How To Brand Your Life w/ Jen Gottlieb

22:24And I read your stuff and I'm like, I think I'm going to adjust a little bit about what I say. That's how good it was. Because you make this case for the 51 % rule in there. That's what I'm calling. Is that what it's called? The rule? But I remember 51%. The rule of 51%. You're about to hear something you've not probably ever heard before that if you remember it, it could change your life. I think this is this important what you say in this part of the book. So let's give them that about confidence. Yeah. So a lot of people on the internet will tell you that you have to believe in yourself 100%.

22:52Yep. You have to believe 100%. You have to go for it 100%. You can't have any doubt. A lot of people don't take action because they're like, I'm not at 100%. I just don't feel it today. Maybe tomorrow I will. And they never really get to that point. I don't know about you, Ed, but I don't think I'm really ever at 100%. I'm not. I'm not even now. I always have a little bit of doubt, a little bit of fear, a little bit of uncertainty, a little bit of imposter syndrome. It's always there. As long as you're stretching, as long as you're growing, you're going to have a little bit. It's a human experience.

23:24So if you give yourself permission to not have to believe 100 % to take action, but you only have to believe a little bit more than you don't like 51%. If you can get yourself to 51 % of belief, that'll get you to the first action step. Just a little. Okay, I don't believe fully, but I believe a little. I'm going to go take one little action step in the direction. That little action step will give you a little tiny win. And that little win will give you the momentum and the confidence maybe to get to 52%. Maybe one day you'll get to 60 and maybe you'll float at like 85, 90 % at some point in time.

23:58And then you milk it. Then you go. Then you drive. Then you go right through. But then you might come back down to 51. And that's what life is. But as long as you're above that 50 % level the majority of the time. So good. And you take action there. Then you will gain more confidence over time and you will consistently grow. It's so good that it's made me rethink how I phrase things. because I'm just not being honest that I tell people that they need to be 100 % confident because I'm not. I've not walked on any stage ever in one of my speeches 100 % confident. I never went to the plate batting in baseball 100 % confident.

24:36But I've walked up there a lot of times 59, 64, 73, 51.2. And then the experience took me to 58.6. and what I learned from it took me to 62.5. And then you're also right. And then every once in a while, you got it going, and then you screw one up, and you're like, I'm back to 51 again. And that's part of the, that's the real. If I'm being honest and to acknowledge your work, that's the real. What she just described is how it really is. And you're right. We're doing people a disservice by saying you have to be 100 % confident to make anything great happen. It's just totally not true. No. I have all kinds of friends that have asked somebody out that said yes, they weren't 100 % confident the person was going to say yes.

25:22So you're a zillion percent true.

25:26Here's how good her work is. I'm going to get into some stuff right now that I do very well that you articulate that I've never articulated before. So one of the things you talk about in How to Be Seen is this notion, I don't want to finish it, but I think everybody thinks when they walk in a room or they're doing anything in life that they have to be the most interesting person in the room. or extremely interesting. I actually don't think I am, to be honest with you. Like if you were with me in my social life, my friends are way more funny and interesting than me. I kind of, because I'm so introverted, I let them like entertain and get all the shine and I'm just kind of there.

26:03But I do the thing you say is most important really well, which is not to be the most interesting, but to be what? The most interested. You are masterful at this. Thank you. You are masterful. And I learn from you every day. You know, I listen to you every day. and I learned the way that you interview people. You make people feel seen like I've never seen anybody make people feel seen in my life. Thank you. And you did the first time I ever met you, and we sat down at dinner next to each other at your book launch party, and you made me feel so seen. Thank you. And I was like, he is an expert at making people feel seen, and when you can make other people feel seen, that is when you become seen, and you don't need to be an extrovert.

26:38You don't need to be the loudest, brightest person in the room. In fact, I find that the most confident people usually display the quiet confidence. They don't need to be the stars of the show. Because they can sit back in confidence. You know this. Self-trust. That's what it is. Trusting and knowing that you have what you need. You've got everything. If somebody wants to come over and talk to me, I'm good. If they don't want to, that's cool too because I know what I've got. You know? And the cool thing about being an introvert, I'm introverted too. Are you? Yes. Incredibly introverted. Really?

27:07Because I, yes, I would much rather just be at home in front of my TV with my dogs and my husband and just chilling than be out at a party with people. However, I love the connection that comes from networking. I love being on stage. I love serving. I love that. That's like, I live for that, right? I think we're very similar in that way. However, when I'm having conversations with people, I would much rather ask them a zillion questions about themselves because it takes all the attention off of me, you know? And I think that people don't like networking because they're like, a lot of people are more introverted and it's exhausting to think of, how am I going to pitch myself?

27:41How am I going to make people like me? What am I going to say about myself? Forget it. The best way to make someone feel like, oh, my God, I loved that person is to ask them questions about themselves. Their favorite topic. Their favorite thing in the world. So if you can just walk into a room and forget, don't worry about you. Just be really curious and walk around that room thinking, how can I figure out how I can help people in this room? Let me get here. Let me figure out how I can help people. That's how I built what I've built. it's amazing because first to hear your introverted blows me away because your people skills are off the charts i think i i know i say this on the sometimes on the show i'll give somebody a compliment two things just dawned on me one i'm listening to and i'm like because i am older in this space and there's a point where like i'd like to play a little bit more golf so like i do think about how much content i'm going to produce going forward and like listening to you there's a few others too but listening to you i'm like oh this industry is in such a great place like the world's going to be great.

28:39Like there are people so good now in this space and you're so good. Before I was a public person, just to validate your work before I was, you know, a public person, the best compliment I would ever get is when someone would play golf with me and then we would be done. And the next day they'd run into a mutual friend of mine and go, man, I'd golf with that Ed Milak guy. I love that guy. What does he do? They knew nothing about me. They knew nothing about me because I spent the four or five hours talking about that. Also, just for me, I already know what I know and I already know about me and I don't think I'm that incredible.

29:14So I would really rather learn from you or experience you than talk about myself. Now, part of that is just like, it's kind of my nature, but it's really served me. She's giving you gold. You don't have to walk in a room and be the most interesting, be the most interested, do it in an Uber, do it when you're in a restaurant with a server. You can practice these things with the checker at the grocery store. I practice these things. I'm also just habitually that way, but there's places to do this stuff. I, I remember, you know, saying before I would get good at a party, I'd be like, I will try this at the grocery store and I would practice in these different places.

29:48So awesome work. Here's what's crazy about you. I knew a little bit of this wasn't sure. How do you know that you're in a dream right now? Like you're building your dream that no longer is, or really never was. So what most people don't know about you is, which I knew a little of it, but I didn't know the extent that it wasn't your jam. She'd been on TV forever. Like, I don't know, was it 14, 15, 14 years? What was it? No, it was five years. It was about like 14 seasons. You're too young if I do the math. Five years. It's the metal show. Yeah. Right. And I remember this. And then like, I'm reading your stuff.

30:20You're like, I don't even like the music. That just blows my mind. So tell them about like, I guess the beauty of finally living authentically your dream and what you want to do compared to a time. because there are people right now that are having productive lives. I won't call it success, but they're producing and growing, climbing up a ladder they don't even really want to get to the top of. And that was you. Yeah, completely. How? I grew up wanting to be an actress. Since I could think thoughts, I was like, I want to be a star. I remember being five years old on a stage performing in front of people.

30:58And I remember this like it was yesterday, singing and dancing on that stage and looking out at the audience and thinking, I want to do this for the rest of my life. This is the greatest feeling in the world. And so I pursued that. And I thought that my purpose in life was to be an actress, was to audition, get to read other people's lines, sing other people's songs, dance other people's moves, and wait for someone to choose me to tell me I was good enough to be whatever character they wanted me to play. And I was set on that. And I want everyone to be listening to this that thinks that they have this set goal that maybe they had since they were a kid, because it's really, really interesting how it morphed and how it changed as I consistently took action.

31:34And it's okay for it to happen like this. And I followed this path and I ended up doing the Broadway national tour of The Wedding Singer. And I played my dream role all around the country. And I learned really quickly from doing that, that I loved performing, but I did not love the lifestyle of being an actor performing around the country. And I almost felt bad because I was like, wait, this is everything I thought I wanted. Wait a second. What does this even mean? So then I came home and I got booked on this show. I got this job about heavy metal music. And I will never forget the day I got this job, like because I researched and Googled all this metal stuff and pretended I knew about it when I knew nothing.

32:10I wore this costume to this audition. And I was like, yeah, I love Metallica. I didn't know anything about it. In fact, they asked me to do my Britney Spears impersonation at this audition, which is really funny that I ironically got the job because I did a Britney Spears impersonation. And that just tells me that you always, when you're your most authentic self, that's when people lean in. That's when they pick you. And they picked me because of that. But either way, I forgot it along the way. You really were a Britney Spears fan at that time, but you weren't a metal fan. But thank God they asked you about Britney.

32:41Exactly. I got it. Exactly. And they called me. They're like, oh my God, your Britney was amazing. We want to hang out with you. You got the job. So before I know it, I'm on the show for five years and I am like that metal girl. Yes. huge blonde hair ripped up metal shirts like and this entire time I did not like heavy metal music that just blows my mind and and people on the like and here talk about building a brand and being seen as somebody that's not authentic to who you are I had this huge audience of all these people that thought I was somebody that I wasn't and it was exhausting keeping this up and I was so out of alignment in my job and in my in my heart in my soul I would wake up every day and I'd be like Jenny this is not you What are you even going to do when this ends?

33:21I didn't even know who I was anymore because all of my worth was wrapped up in this version of myself that I had created to please everybody else, to have this job, to have these likes, to have this quote unquote life. And I really spiraled. Like it was very bad. That was probably the, it's crazy that I'm here in LA. I'm actually staying at the same hotel that I stayed at when I would film the show here. We would film at Universal Studios and I would stay at the London West Hollywood. And just for fun, I decided to book myself at the London. in. I haven't stayed here since that metal show time as the person that I am today.

33:52Oh, I love that. Just to have like a moment of, wow, if you would have told me that I'd be doing this. But anyway, so I'm building this brand, this version of myself that couldn't have been further from who I really was. And everything exploded. I really believe that when you're out of alignment and you can't get yourself back in, God will step in and smack you back into alignment. And sometimes it hurts a little bit. And I lost the show. I lost the relationship that I was in and I had to start over. Didn't you lose the show and the relationship like the same day? Like the same week. Same week.

34:21Yeah, and I found myself like in this tiny little room with this apartment with six other actors with a window that faced a wall and I, because I had no money, I'd spent it all. I was in a really dark place and I was like, who are you? And I wish that I could tell you that in that moment I was like, I know exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to start over. I'm going to personal develop myself right out of this. It was bad. And it was literally 51%. So my mom actually came into the city during this very dark time in my life. I lived in New York and she came in and my mom's very into personal development.

34:57I wasn't at the time. She gave me this book and it was called You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. It's a book full of affirmations. And my mom knew I wasn't gonna read the book because she's smart. And she knew that I was not open enough to read something like that. So she photocopied one of the affirmations and she put it in the book and I opened the book when I got home and it said on the back of the affirmation that she photocopied, Jenny, I hope you find yourself again. So I looked at this affirmation by this woman, Louise Hay, and I said, all right, I'm not gonna read this book, but I will read this stupid affirmation every single day.

35:30That's all I'm gonna do. I stuck it on my refrigerator and every single day I made one commitment to myself to read this affirmation out loud. And sometimes I felt like, oh, this is stupid. It's not doing anything. And sometimes it made me feel a little bit better. like again 51%, sometimes 53%. And I don't know if it was the affirmation or if it was the act of sticking with my commitment every day, but I slowly but surely started to get myself out of my hole. And I started to find myself reading more personal development and listening to more podcasts and going to events and building my life and building a very successful business one step at a time, like 51%, 52%, one step at a time.

36:08And then before you know it, here we are. And this is where it gets crazy. There's like three crazy things here that I want the listener to hear when it comes to finding your purpose and maybe building a life that you don't think is in alignment with who you truly are. I got this book deal last year. And I was pitching a lot of, I wanted it to be traditionally published, pitching a lot of publishers, getting a lot of no's, getting a lot of people saying, I don't know, I don't really get it. The last publisher on the list of the meetings was Hay House. Louise Hay started one of the most successful publishing houses in personal development.

36:42And it's one of the biggest. And I get on this call with these publishers and I tell them the story of the affirmation. All of a sudden I'm thinking about it and I'm like, oh my gosh, Louise Hay changed my life. And that's why this book is here. And they're like, of course. So my book is published by Hayax. And now, so I have to talk about my dad for a minute. I know you're a dad. and when I was an actress and I was auditioning and performing my dad was my biggest fan like my dad was always like you I know how you are with your kids like front row of every show like always so supportive he would come to my shows in high school and we would have to do our shows in the hallway and he'd be like Jenny you're going from hallway to Broadway I just know it like I'm so excited for you and my dad has multiple sclerosis now so he can't travel and he can't come see me speak and the ironic thing is now I'm on stage again doing exactly what I always wanted to do but in such a different way, in such a more aligned way, in a way that feels even better than I could have ever imagined.

37:39And my dad's never really gotten to experience it. And I think we both spoke at this event, possibly. It was a real estate event in South Florida. I got invited to go speak in Florida and my dad lives there. So my dad could come and see me speak for the first time. So my dad comes to this real estate event and sees me speaking to all these big real estate investors and he's sitting in the front row crying and I get off stage and we get in the car. and my dad looks at me and he says it all makes sense this is what it was all for that metal show the wedding singer all the auditions everything it was all for this yeah if you would have told yourself back then that this is what it was all going to be for would you even have believed it and i was like no daddy and he's like i'm i'm so proud of you and you can't connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards so good and it always makes sense when you connect them looking backwards okay yeah i'm trying not to get too cry here that's beautiful it made me think gosh that was really good sorry um one of the coolest moments in life is when it finally lines up and so many human beings don't stay pursuing their dream long enough to where it all will eventually make sense and I love the fact that you stuck it out long enough to where all the rejection all the hardship all the looking out at the window that looks at a wall the your dream not being your dream all the rejection all that stuff it lines up so many of you if you'll just keep pursuing it and you'll keep trying eventually it'll all make sense it'll all line up but if you quit trying and you keep going for it, you may end up at the end of your life and it never made any sense.

39:27That pursuit eventually God lines up the dots for you and goes, this is what I was doing the entire time. Stay faithful. Stay after it. Keep growing yourself. Keep improving. Get to 51%. Keep taking those actions. That is a beautiful story. And how ironic you're staying at that hotel right now. It's crazy. Doing the show right now. And yeah, so crazy. And by the way, I don't know if you know this, but you were one of the very first inspirational, motivational speakers I ever saw. Oh, wow. And I remember seeing you at Summit of Greatness and sitting in the front row and thinking, I want to do that one day.

40:06That's awesome. And now you're crushing it. And now I'm sitting across from you. And I say this for the person listening right now. because if you feel like you're so far away from your dream or like we said in the beginning like you're too late you haven't started yet everyone's already done it it's already been done if it is for you like it and you don't stop and you keep going no matter what doesn't have to be a massive step doesn't have to be a leap but it can be a baby step every single day and you don't give up and you keep going you will get to where you want to be and you will have those moments where you look backwards and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad I started.

40:42The most important thing is to start. Gosh, this is so freaking good today. Like I'm like, man, this is so good. We're going to go longer. Sorry. We're going to go a little bit longer. I mean, this is, you're making me really reflect and think about some things. And I'm just going to tell you guys as a dude a little further down the road, I can just confirm she's right. I can just confirm for you. She's right. And you do a lot of work though on, you talk a lot about the subconscious more than I realized. And I do too. Like what you just said a minute ago, I don't know if it was reading the affirmation or was that I kept this promise to myself, probably a combination of both.

41:20But I do believe there's a lot to keeping these promises we make to ourselves that start to move us from 51 to 53 to 58, et cetera. So you talk about in chapter five that you talk about seeing the future you, right? And you actually have some steps to manifesting.

41:40That manifest word sort of become this cliche thing. Almost some people are like, okay, we're going to manifest something. Pooey, pooey. But that's not really how you approach it. It's actually rather scientific the way that you do it. So let's talk a little about manifesting and seeing the future you. Yeah. I don't even really use the word manifest in the book. I use the word create. You don't. You do some in your content, but in the book you do use the word create. And I think it's develop or something like that in the book. It's the creation process. Because when I look back at all the things that I've created in my life, it really has been not just because I sat around and visualized it.

42:11The visualization, it's an amazing tool. I believe in it fully because I believe in the power of the subconscious mind. And I've done a lot of research on this because I like to back things up with science. I'm like, you know, mixing the Jenna Kutcher, our friend says, mixing the woo with the work. I like to mix them together. And I believe that when you can reprogram the subconscious mind to make believe that this memory happened, the subconscious doesn't know the difference between a real memory and a fake one. So if you can actually feel the feelings that you want to feel in this moment, because we all can, we can all close our eyes and envision ourselves somewhere and feel the actual physical feelings that we would have if we experienced that thing.

42:49If we practice enough, the subconscious will start to actually think that that thing happened to you. And then subconsciously, you're actually seeing the opportunities way more. They're like noticeable. And then the fear towards getting that thing is a lot less. And it's like, duh, I'm just gonna take action to do that thing. And that's how we create. And that's why there's a whole section in the book about the law of action. Because without action, nothing happens. People are like, oh, I've been manifesting forever and visualizing forever, but I haven't gotten the thing. I'm like, what have you done to get the thing?

43:22And in the book, I talk about the story of how I created the role in The Wedding Singer. Yeah. Tell them. We tell them. Yeah, of course. It's my favorite story in the world. It's actually in my entrepreneurial journey. It's the biggest lesson I've ever learned was in this. I moved to New York City when I was 20. I dropped out of college and I was like, I need to go and pursue my dream. And I went to this conservatory program called AMDA, Jason Derulo went there. I know you just interviewed him. We both went there. And when I was there, one of the shows that I went to go see with my friends, we would see a bunch of shows, was The Wedding Singer.

43:53And I remember sitting in the back of the theater with my good friend Pat. And all of a sudden, like 15 minutes into the show, this character takes the stage. And she was like, she was the b****. It was Linda, the ex-fiance. And she's in this like Madonna like a virgin costume. And there's a smoke machine. And she's strutting onto the stage. And everyone's laughing. It's this comedic character. And I, all of a sudden, like God came down and was like, this is your role. I start crying. I'm looking at, but he's like, what is wrong with you? I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to play this part one day.

44:27I just knew. I never really resonated with like the good girl parts. I always wanted to be like the spicy girl. And I was like, this is it. This is the role. So at that time, my mom, good old mom, had given me another personal development book. And that was the book, The Secret, which was very popular back in the day. about the law of attraction. I wasn't into it, of course. I was like, whatever, mom. Like, okay, you can visualize things and they magically happen. Okay. And I put it aside. And I remember watching TV and I saw Oprah on TV talking about how she, quote unquote, manifested her role in the color purple by using the law of attraction.

45:02And I was like, oh, maybe if Oprah can do it, maybe I can do it with Linda. So I like secretly did this experiment. And I was like, I'm gonna do this with Linda. And at that time, I was in school. I was living in like this little eight foot by eight foot room with like a twin bunk bed like no way for me to be on Broadway and I started visualizing every night before I went to bed and I would sing myself to sleep and I would sing the Linda music and I would see the audience and I would feel the costume on my body and I would see the lights and I would actually experience me playing the part every single night and that brought me to in school I would sing all her songs for all my final demos.

45:39And I all of a sudden in my mind, like fully believed that this was my role. And that made the opportunity way more prevalent when all of a sudden I saw the audition for the Broadway national tour of The Wedding Singer pop up. And I had never been to an audition in my entire life, but I had my Linda costume ready for me. I had already picked it out. I was ready to go. I walk into this audition. I sign on my name on the list. I was like 532 or something there's like 531 other girls that look just like me and I and I made it to the final two at that audition it was me and this other girl talk about all the symptoms of fear FOMO comparison like it was like we were battling it out like it was but the belief that I had created from all the visualizing was driving me I didn't get the part I didn't get the part but I wasn't upset because Because my immediate reaction, and this is a really important lesson for me in rejection, because I had believed so fully in my heart that this was for me and I had done all of the work, I was like, oh, I just have to get really creative on how to make this happen in a different way.

46:42So I started to take action in a different way. And when you get rejected, it simply means you just have to get a little bit more creative and find that redirection to what you really want. It fueled me. And so I snuck into a different audition with the same director and I sang the Linda music at an audition for a different show. And I was like, I don't even care. What do I have to lose? And this is a big no-no in the entertainment industry. So he comes out of after I do this terrible thing that I was not supposed to do. And he's like, we're not casting Wedding Singer. But here's my card. Follow up with me when we do.

47:18So this is where I learned the power of the follow up. and you know how good of a follow-upper I am because I followed up with you a zillion times. I followed up with this man for I think six months. I had nothing to say to him. I would just email him every week like, oh, here's a picture of my dog. Oh, I'm practicing my Linda music. Here's a picture of me. You know, how are you? Just follow up, follow up, follow up, keeping myself top of mind. Finally, I get invited back to do it again. The same audition process, same audition process again. I think it was months later. I get an email in my inbox telling me congratulations.

47:51we're welcoming you to the Broadway National Tour for the Wedding Singer.

47:57Linda, understudy. So close. I still didn't get it, Ed. I still didn't get it. But in my mind, I'm like, okay, talk about FOMO. I had to go to the rehearsals and I had to watch this other girl play my part. And I actually wore a fat suit in the show. That was my role. I was in the ensemble and that was my character. And I had to wait in the wings and I had to watch this girl. But I don't know who said this quote. Maybe you do. but luck is what happens when preparation meets the moment of opportunity. So I decided that instead of feeling jealousy and comparison with this girl, I was going to be unbelievably grateful that she was showing me exactly why I didn't get the part and she did.

48:34And study her and learn from her and watch her every move and ask her why she did it that way and really perfect it by studying her and using her as my mentor because clearly I didn't get it for a reason. And then finally, when I got my moment, the director called me and he said we want to make you linda on the big tour but ed when i played the part on the stage for the first time with the same exact visual of that audience and the lights the costume was the same costume that the woman on broadway wore it was on my body and i what i was looking out at was the same visual that i had done in my little twin bed years prior and i walked backstage and i said i was like oh my god anything that you want you can create.

49:21But it's not because I just visualized it. The visualization was the tool to keep me going every time I got rejected and heard no and heard no and heard no and heard no and heard no. But it was that that drove me. It was the law of action, not the law of attraction. That's the unbelievable explanation of how it really works. It's both, right? You've kind of merged the law of attraction with the law of action together. And obviously you choose the law of action over it. I do too. Your mind moves towards what it's most familiar with and so does your life. So if something's repeated over and over and over and over again in your subconscious mind, you actually begin to gravitate and move towards it.

49:59That's just how life works. Most people just don't invest the time and the reps to do the dreaming over and over and over again, or they do all of that to your point and they don't do any of the law of action. In the book, by the way, she gives you nuggets of actions. There's this thing you have in there, I think it's where you list like 20 people. This is freaking gold right here, By the way, very easy to do. I have no idea why I've never heard this before, but it's freaking awesome. So let's give them that little additional nugget. This is actually part of the law of action in my mind. Totally.

50:30This umbrella. Yeah. And this goes for anyone that has a goal of anything, anything that you want to do. And whether it's get into get featured in the media or get a role or date someone, get married, whatever it is, this works for you. It's called the top 20 list. And this is in the part about connection and networking and people, because I believe that every opportunity, it comes from a human. It comes from a person, a connection. So we have way more connections than we even realize. We just don't actually take the time to think about them and leverage them and use them. So you're going to make four columns on a sheet of paper.

51:00I want everybody to do this. Take out a piece. If you're driving, don't do it now. Do it later. and in the first column all the way on the left list out 20 people in your life that have any kind of connection to the goal that you have any connection and this could be someone that you haven't spoken to in years or this could be somebody that you're very very close to doesn't matter don't overthink it just write down 20 names 20 people that could help you then in the next column over you're going to rank each person on a scale of one to ten on how likely they are to help you. So let's say this is someone, a client of yours that you've helped so much and they have a connection to the thing that you want and you've provided so much value to them.

51:38They're a 10 on how likely they are to help you. So that's great. But let's say you don't really know the person, you haven't helped them that much in their life. Then maybe they're a three or a four. Okay, fine. They're a three or four. Next column over, you rank that same person on a scale of one to 10 on how influential they are in getting you to your goal. So let's say that client that you love, that you've given so much value to, they're a 10. They also happen to be the editor-in-chief at Forbes and your goal is to get into Forbes. Whoa, they're a 10. But let's say they know someone that used to write for Forbes and they're not that influential.

52:10Maybe there are two or three. You add up each person's scores and you give each person a grand total score in the final column. And then you sort the scores in descending order. So that means the people with the highest scores are at the top. People with the lowest scores are at the bottom. But here's the most important piece, Ed. because the people at the top, they're easy. They care about you. They're influential. They love you. They want to help you. So you're actually giving them an amazing gift by reaching out to them and saying, hey, could you help me? Because it makes people feel good when they're able to help people they care about.

52:38It's true. Right? So when you can ask for help and give them an opportunity to help you, they're going to feel awesome. They're going to be excited about it. But the people on the bottom of the list, those people, you can't just really reach out and ask for help yet because you haven't really garnered the relationship. You haven't provided enough value to them. You need to put in the gives. You need to create the law of reciprocity. So instead of asking them for help, when you get to their name on the list, you're just going to consistently start to provide value to that person. Outstanding. Keep going.

53:07Yeah, just consistently. And it's not just once. I think people make the mistakes like, oh, I did something for him and then he never did anything for me back. The thing that separates great relationships from the ones that are kind of just like an exchange, like the long-term ones where it's giving, giving, giving forever and just a really beautiful experience in life where you work together forever to help each other, is those relationships are built over consistent gives. And it doesn't have to be a huge financial give. It could be as small as commenting on their post every day or sharing their podcast or writing a great review for their book or doing something tiny or sending them a little small gift when something cool happened in their life that was really thoughtful.

53:46Give value consistently and watch those relationships end up with higher scores. And if you consistently do that and work your own network, you will be able to accomplish absolutely anything that you want in your life. That is unbelievably good. And by the way, exactly what she does. It's exactly what she does. That is, I mean, this is a content rich episode, isn't it? I mean, that's exactly, exactly how you live and what you do. A couple more things, because this is so good, you guys, when I get somebody with this much stuff, I want to make sure that I get the most out of you. And by the way, here's how you can pay her back, by the way, for all the value you're getting today.

54:23You got to go get the book. You got to go get be seen. Depending on when you're listening to this, you could pre-order it. But for most of you, depending, I don't know when this is necessarily going to come out, just go to Amazon and get the book or go to Target and get the book or go to Walmart or Barnes and Noble. Get a few of them. It's one of these books, particularly because if you are listening to this near the holidays, He's like, what a gift to give a dreamer in your life or somebody who just wants to improve their life. Okay, there's two acronyms in the book. I like them both. I'll give you the time to cover them both.

54:48Okay. Hope and CIA. Yeah. So they'll remember these. I like stuff you can remember like that. So hope and CIA, everybody. You'll remember this. It's gold. Okay. Yeah. Let's talk about hope first because it's the name of your island. Yep. That's right. I'll never forget that. By the way, I forgot that. You just reminded me. It's actually weird. I forgot that. You're right. Okay. Yeah. We were sitting there. You're like, I got an island. and it's called hope. I was like, great. That's the best word in the world. So the reason that people aren't being seen. So if you were sitting here and listening to this right now and you're like, Jen, I know I'm totally that person.

55:17That's like, I want to create content. I want to put myself out there, but I'm scared. It's not because you don't know how to do it. You know how to do it. It's because you're afraid of what other people will think of you. And that's normal and that's natural. And I know we both, we already have agreed that this comes up for us. So this is how I move through that. I focus on the acronym hope, which for me stands for help one person every day. Because the reason that we get so nervous and scared to put ourselves out there is because we're focusing on us, what we look like, what we sound like, if we're good enough, if what we're saying resonates enough, if we look okay, if they're gonna like it, if they're gonna follow it, it's all about us.

55:56But in the reality, if you're creating content that helps people, it's not about you. It's for the person on the other side of the phone. It's for the person that's listening to this podcast, right now. And if you were just sitting with a friend or a client and they were asking you for advice, you wouldn't get nervous. You wouldn't be obsessed with yourself. You wouldn't be scared. You wouldn't be like, oh my God, I'm so worried. I'm just not going to press go because I'm scared of what people think. You would just pour into that person because you want to help them. So for me, I just think every day when I wake up, I'm like, okay, even when I wrote my book, I sat there and I thought of my girl that I was helping.

56:29I thought of her and I would just talk to her and you can probably read the way that I wrote that book is very much my voice talking to somebody. It's true. Because I used this strategy of helping one person and I just tried to pour into her and help her because it took away my nerves. So if you're struggling to create content or to be seen, understand that it's not about you. It's actually your responsibility to be visible. Because every day that goes by that you're not making yourself visible to that person that needs your help is another day that that person's going to go by from someone else or listen to someone else who's not as good as you and doesn't care as much as you because you're too in your head or insecure about what you look like and what you sound like, which doesn't even matter at the end of the day or at the end of your life.

57:10When you're looking back, does it really matter what other people thought? No, it matters what you served, how many people you helped, how many people you impacted. So it's about the other person. Talk to them, help them. That's hope. That is bananas true.

57:27I just want to say, validate your work again. When I'm really nervous before I speak, I do two things. I pray, and then I literally shift and go, this is about one person in this audience today that God's going to use for me to help. This is not about me today. It's about that precious human being who God will use me to say something or do something today to help them, and it immediately gives me peace, comfort, serenity, and focus. So that's how brilliant that one is. Can we get really meta for a second? Because you probably did that the day that you spoke that first time that I ever heard you.

57:59And I think about it this way. If you were too scared to get on that stage and speak and you were too in your head or too insecure and didn't want yourself to be seen and didn't say that to yourself that this is about one person, maybe you wouldn't have been on that stage. And if you weren't on that stage, maybe I wouldn't have gotten in my head that I wanted to be a great speaker like you. And maybe we wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation and maybe somebody wouldn't be listening and be able to get the value that they needed. and that's how it works. Thank God you're visible to me.

58:25So what an honor to even think that I was a speck of sand on the beach of you becoming what you are right now. That's so great to hear. Thank you for telling me that. Wow. Thank you. And thank you for being you. As corny as that sounds, I'm just sitting here going, this is the world's in such good hands. It's just, this is, we're in such good hands. So thank you for telling me that. I'm pointing that out. All right. Right. Becoming a CIA agent. You guys will never forget this. It's just too good. So becoming a CIA agent. Yeah. So this is where the book gets more tactical, talking about the importance of building credibility, influence, and authority when building your brand.

59:02When you have those three letters, CIA, when you can be a CIA agent, people will follow you forever. True. We don't just want people that are going to like our stuff. We want people that are going to be in our community, in our world, whatever we decide to do. And that's another amazing thing about building a brand. Let's say you sell your company and you want to start over. You have all these people that are following you and love you for exactly who you are. And they're going to do whatever you want them to do later. That's right. Buy whatever, follow you, whatever. Like raise, you can raise money very much easier that way when you already have your brand.

59:32So credibility. What is that? It's trust. There's a lot of people on the internet nowadays. And any Joe Schmo can get on the internet and say that they're an expert in something. So people are getting very weary of that, which is great. So they need a little bit more credibility and trust in order to follow. and we were talking about this at the beginning of the episode. The first thing that somebody's going to do when they hear about you or they're referred to you is they're going to check you out to see if you have credibility. Were you featured on any top podcasts? Were you featured in the media?

59:57Do you know anybody that I know that I trust, right? Credibility is borrowed trust. So you want to start to build that up in your business however you can. And if you're just starting out, that's okay. You don't need to get a massive, huge media spot or a huge podcast. You can start building credibility in other ways by showcasing all the people that you help, your testimonials, your case studies, A lot of different types of things can build credibility. So credibility is so important. That moves into the I, which is influence. Influence is a really powerful tool because if you're doing something that's good that can help people and you can influence them to take action because of leading by example and because you have been featured on other people's stages, whether that is a podcast or a physical stage or their platform or whatever it is, then you can influence people to do good too.

1:00:41It's so, so, so important. and influence is very difficult to build on your own, as you know, but like just to hack the algorithm and try to post the greatest content for people to pay attention to. So I always tell people, if you're wanting to build influence, do it by leveraging OPA, another acronym, other people's audiences. Don't do it alone. Like right now we're doing it together. That's right. We're collaborating. We're collaborating. Collaborate with more people and that's the fastest way to build your brand. Not just trying to do it by yourself. That's why I'm such a proponent of going to events and meeting people using the top 20 list.

1:01:12That's how you're going to build. Last but not least, authority. Important. And the analogy that I like to use for this is, you know, if you meet like an undercover agent in real life, let's say you don't know that they're an undercover agent and they come up to you and they say, Ed, you need to sit down right now. You'd be like, I'm going to sit down. Like, who are you to tell me to sit down? But if they flash their badge, they suddenly have the authority to tell you to sit down. Right. And the only thing that changed was flashing their badge, their little credibility marker. And then you're like, oh, wow, okay, yeah, I'm going to sit down.

1:01:43You're legit. So when you, in order to create authority, you need to be flashing your badge all the time. And I know a lot of people that say to me, Jen, I don't want to be braggy. I don't want to show off my wins. It's your responsibility to showcase your credibility and your influence and to really amplify all the cool stuff that you're doing so that you can create more authority so that people will pay attention. You need to be flashing your badge all over the place. And it's not because of you. It's because the more that you can amplify your authority, the more impact that you'll make and the more people you'll be able to help and the bigger your brand will grow.

1:02:18This is freaking outstanding. It's so true. She does a unique hack on her social, by the way. So this idea of collaborating, like we're actually live collaborating right now. So this is actually authentic. But the other thing she does, I'm going to give away something you do, but it's brilliant. She actually uses the credibility of someone she's not even with that she may not even know in her content. So she'll show a clip from Kim Kardashian that validates a point she's making. And so it'll go, Jen, Kim, Jen. She's got one out right now with Tom Hanks in it. And I'm like, this is so brilliant because to some extent you're morphing, to some extent their badge is being flashed in your content.

1:02:55And now you're starting to build a little bit of that as well. So it's not the same as collaborating, but it's not completely separated. It's a credibility piece. It's a visual. It's over time you begin to see these people as similar and the same. And so she just does. I'd follow her content to you guys. I'd go to Instagram and follow Jen because she's also relentless about doing it, too. She's she's repetitious. She does the thing she's teaching in the book. So I want to ask you one last question. Yes. First off, I want to say again, everybody go get be seen, period. Just go get it. this has been so good um you have this thing that you did and it blew my mind and it's just something that you talked about recently about you wrote a letter to chris before you met him and there's a lesson in this about being prepared and being ready and it's it's beautiful actually rob dyrdek did my show and you know he's become one of my dearest friends and we're business partners.

1:03:53And what he said on the show that took me aback, a lot of things Rob says is brilliant. He's been on a couple of times actually. But when I first interviewed him, he was talking about when he was single and a knucklehead and, you know, dating a bunch of girls and, and then he kept meeting the wrong girl. And he's like, and he goes, the reason I kept meeting the wrong girl, I'm paraphrasing was I was just the wrong guy. And he goes, and then I stopped trying to find her and I wanted to become the husband she was worthy of. And then I was pretty sure she'd show up and she did. And you have your kind of version of that as well.

1:04:25And I think this is a lesson of how to, I'll use the word manifest myself, but how to make something that's a dream, even a vague dream to some extent, a specific, tangible, real reality that you then live that reality, which is what you're doing now. You're doing it in your business life, in your personal life, relationships like you and I have. And obviously the most important relationship you have on earth here, the one you have with Chris. So would you just finish with that story? Because I think it's profound. Yeah, it's probably the most profound story that in my entire life, I, when I was building my business finally, right after, after that metal show and after wedding singer, and I started to actually become an entrepreneur and I started to build this life for myself.

1:05:08I had my own apartment in New York city and like everything was really good. And the thing that was missing was love. And I was single for a really long time. And I remember going to an event and it might have been the event that you spoke at. One of the speakers told us to close our eyes and do a perfect day exercise where we visualize our perfect life. And I had no idea what was going to come up and I closed my eyes. This is exactly what I saw, I swear to God. I closed my eyes and I started visualizing and I opened them up and they told us to tell the person next to us what we saw. And I was like, well, I have a husband and we run a company together and we travel all over the world together and we speak on stages and we're madly in love and we're kind of like jay-z and beyonce and then i said and then i'm kind of like a combination of tony robbins and britney spears because i get to wear really amazing outfits and dance on stage and then also impact people and that was exactly what i saw and this was when i was i was a personal trainer my company was in fitness and i was just like dreaming and trying to build the life that i wanted so after that event i went home and i was like i'm gonna meet this jay-z guy i'm gonna do what I did with Wedding Singer and I'm going to create him.

1:06:16So I took this picture that I found in a magazine of the back of a guy's head. He was like holding a baby, looking out at the rainforest and I was like, this is going to represent my guy. And I put it on like a board, like a vision board right over my desk. And every single morning I would look up at this guy and I would talk to him and I would be like, hi, my love. And I'd be like, I can't wait to meet you. I can't wait till we travel the world together. I love you so much. And I would practice loving him and I would practice being the person that I needed to be in order to love this man. And this man in my mind was into personal development.

1:06:47I didn't know anyone into personal development at that time, except for the people that like went to the events with me. He was an entrepreneur. I knew that he had a kid. I didn't know why. I just knew that I wanted someone that already was married and had a child. I knew he was funny. I knew all these things about him. And we would have these conversations every day. And I believe what this did for me is it made every bad date less bad. Because I had this relationship with this fake guy that I was talking to every day. And I was like, oh, it's not you. I know who my guy is. I talk to him all the time.

1:07:16So I would write him letters. I'd go for walks with him where I would walk around New York City listening to music on a Saturday night. I wouldn't go out with my friends. I'd be like, I'm going on a wonder walk. I call them with with my future husband. And I would envision talking to him and what I would feel like when we were together. And I was practicing the way that I would feel in this relationship so that I believe this was subconscious reprogramming. Because when Chris finally came into my life, and it was through a lot of crazy, weird events that brought a lot of dare the day and action taking, it's all in the book of how I got myself to meet this man.

1:07:50When I met this six foot tall entrepreneur that has a beautiful daughter and lived on the Upper West Side and was into personal development, our first date, we walked around Central Park and he went and bought me all these personal development books. And we talked about the law of attraction. I was like, what is going on right now? and I was like, duh. I didn't push him away like I did a lot of other men in my life. I was ready for him. I had practiced. I had these letters that I was ready to give him and the crazy thing is is that we went to this, we met and like two weeks later we went to this wedding together in Des Moines, Iowa.

1:08:23Like it was for New Year's Eve. I was supposed to go by myself and every year on New Year's I have this tradition that I do with myself. I've been doing it for several years now where I write myself a letter from my previous self. So like December 31st, I'll write myself a letter to myself next year. I'll seal it up and I'll put it away and I won't read it. And the letter is usually congratulating myself for all the things that I did that year. Like, oh, you know, and I didn't, I had this letter that I had written a year before and I'm with Chris. We just met two weeks ago, fell in love. We're sitting there.

1:08:51I'm like, I got to read this letter that I wrote to myself a year ago. I don't know what it says, but I got to read it. And he's like, okay. So I opened this letter and I'm sitting next to him and it says, Dear Jenny, I'm so excited that you're sitting next to the love of your life right now. Give him a kiss for me.

1:09:09And we can get even crazier. There was a second part to this vision. When we were going on our quote unquote walks together, which now we go on together in real life all the time. And I'm like, oh, now you're really here. You weren't here before, but now you are. I would envision that we lived in this very specific apartment. And when I was a personal trainer, I would train people in this apartment building. And it's so beautiful on the Upper West Side. and like I would envision, I would tell the doorman every time I walked in, I'd be like, I'm going to live here one day. You better believe I'm going to live here one day.

1:09:36And they'd be like, okay, whatever. And so part of my vision is I would talk to this guy and we're going to live in this building together and we were going to be entrepreneurs and build a business and be so successful together. And Chris and I ended up actually building the company and becoming very successful together in our own businesses and then coming together and building a company together, as you know, that we built. And we moved into that apartment building and we were able to get it together and we moved into the exact apartment that I had envisioned me and vision board guy were going to live in together.

1:10:06And there was this moment when we first moved in when Chris was standing at the window and he was like, there's no furniture in the apartment. Yeah, we just moved in. He's holding my dog Dexter and looking out at New York City. And I looked at this image and I'm like, why does this look so familiar? It's whatever. I like took a picture. I'll show you after we're done. I looked back at the vision board guy and the vision board guy was holding a baby and looking out at the rainforest and it was the back of his head. And again, to go back to, it's usually what you want or maybe something so much better, but you have to just allow it to unfold the way that it's supposed to unfold for you specifically.

1:10:43And for me, my dog's way better than a baby right now. And New York City's way better than the rainforest. But it was the exact same image that I stared at and talked to. And I don't believe that that was magic i believe that i i practiced receiving it for so long that i subconsciously took action to get that and make that all happen really with a combination of of my conscious my subconscious and a little bit of magic and i believe a little bit of god right i always believe in that um to to then you know now we're i mean the if you look at my vision which was like the whole britney spears tony robbins it's crazy like i now i walk out a lot of my walk-on songs for speaking is like baby one more time and i just like a lot of throwbacks to that um it's really cool uh yeah people cry on my show i usually don't cry on my show so you got me twice today but that one of congratulations you're sitting next to him oh my gosh that was awesome i pray people stayed to the end of the show because every minute was gold, but that right there, that's other level stuff right there.

1:11:57That's like the best of the best of the best right there. I've cried like I think three times ever on the show and you just got me to do it twice in one episode. So Sasha's back there. She knows you're incredible. You're outstanding. Um, you're a world changer. And now I really want to buy that stock if I please could. Thank you so much for today on behalf of like several million people. Thank you. Today was awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I love you. I'm proud of you. I love you. And this is seriously, this was a creation like we're living in it. So if you're listening, this is about you right now.

1:12:39Whatever you want, you can create. Just keep going. oh my gosh this is good today all right you guys uh go get be seen uh share this episode go get the power of one more when you're grabbing that and you know what take action on the stuff that we covered today it can actually alter the direction of your existence here on this planet if you take these steps god bless you everybody max out this is the ed mylet show

1:13:14Thank you.