How to Turn Your Knowledge Into Opportunity | Russ Ruffino

25:12And then you become interesting and then you don't but it's automatic you don't have to think about it you know my acting teacher used to tell the story about um about charlise theron when she was first getting started right so when she first got she's from south africa right and like i don't know this is true this is all hearsay okay okay but apparently when she came to the class she had this really really really thick you know african's accent because she was from yeah you know and she hadn't done like all the accent work or whatever and it was like you could barely understand her when she was talking to you.

25:40But when she was doing a scene and she was fighting for something that she wanted, instantly you could understand her. Instantly, it was fascinating to watch. And so that I found, I mean, there's a million little hacks that people can use to be good on camera or whatever, but that's 99 % of it right there. If you're watching yourself, you're going to feel awkward. You're going to feel uncomfortable. But if I'm thinking the person that I'm going to talk to, what happens to them without my help? Now I'm not thinking about myself at all. It's all in their service. And that works on sales calls, that works on webinars, that works when you're making a pitch, anything.

26:18Yeah. The point is, is it's not about you. That's like probably the most important thing. And it's so funny because people become influencers and it just seems like such a self-centered thing from the outside. But the people that are really good at this stuff, they're not thinking about themselves at all. They're just thinking about what do I I want to communicate to my audience. And what do they need to hear from me? Well, I remember we started the show as a podcast and having conversations in audio. Right. And then video came in. And I remember the first time being on camera. You see the light, you're staring at the camera and you become self-conscious.

26:48Right. And for many of us with Zoom, you know, you hop on Zoom and you got the self-view looking right at you. Looking at yourself. You are staring at yourself. So it is hard to fight that urge to be self-conscious thinking about how you're delivering it, what you're saying. but the key is actually what's the impact on the other side of the camera exactly who's watching this who's listening to this and what are they taking away not what i'm doing it's very valuable to have what we call a substitution so you know um you know again i'll just tie this back in acting since i guess that's the theme for today even though i haven't acted in like 15 years so it's kind of like i appreciate you going there we'll go there in hollywood uh we'll go there because yeah we're in la we're not um like let's say so every scene you start with an objective right well well, what's your objective, right?

27:30And then maybe you're, maybe in this situation, you're doing a scene where your objective is, I want my power back, right? Someone's taking your power away. You're trying to get it back. You're fighting for your status. You're fighting for your power. Okay, cool. Maybe that doesn't mean anything to you in the situation of the movie or whatever it is that you're acting, right? And so you think to yourself, okay, well, who in my life do I really need to get my power back from, right? Like maybe it's that gym teacher or that acting teacher who told you you're no good or maybe it's your mom or maybe it's your dad.

27:58And who took your power away? Now, this is a chance for you to get your power back from that person doing this scene, right? That's the substitute. That's the substitute, right? And so now I'm thinking about that person and I'm like, okay, cool. Now, you see what I mean? Now, right away, it's my attention's off myself because there's something I want to do with this person in front of me, okay? Yeah. And so let's say you've got something that's a little less aggressive. It's more benevolent. You're making this YouTube video because you want to help somebody. Okay, well, then who in your life really needs your help?

28:29Like, who do you wish in your life really knew this stuff that you're about to communicate? And how can you picture that person and talk directly to that person? And it doesn't even have to be someone real. Maybe it's little you. Yeah. You know, maybe I'm talking to Russ from 10 years ago. You know what I'm saying? And I'm picturing, oh, dude, kid, please. Come on. But you see what I mean? What makes the content interesting is emotional content, right? It's the emotional investment that you bring to it. And then P.S., that also gets your attention off yourself. So sometimes just thinking about like, who is that person that really needs to hear from you?

29:00Who's that person that really needs to hear your voice? And maybe it's yourself. But as long as you're thinking about that person, your attention is on that person, instead of worrying about, oh, do I look good or whatever, you know, the content is going to be way more compelling. It's going to be a lot easier for you to shoot it. Well, I want to break this down further because I feel like for many in our audience, maybe they haven't thought about coaching or being a thought leader. But we all kind of hit that point in our career. And I see this with some of the older coaching clients that I have, where you start off first, just really focus on income, right?

29:28You want a family, you want to have a great house, you want to have opportunity. Then once you hit a certain level of income, you start thinking about autonomy. Like, oh, what would it be like to work for myself and not have this boss breathing down my neck and not have all these responsibilities of team members who just aren't getting it done. And, oh, I'm sick of dealing with this AI rollout. So you start thinking about the freedom piece and you establish freedom. Now you're a bit more in charge of your time. Maybe you move up the ladder or you start something else and then it shifts to impact.

29:55And now it's not about the dollars in or the dollars out. It's not about how you're spending more time with your family or not. It's like, what am I going to walk away with? What is the ultimate impact I'm going to make? It sounds like we got to start with that first for many of us to think bigger, think outside of the income, think beyond the freedom of your time and think about what's the ultimate impact that I'm going to have in the job, the career that I've chosen, the life that I'm building, the coaching business, the company that I'm building for myself. What is the real impact? It has to start there because fundamentally we get paid to create outcomes.

30:32Like that's what people want. Yeah. Right. So, you know, and so many, um, so many people are just unclear about that. What is the outcome that you are getting paid to create? Right. And you really need to think about that. And I don't care if you're working at like Subway, you know, the outcome that you're getting paid to create is to create delicious sandwiches and provide a good customer experience for the people that are there and make their sandwich accurately and quickly. And, you know, with a smile on your face, that's the outcome that you're getting paid for. Right. But so many people don't think about that, you know, and I don't care if like if you're a marriage coach, the outcome you're getting paid for is to save someone's marriage.

31:07Right. The outcome that I get paid for is to help coaches and experts build five thousand to fifteen thousand dollar coaching programs they can run from anywhere in the world. That's the outcome. And I can't tell you how many people come to us and they're just not clear at all on what that is. But that is the foundation of everything because that directs the marketing, that directs the pricing, that tells you how to position yourself, that tells you how to communicate with your audience. So it all starts with that outcome. And then fundamentally, that is what a business is designed to do. Like a lot of people hate on Elon Musk, for example, but he's super clear what his outcome is, he wants to get us to Mars.

31:40And everything is built around that. You know what I mean? You've got Tesla, which that's how you do the electric batteries, because you can't have a gas-powered car on Mars. You know what I mean? You've got the boring company digging tunnels. It all connects to that. It all connects to that. That was bashing on billionaires. I can't remember the politician, but it was like, no one's earned a billion. It's like, well, if hundreds of millions of people are driving the car, then you've earned a billion. So it's very similar here to what we're saying. If the outcome, the impact that you have on someone else is greater than a Subway sandwich, you're probably going to make more money than minimum wage.

32:11That's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. And yeah, I mean, like, look, if you make a thousand dollar widget, like a billion is just a thousand millions. So if I make a thousand dollar widget and I sell that to a million people, I just made a billion dollars. Right. So what are they talking about? You know what I mean? Or if I have a billion company go to 10 billion, that widget to them is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Exactly. Exactly. That's what that growth is worth. That's exactly right. And we tell our clients the same thing because they always undervalue themselves. Right.

32:41So like, again, just using the example of marriage coaching, so many marriage coaches or marriage and family therapists are charging by the hour. Right. So they're charging a hundred dollars an hour, $200 an hour for relationship coaching or whatever it is. Right. But like, if you really are going to save my marriage, like, what is that worth? Like, I mean, think about that. Right. Like I'm staring down the barrel of a seven figure divorce, eight figure divorce, shared custody, all that stuff. Like you're going to fix that. Okay, great. Like I will pay anything to make that happen. And the amount of hours that doesn't matter either because I want the outcome so bad.

33:09But when you do hourly, you anchor to something else entirely, which is, well, I spent 60 minutes with you. So therefore that's got to be worth 500, 600. But if the outcome is save a marriage, there's no divorce lawyer, there's no splitting the property and there's no kids custody battle. Exactly. That's a lot more than 500 an hour. So especially now, everyone has to make the shift, especially in the age of AI, is that you don't think of yourself as like, okay, well, I'm a realtor or I'm an accountant or I'm a financial advisor or whatever. Therapist. Whatever it is, you have to begin to think of yourself as an outcome generator, right?

33:43And then what is that outcome that you generate and how can you generate that outcome at the highest possible valuation? And that will change the way that you think about everything that you do, because it's all about that outcome. And then what is that outcome worth? And are you getting paid accordingly? Right. You know what I mean? I spoke to a guy the other day that was like a YouTube consultant. And it was like, yeah, we'll manage your YouTube channel or everything. I wanted like$35 ,000 a month or something like that, which I was like, okay, come on. But, you know, if you look at the track record he had gotten, I mean, he has taken a lot of channels to the point where they're getting like millions and millions of views on their content.

34:20Okay, so that's the outcome. And then the only other question is like, okay, A, what's it worth to have that outcome? And B, is there someone else who can get that same outcome at a cheaper price? Right? Yeah. But ultimately, if you want to become YouTube famous and that's worth 35 grand a month to you, maybe that makes sense. Yeah. Well, if hitting a million views sells a thousand of your coaching programs at$5 ,000, then that$35 ,000 sounds quite reasonable. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. So that's the calculus, but so many people don't think about their own lives that way. And you really should.

34:51Like, what are the outcomes that you can create for people, whether that's your boss or whether that's, you know, the marketplace in general, whether that's people that watch your YouTube channel or listen to your podcast or whatever it is. What is that outcome? You know what I mean? Like even dating, like, like, like, like what, like what do people really want? Like they want to, they want to have a certain experience. They want to feel a certain way. You know, like they, you know, I just, I was thinking about this because like all the way over here, I was like, like scrolling through Twitter or X or whatever the hell it's called now.

35:16and um you know there were so many people that were like you know there's so many guys that were like oh women only want you know if you if you if you if you're not six five with a you know ferrari and washboard abs you know you're never gonna i was like that's like that's nonsense like it's just not true that might be how it is on a dating app yeah because all they can see is your picture but if you actually go outside and meet people in real life like women are attracted to things that are lots of people are married yeah lots of people are married and not every man is Six, five, BC. Lots of guys are married to like, you know, like beautiful women.

35:48Yes. You know, speaking of acting class, join an acting class. You'll be fine. You'll be surrounded. You'll be surrounded by them and you'll probably be like the only straight guy there. Your odds are pretty good. Yeah. And you'll be used to rejection. Exactly. You'll be used to acting class. I say that because I met my wife in acting class. So, yeah, there you go. Oh, even better. That's it. You know, speaking from the truth. That's it. Yeah. Well, I want to get back to that point because you had the illustration of your own team member as the boss come to you be like, well, I saw what everyone else is making.

36:14Right. My expectation of the outcome for me is this not thinking about your outcome. Right. Even if you're listening to this and you're not a thought leader, you're not a therapist. What is keeping your boss up at night? That's exactly right. Are they staring at the ceiling worried about before they go to bed or while they're laying next to their wife wondering how are they going to get through this next quarter? And if you can solve that for them, you can come in on Monday and say, hey I'm gonna take this off your plate I'm gonna operationalize AI across the entire team you're not even gonna have to worry about it or figure out anything to do with it and make everyone's impact greater your boss come review is gonna be like that guy or gal needs a raise one of the best team members I ever hired um and I hope she sees this was this graphic designer in Australia her name was Sally Ann so shout out to Sally Ann I would go to Sally Ann with a project like oh my god you know this client needs their their whole website redesigned or they need their webinar our slides done or whatever.

37:05And she said the four magic words, leave it with me. I got it. And I was like, it was like, it was like the wave of relief that just washes over you, you know? And then she would nail it. Obviously you have to nail the project, but she would give me a first draft that was like 95 % of what I wanted. I don't know if she was psychic or what we don't know. We don't want to know. Right. But my point is, is that, that, that is what your boss wants. Your boss wants, get this off my plate and handle it and get the outcome. Whereas so many people like to come and put the monkey on their boss's back. Well, I can't figure this out or I need you to make a decision about this.

37:44It's just like all these, you know, like the best team members are the people that take stuff off their boss's plate. So that's an incredibly valuable question. You want to get promotions? You want to get pay raises? You want to move up? Sit down and ask yourself, what is my boss stressed about right now? And how can I take that off their plate and handle that problem from start to finish. And you will automatically put yourself on the fast track for promotions and pay raises if you do that. Now, another core mission that I've been on with the show and with some of the guests we've had on is recognizing the importance of a personal brand in this new environment.

38:13So AI is revolutionizing the job market. We're seeing more and more people now feel precarious about what's going to happen with their career. Some are thinking entrepreneurship and maybe throwing their hat in the ring around thought leadership, starting a consulting firm an agency. But that first step to thought leadership, that first step to building a personal brand is very difficult for many to hit publish. Yeah. It's very difficult to post that one thing thinking, well, what if my sister sees this or what if my ex-girlfriend sees this? What are they going to think? And that stops them from even starting the business, starting that venture.

38:48What do you say to that person who's feeling that publish fear? You have to give yourself permission to suck, number one, your content is 100 % absolutely going to suck in the beginning. Right? A lot of my content still sucks. Yeah. When you think back through. I'm still figuring it out. No, I mean, dude, not every real... I mean, look, I'll be dead honest. Most of our money and our revenue comes from paid advertising. Okay? So it's like, maybe we've spent probably$20 million on online ads over the years. We've made like figuring stuff out. And so you have to give yourself permission to be totally cringe in the beginning, right?

39:27To go back and watch your content and be like, oh God, I'm so embarrassed. So it is what it is. But again, you have to do that expected value calculation. So I put some reels out there and they suck. Well, if they suck, it means no one's paying attention. And if no one's paying attention, then by definition, no one cares. And so you haven't lost anything. No one's just, no one's watching. Okay, great. Cool. Keep putting stuff out there, right? Give yourself permission to be cringe. I would say be consistent and just accept the fact that haters and awful people are a part of life and it has nothing to do with you.

40:05So we get a lot of hate on our ads sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes, you know, you get like spam, you know, comments or whatever on your ads. And there's this phenomenon called projection. And there's like probably four ways mostly that people deal with their emotions. They suppress their emotions. They repress their emotions, which is like, I'm just going to distract myself. I'm going to keep doom scrolling or whatever. I'm going to push this down. I don't want to feel this right now. Or they project. And that's where they put the really ugly stuff. So when there's something about themselves or something that they're thinking or feeling in the moment that they don't really want to be thinking or feeling, the simplest thing to do is to project it onto to someone else.

40:44And if someone's in that state and you just happen to come across their newsfeed that day, guess what? You're the one getting projected on. But guess what? It's got nothing to do with you. Like nothing. And when I learned about that phenomenon and I realized that phenomenon, I was like, oh, okay. A lot of the hate that I get, it's got nothing to do with me. So the only people's opinion that I really care about is if I have a client and that person pays me five or 10 or$15 ,000 or whatever it is to work with me, and then they're unhappy, I take that seriously right but some random person on the internet who knows nothing about me i don't care yeah the unlock for me because starting the podcast putting yourself out there you know 20 years ago when there's far fewer options to watch so most people just skip to the next but back then like they'll they'll hate watch hate listen and then let you you know about it but the reframe for me was recognizing that no one in the arena no one buying the ads doing media buying putting themselves out there on social media creating a podcast is also slinging those negatives back at another creator back at someone else in the arena.

41:43Like game respecting respects game. Like you're in the arena. You're putting yourself out there. I'm not sitting there hammering negative comments on your ads. I'll skip the ad. I'm like, oh, they didn't work for me. But usually the negativity comes from the people who are too afraid to even enter the arena, like would never put themselves out there in the first place. It's like if you're going to let your haters stop you from making the impact that you were born to make, you might as well just write them a check. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like if I had started running those ads and I saw those hate comments come up and I was just like, oh, God, I can't do this.

42:14Right. I mean, like, like literally that would have been writing these people on ninety nine million dollar check. You gave away a fortune. Exactly. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, you know, being in the putting yourself out there. Right. I don't want to even say like being in the public eye because, you know, what does that mean? But I mean, just putting yourself out there. There will be people who hate on your stuff. Guaranteed. It will be cringe in the beginning. Guaranteed. You will want to quit. Guaranteed. All you got to do is just not do that. And that's why I wanted to go back to that earlier point around impact.

42:47Again, I feel like if you center yourself around impact, where I'm sitting here and I'm saying, I want to change 100 million relationships through this podcast, through my coaching company. And I don't want people to go through what I went through, having a dad who got divorced when I was at a young age. If that's my impact and I'm not worried about the numbers, then I'm not worried about the ads. If I'm not worried about my freedom of like what that means for my time with my daughter or what's going on. But I'm thinking really about the impact that hater, that commenter, that person tearing you down, that doesn't sting.

43:18The person who's upset that they bought your service and they aren't happy, that stings. We want to fix that because that's part of the impact. That's the person you're impacting. That's right. If I have the cheat code to saving a marriage or if I have the cheat code helping people get in a better shape or all these different things like my client dr becky she's got this incredible program where she helps dyslexic kids go from the bottom 10 of their class to the top 10 of their class in reading i know in about 12 weeks it's insane and she comes to me and she geeks out on the results and i geek out with her because i'm like dude this is kids that are reading you know um you know but but but making that impact if i if she has the if i have the cheat code to help kids read who can't read, who the hell am I not to provide that to the world?

44:06Like, where do I get off not sharing that information? It would be like if there was a doctor somewhere that cured cancer and just wrote on a piece of paper, stuck it in a book and forgot about it. You know what I mean? Like, like we all have cheat codes to help people accomplish various things that we've learned. Right. And maybe we don't have the whole picture, but we got something. And if you got something that can make somebody's life easier, you owe it to the world. You owe it to yourself. You have a moral obligation to put it out there in the world. And who cares what anybody says? You're going to get hate.

44:35Everybody does. You know, my wife follows this blog. I forget what the woman's name is, but she's this beautiful blonde woman. She has kids and she'll be like, you know, showing two of her kids in one of her blog posts. And then the other ones are, where's the third kid? Do you hate that kid? It's like, well, no, he's at school. Like, what is this? And you read these, these quotes, these comments that are so asinine and you just realize this has nothing to do with nothing. Some people are sitting there like stewing in their own BS. And it's like, this is just the trigger. It's like, okay, whatever.

45:03And when you realize that you're just like, you know what, man, I'm going to put out there what I've got, right? Whatever it is, whatever I've got, I'm going to put it out there and maybe it can help somebody. And I don't really care what anybody says, you know? So, and this has been a challenge for us over the years too. So I know I'm speaking from experience, that idea, especially when we got started in coaching and you start hearing what other people charge and what those rates are to work with you, to work with us. And you're just like, oh man, I could never charge that. Like, how do you get to that level?

45:34Especially if many of us are starting in a nine to five job where our money is kind of tied to the amount of time we spend. We're not really thinking about that impact. So it's like, oh man, these coaches are charging$25 ,000 for a phone call. How do I, how do I get to that point? So for me, it just, again, comes down to the outcome. what being really clear what you don't provide life coaching you don't provide relationship coaching you're not providing a one-hour call it's what is the outcome that i am responsible for creating right like and so many people don't even think about that you know what is the purpose of a coaching business the purpose of a coaching business is to get freaking results for people yeah if we're not getting results for people then what the hell are we doing might as well pack up and go home but if you look at the state of for example the coaching industry right now there's a lot of other industries like this, like so many people are not getting results.

46:22It's all about the marketing. It's all about making sales. It's all about getting the money in the door, having, you know, some some weasel. Yeah, all that stuff. Yeah. But it's like, no, no, no. Who is actually getting the outcome here? So it's all about the outcome and it is the outcome that justifies the price. Yeah. So let's do that calculation back for those on the fence who are saying, oh, I hear you guys are saying that sounds pretty interesting. Like maybe I could be a coach. Maybe I could be a thought leader with my excellent piece. So I'll give you a really great example. My client, Kate, came out of the corporate world.

46:51She had this, you know, good corporate background. And one of the challenges that she had overcome when she was in corporate, you know, and look, when she came to us, she was super vague about the outcome, right? So this is a big part of what we help our clients do is get that clarity. She's like, yeah, Russ, I want to do something where like I empower women in corporate. And I was like, to do what? She was like, I don't know. So we went back and forth and we dialed it in. And I was like, okay, what are these women dealing with? And she was like, okay, well, they're dealing with burnout. So, OK, cool.

47:17Burnout. That's something. Now, who's got the most burnout? Is it any woman in corporate? And she's like, no, if I think about it, it's the moms in corporate with young kids. Boom. That's it. so we worked with Kate to create this eight-week program where she works with women in corporate who have kids and the hook that we came up with was something like um you know how to show up as a superstar um at work and with your family so that you never have to choose between either you know no matter how burnt out you are right now you know what I'm saying and she went on to just absolutely crush that offer because now it went from I empower women which you know again that's a big, to now that one specific problem where, look, if I'm a VP of sales or something and I'm a woman and I've got a three-year-old and a five-year-old and a six-year-old at home and I'm working 50-hour weeks, by definition, I'm going to be burnt out.

48:08How do you do that? How do you juggle that? And anyone who has kids will tell you that that tension is present 24-7. Absolutely. So what we're talking about here from an emotional payoff and the tension that that person or client of hers is feeling, it's 24-7. Oh, yeah. Especially for moms. Yeah. Because it's like when I'm with my kids, you know what I mean? Like my boss is blowing up my phone and I'm not really present. The hormones, the neurochemistry, everything. Yeah. Like it's just it's like it's like how it's it's almost an impossible situation. And so Kate built this amazing program that helps these women just totally like resolve that tension and structure their life in such a way so they can be an amazing mom and do a great job at work.

48:47and everything's cool. And it's like that is easily worth five or eight or ten thousand dollars if you're in that situation because it is a must have. It's not a nice to have. Right. And it's very clearly not for everyone. No, no. She's not going to help the single 20 something who's just starting in her career. No, she's not going to help the mom who has kids already off to college. Exactly. A C-suite exec. Like she has it dialed in. And OK, you may be listening saying, well, that that tam total market value is pretty small. Like how many of those women? It's actually got to be at least a million people.

49:21Right. I mean, right. And then how many do you need? If you have a$10 ,000 coaching program and you get 10 people a month, you're making$100 ,000 a month. If you get 100 people a month, you're making a million dollars a month. Like, right. That's enough. Yeah. That's probably plenty. So looking at the calculation, once you understand and arrive at the impact. Exactly. Exactly. So that's it going back. It's like, OK, cool. I don't care if you're in the corporate world or you're doing consulting or, you know, whatever it is you're doing, you want to begin to consider what is the outcome that you can help other people achieve?

49:55And then what is that outcome worth and who really needs to have that outcome? And once you understand that, you know, and you can do this from within your job, like we said, you could be your boss, but what's the outcome my boss really wants to achieve? That is how you raise your value in society is by helping people achieve the outcomes that they want. And this is true for software. It's true for coaching. It's true for any kind of product. You know what I mean? Like, like I bought one of those stupid things like screws onto your dashboard and you can stick your iPhone on it, right? Like what's the outcome?

50:24I want to be able to use my freaking iPhone in my car. Okay, great. Which one of these products is going to help me do that as efficiently as possible? And what's that worth to me? But it's like, that is where you start. You know, you don't think, okay, well, what's our brand or what's our brand colors or what's our logo or what's our website? No, it's like everything flows from what is the purpose of this? What is the outcome we're trying to provide? Who are we trying to provide it for? And then everything needs to be built around that. That's your North Star. And I think at times it's a little hard for people to wrap their head around.

50:52So I'll give another example. I was business start doing well and I started getting invited to go golfing here in SoCal because the weather is so great. Growing up in Michigan, the weather was not golf friendly and there weren't as many golf courses. So I was like, well, I got to take lessons now than living in LA. And I remember going to the driving range. There's some guys with business cards handing out their lesson rates. It's like a hundred dollar, two hundred an hour type rates. And then I met this one guy and he's like, no, I work with professionals and I'll build you a game that impresses your foursome.

51:23And I remember that stuck with me because I was saying no to golf because I'm like, I'm going to be the worst one on the course. And I don't want to be laughed in these business opportunities to connect with people. And I ended up paying him a package deal. It was like 6k simulator and i didn't do numbers on the hours or how much time we're spending but i'll remember four months later i'm out with one of my original buddies who invited me out and i'm knocking the ball around he's like dude how did you get so good and i'm like oh i've been taking these lessons and he's like oh is it one of the guys at the range i'm like no here's this card and it's an expensive package but but it's the outcome the outcome was worth it because you don't want golf lessons Nobody wants golf lessons.

52:03You want the outcome. You want to have a game that impresses the foursome. You know what I mean? We had a golf guy come through our program, and I forget what the exact hook was, but it was something like, I'll turn you into a scratch golfer in eight weeks or whatever it was. And it's like, that's what people want. Like, that's so easy to say yes to. Do you want a golf lesson for$200? That's hard to say yes to. Right. And that golf lesson for$200 an hour, he might be better than the guy charging$5K. He's probably had hundreds of clients, but he doesn't understand his value and the outcome that he delivers.

52:30That is such a good point, man, because what people don't understand is that good marketing is a force multiplier. You can have two chiropractors across the street from each other. One of them is the best chiropractor in the world and his marketing sucks. And the other one's a pretty good chiropractor with great marketing. That guy is going to just eat the other guy's lunch all day, every day. You know, it's essential. Like this whole idea of like, well, if you build it, they will come. Or if you're the best, you know, the world will beat a path to your door or whatever it is. That's not true.

52:59It's just not true. Well, and unfortunately, many of us fall into the credential trap because what we end up doing is we seek the degrees, we seek the certifications, we seek the accolades that raise our resume in terms of page numbers from one to four. And then you get invited into rooms with other experts. But you have no clients. You have no people reading your papers. You have no people interested in buying your books. Great. You got the credentials. You spent all day long impressing other super smart people, but they're not your client. They're not the people you're going to help. What you're talking about is worthiness.

53:34And that is one of the biggest sources of self-sabotage ever. This whole question of am I worthy? You know, who the hell am I to charge$5 ,000? Who the hell am I to have a, you know, a hit podcast or who the hell am I to go on YouTube and make these videos or whatever? And the truth is only you can bless yourself in that way. You know, it's up to you. God is not going to come down from heaven and stamp you on the forehead and say, oh, you know, you're worthy. Like the king of the Internet is not going to appear and say, yes, you may have a YouTube channel. You are worthy. Mr. Beast is like, come right out.

54:07It's not going to come to your house. Yeah. No, it's like it's like, yeah, like you have to just decide that you've got something of value. You know, if look, if you want to share a message with the world, then I believe that you are automatically worthy to share that message. And you have to decide that for yourself. This is a big thing that we have to do with our clients, man, even our successful clients, because here's the weird thing. The mental game. Well, there's the there's the worthiness trap of just getting started. Right. Like, you know, just getting the ball rolling. Right. I'm going to come up with a five thousand dollar coaching program and I'm going to put it out to the world.

54:42Like that's scary. But there's additional worthiness traps that come up along the way. Yeah. So in my in my mastermind, we call this the hundred thousand dollar month meltdown. OK, where and this caught me totally by surprise. Right. Because I think, you know, we obviously don't get everybody a hundred thousand dollars a month. But when we do. Right. I think, dude, I'm crushed. This is great. I've done my job. This is awesome. I'm going to join the call. This is going to be amazing. Meanwhile, their life is like what we found is that when they hit that number and it's not always that number, But there's some number that we all have that represents like a quote unquote lot of money to us, like an uncomfortable amount of money.

55:16When they hit that, they always have a contraction. They always have a little freak out. And it comes down to that notion of worthiness. You know, who the hell am I? I'm making$100 ,000 a month. No one in my family has ever made more than$60 ,000 in a year. And all this, it's just totally uncharted territory. And so we have to do a lot of mindset work with those clients, you know. But now we prepare for it. Like we expect it. We say, hey, you know, Sarah's getting up there. Let's just keep a close eye on her. And there's the meltdown. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Yeah. And that caught me totally off guard.

55:49I was not prepared for that. But it makes you know, it makes perfect sense. And it kind of sort of didn't happen to me because like, you know, I wanted to be a movie star. I'm comparing my life like Brad Pitt's life, you know, it's like anything. I'm not even close to my parameter. I'm like, yeah. But for our clients, it was a it was a big deal. and we had to deal with this. So that worthiness piece, it's just a decision that you have to make that you are gonna put yourself out there. You're gonna make the impact that you were born to make and you're gonna freaking do your best and you're not always gonna get it right.

56:21Like we said, you're gonna have content that's cringe. You're gonna have customers that wanna refund. You're gonna have somebody that joins your coaching program and they do the work and they don't get the outcome. And the question is, okay, great. If that happens, what do you do to make it right? Yeah. Right, you just make it right. You know, it's like it doesn't have to paralyze you. It doesn't have to stop you because no one's going to come in and tell you that you're worthy. Nobody. And I think that is also a big part of the journey is that we're always going to go beyond what we thought was possible.

56:48If we are truly hardworking, we're resourceful, we're putting everything into it, and we have these big goals of making great impact, that's inevitable for everyone. And, you know, I have coaching clients who aren't necessarily in their own business doing that but they now got a title and a team and they're facing imposter syndrome because of that like oh wait now i'm actually in the room that i i didn't realize i was gonna get in right how do i handle myself here right i don't want to screw this up right i don't want to be seen as a fraud i don't want people to think i'm not good enough yeah someone's always gonna think you're not good enough someone's always gonna think you're a fraud someone's always gonna hate you someone's always gonna have a problem with you yes there's billions of people that's what i'm saying you You know what I mean?

57:26Like, like you pull up like you ever heard of the French laundry? Yeah. In California. Right. It's like people who aren't here. It's like this, you know, Michelin star restaurant. It's supposed to be the best restaurant in California. Right. Do they have five stars? No. I think they have like four and a half stars because you go there and some guy's like, I couldn't find a place to park zero stars. The napkin wasn't ironed. The review is like not even about the restaurant. The food, not even what's being reviewed. This is what I'm saying. Like there's always going to be people who are haters. The question is, are you going to let them determine what you accomplish in this life or not?

58:01It doesn't have to be a thing. So like, look, not to get super woo-woo, man, but I believe that what we experience in our life is basically just an outpicturing of our most deeply held beliefs, right? It's just like the world, the way the world works is just like if you were plugged into the matrix, right? And the matrix was designed not to show you what you want, not to give you everything you want, but just to be a mirror of everything that you believe. And if you believe that you cannot have success without encountering certain obstacles, you are going to encounter those obstacles. Absolutely.

58:35It's going to, you know, and all that matters is whether it is something that is real to you, that you're going to that you're going to allow to stand in your way or not. You know, and so you really have to look at your beliefs. You know, if I have this feeling of unworthiness or have this feeling of like, well, I don't belong in this room. Who says? Right. Yeah. Who says? Everybody feels like a fraud. Everybody feels like an imposter. You know what I mean? I guarantee you if you got, you know, like Elon Musk is probably about to become the world's first trillionaire. OK, so I like using him as an example because that's just nuts.

59:07Every day he probably wakes up going like, oh, God, starship blew up. That's right. That's the same thing. Of course he's worried about it. Exactly. Like everyone feels that way. You know what I'm saying? And it's like, OK, you just have to be comfortable being uncomfortable and you just have to decide. It's a choice. It's a choice to say, look, this is the difference that I want to make in the lives of the world. This is the impact I want to make on the world while I'm here. How can I make that impact in the biggest possible way? And who cares who thinks I'm worthy to make it or not? I want to share one last story because I think it will resonate with a lot of the audience members who are just not quite clear on what that thing that could unlock that impact is for them.

59:45So I had a buddy who had a startup, went, get funding, and the startup just blew up in his face. It was a massive failure. and after the startup he would have friends reach out to him and share oh I just got this job offer and they're giving me some equity and he'd be like whoa did you sign and because he went through as a founder the process of raising capital and all the intricacies of how to not get yourself screwed over he built a lot of working knowledge that he just started sharing with his friends now he could have never turned it in anything because oh I failed my startup blew up woe is me everyone's out to get me but instead he found himself in these conversations again and again in the Bay Area with friends who are getting these crazy offers and he was helping them he said you know what I'm gonna start coaching people I'm gonna start sharing this knowledge that I have that seems pretty valuable for my friends and you know how he priced it he said I'm not gonna do it hourly I just want a piece of whatever the upside and I remember he was telling me his numbers in the first year I was like wait what what how and he's like well I recognize for everyone it's different like I don't need to necessarily spend hours I just got to review the contract some people need hours and hours of coaching so I do whatever it takes to get them that outcome to get them their offer and he's killing it yep so I just want to plant that seed for people in the audience right now who are like well I'm not credentialed AJ I'm not a therapist I hate my job or I'm worried about AI I don't really like what I'm doing right this opportunity is there for all of you, whether you're a golf instructor, whether you talk about relationships like me, whether you helped your friends negotiate salaries and raises in tech, that opportunity to be the thought leader, to launch your own thing and sell outcomes is there right now for every human.

1:01:29Absolutely. Absolutely. You just have to expand your sense of what is possible for you. You know what I mean? I mean, you know, I remember when I was bartending, I had my 30th birthday and I remember sitting in the lobby of the Palazzo Hotel because we went to Vegas for my birthday and I was with you know my girlfriend at the time who's now my wife I remember sitting there with my old like my old-fashioned in my hand like literally crying because I was like I'm not going to be a 40-year-old bartender like I don't know what I'm going to do but something something's got to change and you know almost right after that is when that opportunity sort of came up to get into the online thing and I just you know and I just and I just went for it.

1:02:08You know, and if you're just starting out, like tap into that sense of desperation. That sense of desperation is so powerful because what the hell do you have to lose? Like, what did I have to lose? You know what I mean? Like worst case scenario, I gave it a shot and, you know, it didn't work out and I'm right back where I was, you know, but if it did work, then everything would change and everything, you know, and everything did change. And it's like, it's, you know, I think, I believe you can have it just the way you want it. I believe you can write your own ticket. I believe you can decide what you want life to give you.

1:02:38And if you are willing to stay faithful to that vision, that you can have that, you know, like playing small for anybody listening to this doesn't serve anybody. Thank you for joining us, Russ. Where can our audience find out about the work you do? So the work we do, if you're, you know, coach, consultant, expert, author, speaker, and you want to make a bigger impact on the world and create the kind of programs I'm talking about. The website is clientsondemand.com forward slash art of charm. Wonderful. We'll put it in the show notes. Thank you. You got it, man. This was awesome. Yep.