Onward Nation

Jared Nichols is a deep futures strategist, executive advisor, speaker, and coach. He provides the tools to help business owners and their organizations gain competitive advantage, seize new market opportunities, drive in new revenue, and increase profits. Jared is also the host of the small business podcast presented by the National Small Business Association entitled, "The Road Ahead: Small Business in the 21st Century", which focuses on practical tips and insights for small business owners on how to create growth in a volatile and uncertain environment.

• Jared's background
• What a deep futures strategist is
• Market want vs. market need
• Why you need to know how to create context
• Avoiding habits that drive your productivity down
• Why it's important to be comfortable thinking about the future
• Why you need to be bold and trust yourself
• Having the ability to anticipate change and disruption and take action in the present
• Why you have to risk being disliked in order to truly help people
• Why you need to always be aware of your intention and your reaction to what you do

• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jarednicholsgrp
• Email: [email protected]
• Free eBook: Waypoint: Mapping The Future of Talent In The Age of Automation
• Book: Rethinking Your Next Quarter (Century): How to Create Continuous Growth And Ensure Future Relevance

Stephen is the CEO of Predictive ROI and the host of the Onward Nation podcast. He is the author of two bestselling books, speaker, trainer, and his digital marketing insights have been featured in SUCCESS, Entrepreneur, The Washington Post, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, and other media.

Good Morning Onward Nation – I'm Stephen Woessner and welcome to Episode 470 – this week's solocast.

And it's during these weekly solocasts that I tend to go deep into tactics…where you and I get our hands dirty…where we cover a series of step-by-step business building recipes that oftentimes focus on scaling, sales, lead gen, hiring, or other business development topics that can help you move your business onward to that next level.

But today I am going to turn the tables…on you and on me.

I'm still going to share and teach but it is going to be from the perspective of a guest on another podcast. The Avanti Entrepreneur Podcast, which is hosted by my good friend, Dave Mammano, a three-time guest on Onward Nation.

You may remember Dave and the wisdom he shared during Episodes 17, 145, and 438 of Onward Nation.

Dave recently launched his own podcast and he already has listeners in 67 countries – and – his show has been a major source of new revenue for his business.

When Dave invited me to be a guest on his show – I said – "Heck, yeah, I want to do that!"

What I love about Dave's interview style – and I think you will too – is that he is fun, energetic – but – he still asks the tough questions.

During the interview, Dave asked me to share the story and the lessons learned when Predictive ROI, my core business, lost $200,000 when we had to cancel a major live event. It was a major mistake and a very painful failure – and I share all the details with Dave. Nothing hidden.

Dave also asked me to share that proverbial moment from May 2015 when I decided to launch Onward Nation and the business case behind the show.

We even talked through some of the lessons and legacy I learned from my grandfather and how what I learned has shaped our company culture here at Predictive ROI.

Dave and I also dug deep into mentorship, how I meet one-on-one with all of my direct reports at Predictive ROI each week for mentorship lessons – and – how I have become a better mentor as a result of my accountability calls every Friday morning with my good friend, Don Yaeger.

And…I even share with Dave some of my experiences from working with nuclear missiles when I served in the United States Air Force – and – what it was like the one day my team and I had to rush into a silo one day to stop a missile from catching fire. Yeah – that was a rock solid awesome day to be sure, Onward Nation – but more importantly – it was from lessons like these that I learned that I have a real love and skill for troubleshooting and quickly solving problems.

Okay…so here we go…Dave Mammano…and me…on The Avanti Entrepreneur.

So there you have it Onward Nation. I hope you had as much fun listening to the conversation, as it was to record.

Dave is awesome…and if you haven't listened to his show before this one…I highly recommend you visit AvantiEntrepreneurGroup.com for his other outstanding episodes and free resources.

So with that said…I want to say thank you, Onward Nation.

Thank you for being here – thank you for all of your support – thank you for all of your daily encouragement – thank you for all of the wonderful emails sharing what you like about the show – and just as important – sharing how my team and I can get better – how we can deliver even more value to you.

I appreciate the emails, the tweets, the Facebook posts, and all of the connection requests on LinkedIn. I want you to know how much you mean to me – how much you and what you share with us energize my team and me.

You and your feedback is the lifeblood of the show and so before we dive into today's lesson – I want you to know how much I deeply appreciate you taking some of your precise 86,400 seconds you were blessed enough to receive today – and sharing your time – your most precious asset – and deciding to share it with me.

I wish you the best of success as you conquer big goals and challenges the rest of this week – and look forward to having you back here tomorrow when we will have the opportunity to learn directly from Jared Nichols – you will not want to miss it.

Until then…onward with gusto!

David Mattson serves as the CEO and President of Sandler Training, he oversees the corporate direction and strategy for Sandler's global operations including sales, marketing, consulting, alliances and support. His key areas of focus are sales leadership, strategy, and client satisfaction. Under David's leadership, the Sandler organization expanded domestically and internationally to over 250 offices in 27 countries around the world. He added numerous program offerings to Sandler's training portfolio, including Enterprise Selling, Leadership, and Customer Service programs, along with Sandler Certification — and — David is a Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek bestselling author.

• David's background
• Why David believes that salespeople are made…not born
• How confidence & conviction can help you get through your fears of being an introvert
• How to avoid being reactive
• What habits Dave believes have contributed to his success
• How to build trust with your team
• Why every position within a company needs to act as if they own the organization
• Why all business owners need to master communication & accountability
• Why Dave believes that business owners need to come up with the questions and the issues, not the answers
• Why the #1 thing you should focus on is sales
• Creating behavioral plans

• Website: www.sandler.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dave-mattson-99538612

Corey Kupfer has negotiated successful deals for over 30 years as an entrepreneur and lawyer. He's the author of Authentic Negotiating: Clarity, Detachment & Equilibrium – The Three Keys to True Negotiating Success & How to Achieve Them. Corey's clients include best-selling business author David Bach and Ajay Gupta, financial advisor to Tony Robbins. He's committed to inspiring authenticity in business. He has facilitated workshops for Entrepreneurs' Organization, Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services, AICPA, Citibank, Schwab Advisor Services, and numerous other organizations. Corey is also very active with many nonprofit and public interest organizations. For many years, he was a leader of the New York community of The Hunger Project, an organization that empowers people to end their own hunger.

• Corey's background
• Why it's important to be at a place of gratitude
• Why you need to prepare both internally & externally
• Why you will have much more success if you plan your days intentionally
• Why you need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable
• Why you need to get connected to the 'gap'
• How context can give you a place to truth back up to
• Why it's important to identify your purpose and fully commit to it
• Why you need to do the work to figure out the deep 'why'
• Trusting your inner guidance

• Website: coreykupfer.com
• Website: authenticenterprises.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/coreykupfer
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/CoreyKupfer
• Twitter: @coreykupfer
• Book: "Authentic Negotiating: Clarity, Detachment & Equilibrium The Three Keys to True Negotiating Success & How to Achieve Them"

Mark Walker has been a real estate investor since 2004 and founded Luxmana Investments in 2011. Mark has successfully overseen the operations of his own assets, and that of other investors, in Colorado, Texas, Florida and Illinois. This includes his involvement with MBP Capital and Catalyst Multifamily Management — a successful multifamily investment, management, and brokerage firm. During this tenure, Mark has had property management oversight of his Dallas area multifamily portfolio, while also assisting with acquisitions and dispositions of assets.

• Mark's background
• Why it's important to know how much your desired lifestyle costs you
• Why investing is really a team sport
• How Mark networking has contributed to his success
• Why you need to trust, but also verify
• Why you need to constantly ask yourself what's working, what's not working, and what can improve
• Why business owners need to master their time-management skills
• How you can tap into systems & other people to leverage them to rapidly scale your business
• Why you need to know your goal & what it looks like
• Why, if you're not having fun, you really need to question what you're doing & why

• Website: www.luxmana.com
• Free Gift: "10 Things I Am Going to Do Today to Escape the Rat Race"

Kathy Kolbe is the author of the new book BUSINESS IS BUSINESS: Reality Checks for Family-Owned Companies and is also the global leader in discovering and accessing the power of human instincts. She has done the brain research to prove the relevance of her Kolbe Theory of Conation to individual and organizational success. Kolbe was the first person to connect conative behavior to instinctive drives, which she postulated as the source of the patterns of mental energy commonly known as a person's "MO."

• Kathy's background
• Why you need to be smart about how you deal with your emotions
• How the creative process encompasses all three parts of the mind
• What happens when you combine cognitive and conative behavior
• Why birth order & gender are not the crux of how you succeed working together in a family owned business
• How Kathy can predict failure just as well as she can predict success
• Why you need to look at your natural conative abilities
• How Kathy's data shows that there is universal equality
• Why the most important thing to know is yourself
• Why collaboration is the key to any organization's success
• Why we should avoid hiring people who are like us

• Website: kolbe.com
• Website: www.aptcareers.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Book: "Business is Business: Reality Checks for Family-Owned Companies"

Stephen is the CEO of Predictive ROI and the host of the Onward Nation podcast. He is the author of two bestselling books, speaker, trainer, and his digital marketing insights have been featured in SUCCESS, Entrepreneur, The Washington Post, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, and other media.

Good Morning Onward Nation — I'm Stephen Woessner. Have you ever noticed how most people only pay attention to the final product of a successful business owner?

They say things like…"I can never be like them." or "They got lucky."

What most people don't see is what the business owner overcame on their path to becoming successful.

All of the struggles. All of the daily rejections. The heartaches. The betrayals. The rumors. The criticism.

Even the empty bank accounts.

And all of those lonely nights while they worked hard to make their vision become a reality.

You see, Onward Nation, the only difference between the one who quits, and the one who doesn't, is that the successful owner showed up every day.

The successful owner worked hard every day.

They hustled every day.

They learned from a proven mentor every day. They worked hard to improve every day.

They did all this…even though they felt like quitting…every day.

And eventually, they became who they are today…a successful business owner.

All of this is a very powerful lesson that I learned from Patrick Bet-David, founder and host of the popular YouTube channel, ValueTainment.

Onward Nation, if you haven't already subscribed to Patrick's YouTube channel, I highly recommend it.

Patrick is exceptional at teaching success principles and lessons you can apply immediately in order to move your business onward to that next level.

And during this solocast, we are going to dig deep into one of the fundamental – yet underlying principles that I just shared from Patrick. The principle is fundamental to success — but Onward Nation — it is also easy to miss, overlook, or to take for granted.

The principle is that there is no such thing as an overnight success.

There isn't. No matter what industry — no matter what sector — the companies that have achieved sustainable success reached their pinnacle after years and years of perfecting their craft.

Successful people think about long-term wins – not short-term wins. It is about the long-haul, it is about endurance, and outlasting the competition not just for today – but for years and years down the road.

So I am going to share some examples to illustrate this powerful principle.

Why?

Because it is critically important to realize that success takes time. Your success requires your full attention. Your success requires failure, it requires making adjustments, repositioning, trying again, failing again, reintroducing products, and maybe even being on the brink of collapse as was the case with Apple, before you finally, truly "make it."

My hope for you is that you will celebrate the challenges and obstacles that are in your way right now.

With the right perspective – you will see them as the gift that they are. Each challenge – each obstacle – each setback – is actually making you stronger — if you let them.

Each embarrassing failure is forcing you to think differently — they are testing your commitment to your vital priorities, vital function, and your wherewithal.

Will you push forward — or will you quit, Onward Nation?

My hope is that you will always push forward and never quit.

There is no such thing as an overnight success. Instead, it takes persistence and tenacity over the long haul. The path to success often winds and swerves – and then ultimately – you make it – after 15 to 20-years of grinding it out and remaining focused on your vital priorities that you are then seen as an "overnight success."

To that point, I encourage you to go back and re-listen to my interview with Verne Harnish in episode 205 and listen carefully to how Verne introduces himself to you, Onward Nation.

Verne says this is his 34th year of doing just one thing — helping companies scale up. His organizations and companies are devoted to this "one thing"…his books are dedicated to this "one thing" and even his family and friends are dedicated to supporting him be successful with this "one thing."

The discussion with Verne is so compelling because he takes some time to dispel the overnight success myth by sharing some interesting data points and stories. One of those data points is that there are over 11,000 new companies launched every hour all over the world today.

Just think of that, Onward Nation…11,000 new companies an hour.

However, the vast majority of those companies will not be successful — they will lack the fortitude — the staying power to effectively scale their business. For example, Verne went on to share that of the 28 million businesses in the United States, about 24 million of the total are solopreneurs and will never scale up. Why?

Most lack the resources — and I don't mean just financial. Often times, as Verne shared, it is not a question of "how much do I need to scale?" but typically a question of who do I need to be in association with in order to scale up over the long haul.

Verne cited Apple and how the company had slowly moved along with their 25-year timeline — nearly collapsed — until Steve Jobs came back. At the time Jobs returned, they had 9,800 employees and were nearly broke.

And likely all of us know what happened following the iPod's release in 2001 — but it didn't succeed right away…in fact…the iPod floundered a bit for a couple of years.

But in 2003, it got some traction and now Apple has scaled to over 110,000 employees during the last 13 years. It would be very easy to forget about those first 25 years of trial, error, struggle, losing millions of dollars, nearly going broke, and then focusing on just one thing and doing it with excellence in the iPod — and then traction takes hold.

Success requires a disciplined effort over a long period of time.

Some people look at Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of Vaynermedia in New York City, as this guy who came out of nowhere to leap in front of the social media space and is now super popular with a massive following. Couldn't be further from the truth — and Gary would be the first one to tell you. His story is one of grit, tenacity, outworking the competition, and playing to win for the long term. When Gary launched Wine Library TV — his daily show — for about the first year, his audience was really small…almost discouragingly small…but Gary didn't quit. Then year two…then year three…then year four…then year five, and then year six.

Six years, Onward Nation!

Six years of producing a high-quality show of 20 to 30-minutes of engaging video content — every day — that's what it took for Gary Vee to win.

Just think about that for a minute. The magnitude of content he produced. It is really easy to look at Vaynermedia today and become impressed with the success — heck — nearly 900 in NYC and five other locations across the United States — those are significant accomplishments.

But to me, and I suppose it is because I've had the rare opportunity to be Gary's guest at Vaynermedia, to go behind the green curtain to interview him and to learn from him, I know that one of the things he is most proud of — and he should be — is all of the hard work, the struggle, the determination to make something out of nothing.

Gary truly enjoys the journey to success — and he would be another one to tell you there are no shortcuts to success.

And just because someone gets paid over $50,000 to deliver a keynote today — like Gary does — there is precious backstory there and it's the backstory that is much more interesting.

Let's take a look at the late Peter Drucker, arguably the godfather of modern day management.

Verne Harnish shared with me during our interview that of Peter's 39 groundbreaking books, only 13 of them were written before Peter's 65th birthday. Peter wrote twice the number of books after he turned 65.

What?

It takes a long time, Onward Nation, to collect, curate, and share the wisdom that is deep and impactful enough to matter and add value to a lot of people, like Peter did.

Or, how about Picasso?

Of his top 10 paintings — six of them were painted after he had turned 50. And four of the of 10 paintings were completed when Picasso was 51.

Again…it's the long-term commitment to your vital priorities and vital functions…perfecting your craft with years, and years, and years of disciplined effort.

I have mentioned vital priorities and vital functions a couple of times this morning — so if you want a refresher on terminology — just go back and listen to episode 203. I dedicated an entire solocast to the topic of the vitals in your business and the lessons I learned from one of my mentors, Darren Hardy.

So let's move onto another example of long-term success. It would be very easy to look at James Patterson, one of the most successful novelists in history, and think — wow — here's a guy who has it made. How amazing to be that lucky — to just write all day — what a joy.

Again, let's go behind the green curtain.

I had an opportunity to interview the incomparable Linda Kaplan Thaler — oh my word, Onward Nation — Linda is brilliant. She was the creator of the AFLAC duck and so many ad campaigns that I know you will recognize if you go back to listen to our interview.

But during our conversation, Linda told me about how she used to work for James Patterson when James was the creative director of the agency where Linda worked. James and Linda worked together for 17-years and became great friends. As Linda shared with me, James did not become a great novelist by accident or luck. Instead, to perfect his craft, James would get up every morning at 4:00 and would write for four hours until 8:00 when he would leave his home for the agency.

He would then put in a full day — go home — and be in bed by 8:30 every night. And he rinsed and repeated this process for 21 years, Onward Nation. Staggering. 21 years!

Just think about how many times during those 21 years that he would have second guessed himself, called himself bat crazy, how much criticism he received from friends and family encouraging him to just quit and to give up on his dream, and so much more.

But he didn't.

He remained committed to his vital priority — and after 21 years — he became the successful James Patterson we know today.

Or, how about Henry Ford? He was 40 years old when he founded the Ford Motor Company with the help of friends, family, and several investors who collectively helped him raise $28,000 in capital in 1903.

And if you look through Mr. Ford's timeline, you will see trials, tribulations, blood, sweat, tears, heartache, success, followed by disappointment, followed by triumph, followed by obstacles.

So, let's put all of these stories and principles into context by remembering the excellent lesson taught to us by Cody Foster, founder of Advisors Excel, our exceptional guest on Episode 81 of Onward Nation. Cody said to me, "Stephen, don't compare someone else's front-of-stage with your back-of-stage."

If you only look at someone's front-of-stage — what you see in the public eye — you miss all of the struggles, the obstacles, the pain, the suffering, the courage, and their zig-zagged journey to where they are now.

For example…we could look at Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, one of Hollywood's hottest and most in-demand actors today…and it would be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that his path to success was different…that it wasn't full of struggle, grinding it out, working hard to be the best…and most importantly…that it took 20-years for Dwayne to reach the pinnacle of success that he now enjoys.

An injury on the football field at the University of Miami that ended any hope of a professional football career that then he directed his attention toward professional wrestling.

And then he worked tirelessly to perfect his craft…slowly…training…making mistakes…until he made it to the big show…22,000 people in New York City's Madison Square Garden…and a pay-per-view television audience for his first big shot at a win back in 1996.

And due to all of the excitement…he forgot to direct his attention toward the correct camera…so the huge at-home audience saw a lot of The Rock's back.

Did this send him spinning and worrying about the mistake?

No! He got back to work…and ground it out for years until he won his first WWE championship.

And then that success led to controversy and tension…which he battled through…and finally some smaller movie roles…then a movie series…then some larger roles…and in November 2016…a starring role in Disney's Moana as the mythical, Maui, whose bigger than life personality is a perfect fit for The Rock.

And if you want to see some awesome behind the scenes video for the recording of Moana – just check this out:

But what if The Rock would have quit after football?

What if he would have quit in his early WWE career and let the frustration of not getting an early break set him back? What if he approached the smaller movie roles with less than full enthusiasm and instead decided to hold out for the big one?

What if, Onward Nation…The Rock had not been willing to invest the 20 years of blood, sweat, and tears to become an overnight success?

What if?

And what if you don't? You will be robbing the world of your special gifts and talents.

What if Napoleon Hill gave up and quit because he had not become an overnight success?

But, most people don't know the story behind the success of "Think & Grown Rich" — and how the first edition, per se, was a great book but not well-received by the American public.

Why? Well, several factors.

First, it was published in 1928 — just one year before the Great Depression.

The American public was not looking for — or ready for — a success manuscript at that time. And second, the book was huge and it was under a different title. It was the 612-page "Law of Success" — wow. I own the book — it is sitting on my desk right now — and it is amazing.

It is essentially a more comprehensive version of "Think & Grow Rich."

Smartly, Napoleon decided to revise and repackage the Laws of Success by trimming it down — making it more concise — and then publishing it as "Think & Grow Rich" in 1937, nearly 10 years later, following the Depression.

"Think & Grow Rich" then went on to sell 70 million copies worldwide.

Again, no such thing as an overnight success.

So don't give up, Onward Nation!

I hope you realize that the struggles you are facing — perhaps the abyss you are staring into right now — is all part of the master plan. You are more talented, more wonderful, more gifted, more incredible than you can possibly imagine.

You are a child of the highest God and were blessed with an abundance of talent — so don't quit — don't give in — don't stop. Keeping moving forward — success is there for you — just not overnight.

So with that…I want to thank you again for taking the time to be here with me today. It is an honor to have you here — thank you for tuning in — I am delighted you chose this episode to be what you listen to, study, and take with you on your morning run, or maybe Onward Nation has become part of your daily commute, or in some other way has become part of your morning routine.

However our daily podcast fits into your daily routine — I want you to know how much I appreciate you sharing some of your invaluable 86,400 seconds you have in your day with me and the strategies we learn and share each day from today's top business owners.

And please continue to let me know what you think of Onward Nation…good or bad…I always want your feedback.

My direct email address is [email protected] — and yes — that is my actual Inbox.

No fancy filters or filing system and I read and reply to every single email.

So please let me know how you think we are doing. I look forward to hearing from you.

Until then, onward with gusto!

Through his life in martial arts, Jim Bouchard transformed himself from dropout, drug abuse, and failure to successful entrepreneur and a Black Belt. Over 30 years of practice, studying, and teaching, he has developed the tools needed to master life, career, and business. As a speaker, trainer, and author of "THINK Like a BLACK BELT" and "THE SENSEI LEADER", Jim is in demand internationally among corporate and conference audiences. He appears regularly on TV and radio including BBC Worldview and FOX News.

• Jim's background
• Some of the greatest gifts that martial arts have given Jim
• How mastery is about getting somewhere, not about being somewhere
• The techniques Jim uses to stay on course for the day
• The importance of developing the habit of discipline
• Why you need to ask yourself "Am I where I want to be today?"
• Why, as leaders, you need to let people fail constructively
• Why you need to respect your core values to do the difficult things
• Why you need to be comfortable with uncertainty
• Why Jim feels that success is nothing more than the product of abundance

• Website: www.thatblackbeltguy.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jimbouchard

Rick Crossland is an internationally known expert and thought leader on A Player Talent. His innovative approach to developing and validating high performers has been published in leading business sites such as Inc.com and Fortune.com, where Rick contributes articles as a Fortune Insider. Rick has almost 30 years of experience developing, recruiting and leading high performers, and developing high performing cultures at companies. Before founding his executive coaching, leadership, and talent development company, Rick had worked at Johnson and Johnson, Ford Motor Company, and Limited Brands.

• Rick's background
• Why you should look for passive candidates when hiring
• Why, when interviewing people, you should always ask about their results
• Why you need to clearly define the position you are hiring for
• Why it's so important to be able to hold others accountable
• The difference in how both accountable & non-accountable people talk
• Why you need to get focused on productive return on investment oriented marketing
• How you can be a better leader immediately just by upgrading your team
• Why you need to become a talent scout
• Why you shouldn't ask somebody to do something that you haven't mastered yourself

• Website: aplayeradvantage.com
• Book: "The A Player: The Definitive Playbook and Guide for Employees and Leaders Who Want to Play and Perform at the Highest Level"

Dr. Rocco Martino is the inventor of the SmartPhone — and — has been a pioneer in the tech industry for 65 years. He is the author of 28 non-fiction books and five novels. His most recent book is entitled, "The Coming Technology Tsunami", which shared Rocco's vision of how technology will affect all of us in the next 10-years. It will be an unsettling time, but full of promise. Millions of jobs will be lost. Deliveries will be made by robots in driverless vans. The Smartphone will revolutionize education. We will launch our first colonization trip to Mars. The status quo will be disrupted and no profession or activity will be unaffected. And it will all happen in the next 10-years. This is going to be an insightful conversation!

• Dr. Martino's background
• The story of the early days behind the CyberFone & SmartPhone
• Why Dr. Martino changed his strategy of trying to sell the hardware to trying to license the software
• How Dr. Martino could not enforce his patent because he was not a telephone or communications company
• How Dr. Martino created a $750 billion industry but received nothing
• Dr. Martino's dream of going to outer space
• Why Dr. Martino feels that the history of the future is so obvious
• How we are close to being able to carry on a conversation with a robot
• How the power of association has been a contributor to Dr. Martino's success
• Why, if you're down, pray, meditate, & move forward

• Website: BlueNosePress.com
• Email: [email protected]