EXPERIENCE 180 | A Candid Conversation with a Sales Heretic - Don Cooper on The Myth of Price, Why Should I Choose You?, and more.

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Don Cooper was referred to me by a mutual friend Carolyn Strauss in my search for a chapter speaker who would bring an innovative approach to sales training.

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He brought his most popular workshop, The Myth of Price, and got great reviews from every attendee.

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And thankfully for our listeners, he made time to come by the Loco Experience Studios and share some of his principles for creative thinking about sales, and ultimately to break some of the psychological barriers for sales professionals, and clients, to get to win, win, win, and yes.

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Don's sales career began in middle school, when he started buying candy in bulk and selling to the kids, and sometimes teachers and admin staff, but not competing with the brands, the band, or the cheer squad were selling for fundraisers.

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He was a socially awkward kid, and endured an abusive and isolating relationship with his mother for much of his childhood.

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Eventually finding success in social skills through speech and debate, at one point Don imagined a life in conservative politics.

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After growing disenchanted with politics, however, Don built his sales skills and programs, and came to Colorado as part of the Guerrilla Group in the early 2000s.

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When he was laid off during the post 9 11 dip, Don launched his independent sales training business in 2001, and hasn't looked back.

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Don is the sales heretic.

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Good.

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And a heretic in general, he would say he's an eccentric genius, my favorite kind, and he shares very abundantly from his sales and training toolkit in this conversation.

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So please enjoy getting to know and learn from the sales heretic, Don Cooper.

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are you ready?

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Yep.

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Okay.

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One, two, three.

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Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast.

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My guest today is Don Cooper, the sales heretic.

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And, uh, Don was up in Fort Collins today, giving a workshop for one of our chapters, which was reportedly amazing and just what everybody wanted.

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So thank you, Don, for joining me.

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My pleasure.

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Thanks for having me.

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So you're up from Denver town, is that right?

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Correct.

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Yeah.

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Denver proper.

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How's, how's Denver doing?

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Downtown better.

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I haven't been in a couple of years because I kind of give up on it.

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There's, there's massive construction on the 16th Street Mall that's been going on for a while.

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They finished one block of it.

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So the rest of it is still kind of a disaster.

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Oh, really?

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Are you a downtown guy?

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Is that your neighborhood?

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Not a whole lot.

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No, I haven't been downtown much the last couple of years or so.

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There's so much out there in the suburbs and so much of my time is spent either working or traveling or hanging with friends.

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Yeah, exactly.

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Cool.

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So, I want to start.

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The questions first with, uh, how did you choose, and have you been the sales heretic your whole entrepreneurial career?

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Not my whole career.

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Uh, I started out originally speaking, yeah, as Don Cooper.

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And then the challenge as a speaker is to find a unique brand and there are thousands upon thousands of speakers.

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So trying to find them all amazing.

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If you ask them, exactly.

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And so it's hard to differentiate.

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It's hard to come up with a brand.

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And, uh, I started really focusing on sales.

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Around, uh, 2000, 2000, 2001.

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And the problem with trying to come up with a brand for sales is that you take almost any word, stick it in front of selling and it's been done.

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Ninja selling.

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Yeah.

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So almost everything I thought of someone else was already using, it's just so hard to carve out a brand.

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And what happened was I had met somebody at a networking event and we were talking about sales training and he'd just been through some sales training like a week ago and.

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He was describing as this old school, manipulative, heavy handed stuff that he, he hated.

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Yeah, you're like, that doesn't work.

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And I'm thinking to myself, you know, I don't teach any of that stuff.

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Everything that I teach kind of flies in the face of that.

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And the next morning in the shower, I'm mulling this over in my head and it hits me.

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I'm a heretic.

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Jump out of the shower, run to my computer, check it out.

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No one's using it.

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Mine.

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Got it.

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I dig it.

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And it fits because the heretic is, is really who I have been kind of my whole life.

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I've always been a person who questions the traditional orthodoxy.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Who, who.

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You listen to punk music back in the day?

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Not so much punk.

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I, I, I didn't get, I actually did not get into rock music until I was in high school.

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Uh, I was raised on, uh, classical music by my father.

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Oh.

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And country music by my mother.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Never really got into either of those when I discovered rock music in high school.

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I was like, Oh my God, this is amazing.

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I love it.

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And, and so I had a, I had a musical awakening.

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I dig it.

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Um, so tell me about like, what, other than being a heretic, uh, what is this?

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You're cause you're a sales trainer and sports coach.

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Yeah, I do some consulting and coaching as well.

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Tell me about your practice.

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Like, who are your clients?

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Like, what are you doing?

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It's kind of all over the place.

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I have worked with, uh, solopreneurs, and I have worked with, uh, Fortune 500 companies.

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So it's kind of all over the place.

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Uh, most of what I do is really custom designed around the client.

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What do they need?

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What their situation is as an individual is as a sales team.

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Uh, are they selling B2B, B2C?

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Uh, are they doing outbound calls?

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What's going on?

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So everything I do is really tailored around who they are, what they sell, how they sell, so that it's not just a generic, okay, here's how to sell it.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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It's very, very specific.

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I create programs that are so specific.

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They cannot be delivered.

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To another company in the same market.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I see.

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That's why you asked me so many questions about our members and different things.

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And so probably today in a workshop like this, you're virtually coming up with some custom suggestions on the fly by what you've learned about them so far.

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Yeah.

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I meet them in the morning, talk to them as much as I can, and I try to hang on to some of that.

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And so I use those as examples.

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So I can refer to selling furniture or doing environmental services or whatever, whatever the people there do.

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So I can try to create some.

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Kinds of relevancy for them that they can immediately relate to.

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And I also get the audience talking.

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So I get their ideas and their stories.

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So some of that comes through as customization as well.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Does your, cause I know you do like big talks for conferences and things like that, do you.

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Like, is that more like lead gen?

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I'm sure you get paid for it, but it's lead gen for your customized consulting kind of engagements almost from a business development standpoint.

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Yes, absolutely.

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Um, so it's worth it to, um, you know, speak at a conference for, you know, travel and I bet you'd probably get five, 10 grand.

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That I don't do.

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Um, if somebody is booking me, my, my business model is not to speak any word.

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In order to sell the back of the room.

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That is a business model, legitimate business model.

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It's not one I personally am comfortable with.

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I want to deliver as much value as I can.

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So if anytime I'm in front of an audience, it doesn't matter whether it's a tiny audience or a huge audience, local, international, I want to deliver as much value for them as I can.

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I'm not.

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there to push something else.

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And I've been to events like that and I've gotten some value out of events like that, but that's a very different model than what I want to do.

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So for me, spin off bookings are a bonus.

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I'm there because I want to help that conference set an attendance record that year.

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And the following year, I want to be so good in my marketing that they draw people like never before, that I want to be so good on stage that the people who are there say, Oh my God, I have got to be here next year.

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I dig it.

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I dig it.

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That's my approach.

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If I make my clients successful, everything else falls into place.

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Well, some of our conversations that we've had around our ThinkerFest event and the suggestions you've given me since we first got acquainted here, I, I'm really grateful for it.

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My pleasure.

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I know it'll be a better event for even just some of those things.

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That's one thing I do for a lot of my clients.

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I've, I speak at a lot of events and I'm not a great event planner that you need to be a process person.

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Sure.

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To be a good event planner.

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But I'm a very good event consultant because I spent two years as an event planner.

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Yeah.

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And I've spoken a lot of events, so I, I've seen the good, the bad, the right, the wrong.

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Yeah.

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Well, that's one thing I say about like our, like even my role as a banker as it developed and, and.

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As I've been through so many dozens of conversations about, should I do this?

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Should I do that?

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I just have become kind of a collection of some best practices.

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You do the same, right?

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Like you consult with these different companies and, you know, by in the process of trying to teach them, you get smarter and smarter as kind of that hub where that knowledge kind of congregates.

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I can look at a conference schedule and say, okay, you need to put a break in here and the break needs to be this long.

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Because the number of people here at the event, and you need to have a break here as well.

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Your lunch needs to be 15 minutes longer or half an hour longer.

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Yeah.

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I've learned that kind of thing because there's so many things you don't realize, and a lot of event planners only plan one event a year, right?

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Because their main job is something else.

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They're also an event planner on the side.

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Well, and mostly they're not event marketers, right?

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That's a whole nother skill set.

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They just, they just want to know how many people are going to be there.

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Right.

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Which is easy for a wedding, not as easy for a conference.

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Exactly.

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So one of the things that I help my clients with, if they're marketing their conference to an audience, is I help the market, I teach them how to market more effectively.

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And that's always fun for me when they come back to me and they say, Oh my God, our attendance is a record this year.

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Yes, that was my goal.

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Right.

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That's really interesting.

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That, that's a pretty cool model because you get to feel pretty good about every place you engage in the value.

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Yeah.

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My goal is to make everybody's job easier and more successful.

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I want everyone to make more money, have more fun.

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I want everyone to get a promotion.

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I want everybody to get kudos and accolades.

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And I don't care who gets the credit.

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I don't care where the money ends up.

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I just want everybody.

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To come away from the event after it's all over.

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That's a lot of work to put together a conference.

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And for an attendee, it's a huge investment of money, time, and so on.

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I want everyone to come away from that saying, That was incredible.

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That was one of the best experiences I have been through.

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I dig it.

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Um, so how did you get into the sales game?

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I started selling when I was seven years old, I was selling door to door, literally stuff out of comic books, like seeds, greeting cards stuff, because my family didn't have a lot of money.

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And so if I wanted something, I had to go out and earn it.

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So I figured I could try this and I would literally go door to door.

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So I'd be selling seeds and a few months later be selling greeting cards.

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And it wasn't that hard.

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And I was a kid.

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So I was too stupid to know that I should be afraid of rejection.

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Yeah.

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Just, you know, next house, not, not a big deal.

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And this is a while ago when parents weren't quite so concerned about their kids.

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Seven year old wandering off alone and I got a lot of stuff that way.

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I, I, I earned a bike and I earned an archery set and a number of things that I would never have been able to buy on my own.

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And my parents couldn't afford to buy for me at the time.

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So I, I just, I kind of gravitated to selling and I did it all through high school.

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I did it all through college.

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I did it after college B to B, B to C.

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Uh, phone, in person, lots of different things.

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Were you selling all through high school and college, you know, on the side or whatever?

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Yeah, I actually sold Were you self employed kind of more?

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Or were you selling for businesses?

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I actually sold in school.

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Okay.

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So you know how kids in band and choir and sports teams, they're, they sell, they sell stuff.

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They sell, uh, wrapping paper, they sell popcorn, they sell candy bars.

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Sure, yeah, yeah.

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So I sold candy bars for myself.

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All right.

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Thanks.

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Right, you weren't raising money for the band or anything, you were just selling candy bars.

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No, I was raising money for me.

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I'd go buy candy bars in bulk, I'd have a dozen different kinds in a box, walk around selling to students.

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And I was always real careful that I did not sell whatever the band was selling or whatever the cheerleaders were selling.

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Right, right.

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You know, go for their sales, but I was looking to make money to earn money and I got known I got popular and people would be lining up at my locker during breaks.

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Like slinging all the candy bars you can in that 10 minutes.

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People memorized my class schedule.

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Teachers bought candy from me.

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The principal bought candy from me or you got some sour worms and that, and it was a, it was a, it was a part of a learning experience.

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I learned some valuable sales lessons doing that.

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One of the things I learned was it doesn't matter what you like, what matters is what your customer likes.

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My number one seller was KitKat bars.

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That's not even in my top 10, right?

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They're okay.

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I'll take one if you give it to me, but I'm not going to seek it out.

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And I found interesting that the things that I liked best were not necessarily the things that others liked best.

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That was a really powerful insight.

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You know, that it strikes me that as I've crafted loco think tank, I've mostly done what I think is the best.

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Think I would want a member of my organization.

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I imagine that's probably a common occurrence for a lot of people.

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It is.

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We all tend to believe that whatever it is we like is Objectively good.

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Right.

00:14:44.335 --> 00:14:51.529
So we see a movie we like we think that was a good movie Everybody else might have hated it, but we think it's good because we liked it.

00:14:51.539 --> 00:14:54.139
So we assume that anything we'd like must be good.

00:14:54.379 --> 00:14:56.059
We don't like it must be bad.

00:14:56.470 --> 00:14:58.570
The reality is we all have different tastes.

00:14:58.570 --> 00:15:03.029
So things that you hate, others may love and vice versa.

00:15:03.070 --> 00:15:12.809
And that's a huge challenge for entrepreneurs, for solopreneurs, for anybody in sales is we have to get out of our own head and into our customer's head.

00:15:12.909 --> 00:15:14.200
What is it they want?

00:15:14.269 --> 00:15:15.370
What is it they need?

00:15:15.639 --> 00:15:16.490
What is it they like?

00:15:16.490 --> 00:15:17.250
What are their priorities?

00:15:17.250 --> 00:15:17.919
What are their values?

00:15:17.919 --> 00:15:19.610
Cause it can be very different from ours.

00:15:19.610 --> 00:15:19.820
Yeah.

00:15:19.820 --> 00:15:20.210
Yeah.

00:15:20.700 --> 00:15:24.559
I was just reflecting on my own career and basically I was a banker.

00:15:25.190 --> 00:15:25.460
Right.

00:15:25.460 --> 00:15:27.379
And that is more objective.

00:15:27.389 --> 00:15:30.120
Like, are you qualified to get the loan or are you not qualified?

00:15:30.120 --> 00:15:31.559
Is it, you know, and then absolutely.

00:15:31.759 --> 00:15:35.429
But then my other career before Loco was food, right?

00:15:35.480 --> 00:15:39.269
And, you know, I can say I really love the taste of something.

00:15:39.269 --> 00:15:45.289
And I think I've got some well developed taste buds and people like my shit, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily what my customer likes.

00:15:45.289 --> 00:15:46.399
And it's very subjective.

00:15:46.490 --> 00:15:47.059
Absolutely.

00:15:47.100 --> 00:15:47.620
Interesting.

00:15:47.950 --> 00:15:49.389
So what is it the market wants?

00:15:49.409 --> 00:15:50.000
What is the market?

00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:53.519
And that can change, which is another problem for entrepreneurs.

00:15:53.899 --> 00:16:06.529
We come along with something that is popular now, but Two, three, five years from now tastes have changed or people on to the next new thing and whatever we were doing is now Not, you know very high in their priority list anymore.

00:16:06.590 --> 00:16:10.539
So do you care if your clients are products companies services companies?

00:16:10.590 --> 00:16:12.019
Nope, none of that matters.

00:16:12.029 --> 00:16:23.149
Nope Are there any companies that, uh, you've either engaged with or been opportune by where you're like, I just don't know how to understand your value proposition, right?

00:16:23.860 --> 00:16:28.509
No, I have not experienced that, but there are companies, there are industries that I would not work for.

00:16:29.440 --> 00:16:33.029
And I'm very clear about that because that's based on my values.

00:16:33.029 --> 00:16:39.690
So there are some companies where if I don't like the product you're selling, or I don't believe in the product you're selling, I can't train your people.

00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:40.840
Do you want to name them?

00:16:41.100 --> 00:16:41.409
No.

00:16:41.519 --> 00:16:46.529
So like a tobacco company, I am very anti tobacco.

00:16:46.529 --> 00:16:53.129
My dad smoked the whole time I was growing up and, um, he ended up getting cancer, my uncle died of lung cancer.

00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:56.070
So I never liked smoking.

00:16:56.070 --> 00:17:01.299
So if, if a tobacco company came to me or a vape company or anything like that, I'm like, I would be no there.

00:17:01.350 --> 00:17:03.330
And it wouldn't matter how much money they would offer me.

00:17:03.509 --> 00:17:04.619
How about a marijuana company?

00:17:04.930 --> 00:17:05.349
No.

00:17:06.190 --> 00:17:07.920
And with marijuana, it's a little bit different.

00:17:08.079 --> 00:17:08.509
I'm not.

00:17:09.095 --> 00:17:29.089
As anti marijuana as I was, and still am, anti tobacco, um, I'm not crazy about it, I don't care if anybody else uses it, and some people get value out of it, I totally agree with that, but I don't think I could train in that well, because I can't Put my heart into it.

00:17:29.490 --> 00:17:34.579
If I'm going to work for a company, I need to give that company my passion.

00:17:34.609 --> 00:17:37.490
I owe them the best version of me.

00:17:37.490 --> 00:17:41.160
I can be the, I've got to be the best me I can be on stage.

00:17:41.740 --> 00:17:44.539
And so I need to be able to at least.

00:17:45.345 --> 00:17:48.825
Understand, appreciate what they do.

00:17:49.444 --> 00:17:51.575
I need to feel that it is a social good.

00:17:51.704 --> 00:17:52.085
Fair.

00:17:52.214 --> 00:17:52.575
Okay.

00:17:52.805 --> 00:17:53.305
I dig that.

00:17:53.595 --> 00:18:00.595
So you're kind of qualifying them and vetting them to some extent as well, like in their sales, in your sales process, your conversation with them.

00:18:00.674 --> 00:18:01.244
I am.

00:18:01.355 --> 00:18:01.595
Yeah.

00:18:01.664 --> 00:18:13.049
And one of the things I learned, uh, I learned early on from a mistake that I made, I got a call from a company, it was an industrial company and they were looking for a speaker and their event was two weeks out.

00:18:13.150 --> 00:18:13.519
Okay.

00:18:13.529 --> 00:18:14.710
It was a last minute booking.

00:18:14.720 --> 00:18:15.049
Right.

00:18:15.630 --> 00:18:17.329
Well, last minute booking comes along, you say yes.

00:18:17.329 --> 00:18:17.569
Yeah.

00:18:17.589 --> 00:18:18.839
That's just, that's what you do.

00:18:18.880 --> 00:18:21.509
It's, it's 2, 000 or 5, 000 more than I was going to make this year.

00:18:21.509 --> 00:18:24.589
They're going to pay the full fee, I'm free that day, let's do this.

00:18:24.640 --> 00:18:24.920
Right.

00:18:26.075 --> 00:18:29.535
When I got there, something was way off.

00:18:30.134 --> 00:18:34.025
The attendees were clearly not in a good mood.

00:18:34.154 --> 00:18:34.424
Hmm.

00:18:34.625 --> 00:18:37.585
I'm, I was hearing a lot of ambivalence, a lot of negative talk among the attendees.

00:18:37.605 --> 00:18:40.744
This was a company that was doing something for their, their retailers.

00:18:41.115 --> 00:18:41.434
Okay.

00:18:41.954 --> 00:18:49.134
And, Then I met some of the people from the company and none of them seem to know who I was or cared that I was there.

00:18:49.244 --> 00:18:49.674
All right.

00:18:50.115 --> 00:18:55.494
And what I found out was there was a lot of animosity between the retailers and this company.

00:18:55.974 --> 00:18:57.345
So there was a lot of anger.

00:18:57.355 --> 00:18:58.684
A lot of people were upset.

00:18:58.744 --> 00:19:00.184
We had to come to this stupid conference.

00:19:00.194 --> 00:19:00.595
Right.

00:19:00.755 --> 00:19:06.555
And this, the person who hired me was simply told by, by her boss, Hey, we need a speaker for the slot.

00:19:06.555 --> 00:19:07.184
Get somebody.

00:19:07.714 --> 00:19:08.015
That's it.

00:19:09.684 --> 00:19:11.255
A well planned, uh, event, something.

00:19:11.265 --> 00:19:18.755
Yeah, so I was after dinner at the end of a long day full of really dry, boring presentations by company people.

00:19:19.515 --> 00:19:20.835
The audience was tired.

00:19:20.855 --> 00:19:22.255
They were not in a good mood.

00:19:22.484 --> 00:19:25.704
They were not in the mood for a high content speaker.

00:19:26.724 --> 00:19:27.634
I am content.

00:19:27.644 --> 00:19:28.785
I am not entertainment.

00:19:29.424 --> 00:19:31.704
I can be funny, but I'm not entertainment.

00:19:32.865 --> 00:19:35.434
I was the wrong person for that role.

00:19:36.375 --> 00:19:40.115
And it wasn't a complete bomb, but it was not a home run.

00:19:40.664 --> 00:19:44.115
It was, it was a double at best and I want to hit him.

00:19:44.134 --> 00:19:45.664
I want to hit a grand slam every time I'm up.

00:19:46.255 --> 00:19:50.984
And so I learned from that, that I need to do a better job qualifying my clients.

00:19:51.865 --> 00:19:54.855
I've got to learn more about their event, what their goals are and so on.

00:19:54.894 --> 00:20:00.704
And I learned that I only want to work with companies that want to work with me.

00:20:01.954 --> 00:20:04.444
So if you're just looking for somebody, I'm not your guy.

00:20:05.494 --> 00:20:10.884
If you're looking for my particular message, my particular style, let's talk.

00:20:12.079 --> 00:20:17.349
So tell me about some of your, uh, the workshops that you just presented the myth of price.

00:20:17.380 --> 00:20:17.829
Yes.

00:20:18.109 --> 00:20:23.589
Uh, would you share some of the foundationals from that with our listeners?

00:20:23.589 --> 00:20:27.500
A lot of our listeners are mid sized business owners, different things.

00:20:27.500 --> 00:20:28.410
Is that cheating?

00:20:28.410 --> 00:20:28.769
Is that typical?

00:20:29.089 --> 00:20:29.990
You'll give me a couple pointers.

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:30.309
No.

00:20:30.634 --> 00:20:35.555
It is my favorite program as my most popular program from the moment I created it.

00:20:35.565 --> 00:20:42.204
It's been my hottest program because pricing is an issue for almost every company.

00:20:42.914 --> 00:20:47.105
And the issue of defending your price and discounting is an issue for most salespeople.

00:20:47.805 --> 00:20:51.484
So it's one that when they hear about it, they're, Oh God, I didn't, I didn't know that.

00:20:52.075 --> 00:21:00.000
Well, when I meet people at networking events, me, possibly what I do is I help people sell, uh, at higher prices and discount less, and they go, Oh God, I need that.

00:21:00.549 --> 00:21:02.960
I mean, it's, it's, it's physical.

00:21:03.019 --> 00:21:03.369
Yeah.

00:21:03.910 --> 00:21:06.650
Um, I just had a story today from one of our members.

00:21:06.769 --> 00:21:20.359
Uh, he, he was in a concrete business, is in a concrete business and they were Regularly bidding and getting 8 a square foot for driveways and stuff like that.

00:21:20.900 --> 00:21:26.750
And, but there was another company in town consistently getting 14 a square foot and getting more business.

00:21:27.670 --> 00:21:30.170
And he happened to get to know this guy a little bit.

00:21:30.170 --> 00:21:33.980
He's like, dude, I will give you 50, 000.

00:21:33.980 --> 00:21:36.920
If you can teach me how to go from 8 a square foot to 14.

00:21:37.714 --> 00:21:39.595
And it didn't, he didn't.

00:21:39.625 --> 00:21:47.744
I mean, he figured it out himself over time, kind of ultimately, but, but that was like, that's how much it's worth to change your margins a little bit.

00:21:47.744 --> 00:21:55.914
And as long as you're creating happy clients and sometimes that probably comes with making, like, it's not just about selling it better.

00:21:55.914 --> 00:21:57.125
You get to deliver it better too.

00:21:57.775 --> 00:22:01.868
Or like, yeah, talk to me about myth of price more.

00:22:01.868 --> 00:22:04.371
First of all, it's a mindset shift.

00:22:04.371 --> 00:22:04.728
Okay.

00:22:04.728 --> 00:22:07.944
There are three basic reasons why people either undercharge.

00:22:08.515 --> 00:22:09.305
Or they discount one.

00:22:09.305 --> 00:22:11.964
They shouldn't one is ignorance.

00:22:12.734 --> 00:22:20.224
They don't understand the value that they are providing to their clients because value is not what we think it is.

00:22:20.375 --> 00:22:22.654
Value is way more complex than that.

00:22:23.394 --> 00:22:31.974
When you understand that you can get a better sense of what the value is for the customer and understand how your pricing is a reflection of that value or not.

00:22:34.250 --> 00:22:45.089
And that's harder in B2B sales than it is in B2C, because in B2C, if you're selling consumer goods, you have an idea of what a washing machine is worth, what a couch could sell for, what a car goes for.

00:22:45.190 --> 00:22:45.480
Right.

00:22:45.480 --> 00:22:47.869
There's a range of prices on a t shirt or whatever.

00:22:47.869 --> 00:22:48.309
Exactly.

00:22:48.319 --> 00:22:53.890
Usually in B2B, if you're selling computer systems or machinery, you have never used that stuff.

00:22:53.890 --> 00:22:56.369
You don't, there's no value to you in that.

00:22:56.559 --> 00:23:00.109
So you have to understand what the value is for the customer.

00:23:00.170 --> 00:23:01.859
And that's a complex process.

00:23:02.569 --> 00:23:06.755
The second Big deal for people is fear.

00:23:08.714 --> 00:23:10.585
People are afraid of losing the sale.

00:23:10.805 --> 00:23:11.045
Sure.

00:23:11.065 --> 00:23:12.144
They're afraid of rejection.

00:23:12.375 --> 00:23:13.545
They're afraid of confrontation.

00:23:14.345 --> 00:23:24.224
So when somebody asks them for discount, the easy thing to do is to say, yes, they don't want to lose the sale and they under price because they're afraid that if they charge too much, no one's going to buy.

00:23:24.805 --> 00:23:26.005
It's, it's fear.

00:23:26.634 --> 00:23:34.855
So in the program, I go through a number of things that help them understand where that fear comes from and how to get rid of it once and for all.

00:23:34.884 --> 00:23:35.535
Just that simple.

00:23:36.644 --> 00:23:37.315
Not just that simple.

00:23:37.325 --> 00:23:40.755
It's a process that I take them through, but it's a simple process.

00:23:40.825 --> 00:23:41.154
Yeah.

00:23:41.204 --> 00:23:42.474
We can do it in just a few minutes.

00:23:42.484 --> 00:23:42.994
It's great.

00:23:43.714 --> 00:23:44.855
The third one.

00:23:45.424 --> 00:23:55.154
Is the kicker it comes last in the program because it's the one that people aren't even aware of it's guilt profit guilt.

00:23:55.244 --> 00:24:02.795
Yeah, I've been speaking against profit guilt through most of my years of banking and until today you understand it.

00:24:02.944 --> 00:24:03.345
Yeah.

00:24:03.345 --> 00:24:07.244
So many of us were raised on the idea that money is the root of all evil.

00:24:07.434 --> 00:24:07.775
Yeah.

00:24:07.884 --> 00:24:15.539
The, the villain in almost every story we saw growing up, whether on TV, movies, comic books, it was all about money.

00:24:15.700 --> 00:24:17.410
Always the rich person.

00:24:17.519 --> 00:24:26.940
Yeah, so we've associated wealth with evil, but it's the love of money And even that and even that I would argue is not the case because you're a heretic.

00:24:27.250 --> 00:24:33.089
Absolutely But tell me more so I take people through a process to understand that profit is not only not evil.

00:24:33.279 --> 00:24:37.230
It's a moral imperative You must make profit.

00:24:37.230 --> 00:24:46.329
Yeah, and to a large degree the more profit you make the better That's not to say there's an unlimited, you know, point where you can raise your price to infinity, right?

00:24:46.380 --> 00:24:55.140
And and there are situations in which it is unethical to raise your price too much and the pharma Bro comes to mind the guy that bought the pharmaceutical company and raised the price.

00:24:55.140 --> 00:24:59.119
Oh, right, right life saving drugs Ridiculously, right?

00:24:59.230 --> 00:25:00.730
That's not selling.

00:25:00.970 --> 00:25:02.519
Yeah, that's extortion, right?

00:25:03.059 --> 00:25:08.220
So ethics is a multi way street and ethics to a degree Is based on degree.

00:25:09.059 --> 00:25:10.990
You might do a little thing and that's not enough.

00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:13.180
You might do a lot more of it and that's too much.

00:25:13.220 --> 00:25:13.609
Yeah.

00:25:13.869 --> 00:25:21.259
So ethics is a tricky subject, but when it comes to profit, if you don't make enough, you're not surviving.

00:25:21.259 --> 00:25:21.529
Yeah.

00:25:21.569 --> 00:25:24.079
Ethically, you have a responsibility to.

00:25:24.595 --> 00:25:29.994
Your employees, your stakeholders, investors, and your customers you have and your customers to be profitable.

00:25:30.025 --> 00:25:30.625
Exactly.

00:25:30.625 --> 00:25:33.744
That your customer, customers buy from you and you go a business, you can't support them anymore.

00:25:33.835 --> 00:25:34.134
I'm true.

00:25:34.434 --> 00:25:36.144
You have to make a profit.

00:25:36.644 --> 00:25:38.924
Profit literally makes the world go round.

00:25:39.255 --> 00:25:41.625
It is the engine that drives progress.

00:25:41.654 --> 00:25:41.865
Yeah.

00:25:42.644 --> 00:25:42.974
And it.

00:25:44.625 --> 00:25:50.085
I help people work through this through, again, another process that we do in person in the class.

00:25:50.795 --> 00:25:54.065
It sounds like a lot more psychology than it sounds like skills.

00:25:54.204 --> 00:25:55.305
It really is.

00:25:55.605 --> 00:25:58.065
Because you can teach skills all you want.

00:25:58.625 --> 00:26:01.345
If the psychology component is not there, the skills will never take.

00:26:01.994 --> 00:26:04.275
As long as somebody feels guilty.

00:26:04.440 --> 00:26:05.240
About their price.

00:26:05.259 --> 00:26:07.990
They will not do what it takes to sell it at that price.

00:26:08.019 --> 00:26:09.589
They will always give in.

00:26:09.890 --> 00:26:11.799
You have to alleviate the guilt first.

00:26:12.359 --> 00:26:16.569
I was doing this program, uh, last year in Fort Morgan.

00:26:17.349 --> 00:26:20.819
And a woman came up to me at the end with tears in her eyes.

00:26:22.220 --> 00:26:27.240
She said she had to raise her prices and she was feeling so guilty about it.

00:26:28.130 --> 00:26:29.490
And she grasped my hand.

00:26:29.914 --> 00:26:32.755
With tears streaming down her face saying, thank you.

00:26:33.305 --> 00:26:35.474
Thank you for taking this guilt away from me.

00:26:35.484 --> 00:26:42.275
And my heart, I almost cried because here's this woman who was feeling just wracked with guilt, who now felt comfortable.

00:26:42.535 --> 00:26:43.075
She felt confident.

00:26:43.075 --> 00:26:46.505
She understood that what she was doing was not a necessary evil.

00:26:46.795 --> 00:26:52.305
It was important and it was actually in her client's best interest for her to do.

00:26:52.664 --> 00:26:53.634
That's the mind shift.

00:26:54.345 --> 00:27:09.045
So it is understanding the value that your client gets from what you're selling Getting rid of the fear of losing the sale, the fear of confrontation, and then alleviating yourself of that guilt of profit being a bad thing.

00:27:09.714 --> 00:27:10.085
I dig it.

00:27:10.744 --> 00:27:18.164
Um, Are there other, uh, programs you want to give the, the outline for, since we're giving like a free sales tutorial here?

00:27:18.194 --> 00:27:20.515
Sure! You can just mention them if you want.

00:27:20.605 --> 00:27:24.815
Well, one of my, one of my newer ones is called, Why Should I Choose You?

00:27:25.214 --> 00:27:25.704
Okay.

00:27:26.434 --> 00:27:29.734
And this is so much fun.

00:27:30.025 --> 00:27:32.275
This is the, this has been an evolution.

00:27:32.795 --> 00:27:37.825
Uh, Tom Peters once described, Part of his process for creating presentations.

00:27:37.825 --> 00:27:47.845
He said, sometimes people will ask me a question and the answer to the question will turn into a slide and the next presentation, that slide will turn into a segment and that segment will then turn into a whole, turn into a book.

00:27:48.454 --> 00:27:50.265
And that's kind of what happened with this program.

00:27:50.275 --> 00:27:56.105
This started up as a little tiny five minute bit that I was doing for a local association.

00:27:56.819 --> 00:28:01.089
And I kept playing with this idea and it kept growing and growing and growing.

00:28:01.809 --> 00:28:04.859
And it turned into this program called why should I choose you?

00:28:04.960 --> 00:28:08.789
And the fundamental point is how do you answer that question?

00:28:09.039 --> 00:28:09.359
Yeah.

00:28:09.839 --> 00:28:16.369
Because when you ask most professionals and a lot of business owners and a lot of salespeople, why should I choose you?

00:28:16.670 --> 00:28:18.619
They don't have a good answer.

00:28:18.710 --> 00:28:19.059
Yeah.

00:28:20.194 --> 00:28:26.255
And the answer they give you, if they give you any at all, is the same answer the other three people you talked to gave you.

00:28:26.414 --> 00:28:28.615
I didn't nail it when you asked me that question earlier.

00:28:28.744 --> 00:28:35.125
Almost no one does! Um, this seems so related to a quote that you shared that was somebody else's.

00:28:35.275 --> 00:28:37.765
Was it, different is better than better?

00:28:37.775 --> 00:28:38.674
Sally Hogshead.

00:28:38.755 --> 00:28:39.164
Okay.

00:28:39.204 --> 00:28:40.835
Sally Hogshead, who is brilliant.

00:28:40.845 --> 00:28:42.194
She's a best selling author.

00:28:42.615 --> 00:28:49.869
Uh, I recommend you check her stuff out, Sally Hogshead, H O G S H E A D.

00:28:49.880 --> 00:28:51.019
She is brilliant.

00:28:51.029 --> 00:28:53.089
She is a wonderful human being.

00:28:53.680 --> 00:29:08.309
Uh, her stuff is fantastic and she helps people figure out what about them is fascinating and she is so powerful and her stuff is so liberating, helps you figure out who you are, what your strengths are.

00:29:09.130 --> 00:29:12.059
And she says, different is better than better.

00:29:13.410 --> 00:29:20.085
And I used to say in my programs that In your business, you need to be better in some way.

00:29:20.305 --> 00:29:22.404
And if you can't be better, at least be different.

00:29:22.654 --> 00:29:25.154
But I like what Sally says better.

00:29:26.335 --> 00:29:28.535
So now I'm just quoting her because it's, it's easier.

00:29:28.545 --> 00:29:36.835
It's a, it's a better, it's a better concept and I will happily throw out my stuff and use somebody else's if it's superior to mine.

00:29:37.829 --> 00:29:41.109
Still put her line in your program of why should I choose you?

00:29:41.109 --> 00:29:44.140
I imagine I can quote her and I can tell everybody to look at her stuff.

00:29:44.869 --> 00:29:46.160
That's how we promote each other.

00:29:46.269 --> 00:29:46.700
That's right.

00:29:47.099 --> 00:29:48.670
Uh, cause that, that is important.

00:29:48.690 --> 00:29:50.089
What is it about you?

00:29:50.089 --> 00:29:50.880
That is different.

00:29:51.109 --> 00:29:54.519
What's your uniqueness and it can't be quality.

00:29:54.970 --> 00:29:58.039
It can't be service because everybody says those things.

00:29:58.700 --> 00:30:02.279
Companies with lousy quality claim to have great quality, right?

00:30:02.329 --> 00:30:05.319
Companies with horrible service claim to have great service.

00:30:06.019 --> 00:30:10.630
When you say things that other companies say, you are exactly like them.

00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:11.480
You are not different.

00:30:11.589 --> 00:30:12.220
You're the same.

00:30:12.230 --> 00:30:13.269
You're a commodity.

00:30:13.809 --> 00:30:16.230
How do you uncommoditize yourself?

00:30:17.180 --> 00:30:18.920
And that's what this program is about.

00:30:18.930 --> 00:30:25.150
It's how do you answer that question in a way that makes people go, Ooh, that sounds interesting.

00:30:25.650 --> 00:30:26.759
Tell me more.

00:30:27.369 --> 00:30:30.920
Now, do you spend any time on.

00:30:32.275 --> 00:30:44.315
Like, especially with their consulting clients on actually making them better, like helping in the operations or delivery of product or bending the service a little bit or anything, or is it really just more about the sales and marketing messaging?

00:30:44.325 --> 00:30:45.224
It's more about the messaging.

00:30:45.224 --> 00:30:47.565
Their job to figure out how to deliver that right experience.

00:30:47.585 --> 00:30:47.875
Yeah.

00:30:47.875 --> 00:30:51.924
Cause I'm not an operations person and I know to stay in my own lane.

00:30:52.065 --> 00:30:56.625
I know what I'm great at and I know Suck at So I I You need an operations consultant.

00:30:56.625 --> 00:30:57.315
Yeah, exactly.

00:30:57.974 --> 00:30:58.634
which I will do.

00:30:58.634 --> 00:31:02.220
And I know people, if you need a leadership person, I know some great leadership people, right?

00:31:02.224 --> 00:31:09.694
If you need team building, you need, you know, I, I odds I know somebody who can get you what you need, but I, I know where I'm great at and I'm staking right there.

00:31:09.724 --> 00:31:10.865
Fair enough, fair enough.

00:31:11.305 --> 00:31:11.875
Um.

00:31:13.515 --> 00:31:30.414
What's the biggest thing that, um, small companies do wrong, uh, in that, in the space where you're at the biggest thing, the most consistent thing, like, sounds like you, you, you connect with a lot of smaller companies at different conferences or engagements, right?

00:31:30.575 --> 00:31:32.045
What are they doing wrong?

00:31:32.515 --> 00:31:38.585
Cause that's one of my passions is like helping that one or two or three person business.

00:31:38.855 --> 00:31:45.625
Achieve a scale that's at least like eight or 10, you know, so that that owner can actually have some freedom again, right?

00:31:45.694 --> 00:32:04.200
Although until you get to that point, you're kind of a slave to your business Yeah and I would say that that really is a big part of the problem and I I chalked that up to There being two types of entrepreneurs There are the type that Has a vision and they're trying to build a company to achieve that vision.

00:32:04.619 --> 00:32:06.099
And they're what I call seekers.

00:32:06.319 --> 00:32:08.250
Kind of solving a problem with the world or whatever.

00:32:08.740 --> 00:32:12.869
They've, they've got a mission, they've got a goal and they're seeking it out.

00:32:12.910 --> 00:32:15.210
They're trying to get bigger and better and more.

00:32:15.859 --> 00:32:16.430
The other kind of.

00:32:16.859 --> 00:32:19.619
Person that starts a business is what I call an avoider.

00:32:20.150 --> 00:32:21.440
They don't have a vision.

00:32:21.859 --> 00:32:24.579
They're trying to avoid working for somebody else.

00:32:25.950 --> 00:32:28.289
So they don't have a growth mindset.

00:32:28.589 --> 00:32:30.309
They have, they didn't have a scarcity mindset.

00:32:30.319 --> 00:32:33.140
They don't want to invest money because they look at that as an expense.

00:32:34.059 --> 00:32:37.089
When it's not, it's actually an investment and a seeker sees that.

00:32:37.859 --> 00:32:42.839
So, and avoider things, how can I get by with as little expense as possible?

00:32:42.859 --> 00:32:46.449
How can, how can I reduce my risk as much as possible?

00:32:46.449 --> 00:32:48.559
We just need to send all the avoiders to work for the government.

00:32:48.930 --> 00:32:49.819
Many of them do.

00:32:50.430 --> 00:32:50.609
Okay.

00:32:51.230 --> 00:32:52.000
Oh, my God.

00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:54.769
If you walk into a government, you will see almost nothing but avoiders.

00:32:55.420 --> 00:32:56.150
In the public sector.

00:32:56.160 --> 00:32:56.200
Gotcha.

00:32:56.200 --> 00:33:00.440
Now, in, in the But they could spend money like crazy because it's not their money.

00:33:00.450 --> 00:33:02.579
No, politicians are seekers.

00:33:02.900 --> 00:33:03.460
Oh, gotcha.

00:33:03.589 --> 00:33:06.309
So anybody in the legislature is a seeker.

00:33:06.609 --> 00:33:09.779
The people who are working for the bureaucracy are avoiders.

00:33:09.789 --> 00:33:10.440
Oh, interesting.

00:33:10.680 --> 00:33:12.349
Because avoiders value security.

00:33:12.380 --> 00:33:12.859
Right.

00:33:12.940 --> 00:33:15.490
They're not trying to make more money every year.

00:33:15.490 --> 00:33:19.819
They're not trying to get a retirement home and a boat and a Maserati.

00:33:19.819 --> 00:33:21.991
They just don't want to be found on the street.

00:33:21.991 --> 00:33:22.210
Yeah.

00:33:22.390 --> 00:33:25.039
Avoiders just want to be safe and secure.

00:33:25.059 --> 00:33:28.630
They want to know they've got some kind of retirement coming.

00:33:29.099 --> 00:33:30.990
They just don't, they don't want to lose everything.

00:33:31.009 --> 00:33:31.359
Hmm.

00:33:31.829 --> 00:33:37.230
And that is at odds with trying to grow a business because you've got to be a risk taker.

00:33:37.240 --> 00:33:41.799
You've got to be willing to invest and, and avoiders by and large aren't.

00:33:42.069 --> 00:34:02.555
Do you think, I just started thinking about this a little bit, like it's, it's too early for our political segment, but it feels like, you know, the, the, the left in our nation, in our world is kind of, you know, trying to avoid climate change, trying to avoid racial disparities and, and, and, you know, The conservative party is more, you know, make America great again.

00:34:02.585 --> 00:34:04.085
Let's seek out this thing.

00:34:04.095 --> 00:34:08.315
Is that, am I just putting that in my own head there or is that?

00:34:08.364 --> 00:34:11.425
Yes, because actually both sides do both things.

00:34:11.485 --> 00:34:11.855
Okay.

00:34:12.465 --> 00:34:15.375
Both sides understand marketing.

00:34:16.474 --> 00:34:23.985
So if you really pay close attention to what both sides do, they both try to appeal to seekers avoiders.

00:34:24.074 --> 00:34:24.994
Oh, sure.

00:34:25.045 --> 00:34:25.900
The messages are different.

00:34:26.059 --> 00:34:26.590
Different.

00:34:26.699 --> 00:34:30.869
Oh, so you speak to a seeker with trying to take your women's rights away.

00:34:30.909 --> 00:34:31.980
Oh, we've got to avoid that.

00:34:32.019 --> 00:34:32.989
That's exactly correct.

00:34:33.110 --> 00:34:35.530
So you speak to a seeker with your visions of the future.

00:34:35.809 --> 00:34:37.460
What is going to come of this?

00:34:37.460 --> 00:34:39.039
What are we going to achieve and accomplish?

00:34:39.210 --> 00:34:41.400
You speak to the avoidance by telling them what to be afraid of.

00:34:41.440 --> 00:34:42.070
Yeah.

00:34:42.309 --> 00:34:43.110
Fascinating.

00:34:43.119 --> 00:34:45.230
Because avoiders focus on risk and fear.

00:34:45.269 --> 00:34:45.750
Yeah, yeah.

00:34:45.760 --> 00:34:48.969
Seekers focus on growth and change and achievement.

00:34:49.300 --> 00:34:50.340
Very different mindsets.

00:34:50.349 --> 00:34:52.780
Well, and those Neither one is right or wrong, good or bad.

00:34:52.789 --> 00:34:54.289
They're just how our brains are wired.

00:34:54.559 --> 00:34:56.760
And you can't really rewire your brain.

00:34:57.630 --> 00:35:01.420
The key is how do you, uh, how does a seeker and an avoider communicate?

00:35:01.489 --> 00:35:01.619
Right.

00:35:01.619 --> 00:35:03.739
When they have very different ways of viewing the world.

00:35:03.760 --> 00:35:04.289
Right, right.

00:35:04.500 --> 00:35:05.000
Right, right.

00:35:05.019 --> 00:35:08.559
Like the seeker wants a smartphone as soon as they can lay their hands on it.

00:35:08.559 --> 00:35:09.440
It's really interesting.

00:35:09.449 --> 00:35:11.440
The avoider just doesn't want to get left behind.

00:35:11.539 --> 00:35:15.019
No, the avoider will hang on to their phone until they stop working.

00:35:15.750 --> 00:35:18.329
When, you know, when the company stops supporting it, that's when they get a new phone.

00:35:18.510 --> 00:35:19.150
Maybe, yeah.

00:35:19.150 --> 00:35:21.719
Five, ten years is, they're good with that.

00:35:21.719 --> 00:35:22.199
Interesting.

00:35:22.199 --> 00:35:45.994
So really what I think I'm hearing, to some extent, is Especially in the business to consumer front, or maybe even in the business to business as well, but in general, a lot of people are maybe doing the directing their sales and marketing to only the seekers, uh, which is probably okay for me as like a think tank because they're probably much more likely to actually be successful in business over the long run and grow something.

00:35:46.105 --> 00:35:46.304
Yeah.

00:35:46.304 --> 00:35:49.114
But in a B2C, especially like everybody needs.

00:35:49.699 --> 00:35:50.619
Dog food, right?

00:35:51.460 --> 00:35:56.949
And if you're only communicating to one of those two marketplaces, then you're not really hitting the whole market.

00:35:56.949 --> 00:35:58.550
You sell that dog food two different ways.

00:35:58.650 --> 00:36:04.210
One marketing message is this dog food will help your dog live an active, happy, healthy life.

00:36:04.219 --> 00:36:05.079
With a beautiful coat.

00:36:05.090 --> 00:36:09.210
Look at, look at this dog jumping for joy and see the smile on his face, his tail wagging.

00:36:10.070 --> 00:36:11.139
Another commercial.

00:36:11.340 --> 00:36:19.369
Says, if you feed your dog, the wrong food, it's going to be tired, lethargic, lethargic, and sick.

00:36:19.849 --> 00:36:21.739
Don't feed your dog that food.

00:36:23.449 --> 00:36:27.429
So different message aimed at two different mindsets.

00:36:27.440 --> 00:36:28.119
Interesting.

00:36:28.269 --> 00:36:29.130
Same product.

00:36:29.514 --> 00:36:37.105
Yeah, basically the same basic features, but the benefits are offered differently based upon how people interpret information.

00:36:37.135 --> 00:36:37.304
Yeah.

00:36:37.304 --> 00:36:37.664
Yeah.

00:36:38.445 --> 00:36:42.554
Is there studies around this or things, is this kind of your own armchair theory?

00:36:42.565 --> 00:36:44.135
There's a lot of stuff around this.

00:36:44.275 --> 00:36:44.514
Okay.

00:36:44.574 --> 00:36:55.514
I find psychology fascinating and I find neuroscience fascinating, and there's a lot of evidence that a lot of our thinking stems from our DNA.

00:36:55.545 --> 00:36:58.114
Our brains are wired a certain way at birth.

00:36:58.114 --> 00:36:58.425
Hmm.

00:36:59.135 --> 00:37:05.284
Uh, I can look at my own experience and see how similar I am in my thinking and my mindset to my father.

00:37:05.534 --> 00:37:05.965
Really?

00:37:06.364 --> 00:37:12.304
Because he and I share a lot of how we process the world.

00:37:13.065 --> 00:37:14.295
A lot of similarity there.

00:37:14.344 --> 00:37:14.644
Yeah.

00:37:15.105 --> 00:37:22.914
Is that like, Was it taking after your dad that you were slinging comic, or not comic books, but greeting cards and stuff when you were seven years old?

00:37:22.925 --> 00:37:23.224
Yeah, yeah.

00:37:23.644 --> 00:37:34.025
He didn't tell me that immediately, but sometime after he told me about him and his brother, my uncle, they were, uh Stationed in Germany after World War II.

00:37:34.074 --> 00:37:41.735
My grandfather was the American editor of the English language version of the Nuremberg war trials transcripts.

00:37:42.224 --> 00:37:46.385
So my dad and my uncle were there as kids in, in, in Germany.

00:37:47.255 --> 00:37:54.795
They lived on a base, uh, an army base and they could not buy toys at the PX, the post exchange.

00:37:54.795 --> 00:37:55.085
Hmm.

00:37:56.275 --> 00:37:57.355
They could get candy.

00:37:57.364 --> 00:37:58.375
They could buy candy there.

00:37:59.079 --> 00:38:36.344
The German kids, right off the base, had toys, they couldn't get candy, so my father and my uncle had a black market going on, candy toy exchange, that's exactly it, so yeah, I got, I got that from him, awesome, clearly, huh, so, That gives a lot of, we've been studying a, uh, a system here, um, called Halos Relational Intelligence, and it's a lot like DISC or Myers Briggs or something, but one of the notable differences is they, they have things that are archetypal or essential rather than personality driven.

00:38:36.675 --> 00:38:39.880
It's not like how you're, how you developed to be, it's how you were born.

00:38:40.130 --> 00:38:42.949
Born right to be, and here's how you use it better.

00:38:43.019 --> 00:38:43.500
Yes.

00:38:43.619 --> 00:38:46.880
Uh, and that sounds like it vibes with your views on the world as well.

00:38:46.960 --> 00:38:48.500
It really, it really does.

00:38:48.579 --> 00:38:51.510
Cause so much of the way our brains are wired are really hard to unwire.

00:38:52.300 --> 00:38:52.869
Right.

00:38:53.369 --> 00:38:57.260
So how does one unwire things quickly?

00:38:57.269 --> 00:39:08.855
Cause it sounds like, like some of these like profit guilt, for example, uh, in your myth of price is you kind of go through a stepwise process to try to just You started here, now you're here.

00:39:09.065 --> 00:39:12.534
That can be done quickly because that's not wiring.

00:39:13.074 --> 00:39:13.755
Oh, right.

00:39:13.815 --> 00:39:15.204
That's a result.

00:39:15.264 --> 00:39:16.315
That's exactly.

00:39:16.465 --> 00:39:24.025
And there were two things Yoda said in The Empire Strikes Back that are frequently quoted.

00:39:24.704 --> 00:39:29.065
The most quoted is, try not, do or do not.

00:39:29.255 --> 00:39:29.894
There is no try.

00:39:29.954 --> 00:39:30.525
There is no try.

00:39:30.574 --> 00:39:30.815
Yeah.

00:39:31.005 --> 00:39:32.025
Yoda was wrong.

00:39:33.085 --> 00:39:33.934
There is a try.

00:39:34.105 --> 00:39:35.525
You must try before you do.

00:39:37.215 --> 00:39:38.905
And I can have a whole debate on that.

00:39:39.375 --> 00:39:43.885
But the other thing that he said was you must unlearn what you have learned.

00:39:45.025 --> 00:39:51.074
That line I thought was brilliant because so much of what we learn.

00:39:51.204 --> 00:39:53.144
growing up is garbage.

00:39:53.744 --> 00:39:54.585
It's wrong.

00:39:54.625 --> 00:39:55.855
It's mythology.

00:39:55.864 --> 00:39:57.235
It's somebody's rumor.

00:39:57.264 --> 00:39:59.445
It it's personal bias.

00:39:59.974 --> 00:40:02.385
So much of what we learn is not real.

00:40:02.394 --> 00:40:03.344
It's not accurate.

00:40:03.364 --> 00:40:06.485
And we don't know because we have nothing to compare it against.

00:40:07.114 --> 00:40:10.889
There's a, uh, I mentioned I was in the banking industry for 15 years.

00:40:11.409 --> 00:40:22.639
And for the most part, that industry is very, um, incestuous, I guess, you know, bankers go from one bank to another and bring their customers along with them and stuff in most cases.

00:40:23.099 --> 00:40:26.949
Um, but first bank, uh, the Colorado bank for you.

00:40:28.034 --> 00:40:32.724
They pretty much only hire entry level and groom throughout their career.

00:40:32.735 --> 00:40:37.525
They don't, they don't hire mid level bankers or senior level bankers, period.

00:40:38.315 --> 00:40:43.914
They grow their own because they don't want to have to unlearn what you have learned at other places.

00:40:44.045 --> 00:40:44.815
Absolutely.

00:40:44.974 --> 00:40:46.855
So anyway, just a little sidebar there.

00:40:47.344 --> 00:40:48.699
Um, let's, uh, let's.

00:40:49.030 --> 00:40:52.190
Let's jump, uh, is there other, other things in the sales space?

00:40:52.190 --> 00:40:54.300
I don't want to ask you to give away all your secrets.

00:40:54.309 --> 00:40:56.510
You can, you can book Don on his website if you want to.

00:40:57.809 --> 00:41:06.280
Um, but is there other things that you'd really want to be compelled to share that the sales heretic is, uh, maybe notable for or defined by?

00:41:08.050 --> 00:41:23.550
It's funny, the heretic thing, I came up with that literally in the shower and I adopted as a personal brand immediately, but it's resonating with me because I've always been a heretic from the time that I was a kid, I would get trouble for asking questions.

00:41:24.014 --> 00:41:25.364
That people didn't want asked.

00:41:25.425 --> 00:41:26.914
And that's what a heretic does.

00:41:26.914 --> 00:41:28.184
A heretic asks questions.

00:41:28.184 --> 00:41:29.155
A heretic probes.

00:41:29.155 --> 00:41:32.045
A heretic doesn't simply take what's said at face value.

00:41:32.045 --> 00:41:32.605
Oh, is that right?

00:41:32.655 --> 00:41:34.585
A heretic challenges orthodoxy.

00:41:35.094 --> 00:41:38.864
A heretic looks at other ways of explaining things or viewing the world.

00:41:39.465 --> 00:41:40.304
Uh, a heretic.

00:41:40.304 --> 00:41:41.565
It's different than a blasphemer.

00:41:41.824 --> 00:41:42.375
Correct.

00:41:42.425 --> 00:41:43.894
Then it's more of the.

00:41:44.690 --> 00:41:51.650
from the curiosity side and the questioning of authority that a heretic really is defined, not the stating against it or standing against it.

00:41:51.650 --> 00:41:52.119
Precisely.

00:41:52.119 --> 00:42:00.579
A heretic doesn't necessarily say there is no God, or God is this way or that way in opposition of what the heretic would say, if there's a God, why is there so much suffering in the world?

00:42:00.590 --> 00:42:01.150
Exactly.

00:42:01.550 --> 00:42:01.960
Or whatever.

00:42:01.960 --> 00:42:06.400
A heretic says, please explain this to me, or what's the reason for that, or why do you do that that way?

00:42:07.635 --> 00:42:12.324
And, and ask questions to challenge what everyone else takes for granted.

00:42:12.784 --> 00:42:14.175
And I have always done that.

00:42:14.184 --> 00:42:15.894
And I got in a lot of trouble for it.

00:42:16.405 --> 00:42:18.855
And fortunately my dad encouraged it.

00:42:19.664 --> 00:42:22.505
And I had some teachers that encouraged it.

00:42:22.574 --> 00:42:24.914
I had a history teacher in high school, Mr.

00:42:24.914 --> 00:42:28.574
Haskell and, and where are you by the way?

00:42:28.695 --> 00:42:32.835
Uh, like when we go back to seventh grade, you're in California.

00:42:32.835 --> 00:42:33.150
Is that right?

00:42:33.300 --> 00:42:36.570
Um, that was in high school and I was in, uh, Washington, D.

00:42:36.570 --> 00:42:36.730
C.

00:42:36.730 --> 00:42:37.050
area.

00:42:37.059 --> 00:42:37.840
How about in seventh grade?

00:42:37.840 --> 00:42:38.230
Virginia.

00:42:38.440 --> 00:42:39.599
Seventh grade, I was in California.

00:42:39.650 --> 00:42:40.050
Okay.

00:42:40.260 --> 00:42:41.260
In the city, in L.

00:42:41.260 --> 00:42:41.460
A.?

00:42:41.519 --> 00:42:45.590
I was in, uh I'm trying to set the stage of what, what your family dynamic was a little bit more.

00:42:45.619 --> 00:42:47.429
The Santa Clara area, Silicon Valley.

00:42:47.440 --> 00:42:47.809
Okay.

00:42:47.880 --> 00:42:48.880
Back in the early days.

00:42:48.920 --> 00:42:49.269
Gotcha.

00:42:49.300 --> 00:42:50.650
Near Hewlett Packard headquarters.

00:42:50.760 --> 00:42:51.090
All right.

00:42:51.150 --> 00:42:52.340
Then Apple headquarters.

00:42:52.349 --> 00:42:52.579
Sure.

00:42:52.579 --> 00:42:54.000
Really cool place to, to grow up.

00:42:54.050 --> 00:42:54.320
Yep.

00:42:54.639 --> 00:43:00.409
Um, but after the divorce, I, I went to three different high schools and I didn't go to the same one.

00:43:00.945 --> 00:43:03.914
Uh, for, for the first two years, two semesters in a row.

00:43:04.105 --> 00:43:04.724
Oh, wow.

00:43:04.784 --> 00:43:05.914
So it was bouncing back and forth.

00:43:06.014 --> 00:43:06.985
My dad tried to work through And this was in D.

00:43:07.275 --> 00:43:07.594
C.

00:43:07.594 --> 00:43:07.875
then?

00:43:07.945 --> 00:43:08.324
Yeah.

00:43:08.485 --> 00:43:09.644
Like, so your folks split up.

00:43:09.644 --> 00:43:10.764
Your dad took you to D.

00:43:10.764 --> 00:43:10.994
C.

00:43:10.994 --> 00:43:11.295
or whatever?

00:43:11.295 --> 00:43:14.155
He stayed in California for a while, trying to make things work, and he, and he couldn't.

00:43:14.155 --> 00:43:15.664
So I, I did a semester in D.

00:43:15.664 --> 00:43:18.284
C., then a semester in California, kind of back and forth.

00:43:18.445 --> 00:43:18.864
Oh, wow.

00:43:19.074 --> 00:43:21.315
Which, which was tough, but I remember Mr.

00:43:21.315 --> 00:43:26.144
Haskell because so many teachers just want you to memorize and repeat.

00:43:26.655 --> 00:43:29.045
They do not want you to question anything.

00:43:29.284 --> 00:43:30.364
They don't want you to argue.

00:43:30.675 --> 00:43:31.704
They're just looking for obedience.

00:43:33.014 --> 00:43:33.364
Mr.

00:43:33.364 --> 00:43:37.625
Haskell wasn't that way, and we would debate.

00:43:38.545 --> 00:43:40.934
I, I would challenge him on things he, he said.

00:43:40.945 --> 00:43:41.855
What kind of a teacher was he?

00:43:42.105 --> 00:43:42.594
History.

00:43:42.644 --> 00:43:42.985
Okay.

00:43:43.155 --> 00:43:45.675
He was American History, and I had always found history boring.

00:43:46.190 --> 00:43:54.280
I was just utterly bored by history because it was just names, dates, places, events, and there was no context, none of it meant anything.

00:43:54.349 --> 00:43:54.599
Mr.

00:43:54.599 --> 00:43:57.880
Hassell got into the whys, why things happen.

00:43:58.190 --> 00:43:58.929
That was interesting.

00:43:58.929 --> 00:43:59.769
Why did they have the tea party?

00:43:59.800 --> 00:44:02.489
Yeah, the why is what's fascinating.

00:44:03.539 --> 00:44:07.760
But I remember one time he made a comment, That America is all basically the same.

00:44:08.699 --> 00:44:10.320
We're all, we're all basically the same as Americans.

00:44:10.320 --> 00:44:13.210
And I raised my hand and I said, no, we're not.

00:44:13.210 --> 00:44:14.820
Cause I just come from California.

00:44:14.820 --> 00:44:17.679
This is very different than California.

00:44:18.199 --> 00:44:21.510
And he said, really, do they have McDonald's in California?

00:44:22.750 --> 00:44:24.210
Uh, yeah.

00:44:24.429 --> 00:44:26.440
Do they have to drink Coke in California?

00:44:27.150 --> 00:44:27.809
Yeah.

00:44:27.929 --> 00:44:28.659
Do they wear jeans?

00:44:29.130 --> 00:44:32.460
And his point was as Americans, we're pretty homogeneous.

00:44:32.460 --> 00:44:49.215
And the point I was trying to make was that different regions are, there are differences and we had, you know, And intellectual debate, he respected my opinion and I respected his, and I held him in great esteem because of that.

00:44:49.494 --> 00:44:50.655
He didn't silence me.

00:44:50.655 --> 00:44:51.844
He didn't make fun of me.

00:44:51.855 --> 00:44:53.324
He listened to what I said.

00:44:53.695 --> 00:45:03.284
He, he debated me on the merits of what I said and helped me see things his way as he also saw things my way.

00:45:03.605 --> 00:45:07.704
And ever since then, that has always been my goal.

00:45:08.025 --> 00:45:09.844
In any kind of a disagreement.

00:45:10.565 --> 00:45:12.945
How can I see things your way?

00:45:13.954 --> 00:45:16.434
And are you willing to try to see things my way?

00:45:16.744 --> 00:45:21.184
Because if we can do that, we can solve all kinds of problems.

00:45:21.364 --> 00:45:23.215
We can accomplish great things.

00:45:23.735 --> 00:45:30.755
If I'm committed to my point of view at all costs, and you're committed to your point of view at all costs, we're not doing anything.

00:45:31.460 --> 00:45:40.389
And I think it's part of the problem with American politics today, is both sides look at the other as not just different, not just wrong, but evil.

00:45:40.480 --> 00:45:41.010
Right.

00:45:41.329 --> 00:45:50.940
And both sides argue the other side is evil, they hate America, they want to destroy America, and you can't cooperate with somebody who you've labeled as evil.

00:45:50.949 --> 00:45:51.364
Yeah, yeah.

00:45:51.545 --> 00:45:53.815
You've eliminated the possibility of compromise.

00:45:54.215 --> 00:45:54.474
Yeah.

00:45:54.585 --> 00:45:56.505
You cannot have collaboration.

00:45:56.514 --> 00:46:15.175
So we need to get back to a place where we can talk and try to see each other's point of view, even if we disagree with it, what's the reason you think the way you do, what experiences colored your viewpoints in what way were your experiences different than mine?

00:46:15.175 --> 00:46:16.414
What were the lessons you learned?

00:46:16.425 --> 00:46:17.704
How, why did you learn them?

00:46:17.704 --> 00:46:18.054
Sure.

00:46:18.739 --> 00:46:24.210
And then once I learned that, then I can try to explain to you, well, here's where I come from and the reasons why I come from there.

00:46:25.090 --> 00:46:27.380
You know, what do you think about and so on and so forth.

00:46:27.980 --> 00:46:32.010
When I was on the speech team in college, I did speech for two and a half years in high school.

00:46:32.050 --> 00:46:32.469
Oh, okay.

00:46:32.489 --> 00:46:33.539
And then four years in college.

00:46:33.539 --> 00:46:34.159
Oh, cool.

00:46:34.449 --> 00:46:39.769
And one of the rules we have on the team in college was you could hold any opinion you wanted.

00:46:40.889 --> 00:46:44.099
But you had damn well better be able to back it up.

00:46:44.500 --> 00:46:44.880
Okay.

00:46:45.280 --> 00:46:50.449
If you could not back up an opinion, you got mercilessly attacked.

00:46:50.699 --> 00:46:52.949
Even the person agreed with that opinion.

00:46:53.030 --> 00:46:53.579
Interesting.

00:46:54.630 --> 00:46:58.119
And that was intellectually very honest.

00:46:58.159 --> 00:47:05.590
I like to live by the theme, if you've got a strong opinion, you should be able to I'm not understand and argue the other person.

00:47:05.590 --> 00:47:07.059
You should be able to Absolutely.

00:47:07.070 --> 00:47:09.619
Strong man, argument the other person's thoughts too.

00:47:09.730 --> 00:47:11.780
Which is one of the benefits of doing debate.

00:47:11.840 --> 00:47:12.190
Totally.

00:47:12.190 --> 00:47:13.510
I did debate some in high school.

00:47:13.510 --> 00:47:15.929
I didn't do it in college, but I did some in high school.

00:47:16.230 --> 00:47:19.289
And that's valuable for being able to see both sides Totally.

00:47:19.349 --> 00:47:20.159
Of an issue.

00:47:20.650 --> 00:47:22.590
And, and we've gotten away from that.

00:47:22.590 --> 00:47:37.875
Yeah, well, I, yeah, with the, with the complex issues especially, like, you know, not to bring abortion back up, but I just mentioned it, you know, it's like, if you can't see that this is a really complex Challenging topic, then I don't really have time to talk to you about it.

00:47:38.255 --> 00:47:40.974
You know, it's an incredibly challenging topic.

00:47:41.344 --> 00:47:44.215
I understand where people who disagree with me come from.

00:47:44.255 --> 00:47:46.275
I understand why they believe what they believe.

00:47:46.974 --> 00:47:52.574
I have a counter to those things and I can justify why I believe what I believe.

00:47:53.385 --> 00:47:55.974
And the question is, can we come to an agreement?

00:47:56.034 --> 00:47:57.175
Well, I'm not sure.

00:47:57.795 --> 00:48:05.675
It feels like fewer people really have a foundation in studying these hard things.

00:48:05.684 --> 00:48:12.655
They just, you know, kind of align with one tribe or the other for the most part and say, this is the right thing.

00:48:12.655 --> 00:48:14.304
Cause the other side is evil.

00:48:15.434 --> 00:48:19.505
How many of us got our political beliefs from our parents?

00:48:21.494 --> 00:48:22.184
Um, yeah.

00:48:22.315 --> 00:48:24.824
And so often they can't explain why they believe what they believe.

00:48:24.925 --> 00:48:25.724
They got it from their parents.

00:48:25.724 --> 00:48:26.454
Right.

00:48:26.744 --> 00:48:31.945
So we're just parroting stuff we've heard parroted before and I got to give my father credit.

00:48:31.954 --> 00:48:39.755
My father never tried to create or color my political judgment.

00:48:40.244 --> 00:48:45.735
My political journey in terms of what I believe has evolved over a number of years.

00:48:45.735 --> 00:48:45.985
Yeah.

00:48:46.414 --> 00:48:50.045
Uh, and I've gone back and forth on a number of things.

00:48:50.045 --> 00:48:51.664
I've changed my position on so many issues.

00:48:51.844 --> 00:48:52.304
Well, good.

00:48:52.344 --> 00:48:53.965
That's a, that's a mark of a thinking person.

00:48:54.005 --> 00:48:54.605
I agree.

00:48:54.644 --> 00:48:54.664
Yeah.

00:48:55.065 --> 00:48:58.974
So I want to, uh, kick it back to the journey just a little bit before we jump into politics.

00:48:59.454 --> 00:49:04.715
So you're, you're selling a little bit of this, a little bit of that through high school, through college.

00:49:04.724 --> 00:49:06.465
What'd you, what'd you go to school for?

00:49:06.994 --> 00:49:10.835
Well, originally I went to college for government.

00:49:11.135 --> 00:49:11.534
Okay.

00:49:11.545 --> 00:49:13.985
It had been my intention to run for office.

00:49:14.005 --> 00:49:16.054
I wanted to get political science kind of thing.

00:49:16.085 --> 00:49:16.295
Yeah.

00:49:16.364 --> 00:49:17.614
I wanted to get into Congress.

00:49:17.994 --> 00:49:21.414
I actually entertained thoughts of, of running for president someday.

00:49:21.445 --> 00:49:21.875
Okay.

00:49:23.114 --> 00:49:28.965
And I like to think that at the time I had the best of intentions.

00:49:29.045 --> 00:49:30.474
I really wanted to make a difference.

00:49:30.835 --> 00:49:33.014
As many people who started out in politics do.

00:49:34.184 --> 00:49:37.144
The more I learned about it, the more disillusioned I got.

00:49:37.155 --> 00:49:38.405
So, circle me a little bit.

00:49:38.405 --> 00:49:40.695
I don't really quite know how old you are.

00:49:40.735 --> 00:49:41.344
104.

00:49:41.505 --> 00:49:42.934
Okay, you look great.

00:49:42.945 --> 00:49:43.364
Thank you.

00:49:43.465 --> 00:49:47.144
I'm young for my age, but I'm tall for my height, so it all works out.

00:49:47.755 --> 00:49:53.795
No, we're just trying to think about what was going on in the political realm at this point, and I'm, I'm guessing you were Democratic?

00:49:54.195 --> 00:49:54.425
No.

00:49:54.525 --> 00:49:55.304
No, Republican.

00:49:55.315 --> 00:49:57.514
So you got into Republican politics as a college student?

00:49:57.565 --> 00:49:57.864
Yeah.

00:49:57.905 --> 00:49:58.264
Okay.

00:49:58.295 --> 00:50:00.385
Yeah, as a high school student, actually.

00:50:00.385 --> 00:50:00.925
Okay, interesting.

00:50:01.605 --> 00:50:04.775
Sorry, the San Francisco background made me kind of assume.

00:50:05.324 --> 00:50:05.894
No, no.

00:50:06.275 --> 00:50:15.644
Um, No, I, I was definitely a Republican, um, and I stopped being a Republican in, uh, 95.

00:50:16.094 --> 00:50:16.514
Okay.

00:50:16.605 --> 00:50:19.614
Because in 94, the Republicans won the House.

00:50:19.974 --> 00:50:20.485
Oh, right.

00:50:20.534 --> 00:50:21.574
Newt Gingrich.

00:50:21.695 --> 00:50:26.934
And as soon as they won the House, they raised taxes and increased regulations.

00:50:27.304 --> 00:50:27.655
Right.

00:50:28.065 --> 00:50:28.855
And I'm thinking, okay.

00:50:29.539 --> 00:50:31.539
I could have voted for a Democrat and had this happen.

00:50:31.929 --> 00:50:32.619
What's the point?

00:50:32.619 --> 00:50:33.159
What's the difference?

00:50:33.170 --> 00:50:40.219
And what I learned in my classes, I was reading with political books, government textbooks.

00:50:41.909 --> 00:50:45.780
On the speech team, uh, one of the events that I did was extemporaneous speaking.

00:50:45.920 --> 00:50:46.170
Okay.

00:50:46.199 --> 00:50:47.610
You're given a question on current events.

00:50:47.619 --> 00:50:50.300
You have 30 minutes to prepare a seven minute speech on that topic.

00:50:50.340 --> 00:50:50.639
Yep.

00:50:50.699 --> 00:50:53.210
Which means you've got to be up on current events.

00:50:53.219 --> 00:50:53.510
Right, right.

00:50:53.510 --> 00:50:54.079
You gotta know your stuff.

00:50:54.110 --> 00:50:54.309
Yeah.

00:50:54.309 --> 00:50:55.460
We would regularly read.

00:50:55.800 --> 00:51:03.300
Three daily papers, all the major news weeklies, uh, the new Republic, foreign affairs, current history, all kinds of stuff.

00:51:04.150 --> 00:51:07.619
And the stuff I was reading, all of that was completely different.

00:51:08.050 --> 00:51:09.300
Then what was in the textbooks.

00:51:10.380 --> 00:51:15.199
So it occurred to me, okay, the textbook explained how things were supposed to be, but this is how the world really is.

00:51:16.679 --> 00:51:20.929
And I had talked with Pete Wilson, who was a Senator from California at the time.

00:51:21.429 --> 00:51:25.380
And he said that if I wanted to get into politics, I should study economics.

00:51:25.849 --> 00:51:31.210
He said, there's not one person on Capitol Hill who knows the first thing about economics.

00:51:32.670 --> 00:51:35.429
So I changed my major from political science to economics.

00:51:35.449 --> 00:51:35.880
Okay.

00:51:36.545 --> 00:51:37.715
And it made sense.

00:51:38.034 --> 00:51:39.014
I understood it.

00:51:39.375 --> 00:51:42.405
Explain why people behave the way they do, how they interact with each other.

00:51:43.405 --> 00:51:56.684
And once I understood that I could see that he was right to this day, nobody on capital and nobody in almost any legislature anywhere in the country knows anything about economics.

00:51:57.204 --> 00:52:01.815
You have people, it's the equivalent of people who know nothing about medicine doing surgery.

00:52:02.594 --> 00:52:05.155
It's, it's, it's that degree of insanity.

00:52:05.574 --> 00:52:15.715
So people who have no idea about the consequences of what they're doing, and I'm talking both Republicans and Democrats, have no idea what their policies are going to create.

00:52:15.755 --> 00:52:18.324
What economists call the law of unintended consequences.

00:52:18.344 --> 00:52:18.945
My favorite.

00:52:20.025 --> 00:52:23.394
I like to say the more government tries to fix things, the more they fucks it up.

00:52:23.405 --> 00:52:24.195
Absolutely.

00:52:24.195 --> 00:52:25.795
That is 100 percent correct.

00:52:26.684 --> 00:52:28.135
Um, so.

00:52:28.699 --> 00:52:34.860
You pivot, you get out of college, you're get right back into sales or like, are you still in DC area?

00:52:34.869 --> 00:52:35.349
Is that where you went?

00:52:35.480 --> 00:52:37.019
Uh, I was, I was still in the DC area.

00:52:37.019 --> 00:52:37.260
Yeah.

00:52:37.260 --> 00:52:38.730
I went to George Mason university.

00:52:38.750 --> 00:52:39.130
Okay.

00:52:39.460 --> 00:52:41.130
And I had some great professors there.

00:52:41.659 --> 00:52:51.539
Um, we had, uh, did a survey course of Asian governments and it was taught by a four, a career foreign services officer.

00:52:51.539 --> 00:52:52.135
Oh, interesting.

00:52:52.505 --> 00:52:55.184
Who knew all of the leaders personally.

00:52:55.264 --> 00:52:55.764
Oh, fun.

00:52:56.005 --> 00:52:57.695
And could tell stories about them all.

00:52:57.695 --> 00:52:59.284
It was an incredible class.

00:52:59.835 --> 00:53:01.844
Only in DC where you get that kind of experience.

00:53:01.885 --> 00:53:02.594
For sure.

00:53:03.045 --> 00:53:15.894
Um, I got, I got out of college and, uh, I was actually working for Domino's pizza at the time, but I was working for them during college, you know, part time and during summers, uh, and then, uh, driving.

00:53:15.985 --> 00:53:16.315
Okay.

00:53:16.474 --> 00:53:19.489
And then did it after college because it was Great money.

00:53:19.989 --> 00:53:21.159
It was easy work.

00:53:22.070 --> 00:53:22.750
It was fun.

00:53:22.760 --> 00:53:23.619
It was a great atmosphere.

00:53:23.960 --> 00:53:28.980
And I actually learned a lot about business and marketing from the franchise owner.

00:53:29.039 --> 00:53:29.320
Yeah.

00:53:29.619 --> 00:53:30.760
Guy named Frank Meeks.

00:53:30.829 --> 00:53:31.179
Okay.

00:53:31.480 --> 00:53:41.119
Uh, Frank was the very first person to ever put a Domino's outlet in some place other than a college campus or military base.

00:53:41.199 --> 00:53:42.099
Oh, is that right?

00:53:42.139 --> 00:53:42.480
Yeah.

00:53:43.230 --> 00:53:45.059
I had no idea that was their foundation.

00:53:45.110 --> 00:53:48.519
People believed that nobody would order, deliver pizza unless they had to.

00:53:49.164 --> 00:53:49.554
Right.

00:53:49.554 --> 00:53:53.125
They thought that people would only order delivered pizza if they didn't have any other options.

00:53:53.514 --> 00:53:56.684
So, a college campus is a good place to put one, a military base is a good place to put one.

00:53:56.684 --> 00:53:57.454
Oh, fascinating.

00:53:57.594 --> 00:54:00.074
Frank thought that he could put it anywhere.

00:54:00.264 --> 00:54:00.594
Right.

00:54:00.635 --> 00:54:01.275
And people would order.

00:54:01.275 --> 00:54:02.414
People called him crazy.

00:54:03.244 --> 00:54:05.445
So, he got the franchise rights to the Washington, D.

00:54:05.445 --> 00:54:05.625
C.

00:54:05.625 --> 00:54:06.085
area.

00:54:06.614 --> 00:54:13.275
And, uh, at one point, Frank owned 18 of the top 20 Domino's pizza shops in the world.

00:54:14.155 --> 00:54:14.695
In sales.

00:54:14.914 --> 00:54:16.224
One of my, uh, friends.

00:54:16.474 --> 00:54:17.905
Former Rotary Club members.

00:54:18.454 --> 00:54:26.730
I think he got up to about 35 dominoes with his organization sold most of them a few years back But really cool Organization.

00:54:26.730 --> 00:54:38.019
He was part of their kind of their franchise, the advisory committee thing that kind of turned, Donald's kind of turned themselves around over the last 10 years or so they were kind of down in the doldrums and now they're kind of cool again.

00:54:38.170 --> 00:54:39.860
Well, they were bought by a private equity company.

00:54:39.909 --> 00:54:40.500
Oh, is that right?

00:54:40.510 --> 00:54:42.489
Which is almost always a bad thing, right?

00:54:43.099 --> 00:54:44.980
Cause they have no idea what they're doing usually.

00:54:45.030 --> 00:54:45.360
Yeah.

00:54:45.780 --> 00:54:47.619
Uh, they don't have their heart in it.

00:54:47.800 --> 00:54:48.179
Yeah.

00:54:48.190 --> 00:54:49.570
Well, that's all they care about is money.

00:54:49.579 --> 00:54:49.809
Yeah.

00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:56.804
Like that's the, uh, Like it's one thing to make big decisions and not know anything about money.

00:54:56.804 --> 00:54:59.715
But if all you, all you care about is money, that doesn't work either.

00:55:00.974 --> 00:55:12.025
So you're working in the domino scene and then, um, it sounded like you kind of went almost straight into speaking and selling coaching, not immediately.

00:55:12.025 --> 00:55:17.784
I told her with my father, he was running a, a courier service, DC area.

00:55:17.795 --> 00:55:18.144
Okay.

00:55:18.954 --> 00:55:20.094
And needed help.

00:55:20.094 --> 00:55:32.175
And so I, I came on board and that, and so I was basically vice vice president there, um, like running like bicycles and motorcycles, running documents around or mostly cars and trucks, but yeah, that, that kind of thing.

00:55:32.184 --> 00:55:32.385
Yeah.

00:55:32.385 --> 00:55:32.675
Yeah.

00:55:32.675 --> 00:55:35.244
All these important documents for the important people over there.

00:55:35.255 --> 00:55:35.505
Yeah.

00:55:35.594 --> 00:55:39.014
So we, we grew the company and we grew up by an average of 38 percent a year.

00:55:39.715 --> 00:55:43.534
Uh, and that was just, you know, selling and marketing, selling and marketing.

00:55:43.545 --> 00:55:45.454
Was that your responsibility mostly?

00:55:45.534 --> 00:55:46.144
Exactly.

00:55:46.184 --> 00:55:46.635
Okay.

00:55:47.094 --> 00:55:49.445
Uh, that was a really powerful learning experience.

00:55:49.454 --> 00:55:50.114
Yeah, sounds like it.

00:55:50.114 --> 00:55:53.585
There were some things I did right, some things I did wrong, and those are critical.

00:55:53.735 --> 00:55:54.105
Sure.

00:55:54.135 --> 00:55:54.715
For, for getting better.

00:55:54.715 --> 00:56:01.054
Well, it probably was hugely important for helping you quickly understand your future client situations and stuff too, having been there.

00:56:01.280 --> 00:56:01.900
Exactly.

00:56:02.380 --> 00:56:04.559
You know, having to execute all those operational things.

00:56:04.579 --> 00:56:05.199
Exactly.

00:56:05.219 --> 00:56:09.760
So I did that for several years and then just got to the point where I was kind of burned out on it and needed something different.

00:56:10.369 --> 00:56:14.539
And so, uh, I left that to my father and I literally took two weeks off.

00:56:14.760 --> 00:56:15.170
Okay.

00:56:15.239 --> 00:56:20.170
I took two weeks to just decompress and do nothing because I had been so stressed by it.

00:56:20.849 --> 00:56:26.690
And I spent one Sunday reading every single help wanted ad in the paper.

00:56:26.829 --> 00:56:27.429
Okay.

00:56:27.949 --> 00:56:30.989
And not one job looked remotely appealing to me.

00:56:31.860 --> 00:56:37.010
And I thought to myself, well, I've always wanted to be a speaker, why not now?

00:56:37.750 --> 00:56:44.300
Because I learned about people like Tony Robbins and Zig Ziglar and Brian Tracy, I learned about them in college, so I knew that it was a thing.

00:56:44.309 --> 00:56:45.889
Yeah, and it was kind of a new thing, right?

00:56:45.920 --> 00:56:48.820
Fairly, yeah, it really started kind of in the 70s.

00:56:49.315 --> 00:56:53.434
Um, so by then, by the nineties, you know, it was getting bigger and bigger.

00:56:54.135 --> 00:56:58.704
And so I decided, what the heck, why not now?

00:56:58.704 --> 00:56:59.655
I mean, I got no debt.

00:56:59.655 --> 00:57:00.255
I got no ties.

00:57:00.255 --> 00:57:01.144
I can do whatever I want.

00:57:01.735 --> 00:57:13.789
And so I made that decision on a Thursday night, Friday morning, the phone rings, it's a woman from NASA asking if I can come in and do, um, A business session for them.

00:57:14.119 --> 00:57:14.699
What?

00:57:14.989 --> 00:57:19.000
And I'm like, um, I'm assuming you didn't have a website.

00:57:19.739 --> 00:57:22.139
No, no, I had nothing, nothing.

00:57:23.119 --> 00:57:28.039
Uh, NASA, yes, that NASA, uh, was trying to reduce their workforce.

00:57:28.050 --> 00:57:28.960
They didn't want to lay anybody off.

00:57:28.960 --> 00:57:35.190
So they were offering all kinds of outplacement training and they wanted to do a session on how to start your own business.

00:57:35.760 --> 00:57:37.670
And I had been speaking about that.

00:57:38.239 --> 00:57:38.619
Okay.

00:57:38.639 --> 00:57:39.659
And so this woman.

00:57:39.985 --> 00:57:43.465
Called someone she knew to ask if she knew anybody who called someone she knew.

00:57:43.644 --> 00:57:44.804
It went through five people.

00:57:45.269 --> 00:57:50.659
before it got to a woman who had seen me do a presentation, a free presentation, recommended me.

00:57:51.809 --> 00:57:53.210
And, and I got the call.

00:57:53.260 --> 00:57:59.250
And so we, we talked, we worked everything out because she asked me, you know, about the date and I said, huh, let me check my calendar.

00:57:59.320 --> 00:57:59.699
Right.

00:57:59.940 --> 00:58:02.289
Um, you're in luck.

00:58:03.050 --> 00:58:04.480
That day is available.

00:58:06.170 --> 00:58:07.250
And we got through all that.

00:58:07.250 --> 00:58:11.280
And then she, the final question she asked was, how Oh, how much do you charge?

00:58:11.300 --> 00:58:13.659
And I'm like, I have no idea.

00:58:15.809 --> 00:58:16.489
500.

00:58:19.079 --> 00:58:21.789
And she said, Ooh, our budget's only 300.

00:58:23.329 --> 00:58:25.309
So we talked, we negotiated, we ended up at 450.

00:58:26.590 --> 00:58:27.039
I like it.

00:58:27.090 --> 00:58:29.760
And that was my first ever paid professional gig.

00:58:29.760 --> 00:58:30.210
Nice.

00:58:30.250 --> 00:58:31.099
Was NASA.

00:58:32.139 --> 00:58:33.780
Uh, I went there and I did the program.

00:58:33.780 --> 00:58:34.179
They loved it.

00:58:34.179 --> 00:58:35.090
They had to come back again.

00:58:35.090 --> 00:58:37.400
So they were a repeat client.

00:58:37.849 --> 00:58:38.789
Absolutely.

00:58:39.409 --> 00:58:40.360
How often does that happen?

00:58:41.449 --> 00:58:44.570
Unless you're a rocket scientist or something, which I am not.

00:58:44.800 --> 00:58:48.389
So, uh, so that was just kind of a general business talk.

00:58:48.460 --> 00:58:51.525
Like, so did it take you a while to find your.

00:58:51.855 --> 00:58:54.315
Sales focused space within that?

00:58:54.355 --> 00:58:54.914
It did.

00:58:54.954 --> 00:58:55.335
It did.

00:58:55.335 --> 00:58:58.804
I started talking about networking and in part because of Susan Rowan.

00:58:58.894 --> 00:58:59.315
Okay.

00:58:59.425 --> 00:59:02.545
Susan Rowan wrote the book, uh, how to work a room.

00:59:02.815 --> 00:59:03.355
Oh yeah.

00:59:03.554 --> 00:59:03.945
Yep.

00:59:04.025 --> 00:59:07.054
I haven't read it, but I've, I've had a lot of people talk about it.

00:59:07.215 --> 00:59:09.175
So I think I mentioned to you, I was an abused child.

00:59:09.184 --> 00:59:10.635
My mother was very abusive.

00:59:10.695 --> 00:59:11.474
Oh, no.

00:59:11.485 --> 00:59:15.525
One of the things she did was she refused to allow me to play with other kids.

00:59:16.355 --> 00:59:16.775
No.

00:59:16.824 --> 00:59:18.755
So I never developed social skills.

00:59:19.150 --> 00:59:19.659
Oh, wow.

00:59:19.690 --> 00:59:25.030
So even through college, I did not know how to interact with other people socially.

00:59:25.099 --> 00:59:25.780
Interesting.

00:59:25.849 --> 00:59:30.119
Was the candy sales not like, that was just a transaction, it wasn't a social thing?

00:59:30.130 --> 00:59:30.280
Yeah.

00:59:30.280 --> 00:59:32.340
You were just a tool for their needs?

00:59:32.400 --> 00:59:33.130
I was a businessman.

00:59:33.230 --> 00:59:33.530
Yeah.

00:59:33.530 --> 00:59:34.050
Absolutely.

00:59:34.079 --> 00:59:34.639
Fascinating.

00:59:34.710 --> 00:59:38.000
Um, so I picked up How to Work a Room.

00:59:38.150 --> 00:59:38.599
Okay.

00:59:38.809 --> 00:59:40.829
And I had the original Czapolski edition.

00:59:40.965 --> 00:59:42.355
Polsky publishers.

00:59:42.355 --> 00:59:42.385
Okay.

00:59:42.385 --> 00:59:43.614
That's very rare.

00:59:43.614 --> 00:59:43.974
Copy.

00:59:44.094 --> 00:59:44.364
All right.

00:59:44.485 --> 00:59:51.594
I picked up that book and for me it was, that book was life changing'cause it was all about networking, how to, how to talk to people.

00:59:51.655 --> 00:59:51.985
Yeah.

00:59:52.014 --> 00:59:58.135
How to behave in a, a networking environment, which was applicable to really any social environment.

00:59:58.135 --> 00:59:58.405
Sure.

00:59:58.824 --> 01:00:08.204
Uh, and, and that book literally changed my life and I got better at networking and I got, so I started reading other books on networking and I got so good on it.

01:00:08.684 --> 01:00:12.304
I started to speak about it and come up with my own ideas and strategies.

01:00:12.304 --> 01:00:19.184
And so the first talks I was giving was about networking and then general business and some sales and this is like late nineties by now or yeah.

01:00:19.184 --> 01:00:19.525
Yeah.

01:00:19.695 --> 01:00:21.474
Very late nineties and a little bit of everything.

01:00:21.764 --> 01:00:25.844
It took me a while to narrow it down to, to sales eventually.

01:00:25.855 --> 01:00:26.065
Yeah.

01:00:26.065 --> 01:00:26.394
Yeah.

01:00:26.635 --> 01:00:34.309
The cool thing though, is I got to meet Susan Rohan, uh, in, 98 at the National Speakers Association Convention.

01:00:34.309 --> 01:00:43.039
The first one I attended, I had told some people from, uh, my, my chapter that I was looking for certain people that I want, really wanted to meet one of whom was Susan Roanne.

01:00:43.780 --> 01:00:49.860
And so a woman in our chapter came up to me on like day two of the conference and said, Hey, did you say you're looking for Susan Roanne?

01:00:49.940 --> 01:00:50.650
Yeah, I found her.

01:00:50.650 --> 01:00:51.389
She's in the bathroom.

01:00:52.579 --> 01:00:53.960
I told her you're looking for her.

01:00:54.800 --> 01:00:55.659
Wait right here.

01:00:55.905 --> 01:01:01.304
So I'm standing there, and she comes out of the bathroom, looks at me like, like I'm a stalker, which I kinda am, to be fair.

01:01:02.054 --> 01:01:04.594
And she comes up to me and says, Are you Don Cooper?

01:01:04.635 --> 01:01:05.324
I said, Yes.

01:01:05.335 --> 01:01:07.485
Are you looking for me?

01:01:07.494 --> 01:01:08.204
She said, Yes.

01:01:08.565 --> 01:01:09.934
And I told her the whole story.

01:01:10.275 --> 01:01:14.885
The abuse, and, and, and the social awkwardness, the no social skills, her book.

01:01:15.195 --> 01:01:20.074
I've changed my life, everything else, and part of the reason why I'm there at that conference is because of her, and her book.

01:01:20.105 --> 01:01:20.465
Wow.

01:01:21.675 --> 01:01:25.704
And, you know, she just lit up because authors don't normally hear that kind of thing.

01:01:25.715 --> 01:01:26.264
Yeah.

01:01:26.554 --> 01:01:28.255
You write a book and you hope someone reads it.

01:01:28.454 --> 01:01:28.864
Right.

01:01:29.125 --> 01:01:31.755
But Change My Life is, uh, like the ultimate compliment.

01:01:31.775 --> 01:01:32.344
That's a big deal.

01:01:32.355 --> 01:01:33.465
I want to back up.

01:01:33.485 --> 01:01:37.875
Like, what was, like, your mom's situation?

01:01:37.905 --> 01:01:39.664
Like, was she mentally ill?

01:01:39.664 --> 01:01:42.644
Like, what were her motivations to not let you interact with her?

01:01:43.789 --> 01:01:46.219
It took me a long time to come to realize this.

01:01:46.219 --> 01:01:50.079
My mother had narcissistic personality disorder.

01:01:50.699 --> 01:01:53.000
So she was a toxic narcissist.

01:01:53.320 --> 01:02:00.070
Uh, when I learned about what that is, it fit everything she did, explained everything.

01:02:00.070 --> 01:02:03.900
Narcissists need to manipulate people.

01:02:03.909 --> 01:02:06.820
They need a victim to manipulate and I was the one.

01:02:08.355 --> 01:02:13.675
So it was really mostly you that she, that suffered, at least while you were around, that suffered her consequences.

01:02:13.675 --> 01:02:14.164
Correct.

01:02:14.204 --> 01:02:16.125
And nothing needed to make sense.

01:02:16.135 --> 01:02:17.244
Nothing needed to be justified.

01:02:17.255 --> 01:02:21.155
Everything was my fault, and everything was because she knew better.

01:02:21.295 --> 01:02:25.059
So, you know, there's physical abuse, mental abuse, verbal abuse.

01:02:25.059 --> 01:02:28.815
Uh, for a narcissist, nothing is ever good enough.

01:02:28.894 --> 01:02:29.275
Yeah.

01:02:29.324 --> 01:02:33.135
They have to keep you always Trying harder and you will never ever achieve it.

01:02:33.135 --> 01:02:39.054
To this day, I struggle with perfectionism because nothing I ever did was good enough.

01:02:39.094 --> 01:02:39.594
Yeah, yeah.

01:02:39.664 --> 01:02:40.144
Um.

01:02:40.414 --> 01:02:41.514
Sorry to dig you back in there.

01:02:41.525 --> 01:02:42.425
No, that's okay.

01:02:42.434 --> 01:02:48.675
It was just fascinating to think about why, what somebody's motivation would be to do that to their kid, you know?

01:02:48.704 --> 01:02:51.824
It's about making yourself feel better by making somebody else feel worse.

01:02:51.824 --> 01:02:52.414
Yeah, yeah.

01:02:52.565 --> 01:02:52.875
Which is awesome.

01:02:53.389 --> 01:02:58.260
A weird pathology to understand and can be very difficult for people who haven't experienced it.

01:02:58.309 --> 01:02:58.929
Yeah, I don't know.

01:02:59.329 --> 01:03:02.420
And it's just, it's horrible because you think everything is your fault.

01:03:02.429 --> 01:03:03.760
You think you're wrong and everything.

01:03:03.760 --> 01:03:09.400
And you think if you just try better, try harder, do better, you'll, you'll finally get the validation that you see.

01:03:09.559 --> 01:03:09.750
Yeah.

01:03:10.119 --> 01:03:11.619
And it never, it never comes.

01:03:11.630 --> 01:03:12.230
Not from her.

01:03:12.239 --> 01:03:12.889
It never happens.

01:03:12.900 --> 01:03:16.329
Sounds like your dad was a much stronger figure in here.

01:03:16.500 --> 01:03:17.659
Far, far better.

01:03:17.699 --> 01:03:19.179
Yeah, exactly.

01:03:19.650 --> 01:03:21.119
Um, so.

01:03:21.900 --> 01:03:30.969
I guess kind of forwarding through the career, how long before you found the, the sales heretic, where you just, Don Cooper knows about a lot, about a lot of stuff and he talks about it for quite a while.

01:03:30.969 --> 01:03:37.130
Yeah, I've actually made that mistake early on, which a lot of speakers do, which is I speak about this and that and the other and this thing too.

01:03:37.130 --> 01:03:39.269
And you cannot be a support on everything.

01:03:39.269 --> 01:03:45.840
So I had to, I had to pare it down and I ended up paring it down to sales because the stuff I say.

01:03:46.054 --> 01:03:50.545
Regarding sales is more unique than about what I do about marketing.

01:03:50.545 --> 01:03:52.304
I can talk about those things.

01:03:52.304 --> 01:03:56.364
I'm happy to do that, but the sales stuff is the most unique that I've got.

01:03:56.364 --> 01:03:58.704
Well, and there's more leverage on it too, right?

01:03:58.704 --> 01:04:07.405
Like if you can actually activate a sales team to be more effective or even one sales person that can make a difference, tens, hundreds, thousands of dollars in revenues.

01:04:08.065 --> 01:04:13.125
Whereas networking's less significant, at least to begin with.

01:04:13.135 --> 01:04:13.625
Exactly.

01:04:13.894 --> 01:04:16.574
It's a slower, slower turn.

01:04:16.744 --> 01:04:21.875
I help my clients make eight figure sales increases.

01:04:21.925 --> 01:04:22.454
I don't doubt it.

01:04:22.514 --> 01:04:26.195
And at that point, whatever I charge is irrelevant.

01:04:27.184 --> 01:04:27.434
I know.

01:04:27.434 --> 01:04:27.724
Yeah.

01:04:27.724 --> 01:04:28.215
Yeah.

01:04:28.215 --> 01:04:29.815
As long as they have enough margin.

01:04:30.235 --> 01:04:30.594
Exactly.

01:04:30.755 --> 01:04:31.324
Exactly.

01:04:31.324 --> 01:04:32.610
As long as they're charging enough.

01:04:32.610 --> 01:04:33.251
I dig it.

01:04:33.251 --> 01:04:36.251
So I came up with the, it took me, it took me several years.

01:04:36.251 --> 01:04:39.275
I went through several consultants, branding consultants to come up with a brand.

01:04:39.614 --> 01:04:42.034
It's just a really tough thing to do.

01:04:42.034 --> 01:04:45.565
I mean, I've talked with several of the smartest people in the branding world.

01:04:45.909 --> 01:04:47.449
And we couldn't come up with anything.

01:04:47.489 --> 01:04:49.429
Uh, and the heritage thing was just an accident.

01:04:49.480 --> 01:04:54.360
It was a lucky situation where I met someone who said the right thing that treated something in my brain.

01:04:54.369 --> 01:04:57.559
That, that's how some of the greatest ideas ever occur.

01:04:57.599 --> 01:05:00.559
Well, barely any ideas are fresh, right?

01:05:00.559 --> 01:05:03.440
There's some amalgamation or hybridization of other things.

01:05:03.750 --> 01:05:04.539
Were you in the D.

01:05:04.539 --> 01:05:04.760
C.

01:05:04.769 --> 01:05:06.360
region this whole time, or?

01:05:06.670 --> 01:05:08.179
I was in Colorado by that point.

01:05:08.539 --> 01:05:09.929
I moved out to Colorado in 2000.

01:05:10.059 --> 01:05:11.079
How did you find your way here?

01:05:11.199 --> 01:05:13.690
Uh, I, I met up with Orville Ray Wilson.

01:05:14.000 --> 01:05:14.300
Okay.

01:05:14.329 --> 01:05:16.489
Uh, who worked with Jay Conrad Levinson who?

01:05:16.489 --> 01:05:17.059
The author.

01:05:17.210 --> 01:05:18.230
Author of Gorilla Marketing.

01:05:18.289 --> 01:05:18.500
Oh yeah.

01:05:18.500 --> 01:05:19.849
And Orville was the first.

01:05:19.849 --> 01:05:20.480
I've read that book.

01:05:20.539 --> 01:05:21.500
Uh, coauthor.

01:05:21.500 --> 01:05:23.170
There is no, it's not there.

01:05:23.170 --> 01:05:23.559
I don't see it.

01:05:23.559 --> 01:05:24.010
Yeah, there it is.

01:05:24.010 --> 01:05:25.269
GR Gorilla Financing.

01:05:25.269 --> 01:05:25.480
That's one.

01:05:25.480 --> 01:05:26.710
It's probably a related title.

01:05:26.710 --> 01:05:27.639
That's one in the series.

01:05:27.639 --> 01:05:27.940
Yeah.

01:05:28.329 --> 01:05:31.630
So Orville was the first ever co-author with Jay Levinson on a book.

01:05:31.630 --> 01:05:32.559
It was Gorilla Selling.

01:05:32.650 --> 01:05:33.039
Okay.

01:05:33.250 --> 01:05:37.510
And I had met Orville Ray at that same NSA conference in, in 98.

01:05:37.989 --> 01:05:41.079
And, and we were talking and he ended up inviting me to come out to.

01:05:41.315 --> 01:05:43.324
I'm going to be going to Boulder to join the company.

01:05:43.375 --> 01:05:50.804
Oh, and I did that because I recognized his genius and I recognized the incredible opportunity that it was.

01:05:50.835 --> 01:05:57.492
So I came out to Colorado, knowing nobody out here, but it was a risk I was happy to take.

01:05:57.492 --> 01:05:58.525
That was in 2000?

01:05:58.525 --> 01:06:00.184
That was in 2000, March of 2000.

01:06:00.215 --> 01:06:02.195
I just beat you July of 99.

01:06:02.204 --> 01:06:02.485
Okay.

01:06:02.485 --> 01:06:03.085
That's when I moved here.

01:06:03.125 --> 01:06:04.155
Just barely ahead of me.

01:06:04.164 --> 01:06:04.614
Right.

01:06:04.954 --> 01:06:11.264
Um, and so you became part of his crew for, you're not, Any longer that you went independent and eventually or whatever.

01:06:11.295 --> 01:06:11.644
Yeah.

01:06:12.244 --> 01:06:15.105
Um, what is, you weren't the sales heretic yet then either?

01:06:15.114 --> 01:06:16.105
No, no, that took a while.

01:06:16.304 --> 01:06:22.514
I spent several years trying to come up with some kind of a brand that would work and until the heretic thing finally.

01:06:23.204 --> 01:06:27.175
Oh, and was that part of like building your own brand then?

01:06:27.784 --> 01:06:36.795
Like, I imagine that if you don't have that, that's a good reason to be part of an organization in that way, because you don't really have as much brand value, but if you get that.

01:06:37.565 --> 01:06:39.434
Well, some people are just them, right?

01:06:39.434 --> 01:06:40.885
And they're known across the world.

01:06:40.894 --> 01:06:43.125
Like Zig Ziglar is just Zig Ziglar.

01:06:43.125 --> 01:06:44.204
He doesn't need to be anybody else.

01:06:44.255 --> 01:06:44.735
Exactly.

01:06:44.744 --> 01:06:48.375
Well, Orville Ray had carved out a niche for himself with Guerrilla Selling.

01:06:48.385 --> 01:06:49.244
Great book.

01:06:50.085 --> 01:06:51.034
I loved his stuff.

01:06:51.034 --> 01:06:52.954
He's a brilliant human being.

01:06:53.264 --> 01:06:55.224
One of the smartest people I have ever met.

01:06:55.224 --> 01:06:56.835
One of the most creative people I've ever met.

01:06:56.945 --> 01:06:59.135
And I came out to Boulder.

01:06:59.440 --> 01:07:03.110
Really for the experience to learn under him almost as a mentorship.

01:07:03.110 --> 01:07:03.480
Yeah.

01:07:03.519 --> 01:07:06.679
He cut five years off my learning curve easily.

01:07:06.690 --> 01:07:10.059
He's the guy that taught me how to customize a program.

01:07:10.090 --> 01:07:13.150
He taught me how to ask the right questions.

01:07:13.769 --> 01:07:15.250
Uh, he helped me with my writing.

01:07:15.250 --> 01:07:16.489
He helped me with a lot of things.

01:07:16.510 --> 01:07:25.789
So I am forever grateful to him for, for how he, you know, took me under his wing and, and helped me develop as a speaker.

01:07:25.980 --> 01:07:29.474
I would not be the person I am today if it hadn't been for him.

01:07:29.635 --> 01:07:30.795
For, for his coaching.

01:07:31.074 --> 01:07:38.244
Talk to me about that launch into your own brand again, back out of the, the comfort of a organization.

01:07:38.885 --> 01:07:44.514
It was, it was kind of forcible because, uh, of September 11th.

01:07:44.695 --> 01:07:51.735
Oh, I was actually on my way to the airport to fly to Philadelphia to speak for a client that morning.

01:07:51.735 --> 01:07:53.815
And I got a call from the office saying, turn around and come back.

01:07:54.380 --> 01:07:54.989
I'm like, huh?

01:07:55.010 --> 01:07:56.449
What are you listening to the radio?

01:07:56.519 --> 01:07:59.920
No, turn the radio on turn the car around, right?

01:08:00.610 --> 01:08:03.909
So I get back to the office and our world changed, right?

01:08:04.019 --> 01:08:07.460
Like all of your bookings have been gone everything, right?

01:08:08.110 --> 01:08:15.485
There were companies that canceled their next two years worth of meetings and events So everything got wiped off, off of the books.

01:08:15.554 --> 01:08:19.585
And so we made some drastic cost adjustments.

01:08:19.864 --> 01:08:22.305
The company had to change and I understand it.

01:08:22.305 --> 01:08:24.604
And, and, you know, he and I are still friends.

01:08:25.314 --> 01:08:28.444
Um, there just wasn't sustainable at the time because of that.

01:08:28.444 --> 01:08:28.824
Sure.

01:08:28.875 --> 01:08:29.645
That crisis didn't happen.

01:08:30.585 --> 01:08:34.274
You know, in fact, it all, all speak at all of us at that time.

01:08:34.364 --> 01:08:37.135
And then you, did you like go get a job or did you just.

01:08:38.210 --> 01:08:39.710
Put up your brand sign.

01:08:40.180 --> 01:08:42.390
I just looked for, for opportunities where I could find them.

01:08:43.039 --> 01:08:44.590
Probably scat by for a while.

01:08:44.680 --> 01:08:47.270
Uh, didn't need as much steak anymore for a while.

01:08:47.310 --> 01:08:47.600
Yeah.

01:08:47.630 --> 01:08:49.159
So did a number, number of things.

01:08:49.189 --> 01:08:52.800
Um, did some work with a training company that worked with Yamaha.

01:08:53.020 --> 01:08:53.390
Okay.

01:08:53.449 --> 01:08:55.880
Uh, didn't have to resort to eating vegetables.

01:08:55.890 --> 01:08:56.529
No, no.

01:08:56.529 --> 01:08:57.409
Thank goodness.

01:08:57.460 --> 01:08:57.739
Yeah.

01:08:58.079 --> 01:08:58.670
Wouldn't want that.

01:09:01.729 --> 01:09:20.510
So, um, you know, I'm feeling like we got a pretty good, uh, uh, overview of your career, like any big moment since you've become independent as the sales heretic, if you've got one, any awards or prizes, or, uh, I was introduced to you as like the best sales speaker, at least in Colorado, but probably west of the Mississippi.

01:09:21.979 --> 01:09:24.010
I'll tell you the thing I am most proud of.

01:09:24.119 --> 01:09:24.359
Okay.

01:09:26.140 --> 01:09:27.970
I was president of the.

01:09:28.600 --> 01:09:33.430
National Speakers Association called out a chapter of 06 to 07.

01:09:33.779 --> 01:09:34.149
All right.

01:09:34.319 --> 01:09:49.939
And in that year, the national organization was holding its winter conference here in Denver, and the chair of that conference had challenged our chapter to do some kind of a charity event.

01:09:50.609 --> 01:09:53.100
We could do whatever we wanted with whoever we wanted.

01:09:53.970 --> 01:09:59.409
And we ended up choosing a local organization in Denver that.

01:10:00.270 --> 01:10:03.770
Treats and educates abused children.

01:10:04.069 --> 01:10:04.310
Okay.

01:10:04.760 --> 01:10:06.590
And I was the impetus behind that.

01:10:06.590 --> 01:10:09.710
It was my suggestion that we take on that as a cause.

01:10:10.380 --> 01:10:13.859
And somebody else suggested that particular organization, the Tennison Center for Children.

01:10:13.920 --> 01:10:14.250
Okay.

01:10:14.310 --> 01:10:15.869
Which is in, in Denver.

01:10:15.869 --> 01:10:16.710
Yeah, I've heard of it before.

01:10:17.130 --> 01:10:21.359
Uh, as, as the potential beneficiary, we ran it by the national and they said, great, go for it.

01:10:21.890 --> 01:10:22.369
And we.

01:10:22.840 --> 01:10:25.159
Put together a speech competition for the kids.

01:10:25.399 --> 01:10:25.899
Oh, cool.

01:10:25.949 --> 01:10:27.550
That's something that aligned with us.

01:10:27.609 --> 01:10:32.340
And, you know, I was, it was something that helped me deal with my, heal from my own abuse.

01:10:33.199 --> 01:10:39.835
So we did this thing and, uh, The first year, just before it happened, everybody was afraid it wasn't going to work.

01:10:40.664 --> 01:10:44.675
Because speaking is one of the most stressful things a human being can do.

01:10:46.414 --> 01:10:52.375
And stupid us thinks, you know, these 8 year old kids can just do it.

01:10:53.314 --> 01:10:55.585
And, and the Tencent Center were all freaking out.

01:10:56.130 --> 01:10:59.039
Because they were just so afraid of what might happen with the kids.

01:10:59.050 --> 01:11:00.609
They've been coaching them and working with them.

01:11:01.710 --> 01:11:03.239
You know, and none of us knew what was going to happen.

01:11:03.239 --> 01:11:09.279
So we get in there, several of us as judges, uh, and, and a bunch of other people just coming to watch.

01:11:10.560 --> 01:11:14.899
That day, eight kids got up, blew us away.

01:11:14.930 --> 01:11:15.460
Nailed it.

01:11:15.710 --> 01:11:16.359
That's cool.

01:11:16.659 --> 01:11:18.819
They spoke on all kinds of different subjects.

01:11:19.289 --> 01:11:22.319
Only one of them addressed the issue of abuse.

01:11:23.010 --> 01:11:23.970
And it wasn't her own.

01:11:24.819 --> 01:11:26.069
She talked about other kids.

01:11:26.864 --> 01:11:30.484
And what they had been through and how she wanted to help them.

01:11:31.635 --> 01:11:34.244
There was not a dry eye in the house.

01:11:35.244 --> 01:11:37.104
She was our winner.

01:11:37.765 --> 01:11:43.055
And just a couple of weeks later was the conference in Denver and.

01:11:43.484 --> 01:11:45.164
We made arrangements for her to be there.

01:11:46.064 --> 01:11:58.614
I got up on stage and I talked just for a few seconds about what we did and why we bring the girl out, uh, with the president of the, the center, the president's center numbing her.

01:11:59.114 --> 01:12:01.984
And so we introduced her as, as the first ever champion.

01:12:02.454 --> 01:12:05.284
And she walks out to get a special plaque handed to her.

01:12:05.645 --> 01:12:08.494
She's on the stage with all these lights on her.

01:12:08.494 --> 01:12:12.524
400 adults give her a standing ovation.

01:12:13.704 --> 01:12:17.755
And her smile outshone the lights.

01:12:19.199 --> 01:12:22.409
And since then, it's become an annual competition.

01:12:22.720 --> 01:12:26.710
It is the event the kids there look forward to the most.

01:12:28.119 --> 01:12:29.970
It has changed a lot of their lives.

01:12:29.970 --> 01:12:30.390
Yeah.

01:12:30.500 --> 01:12:33.010
Well, the boost of confidence for that young lady.

01:12:33.029 --> 01:12:34.439
The girl who won that first year.

01:12:34.859 --> 01:12:39.409
They told us later that she had been through a dozen foster homes.

01:12:40.430 --> 01:12:44.199
And shortly after that event, she got her forever home.

01:12:44.590 --> 01:12:45.319
She got adopted.

01:12:45.560 --> 01:12:47.899
They said she was a changed person after that.

01:12:49.020 --> 01:12:56.649
So, yeah, I mean, like it's that it allowed her to have hope again, right?

01:12:56.659 --> 01:12:58.319
Like, and she found her voice.

01:12:58.329 --> 01:13:01.810
If you're a foster family thinking about adopting, it's really hard.

01:13:01.819 --> 01:13:06.114
If you're, if this child hasn't refound their hope, I imagine.

01:13:06.295 --> 01:13:06.534
Yeah.

01:13:06.564 --> 01:13:09.175
So we give these kids a chance to, to do something they've never done before.

01:13:09.625 --> 01:13:12.864
Every kid gets a trophy, which normally I'm opposed to Yeah.

01:13:12.954 --> 01:13:15.595
But in this case, these guys get in this case thing deserve.

01:13:15.595 --> 01:13:20.005
I told the kids every time I'm, I'm able to judge and I judge every time I can.

01:13:20.454 --> 01:13:24.244
Before we get the trophy though, I told the kids, here's my first trophy.

01:13:24.854 --> 01:13:33.085
I got this for taking second place at a tournament out of two people, So this is a participation trophy, But it got me started.

01:13:33.204 --> 01:13:33.265
Yeah.

01:13:33.265 --> 01:13:34.795
And I got this because I was willing.

01:13:35.175 --> 01:13:37.704
To raise my hand and volunteer for something I'd never done before.

01:13:38.175 --> 01:13:42.354
Just that much courage, a little tiny bit of courage, changed my life.

01:13:42.364 --> 01:13:42.604
Yeah.

01:13:42.784 --> 01:13:46.215
And the fact that you all got up here today and did what you did shows courage.

01:13:46.515 --> 01:13:59.805
And this trophy, Let this be a reminder to the rest of your life that you have that courage inside of you nurture that courage, hold on to that courage, that courage will serve you.

01:14:00.994 --> 01:14:03.064
It is the highlight of my year.

01:14:03.864 --> 01:14:04.475
You're still involved.

01:14:04.614 --> 01:14:05.215
Yes.

01:14:05.284 --> 01:14:05.595
That's awesome.

01:14:05.604 --> 01:14:08.295
Whenever I can be there for it, I'm there judging.

01:14:08.305 --> 01:14:11.345
And it is the absolute highlight of my year.

01:14:11.364 --> 01:14:12.795
And it is the thing of my life.

01:14:13.095 --> 01:14:16.244
In my entire life, I am the most proud of.

01:14:16.505 --> 01:14:16.925
I dig it.

01:14:17.135 --> 01:14:17.534
I dig it.

01:14:17.984 --> 01:14:20.494
Um, well thank you, uh, that was a great overview.

01:14:20.524 --> 01:14:23.574
I want to jump into our mandatory sections.

01:14:23.585 --> 01:14:25.574
Do you want to take a bathroom break or anything?

01:14:25.585 --> 01:14:25.975
You're good?

01:14:26.005 --> 01:14:27.104
Bathroom break might not be bad.

01:14:27.104 --> 01:14:27.784
Okay, let's do it.

01:15:11.289 --> 01:15:11.520
yeah.

01:15:11.520 --> 01:15:17.380
Faith, family politics, uh, where we've touched on all three, just a little bit, except for faith, I guess.

01:15:17.449 --> 01:15:19.170
I'm a heretic on, on all those subjects.

01:15:19.199 --> 01:15:19.600
Okay.

01:15:19.699 --> 01:15:21.359
I don't follow the crowd.

01:15:21.359 --> 01:15:22.390
Take me to politics.

01:15:22.420 --> 01:15:24.779
Uh, you, you started as a young Republican.

01:15:24.859 --> 01:15:25.350
I did.

01:15:25.430 --> 01:15:26.579
At a time when that wasn't really.

01:15:27.715 --> 01:15:29.484
Not particularly.

01:15:29.484 --> 01:15:29.954
No.

01:15:29.954 --> 01:15:33.265
Um, but I got disillusioned with them and Yeah.

01:15:33.465 --> 01:15:36.854
And so I, I leaned more and more libertarian because of what we talked about earlier.

01:15:36.854 --> 01:15:39.375
The government seems like it's the problem more often than not.

01:15:39.375 --> 01:15:39.845
Yeah, yeah.

01:15:40.229 --> 01:15:43.739
And I see the limitations of Libertarianism as well.

01:15:44.460 --> 01:15:46.050
It's not perfect either.

01:15:46.100 --> 01:15:51.579
And what I've come to Mostly because you gotta be dirty to raise enough money to actually win.

01:15:52.270 --> 01:15:54.819
And if you're having a small government, how are you gonna be dirty enough?

01:15:54.859 --> 01:15:57.359
Well, here's the problem with Libertarianism.

01:15:57.439 --> 01:16:00.710
It's the same problem as with Communism.

01:16:01.250 --> 01:16:06.100
And with capitalism, all those suffer the exact same problem.

01:16:07.079 --> 01:16:08.029
Humans suck.

01:16:08.619 --> 01:16:09.119
Right.

01:16:09.409 --> 01:16:18.229
There are so many bad people in the world that no matter what system you've got in place, someone's going to do bad things.

01:16:18.239 --> 01:16:18.560
Right.

01:16:18.579 --> 01:16:32.430
The challenge is how do we create a world, a society in which good people can do good things, can build, can create, can innovate while preventing the bad people from them.

01:16:32.710 --> 01:16:35.739
Doing bad things and there's no good answer to that.

01:16:35.739 --> 01:16:46.500
I think capitalism offers the best compromise because the more power you give to anybody, the worse they can act.

01:16:46.920 --> 01:16:50.899
So capitalism and democracy keeps a little bit of a lid on that.

01:16:50.909 --> 01:17:00.324
We're, we may be testing that in the next few months, we'll see, but I get frustrated because on the one hand, People do amazing things.

01:17:00.385 --> 01:17:00.845
Yeah, yeah.

01:17:00.875 --> 01:17:05.845
They do brave, generous, heartfelt, creative things.

01:17:05.965 --> 01:17:06.505
Yeah, yeah.

01:17:06.505 --> 01:17:11.515
On the other hand, they do terrible, awful, horrific, inhumane things.

01:17:11.784 --> 01:17:14.965
The uh, you ever listen to the Dark Horse podcast?

01:17:14.965 --> 01:17:15.494
No.

01:17:15.585 --> 01:17:16.994
Uh, Brett Weinstein and Heather Hying.

01:17:17.024 --> 01:17:17.454
They're Okay.

01:17:17.800 --> 01:17:19.119
evolutionized psychologists.

01:17:19.119 --> 01:17:22.109
And they were at the heart of that evergreen college meltdown thing.

01:17:22.130 --> 01:17:22.350
Okay.

01:17:22.350 --> 01:17:29.819
I remember when that kind of happened 2016 or something, it was kind of the first super wokeness, like physical violence attack thing.

01:17:30.050 --> 01:17:46.779
Anyway, uh, Heather wrote a article the other day about, uh, Portland pride parade and just the level of like disturbing imagery with like men with dog outfits and ball gags on and stuff.

01:17:46.850 --> 01:17:47.260
And.

01:17:47.710 --> 01:18:00.250
You know, hundreds and hundreds of small Children in the crowd with their parents at this pride parade and that mix of and and kind of one of the points was tolerance is is is a really good thing.

01:18:00.250 --> 01:18:09.604
But tolerance of How much, you know, how much yuck do you tolerate, you know, and then who puts the foot down on what's tolerable?

01:18:10.064 --> 01:18:10.694
Exactly.

01:18:10.704 --> 01:18:11.935
Yeah, because humans suck.

01:18:11.954 --> 01:18:12.994
Who decides?

01:18:13.154 --> 01:18:13.694
Right.

01:18:13.725 --> 01:18:15.774
You know what I think is tolerable is not what somebody else thinks is tolerable.

01:18:15.774 --> 01:18:16.274
Yeah, yeah.

01:18:16.314 --> 01:18:21.314
You know, for some reason the things that I like tend to be a lot more tolerable than the things I don't like.

01:18:21.585 --> 01:18:21.935
Right.

01:18:22.385 --> 01:18:23.675
So, funny how that works.

01:18:23.675 --> 01:18:32.225
So you're, Both a disenchanted Republican and a disenchanted Libertarian at this point or like where do you where do you paint your stripes now?

01:18:32.234 --> 01:18:33.534
I'm still more Libertarian.

01:18:33.555 --> 01:18:54.380
I Recognize the drawbacks and the flaws Because I've seen so much of what human nature can do left with own devices Yeah, so I think there needs to be more government involvement than most Libertarians like to consider, but not as much as Republicans or Democrats.

01:18:54.390 --> 01:18:54.729
Fair.

01:18:55.729 --> 01:19:09.310
How do you, so the, the line I heard on a, on a video on Twitter the other day was, uh, uh, so the, under pressure, the vegetable makes way for the plant in order to save democracy.

01:19:10.100 --> 01:19:11.239
How do you feel about that line?

01:19:13.380 --> 01:19:18.859
What I find amusing is you've got both parties accusing each other of undermining democracy.

01:19:18.979 --> 01:19:19.329
Right.

01:19:20.619 --> 01:19:23.970
And, and both parties have a case to make in, in that regard.

01:19:24.060 --> 01:19:24.449
I suppose.

01:19:24.460 --> 01:19:27.659
And the reality is if the roles were reversed, they'd both be doing the same things.

01:19:27.670 --> 01:19:27.960
Right.

01:19:28.119 --> 01:19:33.390
What people fail to realize is both parties do the exact same things.

01:19:35.739 --> 01:19:38.529
Each side just lambasts the other one.

01:19:38.539 --> 01:19:40.850
They do it and they ignore it when they do it.

01:19:41.420 --> 01:19:42.949
It's just, it's awful.

01:19:42.989 --> 01:19:47.739
And if you're aligned to a party, you've just kind of failed knows when your party does it.

01:19:48.119 --> 01:19:48.310
Right.

01:19:48.310 --> 01:19:50.579
He knows when the other party does it, but you don't know when your own party does it.

01:19:51.300 --> 01:19:52.529
And that's that tribalism we were talking about.

01:19:52.850 --> 01:19:53.579
Exactly.

01:19:53.600 --> 01:19:58.000
That's one thing about being a libertarian is you can kind of mock both of the major parties.

01:19:58.000 --> 01:19:58.770
Precisely.

01:19:58.850 --> 01:20:00.909
Uh, I can point out, well, he did the same thing.

01:20:00.920 --> 01:20:02.920
Then they both, uh, who'd you vote for in 2020?

01:20:03.909 --> 01:20:05.869
Uh, I voted Libertarian in 2020.

01:20:05.869 --> 01:20:06.789
For Joe Jorgensen.

01:20:07.010 --> 01:20:09.939
Um, and I voted Libertarian for the last several elections.

01:20:09.939 --> 01:20:14.720
Yeah, I voted Gary Johnson in the two previous, but I went Kanye in 2020.

01:20:14.720 --> 01:20:18.949
I thought it was more of a protest than Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Fair enough.

01:20:19.324 --> 01:20:25.534
I had a woman be horrifically angry at me for, uh, voting Libertarian when Trump Was she a Democrat or a Republican?

01:20:25.574 --> 01:20:26.364
She was a Democrat.

01:20:26.435 --> 01:20:26.715
Okay.

01:20:27.194 --> 01:20:30.305
When Trump won, she accused me of being the reason Trump won.

01:20:30.645 --> 01:20:34.635
You're like, well I'm like, no, Hillary is the reason Trump won.

01:20:35.244 --> 01:20:36.534
Let's be clear here.

01:20:37.515 --> 01:20:37.895
Right.

01:20:37.935 --> 01:20:39.845
Well, in Hillary, did Trump win Colorado?

01:20:39.895 --> 01:20:40.425
I doubt it.

01:20:41.475 --> 01:20:42.704
I don't recall.

01:20:43.354 --> 01:20:44.515
It might have.

01:20:44.515 --> 01:20:45.524
I don't think so though.

01:20:46.045 --> 01:20:46.465
It was close.

01:20:46.524 --> 01:20:49.864
Colorado was purple when I got here and it's turned pretty blue since then.

01:20:49.885 --> 01:20:52.234
Yeah, it's gotten more blue.

01:20:52.574 --> 01:20:54.774
Um, anything else you want to say?

01:20:55.274 --> 01:20:57.435
Should we do the controversial topic speed round?

01:20:57.505 --> 01:20:57.975
Go for it.

01:20:58.835 --> 01:20:59.385
No, I don't want to.

01:21:00.555 --> 01:21:05.755
Um, There's just not enough controversial topics and uh, you know.

01:21:06.324 --> 01:21:16.694
Um, is there a stand you take that's uh, Separate from the typical libertarian platform gun rights.

01:21:17.024 --> 01:21:21.484
I, I tend to be more anti drug than the typical libertarian.

01:21:22.335 --> 01:21:35.564
Um, but with the new research coming out on psychedelics and how the, how that can help people with mental illnesses, like anxiety, depression, PTSD, um, I've been reevaluating my position on that as well.

01:21:35.760 --> 01:21:39.430
I've got a, I've got, I got gifted some mushrooms a couple weekends ago.

01:21:39.430 --> 01:21:40.930
I should start offering those to my guests.

01:21:40.960 --> 01:21:41.560
There you go.

01:21:42.560 --> 01:21:46.989
I've always had this joint here, but I knew that you didn't want that from our conversation.

01:21:46.989 --> 01:21:49.079
And so, uh, I've never been into drugs.

01:21:49.079 --> 01:21:52.109
I've been probably wouldn't have taken mushrooms if I offered those to you at the beginning.

01:21:52.140 --> 01:21:52.909
Probably not.

01:21:52.939 --> 01:21:54.279
No, not quite the same.

01:21:54.310 --> 01:22:01.529
Not sure I can be at my best, but I reevaluated a lot of things over the years and I'm constantly doing that.

01:22:01.539 --> 01:22:01.789
Night.

01:22:02.140 --> 01:22:07.729
I, I, I, I want to be intellectually honest and I want to be intellectually transparent.

01:22:07.779 --> 01:22:09.930
I want to have a reason for what I believe in.

01:22:10.590 --> 01:22:16.210
And if something comes along that gives me a reason to challenge my beliefs, I want to challenge my beliefs.

01:22:16.210 --> 01:22:16.560
Yeah.

01:22:17.640 --> 01:22:24.609
Am I, is my belief based on the most current evidence or are there points of view that I'm not aware of?

01:22:24.619 --> 01:22:24.770
Yeah.

01:22:24.970 --> 01:22:30.909
I only became aware of male privilege and white privilege fairly recently.

01:22:30.939 --> 01:22:31.140
Hmm.

01:22:31.890 --> 01:22:37.475
And, and what I've come to learn is that Privilege is not an extra that you get.

01:22:38.345 --> 01:22:41.135
Privilege is something bad you don't have to deal with.

01:22:41.904 --> 01:22:42.125
Hmm.

01:22:42.225 --> 01:22:42.704
That's fair.

01:22:42.755 --> 01:22:44.234
You don't notice what you don't deal with.

01:22:44.314 --> 01:22:44.654
Right.

01:22:44.715 --> 01:22:45.055
Right.

01:22:45.215 --> 01:22:47.295
It's just not a thing for you.

01:22:47.335 --> 01:22:47.505
Yeah.

01:22:47.505 --> 01:22:47.904
Yeah.

01:22:48.055 --> 01:22:52.284
Uh, my female friends will not walk home alone from downtown.

01:22:52.305 --> 01:22:53.505
I totally did it all the time.

01:22:53.515 --> 01:22:54.444
Never thought twice about it.

01:22:54.734 --> 01:22:54.925
Yeah.

01:22:54.935 --> 01:22:55.154
Yeah.

01:22:55.595 --> 01:22:59.635
Um, when I get pulled over by a police officer, my biggest fear is getting a ticket.

01:22:59.895 --> 01:23:00.314
Right.

01:23:00.314 --> 01:23:00.380
Yeah.

01:23:00.739 --> 01:23:05.409
For pretty much every African American friend I have, their biggest fear is being shot.

01:23:05.479 --> 01:23:05.939
Yeah.

01:23:06.579 --> 01:23:07.949
But is that actually real?

01:23:08.300 --> 01:23:08.770
Yes.

01:23:09.500 --> 01:23:09.869
Yeah?

01:23:10.000 --> 01:23:10.239
Yeah.

01:23:10.289 --> 01:23:15.220
I mean, there is very few actual police, white policemen shoots black guy.

01:23:15.229 --> 01:23:16.659
That is correct.

01:23:16.779 --> 01:23:19.779
But, but there's enough of them to make it scary.

01:23:19.819 --> 01:23:20.720
Precisely.

01:23:20.810 --> 01:23:25.225
And the fear itself is probably what Part of what magnifies the situation, right?

01:23:25.225 --> 01:23:40.600
It's both people are up higher stress level because of that, because there's also probably a lot more black people that shoot white cops than White people that shoot white cops, I suspect because, just because of the nature of inner cities and where people are shooting cops.

01:23:42.390 --> 01:23:43.689
And rap music.

01:23:44.869 --> 01:23:49.390
There's a lot, there's a lot of things and race is a complicated issue, sexism is a complicated issue.

01:23:50.369 --> 01:23:56.060
I work very hard to, to not be misogynist, to not be racist.

01:23:57.649 --> 01:24:02.130
You know, I've learned more and more about institutional racism and how that is truly a thing.

01:24:03.100 --> 01:24:05.369
Because I didn't believe it for a long time.

01:24:05.380 --> 01:24:06.220
I didn't see it.

01:24:07.979 --> 01:24:12.880
Well, that's part of the problem, I think, is that the, the, the more you try to fix it, the more you fucks it up.

01:24:12.979 --> 01:24:13.770
That can absolutely happen.

01:24:13.859 --> 01:24:19.729
Like some of the DEI things now and stuff are going a little far, potentially, arguably.

01:24:19.739 --> 01:24:20.590
Well, it depends on who you ask.

01:24:20.600 --> 01:24:22.029
Well, it depends on what you're doing.

01:24:22.060 --> 01:24:24.180
Like if you're building airplanes, maybe it's a bigger deal.

01:24:24.810 --> 01:24:25.340
I don't know.

01:24:25.590 --> 01:24:27.470
I want to move on because otherwise we won't get us out of here.

01:24:27.489 --> 01:24:27.840
Okay.

01:24:28.170 --> 01:24:30.890
Uh, and not because I don't agree with this conversation.

01:24:31.729 --> 01:24:33.180
Um, faith.

01:24:33.800 --> 01:24:34.270
Faith.

01:24:34.590 --> 01:24:36.600
Uh, but you haven't heard anything about it yet.

01:24:36.789 --> 01:24:37.529
I'm a heretic.

01:24:37.640 --> 01:24:39.939
Uh, did you have a faith background in school?

01:24:40.000 --> 01:24:40.229
Nope.

01:24:40.630 --> 01:24:43.189
Your folks didn't go to church, nothing like that?

01:24:43.199 --> 01:24:43.489
Nope.

01:24:43.529 --> 01:24:48.810
I was raised by, uh, a father who was more or less agnostic.

01:24:48.869 --> 01:24:49.229
Okay.

01:24:49.310 --> 01:24:55.000
And a mother who was Muslim, but was Muslim in kind of the same way a lot of Catholics are Catholics.

01:24:55.229 --> 01:24:57.390
She picked and chose what she wanted to believe.

01:24:57.409 --> 01:24:57.920
Yeah, yeah.

01:24:58.090 --> 01:24:59.609
Um, so Muslim from where, by the way?

01:24:59.930 --> 01:25:02.670
Um, long story, way more time than we have.

01:25:02.670 --> 01:25:07.510
Well, I don't recognize, like, Arabic in your face, so were you adopted?

01:25:07.630 --> 01:25:07.869
No.

01:25:08.039 --> 01:25:08.479
No, okay.

01:25:08.479 --> 01:25:09.020
No, no.

01:25:09.279 --> 01:25:10.863
Anyway, we'll move on.

01:25:10.863 --> 01:25:13.260
We don't want to talk about mom.

01:25:13.470 --> 01:25:14.420
That's a teaser for another episode.

01:25:15.180 --> 01:25:21.189
But yes, but she drank and smoked and gambled, but didn't eat pork, which meant if I was with her, I couldn't eat pork.

01:25:21.210 --> 01:25:21.569
Right.

01:25:21.850 --> 01:25:24.050
So the thing she believed in was the thing that affected me personally.

01:25:24.199 --> 01:25:24.590
Right.

01:25:24.890 --> 01:25:27.180
If you can smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol, I should be able to have bacon.

01:25:27.180 --> 01:25:27.869
Exactly.

01:25:28.210 --> 01:25:30.710
Um, so no, I, so I am an agnostic.

01:25:30.760 --> 01:25:32.890
I will happily discuss religion with anybody who wants to.

01:25:32.899 --> 01:25:33.750
Have you studied it at all?

01:25:33.890 --> 01:25:34.229
Oh yeah.

01:25:34.840 --> 01:25:39.729
Yeah, I've looked, I've done comparative religion study and I find religion interesting.

01:25:40.810 --> 01:25:42.890
I don't believe in any one particular faith.

01:25:43.680 --> 01:25:44.699
There may or may not be a God.

01:25:44.750 --> 01:25:45.189
I don't know.

01:25:45.210 --> 01:25:46.310
I haven't seen any evidence.

01:25:46.380 --> 01:25:46.579
Yeah.

01:25:47.130 --> 01:25:51.590
Uh, I can't prove a negative, so I don't say that there absolutely isn't one.

01:25:51.590 --> 01:25:52.289
Maybe there is.

01:25:52.289 --> 01:25:52.399
Yeah.

01:25:52.399 --> 01:25:52.689
Yeah.

01:25:52.779 --> 01:25:53.510
Maybe there's two.

01:25:53.539 --> 01:25:54.260
Maybe there's a hundred.

01:25:54.779 --> 01:26:13.869
Who knows something I've mentioned on this podcast before is when I was in like high school and stuff It was kind of like there's either God or the Big Bang right kind of remember that yeah those days and now With this Hubble thing or not the Hubble thing with the next the other web the web telescope They're like gosh by looking at this thing.

01:26:13.869 --> 01:26:24.930
It sure looks like it Might be like intelligently designed like it couldn't have pulled off the way that it was without having some kind of a design before That boom it's possible, but but anyway Maybe both things are true.

01:26:24.930 --> 01:26:25.979
Maybe neither thing is true, right?

01:26:25.989 --> 01:26:30.199
Because there are those that argued the Big Bang wasn't actually the Big Bang, right?

01:26:30.329 --> 01:26:31.729
So who knows?

01:26:31.739 --> 01:26:33.930
Well, what's the unmoved mover is the big question?

01:26:33.939 --> 01:26:42.895
Yeah, like that's the goal of question moving on family We haven't talked about a wife or kids or any of that stuff.

01:26:42.914 --> 01:26:44.465
No wife, no kids, no pets.

01:26:44.494 --> 01:26:45.125
Never ever?

01:26:45.154 --> 01:26:47.244
I have one plant hanging on for dear life.

01:26:47.375 --> 01:26:48.435
Have you ever been engaged or?

01:26:48.994 --> 01:26:51.074
Uh, no, I got close a couple of times.

01:26:51.074 --> 01:26:51.354
Okay.

01:26:51.385 --> 01:26:53.715
But it turned out it was not the right person.

01:26:53.774 --> 01:26:54.135
Okay.

01:26:54.755 --> 01:26:55.534
So still in the market?

01:26:55.935 --> 01:26:56.864
I am in the market.

01:26:56.925 --> 01:26:57.284
Okay.

01:26:57.375 --> 01:27:02.805
Um, so I, I, I, I'm looking for the right person, the right woman.

01:27:02.845 --> 01:27:03.685
Who is that?

01:27:03.854 --> 01:27:04.854
I'm not sure.

01:27:04.895 --> 01:27:05.244
Okay.

01:27:05.364 --> 01:27:07.444
Um, she is intelligent.

01:27:07.454 --> 01:27:09.074
She has confidence.

01:27:09.574 --> 01:27:10.875
Uh, she's open minded.

01:27:11.305 --> 01:27:12.885
She doesn't need to believe all the things I believe.

01:27:12.885 --> 01:27:14.414
She doesn't need to be into all the things I'm into.

01:27:14.534 --> 01:27:16.854
But there should be some, you know, a little bit of compatibility.

01:27:16.864 --> 01:27:16.944
Yeah.

01:27:17.354 --> 01:27:18.625
Uh, can we have fun together?

01:27:18.645 --> 01:27:20.364
Can we stimulate each other?

01:27:20.375 --> 01:27:21.395
Can we educate each other?

01:27:21.425 --> 01:27:22.305
Can we support each other?

01:27:23.359 --> 01:27:25.170
That's I'm looking for I'm looking for a partner.

01:27:25.239 --> 01:27:29.739
I'm look I'm looking for healthy a lot people out there talking toxic relationship.

01:27:29.810 --> 01:27:42.489
Yeah Yeah, that's one of those things I find Sexiest if you will about a woman is that she doesn't really need me, you know, not totally anyway, like I don't want The problem for men though is that we need to be needed.

01:27:42.970 --> 01:27:43.270
Mm.

01:27:43.300 --> 01:27:47.439
If a woman doesn't need us, there's not really a place for us in her life.

01:27:47.470 --> 01:27:49.614
We, I guess we need, I don't know.

01:27:49.795 --> 01:27:51.069
We need to have a sense of purpose.

01:27:51.130 --> 01:27:56.109
I find women that are self-actualized already to be Yes.

01:27:56.170 --> 01:27:56.829
More intriguing.

01:27:56.859 --> 01:27:57.010
Yes.

01:27:57.010 --> 01:27:58.539
I want'em to self, self action.

01:27:58.539 --> 01:27:59.710
I want them to be confident.

01:27:59.710 --> 01:28:00.579
I want them to be whole.

01:28:00.579 --> 01:28:01.869
I don't want them to be Right.

01:28:01.869 --> 01:28:03.369
Need someone to complete them.

01:28:04.920 --> 01:28:08.555
But I, I, I told a woman I dated one time that we ended up breaking up.

01:28:10.255 --> 01:28:22.854
I said to her, your strengths make you admirable, your flaws make you lovable, your weaknesses give me a reason to be in your life, they give me a way to support you.

01:28:23.734 --> 01:28:25.524
And she couldn't grasp that concept.

01:28:26.814 --> 01:28:27.975
So that's what I'm looking for.

01:28:27.975 --> 01:28:30.484
Otherwise you'd be way too good for me if you didn't have all these flaws.

01:28:30.595 --> 01:28:32.404
That's exactly correct! You know?

01:28:34.819 --> 01:28:42.210
Our, uh, our closing segment is the Loco Experience, the craziest experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share with our listeners.

01:28:42.380 --> 01:28:45.029
Oh my god, uh, which to choose from?

01:28:46.300 --> 01:28:50.180
I, I think the craziest one was the time I got a teacher fired.

01:28:50.489 --> 01:28:50.939
Okay.

01:28:51.500 --> 01:28:54.550
Uh Tell me, was he buying black market candy off you?

01:28:54.590 --> 01:29:02.069
No, 10th grade geometry, I'd changed schools, middle of the year, I'd gone from one school with a great geometry teacher who was fantastic, Okay.

01:29:02.404 --> 01:29:12.024
Students were very engaged, everybody was doing well, came to school in Virginia, and same class, same textbook, completely different class.

01:29:12.875 --> 01:29:14.845
Nobody there was achieving very well.

01:29:15.515 --> 01:29:19.324
Uh, the teacher was the soccer coach, they made him teach some things, we taught geometry.

01:29:19.704 --> 01:29:21.564
He knew less about geometry than I did.

01:29:22.135 --> 01:29:25.524
He would routinely make more mistakes on the test than I did.

01:29:25.555 --> 01:29:29.375
And I would try to bring them up during the test, and he would tell me to shut up and sit down.

01:29:30.279 --> 01:29:31.810
So he would not communicate.

01:29:32.350 --> 01:29:35.680
And then when the test came back, he said there was a issue with number four.

01:29:35.680 --> 01:29:38.289
So I gave you credit for whatever you put down, whether you, you're right.

01:29:38.649 --> 01:29:45.520
And he would give every single person in the class credit except for me, what the one person who was actually correct.

01:29:46.329 --> 01:29:51.430
And eventually, I, I went to my counselor with a bunch of tests and said, here are the mistakes he made.

01:29:51.489 --> 01:29:52.359
Here are the mistakes I made.

01:29:52.770 --> 01:29:53.520
This is the problem.

01:29:54.399 --> 01:29:56.979
Um, and she took me to the principal, same thing.

01:29:56.979 --> 01:29:57.789
And, and.

01:29:58.305 --> 01:30:07.215
And he got fired, and he came to me, uh, he pulled me out of class one day, into the hallway, and, and he was upset at me for not Out of his class, or somebody else's class?

01:30:07.225 --> 01:30:07.925
Out of his class.

01:30:07.925 --> 01:30:08.185
Okay.

01:30:08.194 --> 01:30:08.965
Out of his class.

01:30:09.314 --> 01:30:13.234
Um, and he Was upset at me for not talking to him, but I tried to talk to you.

01:30:13.875 --> 01:30:15.444
And every time you said, shut up and sit down.

01:30:17.015 --> 01:30:22.725
And that is a reflection of my heresy.

01:30:23.765 --> 01:30:32.194
It is the result of having a lot of negative experiences with people in authority positions who were not worthy of that authority.

01:30:32.814 --> 01:30:39.925
And to this day, I am happy to work underneath somebody who is competent and a good leader.

01:30:40.454 --> 01:30:41.694
I will not.

01:30:42.300 --> 01:30:44.430
Work under somebody who was a bad leader.

01:30:44.439 --> 01:30:48.010
Yeah, it's part of why I like working for myself Yeah, my strengths my weaknesses.

01:30:48.010 --> 01:31:28.029
I know that I can treat people Well, well, it's one of the commonalities that like I think our membership have is they want to be better leaders Yeah, you know and and engaging people like you to help their sales teams learn how to properly sell is part of it because Usually they're the main rainmaker and so to help activate other people is which is one of the coolest things about doing this for living So I get to work with some amazing people I get to work with really great leaders who love their sales teams and love their company and they want to support their people I love that and other speakers are are some of the most amazing human beings on the planet They're they're amazing Brilliant and, and creative and generous and kindhearted.

01:31:28.060 --> 01:31:33.039
So I am, I am very fortunate to be able to do what I do and serve who I serve.

01:31:33.109 --> 01:31:33.550
I dig it.

01:31:33.770 --> 01:31:35.100
Um, people want to find you?

01:31:35.619 --> 01:31:36.180
Don cooper.

01:31:36.380 --> 01:31:38.079
com is my website.

01:31:38.119 --> 01:31:38.380
Cool.

01:31:38.560 --> 01:31:39.380
And reach me.

01:31:39.380 --> 01:31:41.489
If they Google the sales heretic, will they find you too?

01:31:41.520 --> 01:31:42.489
They will also find me.

01:31:42.489 --> 01:31:44.189
If you've been doing your SEO properly, probably.

01:31:44.260 --> 01:31:44.810
Yeah, exactly.

01:31:45.310 --> 01:31:46.699
Somebody's not squatting on your space.

01:31:46.720 --> 01:31:47.970
We're working on that actually right now.

01:31:50.149 --> 01:31:52.859
Well, Don, I've enjoyed the conversation.

01:31:52.890 --> 01:31:58.069
Um, Safe travels back to Denver town, and I hope to welcome you back up here to Northern Colorado soon.

01:31:58.279 --> 01:32:00.199
It has been my pleasure, and I look forward to coming back.

01:32:00.250 --> 01:32:00.520
All right.

01:32:00.520 --> 01:32:01.010
Godspeed, sir.

01:32:01.060 --> 01:32:01.510
Thank you.