Discover Your Authentic Self to Grow Your Business with Mike Morelli: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:01John Lee Dumas:Light that spark fire nation, JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. On this classic episode, we'll be breaking down how to discover your authentic self to grow your business and to drop these value bombs. I brought Mike Morelli and the EO Fire Studios. Mike is a co-founder of Peak Prosper, a mindset coaching company helping entrepreneurial men build thriving businesses while living adventurous, balanced lifestyles. lifestyles. And today we talk how to break your vision down into a process and stack small wins to build momentum, how authenticity comes from subtracting what holds you back like fear and insecurity, and how fear of failure can make us hide who we truly are and oh so much more.

0:40John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Mike and our sponsors. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com. You get a 30-day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more. Visit highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com. Fire Nation, are you ready to build something special in the next 50 days? Check out my free YouTube series, 50 Days to Something. Short and strategic step-by-step videos by me, JLD.

1:20John Lee Dumas:On day 50, you'll have a valuable asset. And the best part is it's completely free. Visit eofire.com slash YouTube and start day one today. Mike, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. JLD, what's up, man? Fire Nation, what's going on? So fired up and stoked to be on this podcast today and just want to bring so much value to the listeners here today. And John, to answer your question about what is something that I believe about becoming successful that most people would disagree with, we live in a world of duality, right?

2:02So there's inner and outer, there's hot and cold, there's black and white. In life and business, there are internal laws to success and there are external laws to success. External laws would represent things like sales, marketing, maybe a business plan. The internal laws to success would represent your way of thinking, your internal world, how you're able to manage and deal with stress. And to answer that question, I would say that the internal laws to success are far more important than the external laws.

2:36John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, I think you can tell that we're going to be talking about something pretty darn important today with what our man Mike has already dropped. because we're talking about discovering your authentic self to grow your business. And you believe, Mike, that we need to discover our authentic self. What is our authentic self and why does it even matter? Great question. Your authentic self is really just living true to that voice that's been inside of you this entire time. That voice that's been buried under layers, layers of fear. We've got fear of judgment and fear of failure and fear of letting others down.

3:17And we've got these layers of insecurity that we've carried with us for long periods of time. That voice is the very thing that has been calling out to you to say certain things, right? Do certain things or be a certain thing. But it's just been pushed down and suppressed over time. And, you know, when most people think about, all right, how do I discover my authentic self? they're going to think about adding things. It's just, I think the nature of humans, like we want to add more, right? Like I want to reach my full potential. I want to add things. No. So what I really want the listener today is to really think about subtracting and elimination, specifically the very things that are keeping you from authenticity that I mentioned, the layers, right?

4:04Fear, insecurity. And I'm going to show you exactly how to do this in today's podcast, but authenticity is really like an onion. You know, if you want to get to the core, you don't add layers, you remove them. And the reason that this matters to the entrepreneur is because when you feel inauthentic in business, it just shows up directly in your financial earning potential. Why? Because it's simply limiting our unique creative ability to just two things. One, deeply impact more people. And secondly, deeply impact the people that you currently work with. If you look at the people who have crushed it in life and business, people that have left a mark, Gandhi, Jesus Christ, Ford, Edison, Jobs, these people were playing their own game.

4:53They were doing something completely unique to their mission, to their vision, to their purpose. And so, you know, entrepreneurs, we're always trying to figure out, okay, what's my niche? How am I different than anyone else? Really your niche and your, your business or your product is an extension of you. I think Naval Ravikant, he says it best. He says, no one should compete with you on being you. And when we feel inauthentic at the same time, we often feel unsuccessful, right? Like we're, we're kind of just chasing this, this success because there's this inner feeling of maybe we're not good enough or we just have some insecurity.

5:30When this happens, we often look outside of ourselves, right? We say, okay, well, I feel unsuccessful. Let me look out to the world. And if you're an entrepreneur, you look into the business world. And what happens is we start copying and doing just what everyone else is doing. All right. Oh, my business is struggling. I'm stuck. What are these people, what are these tactics and strategies that these people are using. And I understand the importance of external business strategies for sure. But when we do this out of a place of fear or insecurity, we wind up becoming someone that we are not. And this hurts us in business because if we do what everyone else is doing, you're going to get paid what everyone else is getting paid.

6:13Right. And the final note that I would add to this, John, is when you do what everyone else is doing, you're most likely so far outside of something that we call your natural operating state, which is leveraging your natural skills, strengths, and abilities to create maximum value for the people you help. There's a million ways to grow a business. There's a million ways to find clients and get sales and crush it. Why not do it in a way that leverages your personal strengths so that you can tap into flow state?

6:45John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, shivers, hair on the back of my neck sticking up because we've all been through this. We've all experienced this on so many different levels. And one thing that I see over and over again, Mike, is the imposter syndrome. I mean, that is such a problem for entrepreneurs. Like, who am I to be offering this value, to be asking this, to be sharing that? You feel there's also a problem when it comes to feeling inauthentic. And we've been talking already about all this authenticity, inauthenticity. Can you talk specifically to the inauthenticity that a lot of entrepreneurs feel? If you think about nature, things just are what they are.

7:23In the same way that an eagle is an eagle and a tree is a tree, everything just is what it is. Only human beings are able to be one thing and pretend to be another. And all of this comes from our programming and conditioning. I really want the listener here to just expand their mind for a second You never chose your beliefs. You never chose your language your morals where you grew up Like really think about that for a second when you grew up You were not given the opportunity to choose your beliefs. They were formed for you And you were taught by your parents and your community society and culture how to act how to think what to believe I mean, look, we don't even have a choice on what we learned in school, right?

8:08Right. And at the same time, you learn good behavior and bad behavior from a young age. Ideas were put into us that, hey, this is the right thing to do. And that is the wrong thing to do. Don't do this. Do that. And when you do the right things, you'll be rewarded so you can succeed. And when you do the wrong things, you're punished for being a, quote, failure. and this here really opened my eyes to see how so many of us will spend our entire life chasing someone else's version of success all while having this deeply entrenched fear of failure so because we grew up with this fear of being punished or failing we act out in certain ways and pretend to be what we are not and in doing so one winds up hiding the truth about themselves from others for so long that they end up hiding it from themselves.

9:02When you grew up as a child and you want to go your own way, this was me. Like I always wanted to be out in the mountains and just, no, I want to, I want to go this way. I want to go that way. You get put into place, right? And over time we surrender our free will and individuality. And when that happens long enough, a lot of times we just become a replication of our parents' beliefs and society's beliefs and our friends' beliefs. So people wonder like, why do I, like, why does the entrepreneur self-sabotage? I start making a little growth. Why do I sabotage? Here's what happens. When you want to go a different route, when you want to mix things up or walk your own path, or kind of just move away from what you've been doing, most likely you feel internal conflict, right?

9:48You feel internal conflicts, such as maybe guilt, shame on being selfish. and this is this happens because we judge ourselves according to this belief system it's made up that was programmed into us from a young age the best example that i can give about beliefs john is when i was in india a couple years ago i rode a bike through southern india i didn't have a map it was actually a bit of a stupid idea to be honest with you but i should i showed up in Bangalore, Tamil Nadu, India. And for anyone that's ever been to India, that country is the complete opposite of every single thing that you experience in the West.

10:27Every belief that you have is the opposite. And I found out riding my bike through the country that eating with your left hand is highly disrespectful, highly disrespectful. You don't do that in America. You wouldn't think twice. So this really led me to the insight that, hey, hold on, where are my beliefs coming from? And is there such a thing that, hey, this belief is good, this belief is bad. And that really just opened my eyes quite a bit.

10:56John Lee Dumas:I love that story that you shared, because it kind of takes me to that moment in time that you were experiencing. And it's really intense when you kind of think about the different people in this world, the different cultures, the different experiences. the different forms of what self and authenticity means to these individuals. And that one phrase that you used, people will spend their lives chasing someone else's version of success. I mean, that hit me hard. And I hope that's hitting you hard, Fire Nation, because man, don't get to the end of your life realizing that you've been chasing someone else's version of success.

11:32John Lee Dumas:What is your version? A lot of people can't even verbalize it. And if they do verbalize something, It's probably someone else's version of success if they really took a step back and broke it down and identified it and really critiqued it and were honest about it. Man, that was powerful stuff. And I definitely resonated with the whole India thing. I actually spent four months backpacking India back in 08. And I went through that region you were talking about. I was down in Kerala, up in Goa and Hampi and Mumbai. And then I went over to the West Coast by Nepal. It was just a great trip, but holy crap, when you're talking about things like, you know, you don't even realize what is like so culturally significant in one place, you know, it doesn't even mean anything in another place, like your example with eating with your left hand.

12:19John Lee Dumas:So break it down for us. How can we, Fire Nation, discover our authentic self? So I alluded to just a second ago of where our beliefs come from, right? And where we get these ideas in our head. And now I want to tell you how humans operate. This will be really powerful for you because the results that people experience in life can be explained very simple process of manifestation. it's this your thoughts lead to your feelings your feelings lead to your actions your actions lead to your results all right here's exactly how this looks for an entrepreneur let's use the example of a guy who has the the thought or the belief that he's not good enough and because he has this belief that he's not good enough he feels unconfident and insecure and because he feels unconfident and insecure let's use an example of when he's on a sales call so he shows up on the sales call.

13:17He's nervous before 15 minutes before the call, he's freaking out. He's trying to like forecast what he's going to say. He says things that are out of alignment. Maybe he feels extreme pressure to close, or maybe an objection comes up on the sales call, which is completely normal. He just can't handle the objection and loses the sale, even though he could have probably deeply impacted that person's life. All right. Therefore, the results that he experiences in his business are that he stays at the same financial position. Here's the kicker though, John. When most people have this problem, what do they do?

13:48They say, I feel unconfident in sales. I need to solve this problem. So they go hire a sales coach or they take a sales course. And when they do this, two things happen. The first thing is the sales coaching doesn't work and they continue to experience the same problems or the sales coaching does temporarily work. However, even though his cashflow has increased, the belief that he is not good enough still remains. And so eventually what happens is that entrepreneur sabotages himself back down to the financial level where he feels most comfortable. This is why we experienced the revenue roller coaster.

14:24We are so trained to focus on the effect, not the cause. If you look at nature, it's cause and effect. Life is cause and effect. Business is cause and effect. And when people have a problem in their business, we think that it's the cause, right? Sales and profit and business is an effect. It is an effect of something. So rather than trying to change an effect, we have to get to the root, right? In nature, what is happening underground is producing what you can see. I live here in Nicaragua at the moment. I went on a walk in the rainforest this morning, just behind my house. And I look up and I see these just beautiful fruit on the trees.

15:07And I know that that fruit was produced from the soil. It's rich in the roots of the trees are strong. So this is why it is so critically important that we get to the root of the problem. All right. Otherwise we continue to spin our wheels and experience the same results over and over. If that is happening, it is because something that is happening at the programming level, like subconscious.

15:32John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, I hope you're really resonating with all these words that Mike's sharing. I mean, for myself, I took a walk here in Puerto Rico today. I was with my dog, Gus, and I'm looking up and we passed by a papaya tree. And I was like, that'd be a cool papaya to eat right there because this is of the soil of the earth of where I live. It's right here. And this is the kind of connection that you can have when you're taking time, when you're looking around, when you're being one with yourself, with your location, with the present moments. And we're going to be getting into the roots of the problem and just some programming as to why we feel stuck when we get back from thanking our sponsors.

16:10John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, ideas are exciting, but systems will allow you to create freedom. That is where High Level comes in. High Level allows you to build and run your entire business from one platform, website builder and hosting, funnel and landing pages, email marketing, automation and workflows, calendar booking, payments and subscriptions, even course and membership hosting. Everything works together seamlessly. Plus award-winning 24-7 support so you are never stuck. And when you go through my link at highlevelfire.com, you unlock my full bonus stack, a 30-day free trial of high level with full access, a private 15-minute coaching call with me, weekly live office hours with me, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something execution roadmap, and more.

16:56John Lee Dumas:Stop piecing tools together. Start building momentum. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Fire Nation, are you ready to create something special in just 50 days? If you just thought yes, then check out my free YouTube series, 50 Days to Something. Every video is short, clear, and built to move you forward one intentional step at a time. Clarity, offer, validation systems, momentum. By day 50, you are not working on something. You have built something, something to be proud of. And this is completely free on my YouTube channel right now. If you're done letting weeks just drift on by, visit eofire.com slash YouTube.

17:41John Lee Dumas:That's eofire.com slash YouTube and press play on day one. 50 days will pass in the blink of an eye. The only question is whether you'll still be thinking or finally building something special. Mike, we're back and you believe there's a root to this problem of the authentic self. How can we get to the root problem? To solve any problem, you have to know a problem exists. And earlier I talked about this process of manifestation, right? Our thoughts lead to our feelings, our feelings lead to our actions and our actions lead to our results. But really it's our programming that I was talking about earlier in the podcast that create our thoughts, feelings, and results, right?

18:23Remember our beliefs come from our programming and conditioning. So what we want to do to get to the root of the problem is bring clarity to the different types of programming that we experience. All right. This will be really profound for the listener. So let's talk about at least one of them here. And the first type of programming and conditioning that we receive is things that we've heard. All right. And we'll use the example around work and money. So to the listener, did you ever hear things growing up like, Hey, you've got to grind or you never talk about yourself. That's cocky. Or you can't have your cake and eat it too.

18:57or money is the root of all evil, or there's not enough to go around. Verbal programming is so powerful. And to give you an example of this, in one of our community calls in our transformation program, one of these guys, he goes, I'm feeling frustrated. Every time I feel like I'm making progress, I come crashing back down. And I'm like, man, just tell me what your real desires are. Like, what do you want most? And he's like, honestly, my true motivator for getting my business up and consistent is really to become a leader. He goes, I just want to help others. I want to feel confident. And I said, hold on, tell me more.

19:37He goes, well, it's almost like whenever I start feeling confident, I sabotage. And I'm like, all right, that's interesting. Like, what do you mean? He goes, yeah, I like, I start feeling confident. And then I remind myself, Hey man, like be humble. And I go, what do you think confidence really means. And he tells me that when he grew up, his parents repeatedly told him and put him down, hey, you never show confidence. It's a way of bragging and being cocky. So because of this, he forms the belief that, hey, confidence is a bad thing, right? This corrupted programming remains in his subconscious mind for over 30 years.

20:14So no wonder every time he starts to feel confidence and momentum in the business, he sabotages, right? We help him reprogram that. And I love this story, John. He goes on in 30 days or 40 days from that call, he closes his first ever high ticket client. And then he lines up a hundred K of work for 2022 doing GIS work. So epic, but beyond the money, you have to realize that this guy is now showing up as a more confident father, you know, to his wife and kids. And I think that that's, that's the more powerful

20:48John Lee Dumas:thing that we get to see. Um, the, another type of programming that I'll share with the listeners is what you see, you know, like monkey see monkey do think about the, what you saw around money and work growing up. You know, for me, I grew up in a, um, kind of lower class family. My parents, they grinded, man. I mean, they worked so freaking hard to put one food on the table and two, just to get us up to more of a middle-class lifestyle. And yeah, I mean, like for me, what I saw around money is money was always an area of stress. Like work was an area of stress. I come from an Italian immigrant background.

21:30My last name is Morelli. And you know, my dad, like hard work was a virtue for my dad. You know what I mean? And that was, that was something I saw a lot. Like my parents worked long hours. And so for me, you know, as I grew older and I become an entrepreneur, I just was a habitual grinder and I, and I'm not opposed to hard work just to make that clear, but grinding for the sake of grinding was having a pretty negative impact on my stress levels. I mean, I was, can't tell you how many times I've been close to burnout. Um, and just that, that mental headspace as an entrepreneur, it can be, it can be extremely challenging at times.

22:13I, my business partner, Scott, he is a true legend. He was my first mindset coach. So when I was doing solo coaching, he was my first mindset coach and I hired him and he goes, Hey man, one of our sessions together, he goes, Hey, do you realize that every time I ask you how your business is going, you respond, quote, it's a grind. And I had no clue. But this is the power of a good coach. And that completely transformed my biz, right? If you have the belief that, quote, everything is a grind, you will grind until the day that you die. So I think this is why it's so powerful to evaluate, hey, what are my beliefs?

22:51And again, they're not right or wrong to the listener. It's simply this. Do you have the beliefs that are supporting you to success? Or are they keeping you from success?

23:02John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, powerful stuff. Which boats are you fitting in there? Now let's end with a bang. I want to talk about our programming. I mean, it's the reason that so many people feel stuck and they continue to experience those same results. So we've had some great conversations around this, this entire day today, but what can we do to change that programming so that we can actually grow our business. Yeah, beautiful. So to the listener, if you want to take a deeper dive on this, I think maybe it'll be in the show notes or it's on our website. We take a deep dive into this in our free mini course.

23:38But let me break down three actionable steps that you can do today. And the first is just identify your natural operating state. This is really what we talked a lot about today, John. And it's simply this. It's uncovering and removing the non-supportive beliefs that are keeping you from business success that you desire. And then also just clarifying your natural strengths so that you can leverage them, right? Leverage your natural strengths to create impact in your business. So second thing is you want to define a vision. Today, we've talked about mind, right? The mind. So we want to understand how the mind works.

24:15And the way that the mind works is you need to give it a mission. Every time that I think about when I let my mind kind of choose for me, it's never been fun. Like it's always been a world filled with like ups and downs and anxiety and stress. The mind needs to have something to focus on. The simple law of nature of what you focus on expands. So a perfect example of this is if you have negative thoughts, you get negative thoughts. So what you really want to do as an entrepreneur is create a vision. We call it a massively transformative vision. And this is going to help you clarify the direction for you, your business, and it's just going to give you immense focus, right?

24:54It kind of takes that mind from limitation. I feel stuck to expanded opportunity. And then the last bit here is something we call your path to prosperity. It's taking your massively transformative vision and breaking it down into a process that you can follow to just simply stack wins, right? We call these new summits. But if you think about stacking wins, the mind needs proof, right? Your subconscious mind, in order for it to believe anything is true, needs proof. And so this is the importance of creating a plan of action that's going to allow you to start stacking quick wins, right? There's no such thing as like this, maybe like, oh, I go from zero to 500K in 15 days.

25:41Well, if you do, God bless you, but I haven't really seen it. But really small wins are proof that the subconscious mind will use to continue to serve you more supportive thoughts, more emotions, more actions. And really it's just understanding how we can leverage and use our mind, John, at the end of the day. So happy days.