SNM138: How to Meet Your Heroes

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had a Meet your heroes on today's episode. Today's episode is brought to you by fresh books. Accounting and bookkeeping mistakes destroyed thousands of small businesses every single day. Bookkeeping doesn't have to be hard. Turn to the number one invoicing software for small businesses. Start for free today at serve no master dot com Backslash Fresh books Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now then you've come to the right place. Welcome to serve no master podcast where you learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. Presented live from a tropical island in the South Pacific by best selling author Jonathan Green. Now here's your host. I'm finally back home to my island. I've only been back for half a day. I'm still live a jet logs. I've woken up a three in the morning, and rather than try and read or go back to bed, I thought, this is a great opportunity to record a few amazing podcast episodes. Of course I come outside and there's a pretty severe windstorm right now. Hopefully we're in between a couple of big gusts and we talk about something that's really, really exciting. And that is that you can meet and connect with just about anyone in the world when you begin to understand the way principles work as and mentioned the last time I traveled, traveled to Thailand, I saw one of the people in it marketing world. The one person I had on my list Is that all? That's the person I'd like to meet. And honestly, it was just the person who I saw on the speakers list who I thought was the most famous. The very first morning, that conference. I saw him at breakfast and I didn't do anything. I thought, Oh, that might not be him. Always have that thought because I'm not great at recognizing people and I thought that might not be him. And if I walk up and think it just someone who looks like him, it could be a whole thing, and by time I was sure it was him. There, like 10 people striding with a table and what's a little bit too much for me After that experience, I'll be honest. I was embarrassed. I felt like I let you guys down. I did some amazing networking. I did meet some celebrities, including the deejay Goldie, who did give us private email address to me at the same event. But anytime I slipped, I feel like I have to step up and do a little better by you guys. You deserve better. Have to be perfect every single time. I hold myself to a high standard. When I was in California last week, as you surely know, California's filled with amazing celebrities, was at this conference with about 5000 people, and there was one person there who didn't look like everyone else. Now what else? This is just a guy who is dressed like a farmer, But I kept looking at this guy going. This guy looks exactly like the man from my favorite TV show, and I was worried. I was like, Oh, you know what? Maybe just everyone in overalls and a beard looks the same to me because where I live pretty much everyone always worst T shirts or shorts or swim, shoot and no shirt. I never see anyone wearing jeans, let on Overall So maybe it's just that I've been away so long. I'm sitting down there at the table with my dad and they see the guy for about the third or fourth time standing a few feet away from me and I go, You know what? I think this is the guy from my favorite TV show. I have to talkto him. My heart's racing, absolutely racing in my chest Now. No one else in this conference recognized the guy. He happened to be a guy from one of my favorite TV shows, and if you look it up, there's an amazing TV show called Blue Collar Backers. It's an investment TV show, I tell you all the time all I watch your investment TV shows and this is one of them. This is a show about people who invest not just money but labor, so they'll invest in the business but will actually go and physically do things to help improve the business. So this guy, if he's pumping you to put a new floor in your business or if he's helping you Thio moved to a new location. He'll actually be on site working with the construction team, using hands on investor, and to me, that's very fascinating, because I come from a world where nothing's physical, everything I sell, everything I teach. It's just knowledge and information. So watch someone at the other inspectors really physical. I really like that. I really liked the show, and this was my favorite guy in the show. And the second summit event I go. Is this Ron Douglas? That's name of the guy. And I finally said, You know what? I got to go in and no one in the room who waas I guess not ever watches this awesome show. I don't know why. It's definitely one of my favorite shows on Discovery Channel, and I go over and talk to him and I'm like, Hey, look, if you're who I think you are, I'm a huge fan of your show me, my wife watch it all the way on a little island in middle of nowhere. I talked to my friend from Canada and we watch the show on Skype and talk about it, and he was a gah. That's me of the man I'm such a big fan of, because he's the way he operates his business, Lee invested really like everything about it. We talked about the show, We talked about him, and I can tell you that walking up to someone who, at least to me is a celebrity. I grew up around rock stars I, Grover on movie stars, but someone who's like something a little bit different and for a show that all the I like I was really, really cool for me and I had a talk into it. We had this amazing conversation and to meet someone that you really like is wonderful. He was so nice to talk about his kids. I talk about my kids, we exchange information. He's working on a book. I said Hey, that's what I do I would love to connect and we could talk about your book and all those cool things I could help you guy Doing that down that path is that's my wheelhouse. And so we exchange Skype information of artists, got back and forth two or three times in the weeks since I met him, just about seven days. But what I want you to realize is that even for me, someone who's met celebrities before stated a few celebrities in that moment I was sitting there next to my dad, talking to you, my friends, and I think that's this guy pulled my phone and no one and recommends the show. No one else watched it. I've seen every episode. I know every investigator on the show and all these different things he did, but no one else recognized. But for me, it was someone I wanted to meet. I said if I could meet someone really cool this event, this would be the guy and the my heart was racing. When I get nervous, it is exactly the same thing happened back when I was single. If I see a beautiful when I wanted to talk to their be this moment where I see her and I want to talk to her and my heart gets filled with terror, my heart starts racing. My eyes are sweating. I get so nervous now I'm a naturally a very skittish person. So the first thing I trained myself to do was to hide that nervousness. So inside my heart is boiling like a tea kettle. But outside I look totally calm, cool and collected, and it's simply because I practiced hiding my fear. That's all there is to it. People think that I'm fearless, but in that moment I was really nervous and sweating. And that's when I feel the most alive. When you go, I'm afraid. But I'm gonna do it anyways and I walk over and I mean, I'm talking five steps of fruit so close. We're standing there waiting for his friend with this amazing conversation. After the first of five seconds and nervous, this one obviously is the first time. Also, I asked, acting a little star struck, and it's because I kind of let it build up in my mind. I've met other soldiers before out acting this too much was like, Oh my gosh, I'm a big fan. I've got to meet you. But after 10 seconds and transition into who I am, I don't know what you're doing here. Is this your type of thing? Has your TV show going? What's going on next? We had a really amazing conversation and transitioned in less than two minutes to exchanging information. So I want you to see, and I wonder what you understand is that even when you're terrified, even when you're sweating your palms are sweaty. You walk up to someone, and after you get over that initial fear in 10 15 20 seconds, you have a normal conversation, actually form a connection that could lead to some cool business down line. That's what's really powerful about understanding. Networking. See, even though I'm nervous and scared once I start talking to someone, I going networking autopilot mode I go into What are you doing here? You know what are you enjoying? How can I give you value? That's how I could be found out. He's thinking about publishing a book. Our people are telling to write a book, but outside is well outside. That's inside my house. I'd love to help you. I'd love to give you value. Now It's fascinating what this event is. It's all filled with Internet markers. It's all feels online nerds, and no one else recognise this guy. He was kind of an outlier. But as soon as I would tell people, What is that? Oh my gosh, I wanna meet that guy. Sounds amazing. So my passion for someone, my belief in someone alters other people's perceptions, and also I happen know he's very successful, so people like to Europe. You're successful. I love connecting the people who are successful in different ways to me. And come on, I live in the middle of nowhere on island and all I watch your business investing shows. What are the odds that I'm gonna meet one of the people from the shows I watch in the three days I'm in California year. They're pretty slim. Well, it turns out they're pretty high, actually looking with high inside there, 100%. But that was my one big opportunity. I actually ended up seeing him again just as he was leaving the next day and said, You got to talk to for two minutes and say goodbye to solidify the connection. For me, it was a moment to meet someone that I look up to, and it was really exciting for me. So it was. I mean, I would say, Yeah, it's definitely for me, the highlight of my entire trip. I had a lot of great moments. A lot of wonderful things happen. I'm a wonderful people who did a lot of great business deals, but this was a real outline. What I want you to understand. They're a couple of key components from the story. The first is that celebrity is perception to everyone else in the room. I was just walking up and talking to a random stranger. The only reason I was nervous was because I knew who waas. And therefore in my mind, this was a celebrity. I can tell you right now the nicest people ever talked. No pretentious NHIS. No, I've been on a TV show, yada yada, just a really solid, as nice a person you could ever imagine as nice as I hope I am when people who are fans of me, me, me just absolutely genuine and tear one. It's good quality persons you could ever meet. And if you look on the block posts for this episode, you could see the picture we took together and you could see how big smile on my face is. I was rocking a smile for the next two days like you wouldn't believe, but for celebrity or the difficulty of meeting people is often only in our minds. When I lived in England, I met celebrities all the time, but it was never a big deal because they're from shows. I didn't know so I didn't recognize them. It's on Lee. When you realize someone is a celebrity, you begin to act differently and we have to control that inclination. And that's how he formed strong connections when you can overwhelm or overcome the desire within you to treat people differently because of something in their lives. Now, sometimes people treat me differently. One of my favorite stories is also one of the weirdest stories back when I was teaching dating a long time ago, this is now a full 10 years ago, I was in my favorite bar in London. I can't over the name of it anymore, but it's in the stables in Camden. It's a fun bar filled with people, and I was there with a student. We're just talking to people, okay? And he's practicing, talking too late. He walks over talks Really nice girl, that having a great connection, and I'm just into their bored out of my life. That's really all I do. I say, Here's something to say to someone and see what happens. All I teach used to teach people how to come over that exact same fear I felt when I saw celebrity and someone recognized me from one of my books or something, walked up and said, Are you so? And so I said, Yeah, that's me And he goes, Oh my gosh, you're my hero. Go Well, that thing's that's sweet. Okay, so I was on the other side of this experience, and then it was, Oh, I'm so sorry for disturbing. He bowed and then backed away from me. Now I was super bored and was happy to have someone to talk to us, actually, when he walked up to you so excited, like I don't have a board. But this guy bowed to me, which is crazy, the ultimate Your Emily bowed to me. That's why I remember it. We all react to perception to everyone else in the bar is just a random guy. But to this one guy, I was someone who's blogging read online out there for Rose's hero. We create heroes in her mind so people they are your heroes are different than mine. Your favorite TV shows are different in mind, and you'll react differently. Whether you meet you know, celebrities or famous athletes. Your perception controls that level of fear. Now you can't alter your knowledge. It's kind of like the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden. Once you know someone's a celebrity, it's hard to act like you don't know. So what you have to do is exactly I talked about you. Take your fear is what I do. There's so many books about, like, magical techniques for overcoming your fear. But what I just do is in that moment I absolutely know I'm alive. It's that feeling of adrenaline and I've turned it into a positive. I look and I go, Wow, I'm definitely live. I gotta do this. Especially anyone on my list. I'm gonna read my block and read my books is gonna hear about this story. I have to do this even if I'm wrong, but who this is. And in that moment of absolute fear, I thrive on it. So I've created in my mind a positive way to look at the fear. But also take all that fear and I just hide it inside my body. I don't show it on the outside, so I'm still afraid. It's not that I'm not afraid. It's not that I'm not nervous. It's still there. I just don't show it to the world. I hide with my body and then the next thing I want you to know is that most people, when you treat them like normal people when you follow the principles of network, when we talk about over and over again and you say, Oh, I want to treat this person like I'd want to be treated that I mean on the most core level, I'm just teaching the golden rule treat people the way you'd want to be treated if someone walked up to you. That means that what I see a celebrity eating when he sees what I wanted me eating or in a meeting, I don't disturb. Okay, I did see someone else that I would like to meet, but it was a time that would have been inappropriate for them. Your desire to meet someone should never overwhelmed your respect for people's space. I waited for the moment where the guy like Ron was standing by himself, waiting for a friend or something. He was just standing alone for about two minutes for a walk up and you looked a little bit bored. And that's your opportunity. Oh, this person is just waiting for someone Great chance to walk up. You don't walk up to me when I'm trying to feed my son that you don't want someone to do that to you. Feeding my son is one years old. It's hard. It takes my total focus. He's rambunctious. I gotta do all those things. I have extras not choking. That takes all my focus, and I want to do that to someone else. Or if you see me the airport or waiting for a plane alot. Of course, I want to talk to a hate waiting for plates. Having just been on five different planes in last week to get home from this conference, I can tell you that's a great chance to approach someone. So paying attention not just your desire but also to the other person's experience gives you great opportunity waiting for the right moment in turn, an awkward, uncomfortable to second conversation into a very friendly 10 minute amazing encounter. So following our simple principles again, you want to overcome your fear are just know that living in the fears awesome. You want to make sure that it's the right moment for the person in the middle of doing something important or you're not going to be overly disturbing them. And sometimes finding that balance is a little bit hard. Sometimes two people are talking and sometimes it's okay. And sometimes I wish I could tell you that. God, it's held. That kind of comes from experience, like if someone's about in the middle, proposing to their fiance or their girlfriends is about to be if you're not the right moment. But if two people are standing there talking about the weather or talk about the airplane, they're waiting for its okay. It's like a balance. There's a time when you could walk up and he just comes from experience to be able to tell or listening in for a few seconds if they're having an important conversation or kind of an inane conversation. Sometimes with my wife, I don't mind if you walk up and sometimes with my wife, I d'oh, if I'm with my wife and we're talking about when we should have our next child, please wait a minute. But if I'm with my wife and we're talking about her favorite TV show, please come up and save me. Once you found the right moment. Once you walked up, your goal is to break the ice, and in this case, there's something I very rarely do. I said, Hey, if you're who I think you're absolutely love your show. Now if you just stop there, if you just go, you're a celebrity. Gonna act weird. It can have an awkward conversation. So instead, what I said is, I watch your show. I live on a tiny tropical island with my wife. All true, all the things I say are true, and for us, your show is really special. And so what I did is to make saving the show about him and make it about our experience. And that's interesting. So now I've mentioned I love shopping Island is what I do full time. I can start to have a normal conversation, your goals to transition through the fan phase and do normal conversation face with someone, because that's what you really want to have. I don't want a signature or any of that stuff. I just wanted to meet someone that I really like and look up to and let him know, Hey, I love your show and then find out what he's doing there. And so then, in the next bit of the conversation, it's a report and giving value, finding common ground. He's got seven kids I've got to. He's got seven kids I've got to about toe have number three. We're gonna try and get pregnant in about two months. Try to resist the urge to get my wife pregnant right now so we can have a good time. And we're trying to have two years between each of our Children. We have three years between number one and number two, and now I feel like Okay, that was a good gap. But between the next to it should be two years. That gives me common ground to talk to someone. Some people want to hear about stories from a dating passed by dating celebrities or stuff like that. But nowadays most people, I mean, they've got kids. I've got kids. We talked about that. So that's how we formed. A little port is having a really cool conversation about our families and then a transition. Hey, what are you doing here? What you're looking for and you start talking about how I do books and TV show, and it's gonna be the next season. The show and then he start time and all. My friends always told me to do a book. And so you know what? That's my wheelhouse. That's the thing I'm best at. And if you've been following me, actually, a few days ago, you fought me. When a Monday of the conference was the day that my book went to number two on Amazon, the day that thanks to all the people on my email list, I was pushing number six and get ahead of Harry Potter for just just three hours. For just three hours, I beat Harry Potter. And you know what? It's still an amazing feeling that's real hard. I don't have a big publishing house. I don't have seven movies behind my theories. I haven't written 10 other fantasy books. I haven't written some of the best books in history. It was really amazing in that moment, was very excited. And so knowing what I'm good at, it means I'm comfortable talking about it with people. So following this pattern, right, you focus on report, you find out what someone seeking remember, we find the value they're seeking. How can I make sure you have a really great experience here, and that's what happens. We had this amazing connection. It's amazing conversation and it was maybe five minutes, seven minute conversation and yes, at the end, I did ask to take a picture together, but only after I'd given value. Only after we watched swap Skype information, my focus and even now in our relationship, right? The one thing I'm thinking about is, how can I help him make his book be great? My focus is still in the early days of my relationship with this person with this amazing personal celebrity. One of my heroes for how they approach business really understands business over how he treats people is to give value. First is actually nothing I want from. I don't want to be a guest on this TV show. I don't want Thio interest me to other people from the show. I just want to let you know that I like him and that's our opportunity. Give value now down the line. We may do something really cool together, who knows? But that's never in my mind. That's not anything of thinking about. Even now in the post first encounter. My goal is to give value, and maybe someday there'll be a value returning. Or maybe not. I'm not even worried about that because they have the mindset of favors is a muscle my value from this whole interactions that I overcame. My fear had an amazing conversation, and now I can actually interact with someone really cool to be able to give value. So every step of this process giving value is my primary motivator. And it's important that when you do this when you meet people like this, you don't have a hidden ulterior motive. Most people who are really successful encounter those hidden, ulterior motive people all the time and they can detect it will go. There's something weird about this conversation now. I know this is very is that there's this dating movie called The Talib Steve. We talks about be without intent and it's come from Buddhism and he's this fat guy who's really great dating women. And there's some part of the movie that air great in some parts that aren't but there's a couple things he teaches in the Tao of Steve. They're interesting and one of the Mr Be without attendance How could I be on a date with a woman and pretend that I don't want to get a date with a woman? That's really hard. The key word there is pretend, and the way we overcome that is to be in the moment and to think not about what can people do for me, but to think, What can I do for people I don't want to teach like Far Eastern religion on this podcast? But I want to teach a simple principle, and this is just a growth on the golden rule is that I believe when you do good things for other people, other people do good things for you. It's not always the same other people, though I may do and help this guy publishes book, it becomes really, says one, just because of friendship, right? I mean, offer a little guidance, or maybe something else will come of it. But I may simply give value. Right now. It's right is to give value to someone that I really like, and I think it's really cool was a very nice when I met him, and that may be the end of our relationship. And then in two years, someone else comes into my life who's a fan of me and gives me value. So even though we can't write down on paper, that connection, track the things I see value in that, and that's why I give us much fires again. That's why I'm one of the people who responds to every single email I get. And earlier this week I was on the 30 hour flight who back to back 30 hours of flying in the middle of which was a 16 hour flight from America China. Man, I am not going on that flight again. I've learned my lesson. When you travel that far, it's hard to check your email. And I felt really bad for some people emailed me. I didn't email them back for a day and 1/2 because I want to give people that experience. So for me, even though I'm flying and so far I still think, Oh, I'm so sorry. I want to give value, give value value, and I hate to make people wait, cause most people know I checkmate no one today. If you email me, you should expect a reply within 24 hours. But every once in a while, two or three times a year, fate intervenes. And in this case, my layover was in China, and I forgot that there's the great firewall of China, which means I couldn't access my email, even those at the airport, even though I did manage to get online. Plus, I don't really want to enter all my passwords at this particular airport and who knows what happens, right? I don't want to get on my email. Probably ready is, and it's a problem. Copy every e mail you get anyways, but just in case I don't have the Chinese version. And it's a to have a swell like only one country, two time spying on me, if possible. But giving value as a core mindset makes everything easier. So I give value to people who are above me and below me. It's all perception every time I meet so in my first thought is How can I help this person be more successful? How this person have more fun and I dig deeper and deeper into these principles and some of the more advanced networking courses. But this is a really simple principle, and this is how you can meet people that you look up to people, people that are your heroes. It doesn't matter if it's a business hero or TV here or local hero. Oftentimes the people we want to meet the most are not movie stars. I've met a bunch of movie stars. It's all right, it's cool. There's nothing wrong with that, and they're very good at their craft. But for me, I like to meet people who are like local heroes, the person who's like the best in your city. Yeah, the best small business owner or someone who's got a really cool local radio show. All of those things are cool as well. And that's how you can meet anyone across the spectrum of all these very simple principles. And you can meet your heroes. And maybe you'll even get to do business with Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Serve No Master. Make sure you subscribe so you never miss. Another episode will be back tomorrow with more tips and tactics on how to escape that rat race hit over to serve no master dot com forward slash podcasts. Now for your chance to win a free coffee of Jonathan's bestseller. Serve No, master. All you have to do is leave a five star review of this podcast. See you tomorrow. Thank you for listening. This episode of the serve No master podcast. Follow me at facebook dot com Backslash serve no master.