DREAM THINK DO | Motivation, Encouragement & Strategy

My guest is Rich Karlgaard. Rich is an entrepreneur turned publisher, in fact, he's the publisher for Forbes Magazine. He's an author and columnist, a board director, and Angel investor. He's experienced some true success, but he will also be the first to tell you that he was no child prodigy, and in many ways, he celebrates that. That's what led him to write his newest book called "Late Bloomer, The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement." Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: https://www.latebloomer.com/ TRANSCRIPT: Mitch Matthews: I think you're going to love this, I think you're going to love what Rich has to say. So, let's get to it. Hey. Rich, welcome to DREAM THINK DO. Rich Karlgaard: A joy to be on your show, man. Mitch Matthews: I love it, man. I tell you ... well, before I hit record, I was kind of telling you, you surprised me this book. Rich Karlgaard: Well, thank you. In a good way? Mitch Matthews: In a good way, I should clarify it, a very good way. Rich Karlgaard: Well, yeah. A lot of people thought that a book on late bloomers coming from a Forbes publisher would simply be biography's on famous late bloomers like, Ray Crock or J.K. Rowling, people like that, but I wanted to write about why it is that we celebrate early bloomers today excessively. The damage that causes, and why late bloomers have so many gifts is validated by findings in neuroscience and by just looking around at some of the stories we ought of paid more attention to. Mitch Matthews: Yeah. Well, and that's the thing, I just kind of ... like some of the folks, I was kind of thinking, I expected some good stories, and you've got some great stories and there's no doubt. So it is full of inspiration as well. This really is not just written to people in their '40s, '50s, and '60s. That's kind of what I was thinking, but this really is for everyone. You've got stuff in there that my high-schooler could benefit from, parents should read and be thinking about as we're talking about raising our kids. Millennials and the young ones in the workplace can benefit from this because it helps them to understand how a better career works, and how our brain functions, all of that. So, there's a lot of meat ... there's a lot of gold in them there hills, is a better way to put it. So, I love it. Now, let's get into your story here first. Obviously, you had a lot of success over the years. Publisher of Forbes being one of those things top of the list, but you are also very open that you were no star student, not necessarily a star athlete, you wouldn't consider yourself a child prodigy, but you kind of celebrate that. Why is that? With a little bit of perspective, why is that something to be celebrated? Rich Karlgaard: Well, I'll just start, the brief background that you're referring to here, I was one of those kids in high school, I was a good but not great middle and long distance runner in high school. I got B's, I went to my local junior college, I improved to B pluses. I was actually, captain of my junior college cross-country team, but was kind of a low bar, and by a series of flukes, I got into Stanford as a transfer student. Stanford is a much easier institution to get into back then. I was from North Dakota, they were looking for people from obscurer states, and with a slide on their track and cross-country team, not a scholarship level, but at a level where the coach had probably had spoken to the admission's director. Anyway, I got in. Sure enough, way over my head, I took the easiest classes possible, classes with names like, "Sleep and Dreams," and "Human Sex," and "Film Aesthetics." Still, barely graduated. At age 25, when my college roommates were doing spectacular things in law, phycology, and one was working for the state shuttle program, I could hold no job greater than temporary typist, dishwasher, and security guard. One night when I was 25,

My guest is Paula Faris. As you probably know, Paula is a Senior National Correspondent for ABC News, and she's had one heck of a journey. She's won multiple Emmys reporting on politics, sports, entertainment, major stories of the day, she's interviewed political leaders, athletes, newsmakers, and even celebrities. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: TWITTER: @paulafaris JOURNEYS OF FAITH WITH PAULA FARIS TRANSCRIPT: I've got to say, to my fellow geeks out there, Paula has interviewed the cast from the most recent Star Wars movies, as well as The Avengers... like as in ALL of the Avengers. I mean, come on, right? Last fall, she walked away from a couple of the most coveted positions within her industry, being the co-anchor of Good Morning America weekend edition, as well as being a co-host of ABC's The View, all to do something she felt called to do. One of those things was to launch a podcast called "Journeys of Faith with Paula Faris." Now I can tell you, this podcast has become one of my own favorite podcasts because Paula's doing this incredible job of talking with some of the world's most influential people about how their faith and spirituality guide them through the best and worst of times. I've got to say, it's pretty revolutionary. I don't think that's too strong a word, because she's open about her own faith as a Christian, but she's talking with people from a wide array of faith backgrounds. Like when I say that, I mean she's really talking with people, she's connecting, she's not debating, she's talking. She goes in curious, she honors the people's stories, it's just so interesting, eye-opening, refreshing, you've got to check it out. Seriously, this was a bold move, to launch something like this and do it in the way that she's been doing it. The more I've been listening to her show, the more I've wanted to have her on DREAM THINK DO, so we could talk with her about her journey and dig into some of the things she's been learning along the way. Let's get to this, Paula Faris, welcome to DREAM THINK DO. Paula Faris: Thank you so much, Mitch, I'm so honored. Mitch Matthews: This is awesome. Okay, so I know people probably know your name, they've seen you doing your thing, but what is an average day, a "normal" ... I'm doing air quotes because I'm guessing there's not really a normal day. Paula Faris: Yeah, let's do some air quotes. Mitch Matthews: What does a normal day look like for you right now? Paula Faris: A normal day, well it's a lot different than my normal day, say, a year ago, which weekends I was getting up at like three, 3:30 in the morning and going to anchor at Good Morning America weekend edition, and just working crazy hours, Fridays I did "The View." Now I work primarily Monday through Friday, a day for me is, like for instance, today I got up early to do GMA, I filed a story for Good Morning America weekday edition, and I'm doing this podcast now, I have a shoot later for Good Morning America at Disney down in Brooklyn. It's a little bit of everything right now because I am a Senior National Correspondent. I'll file for Good Morning America, I'll file for World News Tonight, for Nightline, the various ABC platforms that we have. Then I do podcasts, so I've recorded a couple of podcasts this week for my new podcast, Journeys of Faith. By the way, I appreciate you plugging it and listening and supporting it. It's a mixed bag, but I'm really enjoying this new lane and this new kind of venture. I walked away from those two dream jobs, as you mentioned because I just needed some more balance. Now it's primarily Monday through Friday, and I'll fly, I'll travel occasionally for those interviews like you mentioned, The Avengers, Star Wars, that took me to LA and Chicago for those interviews, which is great. Mitch Matthews: My wife freaked when she also heard you were at the royal wedding last year, like are you kidding me? Paula Faris: I know,

My guest is Angela Maiers. Angela founded Choose2Matter, which is a non-profit that helps individuals to embrace their value and their potential contribution. Choose2Matter has evolved into a movement that now supports students, parents, educators, and employees, literally around the world. Her work at over 60 thousand classrooms across 100 countries has rallied more than a million children to be together to launch over 170 social enterprises. Listen To The Podcast: Resources: www.AngelaMaiers.com www.Choose2Matter.org Transcription: Mitch Matthews: Angela, welcome to the podcast! Angela Maiers: Well, I'm so honored to be here my friends. It's wonderful to watch you in action and be a part of this, you were just a huge supporter of my mission and my work and I feel like we've connected at a soul level, so it's great to reconnect. Mitch Matthews: It's crazy because we go way back to when the Big Dream Gathering was just getting started. Angela Maiers: I know, yeah. Mitch Matthews: Your things were just starting to explode. So it feels like a class reunion. Angela Maiers: It does. Mitch Matthews: I love it. Well, DREAM THINK DOers are going to love you and love your story. Let's tell them a little bit more about Choose to Matter. Let's give them a snapshot of what it is that you do. As well as you can in a condensed way, tell us a little bit more about Choose to Matter. Angela Maiers: I think I have created a framework for people to make a commitment to contribute their best self to the world. And by best self or best selves, that could be individual, that could be organizational, it could be our entire community and humanity. And when you look at the reasons why human beings don't contribute their best self to the world, with not just confidence but with also a sense of calmness, is because there is a terror in the world, and I use that world not lightly, of insignificance. Angela Maiers: It is the single most common ailment of the modern world. And it doesn't discriminate. Even though Choose to Matter started with my mission in education, the feeling that we don't matter doesn't discriminate by age, by title, by position, by role. We're all fighting for our enough-ness in the world. Mitch Matthews: And you've been studying this, you've been teaching this. And I know it's a generational thing, you've been going back deep into the science of it and all that, but would you say, and this is probably just a softball question, but would you say, how has social media and all of that contributed to kind of that "see me" feel? That longing to be seen. Angela Maiers: I think that you see both the best of humanity, social media or media in general or technology is neutral. It is an amplifier of human behavior and emotion. Mitch Matthews: Yeah. Angela Maiers: So part of the addiction in social media is our DNA level need, not just desire, but DNA level needs to be seen, to be heard and to understand that we have value. And so just the simple act of saying another human being's name is such a rarity, believe it or not. It's a rarity even in schools. Kids can go period after period, week after week, semester after semester and never hear their name. It's the most important word in the human language. It defines our existence. Angela Maiers: And so when you hear your name over, or where we have not given people real pathways and real practices to acting and behaving as if they mattered, so they pick shortcuts, like the naughty kid. We just want to be noticed and so we'll do it in any way that we can. And we have a whole world of naughty kids. Mitch Matthews: I was just going to say, that's not limited to the classroom, right? Angela Maiers: No it's not. Mitch Matthews: It's so true. And I know that so much of what you do could be defined, the simple arts, but the simple arts are so important of literally looking someone in the eye and saying, "You matter" right?

5 Keys to Writing Your First Book We're talking about getting YOUR book written and published! We're doing a deep dive on the subject of writing and publishing a book. Have you ever thought about writing a book? I'm betting you have. I'm hoping you have because I think every person has at least one book in them but, hey, if you're a DREAM THINK DOer, that probably means you've got five, maybe 15, maybe 25 books in you. And what I've learned about people is that they need to just learn a system for writing a book. Once they have that system down, it is entirely possible to not just write one, but many books. Listen To The Podcast: Resources: Lise Cartwright's FREE resource for DREAM THINK DO-ers: Specific Steps for Writing Your First Book! Click to get the FREE workbook! Amazon's Self-Publishing: kdp.amazon.com 5 Keys to Writing Your First Book Transcript: I'm going to be telling stories about people who have written books and turned them in Bestsellers. So, we're going to dive into strategies that they have used, strategies that I have used to be able to achieve best sellers, but more importantly, get that book done and get that book out there. We're going to dive into specific steps that you can start taking immediately. How does that sound? We're going to get into the nitty gritty and have some fun as we do. How about that? Are you in? I hope so. And I'll tell you what. I'm going to tell you more about this at the end but just to tell you right now, go to mitchmatthews.com/224, there's going to be a lot of different resources I'm going to reference some different tools that you can use. But one of these tools you're going to want to grab right away and that is a workbook specifically designed for the DREAM THINK DO family by Lise Cartwright. Now, you may remember Lise Cartwright. I have interviewed her I think three times now and she is a multi-time best-selling author. I mean, she's had best sellers, at least 28 now, best sellers that she has written and then self-published. She's a rock star and she's a huge fan of DREAM THINK DO. So, she has offered up ... she has created a special workbook just for DREAM THINK DOers. I want you to go get it. It is absolutely free and she actually will also help you out in different ways, that kind of stuff. You can find out all sorts of free resources from Lise. So, just go to mitchmatthews.com/224 and you'll see it right there, super easy to click through and grab that workbook just for us DREAM THINK DOers. Go do it. Go grab it. Okay, now, let's dive into some stuff here. Okay, so writing books ... I once saw a quote from Tony Morrison that I absolutely love. It just grabbed me. She said, "If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." Whoosh! How about that, right? Like, that is the truth from somebody who's written a ton of incredibly impactful books. I don't know about you, but I'm guessing that maybe you've just had that feeling inside, that knowing that ... Maybe it's a memoir. Maybe it's some stories from your life. Maybe it's some things that you've learned through some of the challenges that you've faced over time. Or, maybe you've just learned a set of strategies for something you're like freakishly good at and you just want the world to know those strategies. You want to share them with the world. Or maybe it's something you've learned about your faith and it's just made a huge impact on you and you just want to reach other people and help them to experience the same kinds of things. I'm not sure what it is for you, but I'm guessing there's that knowing, that knowing that you're supposed to write at least one book. Maybe you feel called to it and it's just that there's that longing. You're not quite, you can't even explain it but you just know it's there. Or maybe it's that satisfaction, oh, man, just that thought of having a book done.

Pedro Adao, a dynamic entrepreneur and founder of the 100X Academy, dives into the powerful blend of faith and business. He shares his immigrant background and the role education played in his journey. The discussion highlights how divine guidance can spark unexpected opportunities in entrepreneurship. Adao introduces the 'taste and see' marketing strategy, emphasizing trust and authentic connections. He stresses the importance of integrity in kingdom entrepreneurship, urging listeners to take action and embrace their unique stories.

Helping Your Kids to Dream I'm Mitch Matthews and welcome to DTD. Today we're going to digging into a wildly important subject: How to inspire our kids to dream! Listen To The Podcast: Resources: Mitch's Book: IGNITE Video Mitch did with his sons early on: A recent short film written, directed and produced by Ben and Alex: Transcription: I had a conversation with a DREAM THINK DO listener who had reached out and wanted to chat, wanted to connect. This morning we had an awesome conversation and, almost instantly, we just dropped into it because, hey, in the DREAM THINK DO family, we're in it together, and I could tell something was heavy on his heart, something that he wanted to dive into and, almost instantly, we went there, and that was ... He just let me know that he just ... He had three daughters, and it was just heavy on his heart to help them dream. There were so many layers to this conversation because I think, in some part, if we're being honest, he was a little concerned if he was modeling dreaming, getting cleared, going after your dreams. He'd actually attended a Big Dream gathering, one of our events that we do around the country, and it was a few years ago, and he was like, "Gosh, I don't know that I've been moving all that much forward on those dreams," and he was feeling bad about that, but then he was also struggling to find the language. He was like, "You know, sometimes, when I talk with my daughters about dreaming, it just doesn't seem to make sense. I'm not ... We're not talking the same language. They don't quite understand me." You could just tell he was just really torn up about it, and I get it, man. Being a dad is one of my absolute favorite things, but it's not easy. Being a parent is not easy, and if you've got kids, you know what I'm talking about. It's one of the best jobs on the planet, but it's not easy especially on this subject and, in some ways, it's just easier to avoid. It's easier to just stay busy, not talk about these things, just keep things status quo. Dreams can shake things up. It can move things around a little bit. It can upset the apple cart, as the kids are known to say. Actually, the kids never say that. My aunts and uncles say that. My grandma said, "Apples. Apple cart." Anyway, you're with me. It's not easy, but it's important, and so that's what we're going to talk about. The conversation was fantastic. I mean, we wound up having just this great conversation on the subject. I took some notes as we talked, and then I came back and I was going to do other things actually. I had a different episode lined up for this week, but I thought, "This is just too important." In fact, I opened this conversation up a little bit, too, and so I'm going to do some things here at the front end that I usually do at the back end. One is I want to invite into this conversation because I guarantee, we're going to do more conversations on this subject because it's so important, so I want to invite you. As you think through these things, I want to hear your tips, your strategies, maybe even your ... what you wrestle with, so hit me up, mitchmatthews.com/222, and leave a comment. What are some of those strategies you're doing or what are some of the things you wrestle with, or what's something that's worked for you and your kids? I want to hear from you about that because we're going to be doing more on this subject, and so, yeah, you guys are awesome and you guys are wise, and we're in this together, so I want to hear from you, so mitchmatthews.com/222. Leave your comments there. I also want to say maybe you don't have kids, maybe you're listening to this episode and you're like, "Check. Maybe not me," or maybe that you're just not feeling that right now. I just want to say that what's interesting is is that, as we start to talk about encouraging our kids to dream, and it could be your kids, it could be your own children,

My guest is Brian Scudamore. Brian is the founder of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Brian and his team have grown 1-800-GOT-JUNK into the world's largest junk removal service. Not only that, they scaled that bad boy and started three more home service brands. He's got his eye on $ 1 billion. He's living the DREAM THINK DO life… so let's get to this! Listen To The Podcast: Resources: Brian's Book: WTF?! (Willing to Fail): How Failure Can Be Your Key to Success Find out more about Brian: Click here Interview: Brian Scudamore: Thanks for having me, Mitch. Mitch Matthews: Let's talk about how this got started. Brian Scudamore: There I was looking for a way to pay for college. But my college education took a back seat when I realized I was making more money and having more fun and learning way more about a business by building a business versus studying in school. So, I had a conversation with my dad, who's a liver transplant surgeon. Three years into my degree in college. I said, "Dad, I got some awesome news for ya. I said I'm quitting school and…" Mitch Matthews: Get ready, dad. Brian Scudamore: He says, "how is that good news?" I gonna learn so much more about business running one, instead of studying from textbooks, from professors that have never started a business in their life. While my dad did not get the good news train, 10 years later he sat down. He said, yeah, Brian you did the right thing. Mitch Matthews: Good, good call. But obviously this willing to fail was something you were willing to do early on. Would you say that ... At what point would you say this started to set in that being willing to fail was key. Brian Scudamore: I think I've always been a bit of a risk-taker as an entrepreneur. I grew up with grandparents who had a small business. Now they ... It was an army surplus store in San Francisco. I used to work there every summer and Christmas vacation. I don't think they took a lot of risks. But I enjoyed the game of business and was fired to take that entrepreneurial leap. Maybe it was just a part of my DNA. I don't know. But I found myself whenever I was starting a business, I didn't mind putting myself out there and making some mistakes. It just felt like the fastest and easiest way to learn. Brian Scudamore: Five years into my business, to the half a million in revenue, I felt good about what I was building. But not good about the people on board. That old phrase of one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. I probably had ... Nine of my 11 employees were bad apples. It was a leadership moment for me to get rid of the entire crew. I brought all 11 in and I said, sorry guys I've let you down as your leader. I have not given you the love and support or found the right people and fired everyone to only start again. But to take that leadership lesson of, okay I failed here. This hurts. I've gotten rid of my entire company. Yet starting again there was that valuable lesson and it got better. Mitch Matthews: Not bad. Well, That's ... I love that story in the book. That took some guts. As I'm sitting there, here you had to be thinking, oh gosh this is rough. This is embarrassing. Also, you had to look down the barrel of running the business solo for a while, too until bringing on the right people. But, that's the kind of thing where that took guts at the time where you needed it, right? 'Cause you could have just kind of tried to maintain it with status quo. I'm guessing you would have been a completely different place today. Brian Scudamore: Yeah. We learned or I learned that day 'cause it was just me, that building a company is all about finding the right people and treating them right. The company would not be what it is today. Today will ... This year we'll do $440 million in revenue. There's no way we would have come anywhere close to that hadn't we found this important mantra of finding the right people. For someone like ourselves heavily branded in everything we do,

My guest is Tom Ziglar. Among many things, Tom is the proud son of Zig Ziglar. He's also a bestselling author and international speaker. Listen To The Podcast: Resources: Interview: Mitch Matthews: Tom is also now the CEO of the Ziglar Corporation. Tom joined the Ziglar Corporation in 1987, but he started at the bottom. In fact, he started in the warehouse and routed through sales that went on to management then moved into leadership. He also speaks around the world and hosts the wildly popular Ziglar Show podcast. So you should check that out. He carries on that Ziglar philosophy. "You can have everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want." I love that. That was a life-changing quote for me. His new book coming out is called Choose to Win: Transform your Life, One Simple Choice at a Time. When I heard about it, I knew I wanted to have Tom on the show because he's the real deal and he's all about getting you strategies that actually work. So let's get to this. Tom Ziglar, welcome to Dream, Think, Do buddy. Tom Ziglar: Oh man. Mitch, thanks for having me. Mitch Matthews: Absolutely, this is an honor, my friend. I've been following you for a while in a good way, not in a restraining order kind of way. Tom Ziglar: Are you stalking me? Mitch Matthews: Yeah, in a positive stalker kind of way. So yeah, take that however you want. I love it. I'm sure you get questions like this a bajillion times over, so I apologize, but I just have to ask, what was it like to grow up in the Ziglar household? Tom Ziglar: I'll tell you, it was amazing. I tell people all the time as good as dad was on stage, he was even better off stage. He was just ... When you think of, gosh, what would be the ultimate earthly father. Mitch Matthews: Right. Tom Ziglar: I think Zig Ziglar would be that. And then my mom, the redhead- Mitch Matthews: The redhead. Yes. Tom Ziglar: Dad said he never would have heard of Zig Ziglar if I hadn't been for the redhead. And so just to grow up in that family and Dad was always ... He never put the pressure on. He never said you're going to be in sales or you're going to be a speaker. He always said, hey, whatever you want to do, whatever your passion is, whatever your why is just ... I want you to pursue it with 100% effort and 100% integrity. And so, when you're raising kids, I mean what better message could you have than two parents who set the example. They're always there to talk and then they're behind you 100% as long as you're doing it with integrity and effort. I mean that's ... You can't ask for more than that. Mitch Matthews: That's a beautiful thing. It is amazing and it's ... I've had some other folks that had famous parents and it's interesting how that's not always the case. Sometimes that outer appearance is wonderful, amazing, but when they get home, they're a different person. So that's not surprising, but it's beautiful to hear. Well, one of the things I wondered about too was, what was that conversation like when you're deciding, hey, I think I want to come and work for Zig ... the Ziglar Corporation. What does that ... what does that conversation look like? Tom Ziglar: Well, I'll tell you what, it was pretty simple. I played golf in college and my goal was to be a professional PGA golfer and I graduated from college and I needed money to support my golf habit and I needed flexibility. Mitch Matthews: Yeah. Tom Ziglar: And dad was behind that 100%. And so I started off in the warehouse working [inaudible 00:04:49] depending on the time of year, 25 to 35 hours just there packing boxes and doing production work. And then I was playing golf 40 to 50 hours of practice and playing. So I had the flexibility, which is great to have that flexibility. And then I realized that those guys out there are really good after about a year and some injuries and I thought, you know what? Golf's not my future.

My Guest is Rock Thomas. He's a self-made millionaire, bestselling author three times over. He became one of the top 50 realtors in the world. He studied with some of the greats like Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, and Wayne Dyer, one-on-one. But most importantly, he's taken up a personal mission to help those who have been beaten up by life and he's helped them to retrain their thinking, find their self worth and also often help them to grow wealth and abundance in the process. He's definitely living the Dream Think Do life. So it's about dang time we had him on this show. Listen To The Podcast: Resources: Website: https://rockthomas.com/ Twitter: @rockthomas Instagram: @rockthomas FB: RockThomasOfficial Interview: Mitch Matthews: Rock Thomas, welcome to Dream Think Do, buddy. Rock Thomas: That's beautiful, man. Not only do you have a beautiful voice, but you articulate as well. So I'd like you to send me that recording and I'm going to put it on my phone first thing every morning when I wake up. Mitch Matthews: You got it. You got it. Tell you what I always say a good intro is my gift to my guests. You know, you deserve it for crying out loud. And yours, yours is so easy. I just, I really was blown away and I don't want to shortchange your story. I want to start with the story that really you covered in that goal cast video. Just so Dream Think Doers can know a little bit more of kind of where you came from. Take us back to your, to your childhood because this was, this was not an easy story. Rock Thomas: You know, I think we all grew up with a dream and then somewhere along the line often it gets crushed. And if you don't have the wherewithal or the resources of the guidance or the encouragement to revive it than most people live this life of quiet desperation and just trying to avoid pain, quite frankly. And I, fortunately, somehow, I think maybe through reading, I didn't grow up with the TV. I was, my parents got divorced at five and funnily enough, my sister and I grew up when I was around one and three, my mom adopted two other kids. So I was actually the youngest of four kids in the house, you know, back in the days when moms were raising kids single and dad worked, you know, till 7:00 at night. Then we got divorced and I lived with my mom for a while and I wanted more attention. She was a gypsy. So I didn't get that. I set things on fire and I fought with principals and I was that kid who was skinny but went into the new school and looked for the biggest kid and kicked him in the shins and said, what are you looking at? And- Mitch Matthews: It was a survival strategy, right? Like something you learn. But- Rock Thomas: Yeah, it's like if I can take on the biggest kid, who else is going to take me on? But after a while that got old as we changed, my mom had to relocate me from school to school and she finally shipped me off to my dad, my dad, my dad had remarried and now I was the youngest of seven. So my entire life was this battle of can somebody sees me, I got the hand me downs that are torn. Is there any food left? Can I say something? And my father's wife had married a guy who ended up in an insane asylum. So they treated her children in a special way because they were afraid that they had some mental issues. So they got away with things while I was always told to toe the line. So there was this separation. And I think that happiness in my experience comes a lot from connection, from feeling you're one with other people, you're around the fireplace at Christmas time and you're having a good time when you feel safe. And I never really had that. I always felt like I was about to be attacked or bullied or there'd be no food left. Mitch Matthews: Wow. Rock Thomas: So somewhere along the line I just started reading the books that were in my dad's library and I read this one book called, by Vernon Howard, Do What You Fear and It'll Disappear.

My guest is Laura Gassner Otting and her new book is called "Limitless: How to Ignore Everybody, Carve your Own Path, and Live Your Best Life." In the book, Laura interviews highly successful globe changers and has uncovered strategies to help you get unstuck. Laura's background spans this world's of successful startups and non-profits as well as political and philanthropic landscapes. She's coming to us after being interviewed on the Today Show… so we're excited to have her on! Listen To The Podcast: Resources: The Book: Limitless The Assessment: limitlessassessment.com/DTD Instagram: @heyLGO Twitter: @heyLGO Interview: LauraL Hey, hey out there to everyone in your Dream, Think, Doer Universe. I love that. I love people who are dreamers, thinkers, and doers. Mitch: Right? It's a great crew. And as we talked about before we hit record it's an awesome, awesome crew. We tend to totally offend grumpy people so there's just a lot of love here 'cause that's what we do, I love it. Laura: Fantastic. Mitch: I could go through the list of successes that you've had in your life, I mean you were appointed by President Bill Clinton to help shape AmeriCorps, you've helped grow startups and non-profits, you've been interviewing globe changers for this book, it's a bestseller, all of those things, but somebody might look at you and go, "Wait you've never felt stuck." How about you? What's a time in your life where you Laura personally felt stuck? Laura: Boy where do I start? You know it's really interesting this idea when people look at you and they go, "Oh she's got it all together. He's got it all together." Cause I really do think that people see us as the fully formed person we are today, and number one, I hope that I'm not fully formed, I hope there's still evolution and change and growth that's going to happen, because boy it would pretty boring to stop here, right? Mitch: Exactly. I'm done. Laura: Been so fun so far. Mitch: I'm done. Laura: I'm all done. So number one, A, I'm not fully formed and B, it's not that I came into the world as this I'm just maybe five or 10 or 25 years ahead of the person who's looking at me. I'm just the future them, and they look at me as this unachievable thing when in fact it's completely achievable if they dream, think, and do. So a time when I felt fully stuck was probably when I was at the big traditional gold standard search firm that I was at, and I was supposed to be happy. I had done all the right things, I had checked all the right boxes, I went to the right schools, I got the right jobs, I got the right promotions, and there I was as the youngest Vice President at this very well known search firm, and I wasn't happy. And I couldn't understand why I wasn't happy, and I thought about the thousands of people that I'd interviewed for jobs who were all at the top of their game, who all were successful, and not all of whom were happy. And I couldn't figure out why that was until I realized that I wasn't happy either. And then I looked around and I thought, "Well why am I here? Why did I join this firm?" And I joined this firm because it was the very top firm in the country, in the world that was doing specifically mission-driven non-profit executive search, and I thought I was there to change the world. Mitch: Yeah. Laura: But then I realized that I was actually there to create profit for the owners of the firm. So my job was to sit on one side of the table with the firm and on the other side of the table as my client who wanted to cure cancer, or save the whales, or feed the poor, or create educational access, or anything else that it might be. And in between us silent unspoken was the elephant, the profit, and loss statement of the firm. And it turned out that I had two masters. I was serving the firm, and I was also serving my clients, and the truth is I wanted to be on that side of the table with them and not on...