How to Create an Unbroken Business with Michael Unbroken: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Hustle and Flowchart. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we'll be breaking down how to create an unbroken business. To drop these value bombs, I am brought to Michael Unbroken in the EO Fire Studios. Michael is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, speaker, podcaster, coach, and advocate for adult survivors of childhood trauma. And today, we'll talk about how human connection is imperative to building a community, how you are not alone.

0:37The difference between success and failure in your life is to start asking for help and oh, so much more, Fire Nation. As soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lands, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier. AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business.

1:12Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Michael, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Fire Nation, what is up? I am super excited to be here with you guys today. I think that one of the biggest misnomers in success is that you have to do it alone. And I will tell you this right now, asking for help is not weak. If you want to grow, if you want to build an empire, a business, a community, a family, an impact, you're going to have to understand that no one great has ever done it by themselves. And asking for help will catapult you into the next level.

1:56Fire Nation, I think you can tell this is already going to be a special episode. I mean, We have a person with passion. We have a person with meaning. We have a person with purpose on the microphone here today. A quick backstory. I was actually the coach of Peter Vargas' Adventure Reach presentation slash conference not too long ago. And Michael was one of the people who was selected as one of the top 10 speakers and we all had to vote on them. And I actually had to raise my hand as the judge to give some feedback to Michael on his talk because I thought it was amazing. But of course, you know, I want to give some feedback as well.

2:32And it was really cool to see how he took that and how he's gone forward with that. And that's why I invited him on Entrepreneurs on Fire today, because we have a lot of awesome things to talk about. But my whole kind of backstory there, Michael, is because it was really your story that inspired me that you were able to share in a very short period of time that I loved what you went through. So you owned your story on stage, and I was impressed by that. How can we, the listeners, Fire Nation, own our own story instead of it owning us? First off, and thank you for the opportunity to be here, John.

3:05It means the world to me. I will say this. We are the sum total of all of our experiences leading up to this moment. And to create quick context, I want people to understand this. When I was a child, I was homeless. My mother was a drug addict and alcoholic. My stepfather was the kind of guy you pray is never your stepfather. By the time that I was 12 years old, I got drunk for the first time, high at 13, expelled from school at 15. And I found myself in this situation where I was just blaming the world. And in my late teens, I was like, OK, there's got to be a way to solve the solution for poverty.

3:42And so I chased money and I ended up getting a job with a Fortune 10 company at 20 years old with no high school diploma and no college degree. The hard part was that money only made my life worse I was still letting the past the trauma the abuse the fact that I was homeless that my mother had cut my finger off That I'd had all these really dark things happen to me Impact the choices and the decisions that I made And then john I did one of the hardest things that we have to do as a human being and I had to look at myself in the mirror And I had to ask myself what am I willing to do to have the life that I want to have?

4:22And when you get vulnerable with yourself, when you make that choice to look at yourself in the eyes and go into the depths of your soul and get serious about your future, you make a declaration to yourself that the past, no matter what it was, will not be the catalyst for why your life will not be what you want it to be. And I'm not saying you have to get on stage and share your story and do the things that I do. That's not what I'm saying. But what I am saying is that you must come to this place of understanding that the only way you're going to create massive change in your life is not only to be incredibly vulnerable with yourself, but to offer yourself compassion and grace, knowing that you are not culpable for the things that happen, whether you were 2 or 10 or 18 or 22.

5:11too. But from this moment forward, you have to make a decision about what's next because nobody lives for you. Nobody breathes for you. Nobody loves for you. Your life is literally in your hands and you have to ask yourself the question, what am I willing to do? It's 100 % responsibility, Fire Nation. When you look in the mirror and you say, you know what, I'm not super stoked about what's looking back at me. Take 100 % ownership. And I don't even think I've ever mentioned this actually on the show before, Michael, but this is kind of a little side note. On top of the mirror, my full length mirror, my gym, I have this sign that I had custom made that says the results of your last six months of decisions, satisfied?

5:56And so I'm looking in the mirror in my gym and I'm realizing what's looking back at me is literally the results of the decisions of the last six months that I made. And I have no one to blame but myself, where I have no one to praise but myself. Because I'm actually currently, as we speak, in the best shape of my life since I was 17 years old and I'm 41 now. So, I mean, it took a lot of work to get to that place because that mirror every single day, it talks to me. It says 100 % responsibility on you, JLD. And the thing is, when we're growing up and we're kids a lot of times, Fire Nation, you know, we think that everybody spends all of their days and all their time thinking, how can John's life be better?

6:36How can I make John's life better? Or how can I do this and that? And then you realize at some point, hopefully sooner than later, that no, no, no. People may like you. They may love you. But they're worried about their own lives. They got their own things to worry about. You are 100 % responsible for you, Fire Nation. So that all being said, Michael, in today's world, we have to stand out. We must stand out. So how can we align both our brands and our personal values that will allow us to stand out in the marketplace today? I love that question, John. You know, I've spent realistically the majority of my life being an entrepreneur at eight years old.

7:12I was knocking on doors selling Boy Scout stuff so I could fund trips by 10. I was taking candy from the candy store and selling it on the streets like literally to survive at 13. even though it's not great, I did sell drugs because I had to survive. And I've always been thinking about branding and marketing and how do you stand out in the marketplace ever since I was little because it literally meant survival. And today I've been very, very fortunate to work with companies like Coca-Cola, Red Bull, Four Roses, Linz Baby, and tons other. And of course my own brand, Think Unbroken. When you understand this about branding and marketing and standing out in the marketplace, that your values can be the cornerstone for what people create alignment with, then you can stand above those who do not have them.

7:58Values are everything. My values personally also correspond with the brand values of my business. Honesty, kindness, leadership, self-actualization. Because I'm always thinking about who I am every single day, that allows me to parlay it with the brand. That way, when I'm approaching the forward-facing marketing, I know exactly the message that I'm delivering. If you do not know your values, my challenge for you is to figure that out as soon as humanly possible. I wouldn't even go to bed tonight unless you can decide who am I and what do I stand for. Why? Because it's the old adage. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

8:42and having values as an individual and whether or not they correspond with your brand give you the ability to put your feet down and cement the beginning of a legacy. Because what I'm always thinking about is when you look back and you think about the choices and decisions you made over the course of the last six months, John, were they in alignment with your values? Were they in alignment with the brand? Were they in alignment with your mission? Because if you filter everything through your values first, whatever that value may be for you and for your brand, then you know that you will always be making the right choices, the right decisions, and choosing the right actions.

9:22If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for everything. Fire Nation, you need to be understanding these words because it's time to stand for something. It's time to stand out and stand for something. Now, vulnerability. Talk about how vulnerability and leadership are intertwined. I think about this every single day. We have the ability to let the guard down, to let people in, and to understand that as leaders, like them, we are simply human beings. And we come from an odd society where it is almost dismissed to be a vulnerable person in a leadership role. And I'll tell you this. I've learned every mistake that a human can have in leadership.

10:10I was running a Wendy's at 18 years old with 52 people under me. And I learned so much about leadership at that age. And the one thing that I learned that I carry with me today is that if you're not willing to be vulnerable and speak the truth, then your team will not follow you. If you're not willing to say, guys, you know what? I made a mistake. I was wrong. Or even I'm scared and I don't know what to do. Or I don't have the answer but I will find it. People will relate to you more. They will connect to you more. Because chances are the same fears that as the leader you're willing to express and say, we will figure it out anyway.

10:54Those are the same fears that your team has. Those are the same worries that they have. And so when you can create this connection, John, it's human connection that happens through vulnerability. Because think about this. Natively, we are able to read each other. Part of it is a defensive mechanism instilled in us for survival. And the other part of it is so we can build community. And when we're in connection with people and we feel something is off, our gut intuition tells us something is off. And then we're in this position of asking questions of, do we want to be here? Do we want to work for this person?

11:29Do we want to show up to this place every day? Because I'm in fear that I can't be able to be seen, heard, or felt. And as leaders, like stepping into vulnerability becomes a point of power for you. People look at it and feel like it's a point of contention. Well, I have to be strong. I have to lead with the iron fist. But, you know, I really truly believe this. your team, your people will work harder and stronger and longer for you when you're willing to stand in front of them and say, I don't know everything, but I will figure it out. I made mistakes, but I won't do it again. I will do everything in my power to make sure that I set you up for success.

12:07Because when you are vulnerable as a leader, you create human connection. And Fire Nation, anybody who's listening, who's ever been in a leadership position, especially at a young age, understands the power of this. I mean, I was 23 years old, leading 16 men in Iraq in war. And let me tell you, I learned about my shortcomings as a leader very quickly and definitely understood the power of being vulnerable, of going to people who had more experience than me, maybe weren't ranked as high as I was because I was an officer, but say, hey, listen, I just need to be honest and vulnerable here. Like, I don't know what the heck's going on?

12:43Can you help me? And like, that is so key. And we have so much more value to drop Fire Nation when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Being a small business owner comes with a lot of challenges, especially now. It seems like everyone is working with smaller budgets, shorter timelines, and sky-high expectations, and that can make growing a business feel pretty painful. Thankfully, HubSpot can help. HubSpot just announced dozens of major product updates that'll make impossible growth feel impossibly easy, like Breeze, a suite of new AI-powered tools that deliver personalized insights to level up your work, plus AI agents designed to automate your work for you.

13:21Sounds pretty great, right? And Breeze Intelligence, which gives you the richest, most comprehensive picture of your prospects and customers, allowing you to serve them at a whole new level. Add to all this re-imagined marketing and content hubs with new ways to create breakthrough content, updated features to generate better leads, and support to help uplevel your marketing and revenue forecast. And you've got HubSpot's all on one customer platform. Get ready for growth without the growing pains. Visit hubspot.com slash spotlight to see all the updates. So Michael, we're back. And at some point we need to scale.

13:57So share why we need a community in our life, in our business, in our world to scale. Absolutely. You know, I have a funny story about this. Someone in your phone is the difference between you going to the next level in your business and not. I was in Miami a couple of months ago for one of Grant Cardone's events. And I didn't know much about him. But whenever I go to these events, I'm trying to connect with people. Right. And so what happened is we're here and there's a guy on stage talking about last year I was where you are. But today you can be up here on this stage. And they showed this clip of someone doing a speak off.

14:35The man who won happened to be sitting behind me. I didn't know this at the time, but I said hello to him. Hey, what's up, man? How's it going? How do we connect? How do we get to know each other? Well, turns out I make it into the top 10 of the speaking event that Grant is holding and the winner gets$10 ,000. So I was thinking to myself, okay, who do I know in my phone that won this speaking event before. And it was the person named Russ Yeager standing behind me at this conference. So I picked up my phone and I called Russ and I said, Hey Russ, can you help me? Because I was willing to ask for help.

15:12I ended up winning that stage, winning$10 ,000 investment from undercover billionaire Grant Cardone, which led me to this position where John, I got to meet you on stage at Pete Vargas's event, which led to this moment. Your community, the people around you, the people in your phone that you connect with on the street, that you say hello to in the elevator, that you pass by in the grocery store, even the guy who drops off your groceries if you're doing it online, a simple hello can build your community to a place that can help you scale that is not even measurable yet. You may not even understand it because I didn't understand that just saying hello to this guy in Miami would lead to this moment, John, right?

15:55It's six degrees of separation. And I think about this every day. How do I bring value to people's lives so that every single day I'm building my community up? I'm building around the people because everyone always thinks about scaling as simply as making money. Well, I think about scaling as creating impact, about building legacy, about putting people around each other who have the capability and the ability to do great things when in connection. And when you think about it from that aspect and you're not, and there's of course chasing the idea of scaling a business to make revenue because ultimately as entrepreneurs and business owners, that's why we do this.

16:32It's for, it's for impact and income and lifestyle. But when you think about the fact that just simply saying hello to someone, not only build your community, but maybe you have the ability to put them in the right position to be successful, right? There's so much that happens through just the property of serendipity that leads you to these amazingly beautiful moments that you can't pinpoint six months a year down the road until you're sitting in it and you're looking back at it and you're going, oh, that one choice to connect with a human being has changed my life in such an impactful way that it's measurable.

17:10Stop thinking about the measurement of ROI of people being anything other than connection. And it will change the way that you scale your life, your community, your business, your investments, everything. Because I'll tell you this, out of everything I understand and know about running businesses, about being an entrepreneur, about being a speaker and author, everything, it all comes down to people, John. And I want you to understand this at depth because if you don't take care of people, then you're going to be on a ship by yourself. And I don't know about you, but that sounds kind of lonely.

17:44One hello, Fire Nation. One hello can unlock so much. And you can't even connect those dots until sometimes weeks, months, years later. Doubt, fear, the imposter syndrome. I mean, how can we commit when we have these emotions? It's everything. I live by this adage of commit first and figure out the rest later. Fear, doubt, shame, guilt. We all feel those emotions, John. I feel fear every time I wake up in the morning and I'm like, okay, I have to go and create impact in the world. I fear fear when I get on a stage when I write a book when I coach when I do anything There's always going to be fear.

18:25There's always going to be that little inkling of imposter syndrome There's always going to be that little bit of guilt that you have or shame that you feel as you step closer and deeper into yourself And the thing that i'm always thinking about is well How do I allow my voice right now to be louder than the voice of the past that was embedded in me? And one of the things that we have to understand, and especially if you grew up in Western society, we actually learn how to become robotic to a sense, to turn ourselves off. From the time that we're in elementary school, if we paint the sun purple, we're told that's not how you do it.

18:59And then you try to step into creating the life that you want to have. But you've had people your entire life negatively reinforce the things that you want to do. They say that's not good enough. You're not strong enough. You are not capable enough. And because of that, you start repeating that story to yourself. And I believe we are the stories that we tell ourselves because what you think becomes what you speak and what you speak become your action and your action become your reality. And so if you tell yourself, I'm scared, I'm fearful, I'm shameful, I'm not good enough, I'm not strong enough, I'm not capable enough, then that is going to hold true.

19:36And the truth about it is you have to understand in order to get to where you want to go, you have to understand how you got to where you are. And if you can pinpoint these moments, and I'm not saying you have to deep dive into them, but if you go, oh yeah, Mr. Smith, when I was on the football team when I was 14, told me I was not good enough. So now I don't ever put myself in a position to be in the spotlight. Then you leverage that and you go, okay, cool. I understand that about myself. So I'm going to do the thing that I want to do anyway. The truth is you have a moral obligation to impact the world.

20:11If you have a story, if you have a mission. If you have a voice, if you see something that needs to be changed, because if you don't do it, who will? And when you think about that and you understand that and you embrace the idea that fear is a part of growth and you say to yourself, I am going to do this anyway because it's more important to me that I do than to have the idea of fear being the catalyst for why I don't create massive change. John, my biggest fear in my entire life is that I will be on my deathbed and I will have regret about not doing the thing that I knew I was capable of doing because I was worried about judgment of others.

20:56The most important thing is how you feel about yourself and the choices and decisions that you make. So challenge yourself because I promise you, on the backside of fear and your commitment to creating the life that you want to have, you will find peace. Well, Michael, I can assure you that fear is not going to come true for you, brother, because you are doing the right things. You are surrounding yourself with the right people and you are making this impact in the world. And Fire Nation, doubt, fear, the imposter syndrome. I mean, you are literally feeling those things because of one reason, you're a human being.

21:31and human beings have these emotions. It's how you deal with them that changes everything. Because as Michael shared, if you see something that needs to be changed in the world, you have a moral obligation to be that change. Now, mentors are so important. We've touched upon it a couple of times throughout this episode, but I really want to end on this powerful note, which is the power of having powerful mentors. John, I think it's everything, man. I think it's everything, especially if like me, when I, when I was growing up, my, my mentors were people who weren't going to create change in the world.

22:10They weren't going to impact anything, unfortunately, because we were products of our environment. And when I started thinking about the life that I wanted to have to get removed from from poverty and homelessness, to show up for myself, to be the hero of my own story, to look in the mirror and be OK with the reflection, I started asking myself this question. Who's one step in front of me? Who is just simply one step in front of me that I can learn from? And I came up with this acronym, TEEM, T-E-E-M, Time, Effort, Energy, Money. In order to be in connection with the mentor, you're going to have to invest at least one of those, if not all four, to see reciprocation.

22:56Why? Because we understand this. The people that are one step ahead of us are ahead of us for a reason, and they're likely very busy. And just buying them a coffee isn't enough. And you hear this all the time. You have to create massive value. But guess what? You still may not have access to them. John Lee Dumas is one of my mentors. I've been listening to Entrepreneur on Fire for eight years. I've been lucky enough to be on Ask Gary Vee. Tom Bilyeu is a person I actually get to spend real time with who helps me every day. I've been able to work with people like Grant Cardone. And the thing about this is when I started this, my mentors were the library.

23:35I would go to the library and get a book, watch a YouTube video, read anything I could get my hands on. And then I started making the decision to go to conferences, to get deeper into it, to learn, to connect with people. And in that, in that I saw the massive shift in my life because I wasn't measuring them. Here's what's funny, John. I used to look at people who were one step in front of me and I'd be like, who do they think they are? Right. Just such a fixed mindset around it. And And then it turned into this very simple understanding. If I can leverage what they understand about the world, then I can change my own life.

24:14Wow. And I had to stop feeling shame about asking for help. And that form of help, again, it'll come in time, effort, energy, or money. And I believe it scales as you grow, as you change, as you heal, as you impact the world. Today, you're like, I want to go and learn from Tony Robbins. Well, guess what? You're not there yet. But what do you have the ability to do? Where can you be today? Who can you connect to? Because you know what the truth is, the neighbor that you've never met, whose door you've never knocked on, whose hand you have never shaken, that could be the person that could change your life.

24:49and it starts with asking for help and it starts with reaching out and getting clear, you have to also understand why do you want a mentor? Why do you want someone to be in connection with you? What is the purpose? Because if it's just to simply say, oh, I work with this guy, that's not going to end well for you. But if it's so you can say, I had a conversation for him for 15 minutes and it forever changed my life because I got clear about something I was stuck on, then you will never lose my friend. Who is one step ahead of you, Fire Nation? Ask yourself that question. That could be the first hint and clue as to who could be a great mentor for you.

25:27In fact, I dedicated an entire chapter in the Common Path, Uncommon Success, chapter five, to finding your perfect mentor. And I said, your perfect mentor is somebody who is where you want to be in one year time, meaning that it's not 10 years from now, 20 years from now. It is literally in a reasonable timeframe frame that you can see yourself there in one year so that they can look back when they're mentoring you and have some relevant, meaningful, understanding things to share with you. And I love that acronym team, time, effort, energy, money, at least one Fire Nation. Sometimes all four is what it takes.