170: Focus, Learning, and Passion: The Commonalities of Enlightened Super-Achievers with Corey Poirier
Corey Porier from The Speaking Program and The Passion Cure has interviewed thousands of high-earners and high-achievers and discovered their commonalities. The top three qualities that he's seen over and over again are:
1. focus or the ability to go all-in: take that single pass and say "no" to most ideas
2. life-long learners and leaders: successful people can sift through the ocean of information to find that small amount of wisdom
3. live with passion: successful people have found their purpose
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Transcript
Download transcript (.txt)Robert Plank Show, episode 170 focus learning and passion, the commonalities of enlightened super achievers with Corey Poirier, Hey
everyone, and welcome back to the Robert Plank show, where we talk about building a business and getting your name out there. Our guest today is Corey pourier, and he's an award winning keynote speaker, host of the top rated conversions with passion radio show, an international best selling author who has appeared on television specials on East Link, tele, TV, CBC, CTV global. He's a TEDx speaker as well. So Mr. Corey, how are things today,
I am doing fantastic. Robert, how are you doing today?
I am better than ever. And just to make sure, did I say your last name, right? Or did I mess that one up?
Not how you did it. As good as I can do it. All right, the best I got is Poirier. That's the best I got.
Pori, all right, I'll stick with that one. So, so you do all these things, you've given all these talks, and you've given a TED talk. So, I mean, tell me about yourself. Tell me about what you do, what you talk about, what makes you different and special.
Well, you know, I guess probably, if I start off, what kind of makes me perhaps unique in an industry where, in the speaking industry, where there's definitely no shortage of speakers, what makes me, perhaps, I guess, somewhat unique, is the, I guess, the background I have in interviewing what I call enlightened, super achievers. So I've done now, Robert above, I don't know the exact number now, because it keeps on growing, but above 3500 interviews. And, you know, in kind of sharing the bill with a lot of other speakers, I haven't really run into too many other speakers that have done anywhere near in that neighborhood of interviews, and so I really kind of spend my time researching and learning from, you know, what I consider the top minds in the world of thought leadership, and then in turn, sharing that with my clients so that they can learn kind of, what are these sort of unique trait, or common traits or insights that will allow them to, I guess, maybe just jump ahead of the competition. So I think what probably makes me unique is is the exclusive insight that I've been able to gain access to by doing these interviews with so many thought leaders in the world.
So you've done so many interviews that you're almost like on a Larry King kind of level, whereas just so many 1000s like, you're not, you're not playing around here,
well, you know? And I'll take that, that's a you know, I'll take that compliment because he's done a lot of interviews, another person that, over the years I've been compared to, and I think it's kind of APT, only from the perspective of I've sort of been a fan of him and followed his path. Is Napoleon Hill, who wrote, Think and Grow Rich, who spent, I think, 28 years or something like that, interviewing the top leaders of his time, and, you know, so on it, obviously, at a much smaller scale. I'm not going to try to compare myself to either Larry King or for Napoleon Hill in terms of stature, but yeah, that I've been kind of following her path, if you will. So out of all these people playing around,
right? So, out of all these, you know, 1000s and 1000s of people that you've been talking to, not playing around or anything like that. I mean, what have you found out? Is there like a number one secret? Is there like a top three? Is there some kind of a list or a sequence or, I mean, what have you discovered from, from talking to all these people?
Yeah, I'll give you the top three. I mean, I could probably go to 10, but that would take us, you know, more time than we have. So I'll give you sort of a top three. I'll go in reverse order. I might go leave the first one, you know, most common trait, and it is this one, the number one is the, definitely the most common trait by far and above. So I'll leave that for the last as kind of a teaser, but I'm going to say the third most common trait is their ability to focus or go all in. So whereas a lot of people in our world today, it's easy to get distracted. I mean myself included. You know, we struggle with so many things pulling for our attention, so much noise, I've discovered that these thought leaders have an uncanny ability to go all in with the person or the device or whatever is in front of them at the present time. And so I've said they've kind of figured out how to make single tasking the new sexy. So they're really good at focusing going all in and single tasks. That would be one common trait. I would even add to that, that they know how to say no to the things that aren't going to bring them closer to their purpose, so that they can say yes to the few little things that will so that's, I guess, the I'm going to say the third most common trait. Second one is, I define it and term it as lifelong learners or leaders, but they have a great ability to feed their mind. And I say we're in an information heavy wisdom like society. So they have a great ability to get to that wisdom and sift through that information quickly, or even just sidestep the information that's busying our mind and get to that wisdom while other people are still stuck in the information. So for instance, they might be on Facebook 15 minutes a day and get everything they need from it, whereas, you know, others might struggle for four hours a day on Facebook and still kind of be going, Oh, I can't leave yet. I. So they have an ability to know how to get that wisdom and how to get it efficiently. And then, like I said, they understand the ability to be a lifelong learner. So, you know, I say we, we rarely forget to feed our our body, but sometimes we forget to feed our mind, and they certainly don't. So that will be the second one they keep on learning. Zig Ziglar at a great quote that said, you, you don't ever, you know, you might finish your school, but you don't ever finish your education. So that will be number two, and I'll give you the third one, and then you can, you know, circle back and ask any questions, because I'm going through them quite quickly. But the first one, most common, by far and above, is that they're living with passion, and they found their purpose. So they know exactly what their purpose is. Why are they here? What are they kind of meant, you know, in their mind, meant to do? What are they serving as a purpose? And they stay on target with that. So I kind of say they're living on purpose, and they're doing so because they found their passion. And that's to the tune of above 95% in all my interviews, these people are living with passion these, you know, this very seldom I've come across a person that's achieving at the highest level who's actually just playing, you know, playing part time. I mean, these people actually say this is why, which is my calling, and this is what I meant to do here, and this is how I want to spend my time.
Dang. I mean, those are the three. So, so you Yeah, you weren't kidding that if you listed more than three, you'd be here for hours and hours and and, I mean, yeah. And these are things that you know, maybe people listening, they've maybe heard about these kinds of things over and over, but maybe, you know, not giving them the attention that these things deserve, especially if, if you know the the top performers, top earners, you know, most fulfilled people, all follow these things, being focused and all in being lifelong learners and living with passion. And what's cool about this core is that it sounds like they all interrelate, right? Because if, if you're, if you're 100% focused, you can actually get somewhere, as opposed to being spread too thin or being caught in the bright, shiny object syndrome. And if you're a lifelong learner, then you're always learning and figuring out you know what your next move should be, or what next problem that you're tackling. And then, if you live with passion, that means that the focus and the lifelong learning now becomes sustainable, and you have all those entrepreneurial qualities, like you're always hungry and you're always enjoying whatever the next struggle or challenges, it sounds like they all sort of interrelate there.
Yeah, that's such a great observation, Robert, and I'll add even one more, which I really something that really spoke to me. Because when people always ask me, What are these common traits? And, you know, I It's kind of interesting. I think some people thought the answers are going to be things that they had to, I'm gonna say, let's say, you know, like I had to invest in hiring certain people, or I had to go and spend 1000 hours figuring out how to learn how to, you know, basically, dissect a certain atom bomb. You know, like they thought it was going to be stuff that was going to involve all kinds of extensive work. And what's really cool you probably noticed that is those three it doesn't matter where you start. What's your background, who you are today, you can essentially develop all three of those starting tomorrow, regardless of where you started. So
I mean, what's the low hanging fruit there? What could someone do? Just to make it even simpler, what could someone do, just focusing on that, that first trait everyone needs, what can someone do starting tomorrow or even later today to get their focus more of what it needs to be?
So now, are you talking with passion? Are you talking with, you know, the focus one? You're talking, I'm
talking just looking at the focus part on its own.
Yeah, absolutely. So let's say it's an example. And I think we all know our, you know, our challenges when it comes to distraction, and I don't, I'm not generalizing there. I'm saying I think we individually know what our individual challenges are. So let's say my challenge. I'll use me as the example, and it was, let's say my challenge is being distracted by my phone. You know, wanting to always have it on, wanting to be connected at all times. But let's say that's not, you know, the type of business that I'm running or the client I'm working with. Let's say that that's hurting me. That's not a, let's say an asset. Well, what I could start doing is, I could start forwarding my phone to my office. If that's an option, you know, that's a perfect scenario, if you have somebody that can answer the call, because then they're getting a live person, which typically they wouldn't get with me. Anyway, they're going to get, you know, me, I'm going to get the call and be distracted, and everybody loses then. So normally I would send it to a voicemail, so I could forward it to the office, and then they're getting a live voice. I could literally turn it off, and now they have, you know, voicemail as a worst case scenario, I could leave it in the car, you know, while I go in to visit a client. If I'm going to have the temptation, we've learned from people on our show that checking our phones is actually an addiction. It's not just a habit. So if it's an addiction, you know, every side of the mind. I mean, if I, for example, eating wise. I don't bring certain things into my house because I know if they're here, I'll eat them. If you bring 10 to the ice cream in the house, I'll say I'm not going to eat them. And then five minutes later, when. Where I'm sick and two tubs are gone, I'm gonna I'm gonna bow that. I won't do it tomorrow night, but I will again, so I don't bring it in front of me. It's the other side out of mine. The same thing, if your phone's an addiction or a challenge, you got to leave it at a site. So if you're going in on the call, even if it's hard to do, throw it in the dash. And if you don't have it with you, it's harder to be distracted by it. But like I said, you could just forward it to the office, if you need to have it on your quote, unquote person, forward it to the office so that you can't, won't even know when a call is coming in, turn it on silent, whatever it takes. It's a simple action, right? So how do you stay more focused if you're being distracted by a device, find a way to break away from the device. But it might take some willpower. At the same time. You'll start seeing benefits right away. And then if I go, you know, one step further, how do you remain more focused? Well, if you can, and this ties into the passion and purpose. If you know what your purpose is, and you know what it takes to stay on purpose, and you have maybe a purpose statement, like I do, I have a five step purpose statement, then it's a lot easier to stay focused. Because I just have to ask myself, is what I'm doing right now really enhancing or working towards my purpose statement. And if it's a no, then I'm being distracted, and there's my chance to go, Okay, well, I know I'm being distracted. It's time to get back to focus.
And that's really good. And so it sounds like, I mean, the sound it sounds like it's, it's a big problem, but if you just start with just focus, like, are deciding on out of this whole big focus problem. What's one little win? I guess I could. I could chip away one little thing, like, if we could, if we could, like, localize the problem to just the phone distraction, then handle that problem. So, I mean, is it a matter of that? Is it a matter of just repeating that process, you just described it? If first of all, the first problem was checking the phone, okay, I fixed that, and then at that point, would you then move on to not checking email? Or would you then move on not checking Facebook? I mean, what would you then do from that point onward?
Yeah, so that's a great question, because I'm a believer that psychologically too many, too many times, and I do this again myself, any of these things I'm saying, I've been through this. And sometimes I'm still struggling through it, but we chase the shiny objects. So I know myself, if we had Jack Canfield on the show a while back and he shared his Hour of Power, and I loved it, and I do it now, but I loved it, and I thought I want to go all in on that. So what did I do? I tried to go an hour and 10 minutes, you know, I tried to one up it. And what happened is, after three days, I tapped out, because I was going from zero to trying to go from zero to 60 with the wrong car, you know? And so what I've learned is that, as people, traditionally speaking, it's a lot easier for us to tackle one element of the big thing than it is to try to tackle every aspect. So yeah, I would rather see somebody try to tackle one. They say take 21 days to create a habit. So, you know, if you're going to try to conquer something like your phone, which might be an addiction for you. I believe it's going to take time, and I believe you should start easy. You should, you know, it's like they say somebody shouldn't try to quit drinking and smoking the same day. So I think, you know, you should try to take one, you know, try for 21 days, or obviously more, but 21 days at least, to make it a habit. And then I'll go one step further to Robert. I'll add as well that what I would recommend people do is as they're tackling each one of these areas. I believe in rewarding psychologically. I believe we chase rewards. So I think it's even important to give yourself small rewards. So for example, let's I'm just using an example. Let's say I try to eat healthy regularly, but I love ice cream. I'll use that example again, because I do love ice cream. And let's say a chocolate dip is something that I can get at a dairy bar locally. Well, I easily, because they'll buy a chocolate dip every day, but I know that's not going to serve me well, but maybe what I say is, okay, well, if I, you know, if I can basically, kind of start getting rid of my phone addiction, maybe that means at the end of the week, I'll buy myself an ice cream and say, You know what, regardless of whether I know this is good for me or not, I'm enjoying it, or maybe a whole day is going to be a treat day. Or maybe it goes bigger than that. Maybe if I can do it for the 21 days, because I know that's how long it takes, greater habit, maybe I give myself a reward at the end of each week, but I know at the end of 21 days, I'm going to give myself a massive reward. Maybe it's, you know, a weekend away at a retreat that I'm going to pay for. So I believe, first of all, yes, tackling in pieces at a time, rather than trying to tackle the whole thing at once. And then secondly, I think it's important to reward yourself at your mini milestones. And that could just be simply the first day you do something you haven't been able to do for years.
And is there a secret to staying consistent with a plan like that? Like, I mean, it's one thing to say, Okay, I'm not going to do this for 21 days, and I'll give myself like the small reward. I'll give myself a bigger reward later. But how does, how do you how does someone actually take that kind of thing seriously and not cheat?
So I mean, I guess there's a two part answer one, and I can't speak for everybody to say that we all kind of are built this way. But for me, personally, I had to eventually get myself to the point where I was self aware when I was falling off, let's say course. I mean, I still am now, like I still have, for instance, my girlfriend and I, we were away, we were in Florida for a couple of weeks, and for the most part, when I go back to eating and exercise, and we did a great job. But there were days, I mean, there, you know. Most people go on vacation, or a lot of people go on vacation, and they tell me, that's just the time to go all out. And we kind of said, This is our time to get back in, because it's harder when I'm on the road so much so, you know, we get, let's say, on our trip, and there's a day where we just kind of go crazy and don't eat properly and don't exercise and all that kind of stuff. But the biggest thing is, for me, it's not a failure because we had that one slip or that one day, that's just a as long as you're so this is where I'm at now. It took me a long time to get there recognizing as long as I'm aware of it and I'm willing to write the course the next day. Again, it's not a failure, it's just a step in the journey. So it's like, if you're following, if you're walking down a road that's two miles, and you decide, oh, and I see a shiny object in the veer off for one minute, as long as long as you get back on that road. To me, that's not a failure, but if you see the shiny object and you chase it down a totally different road, and by the time you're done, you have 12 roads, and none of them lead to where you're going. That's not a failure, but that's really definitely a big, big misstep. So first of all, I think it's recognizing that just because you fall off one day out of the 21 days of your habit, it's more important than you get back on the horse than it is to just say, well, I failed. Now it's time to move on to something different or chase a new object. So I would say being consistent first of all is the willpower to do it and to have you know your why. So you got to figure out what, what's your big why? Why are you doing this in the first place? It's got to be big. It's got it. They say, if you if you can figure out your why, then the How will figure itself out. You know, if you can get really centered around what's my why, why am I doing this? Because I want to have a better business, because I want to serve more people, let's say, because, if I'm more on target, then I can serve more people in a positive way or make a bigger impact. If you know what that why is, I think you'll start to figure out the how a lot better than if you're confused as to what the why is. So I think staying consistent and focused one part is knowing what your WHY IS, and keep reminding yourself of what your why is. And then the other part of that is as you're falling off, because you eventually it probably will. I mean, not everybody's perfect, so you eventually will fall off the path, but picking yourself back up and saying, what was my why, and then going, Okay, I just need to get back on path. And even if I had a 21 days, I fell off twice. At a 21 days, that's still a success over what it was when I wasn't doing it any day. So I think it's a psychological thing. You need to kind of show yourself that. A, it's not gonna be an easy journey, but you're gonna make it. B, you got to remind yourself why you're doing it and figure out what that lies in the first place, so you can remind yourself and then C, always make sure you veer back onto the journey, even though every now and then you might veer off.
Makes a lot of sense to me. Willpower plus y plus the slip isn't a failure. It's not a reason to start over. It's just a bump in the road. And you always hear about stuff like that, like success is in a straight line, or whatever cheesy stuff, right? It doesn't go it doesn't always go from zero to 50 to 100 it goes up, it goes down. You figure a few things out along the way.
Yeah, I've had, I've had parts of my journey that at the time, I know, I mean, because I remember, I can put myself into that what I felt like when it happened. There's various points in my career, both as a speaker with our, you know, interviews with my newspaper that I said, my publication, with my sales career. There's parts that I would describe as, at the time, as absolute disasters. I thought this was the end, you know, I and I don't even know what I thought it was the end of, I mean, I knew, I didn't think was the end of my life, but I thought, you know, this is, this is a downward spiral, and am I ever going to recover? And all this, and it's so wild now that I can look back and I know what Steve Jobs said to be true. I mean, now anything that happens like that, I can recognize it because I have the, I guess we'll say, the ability of looking backwards and reflecting, but I didn't at the time because it was so new in my career. But now I can look back and I can compare what Steve Jobs said about joining up our dots and realizing that different dots in our life, even if they seem like the worst moment of ever, actually became responsible for some of the best moments ever. So I can look at my I had a sales career in the office equipment industry, working for Toshiba, and, you know, Toshiba, at the time, being the 58th largest company in the world. Well, when I get that job, I get hired. I asked the guy why he hired me, and he said, A because you moved across the country to, you know, to basically moved across the country for a different job. And now, if you don't take this job, or don't succeed at a job, you're gonna have to go back home to your small town with your tail between your legs and make you fail. And then secondly, he said, because you had a small business at a young age, running a newspaper selling ads on straight commission. And he said, At 19 years old, which is something I never heard of somebody doing. And he said, so I need somebody that's going to survive. And those are two traits. Those are two guys will say, moments in your history, or trait that you have that I think is going to make that possible. Well, the irony, Robert is, if I realistically at those two times when that happened, A being the time, whenever I moved across the country, well, I was going for a different job. I was planning to work on the oil rigs. We thought we're going to retire after eight months and have a work a day in our life again, again. We were young, but I got burned with hydrochloric acid, and so after a week of working there, I moved my way into the city, and eventually got that job I'm talking about. But when I basically left the oil rigs, I thought I had failed, because we moved across the country solely for that purpose. I thought that was one of the biggest failures in my life. I told all my friends and family I was going to crush it, and then at the same time that newspaper that I had the. Publication. Well, the first one I had, because I've had more than one, I closed it after a year, and I thought that was the biggest failure I, you know, I just thought I was a big failure, basically. And now I look back at those two moments and say they basically, without those two moments, I might not be sitting here talking to you today. So I think again, going back now, I can look and see that all those moments that I thought were failures or could have been failures, were actually moments that had to happen. So I think having that reflection ability and just knowing deep down that it's not the end of the journey, like I said, when we fall off the path, and it's not a straight line, but as long as we get back on then we're on the path we're meant to be. I think that is such a powerful I'm going to say awareness to eventually come around
nice I mean, yeah, that's an interesting perspective. And I think I have those kinds of moments to Corey where I think back about something that, something that happened, you know, 510, years ago or longer, and I just thought it was the worst thing. But then if that thing that the time was bad, even though it wasn't that bad in the grand scheme of things, if that had not happened, then it wouldn't have led to other things. And so sort of along those lines, along the lines of, you know, correcting your mistakes and learning from from past things. I mean, this whole thing where you said that the most successful people are lifelong learners and leaders. I mean, can you tell us about that a
little bit? Yeah, absolutely. So essentially, you know. And so I'll give you like, this is something that just, I don't remember. To be honest, it was so long ago that this kind of came to me. I don't know if it was epiphany I had, or if I heard a speaker one time in passing and somehow pushed out of my mind. So I will take credit for it. But it was a powerful discovery. Is that the common trait of the leaders of yesterday, I was talking earlier about Napoleon Hill. And so the people he studied, the Thomas Edisons, the Henry Ford. If you look at one of the most common traits that they had in common, it was that they all had a personal library. And that went from people that managed to finish high school, which is obviously a lot more rare back then, to the people that didn't finish grade three. I think I'm going by memory, but I think it was either Edison or four that didn't finish grade three, but they still, they still believed in the importance, as they get older and highly successful at having full libraries in their house. I don't think that's a coincidence that you know the majority of the leaders of yesterday believed in having personal libraries. But then let's fast forward. And not that long ago, I read about a Charles Schwab study where they studied the top 2% of North American CEOs, and what they discovered that they had in common was that they all read three to five of the right book each month. They heard these are three to five of the right books each month. That was what they had in common. And yet, the average North American reads less than a half a chapter a year. And that's not a knock on anybody that you know that because I didn't read my first book till at 27 so that's not a knock on somebody that isn't reading three or four books a month now, but it's obviously, I think it's maybe, if you're wanting to become that sort of high achiever, and you know that lifelong learners are leaders, and the history has shown that, then I think, you know, we kind of, in a small way, we, you know, make sense that we would sort of adopt that. But to go back and mention it, what we've discovered in our our interviews, is basically the same as what the Charles Schwab Institute realized, and also what I've noticed or heard about the leaders of yesterday. We just went to Concord in Massachusetts, and we were at the Library of Ralph Waldo Emerson, you know, considered one of the greatest, let's say, wordsmith. You know, last 300 years, and his library was massive. And again, there's no this is there's no coincidence on this. So I really believe that understanding the power of feeding your mind and then going one step further and feeding your mind the right thing is a game changer, and it's something available to all of us. And then I'll add one other aspect. Is Brian Tracy. You know, a lot of your listeners probably heard of Brian. Brian Tracy has said that we should turn our car into a mobile library. And so what that means to me is today, we don't have to just be a reader. You might not even be a reader, never be a reader, and you can still thrive at the highest of levels, because unlike 100 years ago, where books was almost your only option, today we have podcasts. We have a show like yours, show like mine, we have audio tapes. We have audio books, whatever that you know, whatever we need. In terms of learning, we have learning on demand available to us in almost any aspect of our lives. We can actually drive around in our car, and whether we have a brand new car or an older car, there's ways we can listen to the top rated radio shows and podcasts on our way to our job and maximize that time. Maybe we listen to Taylor Swift half of the time, if that's our back our gig, and the other half, we listen to those audio books, or whatever that is, audio wise, we listen to but we can feed our mind now on the go anywhere we're at. And so I think knowing that lifelong learners are leaders, and knowing we have more ways to learn than ever before, and knowing it's on demand, I think it just opens up the doors and Avenue stuff to take advantage of that.
And that's awesome. And I like the way that you put it in that you know that everyone should be making an effort to read something, but we don't have to be pretentious about it, right? It's not like you're saying, Oh, go and buy 100 books or throw out your TV or things like that. You're just saying little things like, sometimes, every now and then, have an audio book. Book in the in the car, as opposed to turning on the radio if you want something different. And I can't remember what the exact phrase or the quote is, but there was something where, like, they've done some study, and they've measured the the time that people have on their commutes and things like that. And it was something like, If you for like, the next three years, if you listen to audio books and things for the next three years of your commute, then that'll be like two years of a college education, I mean, and that if you do that for a lifetime, or even, you know, some fraction of that, I mean, that that's freaking amazing. So how do people know what, though, so you like, you've already taken care of. Okay, if someone says they don't have time, they can listen to an audio book in the car. But how do people know you said that there are those three to five of the right books each month. How do people know what they should be reading or listening to?
Well, I'll give you what I consider is perhaps one of the easiest ways to know. And I mean, there's obviously other options here. I mean, there's options like listening to a show like yours, or listening to a show like mine, and then listening to what the people that are on the show say they're reading. You know, we ask these questions often, what's your favorite quote? What's your favorite author, what's your favorite book? So that's one option, you know, but that's, I even think that might be the longer route, probably the easier journey. And where this came to me was from two interviews. One was a lady who short version is and it's hard even short version of story like this, but she was diagnosed with four stage cancer. She was given two months to live and basically told she had no hope. But yet she was able to take that two months and find a way to put her cancer on remission and to go without going through the long details of how she turned, how to learn how to turn her body into an alkaline state in which they say cancer can't survive. So I wanted to know, how did you learn that in only two months? Because, you know, people spend their whole lives not learning this. And she said, I went to the people that I knew had the knowledge but didn't have the time to teach it to me, and I asked what they were reading, what they recommended, and what they were listening to. And then I just dived into what came up the most often. And then we also Zig Ziglar. We were interviewing the late great Zig Ziglar, and asked him, What's he reading it, you know, 83 years old before he passed away. And he said, I don't have a lot of time left, so I'm reading things that are going to improve my life and things that are going to basically biographies that are true, that are going to inspire me or teach me, things that I can use to improve my life. But he also talked about the idea of figuring out what the people that you, you know, aspire to be the people that you believe are at the top of their field. Figure out what they're learning or listening to are reading, and read likewise. So I would say the easy answer is, figure out either a the people you know that that are maybe a couple levels above you, what? What are they reading? And talk to them and ask them another level could be, you know, maybe sending emails to people on social media that you feel are top thought leaders and find out what they're reading. Another option could be actually just to go and see what's continued to sell, like how to win friends and influence people, by Dale Carnegie Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. That were written in 1936 and they're still selling roughly a million copies a year to this day, pretty safe to say three of your top minded friends are going to recommend those books. So either look at what's continued to sell, and if you haven't read those, jump into them. Or look at what people that you want to be like are recommending, and dive in there. So find out what other people that are reaching at the top level are doing. And just essentially, I would say, dive in there, whether what they're listening to, what they're watching, what TED Talks they're watching, you know, becomes a TED talks or books. Go and look at what the best sellers are in the field, like, let's say, self development. What are the top TED Talks? This will probably give you a lot of hints as to what most people are getting the most from. And maybe dive in there first and then work your way through cool. Yeah.
And it sounds like that when people look at not only you know what books are best sellers, but have also been around for decades as well as you know, what kind of things that their role models put into their mind. It seems like if, if someone were to look up a lot of these people, they might see a lot of crossover, right? This may see a lot of similarities that well, if you know, if, like Bill Gates reads all these same books as Warren Buffett, or even if they, like you said, they only look a couple levels ahead of them, whoever that might be, they might notice that a lot of those people all read or all enjoy the same kind of books. Is that right?
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, if I, if I, you know, just to kind of back that up when I go on to different shows, let's say like show. You may have heard of Entrepreneur on Fire, for instance. And Entrepreneur on Fire has been a, really a thriving entrepreneurial podcast. And the John Lee Dumas, the person that runs the show, or the podcast leader, he actually is interviewed. I can't remember the number now, but he's approaching me for sure. And so he's had a lot of opportunity to bring some of the top entrepreneurs on. And he always asked, what books are you reading? And so a you could look at the list that he's put together showing what the common answers are. But when I say books like Think and Grow Rich, or the compound effect by Darren Hardy, or the flight edge, every time there's, you know, he's like, You know what? Those books come up so often on the show. So you're right. I mean reaching out and figuring out what like minded people are reading, or the top tier leaders are reading. Again, there's a. Reason why those books became, you know, 55 and 50 million copy best sellers, meaning like they had to win friends. And those books became that because so many people have cited those books as books that have had a massive impact or transformational impact on their life, makes
a lot of sense. Yeah. And I called up your Entrepreneur on Fire interview right here. And yep, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, right there. So you do practice what you preach, after all, well.
And you know what that was? I said that I read my first book at 27 and that was the book. So I give that book as much I'm going to say coverage as I can, in the sense that it was a game changer for me. It did change my life. So I make sure that I'm constantly, you know, obviously, if I'm saying a different book every time somebody's gonna start, question is this, gotta read? Questioning, is this guy really, you know, is he for real, or is he just saying what he thinks somebody wants to hear at the time? So yeah, I try to stay consistent, because that book was a game changer for
me. That makes a lot of sense. And yeah, and I mean, I'm not, I'm not a huge reader, but I would say that I probably read about one fiction book, or I listen to rather, one fiction book a month, and one non fiction book a month. And for sure, there's, like, there's definitely a top five where, where those are the ones that that keep coming to mind over and over again. So, so switching gears a little bit. So, so passion, right? People, maybe they can get focus and cut all the crap in life, and, you know, get rid of all the things holding them back, and then become a learner and and get the tools and the knowledge and then the connections and things that need to get to where they need to go. But then you always hear about people who, you know, they built a business, they they made all this money, they overcame all this adversity, and then realized, well, what the heck does it all mean? So living with passion and finding your purpose? I mean, what's the secret there?
You know, that's, it's funny. That's a big one, Robert, in the sense that there's, I'm going to say there's, there's two sides. There's the side of, how do you sort of uncover your passion, if you will, and then there's the side of living on purpose. And you know, I think probably for the for the sake of, you know how much time it takes to go into finding your passion, because there's people that spend their whole life never finding it, and they say there's only like 5% I mean, I've heard these numbers a lot. I don't know how accurate they are, but something like 5% of people that will ever discover their passion in their life. We had a guy in our show named Robin Sharma who wrote the monster golden Ferrari. And I always love what he said. He said, a lot of people die 20, but they wait till they're 80 to bury their own body. And he tells them the Walking Dead, and he said, those are the people that are walking around without passion. So, you know, on one side, you know, there's a lot of, I'm going to say a lot of work, but it takes some work, obviously, to find your passion, given that so few people ever find it. What I would say to that and is, we have kind of a whole system to help people find their passion. You know, I teach that over over days, sometimes at programs, and I teach it over workshops. But I guess the short answer is figuring out what you would do if money wasn't an issue. I mean, there's a whole I take people through a whole series of putting a list together of, you know, what would you do if you won the lottery, all that kind of stuff. What did you do when you were a kid, when money was an issue? But essentially, the core message is put together a list of the things that you would do, the things you think you would love to be or love to do if money was an issue. And what would you do if you won the lottery and money was an issue? That's a good starting point. And then prioritize that. Meaning, what are the ones that if you could do them all, what are the ones that you could live without, and what are the ones you couldn't, the ones you couldn't live without? Obviously, are your priority ones. And then once you have that list and you prioritize them, then I typically tell people is to essentially go through them and say, Okay, well, from the top down, what are the ones inside your comfort zone? If it's inside your comfort zone, it's easy to try, so try those ones first. And then if it's outside your comfort zone, figure out the steps you have to take to expand your comfort zone enough to make it possible. And then once you've done that. It may take you three or four months to go through all that, that process, but once you've done that, there's really good odds that you're going to either find your passion or you're going to have a really good indication of what it is, because you've gone through an exercise of basically sitting with yourself and really meditating on what are the things that you essentially that kind of excites you and light your fire, if you will. And then you've also figured out, how can you tackle them? And of course, the big part there that I kind of glossed over is actually taking action. So if you decide that, okay, photography something you've always loved, taking pictures, you know, maybe it starts by just going out and taking pictures outside and learning what works and what doesn't work. Maybe then I always tell people, you should learn from others who've done it. So maybe that involves reaching out to photographers and saying, Hey, can I sit with you for an hour and pick your brain? I'll pay for the lunch. So there's a whole bunch of steps you can take to then try those. And then the secondary part, which is something people can do a lot more immediately and easily. And this is the part I was going to defer to. But the secondary part is you can write down and say, What is my purpose statement I mentioned that earlier. So for me, a purpose statement is basically like a personal mission statement. And so, you know, Disney's, for example, is to make people happy. You know, it's as simple as that, and it used to be to make people, especially children, happy. So I always say, if Disney and all these companies that seem to try during recession have a really good under. Sustainable mission statement. You should have one too. So it's really and it could take you five days a month a year to do this, and it could take you five minutes. I mean, it depends how quick it comes to you. But sit down and say, What is my personal mission statement? What is my purpose statement? Why am I here? I, you know, as a reference, passion, I say is what you do, and purpose is why you're doing it. So just as I kind of a people of distinction, because sometimes people think they're both the same, I believe that passion is the what. So if it's photography, and then purpose is the why are you doing you know? Why are you taking pictures? So on the purpose statement side to give, I can make it a little easier. Mine is as simple as to be the guy who donates, motivates, educates, inspires and entertains. That's as simple as mine is. So that's my what you might recognize as a mission statement or a purpose statement. But why that's so significant is, once I figure out what that is, it always lets me know. Always lets me know, what should I take on and what direction should I move in and what should I not take on, and what direction I should I steer away from. So if you said, you know, are you willing to come and talk to our group, but we don't want you to do anything that's inspirational or entertaining, because we're kind of a stuffy crowd. And we also, you know, we're going to be charging at the door, but we're not going to pay you anything. And on and on, you can start to see pretty quickly Robert that that, you know, right there, that eliminates three of my five, right? And so if it's going to be one or two of my five it's going to be a pretty easy no without regret. And if it's going to be four or five of them, it's going to be a pretty easy yes, without regret. So that becomes both a a way to make sure I'm working on purpose, and b a way to make sure I say no to the things that are going to steer me off my course and keep me on
focus. And that's awesome, and it's a way to to avoid wasting a bunch of time and repeating your mistakes and things like that. And I mean, Mr. Corey, you're just blowing my mind here. Because, I mean, I kind of asked you in the beginning, like, you know, do these three things interrelate? And from the way I'm hearing you describe it, it sounds like not only do they interrelate, but they almost kind of build on each other, right? Because if someone it doesn't, if someone is completely at a part in their life where they're at a crossroads or at a loss, well then they need to focus on themselves first and figure out that focus, and figure out how to do that, that quick decision making. And there's always that, that catchy phrase that, like the word decide, means to cut off the same way that, like, you know, homicide, suicide is so to make a decision means to shut out the other possibilities. So there's the focus part right there. And then once someone has focused, then they can do some, have some of the curiosity or the exploring factor, and do the learning, but because they have the focused piece first and they're also learning on top of that, then now they're, they're learning the things that are important, right? They're, they're learning not every single book there is, but they're, they're learning about the things that their role models read, or checking out the possibilities without getting too crazy. And then even that itself, then builds on to, what does it all mean, and what does it mean for not just myself, or what others are for the world? And then they can kind of take all those things and and figure out the priorities, and figure out, you know, am I always moving out of my comfort zone, or am I on the right track, and things like that. And, I mean, you know, of course, like, we always have to go back and and correct things if the focus is bad or if we're not learning enough. But it just, I mean, is that kind of a good way of thinking about it that someone could if they're completely lost, first get the focus figured out, then build from the focus and learning, and then that leads to passion.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and that's a great point. I mean, you have to have the focus before it makes sense to get learning. And at the same time, if you if you can learn, and I'll even say, if you can learn in areas that you're passionate about, it's going to obviously increase your desire to continue learning. So you're right. They all work together. And I think even the order, you I mean, it's just maybe a coincidence that or, you know, as I say, There's no quick, real coincidences, but it just maybe worked out well that those three work in the proper order, because you're right, until you have the focus, you can't, kind of feed your mind. And when you're feeding your mind, you better be doing it with stuff you're passionate about. If you want to get more thirst for more knowledge. And then, of course, if you're passionate about then you're going to stay on purpose. So it's, you're right. I mean, they actually flow in a good order as well, awesome.
And that makes for a great podcast, because we can just go from one to the next. And so when you're when you've been speaking with all these 1000s, 1000s of people and and, you know, finding all the the common threads, the focus learning and the passion, are you seeing one big, huge mistake that a lot of people are making, that that the rest of us could avoid if we just knew this one little nugget of information?
Well, I hate to go back to the same well, but I have to say it seems to be becoming, and maybe it's just the awareness of how much of, I'm going to say, a challenge it's becoming for people, but is the shiny object syndrome. So I guess that goes to the focus. But our, I guess our, maybe our challenge with chasing each new shiny object and that takes us off our path and or, you know, and you can even compare to the side of okay, where you go and down a direction for two weeks and you don't see the results you want, and then okay, with time to jump down a new path. Path because that wasn't working, but maybe if you would have just given it an extra four days, it could have been a game changer. So I would say the biggest challenge I see a lot of people make is not staying the course, not, let's say, staying focused and fully focused for enough time to really make sure it isn't the right path or it is the right path. I would say that's the biggest challenge, I
think, and that's a hard lesson. I'm glad that you brought that up, because that has been on my mind lately, especially with, you know, like you mentioned that, you know, you and I both have podcasts, and I've recently turned it into a five day a week interview model. And you know, when you do like we repeat something every single day, you don't see the results immediately. So I told myself, Okay, well, I'm at episode 100 and then I'm gonna get to episode 200 before even looking back or doing any kind of trying to connect the dots. I'm gonna repeat. So I said, here's my plan. I'll repeat this process. I'll take it to this next milestone in the road, and then, and only then will I then go and go back and look back, and that way I can have that self awareness, I can avoid that distraction, but at the same time, I'm also not just going on and on and on with no clear plan or direction. I get it a little stretch down the road and then look back after I've given it enough of a chance. So I think that even though we've touched on that subject, I think that that's a really important lesson for everyone, like you said, especially in this day and age with Facebook and who knows, whatever apps are out there, and smartphones and whatever technology, sooner or later, they'll figure out a way to put all that in our brains, and then we'll really have to be focused. So I think that that, yeah, these things focus, learning and passion. I think that these are not only super important, and they're important for every human being alive, but I think that it will continue to be even more important as human history continues on. As things get more crowded and there's more opportunities and more possibilities for distraction, everyone needs to be just really aware of these things that, you know, life is short and we don't have a time machine. We can't go back and replay things. So we need to do things the right way, and that that involves, you know, struggles and adversity and things like that. So I mean, Mr. Corey, all kinds of just, you know, mind blowing, eye opening stuff today, and I want to make sure that everyone knows everything. There is no about you, whether if that's your your TED talks, your discussions, your websites or your events or courses. So you can't, can you tell people where people can and should go to find out more about you.
Yeah, absolutely. So probably the two best, I'm going to say, points or spots would be the first is we launched a couple of months ago, a speaking program teaching other people how to launch their speaking careers. We, I guess we're going to say we close the doors on it after, of course, the program enrollment finish, but we're planning to open it up again at the end of November, so people can check us out there at the speaking program.com, so again, the speaking program.com, or if they you know that's not an interest, I mean, it is one of the number one fears in the world for the average person. So if that's not an interest to them, but they want to dive deeper or connect, then I would send them to and send people to the passioncure.com and on that page, you can listen to our show, you can check out my blog, you can watch my TED Talk. And also, maybe most importantly, the social media links are there, so you can easily go to one of those channels and reach out and say hi and maybe start the conversation. So either of those two websites, I think, is probably a great starting point,
awesome. And could you repeat that last one more time you say it was called the passion cure?
Yeah, the passioncure.com
Cool. So thanks for being on the show. Corey. So the passioncure.com and the speakingprogram.com I think that this is one of those episodes where people listening should maybe put it back on the podcast playlist and listen to it two or three times, because this is some of the most important stuff, and if you don't have a handle on this, you don't have, like everything else, is tougher to put into place. So I mean, thanks again, Corey for being on the show and dropping some amazing knowledge with us.
Thank you, Robert, it's been an absolute pleasure.
Check out the blog and the podcast and many other goodies at Robert plank.com that's r, O, B, E, R, T, P, l, a, n, k.com.
You.
Filed in: Archive 1: 2012-2016 • Interview • Podcast
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