DREAM THINK DO | Motivation, Encouragement & Strategy

We're doing something new with this episode. If it works… we may turn it into a series called, "Ask Mitch." Here's the backstory: I was recently on the phone with a fellow DREAM THINK DO-er, and we were on a topic that I get a lot of questions about. So I asked for his permission to record the call. This is a person with an idea for a business, and he's passionate about it. He's excited about it but he's also a little scared. We're going to talk about what to do when you have a business idea but you don't feel like you have the money to pursue it. Money is one of the biggest perceived problems that stop people in their tracks. As you'll hear in our conversation we blast past that problem, and talk about no or low-cost opportunities to build his business idea. The strategies that we're going to talk about are things anybody could apply. As you listen to the interview though, know that we'll take a little time getting his background, tell a little bit of a story but then we'll really dive into his situation as a case study. I hope you enjoy it, I hope you benefit from it. Listen To The Podcast: INTERVIEW: That's awesome. So tell me a little bit more about the business. I started it last summer doing aerial photography. I went to a demolition. I live in Pennsylvania and went to a demolition across the Susquehanna River, and I saw all these drones flying around. I got a card from the owner who is based out of North Carolina. He was doing drone video and I thought that was pretty cool. So I figured I would just go ahead and give it a shot and see what I could make of it. That's awesome. So you went out and got a drone. I know there are all sorts of certifications that you can get for flying a drone. So you're all good to go on that? Yes. I actually taught myself. Went through, watched a couple classes on YouTube. You can actually pay to have classes but as a college student, I don't have money for that. Well, most of the answers are on YouTube anyway, so why not? I went out there, passed it the first time. I got all my certifications, and I'm set to go. I know you're just getting started, but where have you been finding business at this point? I've done a couple promotional things just try to get the business going. I've had one client so far through a co-worker my dad used to work with. I filmed her grandparents' farm. They were moving out of the farm and wanted just keeps out there as a memory, so I did a video for them. They were also using it to list the farm for sale but it doubled so they could just have it as a memory. I know the key to being an entrepreneur a lot of times is the pivot. It's like learning, growing, learning, growing but when you think about this, who would you love to have as clients? Who would be your ideal client knowing what you know right now? People in real estate. They know they want something, but they really want someone to put everything together. That's what I did when I did the farm. I walked around the landscape and told them about this one shot with a creek. It was right alongside the house, and I thought it would be a cool approach. That was their favorite part of the film. Just when they give you the opportunity to just take the lead. Yeah, so you like to have that little bit ownership to be able to say, "I'd recommend this," and you love it when a client says, "All right, I trust you. Let's try it." Yeah because I do all the editing, too. It's great when you know what is going to look good on a video and they can just let you run with it. That's awesome, I love it. I have a number of questions but I know when you reached out, you had some questions as well. So what are some of your questions right now when it comes to your business? Primarily I would say capital. Capital is the hardest thing especially being a college student. I bought a computer with a small loan,

Today I've got an awesome guest for you. I am excited to bring back my friend Jon Vroman because he was with us – get this – back in episode 34! Jon is a social entrepreneur and award-winning speaker. He's also a committed husband and father of two. And just for fun, why not? He's an ultra-marathon runner as well. He has an amazing non-profit, called the Front Row Foundation. They create these incredible, unforgettable moments for individuals who are braving life-threatening illnesses. It might be a NASCAR race, a professional sporting event, a concert, Broadway play. They've done it all. They create a video for the person, their family and friends as well. It's just such a gift. It's so beautiful. Jon has been busy since last we spoke. He's written a best-selling book called the Front Row Factor: Transform Your Life with the Art of Moment Making. Plus, he's launched not one, but two podcasts. The first one called, Front Row Factor podcast. The second one called the Front Row Dads podcast. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: Front Row Factor Book: https://amzn.to/2nqN1cS Front Row Factor Podcast: http://bit.ly/2M9wcRP Front Row Dads Podcast: https://apple.co/2ARDV2p INTERVIEW: Jon, welcome back to DREAM THINK DO, buddy. Mitch, this is fun, man. I was looking forward to this all week, and I just came off a pretty stellar three days, and this is going to be a great time. I appreciate who you are. I love it. I mentioned the Front Row Foundation. Tell people a little bit why the Front Row is so important, this concept, why do you live and breathe to get people into the Front Row? What I love about your question is you asked why. We can tell people what we do, and they'll get it in 20 seconds. And I learned from my buddy Clay Iberra that when people ask me what I do, I often say I help people live life in the Front Row. And they say that's cool, what does that mean? Exactly, tell me more. Well, I'll tell you a story. It's the story of Sophie. I got introduced to Sophie about a decade ago, and this is very early on in our work with the charity. Sophie was battling a life-threatening condition, she had a brain tumor, and she was in the midst of heavy treatments. In and out of the hospital, daily, weekly, fighting migraines, multiple surgeries. She's fighting for her life. Our charity goes to work to try to help her see her favorite performer who in this case is Kelly Clarkson, from the front row. So we start working with the family, and we put together an incredible day. We pick her up at the house in a limousine, little Sophie's wearing a purple dress, we pour her sparkling cider, we treat her like a princess. She is just having an awesome time leading up to this event. She knows that she will eventually see Kelly Clarkson live that night. And by the way, I should mention she is a true fan. The way her mom describes it when she gets in the car with Sophie if she didn't turn on Kelly Clarkson, her daughter would just cry. When the Clarkson comes on, Sophie's smile always gets big. Every night before they went to bed, they had a dance party on the bed and danced to Kelly Clarkson. So on this night, she went to dinner at the Rainforest Café, and then off to the show. They had an incredible concert with Kelly, and the surprise came at the end when Sophie has fallen asleep, this is pretty late night for her, especially based on all the treatments that she was going through. But we snuck her backstage, and we were waiting in a room for a private meet and greet with Kelly. When Kelly walked into the room saying, "Hey, everybody," little Sophie awoke from this nap, looked up and got this beautiful smile, and Kelly and Sophie locked eyes. We have a picture of that moment. I will tell you, that picture is so important for us, and that's why we do what we do. Because eight weeks after that event, Sophie took her final breaths,

This week, we have a long-time friend of DREAM THINK DO, Lise Cartwright. Lise has written 27 bestselling books on the subjects of health and wellness, entrepreneurship, the side hustle, and she also loves to write about writing books. When I saw the title of her most recent book called Mind The Chatter: Master Your Inner Voice, Gain a Positive Mindset, and Get Your Power Back I knew we had to have her back on DREAM THINK DO. We needed to talk about busting through that negative self-talk so you can make more of your dreams and goals a reality! Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: Mind the Chatter Book: https://amzn.to/2AP1pVM High Performance Habits Book: https://amzn.to/2vNSiip Dream Job: Redefined Book: https://amzn.to/2OUL3xJ INTERVIEW: Lise, welcome back to DREAM THINK DO. Oh, thanks for having me back. I'm so excited. This is awesome. This is the third time you've been on! I'm super excited about this book. I put it out to the DREAM THINK DO community that you were going to be back, so I got a bunch of questions that hopefully, we'll be able to get to towards the end. I really want to talk about the new book, Mind the Chatter. You've written on so many different subjects. Why go after this subject of negative self-talk? Why was that important for you now? Because it's been a large part of my journey as an author. I guess that's probably a big part of most people's day-to-day living; this constant voice. And it's not necessarily that it's negative, it's just that it's not always helpful. Definitely in my experience for the last few years, when I started becoming more and more hyper-aware of the thoughts that were running through my head, I started to think how can I turn them around or how can I frame it so that it doesn't feel like it's always so negative. It's the ultimate self-sabotage when you've got this constant chatter going on inside your head. How can you possibly be super successful if you're undermining yourself at every point? It's so true, and it's so subtle. A lot of times that negative self-talk is a part of the brain that's trying to keep you safe, right? Yes. The same part of the brain that's trying to keep you out of dark alleys and from making bad business deals. It really can creep in. When I saw that this was the subject of your new book and we talked about it a little bit, it just made me smile so much. Because you have helped me publish and you are awesome at writing your own books. You also coach others on getting their book done, getting it published, making it successful. I don't know if you remember, but back with Ignite, basically about the day before it was supposed to launch something went very wrong. Yes. There was a big part of me that wanted to shut it down, but you were all about pushing through. So you do know that voice. You know it in yourself, you know it in others, so you're the person to write this book. By the way, we got Ignite out, and launched it on time, thanks to you, and I'm so glad we did. What I love about your approach is that you dive into some of the science that's out there, but you've taken a creative approach too. You gave this voice a name. Yes. What's the name, and why did you do it? It's so funny. I've had so many people ask about this name. My philosophy is very much that we have conversations with ourselves all the time. I wondered, what would it look like if I gave that voice a name? I need to separate this voice to be able to deal with it. I remember sitting at some point, I think I was going through it coming out to a book launch, and this inner voice was super loud in my head. I remember going, "Neville, shut up." That was just the name that came into my head. It's not specifically directed at a person or anything like that. You don't have a Neville from your school days. No, no. Well actually, I do have one from my school days, and I'm very upfront in saying, "Neville,

My guest today is Val Vigoda. She started to sing and sight read at a very young age, and then started to play the classical violin at the age of eight. She wound up joining the Army ROTC to pay for school, so she rocked Princeton and went on to serve in the military. Then she actually made a switch. She continued with the music but began playing the electric violin, and that lead to her touring the world with well known artists like Cyndi Lauper, Joe Jackson and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. She went on to form her own band called Groove Lilly and continued to tour the world with them. Next, she decided to take some time off from the road so that she could focus in on raising her son, Mose. That's when she spent about ten years writing music for Disney. Then, most recently, she has won awards for additional musicals, including her most recent called Ernest Shackleton Loves Me. If that were not enough, she's been touring the country as a speaker, sharing the stage with people like former First Lady Michelle Obama. She speaks with audiences about facing your fears, rising to challenges, pushing your edges, and thriving in uncertainty. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: Website: ValVigoda.com INTERVIEW: Thank you so much, Mitch. I'm delighted to be here. Thank you. Absolutely. I can say, watching some of your performances, it's just so captivating to see you play, and see you sing, and then see you inspire the audience. I want to hear about all of it, but as I was doing my research, this question kept coming to me; you were classically trained on a standard wood violin. You now use an instrument that is, let's just say, technologically advanced. What was it like when you made that transition to go from that classical, classically-built wood instrument to something using this level of technology? What was that transition like? Well, it was actually a gradual thing. The violin that I play now is actually called a Viper. It's a six-string flying V-shaped violin that's sort of strapped onto my body with a guitar strap. Of course, it's called a Viper. Of course, it is. Growing up as a classical violinist and also a singer, those two activities were always very separate for me, and I loved both of them. I loved playing the violin. I loved singing. I loved singing in choirs and singing by myself. As I grew up, I realized that what I really wanted to do was combine those two. I wanted to write my own songs, and I wanted to sing, and I wanted to use my violin in that way. So I started experimenting with that. Playing an acoustic violin in more of a pop setting, in a band, can be challenging regarding projecting sound. I bet. You can put a pickup on the bridge, and there are many different ways to amplify an acoustic violin that way, but there are also some trip-ups, especially if you're singing. If you have a mic on the bridge, your breathing can be picked up by the violin mic. There are many feedback issues, and the natural warmth of the instrument is hard to capture when you're doing it in an electric setting, so I started looking at electric instruments. The first couple that I used were sort of like regular violins but just electrified, so it's a resonant chamber on the hollow body. It would be a solid body instrument, and it would be sort of like an electric guitar. You plug it in, and sound would come out. As I started experimenting with that, the violin was sounding pretty good, but I couldn't very well sing and play at the same time. I saw someone very inspiring when I was living in New York. This woman played at The Bitter End. Her name was Allison, and she was amazing because she could play and sing at the same time. I said, "Oh, she can do it. I can do it," so I started working on that. Then I heard about this amazing inventor, a violin maker named Mark Wood, who makes a bunch of different styles of violin.

Permission to Dream BIG with Mitch Matthews Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: Dream Job Redefined BIG Dream Gathering BIG Dream Gathering Facebook Page INTERVIEW: I'm going to share some stories I've never shared before. How about that? I'll be sharing some stories connected with The BIG Dream Gathering, an event that you may have attended, maybe not. If you haven't, I'm going to get you information so that you can attend one in the future. We're doing them all across the country this fall and would love to see you at an event. But I want to share with you three stories that I've not shared before. Each one is going to have something that I've realized has been so important to me over the last few years. These stories will help you go after your dreams, get more clear on your dreams, stay with it on your dreams. Maybe just as importantly, they'll help you to help someone else do that. Because if you're a DREAM THINK DO-er, you're all about dreaming bigger, thinking better, and doing more of the stuff you were put on the planet to do. By the way, I'll just put it out there, one of the stories is kind of embarrassing for me to tell you. That's why I've not shared it before. It's something my wife knows about. It's a business story, you can probably put it in the "embarrassing disasters" category, but I learned something that's guided me now and helped me grow my own business. But more importantly, what I learned from it, I've taught others. I'm excited about sharing these stories for a couple of reasons. Recently I've been doing a bunch of podcast interviews. Not for DREAM THINK DO, but on other podcasts around the world. People have found out about Dream Job Redefined my newest book. If you haven't gotten it, go grab it. It's available on Amazon. Because of that, I've been doing a bunch of interviews with some great podcasts; I love it. But in that book, Dream Job Redefined, I share about The BIG Dream Gathering. The event that we do around the country. The event that got started in my living room as a happy accident. I didn't mean for it to happen, but I'm very glad it did, and that's turned into something much bigger than I could've imagined. In doing these interviews for the book, I talk a good bit about The BIG Dream Gathering. I realized, as I was thinking back, here at DREAM THINK DO we're on our 187th episode, and I know I've mentioned The BIG Dream Gathering in passing sometimes. But I don't know that I've ever actually told the origin story of how it got started. I don't spend a lot of time talking about it on the podcast. So with this episode, I want to tell a little of the origin story of The BIG Dream Gathering. What it is, how it got started, all of that, but also three stories, again, that I haven't shared before. Some of the kind of timeless truth that I needed to learn, or at least be reminded of, as a part of those experiences. I want to share those with you now. Because I want to inspire you. I want to encourage you to get clear on your dreams and start to go after those at new levels. I think we all need encouragement to take a second and to permit ourselves to dream, and that's what The BIG Dream Gathering is all about. That's what this podcast is all about. You may be familiar with The BIG Dream Gathering. If you are, fantastic, I hope you've attended an event. If not, here's what it's about: The BIG Dream Gathering is an event that we do all across the country, it kicks off with a little keynote from me. I'm a storyteller, so I tell some stories on the front-end to get people thinking and get them a little encouraged. All of those things. Then we cut them loose to think about some of their dreams, write them down on sheets of paper; we call those dream sheets. Then we put them up on the walls, and go around and look at each other's dreams. We write on each other's dream sheets - words of encouragement, ideas, suggestions,

My guest today is Greg Layton. Greg is the founder of Chief Maker. For over a decade, Greg has been a trusted advisor to CEOs and executive teams of multi-billion-dollar companies around the globe. He's the author of a the bestselling book, Chief Maker: How to Rise Above the Pack and Get a Seat on the Executive Team. He's also the host of a popular podcast called "The Inner Chief." In addition, Greg has spent 15 years traveling the world to learn and master the world's foremost performance techniques. From living with Shaolin monks in China, all the way to racing in desert ultra-marathons, Greg has spent a lifetime studying the limits of personal endurance, as well as finding the best paths to mental strength and peak performance. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: Chief Maker Book: http://bit.ly/2uusEOW Website: chiefmaker.com.au Save an Hour Video Series: chiefmaker.com.au/saveanhour INTERVIEW: Let's get to it, Greg. Welcome to DREAM THINK DO, buddy Mitch, thanks, mate. Great to be here. I love it, man. All right, so I want to talk about your book. I want to talk about the power of routine, all the stuff you do for managers and leaders. But it's my show, so I get to go wherever I want. And I want to go to the Shaolin monks you hung out within China. How the heck did that happen and what was that like? Well, it started out as a bit of a journey. One question I've had since the early days is, "Who out there is an outlier in performance?" I've seen the Shaolin guys on the telly and even at a circus kind of show once. I always thought they were out of this world. They were sticking swords in their bellies and all sorts of stuff, but it wasn't hurting them. So, who are these guys and how the hell do they do that? About six months later, I started doing Kung fu feverishly where I was living at the time. Six months after that, I found myself up to my knees in snow in the mountains in a remote part of China at a very small Shaolin Monastery and academy. I was welcomed into this little Shaolin school, and I can tell you now, it was like going back in time, it really was. The training was 1000 years old, and just nothing seemed to have changed. We trained 12 hours a day, every single day, dawn till dusk. We didn't just do Kung fu, which I found very interesting. They started off the day with Tai Chi and meditation. Even though Tai Chi is actually a form of martial art, the training is that it was a calming process and balancing the body and the mind and the spirit to begin the day. Throughout the day, we did everything from Qigong to power stretching and conditioning to Sanda, which is China's kickboxing, and also Kung fu. It was dedication to your art form all day, every day. You were there for three months? Three months. Yeah, three months. Interesting - I was never injured, and we did some crazy stuff. An example of one of the things I do is we did this thing called power stretching. I love to tell this story. Instead of a brief, gentle stretch, you get nice and limber and warmed up. And then you'd get into a splits position, with your feet out wide. You might. I don't. Yeah. I truly do. My first day there, I couldn't do splits. I don't know. I was reasonably flexible, but no, I couldn't do the splits. So, I'm in this vulnerable position with my feet out wide, and my hands on the ground. So, my back is parallel to the ground. And a guy comes in, and he starts sitting on my back because he thinks I'm not deep enough into this stretch. And then another guy, because now I'm finding that like a really difficult stretch, he starts kicking my feet up. Wow. It gets to be such a brutal stretch that I can't breathe. I'm in that much pain with the level of stretch; I can't breathe at all. I'm gasping. And then you actually at a certain point, you stop breathing. And then my shifu, my master who they've got a few key things there. One,

My guest is Calina Mishay Johnson. Calina, or Cal, has been doing some amazing work as an artist in Texas. She's been painting since she was a child, growing up in a small town in West Texas, with a population of 600. That's right, 600 people. After years of life-dealt hardships, Calina Mishay Johnson artistic style started to blossom as she gave herself permission to paint with reckless abandon. Her professional art career began back in 2012, as she started to focus on one-of-a-kind commissions. Then a few years ago, Cal expanded her work and started tackling urban street art, making these huge, amazing, freakishly cool murals all throughout Texas. She's also infusing new life into these small towns where she's doing these murals. Heck, her next big dream, which I can totally get on board with is to complete murals on walls all around the world. So, maybe we DREAM THINK DO-ers can help her out with that. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: Website: streetartbycal.wixsite.com/artist Instagram: instagram.com/Cal_calinamishayart INTERVIEW: Cal, welcome! Hi Mitch, how are you? That was an amazing intro – thank you. Let's talk about how this mural thing got started. Let's go back, and let's talk about when the art started. Were you an artistic kid? I was a weird kid. I loved nature; I loved being outside. Like you mentioned, I grew up in a small town. So, we had a lot of freedom. It's like being the last of the Mohican's before anyone had to worry about their kids playing. We were all over town. We built tree houses; I had animals growing up. It wasn't so much that I knew I was super creative, it was just that I would get sticks and make potions in my room. I was always building something. My dad says, "We'd wake up and then we wouldn't see you until it was time to go to bed." My grandmother saved a painting that I did, like an abstract painting when I was probably four. She had it professionally framed; she still has it professionally framed over her bed, until this day. She had that insight to see that I had that creative mind, it's pretty overwhelming. I love featuring weird people. I love that you said that. I'm so with you. There are so many people that I've talked with that whether it was a grandparent, or a parent, that saw something. And it probably didn't dawn on you fully back then, but to think about the seed that got planted when someone would take something that you did and put a frame on it, to honor that. How cool to think about that seed that got planted right there, and look at where it's gone now, is really cool. Calina Mishay Johnson was the first to say, "Hey, this was worth investing money into." It could have been a $10 frame from Hobby Lobby, I don't know, but at the time, now looking back on it, I think, "Wow! That's really special." That's cool. I also liked to doodle, and I liked to draw, and I liked to make things, but it wasn't my everything. It wasn't like I was fully immersed. I went to a small school – no art department. It wasn't until a bunch of drama in my later years of high school when I dove into that gift more and more. http://instagram.com/Cal_calinamishayart That's amazing. I'd love to talk about that a little bit too. I saw a little bit of your story. I know that you tried to take some art in college, and you'd been experimenting with all kinds of stuff, your grandma had framed something, but you go to take a class in college and it didn't go so well. Tell us a little bit about that. Oh, man. Okay, first off, I was the first to go to college in my family. So, I went off by myself, I have an older sister, who has a gene disorder, so, used to run and play when we were younger, and then it slowly gets worse, and worse, and worse. Now she's in a wheel chair. Then my family situation fell apart a little bit. I left at a very volatile time to go to college, and I was doing it on my own.

This week, we have a returning friend, Howard Berger. You may remember Howard from episode 74 of DREAM THINK DO. He's an Academy Award and Emmy Award-winning special effects artist. He and his KNB EFX Group have been involved with over 800 feature films and television shows… including the Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, the Orville, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (which he won an Oscar), Hitchcock, and every Quentin Tarantino movie… just to name a few. The first film that he worked on was Aliens, and he did that the day after he graduated from high school. If you go to his IMDb page, you'll realize that he's touched just about every horror movie that's scared the stuffing out of you the last 20+ years! I can't wait to talk again, so let's get to this! Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: IMBD Page: https://imdb.to/2z3qVpt INTERVIEW: Howard, welcome back to DREAM THINK DO. Thank you so much. That was a good intro. It was definitely shorter than the last one. I think so. The last time, I think I went about 10 minutes because the list is so long! I knew I needed to keep this one under five minutes. I put it out to the DREAM THINK DO community that you were coming back. I said, "Alright, what would you ask Howard this time?" And we got flooded with some great questions, so I can't wait to pepper those in as we go. But what have you been up to lately? I've been busy with KNB, which this is its 30th year in existence. Greg Nicotero and I own it and run it for the last 30 years. I was talking with someone the other day about how we used to do all movie work, rarely TV. Now it's tons of television, be it Netflix, or AMC, or whatever it is. TV has become more of a creative venue for us than feature films to some degree. We love working on movies; it's a whole different animal too. But, it's been great. I started working on Seth McFarland's Sci-Fi drama comedy hit, the Orville. Then I got approached for a TV show called Legion. This was for season two. I signed on to that, then Orville went over. I had planned for two weeks off. I had three days. I had Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and I was on set Monday for Legion for the next several months, and then I went onto a film with Mark Wahlberg, a film called Mile 22 that's coming out August third. My wife Miriam and I just got back from Atlanta, where we shot Mile 22. I had four days off, and then started another movie with Mark. Kind of a family comedy called Instant Family that'll be out next year, I think Valentine's Day. We just finished, and I just got home, and I'm just getting acclimated to my house, my bed, my things that I haven't seen in seven months. Well, you know you've been away for a long time when you get to your own bed and go, "This is the best hotel I've been in for a long time." Yeah, you feel like you're on location in LA. That's amazing. It leads into one of my first questions. So, you love what you're doing, but that's a tough schedule for anybody, whether you love what you're doing or not. How do you stay fresh when you're running a marathon like that? What are some of the things you do for Howard to cultivate creativity, to stay fresh as you're doing this? Well, I'm not getting any younger. I find that what keeps me going is I love everything I do. So, I'm always enthusiastic about the people I work with, and the projects I work on. I always try to have as much fun on everything as I can. But, on my days off, I like to not think about it, and I just need to decompress. I love spending time with my wife. We are big foodies. When we were in Atlanta, I literally would plan Friday, Saturday, Sunday because there are so many great restaurants in Atlanta. Oh, it's amazing, yeah. So, we had seven months of amazing restaurants. I think we ate at one restaurant three times. That was the most. I like just chilling and taking long walks,

Well, hello there, and welcome to episode 183 of DREAM THINK DO. It's a deep dive, and that means it's just you and me diving in deep on a subject that seems to be growing in importance. We're going to talk about focusing on Beating The comparison Trap with Mitch Matthews. That's right. Breaking free from comparison. It's that thing that can hit us. It's been around since the dawn of time, but it's really amped up in this day and age of social media, where it's so easy to compare ourselves to others. And I asked for your help on this. Listen To The Podcast: RESOURCES: The How of Happiness book: https://amzn.to/2yxUBuv 7 Habits of Highly Effective People book: https://amzn.to/2K0UTzC EPISODE: So we're going to be sprinkling in wisdom from DREAM THINK DO-ers from around the world. You guys sent in some great insights and I appreciate it. So I'm going to be giving you a shout out as we go. Plus, we're going to dive into the science of comparison, a little bit of the brain science, but we're also going to talk through a three-step process for beating back comparison with a big old stick. I think we can all relate to having that negative feeling at some point. So we're going to be diving deep on the science and the solutions to beating the comparison trap. So let's put the hurt on comparison. I want to help you to break free, especially if you've ever felt the pain of comparison. Sound good? This is a tough subject. It's a big subject. I found it fascinating the more and more I dove into it, and I can tell you I'm at the front of the line here as well. It's something I've dealt with myself, and so it was a passion project for me to go after this. You guys submitted some great information, so stay tuned for that. But comparison has been around since the dawn of humanity. I mean poetry, philosophy, scripture, dating back thousands and thousands of years talk about the temptations and perils of comparison. It's not necessarily new, but a lot of research coming out to address how we compare ourselves and how we are getting hammered by comparison at new levels because of, and not limited to, social media. For example, a new study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology found that comparing our lives to others, especially when we do it and see it on social media, it's playing a big part in the rise of depressive symptoms and depression. Researchers specifically said it wasn't necessarily the website platform or just the social media necessarily itself that was causing the negative emotions, but more so where the comparison took us in our heads as the result of the content that we're bombarded with. Another group of researchers from Humboldt University in Berlin looked at Facebook use. They found that the more time people spend browsing Facebook, the more envious people got. They were able to isolate that emotion and link it specifically to Facebook use. And it is not just limited to Facebook. I'm guessing this doesn't surprise you. You've probably heard about a lot of this research. More importantly, you may have experienced it yourself. You've felt that comparison creep in and nail you, zap your joy, make you feel discontent, make you feel less than. And that's why I want to go after it. And some of what we talk about may surprise you because we're going to dig into the science of comparison and realize as we do that, that some comparison between yourself and others is good. That's right. It's actually good for you. So we're going to talk about where comparison is good and where the lines are and where it goes bad. More importantly, I'll give you some specific strategies so you can overcome bad comparison and live in freedom. You want to break free of this so you can live your best life. And so we're going to give you the ABC's, literally a three-step process for breaking free of comparison. How does that sound? I hope you're excited. I know that I am.

My guest is Travis Ensley. Travis is one of my best friends on the planet. This guy, over the past 20 years has been a successful leader within the tech industry. He's worked with startups all the way to fortune 500 companies. I can say that he's successful because the companies he's helped have been wildly successful. But I can also say that because I've gotten to know many of the people that he has led. And they love working for and with him. Here's the thing, as you'll see, Travis has this kind of no-nonsense Ron Swanson quality to him, so I'm guessing that he's already bristling at my accolades, but I'm going to go further. He's been successful in business, but I can also tell you he's successful in life, too. He's an awesome husband and dad, and I'm also grateful to say that he is an "bonus uncle" to my boys, and that means the world to me. We talk about a lot of subjects, but today we're going to dive into the subject and focus on one area of expertise that Travis is just incredible at, and that is establishing systems to manage your time, your tasks, and your priorities. He is a black belt level genius at this. And I benefit from his wisdom on this front weekly, so I wanted to get him on DREAM THINK DO, so you can benefit from it, too. Listen To The Podcast: INTERVIEW: So pour yourself a cup of coffee and let's get to this. Travis. Welcome to DREAM THINK DO, buddy. I'm honored to be here. Thank you. Absolutely. So, we're going to talk about systems and strategies. I mean, you use technology, but your brain works in this way. There's been a couple of questions I've been dying to ask you as a long-time friend. I assume I know the answers to this, but before we dive into the specifics, I want to start a little bit more in your brain. How about that for being scary? So, I wanted to ask you. You're one of the most organized systems oriented people that I know. But have you always been that way? Like, were you that way in junior high and high school? There's very little chance my mom will listen to this. So I will say yes. I've got your mom on speed dial. I'll check right now. I was one of those kids who would open the bag of Skittles and organize them by color because it made sense for me to do it that way because I wanted to know exactly what I was doing. I'll tell you that my room was not very clean when I was young, but after high school, I went into the Navy, into service, and they beat that out of me. And so, coupled with that, I like to say that I'm just this side of obsessive-compulsive disorder. The healthy side of it, right? The healthy side. Yes, the healthy side of it. With my experience in the service, the very regimented leadership they gave solidified the kind of lifestyle that I choose to lead that way. Absolutely. I wondered if that experience just kind of ground that into you for the first time, or whether that was bringing out natural tendencies. But I assumed it was bringing out those natural tendencies. It allowed me to understand why I thought that way. I think it encouraged that behavior. It showed me a lot of interesting ways to do it, too. But it's also interesting to think about how the world of technology that can support systems for helping navigate our time and our task has evolved so much. I've seen you experiment with different things, try different things, so that was something that I was looking forward to diving into with you. I think sometimes technology can be a benefit, but I think sometimes technology, with all of the options, can also start to bungle that up a little bit. I think in a lot of cases it comes down to discipline. I think technology, in general, can be a huge distraction. It's designed to be that way. Hey, it's a cool thing, or this is the next widget or the next flashy thing that's going to come up, and so everybody has great ideas. In this day and age, it's very easy to take those ideas and translate that ...