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Episode 124: Blueprint for a Balanced Life with Nicole Mixdorf

Nicole Mixdorf


Humans aren’t designed for prolonged periods of stress. Our bodies have manifest this stress into various ailments and discomforts.

Nicole Mixdorf is the founder and chief wellness office of Balance by Nature, an award-winning corporate health and wellness consulting firm. Previously a high-level executive, Nicole experienced first-hand the challenges of balancing a professional career with personal wellness. She launched Balance By Nature to help companies design wellness programs to support their employees. Balance by Nature has won numerous industry awards and has been recognized as a top 10 employee wellness company in the US for the past two years! Nicole was also named the most influential woman in corporate wellness services in the US in 2020.

Nicole shares quick tips for dealing with stress, finding your body’s weakest link, and a special giveaway offer just for you – get your Blueprint to a Balanced Life and start structuring your day to success!

Visit the Balance by Nature website

Connect with Nicole on LinkedIn

Check out this episode!

Nicole Mixdorf (00:00):

It’s really important to pay attention to that and notice that and give ourselves those moments to recognize, you know, my body’s speaking to me right now and I need to listen,

Announcement (00:13):

Welcome to Learning Life. And the thing that I’ve realized from the CEO to the NFL football player, to the janitor, we’re our toughest critics. And we’re hardest on ourselves. But you have to be willing to say and point out the things that need to be said. The only way to grab somebody’s attention is with a story.

Jon Tota (00:34):

Welcome to another episode of Learning Life with Jon Tota. My guest today is Nicole Mixdorf. Nicole is the founder and chief wellness officer of Balance by Nature, an award-winning corporate health and wellness consulting firm. Nicole spent the first part of her career as a high-level executive in the travel industry, where she experienced firsthand the challenges of balancing your professional career with your personal wellness. After leading her training and consulting company called Boost Your Yoga Business, where Nicole taught yoga instructors, how to build a successful yoga business, she then launched Balance by Nature to help companies design custom wellness programs to support their employees. Balance by Nature has won numerous industry awards and has been recognized as a top 10 employee wellness company in the U S for the past two years. Nicole was also named the most influential woman in corporate wellness services in the U S in 2020. So there’s a ton we can learn from Nicole today. Let’s get into it, Nicole, welcome to Learning Life.

Nicole Mixdorf (01:28):

Thank you so much, Jon. I’m so happy to be here with you.

Jon Tota (01:31):

So I am so happy to be talking with you because I think this is such an important topic right now, and I’ve been some of the recent, uh, presentations that I’ve given. This is like one of the top concerns for employees- their personal wellness, how to balance work and their personal life. So just go back a little bit. How did you get into this specific area in the first place? What was your journey like a little bit?

Nicole Mixdorf (01:54):

You know, as you mentioned, I spent my career in the corporate world first. So I used to be on the other side where I was one of those stressed out executives burning the candle from both ends, but I loved what I did. I was in the travel industry. So I got to travel all around the world. I was leading a big team, doing international trainings and, you know, we were successful. I was making a lot of money. I was ticking all the boxes. You know, I would have said that I have a great career, right. And there was a lot of stress and intensity that came with that. But in some ways I think I used to wear it as a badge of honor, you know, and really glorified the busy-ness the, you know, jumping from one plane to another. And, um, I think that was kind of glamorous for awhile.

Nicole Mixdorf (02:35):

And that was okay until my dad got sick with cancer. And as soon as that happened, everything changed. All of a sudden, I not only had a lot of stress in my work life, but now I had a lot of stress in my home life as well. And when all of that stress really started hitting me from all sides, it eventually started making me physically sick. And for me, it manifested in my digestion and my immune system. And I will tell you when you don’t feel good, it makes everything in your life so much harder. And I didn’t have time to slow down. You know, I had a lot of responsibilities. There was a lot of different things on my plate. And, you know, I just did what most people do is which is to keep going, you know, pop a few pills and just hope it goes away.

Nicole Mixdorf (03:20):

And unfortunately, that did not happen. And after about a year, it caught up to me and the health condition really degraded to the point that it started affecting my ability to lead a meeting and do my job and really started impacting my quality of life. And at that point I was really left with no other option, but to take some time off of work, to heal my body. And as soon as I removed myself from a big source of stress and started focusing a little bit more on my own self care, the most miraculous thing happened, all my symptoms, just disappeared. And that was a huge light bulb moment for me, where I went, wow, you know, you can exercise, you can eat healthy. You can have the quote unquote healthy lifestyle, but if you have so much stress in your life, none of the rest of it matters.

Nicole Mixdorf (04:10):

And I knew my story wasn’t unique because all my colleagues were suffering too, but in their own way, because stress affects everybody so differently. For some people, it manifests in the digestion; for other people it’s being migraines or insomnia or anxiety or depression, weight gain, auto-immune issues, high blood pressure, you name it. And the truth is, is that most corporate professionals everywhere are already suffering from some of these symptoms. And they don’t even realize that stress is truly the underlying trigger that is causing this in the first place. So that’s kind of what inspired me to leave my corporate career behind. So I could start a wellness business and teach other busy professionals how to create balance in their life so that they can keep doing what they love and keep pushing themselves to perform. But in a way that is going to help them thrive rather than getting burnt out and sick.

Announcement (05:06):

Hey, listeners, Jon Tota here. As businesses everywhere are struggling with the new normal of hiring and training new employees virtually, do you know if your company’s onboarding program is setting up your employees for success? It’s more important than ever right now when new people are joining your company and learning your culture while operating almost entirely from remote locations. eLearning Brothers has the answer for you in their brand new virtual onboarding handbook, download a checklist to see how well your onboarding program stacks up. Then read the free handbook that covers the four pillars of onboarding and includes a sample template for a fully virtual onboarding program. Visit learninglifeshow.com/eLB to download your free checklist and handbook today. Provided by eLearning Brothers, the industry leading provider of eLearning solutions. eLearning Brothers has everything you need to launch your own virtual onboarding program to keep your business scaling and culture growing during these challenging times. Get your free handbook today at learninglifeshow.com/ELB. Now back to our show,

Jon Tota (06:11):

What you said kind of hits the nail on the head is that everyone’s focused on how they eat, what their nutrition is, their workout regimen, and they think that’s going to solve it. But stress is like this underlying component. That’s always there. It doesn’t go away. It’s, it’s kind of like omnipresent. And how do you identify it? You know, if you’re one of these, one of our listeners who is in a stressful position, a high ranking executive or a business owner, and they’re under that constant stress, what are some of the things that help people recognize it? Identify? Cause it sounds like it could manifest itself in different ways, in different people.

Nicole Mixdorf (06:51):

Yes. I mean, to understand the stress response a little bit, I’ll share a, uh, just a basic overview and then I’ll also share a few different ideas of ways that people can recognize what’s happening in their body and shift it. So when we experience stress, you know, our bodies were designed to send off this alarm system, let’s say a dog barks at you. And it’s like, all of a sudden, you know, your hippocampus sends out an alarm system, we’re in danger, we’re in danger. And your adrenal gland starts to creating these stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which are designed to help us fight or flight right. To, to fight or to run. And that was fine when our problem was being chased by tigers. But now our stress comes from too many emails or deadlines or too much on our plates, um, or any number of things that are going on in the world around us right now.

Nicole Mixdorf (07:43):

And when our bodies are in the stress response and we’re secreting those stress hormones, what they’re doing is that our bodies actually start having a lot more sugar available in the blood. Well, we know where that leads to right diabetes and all kinds of problems. The other thing is that when our stress response is active like that, it also starts increasing our respiration rate. And it also shuts down our non essential body functions, like our digestive system, our immune system, our reproductive system, our growth process, et cetera. So the thing is when we’re feeling stressed, there are physiological things happening in the body where every single one of our body functions are under attack and whatever is the weakest link in your particular body is how it’s going to come out for you. So for some people, like I had said, it might come out in your digestive system because that’s the weakest point for you, right?

Nicole Mixdorf (08:37):

Or you might be somebody that it starts affecting your immune system and you have an auto-immune condition that suddenly comes out. So, especially in today’s, you know, pandemic that we’re dealing with, we want our immune systems working optimally and stress is one of the things that lowers our immune response. Um, so when we’re experiencing these high levels of chronic stress and we are kind of all as a society, as a, as a race, quite honestly, all over the world, everybody is just really feeling the intensity of the moment right now, when we are under that much stress all day long. And that stress response is active. It’s having all kinds of negative impacts on our body and on our health and on our mental wellbeing as well. Uh, because it also starts reducing the amount of serotonin in our brain, which is what makes us happy.

Nicole Mixdorf (09:27):

And that’s what leads to depression when we don’t have enough serotonin. So, um, what can we do about it is a good question. The first thing is to just become aware of how stress affects you personally. So how does it come out to you? You know, you probably already know if you’re dealing with any symptoms in the body, just be aware that stress is exacerbating that, and then just know that your body gives you these signs and signals to let you know that something is out of balance. So if you’re working for example, and you start noticing that your you’re tightening in your chest and you’re holding your breath, and you’re doing a lot of sighing like this, where you’re all of a sudden, you’re like,

Nicole Mixdorf (10:09):

That’s because you were holding your breath. That happens when we tighten up in the chest because we’re stressed. If you start noticing that you’re clenching your jaw, or you have tightening in your neck and your shoulders, or you’re kind of feeling like a nod in your stomach or a pain in your head, or you’re starting to feel a little overwhelmed, maybe you’re starting to notice that you’re losing your temper. You’re starting to get angry. All of those are signs that your body is giving you that you’re active in the stress response in that exact moment, those stress hormones are coursing through your veins, causing all kinds of physiological issues in the body. So that is your moment to stop and take a break from whatever it is that you were doing, whether it came from working, or, you know, let’s say your kids were driving you bananas.

Nicole Mixdorf (10:59):

It’s time to just take a minute to step away, close your eyes and have a few deep breaths. Your breath is probably the best tool that you have to instantly shut off the body’s stress response. And literally, if you can take three full, deep breaths, it instantly shuts off the stress response and activates the calming response in the body because we’re flushing our body with 70% more oxygen, which allows the blood to circulate faster, the heart to start not having to pump as hard. So it starts to slow down and it calms the body. So it’s really remarkable to just use the breath, but have that awareness first to know when you need to take that break.

Jon Tota (11:42):

Yeah. A couple of things you touched on are really interesting to me. So it’s a side note. I have Lyme disease. And so I’m kind of prone to these like inflammations around my body and I’ve identified it in, uh, I’ve only had it for the last couple of years, but at times of really high stress, like a part of my body, my knee, my foot, my elbow will like blow up and inflame. And I’ve now noticed it the last few times. The, and, and you can tell me if this is accurate, like, why did it happen at that moment? There was no reason that I should have had a flare up at that moment, but it sounds like exactly what you’re talking about is that’s my weak link in my body. And stress has kind of manifesting itself in those flare ups. Is that, is that kind of what you’re talking about?

Nicole Mixdorf (12:28):

Yeah, absolutely. Stress creates inflammation in the body, you know, that’s what those stress hormones do too. So it, it, it, it will exacerbate any existing condition that you have a hundred percent, no matter what the condition is that you’re dealing with. If you’re in a high stress state in a chronic situation, you know, where it’s ongoing for a while, it will definitely have a huge effect in flare up conditions. You know, my, I had an autoimmune condition that would flare up every time that I was dealing with, you know, tremendous amounts of stress in my life. So, you know, that’s, that’s really, it’s really important to pay attention to that and notice that and give ourselves, you know, that those moments to recognize, you know, my body’s speaking to me right now and I need to listen, I need to do something. I need to shift something.

Jon Tota (13:17):

Yeah. And do you have, do you feel that you have a challenge with some of your customers that, or your clients, I should say that you work with and you consult with, do they automatically believe that and understand that that stress can be specifically related to physical ailments, whether in themselves or their employees, or is that something that you kind of have to teach people in the process?

Nicole Mixdorf (13:41):

I think honestly, people need to be educated about it because you have always heard stress is a killer. Stress is a killer. Everybody says that, but I don’t think people really understand how it works until, you know, somebody explains to you how this stress response works in your body and what it’s actually doing physiologically. And it makes sense once you get it. And you’re like, Oh, that’s what the cortisol and the adrenaline and the norepinepherine and all of these stress hormones are doing when I’m feeling that stress. And I think one of the issues is that stress has become so normalized when the truth is, is that it’s not normal. You know, we’re not our bodies. Aren’t designed to be under intense amounts of stress all the time. You know, it’s really supposed to be something that happens quickly. And then you get over it.

Nicole Mixdorf (14:32):

Like if you’ve ever seen any footage of like animals in Africa, for example, like, you’ll see there be a big chase, right? Like a cheetah is chasing, you know, some little animal and let’s say the little animal gets away. You always see that little is going to hunker down and it’s just going to be shaking. And it’ll just hunker down until it calms down. And then as soon it calms down, it’ll get up, it’ll shake itself off and it’ll just move on. And it’s like, that moment is over and now it can get back to it’s like peaceful way of being. But we’re a little bit different because we don’t just shake it off. We ruminate over it. So even though something that may have happened to us like yesterday, we’re still thinking about it today. Right. We’re even still thinking about things that happened years ago.

Nicole Mixdorf (15:16):

And even though right now in this moment, like I’m safe, I’m sitting right here in my office. There’s nothing happening to me. Right? Like I’m completely safe in this moment. I could be thinking about in reliving a situation in my mind, you know, and, and thinking about, uh, you know, an argument or any, you know, heavy piece of information, it’s like your body gets into the stress response all over again, just from thinking about it. So it’s just so fascinating when you really dive into it to understand that, you know, when we have any of those kinds of stressful, negative emotions that it’s bringing us back into that situation, even though it’s not happening right now in this moment.

Jon Tota (16:02):

Yeah. I know. And I, and I think that this digital age obviously has made that even more difficult because emails hit you all the time and messages. And, uh, you know, I do it myself too. You can just sense yourself, change, you get one email that sets you off. And it came in at 7:30 at night and it throws off your whole night and you can’t change it or do anything about it until the next day. And yet now, like you said, you kind of, you kind of ruminate on it all night long. And so now with everybody dealing with, I would imagine in, in all the work that you’re doing, you’re seeing with your corporate customers, that they are just dealing with more and more of this work-related stress, or maybe just the balance of work and home and working remotely because of everybody, you know, in their, kind of this new normal we’re living through during a pandemic, what are some of the things that you’re seeing out there, and maybe some of the solutions that you’re offering for people to kind of deal with this new found the anxiety around our, our working conditions,

Nicole Mixdorf (17:06):

How there has been so much shift that has happened because of the pandemic. I mean, we’re dealing with an unprecedented change to the way we live and work, and there’s consequences to those changes right now. And I think everybody’s sealing it, you know, from an employer’s perspective, there are so many challenges in, in understanding what’s happening with their staff, you know, right now with everybody working from home remotely from a company’s perspective, it’s like, how do we maintain a sense of culture and identity amongst a completely remote workforce? But that remote workforce is a stressed out overwhelmed workforce right now because we’ve got, you know, people, employees, everybody, you know, the executives, everyone dealing with this right now, it’s like, we’re in the middle of a pandemic. You know, we’re having to work from home. Some people don’t even have like a proper office space and they’re having to work on their kitchen table.

Nicole Mixdorf (17:59):

And other people have, you know, multiple children that are home at the same time as well. And they’re all on, you know, distance learning and trying to juggle how do I work from home and, you know, take care of my kids with less childcare options, which is so stressful. You’ve got other people who live alone and are acutely feeling that isolation and, you know, are dealing with a lot of, you know, depression and anxiety that’s coming from. All of that. You know, we’ve got people that have been personally touched by COVID and have lost, you know, family members. And haven’t been able to say goodbye to them or attend funerals. I mean, it’s, it’s just, there’s so much intensity with that. And there’s been so much happening in the country. You know, there’s been this, this spotlight on the systemic racism, we’ve got this very heated political climate that has taken everybody on this ridiculous rollercoaster of emotions.

Nicole Mixdorf (18:49):

You know, you open up social media and it’s a bunch of people arguing with each other relationships have been broken up because of it. You know, you turn on the news and it’s just like breaking news every single day. And there’s just so much intensity. So it’s like, we’re just constantly right now in this state of stress and panic, quite honestly. And all of that is on top of the normal stress that we deal with on a regular basis. So I think right now for companies, especially, there’s never been a more important time to invest in the mental and emotional wellbeing of their staff, because people are having a hard time juggling it. And when that happens, it makes it a lot harder to focus on the task at hand, and to really do your best work and deliver your highest level of service when you have all of these other issues that are happening in your own life.

Nicole Mixdorf (19:43):

Um, so, you know, we’re, we’re doing things to help guide our corporate clients to, you know, really provide the right set of tools to their staff, to help them learn how to let go of that stress, because we can’t get rid of the stress. You know, we can’t just wave a magic wand and make all of these situations that are stressful, just disappear. I mean, that would be amazing, but we can’t do that. So what we can do is learn some different tools so that we know how to regulate our own bodies so that we can learn how to let go of some of that intensity and bring ourselves back into a place of balance so that we can feel good because at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. So we have a lot of different stress reduction programs that we offer through our corporate wellness.

Nicole Mixdorf (20:33):

You know, we’re teaching about growth mindset. Mindset is so important. You know, it’s really teaching people how to think about things in a new way, how to get out of their own way so that they can be more successful. You know, we’re doing a lot on, you know, professional development topics, like how to break through fear, how to build emotional resiliency, how to embrace, change, how to structure your day for success, you know, really practical things that are going to help you show up as the best version of yourself. You know, in addition to that, we offer a lot of fitness programs too. So we’ve created a virtual gym because people can’t go to the gym right now. So we’re bringing the gym to them and we have a huge wide range of different fitness classes that we can customize for any business to offer to their staff.

Nicole Mixdorf (21:19):

Um, we have nutrition programs to teach people how to, how to cook healthy meal options, especially when they’re home right now. And they’re having to do so much more cooking, you know, it’s giving them those, those options to learn how the food that you eat affects not only your health, but it affects how you’re able to focus throughout your day. It affects your energy. It affects your mood. It affects how you sleep at night, et cetera. So there’s a lot of different avenues and we try to have a holistic approach to wellness where we really cover like that physical, mental, emotional, social, financial, and cultural wellness within the individual and within the business.

Jon Tota (21:58):

Yeah. I think it’s so important what you’re doing and, and I, I love to spotlight some of the programs cause I think what you’re doing. And I think of course, as you’ve told me, there’s some real custom programs that you’re putting together. And I love the idea of the virtual fitness thing. I think that’s so cool, but for any of our listeners, cause we’ve got a lot of listeners here who are in HR, they’re HR leadership, learning and development leadership. So this is right up their alley and they’re dealing with employees working remote from all over and they can’t see the stress in their employees firsthand. So they want to be able to help them. I know you’ve got this really cool program that I want to turn everyone onto the, I think it’s the 21 Days to Less Stress at Your Desk. Tell us a little bit about that and where our listeners can find out a little bit more about that, because I think it’s specific for corporations, right?

Nicole Mixdorf (22:47):

Yeah. And it is specific for corporations. I’m actually going to open it up to the public probably again in the next couple of months as well. But yeah, so it’s a 21 day challenge where every single day you get a new five to 10 minute video that teaches you a new work-life balance skill. So it’s really designed for people who are sitting at a desk all day, you know, which is pretty much every corporate professional out there. It’s designed for you to take a break. So when you take a break, cause we all really theoretically should be taking breaks in our day so that you watch this video. When you take your break that day and you learn something new. So there are some mindset videos in there. There’s some stress reduction, technique videos. There are some meditation videos, there’s some desks stretches and exercises, movement break type things in there as well. There’s some nutrition, presentations and demos as well. So it’s kind of like a little taste test of all the different types of content that we offer delivered in a 21 day challenge.

Jon Tota (23:49):

Yeah, I think that’s so cool. And I want everyone also to know about, I think you had mentioned to me earlier your program for individuals. So if you’re not a corporation or you’re not just thinking about this for yourself, I think your wellness program for individuals to kind of manage their own self care and stress is Finding Balance, right?

Nicole Mixdorf (24:07):

Yes, exactly. So it’s the Finding Balance membership where every single month has a different theme. January’s theme was all about new year, new you. So we did a strategic life planning workshop, you know, then we have different themes throughout the year, which could be about self-care stress reduction, you know, building emotional resiliency, all of the different kinds of personal care topics and personal development topics. And every month there is going to be an inspirational workshop where you learn a lot of really great skills and how to apply them into your life. And then there’s guided meditations and mindful moment videos and movement break videos so that you have just some really great tools at your disposal that you can use to create more balance in your life.

Jon Tota (24:52):

I think it’s awesome. I love what you’re doing. And I think it’s, it’s so important now more than ever with everything going on in the world. And so for all of our listeners who want to know more about what you’re doing, maybe connect with you directly, and also I know you’ve got an offer on your website, the Blueprint for a Balanced Life- tell our listeners, how can they find out more about you? Can they get access to the blueprint through your website? Where should they go?

Nicole Mixdorf (25:17):

Yeah. So actually the Blueprint for Your Balanced Life, that’s not on my website. But I can give you a link that you can share with your listeners because it’s not something I actually just offer to anybody. So I’m happy to give you a link if you can put that somewhere and people can download that. So that’s a special gift just for your listeners. And the Blueprint for Balance Life is basically teaching how to structure your day for success. It’s the blueprint, the framework that I use to create balance in my own life. And it’s basically just teaching you some really simple, small little shifts that you can make in how you approach your day to be more intentional, to give yourself enough of those kind of nourishing me moments. So you can balance out all those inevitable stress moments in your day. On our website though, we have a lot of great things too. You can find out all about our different corporate wellness programs, the different programming that we offer. You can download there, a chair yoga guide, where you can get, I think there’s like 20 different exercises that you can do at your desk. So you can find that on there. And that’s just balance by nature.com. And then you can also connect with me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is where I’m most active, so you can look me up Nicole Mixdorf on LinkedIn as well. And I love having conversations and connecting with people.

Jon Tota (26:39):

That’s awesome. And so definitely check out balancedbynature.com. And then we will put in the show notes, we’ll put a link and in all of our promotions to the Blueprint for Balance Life. So thank you for that offer for our listeners. I think it’s, uh, it’s great. And it’s something that everybody can use. So Nicole, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. It’s so important what you’re doing and I, I really appreciate your time.

Nicole Mixdorf (27:00):

Oh, thank you so much for having me. It’s really a pleasure

Jon Tota (27:03):

And to all of our listeners, thank you for being here and thank you for joining us every week. As you know, we have a new episode that comes out each Tuesday, so wherever you’re listening, be sure to subscribe, leave us comments as always. We’d love to hear from you guys and until our next episode, happy learning.

Announcement (27:23):

Hey everyone, Jon Tota here. I want to thank you for tuning into the show each week. We love our learning life community and are so grateful for your support. We’d appreciate it if you would take a minute to rate us and write a review for Learning Life, wherever you’re listening right now, your ratings and comments, help new people find the show so we can keep growing our community and bring great interviews on the topics you care most about.

 

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Episode 123: Moonshot to Moneymaker with Lewis Schiff

Lewish Schiff


The most successful people in America didn’t necessarily go to the best school, but they certainly worked the hardest and gave everything to be where they are. These are the entrepreneurs.

Lewis Schiff helps entrepreneurs go from moonshot takers to moneymakers. He’s developed several programs, workshops, and workbooks to guide entrepreneurs to true wealth and long-term success. He shares his advice on becoming successful, his love of entrepreneurs, and tells us what the top trait for success is.

Lewis Schiff is a prolific author, serial entrepreneur, and advisor to hundreds of very successful business owners over the years. You’ve probably seen or read at least one of Lewis’s many successful books, a list that includes The Armchair Millionaire, The Middle-Class Millionaire, Business Brilliant, and The First Habit: The One Technique That Will Change Your Life. Beyond his own entrepreneurial success, Lewis has spent the second part of his career creating organizations and education programs to support entrepreneurs through the various stages as they grow their businesses to new heights. I met Lewis almost a decade ago when I was part of his business owners council. Since then, he’s gone on to chair The Birthing of Giants fellowship program, and most recently launched Moonshots and Moneymakers, a week-long workshop in collaboration with Ryder University and Oxford University.

Review the Perfect Business Plan here.

Connect with Lewis on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Follow the Birthing of Giants on LinkedIn.

Get Lewis’s books on Amazon here.

Read a transcript of this episode at www.learninglifeshow.com

Check out this episode!

Lewis Schiff (00:00):

I realized I had done it all wrong. I hadn’t really been a great entrepreneur. I had been looking for, you know, pops. I’d been very opportunistic in the worst kind of way. Like just people are doing this. I’ll do anything to get the downloads. I’ll do anything to get the eyeballs. What I wasn’t building was sustainable, thoughtful, strategic, culturally driven businesses that would stand the test of time.

Speaker 2 (00:22):

Welcome to Learning Life. And the thing that I’ve realized from the CEO to the NFL football player, to the janitor, we’re our toughest critics. And we’re hardest on ourselves. But you have to be willing to say and point out the things that need to be said. The only way to grab somebody’s attention is with a story.

Jon Tota (00:44):

Welcome to another episode of Learning Life with Jon Tota. My guest today is Lewis Schiff. Lewis is an old friend and mentor of mine, a prolific author, serial entrepreneur, and advisor to hundreds of very successful business owners over the years. You’ve probably seen or read at least one of Lewis’s many successful books, a list that includes The Armchair Millionaire, The Middle-Class Millionaire, Business Brilliant, and The First Habit: The One Technique That Will Change Your Life. Beyond his own entrepreneurial success, Lewis has spent the second part of his career creating organizations and education programs to support entrepreneurs through the various stages as they grow their businesses to new heights. I met Lewis almost a decade ago when I was part of his business owners council. Since then, he’s gone on to chair The Birthing of Giants fellowship program, and most recently launched Moonshots and Moneymakers, a week long workshop in collaboration with Ryder University and Oxford University.

Jon Tota (01:33):

I’ve learned a ton from Lewis over the years, and he was actually the first person I sought out for advice when starting up this show. So I’m very happy to have him with us today. Lewis Schiff, welcome to Learning Life.

Lewis Schiff (01:43):

Thank you, Jon Tota.

Jon Tota (01:45):

I asked you for advice when I was getting started with an interview show like this, and I always thought of you as this master interviewer. I’ve been part of your programs. I’ve seen you on stage all the time interviewing people; you interview people in your books. What is it that that is kind of that core ingredient to what you’ve done in your career? Because you’ve had this huge career over the last 20 plus years. Has that curiosity been part of it in just growing your career in this direction?

Lewis Schiff (02:17):

It starts with a love of this person called an entrepreneur. I mean, I just loved this person. And I say that because not everybody loves entrepreneurs, you know, they can be, there’s a word that we use, which is either arrogant or bold. If you’re wrong, it’s arrogrant; if you’re right, it’s bold. Entrepreneurs, I find, I have such empathy for, even from the beginning, how hard their lives are. And so when I sit down to talk to them, I start by loving them. I do, I love every single entrepreneur I’ve ever met with. I would bleed for them. They’re not all the nicest people, but they’re, they’re all such brave explorers. And I just love that about them. So I kind of walk into every interview, fascinated with them. Remember Chris Farley on Saturday Night Live? And he used to do these interviews where he was such a fan boy of everyone he interviewed. He never let them talk and just spent the whole time telling them how much he loved them. I could do that with these people. I could just tell them how much I love them, but then I think about the audience. So if you’re doing a live interview or even if you’re doing it in writing, I just am obsessed with the idea that these people have wisdom to share. And, you know, by the grace of God, I’ve been put in between the wisdom and the audience. And so I’ve got to dig it out. And I would say the last thing, which is going to sound in conflict with the starting that I loved entrepreneurs is I also don’t really care about the entrepreneur at that point, because if the audience can benefit from the wisdom that this individual who’s talking to me on stage has, I’ve got to get it to them. Like I must, I have such an urgency to get it to them. And so if it makes my interviewee uncomfortable, I don’t care. I’ve got to get the wisdom from that person to everybody in the audience.

Jon Tota (03:50):

Yeah. And I, I remember you gave me that advice too. It always sticks in my head also, you know, don’t be a fan boy, you’re trying to get the best interview possible for your audience. And it’s an admirable concept because it’s when you’re interviewing people all the time, it’s not easy to keep digging deeper and get to that uncomfortable spot. So if I, if I am able to achieve that today and make you uncomfortable, you know, you’re the one who led me here.

Lewis Schiff (04:16):

We can start that tomorrow.

Jon Tota (04:17):

We’ll do that on the next one.

Speaker 2 (04:20):

Hey, listeners, Jon Tota here. As businesses everywhere are struggling with the new normal of hiring and training new employees virtually, do you know if your company’s onboarding program is setting up your employees for success? It’s more important than ever right now when new people are joining your company and learning your culture while operating almost entirely from remote locations. eLearning Brothers has the answer for you in their brand new virtual onboarding handbook, download a checklist to see how well your onboarding program stacks up. Then read the free handbook that covers the four pillars of onboarding and includes a sample template for a fully virtual onboarding program. Visit learninglifeshow.com/eLB to download your free checklist and handbook today. Provided by eLearning Brothers, the industry leading provider of eLearning solutions. eLearning Brothers has everything you need to launch your own virtual onboarding program to keep your business scaling and culture growing during these challenging times. Get your free handbook today at learninglifeshow.com/ELB. Now back to our show,

Jon Tota (05:25):

Obviously you have- and I think it’s really fascinating- The first part of your career was really your entrepreneurial journey before you started advising entrepreneurs and business owners. So tell us a little bit about that, cause I know you built up an early business and sold it to iVillage back in the early dotcom days, and then did some other interesting things. Just give us kind of the quick overview on those experiences.

Lewis Schiff (05:47):

Sure. Well, I have been, you know, that sort of kid entrepreneur, you know, even in my teenage years, I was always getting myself into something where I was buying something and selling something. But when the dotcom boom came around and I’m talking about the first one in the mid nineties, I was all about it. I mean, I had already been kind of an entrepreneur in training that whole time. So I did what people did back then, which is I raised money. I started these little websites and I happened to be lucky enough to sell one of them to a company called iVillage, which happened to go public in sort of a roaring nineties of like, you know, these companies after day one being more valuable than GM. You know, they were just, these kind of weird situations were happening. And I had a great run with them and I happened to sell my company to them in stock.

Lewis Schiff (06:29):

So I got a lot of stock options and, you know, could have gone wrong, but it went really well. So my first brush with successful entrepreneurship, which I define is starting something and selling something in that kind of traditional sense of entrepreneurship. I, I did that from the year 1996 to the year 2000, had that first very successful effort. And I was in my early thirties by the time like completed that run. And so I did what you do when you had one successful run, which is you do it again and again and again. So from 2000 to 2010, I started a few things and I learned the other side of entrepreneurship, which is of course not everything works out. But I then ended up around 2008 with my second exit, so I started something. Also with iVillage what I started with, had to do with personal finance and educating regular people on their money.

Lewis Schiff (07:17):

That site was called Armchair Millionaire. It was backed not just by iVillage, it was backed by Intuit, the makers of Quicken, and then eventually by Kleiner Perkins, the VC firm, and then even more importantly, Charles Schwab, the brokerage firm. And so I built this financial site that was pretty popular. Then I built another financial site called Main Street.com, which I sold to The Street.com, which was Jim Cramer’s website. And all this is to say that between 1995 and the year 2009, I built a lot of things that were web related and personal finance education related, but I only had two successful exits during that time. And I’m pretty proud of that. That’s kind of a decent ratio, but I also learned that 15, roughly for 15 year span how to succeed and also how to fail and how to pick yourself up and how to keep going.

Lewis Schiff (08:04):

That’s the classic entrepreneurial story, right? It’s sort of, you take your punches and then you hurt from those punches, but then you have to pick yourself up and keep going. Then I had this very amazing moment where I had written a book, which I’m sure we’ll talk about the book part of my life, which is running parallel to these companies that I started. But I’d written a book and I got a chance to present it to the folks at INC magazine. And I have to tell you that even though I was in the New York media world, which called a lot of magazines and a lot of websites, I never really looked at Inc magazine, but my friend had become the CEO. And he brought me in and said, tell me what this book is about, that you wrote and had a lot to do with, um, I was a personal finance guy, so I had a lot to do with how Americans manage their money, but it really had a second story that I had discovered, which is that people who built businesses were often the most successful people in America.

Lewis Schiff (08:52):

So he wanted me to come in and talk about that. And I just had giant epiphany. I had, I had never really looked at Inc magazine. I never really even thought of myself as an entrepreneur. I just thought of myself as like a guy who built businesses; and I’m very grateful to the Inc magazine brand and that community for teaching me about a whole other side of entrepreneurship that I didn’t understand at all. And this is a long way of me saying that those first 15 years, where I built a couple of businesses that I sold for a lot of money, I realized I had done it all wrong. I hadn’t really been a great entrepreneur. I had been flipping, I had been looking for, you know, pops. I’d been very opportunistic in the worst kind of way. Like just people are doing this, I’ll do anything to get the downloads. I’ll do anything to get the eyeballs and then it’ll be valuable and I’ll sell it to somebody. But what I wasn’t building was sustainable, thoughtful, strategic, culturally driven businesses that would stand the test of time. And I only learned that after I had sold two businesses.

Jon Tota (09:50):

You kind of lived in this early world of the dotcom boom. And, and you, you had a lot of successes or those two really great successes doing that, where it was all about downloads and eyeballs and traffic, not necessarily is this a good business that’s going to generate meaningful profits. So are you seeing that again today? Have you seen the business world evolve in a new direction where people are really focused on building sustainable profitable businesses that solve a problem versus just following the latest tech trend and trying to profit from it?

Lewis Schiff (10:26):

Right. So during those 15 years, I was pretty deeply embedded with the VC world, the venture capital world. And I was doing what you do, which is they would tell you what they wanted to invest in, and then you would build it. I have almost nothing to do with the VC world anymore. And that includes the angel world. I just, I find it to be kind of a rabbit hole, kind of like you just described. It’s just, there are not many leaders in that world. They’re mostly followers. I don’t even understand why people are in venture capital to be honest, but there’s a whole other side of capital. It’s sometimes called private equity or family office. It’s a different level of wealth. It’s a more mature wealth. And I find that they’re looking for the most part, they’re looking to build sustainable businesses that sort of are strategically sound that, you know, really solve problems.

Lewis Schiff (11:08):

So if there’s two worlds, one where there’s so much noise, okay. The whole venture capital world, the whole startup world, the whole unicorn world, I mean, there’s tremendous noise. The other world are, are people who start companies at their kitchen table, almost always with whatever money they have and what I mean by that is whatever they put into it. They’ve got to get it back really quickly. So when we start businesses, we say, Hey, I can afford to put $10,000 into this, but I gotta get it back in like 90 days. Cause I don’t really have that kind of money to play around with. And I don’t have anything here that VC or private equity firms can be interested in. So I’ve got to build something with my own money and the whole world that I’m in now are people like yourself, Jon. Cause we met when you were in, when you ran your own business that have built something you through sweat and through creativity and through hustle, but it has grown well past the sort of infancy stage.

Lewis Schiff (12:00):

And now they’ve got these thriving somewhere between toddler and adolescent businesses and where I come in with a whole group of incredible entrepreneurs, it’s called the Birthing of Giants program is we help take those adolescent companies and turn them into kind of mature adults. And if we can get them from adolescent to mature, there’s a ton of great money, like a private equity fund money that is dying for companies like that. And so we’re still part of a value chain of taking it from point A to point B. But my world is no longer, you know, a kid with an idea, sitting at a Starbucks, writing a pitch deck, it’s a person who’s built a pretty good business, you know, 10 million, 20 million, 50 million, a 100 million dollars revenue has customers, has contracts, has assets, has a reputation. And we’re taking them from that to, let’s say a billion where there’s going to be a ton of people who want to buy into that business.

Jon Tota (12:47):

Yeah, I think that’s true. And I, I remember from our time together when I was, when I was part of your business owners council, and, and today I’ve seen some of the people involved with Birthing of Giants and same kind of thing. They’re big businesses and these, these people have built them up as you know, their own business in their model, but they’ve really scaled very well. So I think you’ve always attract that kind of a, I guess, more of a practical entrepreneur. I know you’ve been writing books all along. And when you look at the list of all your books that you’ve written, it’s almost every several years you release another book. Is that part of what attracts that type of entrepreneur to you, that the style of your writing? And how important are these books to your business model and who you are out there in the community?

Lewis Schiff (13:41):

I produce a book about every five years. I’m working on another one now I’m happy to talk about it, but the five year steps, those five-year increments reflect my own kind of education as an entrepreneur. And so I have done three books that depend on something called primary research, which is I interviewed- And I say, I mean, I hire a team of usually a PhD candidates to interview hundreds. Sometimes thousands of people, the most I ever interviewed was about 5,000 people. And that is hard to do. I mean, that’s a ton of money and a ton of time. And you know, once you have that, not only do you have a material for your own book, but there’s a ton of other writers who use primary research to develop their secondary research, meaning you’ve read it probably if you picked up the newspaper or looked at the newspaper on your screen today, a reporter said, according to a study, blankety blank, blank blank.

Lewis Schiff (14:35):

So I’m that study in my books. I write these books about the studies I do. And therefore a lot of other people quote my work because it’s original research. And I have found that while that’s very, very difficult, you know, process I have found that’s what makes my books valuable. And I would sort of as a cautionary tale to anyone, your books have to be based on other people, more than yourself, not withstanding an autobiography. But you know, most people who have a story, they want to tell they, they have to have the rigor to go get other people who want to tell that story and then be a vessel- just like we started talking about the beginning, but as an interviewer – and be a vessel for that story. I have a pretty big turnoff to businesses, to books, especially business books, where someone just tells me about, you know, how they think the future is going to be X or they think the future’s going to be Y without talking to anyone else but themselves. I think you have to do that. And so my books have done that. And as a result, like I said, I’ve been quoted a lot and the books have been really wonderful brochures for the work I do as a, as an educator and an owner of an education enterprise.

Jon Tota (15:42):

And so books in this primary research category, it, as you said, it’s a lot of, lot of work. It’s a big undertaking and you’ve just got to conduct so much research and so many interviews. How are you balancing that with your other ventures at the same time? Because I know a lot of our listeners are entrepreneurs and business leaders out there who want to write a book. I selfishly want to understand how you do this as well, but how are you balancing it? Do you go into a certain mode once every five years where you shut everything else off and just focus on the research and the book, or you kind of doing it both simultaneously?

Lewis Schiff (16:19):

Books have a crescendo, right? I mean, you start off, it starts off very early on where you have an idea for a book and you just kind of crank out the equivalent of a term paper. It’s called the book proposal, but it looks like a term paper back in school and, um, you know, 20, 25 pages, but it takes a couple of months to write it. And that’s that you just do that. You burn the midnight oil because you don’t even know if anyone’s going to buy the book, but then there’s this wonderful moment where a publisher buys your book and then either there’s a deadline, right? So let’s say within nine months or 18 months, you have to return something to them. So, you know, the crescendo in terms of hours and energy, it looks like what you think it does. It’s the first day, it starts off with very little work.

Lewis Schiff (17:00):

And then by the 18th month, it’s like, you have to put everything else aside to work on it. But I would say it’s a pretty ugly process. I mean, it’s really kind of ugly. So for primary research, for example, and broad primary research can fall to two categories, one is where you interview a thousand people. And the other is just interviewing 10 people in depth. I mean, you don’t have to do like phone survey interviews if you don’t want to. There’s other ways to do primary research. But the hard part about primary research are the dead ends. So you have to interview people. And then after one hours of interview, you say, ah, this wasn’t the right person. Like there’s a lot of heartache with all the dead ends that you go through, but that’s, that’s just plodding along and you start to get excited about the next person you’re going to interview and hope that they’re the right person.

Lewis Schiff (17:42):

At the end of that process, when you feel like you’ve done all that interviewing and you’re in book composition mode and that’s sort of a slog, but it’s not, at least you’re mostly done talking to the outside world. I mean, there are definitely times when you have to go back to the interviewee or interviewees and find somebody to fill a hole. But so it’s two steps. I think there’s a heartache step, which is the interview process, lots of dead ends. And then there’s the writing and editing step, which is just, just discipline, pure 100% discipline. And you know, I think it’s just like they say with an elephant, you know, you gotta, you start with, you start with small bites, but I also want to say that I hire people to help me. So I hire people to coach me during that, I hire people to do research for me during that. I don’t take it all on myself. That would be too much for me.

Jon Tota (18:27):

And so if you had to pick an obviously I think Armchair Millionaire was probably a really meaningful book for you because of all the things that it created as a result. But if our listeners are listening and there’s one book that you say right now is the most relevant, interesting book that they should read or your personal favorite, which of your books would you choose?

Lewis Schiff (18:48):

I’ll tell you, I’m going to say this answer because I think it’s the most helpful to your audience is I wrote a book. So if you know the publishing world, a contract will say something like you have to deliver 75,000 words or something like that because 75,000 words translates into what you think of as a book- it’s like 250 pages. Go to the bookstore, buy a book, put down your 20 bucks. You want to walk out with, you know, a pound of book, but that’s not really, not every story needs a pound of books. So I wrote a book called The First Habit where I really managed to get through it in 50 pages. And I knew that no publisher would be interested because no publisher would ever publish a 50 page book. And so I put it on my website for free.

Lewis Schiff (19:25):

I also self published it, but I put it on my website for free so that people could have access to it. It, it did the job and it only took 50 pages. I suppose my favorite book that I’ve ever written that I really liked still is Business Brilliant. It came out in 2013. It’s a great story. It uses original research. It talks about how, you know, the most successful people in America are not brilliant in any traditional sense. They may not have gone to the best schools. They may not have attained the highest degrees, but their business brilliant. And I think that people should understand what business brilliance looks like because you know, we’re at a tough time. I mean, people are going to college now and the colleges have become, you know, tuitions are so high and they’re walking out of these degrees and with debt.

Lewis Schiff (20:13):

And so I am a huge fan of traditional education, liberal arts education- you know, every edition for every edition’s sake; Worldliness, um, you know, perspective, uh, the ability to, to research something, the ability to organize your research around something. Those are all, uh, things we learned at school. But you know, what’s happening now. People are leaving school and they’re not necessarily well equipped for the working world. And so business brilliant is a book about what really takes place at the highest levels of business and what success looks like. And the first habit, the free book I put on my website is a very small slice of all of that. It says, you know, in the end business brilliant was about seven qualities that I found when I looked at all these really smart business people. And then I wrote this little book that was about one of the qualities and it just needed a little bit of time to work through it all in terms of a workbook and things you can do to understand your own journey.

Lewis Schiff (21:07):

That’s the most important research I’ve done. I will say that the Armchair Millionaire, my first book was, it’s actually such a funny book now because it’s got references to stuff that is so ancient. I recommend VHS tapes that you can doubt that you could buy, you know, even just like mentioned the internet as a thing, like there’s also the internet where you can go for research, really talked about it, almost embarrassed about it, but the core information of the Armchair Millionaire for anyone who wants to learn how to invest their money, you know, I still 30 years later invest my money in exactly the same way.

Jon Tota (21:40):

That’s awesome. And, and, and I think your book topics have evolved with, with your career. And so the early books were very much geared towards personal finance and then business building. And I know if I’m doing my math, right. I think the last book, The First Habit was 2016. So every five years, you’re just about due for another book, right?

Lewis Schiff (22:03):

Yes, sir. Yes.

Jon Tota (22:04):

Are you, can you tell what it’s going to be? Is that public knowledge?

Lewis Schiff (22:09):

Yeah, no, it’s, uh, I mean, cause we’re gonna talk about it. So, uh, it’s, it’s this concept called Moonshots and Moneymakers. And so really I have been chronicling how people manage their money and how people grow wealth differently over the, over 25 years. And I was in the middle of something huge. Um, I’m going to say this as a, I was in the right place at the right time, but I also made the wrong decision. I was at the right place at the right time when this thing called index funds. And talked about a boring subject index funds, but I was right there when they were being conceived. And the, the whole conceit of index funds was you don’t need brilliant people to run your money. You just need to own every stock everywhere because stocks as an asset class tend to go up and that’s, as I said, I still invest my money that way. I own every stock everywhere. I don’t make any individual stock choices. And so, you know, out of that came the company called Vanguard and Charles Schwab and they became behemoths. And really the largest pool of money in the world is now in index funds or index ETFs. And I was in there at the very beginning of that. And I was building these little websites that I sold for, you know, millions of dollars, but not, but people around me became billionaires with that stuff. And I didn’t have the consciousness to stick with it. I was sort of flitting to the next thing cause I thought of myself as a media guy, as personal finance guy. So anyway, fast forward to now I’m onto something very big, very significant seismic shift, which totally reminds me of where I was when I was in index funds.

Lewis Schiff (23:34):

And it has to do with the maturation of how these entrepreneurs, that I am crazy about. These people who start businesses at their kitchen table with their credit cards and how they go onto to battle test the quality of their business and the quality of their business acumen and the strategy behind their business; the market they serve, the fundamental economics of it. Those are businesses that I called moneymakers today. And then how some of them, not all of them are going to pivot and they’re going to pivot because their customers evolving and because the technology in their industry is changing. And they’re going to pivot from being really smart, often services based businesses into software or technology based platforms. And my long story short is there’s all these VCs and all these kids at Starbucks writing pitch decks right now. And they’re just chasing craziness, but there’s a whole bunch of seasoned business owners out there, money makers who are the perfect people to pivot into the moonshot territory that we often think of when we think of the venture capital world.

Lewis Schiff (24:37):

They just don’t know how to do it. And so moonshot to moneymakers is what we do for one week at Oxford. As we show these individuals how to take these really great businesses they built – and maybe they’re worth $10 million, or maybe they’re worth $50 million and that’s a lot of money – and we showed them that they could be worth a billion dollars. They just have to pivot and take it and sort of evolve their strategy in a way that makes them much more scalable. And that’s, that’s the thing I’m excited about. And that’s what the book is going to be about.

Jon Tota (25:03):

Fascinating. And it, and it’s very true to form with you because you’ve always focused on, like you said, those practical moneymaker business owners, the people who have built a business model that works, and it’s just, I guess, leveraging the market around you and the technology to figure out that, how do you go from being a $10 or $20 million business to a billion dollar company. And yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s super interesting. So that’s the new book and I know it coincides with the workshop that you just recently launched, which I think is awesome. And so my last question for you, because I think this kind of aligns with that is that there’s obviously some trait that you see in a successful entrepreneur because not every entrepreneur, even though they might have built a very successful business is the right fit for this moonshot concept that they might be very happy just being a successful money-making business. What is the trait? If I’m an entrepreneur listening and I’m running a successful business, what have you seen in all the research and all the people you’ve worked with that is that one thing that kind of stands out with all of these entrepreneurs that they might have that secret ingredient to get to that, that ultra successful level?

Lewis Schiff (26:14):

Well, listen, I’ll tell you, it’s not that they can’t it’s that they may not want to. So a lot of businesses can pivot into this moonshot territory, but what you have to do is it’s called the hero’s journey and you know, you’re a storyteller. So the hero’s journey is the, is that the only way you get to the next level of success is by betting, betting it all, betting it all on what you’ve already built. Now there’s a lot of tricks where you don’t have to truly bet at all, but I always, you know, we all tell the story of Star Wars where Luke Skywalker does an amazing thing by saving princess Leia in the first, you know, 30 minutes of the movie, maybe 45 minutes. He goes from being totally unknown to being the hero of the rebels for saving princess Leia. And I think of that is as entrepreneurs that build a $10 million business, like they rose from obscurity to build something really valuable.

Lewis Schiff (27:01):

Maybe they have a hundred employees whose lives and families depend on them and they felt something important. But remember what Luke Skywalker did he, after having saved princess Leia, got a fancy ribbon and he was a hero. Then the empire was threatening the rebels and they had this thing called the death star. And there’s a one in a million chance that he was going to be able to blow up the death star and he offered to try and do it. And in the end he did do it. And so what you have to do to become a moonshot is you have to take the success you’ve already created. And in some sense, bet it all on a Deathstar imploding, you know, moonshot that makes you the hero of all time. You have to bet the big thing and the great thing you’ve built on becoming huge and massive and changing your industry. And the way we call it, the tagline for birthing of giants is every business needs a giant. So you have to become the giant that your business needs you to be.

Jon Tota (27:54):

I love that. And it doesn’t seem too, too much of an obstacle when you compare it to the taking down the death star.

Lewis Schiff (28:03):

Right, right.

Jon Tota (28:03):

So I think it’s awesome. I know you’ve always said this to me too- and I think it’s very true to form – that it really does depend on what you want as an entrepreneur. Do you want just that business that makes a lot of money for you and provides a good living and lifestyle, or do you want to change an industry, disrupt the market and be the leader like that? So I, I think it’s a, I think it’s super cool, really excited to see obviously the book and hear more about moonshots and moneymakers the workshop. So for all of our listeners, if they’re interested in learning more about your books, the programs and workshops that you offer, and just following all your writing, cause you, you, you put writing out all over the place. Where’s the best place to, to keep up with you,

Lewis Schiff (28:48):

Birthing of giants.com. So birthingofgiants.com, your listeners can, um, they can get a free copy of the first habit. They can check out this really cool video interview training video training that we did during the last six months or so we created this video training called the Perfect Business Model. We didn’t even talk about that, but we, I worked with a person. His name is Chris Roth, who came up with the perfect business model. And as he did it, I mean, and I’ve been around thousands of entrepreneurs and this one guy came up with the perfect business model. So I interviewed him about it and I put him up there. Um, so there’s the first habit is free. The perfect business model is like a 45 minute video. Then you can see about moonshots and moneymakers at birthingofgiants.com. And then you can read about our flagship program, which I’m super proud of.

Lewis Schiff (29:33):

We didn’t talk much about, but it’s the thing I’m proudest of in a way it’s called Birthing of Giants fellowship week. And that’s where entrepreneurs, uh, some of the best entrepreneurs in the country get together and we advance our own knowledge base. And the way I always liken it is, you know, if you’re Tiger Woods or if you’re Lewis Hamilton in Formula1, or if you’re, um, you know, LeBron James, you’re the best at what you do, but you probably have the best coaches too. And so birthing of giants fellowship week is the best entrepreneurs getting together with the best coaches and really killing it.

Jon Tota (30:04):

Oh, that’s awesome. So birthingofgiants.com has just a ton of content. I think I attended that video session that you did with Chris Roth live. It’s that same video?

Lewis Schiff (30:16):

No, no. The video is more of an educational one, but yeah, we did talk about it.

Jon Tota (30:20):

Yeah. Super interesting. So for everybody listening, definitely check out birthing of giants.com. Uh, Lewis has a ton of interesting information there and valuable free resources. So thank you. Thank you for offering that. And Lewis, thank you for being here.

Lewis Schiff (30:35):

Yeah. Jon, thank you so much. I’m thrilled about the success you’re having. One day, we will have to pivot and change our chairs. And I want to hear about what got you to live what is clearly your best life?

Jon Tota (30:45):

Yes. Well, I have to see if I have the courage to be interviewed by you, and I know how uncomfortable you want to make me or your interviewee, but well, thank you. And to all of our listeners, thanks for being here every week. As you know, we have a new episode that comes out every Tuesday, so wherever you’re listening, be sure to subscribe, leave us comments. We love to hear from you guys and until our next episode, happy learning.

Jon Tota (31:13):

Hey everyone, Jon Tota here. I want to thank you for tuning into the show each week. We love our learning life community and are so grateful for your support. We’d appreciate it if you would take a minute to rate us and write a review for Learning Life, wherever you’re listening right now, your ratings and comments, help new people find the show so we can keep growing our community and bring great interviews on the topics you care most about.

 

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Onward to Victory with Rene Gadelha

Gadelha VictoryXR


“I just want to be involved with promoting education, good quality content, making it fun, but making it stick and making kids enjoy it and really kind of stoking the fire of curiosity.”

Rene Gadelha is the Chancellor of VictoryXR Academy, providing fully immersive virtual reality education. XR is a combination of both Virtual and Augmented reality, making a fully encompassing experience for learning in a virtual space.

Seeking something better than the boxed-in setting of a Zoom classroom, Rene and VictoryXR are working on creating “Digital Twin” campuses for schools and universities and even fully immersive VR field trips.

Rene believes that the ultimate way to distill learning and reduce distractions is to bring the in-person learning experience seamlessly anywhere. High quality AR and VR will be more engaging than the Zoom lessons of today.

Learn more at https://www.victoryxr.com/.

Check out this episode!

Rene Gadelha (00:00):

But if we can democratize education and provide opportunities to the kiddos everywhere, the world will be a better place.

Intro (00:08):

Welcome to learning life where top experts share their business knowledge and personal journeys each week. And the thing that I’ve realized from the CEO to the NFL football players, to the Janet, Eric were our toughest critics, and we’re hardest on ourselves. I wanted to bring education to the market. I wake up in the morning and I am constantly learning. The only way to grab somebody’s attention is with a story about learning. And now your host, John Tota,

Jon Tota (00:35):

Welcome to another episode of learning life with John Tota. My guest today is Rene Gadelha. Rene is the chancellor of the victory XR Academy and vice president of curriculum development at Victory XR, where they’re creating fully immersive virtual reality learning for middle school and up to supplement traditional education. Rene is spearheading the victory XR Academy. That’s pioneering their concept of a digital twin campus hosted entirely in virtual reality. It’s a really cool concept, which is even more important right now. They’re not just delivering remote learning, but also an engaged virtual community that offers the social side of learning as well. We recently had John Blackmon on the show speaking about virtual reality, and it was one of our most popular episodes this year. So I wanted to invite Rene on the show to talk to us about how her company is leveraging VR to enhance the learning experience for students. So let’s get into it Rene, welcome to learning life.

Rene Gadelha (01:23):

Thanks, John. It’s great to be here with you today.

Jon Tota (01:26):

So I think the first thing I wanted to ask you about is just the, your name victory XR Academy, and you’re using XR as opposed to VR. So I just wanted to define that or get your explanation on that for our audience. How do you see the difference between traditional VR and what you’re calling XR?

Rene Gadelha (01:42):

Well, we, we used to be victory VR because we were exclusively producing virtual reality content. But then we decided to get into the lane of AR a bit so we could reach younger audiences. But really the difference is XR is just cross reality, which encompasses AR augmented reality, Mr. Mixed reality and VR virtual reality. We don’t dabble in the mixed reality, but as I mentioned, we do a few things in AR, but we pretty much, most of what we’ve focused on is VR, where you’re fully immersed in an alternate world. If you will, you have a headset on and any direction you look in 360 degrees, you’re in this super imposed created world, if you will.

Jon Tota (02:27):

Yes. So I, I just think it’s so amazing. I’ve seen some of the samples of what you guys are doing, and it’s really cool concept, obviously very timely right now while everybody is dealing with this challenge of remote learning, how are you seeing what’s the experience like for students? I know you talk about this twin campus concept, explain that to us. Like, what does that actually mean?

Rene Gadelha (02:47):

Sure. So at the victory XR Academy, we provide fully immersive virtual reality education. And so students can come in and have that social interaction. They can hand things off to one, ask questions of the teacher, et cetera, which is much different. You know, people are referring to a lot of the zoom learning that’s having to occur because of the pandemic as virtual learning. But I would argue that’s just online learning. The virtual learning is really the full on immersive experience and that’s what we’re providing at the Academy. And so what we’ve seen, we’ve been open for several months and we really focus on middle school, high school and college level is that there’s a need for a digital campuses, particularly at the college and university level, because so many students went back to school only to be sent back home or they’re, you know, in their apartments or dorms learning online with their instructors.

Rene Gadelha (03:40):

And so a digital twin campus that we’re creating is just exactly that it’s a twin version of the school within look of the campus, their quad, their logo, and branding, a particular building aesthetic that they have. And we create that. And then the teachers can meet inside of this digital twin campus and still convey much of the learning and the curriculum that they’re already delivering, but they can do it with the students in the room. And it is a very new concept, but we feel that, you know, in talking with universities and they’re telling us they’re facing this existential crisis because it’s hard to justify tens of thousands of dollars for a zoom education, if you will. And so this allows them to still convene and get together and be together in a safe way while they’re still learning substantively and in an engaged way.

Jon Tota (04:33):

Yeah. I, I just think it’s fascinating because of exactly that reason that we’re seeing schools, that they go back and then because of safety reasons, the kids can’t be there, you need to deliver something at a higher level that looks better than what they’re seeing online everyday on YouTube or through zoom, remote meetings. And, and so now is the concept that students are sitting at home or wherever they are at present. And they’re logged in with the virtual reality headsets and going through a regular class schedule, but almost feeling like they’re existing on the digital campus with their peers.

Rene Gadelha (05:06):

So this would be supplemental. We certainly don’t advocate for anyone to spend full days in here for all of that progression, but where it makes sense. And so yes, teachers, we were actually running a comparative anatomy class right now at the high school level on Wednesdays at three 30 and it’s a live class. So people sign up for that. You know, it’s three 30 central time where I am in Iowa, but you can be anywhere in the world and in your time zone where it fits you would come in and we have a teacher who’s teaching live. So if you have a question, you raise your hand, she calls on you, but she’s still going through an entire class, just like you would in the real world, the traditional school model. And she’s maybe showing a video clip or a YouTube clip, or they’re going on a, a virtual field trip somewhere differently yesterday.

Rene Gadelha (05:52):

The lesson we were actually out in space and the students were assembling the digestive system of a human by handling the different organs. And then we went and looked at the inside of a tat. And again, this is all in VR, so students can handle these organs and put it together. And it’s just more critical thinking, higher level it’s engaging. And so we were able to meet with students and have that experience where, you know, again, in zoom, you’re unable to do that in a classroom now it’s not even really safe given what’s going on. So it’s just a great way to kind of keep that going. But we see this as the future of education, pandemic aside, this is something we’ve been working on for several years now. And it’s, we’re just having a great success with it.

Jon Tota (06:39):

I, I think it’s so interesting that you’re doing it. And I guess something like the pandemic that we’re living through, kind of got you to a level of adoption that probably would have taken years for you to achieve. And now it’s almost this urgent need to have a higher level of education. And so you starting to get some research or data that’s showing that this could potentially be a more effective means of education than being completely impersonal, at least having this hybrid option where you can dive a little bit deeper. Like you said, go on a field trip that you could never go on in the real world that that’s supplement to their education that have you gotten to the point where there’s any data that shows they’re consuming or retaining knowledge at a faster or a better rate.

Rene Gadelha (07:23):

Definitely. And I’d be happy to share links for some white papers on that. But yes, if it’s good quality content, the retention rate shows much longer and a deeper understanding. And then the students just kids these days are born into the digital age. I mean, it’s, you’re hard pressed to find a kid under three who doesn’t have some sort of technology in their lives. And so they really, this is almost an appendage working with technology. And so we’re trying to meet them where they’re at again with the substantive content. That’s really important. At victory XR, we don’t want to just, you know, game-ify everything and water things down. So if it’s a good use case for learning and we believe science because science is science everywhere you go. So we believe science is a great, it has many, many great use cases.

Rene Gadelha (08:12):

We’ve built. We work with Carolina, biological, the world’s leading live specimen supplier to schools. We worked with them and create a dissection packages of the pig, the cat, you know, so if it’s a good use case and we’ve really made an effort to kind of create these experiences for students, and we feel that math is another arena, I mean, being able to work with geometry classes and show things that you can’t really do in classroom, or just on paper, it not only sparks curiosity and enjoyment for the kids, but it really delivers that learning because technology really only amplifies whatever’s behind it. And so we’re trying to put really substantive quality lessons behind the technology to provide that rich, robust experience for students. Yeah.

Jon Tota (09:00):

And I, and I guess it’s like science, like you said, as a perfect example, because you can really allow them to immerse themselves and dive deep into a topic that if they weren’t physically there, they couldn’t do that. So I know you deal with school systems likely and building, as you were saying, kind of supplemental programs after school programs or things that are kind of hybrid with the traditional learning. What about homeschool? There’s like so many people right now are dealing with the remote learning. They’re largely homeschooling the kids. And maybe they’re interested in having this extra aid, something that could help them do the job, or how are you guys looking at the homeschool model or some way that regular retail families can, can get access to your Academy?

Rene Gadelha (09:47):

Yes, we actually we have a free tour of our Academy about once a week to help expose people to what we’re doing. And I actually had a homeschool parent. I think she was in the Netherlands who joined us. It was evening for her, but she asked, you know, if I, if I were to purchase a license to the Academy, how does that work? You know, and, you know, are there teachers all day, are they available all the time? And we’re certainly not at that level yet, but you know, what I told her is you could supplement what you’re already doing with your child at home, by coming in. And, you know, if you’re teaching them science, then we have more than a hundred science, virtual field trips and every field trips between five and 10 minutes. And so you can enhance what you’re already doing at home by giving them these rich and fun experiences as well.

Rene Gadelha (10:31):

And we’re branching out into social studies, we’ve got some Spanish lessons and the cool thing about Spanish lessons, if I can just digress for a second is we actually created the setting of the pyramid of the moon, which is two it’s the city near Mexico city. And so, you know, millions, I don’t know about millions, but thousands of tourists go every year to look at it. So we created that very setting in virtual reality and the Spanish teacher taught her Spanish classes on top of one of these pyramids. So it’s just a really cool way to learn Spanish, you know, and she’s teaching adjectives and just traditional Spanish content, but in a really unique setting. And then we pulled in a virtual field trip of the real Teotihuacan. So you can see it. And when you go there, you can only climb up so many stairs on the pyramid and they don’t let you for safety reasons go all the way to the top. But in virtual reality, we went all the way to the top. And so it’s just really neat because you can, you know, when you’re being very intentional, you can pick what you want to put in the VR experience and help expand that learning. And like I said, make it fun. And then it sticks. And the studies show that it does,

Jon Tota (11:43):

Hey listeners, John Tota here as businesses everywhere are struggling with the new normal of hiring and training new employees virtually. Do you know if your company’s onboarding program is up your employees for success, it’s more important than ever right now. And new people are joining your company and learning their culture while operating almost entirely from remote locations. E-Learning brothers has the answer for you in their brand new virtual onboarding handbook, download a checklist to see how well your onboarding program stacks up. Then read the free handbook that covers the four pillars of onboarding and includes a sample template for a fully virtual onboarding program. Visit learninglifeshow.com/ELB to download your free checklist and handbook today provided by e-learning brothers. The industry leading provider of e-learning solutions. eLearning Brothers has everything you need to launch your own virtual onboarding program to keep your business scaling and cultured growing during these challenging times, get your free handbook today at learninglifeshow.com/ELB. Now back to our show, I think it’s so cool. What you’re doing now, you started as an educator, I think you were an actual teacher yourself, and then you, your path kind of led you here. How did you go from that path and what was the interest for you to get into something that I know you’re not a tech person yourself, but you’re in a super technical field as an educator now, how’d you how’d you make that jump?

Rene Gadelha (13:09):

It’s pretty funny because yes, I’m not a tech person really at all. And I’m, so I love this is the learning that I continue to do as a lifelong learner is learn the tech and get more immersed and understanding it better. But yes, I’m a, I’m a former high school English teacher. I’ve also served on two different school boards, one in New Jersey, and then one here in Iowa where I live now. I’m a parent to two daughters, one of the university and another, who’s a senior in high school. And then I spent about eight years freelancing for Pearson education and CTB McGraw Hill and ETS, and a bunch of big education companies. And I think it’s been a very windy path. I certainly wouldn’t have projected this as my future. It’s where I’ve landed, but I I’m really just following what I’m passionate about.

Rene Gadelha (13:56):

And I believe that when done well and intentionally education is really, you know, we can democratize education and provide opportunities to the kiddos everywhere. The world will be a better place as folksy as that may sound. So really that’s my goal. I just want to be involved with promoting education, good quality content, making it fun, but making it stick and making kids enjoy it and really kind of stoking the fire of curiosity. And as I mentioned, my own learning comes in the way of learning the technical side of things and the technology, and it’s fascinating and it’s fun. And so I’m really having a great time learning myself.

Jon Tota (14:36):

I think it’s, it’s such a cool journey. And also just looking at using technology just to just improve on education, make it available to more people or, or even a higher quality of learning available to more people. I think it’s a great mission. And so tell us a little bit about the content itself. Like how do you create this, or if someone’s listening and they want to get content like this, are you making it available in different ways so that it’s easy for people to get their hands? Cause I always think it’s this barrier of entry. We have a VR set with our PS4, but we only use the games that are put out on there. And I didn’t even know that there were other options. How do you recommend people get involved if they want to start exploring this type of VR?

Rene Gadelha (15:19):

So I would say you know, if you, if you have a headset, you just want to see what we’re about at a very low price point. We’ve got a product, if you will called VXR Direct. And it’s our Netflix style of virtual reality education. So every piece of content that we have we have on this channel, if you will, and for $10 a month, you can subscribe and you can do dissections and go on field trips. And we’ve added history that we’re working with. Another company called roam reborn, and they they’re archeologists, they’re recreating the, the main historical structures so that you can in virtual reality, explore the Coliseum and see these things again from the comfort of your own couch, in your pajamas, if you want. But that’s a really easy low-hanging fruit way to see what we’re doing.

Rene Gadelha (16:07):

But for those interested in the Academy, there are a few different entry points. You can be in an institution who wants to build the digital twin campus, as we mentioned. And then we would help try to recreate your buildings and work with your staff. We also offer professional development in VR because kids are very excited to learn in VR. It’s the teachers who, you know, particularly you know, I’m almost 50 years old, you know, they can think, Oh, I don’t know if that’s for me or I’m going to get motion sickness or I don’t know how to do that. So we really want to educate the educators as well. And so we’ve created professional development to help them along, but we would work with the schools and help VR eyes, their their existing curricula. Or you can just join us. We, you know, we’re talking about with homeschooler, you could just join and enter in and you would have access to any live classes we’re running.

Rene Gadelha (17:00):

And I mentioned, we’re doing the comparative anatomy and we’re about to start math. So those are sprinkled, you know, one or two a week, but we’re hoping to ramp that up. You can go in and access our prerecorded lessons. So everything we teach live, we record and put in our library bank. And so while you might not be able to ask a live question of the teacher and a lesson that was recorded, you could certainly pull up all of the 3d assets they’re using and, and do the activity when they’re doing it. You would still see any slides or videos or anything that was shown and go through it at your own pace. So it’s great for individualized learning as well. So there are a few different ways to hit it. But I would encourage people for whom this sounds really kind of out there to just come on one of our tours and see what we’re doing. You have a headset, that’s great. If not, we actually a zoom option. And while you don’t get the immersive feel, you certainly get a flavor of the what’s possible and it’s truly groundbreaking stuff.

Jon Tota (17:57):

And, and so when you talk about headsets and I know you’re not a technical person, so you’re actually probably a good one to give the recommendation. If someone says, wow, that’s really cool. I’d love to try it out. And I just need to get a headset. What headsets do you recommend? How much are they having to spend on that? Where do you, where do you get them?

Rene Gadelha (18:15):

Well, you know, if you’ve got if money is not an issue, then you know, really what we recommend is that a six doff headset and doth is for degrees of freedom. You can get a, a three doff, which was like, the Oculus go is probably the most common thing people are aware of. And I don’t think Oculus is even making that one anymore or the six doff headset. And that just allows you to have more interactions and movement within VR. And so the price point for those have come down, I just, with my own money on my own purchase, a quest to, because they just came out like 10 days ago or two weeks ago. I did have the quest one it’s, it was $299. So super cheap, super easy much more affordable than a couple years ago. A six doff headset was, you know, a thousand dollars or you can get a really souped up one for $2,000 with the, you know, the whole laptop. And you’re tethered the graphics card is a little better, but for $300, you can get a great product in the quest to, I I’m familiar with it, so I would recommend it, but there are a lot of other options out there. Pico and, and HTC, Microsoft, you know, every big tech company, I think pretty much has a headset. So we were kind of device agnostic as long as it’s six stops. So you can get the full experience. Right.

Jon Tota (19:34):

And does it require a computer of some sort of PCs or any specifics because you have to connect into something, right?

Rene Gadelha (19:41):

Yeah. Look, you get the untethered headset, like the quest to that I’m speaking of now, you are untethered. Everything is, you know, all in with your two hand controllers and your headset, a separate computer, but you can have a tethered model and those are, you know, they have higher end graphics cards. So you could do a little more, but the, the freestanding headsets have been around now and have evolved enough that, you know, particularly for schools who have budgets to worry about, especially if they’re trying to, you know, maximize and have, you know, maybe a cart of headsets or of lab of headsets, if you will, you know, they’re, they need to stick on the lower price point. So I would say for $300, you could get exactly what you need.

Jon Tota (20:22):

Got it. Got it. And so, yeah, so I think that’s probably a huge advancement in the industry overall, just having these untethered headsets, because it just opens it up, it’s that much more available. And now when you log on with one of those, you can go in the app store and access systems like yours in anything else out there, and you don’t need all the other technology, which I think it’s super cool now for your company and your role as chancellor, what’s your vision. Now you saw, you know, I think the adoption just go through the roof. Obviously this year, you guys are, I would say probably very popular. Everyone’s always talking about disrupting education, particularly higher education. And I know you told me that you don’t really do this for under middle school. So for listeners, this is like middle school, high school and above higher education, I would think is going to be a huge opportunity for you right now. And they’ve got to justify, like you said, this hire this expense and how can you do that with virtual reality? When you’re looking at education and the disruption of it in with kind of how we fast-forwarded, what do you, what do you think a a university looks like three years from now, five years from now?

Rene Gadelha (21:34):

Well, I think every university in the next few years should have a VR component. I mean, if you think you’re spending $30,000 a year for your student and even books, you know, can run a thousand dollars to add another $500 per student to include an untethered headset and a license to our Academy. You know, let’s say we could create this digital twin so that universities could have the same model they have now. But most of their classes, if not all, could also have a VR component that would allow students to access learning on their own, or to have live classes that the university is running and their teachers are running, or the students themselves can just meet up to collaborate for projects. You know, there are ways for, you know, one of the things that we talk about on our tours are students can go in on their own.

Rene Gadelha (22:23):

And let’s say they were assigned to curate 10 pieces of impressionistic art in our art gallery and display it in the museum, you know, so you can assign students to go in on their own and do something and they can take, what’s called a snapshot in VR, in our Academy. And then just email the snapshot to the teacher, which is basically proof they did it. So the teacher doesn’t even have to go into, you know, the virtual university to see what they did. They certainly could, but, you know, there are other ways to collaborate and use that social angle for students to get together again from the comfort of their home. And then what is neat about that is it just eliminates borders and geography from learning. You could be working with someone at your university in California, and there could be someone in England. You could have someone in South Korea and now suddenly you’ve really just eliminated the confines of travel expenses. And, you know, you’ve just really opened up the doors for students to learn from other students from everywhere. And that in and of itself is a great learning experience.

Jon Tota (23:28):

I think it’s so fascinating. I think I’m sold on it. I want to go like, try it out right now. I’ve got my three boys who are largely homeschooling now or remote learning. I shouldn’t say homeschooling remote learning, but just to get that extra level of engagement to get them so interested. And I just feel like looking forward, if you just expect this as the way that kids are going to learn or the way they’re going to augment their traditional education at the university level, I would think so. Thank you, Rene. It was so interesting having you on the show for our audience to learn more about Victory XR, the Academy VXR direct, what’s the best URL, where should they go to find out more about you guys?

Rene Gadelha (24:07):

And our website is VictoryXR.com. And that website will then talk about all of, you know, the Academy that the XR direct. And then I would also say, you know, for those of you who are interested in taking a tour you can find me on LinkedIn and I’m sure John you’ll have some links up, but we have a tour coming this Monday, the 23rd at noon central time, for those who have a headset, we’d love to see you in there. It’s free. It’s an hour long. We go through at least a dozen classroom spaces. We also have a tour coming up on Thursday, December 3rd, at 11 central. And that one has a zoom option. So if you don’t yet have a headset, but I’ve piqued your curiosity, you know through the conversation here with John, we’d love to have you that way as well. And we take questions and answers, you know, at the end of the tour. So we’re, we’re very open to feedback. We love comments, you know, we’re all in this together,

Jon Tota (24:59):

But I love it. So the free tour, super cool idea. And we’ll have in the episode notes, we’ll have links to everything, so our audience can check it out. Rene, thank you for coming on the show. It was really interesting to learn about everything you guys are doing at VictoryXR. So thanks for being here.

Rene Gadelha (25:13):

Thanks for having me, John, thanks for promoting all of the learning stuff that you do. It’s great that you’re out there. It’s another resource and it was a pleasure being on with you

Jon Tota (25:22):

Pleasure and to all of our listeners. Thank you for being here every week. As you know, we have a new episode that comes out every Tuesday, so wherever you’re listening, be sure to subscribe, leave us comments. We’d love to hear from you. And until the next episode, happy learning. Hey everyone, John Tota here. I want to thank you for tuning into the show each week. We love our learning life community and are so grateful for your support. We’d appreciate it. If you would take a minute to rate us and write a review for learning life, wherever you’re listening right now, your readings and comments, help new people find the show so we can keep growing our community and bring great interviews on the topics you care most about.

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Episode 121: Positive Habits with Andrew Kap

Andrew Kap Learning Life


Build healthy habits and create positive changes in your life.

Andrew Kap is the founder and CEO of Awesome Marvelous, Inc., a content publishing and marketing agency, and the best-selling author of The Last Law of Attraction Book You’ll Ever Need To Read. With all of his strategies and techniques, Kap helps people separate themselves and stand out through all the noise. His book offers over 18+ ways to manifest the life you want to live so there’s something for everyone.

Kap put these techniques into practice during a dark time in his life. After seeing such great success with them, he’s now inspired to help others create a genuine, sustainable impact in their lives.

In this episode, Kap shares a few techniques that you can start using right now to change your trajectory and discusses how he came to believe in the secret of the law of attraction.

Learn more about Andrew Kap’s book here – The Last Law of Attraction Book You’ll Ever Need To Read: The Missing Key To Finally Tapping Into The Universe And Manifesting Your Desires

Andrew Kap’s YouTube Channel 

The Law of Attraction in 60-Seconds video

Check out this episode!

Andrew Kap (00:00):

Two weeks later, I felt better, which is saying a lot with someone for a broken heart. Three months later, I’m in a brand new relationship, way healthier and over my ex. Four months later, I’m making more money than any point in my life. And six months later, everything’s different. I’m in the best shape of my life. I’m waking up happy and fulfilled.

Intro (00:16):

Welcome to Learning Life, where top experts share their business knowledge and personal journeys each week. “And the thing that I realized from the CEO to the NFL football player, to the janitor – we’re our toughest critics, and we’re hardest on ourselves.” – James Lawrence And wanted to bring education to the market. I wake up in the morning and I am constantly learning.” “The only way to grab somebody’s attention is with a story” – Cal Fussman. Happy learning! And now your host, Jon Tota,

Jon Tota (00:44):

Welcome to another episode of Learning Life with Jon Tota. My guest today is Andrew Kap. Andrew is the founder and CEO of Awesome Marvelous, Inc., a content publishing and marketing agency, and the best-selling author of The Last Law of Attraction Book You’ll Ever Need [To Read]. With all his strategies and techniques. Andrew helps people separate themselves and stand out through all the noise. His book offers a never-before-seen perspective on the law of attraction and positive habits that anyone can benefit from even if you don’t believe in the law of attraction. He used these techniques to turn his own life around and now wants to help others create a genuine, sustainable impact in their lives. Andrew has a ton of excellent content out online and all his work is excellent. So I’m excited to have him with us here today. Andrew, welcome to Learning Life.

Andrew Kap (01:26):

Hey Jon, thanks so much for having me, my friend. I’m really excited to be here and really excited about where this conversation might go.

Jon Tota (01:32):

So I’m really interested in what you talk about and I think our audience will be as well. So just to kind of kick us off, define the law of attraction because I know there’s tons of writing and content out there and, and yours is really one of the premier pieces, but what is, if you could sum it up, what is the law of attraction?

Andrew Kap (01:50):

You know, it’s so funny on my YouTube channel, I challenged myself to explain it in 60 seconds. I even had like a countdown clock. So I’ve got to meet this standard now, but a fast way to put it really is the understanding that we are all vibrational. You look at us under a microscope and you actually see that we’re not as solid as we think we are. And everything about us, everything in our thoughts, everything around us vibrates at a frequency and you know, law of attraction is basically this principle is a universal principle by which, you know, whatever you think about will literally attract what you want into your life, because you’re vibrating the frequency of it, which is triggering that frequency back into your physical manifested form. And it’s a little extra long-winded here, but people hear that and they think, well, I want the big job promotion. I think about it all day, every day, how come it’s not happening for me if this thing works. And, um, so that always answers, like, are you thinking about that job promotion with certainty and anticipation and happiness, or are you thinking about it with frustration and impatients because that’s probably you thinking about the lack of it without even realizing it and attracting the lack of it back.

Jon Tota (02:53):

That’s interesting. So it really, in a lot of ways for you, it’s the perspective, it’s the mindset and how you’re looking at challenges in your life as opposed to just focusing on it and because it could be focusing on the negative aspect.

Andrew Kap (03:06):

Yeah. And you know, it’s, it’s funny because entrepreneurs from all walks of life, whether they buy into the law of attraction or not surely understand the value and the impact of how you see things, because it affects everything. Even if you’re not a law of attraction person, even if you don’t believe in this energetic soup that we’re in, for lack of better term, everyone understands psychology. Everyone understands, hopefully the reticular activating system. What you focus on is what’s going to happen because that’s basically the direction that your brain is going to take you in that the universe is going to take you in that your subconscious mind driving the wheel is going to push you in without you even realizing it.

Jon Tota (03:38):

So now just take us all the way back, because obviously you didn’t start as an author. You didn’t start on this path originally. What was the genesis of this? I know you had a major life change and that’s when some of these techniques really came into play for you. Tell us a little bit about your journey and how you got started on this path.

Andrew Kap (03:56):

Yeah. And the funny thing is the book was just last year, whereas this journey started like 16 years ago because I’m sure there are entrepreneurs who can appreciate, you know, the whole idea of having to kill your own dinner so to speak every single day, rather than be on a salary. And, you know, oftentimes we find ourselves like looking into, you know, positive mindset and modalities, personal development, things like that. So law of attraction is just one modality of many that I, I kind of stumbled on and it kind of seemed like it worked and I would have my own successes and failures with it. I was never truly consistent. And I always thought that the law of attraction wasn’t consistent, but I would later find out that it was me who wasn’t. And I guess I had this epiphany probably about 12 years ago where I lost my business and my relationship of three years all in the same week.

Andrew Kap (04:39):

And obviously neither were my decision. In fact, because I was struggling so hard to keep the business afloat, the relationship was suffering for that reason. And she actually, she broke up over text. Wasn’t even a phone call, obviously wasn’t in person. So it obviously wasn’t fun. And I was basically at this depressed point where I’m like, listen, this thing kind of works and I’ve got to do something here. Something has to change. So I don’t care what it happens, how it happens when it happens. I don’t care about any of that. All I know is I’m going to finally go all in with this thing because when I’ve done it a little bit in the past, it’s worked a little bit. So let me just, you know, do this. And when I say all in, I don’t mean all day every day because none of us have really the capacity for that.

Andrew Kap (05:17):

And I wanted to strategically use something that I wouldn’t break on. So I did every day for just five or 10 minutes, doing simple gratitude and visualization methods that were hopefully going to turn the tide for me once and for all. And I’ll tell you, Jon, that the results were miraculous in a way I’d never could have expected because two weeks later I felt better, which is saying a lot with someone for broken heart. Three months later, I’m in a brand new relationship, way healthier, and over my ex. Four months later, I’m making more money than any point in my life. And six months later, everything’s different. I’m in the best shape of my life. I’m waking up happy and fulfilled. And there’s no other thing that I did consistently. I mean, I did other things, but this was the thing that was the difference maker.

Andrew Kap (05:54):

So I had to say myself, okay, this had to do the trick. And the whole thing about the book is, you know, I didn’t do the book until 10 or 11 years later where I wrote it. And I just told myself like, listen, if I’m going to do something in business, I need to do something that I’m really passionate about. That I’m going to look forward to responding to emails from customers and I’m not going to lose interest and I’m just going to be fully engaged. And this is what popped into my head. So I just went to work, hopefully trying to craft something that people haven’t seen before, which is why I titled it: The Last Law of Attraction Book You’ll Ever Need to Read. I was very intentional about making sure that this did something that no other book did. And, uh, that’s, that’s my long-winded answer for that, my friend.

Jon Tota (06:31):

So writing the book now is kind of the end of the journey in a lot of ways or your way of kind of taking this to another level, sharing the story with other people, getting the strategies out there, but was this really kind of the start of your company? Awesome. Marvelous, Inc. was when you made this pivot and started to change your life and kind of put these practices into, into practice for yourself.

Andrew Kap (06:53):

Yeah. The company was about a year and a half prior, and really I spent the first year and a half, like messing around and trying different things and kind of feeling things out. I think entrepreneurs out there can really relate to those situations where you might get burned out or there’s situations where you wake up successful, but not doing what you love. And I didn’t want to fall into any of those traps. And again, I’ve been an entrepreneur for 20 years, so I’ve kind of like I’ve had all my bumps and bruises and I learned things the hard way and some things the easy way. And I was just in the mindset where like, let me give myself some space and time and, and enough room. And fortunately I had the finances to do it where I just felt around until I finally made this decision. And since I’ve done this, I just haven’t looked back because fortunately it has really been fulfilling for me.

Jon Tota (07:37):

And so do you feel- like you mentioned being all in, is that a big piece of it is making that commitment and saying, okay, there is no backup plan. There’s no safety net. I’m just going all in and failure’s not really an option?

Andrew Kap (07:50):

Yeah, I took it to an even deeper level with this whole situation. It wasn’t even that failure’s not an option because like we know it isn’t, but it was almost like failure isn’t even a consideration. Meaning if I were to fail, I wouldn’t care. I was just keep doing it. Like I was, I was so pissed off and I was so depressed. Nothing was going to stop me including repeated failure if that were to happen from doing this. So I almost transcended failure in a sense that even if it came, I would not have stopped.

Jon Tota (08:16):

I know gratitude you mentioned is a big piece of this. How much of it do you attribute to that regular practice of gratitude? And if that’s so big, what is the way that you got into it or what is a simple way for our audience to begin that in as a regular part of their lives?

Andrew Kap (08:34):

For sure. Well, like the first part answer the question like gratitude is the strongest, easiest way, in my opinion of accessing your way through the law of attraction to pull things in, because you’re basically telling the universe, or if you don’t believe in that your subconscious mind that you have what you want and you’re reinforcing that reality and that’s psychology. Again, by hook or by crook, it brings it. And to give a quick example, you know, people think of, let’s use something physical, like, you know, you lift weights to get muscles, right? It’s over simplified, but I’ll give you two reasons why that might happen. Reason possibility number one is you lift weights and when you go to sleep at night, the muscle fairy comes and just gives you muscles. Another explanation is that when you’re lifting weights, you’re putting so much stress on your body that the muscles are literally tearing and little parts around there, and then your body responds by healing and filling in those gaps with more muscle fiber.

Andrew Kap (09:28):

Now I’m sure most people would say, it’s the second answer, but I would tell them it actually doesn’t matter what the answer is. What matters is you lift weights, you get muscles. You put in X, you get Y. And by that same token, you do law of attraction methods, and whether you believe in them or not by hook or by crook, you see these amazing results that you never could have predicted come through.

Andrew Kap (09:48):

And since I’m king of the long-winded answer, maybe I can even teach your audience, one of my methods that they can just try out right now for free. I call this, this gratitude method the time-lapse method. And what you’re going to do is you’re going to write down 15 things that you’re grateful for: five of them are from your past, five of them are from your presen, and five of them are things that you want in the future. And the trick of this is you’re going to write all them out in the present tense, and then you’re going to jumble up your list. So it’s completely out of order. Maybe the first thing is a present and then the past and the future and another presence while mixed up. And you’re basically going to read down that list one at a time and take 20 to 60 seconds out to just feel whatever gratitude you can for that thing. And the really cool hook about this specific method is that two thirds of that list is real. It’s either happening or it has happened, meaning your gratitude is carrying a certain level of certainty and confidence and enthusiasm. That just can’t be forced. And since we don’t downshift very easily, and the future events are kind of like jumbled up and mixed in there, you’re almost tricking your vibration or your psychology or whatever, and to having the same certainty and confidence and gratitude and enthusiasm for those future things as well, thereby giving them a much larger push for you.

Jon Tota (11:00):

Oh, okay. I love that. I love that. And I think you’re right. Great time to be grateful. I think this must go to your point where you don’t necessarily have to believe in the law of attraction, because you’re saying that the past and the present, those are two thirds of it. You’ve already accomplished this, or it’s in progress. So you are in a way kind of tricking your brain into just following that momentum and that rhythm to achieve those, those five future goals, right?

Andrew Kap (11:26):

Yeah. And there’s one extra really cool part that most people don’t realize when they first hear it. One you’ve gotten this for free, it didn’t cost you any money, but two let’s say that I’m either lying or I’m diluted, I’m wrong. Let’s say one of those possibilities. While I’m asking you to engage in a process for five or 10 minutes, that still feels good. So even if the thing that you wanted didn’t come in and of itself, the moment that you took are the moments and minutes each day to do this are moments where have relief from stress or relief from all the worries of the world, where you just get to take time out and just be, and be present and enjoy the moment. So even at the barest minimum level, this is a win just by doing this for a few minutes a day.

Jon Tota (12:06):

So when you do it, what do you recommend? Like, what’s the setting? Are you doing it first thing in the morning? Are you meditating in some way? What’s your practice that people could maybe emulate a little bit?

Andrew Kap (12:18):

Well, you know, before I give it, just to say that the really cool thing about this is there’s no wrong way. Meaning in the end, the answer for each person is their comfort level. Is it easier for them to do it both in time and comfort in the morning or the evening or both, or any time at time of the day? So like me personally, when I was really doing this full tilt, I did it in the morning just because that worked the best for me. That’s how I started off my day. But I’ll tell you, Jon, I don’t even do that specifically everyday anymore. Even though I do take my own medicine and I still do use the methods from the book. The one thing that I do without fail these days is I have a friend where we just text each other every single day, we speak for one minute or five minutes or whatever, all the things that we’re grateful for.

Andrew Kap (12:57):

And we send that to the other person. And the cool thing about this is, you know, we’re friends so there’s a social pressure there. I don’t want to let him down and he doesn’t want to let me down. So it kind of keeps us honest in the sense that we’re going to do this every single day. So that’s the thing that I’m doing these days without fail to really reinforce my gratitude. And by the way, that’s not less effort or less valuable. You can speak it, you can write it, you can wish it, whatever works for you and feels good. That’s the ultimate answer.

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Jon Tota (14:30):

And so if someone’s looking at this and they read your book and they see all these different techniques, is it necessary that you do all of them? And do you need to do things in a certain order? Or is this more of a free form kind of take what works for you and build your own solution?

Andrew Kap (14:46):

That question you’re right. It’s it was it’s what works for you. The reason like the book has like 19 or 20 methods. The only reason I put 19 or 20 methods in is because people like variety and you never know what’s going to suit each person’s specific style, but the truth is you can just take one of those and just do that and never do any other one at all. And just that one method alone, whatever it is, it’s going to be enough because really what this comes down to, again, even if you don’t believe in all the traction, this is about strategically taking time out every day, five or 10 minutes, where you think about things that you want, and you feel good while you’re thinking about them. Again, that you don’t want to think about that job with frustration. You want to think about it with anticipation. So you’re just finding some way, shape or form to feel good about things that you want and things that you have thereby reinforcing and inviting that to continue to come into your life in better and better ways.

Jon Tota (15:35):

And I know habits are really important to you and positive habits. Once you kind of establish some of these things that will work in your, in your daily life, what are you doing with people? How are you helping them implement habits? And do you have any tips that our audience can take away from this episode as far as implementing them the right way in their lives?

Andrew Kap (15:55):

So here’s the part I really hope an entrepreneur would really appreciate, what I’ve found in terms of, you know, and the reason the way I structured the book the way I structured it is I think a key part of this is that you want to be able to have something that you look forward to. And like, even in the book, you know, people read the free preview on Amazon. They’ll notice in the intro chapter, I give this example of imagine, you know, you want the perfect body. You want to lose certain amount of weight or whatever it might be, and someone walks up to you and they’ve got this magic ice cream, and it’s got all the good qualities of ice cream and none of the bad ones. And they tell you, listen, all you have to do is take a spoonful of this ice cream every single day, and you’ll get lean muscle.

Andrew Kap (16:33):

You’ll have the body of your dreams. Like everything will work out. And if you don’t like ice cream, you know, say pizza or cookies or whatever. And obviously that’s a scenario where whatever that food is, of course you’re going to follow through on it because it’s a brief thing that you enjoy and look forward to. So from a positive habit standpoint, I think it’s possible to build healthy habits with stuff that you don’t feel like doing. But if you can find something that you enjoy right away, it makes it all the easier to build that healthy habit. And I think there’s something to be said about being strategic in that way. Again, law of attraction or not just in your business, find things in your business that you want to do that are really healthy for the business and healthy for you that you enjoy, because it’s going to be the easiest thing to reinforce, and it will fuel all those other things that you want to do as well.

Jon Tota (17:16):

Yeah. And, and when you say that too, it reminds me, and I want our audience to listen on this. You have a really cool storytelling format in your book and the ice cream story is a good example, but it makes a lot of these techniques more memorable and a little bit more relatable to individuals. So I just want to give you some kudos. Your style of writing is really approachable for this type of content. So nice work on all of that.

Andrew Kap (17:44):

I appreciate that compliment, Jon. You know, I’ll tell you that was one of the top priorities. You know, for me, you write a book like this. It’s just, unless it is relatable, unless people can kind of encapsulate in their mind what this works. It’s not going to be as valuable. So thank you so much for that acknowledgement. I really appreciate it.

Jon Tota (18:03):

Yeah. And, and I know ego is something that you talk about as well and how that can get in the way of some of this good work that you’re trying to accomplish. Tell us a little bit about that and ways that our audience can manage their ego if it’s standing in the way of getting some of the things they want.

Andrew Kap (18:19):

For sure. And you know, full disclaimer, these terms I’m about to give you, these are my definitions. I’m certainly not going to compete with a clinical psychologist, but the way I see it, you’ve got three minds. You’ve got the conscious and you’ve got the subconscious, but right in the middle, you’ve got the ego and the ego is stronger than the conscious mind, but nothing is stronger than the subconscious. But the thing about the ego is it only has one job in the whole world and that’s to keep you alive. And that’s important because right now, anyone out there listening, you know, whatever money problems you have, whatever relationship problems you have, whatever health problems you have, anything, all your ego knows is right now, you are alive. And the last thing that the ego wants to do, if it’s within it’s within his power is change or risk the status quo, because you might want to be rich and famous right now.

Andrew Kap (19:03):

But for all the ego knows being famous means you’re gonna get a bunch of stalkers, which is a threat to your survival. For all the ego knows, getting a lot of money, family is going to come out of the woodwork and try to take it from you- a threat to your survival. So the ego, while it loves you, and this is in service to you in a misguided way, it basically is not interested in your comfort, your fulfillment, your satisfaction, anything, it just wants to keep you alive and key to all this is that’s why a lot of times you’ll have fear and uncertainty, and you’ll be talked out of doing things like, you know, working out every day. But that’s why also you want to choose methods that you enjoy that are easy because at least the methods that I have from a law of attraction standpoint, or really any book that’s worth its salt- bypass the ego go direct to the subconscious mind and then the subconscious mind does all the heavy lifting for you.

Jon Tota (19:49):

That’s a great way to look at it. And I think that, it’s interesting because the challenge that I think a lot of people come up with when they’re facing things that they’re afraid of, or there’s some uncertainty tied to it is you’re, you’re almost looking for any reason not to do it. How can I avoid that? Right. And that’s kind of our natural instinct, I guess, our survival instinct.

Andrew Kap (20:10):

Yeah. And by the way, there’s nothing wrong with that to a certain extent, because you know, back in the day, first of all, there’s so much going on with the ego. Like, first of all, we fear rejection because back in the day, if you were thrown out of the group, it was you alone against the saber tooth tiger. And, you know, even nowadays, like you want to keep things simple and avoid hard work because your body has only so much energy and resources in a day and it’s always on guard for it. So of course, you’re going to find your way out of doing things that might seem a little unfamiliar or difficult for some reason.

Jon Tota (20:40):

Yeah, yeah. So the book is doing really well. The Last Law of Attraction Book You’ll Ever Need To Read- it’s on Amazon’s bestseller, you’ve gotten tons of good ratings. And so what are you focused on now? Are you out there? I know, you know, for awhile there, you were a content publisher and marketing agency, and you’re doing a lot of that, but now is your focus really just getting this message out to as many people as possible, helping them to overcome some of the same things you did.

Andrew Kap (21:06):

Yeah. Like right now, like this is the book. I kind of feel like I’m overselling it, but this is the book I would have loved 15 years ago to help save me some trouble. And, you know, I’ve done, you know, copywriting for people and I’ve done marketing consulting. I just, I’m so much more fulfilled by this. This really is the mission, so to speak. And, um, you know, I talk about the book, I put it out there and I have a YouTube channel in support of it. So I figure every single day, I’m trying to find some way by which I’m creating content that just reinforces this for people, because, you know, obviously it, it is very specific to of attraction and it is what it is, and that’s the best way for me to reach people. But ultimately this is just about hopefully finding anyone that wants to build healthy habits and make positive changes to their life. And for whatever reason, this kind of feels like the right way for me to go about this and create a value. So I’m all in at this point.

Jon Tota (21:55):

Yeah. I think it’s a great mission and yeah, I checked out your YouTube channel, lots of awesome content there. So for tell our audience a little bit, if they want to find out more about you, the book, all the other content. I know you’ve got a few places. Obviously the YouTube channel is a really great spot for people to look. Tell us where we can find the best content that you’re putting out there for everyone to consume

Andrew Kap (22:18):

Thing. And I’ll, I’ll keep it to two links just to make it nice and easy for people. People that are interested just in checking out the book itself, last law of attraction, book.com will auto forward to the Amazon listing. Whether you want it in Kindle or paperback or audio book, it’s right there. Check out the free preview even if you don’t buy the book. And if you don’t want to pull out your wallet, like we were just talking about, uh, youtube.com/andrewkap with a K. That’s all the free content. So you can kind of hear about new methods I keep coming out with and I interview people and really, I just try to create really fun and sometimes entertaining and funny content to keep people engaged and just give them more reasons and more excuses to kind of go down this path and help themselves.

Jon Tota (22:57):

Yeah, I think, um, definitely check out the YouTube channel. We’ll put all the links in the episode notes, check out the YouTube channel and definitely check out the book on Amazon and for all our listeners. I think there’s a ton you can learn from Andrew, Andrew, any parting words, something that if anybody’s out there kind of struggling with some of, some of the things in their life and they want to make a change first step w what’s something that they should focus on just to get them right out of the gate and start turning things around.

Andrew Kap (23:26):

Well, there’s two pieces. And the first part is going to sound like I’m blowing smoke, but like right now, you out there, you’re listening to Jon and Jon has value. Give yourself the credit that you’re choosing to listen to a podcast like this because it really reinforces that you’re way worthy of things. And you might be giving yourself credit for you are out there trying to consume information and better yourself. And by the way, it’s right there for you. And with that in mind, again, my book or someone else’s book, my channel is someone else’s channel find something fun, hopefully like in a gratitude exercise or visualization exercise that you could just enjoy. That’s something that you look forward to each day for just five minutes. And it doesn’t feel like a lot, but you know, positive thoughts are way stronger than negative ones. Then just doing that for five minutes a day and nothing else is going to make an impact, then all of a sudden you’ll have something to build off of.

Jon Tota (24:15):

Yeah. Great advice. The Last Law of Attraction Book You’ll Ever Need to Read. Andrew Kap, thank you for being with us today,

Andrew Kap (24:22):

Jon, thanks so much for having me, man. And thanks for caring enough to critical podcast like this, man. I love having conversations like these and I was really grateful for today as well.

Jon Tota (24:30):

Wow, that’s awesome. I appreciate it. And for all of our listeners, thank you for being here every week. As you know, we have a new episode that comes out every Tuesday, so wherever you’re listening, be sure to subscribe, leave us comments. We’d love to hear from you guys and until the next episode, happy learning.

Jon Tota (24:52):

Hey everyone, Jon Tota here. I want to thank you for tuning into the show each week. We love our Learning Life community and are so grateful for your support. We’d appreciate it if you would take a minute to rate us and write a review for Learning Life wherever you’re listening right now. Your ratings and comments help new people find the show so we can keep growing our community and bring great interviews on the topics you care most about.