personally interested in. And I guess isn't that the secret to any kind of job, especially a job that you choose to do, when you get a little bit older ? that is, it's really gotta be something you believe in and that you do yourself.

[00:08:19] both of us, we walk, almost every day, five or six days a week. First thing in the morning, Esther, of course being the, the young, one of the team. I go out for about 45 minutes to an hour. She goes out an hour to an hour and a half every day. So, we practice what we preach.

[00:08:37] Greg Mills: So what will one do if they wanted to start a Nordic walking fitness company and their city do y'all offer any franchising or 

[00:08:44] Bill and Esther VanGorder: Yeah, 

[00:08:45] we can arrange, that. We would work with them and work with, Greg who has, Nordics Canada and get them set up and, get them going. And it's, not an expensive investment for people who want to get into it. In fact, the investment that a person makes is, is covered by the retail income, from the poles that they originally get.

[00:09:09] So, there's no, upfront or.

[00:09:11] annual fees. Once you're involved in doing it and you're properly trained to do it, then. Then you buy the poles at wholesale and sell them at retail. And that's where your, your cut. Your points are in, in itself. Yes. We'd, we'd be happy to talk to anyone 

[00:09:30] who's interested in pursuing it further. 

[00:09:33] Greg Mills: So what's the number one piece of advice that you can give for our listeners?

[00:09:38] Bill and Esther VanGorder: The number one piece of advice I think is, especially for older people, people who are at that, what we used to call retirement age, but nobody, can afford to retire anymore, it is at an age that Bismarck sat at one time for nefarious reasons. Back in a time when people didn't live much beyond 65.

[00:09:57] So he said 65 is the date to get rid of some of his generals and have them retire. But when you reach that age is not the end. In north America,we're living A year longer in every decade. So, you know, our, our life expectancy is much longer than it was. You don't want to be sitting around doing nothing.

[00:10:20] So figure out what you love and do it. And don't be afraid of, of making that a business. It doesn't have to be business, it could be volunteering. It could be all kinds of things, but there is real, satisfaction in running your own business. And frankly, in these days of inflation and concerned about whether or not will outlive our money, it is good to know that you've got, a source of some income coming in right now, no matter how old you are.

[00:10:49] there are lots of organizations who are there to support you and help you, learn the new things you have to do to run your own. 

[00:10:58] Up next is Joe apple Guam. The CEO of Ajax union. One of the fastest growing digital marketing agencies out there. Joe is a business strategist. Marketing expert. LinkedIn guru. Author and certified Google trainer. Here are you talks about how networking is a skill that we can develop? 

[00:11:19] Joe Apfelbaum: networking I think is, is a skill, just like any other skill, but most people are afraid of networking. And let me tell you why. My friend Jeff Goldberg, he's a sales trainer and he always says, people do things for reasons. They do things for reasons. And in order to figure out what the reasons is, the why behind, why people are doing things, and you have to really build, build a network of people that will trust you to tell you their reasons.

[00:11:43] But building a network of people that will trust you to tell you the reasons is a scary thing because my friend Michael Goldberg, who wrote a book called 'Knock Out Networking', he says that public speaking is something that most people are afraid of. 90% of people are afraid of public speaking. I think Jerry Seinfeld said that people would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy .That they're really afraid of getting in front of a crowd or even five to 10 people.

[00:12:07] And networking is kind of like that you're getting out of your comfort zone. People are judging you. And most people, even people that say they're not afraid of it, they are afraid of it. They're shaking when somebody asks them what they do for a living. And I was one of those people, I was afraid of public speaking.

[00:12:20] I was afraid of networking. And so really like honing in that level of confidence. Nathaniel Brandon and his book 'The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem' wrote about there was actually a process to gain more self-esteem. And so relationships, I think the skill of relationships, if you really want to be good at having a relationship with other people, you first have to be good at having a relationship with yourself and really getting to know yourself and have confidence in your own abilities.

[00:12:49] I remember when I signed up to Facebook, I used to be afraid of Facebook. So when I signed up, they asked you 'about me' and like, what are your hobbies? I would be like, I don't have hobbies. I don't know anything about me. Like, who am I. And I had that level of self-confidence a really, really low level of self-confidence.

[00:13:05] And so for me, I would have to take a step back and really ask myself, who am I? So I became really good at who am I and that helped me with networking and relationships. Does that make sense?

[00:13:17] Greg Mills: How would you advise someone that's starting out in business what to focus on? Is there a particular market or business that you find easier to start or easier to build? 

[00:13:27] Joe Apfelbaum: The service businesses typically have a lower barrier of entry because you don't have to invest in products. And it's pretty simple to get customers. You find somebody that has a problem. You can get started with them right away. You're selling your time. Often people will start with service businesses.

[00:13:43] I think that ultimately has to do with what do you know? What do you know? Like I knew computers and marketing. That's how I got into marketing. I was passionate about that. I was excited about that. Now, I know business coaching, so I do business coaching. Now I know podcasting. So I do podcasts and do webinars.

[00:14:01] The things that you know are the things that you are good at and the things that you can get better at and you can help other people with. So the lowest barrier of entry is something that you already know how to do. If you're going to start learning from scratch, how to be a programmer, it might take you a while for you.

[00:14:17] If you're in a rush to make money, if you start making money of programming, if you have absolutely no idea what programming languages exist, or even if you like programming. So what I would say is if you want to be able to make money. Look at what's already around you. You are where you need to be. You are exactly where you need to be right now in your life.

[00:14:37] And so wherever you are now, embrace that, accept that and love that. And if you can do that, you're going to be able to make money and just, you know, hang out with the right people, hang out with coaches, hang out with people that will make you think differently. People that are on the same awareness journey as you.

[00:14:53] And if you vibrate with them and you're enjoy in a state of joy and a state of freedom in a state of happiness and a state of gratitude and a state of fulfillment, you're going to be able to generate income and manifest whatever it is you want to create. . 

[00:15:05] Greg Mills: What beliefs stopped business owners from getting past the six figure mark? 

[00:15:11] Joe Apfelbaum: The three major beliefs that people have that stop them from succeeding in business in life: number one is luck. I call the first one luck. People believe that in order to make money, you have to be lucky. I think being alive has to do with luck. I don't think it has to do with making money. I think if you are alive right now, You're lucky because there were many cells that you could have become, and you became a human cell, right?

[00:15:39] You became two different cells combining together at the right time with the right temperature in the right place. You became a human being and then you lived your life to get to this point where you can listen to this podcast. So you're lucky that you're alive and you're lucky that you have the technology to be able to hear our podcast and get the information that human beings for millennia did not have access to this type of information at this speed. So that's number one, you already are lucky. But more importantly, what is your strategy? Stop relying on luck. Don't believe that you have to be lucky to make money, believe that you need the right strategy because luck shows up when you mix the right amount of work with the right amount of strategy, with the right amount of right place at the right time.

[00:16:17] But you have to be prepared to be able to access that blessing. And most people, they don't have the right strategy so that when they do get the blessing, they don't know how to leverage the blessings that come your way. You're going to have amazing things coming your way, but if you're not prepared for the rain and all you're holding is a plastic cup.

[00:16:33] You're not gonna be able to get enough rain to feed you for a year. But if you pull up with a dump truck, you're probably going to be much, cause you had a strategy. You know it's going to rain. You have friends with the meteorologist .You know, where it's gonna rain the most and you pull up with a dump truck or a group of dump trucks.

[00:16:47] You'll have enough water for a long time. So you've got to understand how to do that. Where to fish and where to hunt and what to do and how to do it. So, number one belief: don't believe that you're unlucky. Instead believe that you need the right strategy. Number two belief: and beliefs are the, basically the foundation of whether or not we're going to take action.

[00:17:06] So action leads to results. Belief is what creates action. If you don't believe that you're going to get something, you're not going to do something. And if you don't do something, you're not going to get something which is going to reinforce the negative belief. And so the second belief is around trust. People don't trust themselves. They don't have self confidence. They also don't trust other people. Like I'm just sharing openly with you. Most people are not willing to share openly. They want to hide their ideas. They don't want to tell a competitor what they're about because they're afraid that competitor will steal their business.

[00:17:36] And the truth is if the competitor wants to steal your business, they would have already stolen your business. My mother always said, never hire a sales rep. Why? Because a sales rep is going to get really good and steal your business. And I was like, Ma, the sales rep doesn't want your business.

[00:17:50] They want to do sales. They want to go home every day. They don't want to sit here dealing with your business. She's like, it's not true. I was like, okay, well, the first person that I hired before I paid myself, sorry, it was a sales person. And I ended up building one of the fastest growing companies in America.

[00:18:02] So I was able to trust this person with my leads, with my CRM, with my knowledge, with my information, with my training. And as a result, I made a lot of money. If you can't trust other people, how are you going to make a lot of money? You got to learn to trust. And trust isn't a guarantee that you won't get screwed.

[00:18:18] I've got screwed. I had my fair share of losing,as Frank Sinatra says, "But I Did It My Way." I had my fair share of losing, but you know what? I have regrets, but not enough to mention, as he says in his song "my way". Personally, I believe that if you can trust other people, that if you can trust the government, if you can trust yourself, You're going to be much more successful and get past the six, six figure and even seven figure mark.

[00:18:45] But you have to be willing to fail in order for you to scale. And then the third self-limiting belief that I see a lot of people having is if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And most people would say that are broke. You are broke, fix it. So instead be willing to change, be willing to go with the times, be willing to optimize what you're doing.

[00:19:05] You don't have to change every day. But if you see something's not working, if you see, you're not feeling joy with what you're doing, so don't do that anymore. Find what brings you joy, find the joy in what you're doing and do more of that and get really good at doing things that you love doing. Chances are what you're good at you like doing. I'm good at being on podcasts.

[00:19:25] That's why I like being on podcasts. I'm good at singing. That's because I worked on it. And so I like rapping and singing and doing those things. I like being in the zone. I like being present. I like being in flow. I love coaching and mentoring and guiding and marketing and advertising. Cause I'm damn good at that.

[00:19:43] And so are my employees. And so if what you do brings you joy, you will do more of it. And the more you do, the more results you get. And so the three self limiting beliefs are number one. I have to be lucky. Number two, don't trust anybody. And number three is I want to stay in the same state. I don't want to change.

[00:19:58] I want to do what was done before. What worked yesterday is not gonna work today. And what works today is for sure not going to work tomorrow when things change and there are electric cars and flying people. So you got to change with the times and you got to acknowledge that you are a human being and you have plasticity in your mind than your brain.

[00:20:15] So optimize yourselves and infuse more joint gratitude, and you're going to be able to manifest anything you want.

[00:20:21] Greg Mills: Going back to starting a business, how do you generate leads online that turned into clients? 

[00:20:28] Joe Apfelbaum: The way that you generate leads online that turn into clients is figuring out where your clients are and spending time in those areas. You can look on search engines and get people to buy from you. You could look on social media and get people to connect with you there. you can use email marketing.

[00:20:46] There are many different ways, but depending on where your clients are, that's where you need to be. And you need to be speaking in their language. That's what you need the right strategy to figure out who your client is. And based on who they are, you can determine what type of language they speak. What are their pains?

[00:21:03] What are their goals? What are their fears? What are their dreams? Because human beings are emotional beings. We make decisions based on emotion. We back it up with logic. So you need both, but because we're emotional human beings, we got to be resonated with. We got to resonate with our audience. And so LinkedIn's a great place to find CEOs, professionals, decision makers, to network with and turn into clients.

[00:21:26] So if you're not using LinkedIn today and you're a business to business, or you are business to consumer, but with a high lifetime value type of client and valuable client. LinkedIn is a very big missed opportunity. And if you want to learn how to use LinkedIn, we've developed an incredible course and coaching program.

[00:21:43] And we have trained over a thousand people in our course and coaching program to be able to help them grow their business using LinkedIn. So if that's something that somebody wants to learn, how to do, definitely check me out on LinkedIn, Joe, linkedin.com. Reach out to me and I'm happy to send you information about our course in coaching.

[00:22:01] Greg Mills: What is the best way to leverage LinkedIn to build real relationships?

[00:22:05] Joe Apfelbaum: LinkedIn gives you the ability to connect with 30,000 people. You can have 30,000 connections on LinkedIn. Now I know this for a fact, you do not need 30,000 connections to generate a million dollars or 2 million or 5 million. You need the right connection. So this right strategy will save you a decade.

[00:22:24] So for me, what I always tell people is, step number one is know who you want to connect with, know who your centers of influences are. Know who, where the people are and connect with those people. That's number one. Number two is you need to create a role. You need to start creating awareness about your own personal brand.

[00:22:41] So have a really good profile and have a good content strategy will help you create awareness. You also need to be engaged on LinkedIn and you need to create the right amount of credibility. People do business with other , people that they know you have awareness, but also that they trust. If someone doesn't trust you, they're not going to use you.

[00:22:56] So you need to use levels of engagement in order for you to build that trust. And then finally it needs to all lead to one thing, conversations. If you don't have conversations with people, you're not going to close business. So how many conversations did you have in the past week? So we teach people how to use direct messaging to generate conversations on LinkedIn.

[00:23:16] Greg Mills: You mentioned LinkedIn and going back to that, why should an entrepreneur update LinkedIn every day? 

[00:23:23] Joe Apfelbaum: The reason why you should be on LinkedIn every day is because that's where your customers are. And if you want to create more awareness for yourself, you need to start posting on LinkedIn. There are 756 million people on LinkedIn, but there's only a million posts going up on LinkedIn each day. It means there's a lot of people on LinkedIn, 40% are logging in daily.

[00:23:41] And so you want to make sure that you're there when your clients and potential clients arrive, and most people are, don't know what the post, I just posted an article on LinkedIn. And you can put this in the show notes. The article that I posted is entitled 19 types of posts, posts on LinkedIn, and they're broke down every type of post.

[00:23:58] And I gave examples for every post. So, you know, if you need ideas, I have plenty of ideas for you. The key is for you to take it action.

[00:24:07] Greg Mills: I was just going to ask you about the different types of posts too. It seems like you either see something advertising a new product or a motivational story. Some of those motivational quotes are kind of pithy. How effective are they at keeping somebody, , forefront of mind? 

[00:24:26] Joe Apfelbaum: Most people are not posting at all. So even if you just post a motivational quote, at least you're staying top of mind, especially if you have a good profile, good photo, good name, good headline, because that's what people see when you post. So you want to remind people that you exist. Stay top of mind. You shouldn't only put inspirational quotes or inspirational messages.

[00:24:45] One of the things that we teach our students is tell your story. People want to get to know you, Greg. So what's your story. What's your story. And so I have lots of different stories about growing up in my mother's store and my business with clients turning down million-dollar opportunities because they don't align with my core values.

[00:25:02] I have lots of stories to share. And so does everybody else. Stories, failure, stories of successes, stories of challenges, stories of wins, stories of people that you've met, questions that you've have, tips. There's so many things that you can do with in terms of content. The key is for you to take a step back and ask yourself, what does my audience want to hear? If you have an audience that loves motivational quotes, share motivational quotes. If you have an audience that are more it engineers, then maybe you won't want to do a motivational quotes, and maybe you want to do how tools and tips and tricks and hacks.

[00:25:34] So it depends on who your audience is and who you're connected to. Because remember there are 756 million people on LinkedIn. You can only connect the 30,000 and most people are only connected to 440. So knowing who your audience is, will help you craft the right content. Does that make sense?

[00:25:48] Ellen Milam, the founder of QuestBridge, a professional coaching firm for high impact leaders. And the third stage of their lives. Talks about the importance of having a positive outlook for our lives

[00:26:02] Allan Milham: As you're seeing, today's quote unquote 65 year old is very different from their fathers or mothers.

[00:26:10] You know what they were looking like at 60 65. That's exciting for us because it's allowing for more possibility, more vitality and more leadership. 

[00:26:19] When we're purposeful, right when we're in passion, when we're waking up with excitement to do something, we now through positive psychology can see that we're actually literally living longer.

[00:26:30] Right. So the disposition around optimism and having purpose and productivity literally is allowing us to live longer than its were unplugged isolated, and not productive.

[00:26:43] So I'm a real advocate for self-development, self-growth to do the work, so that you can be best in your game.

[00:26:51] Ellen goes on to talk about the importance of having a team around you. 

[00:26:55] Allan Milham: This is where the entrepreneurial spirit comes in. You have to have what I think is a level of readiness to be able to, to go it but not to go it alone, go out with a team.

[00:27:05] So I'm a big fan of getting an advisory board around you, four or five, six folks that know, know you care for you, or they have some kind of expertise or a network that can help you get out of the gate. because it can be a very isolating for many, many coaches, particularly with the pandemic.

[00:27:21] So you do want to, particularly if you're extroverted, make it a team sport. Bring in people around you so they can hold you for accountability. Get a mastermind group, get a buddy. And certainly by aligning to one of the ICF, I think they've bet over. They may have 200 schools now that they have accredited. do the work to put an invest in that.

[00:27:43] I really believe it's important for any career, for any entrepreneur. There has to be a willing to self invest to be able to get yourself game. Ready for the calling.

[00:27:52] Greg Mills: You talked about the Enneagram a little bit. Can you go into that a little bit more for our listeners and how that could be used to help an entrepreneur.

[00:28:03] Allan Milham: With my background in psychology, I've always been fascinated by assessment, right? If we can have a tool to help peel back and understand who we are, how we make decisions, , how we get energized, how we organize ourselves or the world, how we get motivated.

[00:28:16] You know, why not? There are wonderful personality assessments out there that I've used over the years. I've been a student of the Enneagram for 25 years, I've known it. But my challenge was there was never an accurate questionnaire. the lot of the assessments are open for error because they're not tight.

[00:28:33] And when I discovered the Integrative Enneagram out of Cape town, South Africa, this Dirk Cloete ,the genius behind this questionnaire just did something that's never been done before in the world. And to have this, process to go through. And there's a way to, to know how honest someone is when they take it, how consistent they were.

[00:28:53] And we measure the time. And the validity of it, just as I said, it's striking to think that I've run this over 500 times and only one person disagreeing with us. I mean, that's just unheard of in the, in the world. So, and the reason I like theEnneagram so much is that it's not about personality. It's about motivation and we all come with motivations.

[00:29:12] So if we're going to understand our specific motivation and this lens, it's nine different motivations. It's a very holistic tool. It's more than your just being one thing. It's, you're multiple things. It is a profound tool to use in entrepreneurial environments and with teams so that we can really understand who's who, so that we can leverage our strengths.

[00:29:33] Right? We can take those natural core motivations and the strengths that come with it to be able to really create high-performance, whether it's in a entrepreneurial business or in a, in a team environment, in a corporation. And it is a powerful tool for relationships. In fact, the Integrative Enneagram is just spent years perfecting a new report for couples .

[00:29:57] Has really help, people who are partnered and married to be able to really leverage that. You know, my wife and I have been together for 30 years. I love her dearly, my best friend. it's that, that one tool was so helpful for us because we can step at each other. Right. And, and to understand, Oh, that's what you're doing.

[00:30:18] Got it right. Without making wrong. And so, so it's, it's got great application, whether it's individual growth, whether it's for looking at leadership, whether it's looking for teams and, , how we engage in conflict, right. How we make decisions. I'm a big advocate that, because it really opens eyes. It's a new tool, which is amazing.

[00:30:38] The irony is we can track its origins back 10,000 years. So, this predates religions and philosophies. There's a lot written on that. It was actually an oral spoken tradition only up until about five decades or six decades ago. So, I couldn't be a bigger advocate simply because of the brilliance of what it does in a very quick way, and to help us in the narrative of our growth and development.

[00:31:03] John Moyer was my last guest on for today. John was a former comedian turned hypnotist. He initially was only posting his comedy videos on YouTube, but found a huge market for his hypnosis videos online. Here he is in his own words. 

[00:31:21] John Moyer: Well, let's go to my YouTube channel. I could put this content on my YouTube channel. And if people see it on YouTube, then maybe they'll be interested. They'll go want to buy the MP3 version.

[00:31:30] What didn't occur to me was that people would use YouTube as a standalone platform for any of the, kind of the hypnosis and meditation content that they wanted. As a result of that, my channel took off and I made my channel exclusively for hypnosis content. It wasn't for clips of my show or anything like that.

[00:31:51] It was now, it was all content, specifically meditation and hypnosis based. And the funny thing was, is I originally started my YouTube channel in like 2006 with like my stand-up comedy videos and, you know, other goofy stuff like that. But when I started doing this in, I guess it was about 2018, you know, I had, you know, a few hundred subscribers, a few, you know, less than a thousand, I think what it was.

[00:32:16] And then as a result of that, um, my subscribers. Just went through the roof, um, last December. So in 2020. So in about two years I reached a hundred thousand subscribers, got the, uh, YouTube silver play button for having a hundred thousand subscribers. And I'll actually hit 200,000 subscribers within the next month.

[00:32:37] And what really worked out so incredibly well for me is when the pandemic happened. Um, yeah, I wasn't shows weren't happening anymore. Cruise ships were shut down and, you know, I have a lot of friends that were great entertainers on the cruise ships. Um, but man, everything came to a screeching halt for them and you know, they ha they had nothing.

[00:32:58] And fortunately for me, you know, more people were staying home more people were stressed out. So more people were online, more people were looking for the kind of content that I offer. So my YouTube channel completely just really took off in 2020. And I was very fortunate that I was able to have that opportunity to be there when nothing else was going on.

[00:33:17] And so, consequently, I'm not sure that I, you know, I liked staying home, you know, like hanging out and making hypnosis and meditation content never leaving my house. So, um, whether or not I'll actually go back to performing or not will, you know, we'll see. But so that's, but so that's how everything kind of turned around for me.

[00:33:36] Here, John talks about both mindset and our emotional responses. 

[00:33:42] John Moyer: One of the things that I do say, especially when it comes to hypnosis and mindset, is that somebody else can't make us feel anything.

[00:33:49] Um, you know, the way we choose to respond or the way we choose to feel it is a choice, you know, it's, it's up to us how we want to, you know, or how we prefer to feel. So looking at it, that context. One of the things that I say that I do creatively is to create an experience for people that offers them the opportunity, you know, to choose into happiness or to choose into joy or, or, or choose into their, their best self. 

[00:34:17] Fear is false evidence appearing real, Right. And that's one of the things that we, we, I know now about the mind is man, the mind can amplify things. The mind can create a perspective and have us see through a prism that really is a false reality.

[00:34:33] We start feeding ourselves false ideas and we, and we're just, they're just going to build on it, build on and build it. And one of the things about hypnosis especially is when you experience hypnosis the mind, the brain can't tell the difference between what's real and what's not under hypnosis It's like when you have a dream, you know, no matter how bizarre the dream seems, no matter how bizarre the dream is in the dream, you're accepted, accepting that as reality.

[00:34:58] So you go through a similar situation when you experience hypnosis. If the mind is believing that something is real, then the mind is going to pick up and run with that idea and act upon that idea as if it is something that's real. So, you know, when we tell ourselves something, um, you know, even if it's negative self-talk or whatever it is that we might try to discourage ourself or look at the, all the reasons why we shouldn't do something well, man, if the mind believes that's the case, if the mind believe that that's real, then the mind is going to pick it up and roll with it and that's going to be our outcome. 

[00:35:31] Greg Mills: I have to admit that when I went on your site, I was expecting to see a bunch of induction videos. As far as, you hypnotizing somebody in an audience format or on the street. And I was blown away by you've got all of these, some of them, eight hour long videos. 

[00:35:49] John Moyer: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, my channel used to, it used to be more of a promotional piece for my, you know, to, to promote my stage show. So I D I did, I used to have a lot of videos.

[00:35:59] on there, clips for my show clips, exactly what you're talking about. Me, hypnotizing, somebody, and people are seeing, you know, the results. And there was a time that I was trying to almost have my channel, almost had two purposes. You know, I had Playlist's of my show videos and I had Playlist's of. Uh, hypnosis programs. The problem was is, you know, when you're doing YouTube, YouTube, wants your channel to be very specific to an audience, and it was kind of splitting my channel and I would put up a video of my show, nobody would, nobody cared.

[00:36:31] Nobody paid any attention to it. I would put up a hypnosis video. That's what people were interested in was, was the program, which is why I stripped everything away from, you know, my channel other than what was the hypnosis and the meditation content.