Brad Blazar

SHOW NOTES:

Lisa  0:01 

Good morning, folks. And we’re tuning in for a new episode of Coffee with Lisa. And today I have the amazing and outstanding Brad Blazar. And what I want to talk about today is about sales and driving teams, and how can we really, truly get great performance out of really great, extraordinary teams that are highly adaptable. But before we get started, I just wanted to share let you know that clearly, we don’t have any sponsors for the show for coffee with Lisa. So we’d sure appreciate if you like what we talked about to go over to iTunes and give us a review and and to share. So welcome, Brad. I mean, your track record is impressive. First of all, 23 years old, you start, you’re working in oil company, you grow the team to 30, you’re generating billions in dollars over you write books, that you’ve got some crazy things going on. But a little bit about new first, like, who is Brad, where do you come from? You know, where’d you grow up?

Brad Blazar  1:08 

Sure, you know, I’ll share my backstory with you. You know, I was basically born into what I would call a middle-class family, Lisa, you know, my parents certainly, were not of wealth. My dad was basically a executive CPA that went into real estate. And then, of course, my mom, we get older as children basically worked in real estate as an agent. But, you know, I knew, I guess from a relatively young age, that I wanted more in life. And I tell the story of a very wealthy rich uncle of mine, you know, it’s kind of like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, you know, I had a rich uncle. And my Uncle Henry never had more than a sixth-grade education. He was an orphan. And as an orphan young boy was basically given the responsibility of looking after his two sisters, my ons. But as a young man, he went to work in the textile factories in New York City.

And his job was to carry these large, big bolts of textiles from one scene trust to the next. And there was a gentleman that he met that basically was a capitalist that took a liking for whatever reason to my Uncle Henry. And he said, Henry, I’d like to start a women’s fashion line. And you know so much about women’s fashions you work here in the text files, you know how to walk up and feel with your hands, good quality, you know, I’d like to bring the capital in. So they started a company called rNk fashions back right before the depression that literally went on to become one of the largest women’s fashion lines in the world.

And he created millions, and then of course, became a philanthropist. And when I was about eight, I’ll never forget this, we were having Thanksgiving dinner at the Palm Beach Country Club, which he owned. And he was walking me around the room holding my hand. He said, you see that man over there. He puts the little erasers at the end of your pencils that you use in school. You see that guy over there. He’s the one that makes the hangers. And you know, as a young boy, I’m just like, blown away, go like holy crap, you know, and I knew then that I wanted abundance. And so when I got older, you know, of course, I had multiple jobs, you know, paper routes, working in restaurants.

But it was when I went off to school, Lisa, to study architecture, because I wanted to become an architect and use those skills. Then I got sidetracked. I ended up responding to an ad in a newspaper that literally changed my life where there was a small little local oil company looking for someone just to get on the phone and call out to high net worth accredited investors. And so I responded to the ad was hired in literally working three hours a day, three days a week, which is nine hours out of the workweek. I was making 80 grand a year as a you know, punk kid going to school. And I said to myself, man, if I’m doing that, once a week, what in the world could I do if I was working full time. And so without that knowledge, I just basically quit going to class and showed up and learn how to close built a very, very sizable network of accredited investors. Then I went to work for a second company doing the same thing. Unfortunately, the second company that’s to say they had a thread of dishonesty. They weren’t the highest ethics, they were committing fraud. And so I resigned we filed class action suit we prevailed. But out of that came great goodness because my investors looked at me. They didn’t know I was 23 years old because this was before zoom.

This was before streamyard. I was doing it on the tail. Phone, they knew I was in my 30s their bread, what are you gonna do now? I said, I don’t know. And so they backed me. And at the age of 23, I was catapulted into the role as a CEO and founder of a small oil company not knowing anything about business, other than letterhead, and some business cards and envelopes. But I was a quick learner. And I got on the phone, and I started raising money for these different deals. And then I started hiring salespeople to work for me, Lisa taught them how to sell and do the same thing. We got to a point where we grew, we were raising millions of dollars a month, we were drilling in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana. And that’s basically where I learned how to do what I call my primary hard skill, which is teaching other people how to raise capital to buy, build, or scale their business or fund their real estate venture. And I’ve raised over $2 billion, still counting. And I’m also now of course, an author, a keynote speaker and a coach and consultant to others. But that really wasn’t when I call the path that I wanted to go down.

When I dissolved my oil company, after running it for a decade, I started writing a book, because I woke up one day, and I said, you know, there aren’t many 23 year-old kids that grow multi-million dollar companies. And that book was largely cast aside, and it was never completed. And it was literally about two, two and a half years ago when I was cleaning up my office and I found the floppy disk, floppy disk, you know.

Brad Blazar continues…  6:33 

But it was a floppy disk that had the title of the book. And I said, you know, I’ve got to finish that my project now that I have a daughter. And I want my daughter to be instilled with the proper things and understand, you know, success. I’m going to finish the book. And so it was a lot of late nights. It was a lot of editing. When I got my author’s copy of the book in the mail, I was so proud. And I looked at the cover and I showed it to my wife. And I designed the cover myself and I said if you were walking down the aisle to Barnes and Noble, does this jump off the shelf which you bought the book. And she said you want my honest opinion has said that tells me right there it sucks. And so I went to Fiverr you know the platform where you can hire artists and illustrators, I paid a couple hundred bucks, I found a dude actually over seas that had designed the book covers for some New York Times bestsellers. And he designed what became basically the number one rated read for young entrepreneurs. And this happened actually last year, shortly after the book came out. And a friend of mine called me he said, Hey, you know your books, number one. And I’m like, were like Amazon, like, you know, New York Times, he said, No, there’s a big blog over in England that just ranked your book as the number one read for young entrepreneurs. And sure enough, I researched him. And it was a big blog in England that had put my book number one on the list. I don’t know how it happened, I really don’t care. But as someone that understands what I mean. Yeah. You know, but but I backed that one thing with action, I took that link. I sent it to universities that have entrepreneurship programs. And I said, I am the author of what is today the number one ranked book for young entrepreneurs, here’s a free copy. And then they started calling Brad, we’d love to have you come speak to our student body great, started showing up started getting calls from radio and television stations. And I realize and I told my wife, there is a bigger calling for brand blazer, you know, you just don’t get called by radio stations, television shows and major universities like rice and Texas a&m to be called in. And that’s when I started basically my keynote, speaking, working on my second book. And then of course, looking out to the industry for someone to coach me on how to do this professionally. And as they say, you know, the rest is history. I said goodbye to my professional career, a little over a year and a half ago. And today, you know, of course, run a very successful coaching and consulting business and just wake up every day inspired. And to me, it’s not work. It’s fun. I love what I do.

Lisa Patrick  9:24 

Well, and that’s so important, Brad, because if we don’t love what you do, the passion doesn’t resonate with others. And if they can’t feel and believe in your passion and your mission and your mantra and your vision, I mean, we’re going to talk a little bit more about values and mission, right and how important that is when you’re driving a team. But it’s, you know, its core. And I think, you know, I work with a lot of professional speakers and authors and thought leaders and some of them have done a really good job at really understanding their core, right, who they are, what their values are, and the answer Still it each and every single day in their mantra and their mission and others not so much. But those that do succeed. And I’m not talking about succeed at this level I’m talking about at a high frequency of greatness. And it’s always, you know, when they reach here, it’s like, What’s the next one? What’s the next one? Right. But while they’re doing that, they’re also pushing everybody that follows them and everybody that works alongside them for frequencies right. And so that’s so important. Well, that’s a, that’s an amazing story, because I have not, I mean, clearly you and I have gotten to know each other and introduce through the coach Burt network. But I didn’t know your whole story. So thank you for that.

That’s very encouraging, especially, I think it’s important to when people start to step out and they move out of their transition out of their executive roles. Working with a few executives right now and push into the world of entrepreneurship and the world of thought leader and personal brand. It’s difficult, because you don’t have all these resources, you don’t have to be many more that you used to have back in you. Now you got to figure out where do I go? How do I do it? How do I navigate this? So what was the biggest challenge that you had? Brad, when you stepped out of your executive role? And you stepped into the world of Brad Blazar?

Brad Blazar  11:27 

Well, you know, first and foremost, it was scary. But it was also very, very humbling, you know, when you write a book, and I’m just going to tell your audience, most people are lucky if they write a book to ever sell 50 to 100 copies. Most published authors never sell more than 50 to 100 copies of their book. I expected my mom, my siblings, my aunts and uncles, my closest personal friends to be some of the first people that would run out and buy my book. I mean, tickets on Amazon folks, just 20 bucks. And I sat back looking for sales. They didn’t come. Yeah. Now the reason of course.

Brad Blazar continues…  12:08 

Well, but here’s the message, you know that I tell people Lisa, they never saw me as Brad Blaser the author. They’re like, Dude, why would I buy your book, you’re not an author. You don’t know anything about coaching people. You’re telling us you’re going to coach people and you’re going to build a multi-million dollar coaching Empire? What do you know about coaching, you’ve never done it before. And I just said there’s a bigger calling for me in life than doing what I’m doing. And I remembered literally hiring agents, hiring coaches like coach Burke, spending money I pay $5,000, to a guy in Israel, whose job was to put me on the biggest podcast in the world. I mean, I’ve been on Joel brown addicted to success in Australia, Carolina, Milan, and portio, chili, Benny Hoffman, Roland Frasier, business lunch, Brad Lea’s dropping bombs. And my wife looked at me because all she saw was money going out the door to promote my dream when I was building. And she said, Brad, you know, we don’t have insurance, you’re paying for a private insurance instead of what you used to get as a corporate employee, how much more money are you going to throw at this dream. And I said, if I have to throw another hundred thousand dollars at it, I’m going to throw another hundred thousand, this is who I want to be. This is my goal in life, it’s to impact and transform and change people. And today, when I tell people that I coach that they have to commit, unlike folks, many of you are dipping your toes in the water investing in your business.

You know, it’s like, it’s like dropping a pebble into the lake, I see ripples, I’m looking for tidal waves. I’m like, I just committed $30,000 to hire a couple guys to build me a whole bunch of funnels, if it don’t work out, it’s expensive tuition. But I’m investing in my future. If you’re not investing in yourself and your future, it shows me a lack of conviction. It shows me a lack of belief in yourself. And it shows me doubt. And so I believe that when you build you have to scale and scale quickly in one of the things that I learned very quickly as an entrepreneur building my oil company, Lisa, is you have to surround yourself with other people that share in the same mission and share in the same dream. And it was so very funny because very early in my coaching career, I actually was introduced to somebody not gonna mention any names. He’s a coach today had me on his podcast. And after he had me on his podcast, and we developed a relationship. He said, You know, you should hire me as your coach, I can help you so much. And I explained, you know, I’m already working with Coach Michael Burt, one of the best what can you teach me that Coach Burt can’t teach me and he said, Oh, I could teach you this. And I could teach you that. Now.

This guy was a very successful real estate agent and had built a very large book of business. And I just sat back and I said, What have you ever done to build a multi-million dollar oil company? You know, all you did is went out and bought a bunch of listings as a real estate agent. But I mean, if you actually scaled and had employees and payroll, and at the end of the day, I said, Thank you very much, but I’m just going to stick with Coach Burt. I know how to scale and build a business. Today, I’m so far ahead of where that dude is. It ain’t even funny. But he disowned me as a friend. He friended me on Instagram, he has not supported events that I and or others he knows in the coaching community have put together. So again, what does that tell me about a person’s integrity? You see the funny thing, and coach knows this. I show up at events, whether I’m speaking, or whether I’m not to support friends in my network, NATO for who you know, Cody Askins who, you know, 8% Nation, I’m not in the insurance business. But I was there, I bought a ticket VIP spent my 500 bucks, flew up there got a hotel, I mean, the whole event probably cost me 1000 $2,000. By the time I added my food in my hotel, it’s because I’m supporting my friends and those I care about. And what happens, they reciprocate, and they support and they help me. And so I believe that your true colors really shine through. And your true colors really define yourself. Because if you lead with value, and you find like you said your mission, your purpose and your why. And then you back that with conviction in with the tensity in with motion, you can transform your life. I was just on a call this morning with 60 or 80 people in a different network coaching them. And I said folks, you all have to come to my bounce back tore up in Laredo, Texas on the 24th. Either come live with a live event 50 bucks general mission or get a VIP or hell for 20 bucks, just join the live stream. We’re gonna have three cameras, different angles, and we’re going to have john chin.

He’s worked with the Napoleon Hill foundation and Sharon Lechter. To bring to you the Think and Grow Rich legacy. The movie I mean, my God, if you haven’t seen that, you got to see that, right? He’s going to be a speaker. I’ve got Sergio Bruna, the largest influencer in the Latino market. The guy is the global ambassador for General Motors is appeared in hundreds of commercials had his own late night TV show, the dude’s been interviewed by Larry King, how many people get on Larry King show, again, connections being around successful people. And so you know, when people ask me, you know, what’s your Why, what’s your purpose is I tell them and this comes out, of course of something that you and I have learned from Coach Berg, I believe to do great things in life Lee, so you have to have like coach Burt says a revelation. He tells a story about when he was a young kid, and his mom dropped him off and Little League somebody said to him, you’re gonna be a great coach someday, young man. Of course, today. He’s one of the best. My revelation my defining aha moment was when I was in the oil business. This was before the internet. This was before we posted jobs on indeed or monster or job boards. We posted them in the local paper. I was looking to hire somebody to come work for me as a salesperson. We got tons of resumes. And so one day, my my secretary buzzes my office and says Jack’s here for his interview. Now, let me remind your listeners I was in a prestigious office building, I had half the third floor around me I got big law firms CPA financial services, we’re all wearing professional business attire.

Brad Blazar continues…  18:42 

This guy shows up for a job interview in a pair of jeans that had holes in the knees, work boots covered in dust and dirt, a flannel shirt. He had a mullet for a haircut like Billy Ray Cyrus or Joe Dirt if you saw the movie with David Spade and a beagle through Manchu mustache. And when he got out of couch and shook my hand, His hands were very callous and very rough. Now, for most people, the interview would have ended there at the front door, because most CEOs just would have written that dude off. But I didn’t.

There was something about him. that attracted me to him that I found out a little bit later, but I never forget what my grandparents told me and they said, Brad, people will forget your name. They might forget what you do, but they will never forget the way you make them feel. So being a kind person, I invited him in my conference room, gave him a cup of coffee just like I’m drinking here because of course the show is called coffee with Lisa. And after about 20 minutes, I said jack, why do you want to work here? And his response gave him the opportunity of his lifetime. His answer was because my wife and my daughter’s dreams are bigger than mine and I want to give them everything. And like they deserve. And I still choke up and get teary when I tell that story. It was that moment that I realized his purpose was bigger than himself. And I said, you can come back next week on Monday morning, you have a job, young man and he jumped out. He shook my hand. He hugged me. He said, Mr. Blaser, I’m so thankful. The funny thing is on Monday, after visiting my office, he showed up dressed not much better than he was the day of the interview. And so all Brad blazers sitting there going,

Oh, dude, man, you really screwed up this one, this guy’s get again on the phone and be talking to big time CEOs and entrepreneurs asking him to write checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the poor kid don’t even own a suit. You really messed up on this one blazer. And then I sat back in my chair, and I suggest Come with me. We got in my Porsche. And I took them to a department store and I invested a few thousand dollars in this young man’s future, I treated him to two suits, shoes, belts, took them to my salon, we gave him a Hollywood Makeover. And then we came back to the office about four o’clock and my receptionist did not recognize them as the same man that left that morning. But the surprise was the next day when he walked through that door, wearing that suit. Man what a different person he was, I could see it in his presence, the way he was walking taller. Then I took him to the conference room gave him the scripting taught him how to close told him how we capitalize deals, told him what to say. And that year, he made a quarter million dollars. That was my revelation, my aha moment that brand blazer can change people’s lives, teach them how to sell. And then of course, I backed that with conviction over the years to do what I’m doing today. But it was really that revelation that said, I took a guy probably need no more than 40,50, 60 grand as a roughneck working out in the hot tech sun. And I turned him into a closer that today’s wearing a Rolex watch sitting in the corner office making a quarter million dollars a year?

Lisa Patrick  22:14 

Well, and and, you know, you see, there’s a lot of points that we can touch on throughout that whole story. First of all, you know, you talk about a belief, it’s an it’s not you know, about don’t judge the book by its cover, right? It’s about I think a lot of a lot of of, you know, whether you’re an entrepreneur, you’re in the C suite, or you’re an HR professional, wherever it happens to be. The one question that most don’t ask is why do you want to work for me, they’re so focused on the talent and the hard skills that they forget the value and mission and mandate and purpose drive way more and bigger result ever all day long than technical skill, you can teach the technical skill, you cannot teach somebody focus and drive. You can help them and you cannot, you can’t teach it. So that’s a really valuable lesson for anybody who’s listening right now is that if you’re not asking your team’s, why do they want to work for you? Or why do they believe in the mission or the mandate of the company, then you’re doing yourself and you and your company and your team’s a disservice because they’re not going to belong to that organization. They’re not going to belong to them. And that’s so very important.

You know, you talked a little bit more about recognizing that when he walked through that door all of a sudden, that close, it’s not that the clothes made him any different, is it he just needed that confidence to walk in that door and say, Look at me and who I am. And you were that that activator for that? Right?

Brad Blazar  23:46 

Absolutely. You know, you’re 100% right.

And, you know, I share this with people is part of my belief system, you know, as you and I know, it’s you know, leading with your beliefs. And if the other person you’re communicating to has similar beliefs, there’s going to be a natural attraction. And so largely went on the keynote, and I’m up on stage in front of a large audience. I’ll say I believe three things. I believe a good coach will motivate and inspire you. I will believe a good coach will ask you the hard questions. But I will also believe a good coach will get you to start doing things tomorrow, that you’re not doing today. And that’s where the transformation really takes place. That’s where jack was doing things daily. That because I was creating disciplines and habits that he wasn’t doing prior to showing up on the job. But you know, it goes one step beyond that. I get paid and I go in and I coach $2 billion companies I was called in last year to a company called PCL industrial, which, you know, does seven or 8 billion in sales, global company, their big contract and they had me come in to train their leadership team.

And what I learned there and what I’ve learned in talking to managers and CEOs, there’s There’s a big disconnect in the world and in corporate America between what managers think employees want to be motivated and inspired, and what the employees actually want, that the managers and leadership team don’t know, it’s not more money. Most managers think that my employees will be motivated by bigger paychecks, raises bonuses. That’s not what most employees want. It’s nice. But really what most employees want is recognition. They want praise, they want to be loved upon. And so in my second book, put some thrive in your hive, unlocking performance in any organization, I’ll put it here in the chat, which is also on Amazon, is I write about this disconnection in why most businesses fail or why 67% of your workforce is completely disengaged, if they don’t buy into the mission.

They’re not inspired. But more importantly, the leadership team or the management team is not understanding how to really push the right buttons. by praising and recognizing and providing things that those people look for in their lives. Just thinking Haley, so you make another sale, man, I’ll throw a couple extra hundred bucks in there for you. Well, you know, that dies off very quickly. But if you’ve got a sales team, and Lisa is called up to the next meeting in the front of the room, and she’s given an award that sits on her desk, for the next couple of weeks, until she has to give it to somebody else, which builds competition in that office, because Lisa wants to have it in her cubicle as long as she can before somebody gets to take it away, and take title to that recognition and that award. That’s what builds that positive culture. And that’s I think, what so many leaders and CEOs are missing today, it’s how to create this culture of accomplishment. It’s how to create this culture of competition, because most people are competitive. Okay? The way that you bring a competitive culture out in an organization is through recognition, through awards. And if you’re lacking that in your business, or in your company, you’ve got a culture that’s not inspiring people. And so input some thrive in your hive, what I share there is what certain businesses are doing today that are really allowing them to grow and flourish.

I mean, one company here in Texas has the silliest stupid thing. It’s called the taco award. And it is a statue of a bronze taco. But it is the most prized award this damn company has. And all you’re getting is the right to walk out to put in your cubicle, but it is given away on a quarterly basis and people bust their butts, to be given the bronze stock. Yeah. And sometimes it’s disappointing. But again, it let’s make it what it’s what makes all the difference in the world.

Lisa Patrick  27:58 

Absolutely. Well, and I think too, here’s another concept that I believe so. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a team from anywhere, especially now we’ve got teams from anywhere, right? We’ve got people who are at home, people that are in the workplace, you know, we got virtual, you know, for God’s sakes, Google is, you know, not going back, probably ever, but at least till 2021, back to the to the workplace.

But one of the big things that teams really miss is you’re right, they needed they needed achievement, they need accomplishment, they be recognized. But here’s the thing is if the leader doesn’t actually allow a safe place for them to truly, truly show up as themselves, it don’t matter how good of an accomplishment you have, how good of an award system you have, what kind of sales compensation you have, what kind of money if the leaders are not creating places for people to belong and truly show up as themselves? The rest doesn’t matter. That’s what I truly and I think, you know, now especially now, it’s even the hurdle is even going to be bigger, because how do we create places where people feel they’re safe and belong when we’re virtual, and it all comes back to your ship. And I’m telling you folks, you know, Brad Meyer telling talking to you about this, if you do not become vulnerable and you do not show up as your real self, you’re going to be in trouble with your business. Never mind what you have, what best service you have. If you cannot belong and really show mission and vision and bring your authentic self you’re in trouble, period.

Brad Blazar  29:39 

Absolutely. I could not endorse what you just said more.

In any business. Really what you have to do is spend time getting to know your employees and really understanding what motivates them what their goals and what their dreams are. And you know, when I was running my business, and even as the National Sales Director for multiple companies over the course of my career, I would always carve out what I called one on one time. And they were just one on one meetings, usually for no more than 30 minutes just to sit down with people and just really ask them, you know, How’s work going for you? What things can i or the company be doing to make your job easier. And then after chit chat for 20 minutes, it was now more towards personal you know how things going for you at home and how the kids you know, in one day realize that you care about them as a person, rather than as an employee, their belief in you goes through the roof, because it’s like, Man, that dude cares about my well being he’s got my family.

And, you know, I wasn’t the CEO of some of the companies I worked for I was, you know, the Executive Vice President, National Sales Director. But I can go back and tell you, I had so many people that knew I was going to bat for them that I had their back, there were certain situations where the CEO wanted to literally reduce people’s compensation. I said, You can’t do that, you’re not going to do that. And I as the person that do reports do ain’t going to let it happen. And then I would confide to that employee, what the CEO was trying to do, and say, you know, I got your back, buddy, it ain’t gonna happen. Because if it happens, I’m going to walk out the door, and he knows that I’ve got your back and your family and your family’s existence is important enough to me, and they would always say you got our backs, dude, you’re the guy that we work for. And we’re gonna bend over backwards to do whatever it takes to make you look good. Because we know that you care. And it’s the one on one time, that’s one thing that I think most leaders lack. It’s the ability like you said, Lisa, to become vulnerable. They’re given.

Lisa Patrick  31:48 

And it’s all connected. The first step. So we just, I just launched a new company called Belongify.

It’s a system about how you put the wheat back in me in the right kind of way. Right? Well, and the thing is that the very first step in that system is connection. And it doesn’t matter if you’re running a team, you know, you and I both know, we’ve got, you know, some amazing circles and networks, you know, we’re on stage speaking to one to 1000 people, you know, we’re correct. We’re writing books, we’ve got courses, we’ve got all those great things. But at the end of the day, it does not matter. If you do not make connections, whether it’s with a team, or with somebody across the room that you’re going to go and shake hands with connection is the most important thing. I always say, I will give up my money, but I will never give up my network. Right? Because it takes a lot of time, energy and resources. And when you’re truly yourself and like you talked about earlier, right? I mean, kudos to you. I love what you said, You said that you amplify and lift your competitors. Because you know, in lots of ways, your network and my network are our competitors. But we don’t see each other as competitors, right, we’re there, we’re in the trenches with them, we’re helping them grow their, their vision and their mission, their personal brands, their businesses, because we recognize that we need to put the knee back in we in the right kind of wait. And that starts not just with your team, but with your network. So we can hear from Richard Richard says, How do you I think he meant to say scale, the safety management function within an organization. So back to psychological safety, right in your organization? How do you how? Brad,

Brad Blazar  33:40 

I think that when you look at the psychological safety in an organization that allows people to open up and communicate, it’s really letting them know that anything that they share with you, is basically you know, protected. It’s kind of like, you know, attorney client privilege. And I tell people that you know, I want to let you know that whatever we discuss whatever we share today, Lisa stays between the two of us in the confines of these walls, you can you can feel safe in opening up. And I mean, I’ve had people that have worked under me, literally, I mean, can find like I was a priest, you know, hey, they’re having relationship problems at home. You know, their wife is thinking about walking out the door. I mean, all kinds of stuff. Kids are on drugs. It’s amazing that when you have that safety, where people really have trust, and I think it comes down to trust, and really building that trust over time where people can confide in you as a manager, as a CEO, as a supervisor. It really builds the relationship because I tell people look you know, you’re a direct report, and I want you know that you can come to me for anything. If you need money if you need time off family comes first you know, I say it’s gone family and then of course your work your employment so you know if you need some time off, do You come and you tell me, so many people are scared to go to their supervisor or go to the person that they actually report to, and actually ask for that time off that they so desperately need. And what does that do? It builds up, it creates stress, I don’t want someone working. For me, that’s under a bunch of stress.

Why? Because stress causes disease, it’s one of the leading contributors to heart attacks. And so I just tell people, look, if you need a couple days off, or you need a week off to take care of this other family situation, do just ask for the time off, okay, we’ll figure it out. You know, yes, we have our policies and procedures. And if it goes beyond that, we’re work around it. But at the end of the day, I want you to be happy here. Because I want a bunch of happy employees, I want a bunch of people that like showing up for work, I want a bunch of people that are here for the mission, you’re here for the purpose, and that are more importantly, inspired by what we do. And when you build that type of culture, and you create that safety, where people are to be open, that’s how the company is going to grow. And that’s how the company is going to thrive. It’s really communicating that the other that I’m a big believer in, is you’ve got to post and you’ve got to make sure that every employee in that business understands the corporate mission. So many companies so many CEOs don’t even know what their mission in business is.

Lisa Patrick  36:17 

Absolutely 100% I think you have to do the work and and it’s interesting, because you know, you and I run in the personal branding space right now. And one of the biggest I think downfalls of those that are really trying to push in, whether they’re exiting out of corporate or they’re already in the in this space, trying to grow their influence, trying to grow awareness, to grow their brand, is that they forget that at the end of the day, it’s about your mission, in your vision in your brand. If you don’t know what you believe in, how will anybody believe in you? Great, you need a coach, you need what you believe in. And when you believe, and somebody else believes in the same thing, I believe, then we’re unstoppable. Right? And so, you know, Dana and Jen, Jen and Craig Allen in here. And we’ve got to zoom in here. And and you know, you guys, show us a one if you know, put a one in the comments if you believe the same as we believe, because it’s important that at the end of the day, we do believe in the same and when we believe the same everything else is in can overcome it. You know, that’s a conversation. Yeah, right. That’s a contribution that needs to take place. Richard says, Thank you skill. Yes. Thank you for your answer. You know, you your brand is called build the beast. So let’s talk a little bit like how did build a beast really, truly come about? Brad? Like, how did that come about?

Brad Blazar  37:52 

Yeah, well, when I started writing my book, I did something that today I realized was brilliant, but I didn’t realize it. Kind of like how did your book become number one? or How did your podcasts become the second highest rated podcast? According to Yahoo Finance, Yahoo News, I did something and that was I actually trademarked a phrase. And I trademarked this phrase, which was my belief called the art of belief ology. The arguably far ology in simplest terms, or in concept is simply if you change your beliefs, you can dramatically transform your future, because your beliefs define your reality. And so by getting people to understand that the beliefs they have about themselves, the beliefs they have about their future, and also then the disciplines or the habits that they do daily, will dramatically transform themselves over time. And so when we trademarked the art of belief ology, I didn’t realize that what I was doing with brilliance because now of course, we can license that to other coaches. It’s a trademark concept.  

It really came down to the belief system. And we actually have what we call belief bracelets, just like, you know, Lance Armstrong had that we give out at our events that on there, say basically change your beliefs change your life, it comes down to the thought that one idea, one thing you learn at an event or from a coach or a mentor, that you back with intensity and with action can dramatically change or transform your future. I mean, I’ve seen it happen in my own personal life. I’ve seen it happen in the lives people we coach, one of my coaching students now is doing business with some of the biggest names in music like Sheryl Crow, and Wynonna Judd and asleep at the wheel and citizen code, as all as a result of some introductions that we made on her behalf and she realized that once the door opened and the opportunity presented itself, man, she jumped right through it today. She’s doing great, but you know, people look at hiring a coach or hiring a mentor as an expense and I tell them It’s not an expense, it’s an investment. You’re not doing this for me, I don’t need your money. I can’t tell you how many dozens of people have come to me since cobit, and said, I can’t continue to pay you. And I said, great, but I want to let you know that we’re not going to let you go out of our coaching program. We don’t give up on people. And they stay in. And what happens is they get the coaching, they get to a better place. And after a couple months, they reengage and they call me say, Brad, hey, I can start making up those payments to you. Great, you know, we’re not asking for it, I want to make sure you’re comfortable. But I tell people that once you commit to me, I commit back to you and the fact that you may want out because you perceive you can’t pay, don’t mean we’re given up on you. And I think that again, gets back to what you were saying before, and that’s where someone’s real colors truly shine. They’re like, you’re going to continue coaching me without getting paid. Absolutely, dude, because now you need me more in your life than ever before. You know what deeply sad as me as I talk to so many people that are middle aged in their late 30s 40s professionals. And when we start talking about the price of my coaching, it saddens me, these people can’t even afford 325 bucks a month to invest in themselves, let alone they even have $10,000 in savings. And here you are a 40-year-old middle-aged person. Unlike dude, the first thing you need to focus on is six to nine months in emergency savings for these life disasters. What’s going to happen with the transmission goes out in your car next week? And they’re like, I don’t know.