359: Awaken Your True Inner Power, Live with Purpose, and Make Positive Personal Changes with The Purposeful Millionaire James Nowlin

Robert Plank 0:00 Robert Plank Show Episode 359 awaken your true inner power. Live with purpose and make positive personal changes with the purposeful millionaire James Nowlin, fantastic. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the show. And so have you ever had sort of a bad day in your life where we're gonna talk right now with James Nowlin, and he had a really, really bad day that caused him to reassess and to kind of wake back up. And I'm excited to hear about the story. I'm excited for you guys listening. So James Nowlin had a near death boating accident, and he was 31 years old, and it forced him to take a long, hard look in the mirror. And as a result of what he calls his awakening, this already self made millionaire and respected CEO, reshaped his perspective and reprioritized his life. In his book, The purposeful millionaire, James Nowlin shares the four part formula he used to transform his life into one of abundance and purposefulness, and he believes that if he can survive the literal waters from which he was pulled, then you two can survive and thrive in life's toughest water. So James, nice to be talking to you today. Thanks for having me on the show, Robert. I'm glad you're you're on and so, I mean, sounds like this, like really scary thing happening. Are you okay now?

James Nowlin 1:13 I'm okay now. It happened back on August 25 2012 and in fact, I'm coming up on the fifth anniversary of my accident. And you know, I call it a near death accident, Robert, but it was really more like a death accident in which my body was recovered from the lake and I was brought back to life by the rescuers, and it allowed me to really re evaluate my life, to look harder at some of the things that I was doing right, but more importantly, some of the things that I was doing wrong. And from time to time, I'll hear from people. You know, James, I feel so sorry for you that you had such a horrible accident. And I said, No, no, don't get it wrong. This day is a day that I actually call my second birthday, or my awakening, in that it allowed me to really excavate, you know, whether I was living as purposefully and as powerfully as I could, and, quite frankly, on a scale from one to 10. I was not living between an eight to 10 in terms of happiness on a daily basis. I was probably living somewhere between a five and an EIGHT. But this a re evaluation allowed me to figure out what was not working, what was working, and what I needed to do better now that I came back having the Second Life,

Robert Plank 2:17 super crazy and like we all hear about those sorts of things were like, you know, people in their lives, they they have this terrible, like, traumatic, traumatic experience, and it's a wake up call, or their life flashes before their eyes. Or maybe some people are living kind of an existence where it looks good, showing off to other people on the outside, but then the inside, it's really hollow. And, you know, a lot of people live their whole lives and don't even get that wake up call. So it sounds like you kind of have this, this bad experience that you turned into a good thing. So can you sort of start us off at the beginning and tell you, tell us like, you know, what the heck happened that day, and what was this accident all about?

James Nowlin 2:52 So I was 31 years old, and I was five or six years deep into my company, and I had survived the great recession, and I had actually made the company quite successful and had become a millionaire, and I invited a buddy of mine to go out to my lake house out in East Texas. And I said, Well, hey, let's go kayaking. And that day, we decided to actually leave our life jackets at home because the sky was perfectly blue. There was not a lot of wind. It was just a beautiful, hot, August day in Texas. Also, my buddy is a former Sea Shepherd. He's one of the guys who goes out on whaling, anti whaling expeditions to protect the sea waters from pirates and all that stuff. And he's a surfer and I'm a former triathlete. So we said, you know, what? To heck with the life jackets. We're gonna take these kayaks out to the middle of the lake and just have a good time and reminisce. So we get out to the middle of the lake and storm clouds start rolling in very quickly. The temperature changed about 20 degrees in just a few minutes outside. And we thought, okay, we've got to get to shore. And I knew that because how quickly the storm was coming in, that we could potentially be in trouble. So we paddled as quickly as we can, and Robert, the storm came in such a way that it was, it was a freak storm. It wasn't just a normal storm that you can kind of look at and say, hey, you know what? I've got 10 minutes to get to shore. This thing came in with an incredible amount of quickness. But that day, you know, it began raining, three foot. Waves started crashing by our kayaks. My kayak sank. I tried to recover my kayak, but I became quickly exhausted, and my buddy, Tyler, who was with me, his kayak sank after mine. But he had not been in the water for as long as I had. And unfortunately, while I was trading water, trying to balance myself out a little bit and trying to catch my breath, I inhaled a big gulp of dirty Texas lake water, and it went all the way into my lungs, and I began to get in bad shape relatively quickly. And my buddy Tyler, who was with me, he was also a medical doctor, he said, You know what? I've got to make a life or death decision right now. I've got to get to shore to get you some help. And by that time, it. Dark outside, and I realized that if Tyler is saying goodbye to me right now, and I haven't held this horrible lake water, it might be Goodbye forever. So that night, I did not anticipate him coming back. I treaded water for as long as I could, and by the time Tyler and rescuers had come back with flashlights and jet skis and rescue crews and all that stuff. I'd actually drowned, so they pulled my body from the water, brought me to shore and revived me, and I remember everything just like it was yesterday, Robert, I'd gone to a different place, and I was looking down at my body as if I were in a helicopter with a spotlight being rescued by these wonderful, courageous people who found my body and brought me back to life. And having gone through something like that, it was just a true awakening for me. And every single day that I spent in recovery after that, I got to re examine and re evaluate my life, knowing that life is short. Life is precious. It can be taken away from us in an instance. And it's not about the car in my driveway, how much money I have, the house I live in, or, you know, flashy friends with flashy titles. It's about the work that I'm doing and whether I'm living my calling that God has given me to make the world a better place. And since then, you know, I'm living a better life. I am surrounding myself with more like minded people. My business success has increased since then, my happiness has increased since then. And because of all those things, I am so grateful. But the purpose of my book, really Robert, is so that others don't have to go through a death accident or a near death accident in order to receive the awakening that I did

Robert Plank 6:43 crazy. And I mean, so so many things to unpack in there. And I mean, I was almost a little frightened just hearing your your story. And I mean, I can't even imagine going through those kinds of things. And so, so you went through this like just terrible, you know, near death experience, but there was turned out to be a blessing in disguise, and that, you know, money isn't everything, and the things you have aren't everything, and, like, have a purpose, and things like that. And so I'm really curious. So after, like, the, you know, the hard part, I guess, was over with, and then it was time to, kind of, like, you said, recover. And like, the long haul was this, was this realization instant? Or did it kind of take a while to dawn on you?

James Nowlin 7:19 It was not instant Robert, and in fact, I was dealing with a little bit of brain damage because my brain had been deprived of oxygen for quite some time. You know, I would repeat myself and tell the same jokes over and over and over, and I really had a hard time speaking and gathering the right words to formulate my sentences the right way. But after I started to get a little bit better, what I really struggled with was depression, because I had actually experienced euphoria from my drowning accident, going through that transition of being in this place on earth to another place was not painful for me. It was actually euphoric. And I told you about, you know, looking down at my body as if I run a helicopter with a spotlight shining on my body as the rescuers rescued me, there was more that happened there. The faces of relatives and loved ones flashed before my eyes. I felt as if I were wrapped in a warm blanket. There was just so much that went on between the painful inhalation of the dirty lake water to transitioning to a feeling of euphoria that I found myself depressed in a horrible way months after the accident. And in fact, it lasted not just months, but for years. It lasted for three years, and I went to my doctor and I saw a therapist, and I got on antidepressants, and I was taking, you know, a microdose of an antidepressant, basically, with the hope that, okay, if I pop this pill on a daily basis. You know, even if there's the placebo effect in place, there's something that I need to get myself back on track. I realized about two years ago that I did not want to be on antidepressants. I realized that I was too blessed, and I needed to find my mission on this earth in order to grasp the happiness that is truly achievable in this life. And I started to put into play rituals, habits, routines, on a daily basis of doing some of the same things, the same consistent rule applications to how I deal with situations, how I deal with breathing meditation, all those things. And I found myself becoming happier, and once I did that on a super consistent basis, my life began to change. My human relationships began to change. I began attracting the clients that I wanted to serve. Instead of serving, you know, complicated clients, I call them, you know, C and D clients I was actually serving, you know, a list clients that were truly bringing me joy, and they were valuing my work. So all these rituals and routines that I was doing, I said, wow, I've gone through this transformation in my life. I got rid of the antidepressants. I got to happiness, I found my purpose. Therefore I must write about this in a book. And the title of my book is the purposeful millionaire. 52 rules for creating a life. Of wealth and happiness now, and those 52 rules are things that I live by. They are dogma. They are routines, their habits, their practices, their little things, like for example, when I wake up in the morning, I do the same thing every single morning, I do my exercise routine, I'll have my coffee, and then I do my hardest tasks of the day. But you know, before I really get going, I'll do my stretches, and then I'll make up my bed, and I'll do an incantation, and I might just say out loud to myself, I am I can, I will, or I love you. I love you. I love you. And I repeat that again and again and again, because I'm empowering my brain with these positive thoughts about myself. I'm pushing away the negative thoughts, and I'm planting seeds for flowers and trees to grow, while I'm crowding out the negative weeds of self doubt. And I do that again and again and again on a daily basis. And I live by those rules, and I want to share those rules with as many people as possible.

Robert Plank 10:54 Super cool, and that's a great message, and I can relate to a lot of that. As far as you know, it's really easy to get caught in the day to day routine and just kind of rolling out of bed and get jumping right into things and not really having a plan, and sort of having having the day control you. And I can definitely relate to those things, as far as, like, as soon as I started taking control of that early part of the day and choosing when to wake up and doing those things, like making the bed so that I have, like, an early win, and, you know, taking a walk or a run, and, you know, dealing with, like, the exercise part and getting my body moving. Those are all those things where, like, we've all heard about those kinds of things, but then it seems like, like we've heard about them. The successful people do all these things. But then it's like there's so many people left over that they've heard about these sorts of things over and over again, that, you know, having those daily rituals and those daily habits. And I mean, why do you think people have such a hard time either trying these daily habits or even making them stick? Well,

James Nowlin 11:52 you know, the hardest part Robert is taking the first step. And you know, I do 20 minutes of exercise every single morning, whether it's yoga or going for a run, and sometimes it's a little bit longer than 20 minutes, but I consist. But I consistently do it every single day. I do yoga, free, body weight, weight exercises and running on a daily basis, and I alternate between which exercise I'm actually doing. The hard part is that you don't always have to start with 20 minutes or 30 minutes or an hour of exercise. Every single day, you've got to start with taking the first step. And the first step might mean doing one push up, or doing one stretch and building up to two push ups the next day or three stretches on the next day. And, you know, we're always taught, you know, get out there and do it. And we're preached at all the time about in the media, about you should be eating this, you should be exercising, doing X, Y or Z. You need to get your heart rate up to a certain point. Let's, let's take those rules away. And let's just start with taking the first step, doing that first little thing that you can get into the routine of which might be one push up for one person. And then you can congratulate yourself if you can do that consistently for one, two or three days and build up to a higher level of success. You don't always have to start big in order to achieve big. And it's like Dr King said, you know, you don't have to see the whole staircase. You just have to take the first step. And sometimes taking that first step is the hardest part, but I can guarantee you one thing, once you take that first step and build upon it, and you do your routine consistently, your life will reap the benefits. I love it,

Robert Plank 13:19 and I completely agree on all counts. It's just as far as that's a great message of, just do the one push up, or just walk to the mailbox and back, or just walk around the block and back, and just get that to be part of your day. Find the time. Tell yourself that you started to integrate this kind of thing in your time. And I've noticed, and maybe you can tell us a little bit about this, I've just noticed that once I start kind of doing those things and, like, kind of pushing myself, I noticed that I then begin to sort of look to ramp up or exceed those goals. So, like, I'll start off by and I had to get back into running lately too, because I broke my ankle a couple years ago. And then, you know, there was like, you know, months of getting that back to back in business. But then I noticed that, like, I'd start, like, you know, running around the block. And then I said, All right, I'm gonna start running a mile, and then I'm gonna start running towards this next thing, and then I'm gonna start, you know, running two minutes at a time. And then I started saying, Well, I know I committed to running two minutes at a time, but now I'm gonna push myself and go, you know, two and a half minutes, or going three minutes, and not really for any particular reason, but just because, you know, I wanted to better myself and achieve more. So do you know you have any insights? On on, sort of tapping into that? On on, kind of like bettering your best, or kind of like scaling up or doing more, and not really knowing why, or just doing it for the for the purpose of, you know, being better and getting yourself out there more.

James Nowlin 14:46 Yeah. So, so the main thing is that you've got to get those feel good endorphins going throughout your body. And once you get those feel good endorphins going after you do that first push up, or five push ups, or after you start breaking a little bit of a sweat, your brain tells, you know what? There's a reward center going on right now. Now, and you're starting to feel better, so it's not going to be as painful to keep going. And so a lot of people feel a sense of satiation, a sense of just being elated with how they begin to feel after they actually get moving. And we can apply those same practices to our professional lives and to our love lives. For example, just practice saying for that first time to your spouse, I love you, you know, getting those words off your lips saying it, I love you. Make some eye contact and say, I'm going to say I love you once a day for, you know, the next five days. Once you've done that, work on saying it twice a day. Or make sure that when you're texting him or her, that you end the text messaging with I love you, or you in your phone conversation with, I love you. Get into the practice of that, and just notice how the reward centers of happiness in your brain and in your body are just just telling you keep doing what you're doing and build upon that. I've taken these same practices to my business. For example, I'll do some of the hardest work in the morning, my my most dreaded task. I'll knock that out. And then I realized, okay, during my most productive time of the day, I actually completed my dreaded task in a quicker time than I actually allotted for it. Therefore, I'm going to knock out two more dreaded tasks, and I'm going to have more free time throughout my day to do what I want to do. So it's all about getting started, allowing the reward system of the brain to talk to you, to motivate you to keep going and understanding how willpower and chemistry and all those things work out. But again, you've got to take that first step. You've got to let you know chemistry and you know, psychology play into all of this stuff. And then when it feels too hard, you know you might press a little bit more, but you do the same thing again the next day, and you continue to build and build and build, and before you know it, you created a really amazing life, spiritually, professionally, emotionally, all those things. And you'll benefit from the from the habits and the routines that you've created and stuck to super

Robert Plank 16:56 awesome. And what I'm hearing from you, like, as you're saying all that is that kind of, we all get stuck in those vicious cycles of, you know, kind of just, you know, dragging through the day and resenting the things we do, and then ending up, like taking longer to do those things and resenting them even more, or looking for the bad in those situations. And if we can just introduce those small habits, there might be a little bit of growing pains, or a little bit of pain at first, but then, if we can stick with it, then we form those new cycles, and it becomes just as hard to break those positive cycles as it is those negative cycles. So you're making a lot of kind of light bulbs go off in my head. And so you have these, these 52 rules. And in your bio, we talked about your your four part formula. So is there any sort of like things that this is leading to, like, is there like, a big picture, or, once you start doing these habits, does that lead to bigger and better things? Or what sort of like the, you know, the big idea here, you know,

James Nowlin 17:50 it leads to bigger and better things. And people often ask me, you know, it seems like you rose to success so quickly in your new 30s, and you got a lot of financial success, you seem like a really, really happy person. Well, that's all true, but it's also a 20 year overnight success story. I've been working on self mastery and getting to my true inner power, which means I'm doing the daily work on my psychology, on my spirituality, on understanding the interconnectivity of mind, body and spirit, and doing that work on a daily basis. So yes, we can get to the success formula, which is idea Plus Plan Plus execution equal success. But if you're first not mastering self, if you're first not understanding the interconnectivity between mind, body and spirit, that all those things are linked and then that in order to have true success and happiness, you know that's not going to happen unless you understand that linkage. You know, it's just so important to get it so I just want to spend a second in breaking down what I call the success formula in the book, with IDEA Plus Plan Plus execution equal success. So Robert, in life, when we have a goal, when we want to get to what that vision is, in our mind, called success. There are three components to it, the idea phase, the planning phase and the actual execution phase. Well, the phase that most people get stuck in is the idea phase. And if they just so happen to be lucky enough to stop talking about the idea and start doing some planning. You know, most ideas die in the idea phase, the planning phase. What I encourage people to do in the book, in real life, is to allocate just a small amount of time to the idea, allocate a slightly larger percent of time to the plan, but spend most of your time in execution. For example, I'll break it down and say, hey, you need to be spending 1% of your time talking about the idea, because everybody's got an idea, and I've got a million million ideas a day that I wish that I could actually execute upon, but I don't, because I'm limited in terms of resources and time. So get to the planning phase. Start planning things out, and don't get stuck in analysis paralysis. So you've spent 1% of your time getting this idea, spend another 9% of your time talking about your plan, and try to think. Of some of the pitfalls, but you're not going to find all the pitfalls or all the shortcomings or challenges until you actually get to the execution phase. So the whole success story of my life is that I've been spending so much time, the majority of my time not talking about ideas, not planning ideas, but actually diving right into the execution phase and not getting lost in the midst of IDEA conversations. You know, we've all got family members and friends and people in our lives who are constantly talking about ideas, or you go to a reception or cocktail party, or sit down at the Thanksgiving dinner table and you just start to roll your eyes because the person has been talking about the same idea, or 1000 different ideas for the past 1020, 30 years, and you're just thinking, My gosh, your life is stuck. But here's the thing, it's about not being stuck, maximizing your momentum. And how do you maximize your momentum? Your self awareness has got to be so high that you can be honest with yourself and say, Hey, I've been talking about this idea for too long, or because I'm afraid I'm really stuck in the planning phase, but I've got to have courage right now to get into the execution phase, because what happens there? I find out what's working in terms of my plan, what's not working, I can rejigger things, re tweak things, to make sure that this execution is actually going to be successful. I've applied this to my personal life. I've applied it to my business life. I've applied I've applied it to my spiritual life, and it's all about execution at the end of the day. That's what separates the billionaires in this world from those who are just sitting at the table talking or walking around at a cocktail party bragging about some amazing new invention idea that they have, but there's really no implementation taking place.

Robert Plank 21:41 I love it. And I can, for sure, relate to both having a have this bad habit, and I mean, it's always easy to backslide temporarily. And I can also relate to hearing this from other people, either they're thinking ahead to the future and they don't want to go through the actual ups and downs, the struggle, the courage, the course correction, those things that you listed, they just like the perfect idea in the future. And, you know, one day it could happen, except for, it turns out one day, like, doesn't actually come. And it's like the actual, that execution part of it, there's like, so much hairiness and roughness and all the, you know, all the ugly stuff happens in there in order to break through. And so I can definitely relate to that kind of stuff. And then you mentioned in their mind, body, spirit. And I really think that that's really good timing, because I was talking to someone just this morning about how he had sort of a revelation about how, you know, in the A few years ago, me and him had bought some like, motivational kind of stuff, like Tony Robbins type of stuff. And we told ourselves, well, we want to up our game with our business. And we learned some of this motivational stuff. And it turns out, kind of looking back, that we had only looked to apply the self help motivation, like all the stuff that you mentioned about, you know, the rituals and habits and everything, we looked to only apply those things to our business, and it gave a little bit of an improvement, but it was almost like a, like a temporary band aid on the problem. And it's like, we upped our business, but then the other parts of our lives sort of suffered in their in their own way. And then it took maybe a few more years to realize, Oh yeah, it's all kind of interconnected, right? Like the mind, body, spirit suffer, interconnected. And if it's like, if we look to improve just one aspect, without improving all of them, the rest will suffer. And in the same way, if we look to just kind of up our game with our business, but we're not also up in our game with our health and our family and our relationships, then it'll it'll kind of put things super out of whack. And so that really just kind of, I mean, I'm still sort of reeling from from my friends revelation there. I'm still kind of thinking about it a lot. And so have you experienced, or have you seen this kind of thing where maybe people that they look to to improve their lives, but they they don't improve the whole thing, and then it ends up sort of shooting themselves in the foot, at least temporarily. Oh,

James Nowlin 23:57 absolutely. And I'll tell you, if you don't work on all three something's going to collapse. I do not believe, Robert that you can have a great mind or a great spirit if you don't have a great physical body, you've got to eat the right foods. You've got to put the right food into it, and you've got to do the exercises on at least four or five times a week and break that sweat and get the get those toxins out of the body. Because guess where the toxins go? If you don't get them out of your body, they start to pollute your your spirit. You know, I've got a coaching practice where I'm working with executives around the world and people who are in the C suite who have tremendous amounts of tremendous amounts of stress on their time and don't get to spend as much time with their families. And, you know, just have a lot of pressures on them from the world to achieve. They report to boards of directors. They report to stakeholders, shareholders, and they've got to be performing all the time. How do they take their game to the next level with that kind of pressure? They they have to take the time out to ensure that they're putting the right things into their body and also nourishing their body with exercise. These things are so interconnected in such a way is that toxins flow free. Really from one system to the next. And, you know, there are scientific studies on this about how some of the greatest performers throughout history, who've really mastered themselves physically have also mastered themselves mentally, and the two play wonderfully with one another. You're not going to see somebody achieve at the highest levels. Who is, you know, eating, you know, a ton of French fries every single day, and not, you know, going for walks, getting vitamin D or drinking water. You have some people who are naturally gifted from a mind perspective. But in order to get to true happiness and peak performance, you've got to be willing to do the work with the physical body, to nourish the spiritual body. And this is all cyclical. It all works together. And I've seen, I've seen executives actually go through true transformations, metamorphoses in their intellect and their capabilities and their ability to get a company from one level to the next by focusing on what they were doing wrong and focusing on what they were doing right, to take their game to the next level and be odd.

Robert Plank 26:02 So when you see all these people and they're doing this metamorphosis that you mentioned, where you know they kind of have the awakening and they know that they they need to step up their performance in all areas, do you see like a really common stumbling block or a number one universal mistake that people always tend to make when they look to improve their lives in these ways. So

James Nowlin 26:23 here's the main thing that I see. I see a lack of self awareness among top leaders about honestly looking at themselves, about what's holding them back. For example, for me, I had a coach who coaches me, but I'm also a professional coach who coaches other executives. Now people wonder, Well, James, you know you have a coach. It seems like you were supposed to have all the answers if you're providing coaching services to other examples and other executives. There's the thing that's why I'm successful is because I know that I'm not perfect, Robert, I know that I've got my shortcomings. I know that if I do a SWOT analysis on James R and Alan, that there are certain weaknesses, there are certain threats for my ability to achieve at peak performance, and because I have the self awareness and the humility to be coached by someone else, I can take my game to the next level and beyond. But the main stumbling block is that people already think that they already have the answers. And if I can get to an executive that says I am ready to take my life to the next level and beyond, not because society has told me that I'm a great person or because I make a million or ten million a year, but because I want to be my true personal best, which means being happy, which means being a peak performer, which means bringing my best to my family, my community and my business and my professional life, then that person is going to take their their game to the next level and beyond. But what I see sometimes is because somebody's at a certain compensation level or has a, you know, C title after their name, the higher you go, the lower the self awareness gets. But when you find somebody who's at the top, who's willing to do the work, there is no telling where that person is going to be. I'm working with an executive right now. She was in the in the C suite of a billion dollar plus organization. She has just been hired as the CEO of a multi billion dollar organization that she is literally going to take to the next level and beyond, because we did the self awareness work, and part of that was for her to look at her physical body, her spiritual well being and her mind well being, and really excavate the demons that were holding her back, and do the work to plant the seeds that would take her to the next level and beyond. And because of that, she is going to be one of the most recognized, one of the most respected women business leaders in the country because of her humility and her just commitment to saying, You know what, I'm going to slay the dragon. I didn't know what's holding me back, but I've got a coach, and he's going to help me get to the next level and

Robert Plank 28:56 beyond amazing. So is there an easy way to get to that state of mind of saying, you know, I don't know everything I need help. Like, is it a matter of, like, just being, being knocked down enough times? Or, like, if someone, if someone, says, like, you know, I have this self awareness problem, but like, I I'm not quite at the time, I need to get it fixed. Like, how does someone get to the point where they're ready to accept that help?

James Nowlin 29:20 You know, I really love it when people search for help before they crash and burn. We've just got so many pressures on us, from a social media perspective, to, you know, having board members to people having instant access to us at all times, the cell phone devices that we have, you know, we never get to turn it off. And because we never get to turn it off, we lack self awareness when it comes to a lot comes to a lot of things. How do you get to it quickly? I would say, you know, hire a coach. Hire a fantastic coach. Who you really connect with. You guys. When you guys vibrate on a higher frequency because the conversations that you have and because the work that's being done, you can take your game to the next level and beyond. Now. Here's the caveat, it's not going to happen overnight, because the Self Realization must take place over the course of time in order for you to actually start implementing some things to change in your life. You don't go from being an obese person to becoming, you know, one of the fastest runners in the world or an Olympic athlete. You have to work on this, and you've got to get the diet right. You've got to get your mind diet right. You've got to get your spirituality diet right. You've got to get your physical diet right, and your exercise in all those areas right as well for you to achieve at the highest levels. So Robert, it does take time, but I think that the easiest thing to do is to realize, you know what, I'm not perfect. But number two, because I know that I'm not perfect, I've got to have a trusted resource that I hire to help me take my game to the next level and beyond. Now there are tons of executive coaches out there, you know, I'm not, you know, advocating for me to be anybody's executive coach, but if people want to contact me, that's fine, that's good, great and dandy. But I want people to understand too, the difference between having a mentor and having a paid coach. A paid coach is going to check in with you regularly and is going to hold you accountable for what you say. And because you're on that person's clock, that person is going to bring a certain amount of rigor to expectations that you set for yourself and expectations that the coach sets for you. A mentor, on the other hand, can be a friend, someone who is in your particular particular industry or workplace, or someone who is from you know your background. I, you know, I have a college professor who is a mentor of mine for the past 20 years. However, he and I, even though he's providing wisdom and ideas, he is not holding my feet to the fire, my coach holds my feet to the fire and says, you told me this, therefore I expect this out of you, and you told me that you were going to achieve this by a certain date. Did you do it, or did you not do it? That's the kind of toughness that a great coach brings that will take you to the next level. Because sometimes, when it comes to high achievement, you know, we won't share our biggest goals with others because we're afraid of not achieving those goals. A great coach is going to hold you accountable in a very private way where you have respect for him or her and that person has respect for you. But what happens at the end of the day is that the conversation is so powerful that you end up transforming your life, your business, your profession, and in turn, you're going to be a much happier person. You're going to find that you're working much more productive. More productively. You're going to find that you're liking your work a lot more, and the people around you like you a lot more, because you have that happiness in life. And you're not just setting private goals for yourself, but you've got a true accountability partner who's going to push you and make the best out of you. I

Robert Plank 32:39 love it. Very good advice, and just all that, all that more reminder that we can't always do it ourselves. Sometimes we need that, that helping hand to to give us that harsh truth, but also someone that we can share those goals with privately, and basically share and get guidance from the right person. So I love all of it, and it's all either like reminders or new takes on things or new information on how we can all better ourselves. And so as we're winding our conversation down today, you mentioned that after your accident, you kind of had a renewed purpose and all that kind of stuff. So can you kind of tell us about, like, what that new big purpose is? And then you also mentioned your book, the purposeful millionaire. So can you tell us about sort of those two things, if they fit together. The big purpose and the book, absolutely,

James Nowlin 33:23 my purpose is to empower as many people on this earth with the necessary tools to become powerful, purposeful people, professionally and personally in their lives. I'm doing that by giving keynote speeches on stages around the world. I'm doing that by providing coaching services to high performing executives and people who really want to take their game to the next level. And I'm also doing that by, you know, providing book signings and going to as many events as possible where, you know, I know that my voice is going to be respected. And I've got what's called millionaire Mondays. I send people encouraging emails on a weekly basis. They come out on Monday, and people can sign up for those emails at WWW dot James nowlin.com that's N as in Nancy, O, W, l. I n like the word now. James nowlin.com to stay encouraged on the battle, because one thing that I know, Robert is that this is really, really hard to constantly be achieving at these really high levels, and constantly be executing and putting the success formula in play. People need encouragement. They need coaching. They need to hear the speeches. They need somebody who's going to be an objective resource to coach them, who's going to check in with them and hold them accountable to achieve their dreams. And they also need to hear the positive message of yes you can, yes you will, if you continue to do the work and continue to execute upon your plan. So that's what I'm doing. Robert and the book for me, is not only a testimonial for my mission on this earth, but it is a resource. It is a tool that I want others to. Read and to understand that. You know, you might not put all 52 rules into play immediately overnight, but if you put three or four of these rules into play, into practice in your life right now, you're going to have a better life. You're going to have a more powerful life, and you're going to be a happier person, too, and when you're happier with the work that you're doing and the output that you're achieving into the universe your game is going to be taken to the next level. It's like after you take that first step, you get to the top of the staircase, and you're just going to keep on climbing and climbing and climbing to the next level, above and beyond that, because you're a happier, more peaceful and more powerful person. So that's my mission, Robert. I want folks to sign up for millionaire Mondays. I want people to get me on stage, deliver as many keynote speeches as possible, and I want to sell this book like crazy, and to get it in as many hands as possible. Because I truly believe that if people, you know, I don't want people to have a near death accident like me in order to have an awakening to live a purposeful, powerful life. I've been there, guys. I've drowned in the water. I've had, you know, my body, you know, recovered from a storm, and I've had to, you know, come back from brain injuries. I've had to come back from antidepressants. I don't want that for these folks out there. I want them to live powerful, purposeful lives by starting taking that first step and putting some rules into place right now, today,

Robert Plank 36:20 awesome stuff. Well, I agree about a trillion percent, and I agree on all counts that we all want to have that better, that happier, that more fulfilled life. And if we're not careful about making sure that we're on track, then we're going to end up in a place that we don't want to be, like you said, either in a bad accident, or if you surround yourself with that wrong inner circle, that wrong mastermind, they'll drag you down if you don't have a life plan, or if you don't have those kind of daily habits and activities to get you. There lots of little ways to go wrong. But if we know, if we have those tools at our disposal, then we can plug in there. So everyone should go right now to James nowlin.com like you said, James n o w n, James N, O, W L, I n.com, there we go, and sign up for millionaire Mondays. And I assume Mr. James, that people can also get the purposeful millionaire book from that website as well. Absolutely.

James Nowlin 37:14 The easiest way to get it is just go on to James on amazon.com. James on amazon.com you'll see the book. I think it's for 1499 maybe 1899 we're actually working on an audio book right now. Robert and I can't wait for it to be released. The release is going to be this fall, so for folks who don't like to read, the audio book is on the way, but in the interim, yes, sign up for millionaire Mondays and go on James on amazon.com you can get the e book as well as the hardcover book as well. Super,

Robert Plank 37:41 great stuff. So I mean, if you're gonna be spending that time, you know, reading something, or you're gonna be in the car, and once the audio book comes out, I mean, you could be listening to the radio, could be listening to, you know, whatever crap is out there, but why not listen to something that improves your life, that gets you closer and faster to where you want? So listen to that, that book when it comes out, on audit, on Audible or in the audio form. So James on amazon.com, to get the book directly, and then James now and.com to get on the list for those millionaire Mondays, so that you have that, that extra juice, that extra jump start all the time to get you to where you need to go. So all kinds of great stuff to unpack. And I recommend that everyone listening listen to this at least five times. Listen to this at least a month, once a month or so, and if it's been a couple years, maybe come back and find this episode again. Listen to it again, because I think it's just that important. And I mean, you only have your one life, so don't screw it up. And even if you did screw it up, then it's part of the ups and downs. It's a reason to know where the problem is, know where to do better. So James nowlin.com, James on amazon.com. I want to thank you, James for sharing your story and for turning lemons into lemonade and for sharing us all these insights so that, like you said, we don't have to go through all those things that you went through, and we can all live that enlightened life that we all want to live. So thanks for stopping by and sharing some of that knowledge with us.

James Nowlin 39:03 Well. Thank you so much, Robert. I certainly appreciate it. And you know what? You get one shot at life, and statistics tell me that I'm not supposed to be alive, and I'm doing everything that I can to live right and to live my best life and to help as many people as possible to live right and to live their best, most powerful, positive, productive, wonderful life so so thank you very

Robert Plank 39:22 much, Robert. We really appreciate you listening to today's episode of the Robert Plank show. Subscribe to us on iTunes and rate and review us at Robert plank.com/itunes you.