Welcome to the inspire people impact lives podcast. This podcast is for people who are looking to get more out of life by making an impact on those around them. Each week we bring you local influential business and community leaders delivering powerful messages to help you live a more inspiring and impactful life coming to you live from Northwestern mutual Middleton. Here's your host, Josh cosmic.
Welcome to another episode of inspire people impact lives. I'm your host, Josh cosmic by trade. I'm a financial advisor by learning. I'm a leader and now managing partner at Northwestern mutual and by daily study. I'm hoping to one day hold the title of leadership expert as well. For those of you that are new to the show, this show is for people who are looking to grow personally and professionally. We cover topics of leadership, business, and personal development.
Today we have a very special guests, brain training expert and author of Bestselling Business Book Train your brain for success. Roger Syep. So Roger, before we get into today's episode, I got a plug, our golf event. Awesome. Uh, we are, uh, have the upcoming event on June, Thursday, June 6th. We're raising money for childhood cancer research. It's our goal to raise one and a half million dollars by 2028.
We've already been fortunate enough to donate over 130,000 to Uwu Carbone Cancer Research Center and for him look forward to continuing those donations through events like this. So please go to www.drivingoutchildhoodcancer.com again, that's www.drivingoutchildhoodcancer.com and join us on June 6th at pleasant view golf course here in Middleton, Wisconsin. All right, so without further ado, Roger's site, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Josh.
Absolutely. So before we get going into some of my questions, why don't you give our audience a little bit of your story?
Oh, awesome. Little bit. Yeah. You know, you're in for a long story when it starts with back when I was a child. But, um, the story that led us here actually does start when I was a child, I was 13 years old. Uh, I got to see my uncle give a, give a talk. My uncle was a professional, like a motivational speaker.
My mom took me to see him when I was in seventh grade and I really had no idea what he was talking about because it was all about business and energy and customer service and et Cetera, et cetera. But I just kind of had this big light bulb moment where I went, wow, I think, I think I want to do that. And so I was kind of kept it in the back of my mind. So when I was in a, when I was in college here at the Uwu, they took a job in sales. That's not kind of how I got into business.
Yeah. My freshman year I started working with a company called the southwestern company, not Northwestern southwest. And I sold educational books door to door and a summer. Oh, did you? Good. So did I, it was nice to have the book man come to my house instead of being the guy knocking on other people's doors.
So, yeah, I worked with that company for nine years, four years as a student, and then, um, five years professionally, like kind of in a role similar to yours as a builder of organizations and a really got a good education, not just in selling but in motivation and personal development. And that's really where that kind of took hold for me. Uh, during that time I also started doing standup comedy professionally. I don't know if you knew that about me or not. I think I did.
Yeah. I spent eight years doing standup comedy professionally and I kind of did both of those things. I got into sales and business and then also the entertainment business. Uh, kind of as training for what I wear, what I get to do now. I'd always wanted to be a speaker and a coach and a, a teacher of personal development.
So, right, 20 years ago now, 20 plus years ago, 1997, a guy that I worked with in the book business and I started freedom, personal development, started doing, um, giving talks here in Madison and then around the country about how to improve your memory. And improve your learning capacity. And then our clients started asking us for other stuff. So that's where we got into a lot of the stuff that I would imagine that we're going to end up talking about today.
Yeah, that's awesome. So we've had you here to speak a few times. I know you speak all over the country in financial services realms, the purge your Ford, by the way. That's fine. What's, what surprises you today versus what surprises you or surprised you 20 years ago about how either insurance or financial services people will go to market about their sales skills, what you learned with southwestern, kind of the differences in the paradigm shifts over the last 20 years.
What you're, I wasn't prepared for this question, but that's a really good question.
Yeah, I don't, I don't like to play within the box. I got to ask her questions,
right? So I think if I look back 20 years ago, 15 to 20 years ago, even 10 years ago, like I would say before, before the economy went to heck in a hand basket, right before, you know, 10 years ago for 2008, um, I was, I think I was surprised at how many people who were doing well in their business didn't that in many cases they still lacked sort of fundamental sales skills. It, it sounds odd, but like people got really good at um, marketing and lead sources and et Cetera, et cetera.
But when it came to just being brilliant with the basics, this is something that I talk about a lot and a lot of where, you know, our messaging around being just really, really good at the fundamentals of having a good work ethic, keeping a good schedule, and then just understanding basic psychology of how people operate. I was surprised at how well people did in your business still while lacking some of that knowledge, which created a nice little market for us.
I think the biggest thing that I'm surprised by now if I'm answering your question, I am honestly that how much people, and this is not just financial services people, this is people in general just overreact to everything. I'm amazed at how much people just get worked up over stuff that turns out to either be not that big of a deal or in some cases just made up.
It's, what do you think that stems from? This was interesting cause I've noticed that as well and I think especially for anyone that's on social media has to have had noticed that.
That's why I think I'm going to totally sound like I'm antisocial media. I'm not anti social media. I am a little bit antisocial media ruining people's lives and I see that happen more often than I think people are comfortable with. But I think just the, the ability for everybody to voice every opinion all the time, no matter how small it is. That's such an awesome thing to be able to do. Like, it's so cool to be able to have that voice.
And I think that one of the unintended consequences of that that really does affect people's brains is that it just leads to people flying off the handle over everything. And we ended up cross thinking about this. This is going to be, um, my, my next blog post is going to be about what I call the mental mushroom, where people, like some small thing happens and people very quickly blow it out of proportion into, oh my goodness, my life is over and no one's gonna love me ever.
Or they fly off the handle right in, totally ruined their public image on a social media because those things don't go away. Or even if they don't ruin their public image. So like, even if it doesn't become public, they get so worked up and so stressed out that it affects their performance
in their business or with their family. Right. It makes them worse as a businessperson or a dad or a mom or a spouse or whatever. And, uh, I think that, yeah, just the culture that we live in where everybody sees everything has just led people to, unfortunately I'm getting kind of worked up over nothing a lot.
The, uh, the quote that comes to mind as you're entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts. Right. And, um, and uh, everyone's entitled to an opinion. Um, absolutely. Whether or not they choose to share that and get worked up about others' opinions is right in their own volition, I guess.
Right. So, yeah, you asked me what I, what I'm most surprised about. I'm, I'm genuinely surprised nowadays at how much, how much people just blow things out of proportion that really don't need to.
Yeah. Although that was off script, but let's talk a little bit what, what, uh, what sparked the brain training and going back to, or was it at southwestern? Was it a past, that point where he's teamed up here? Like you got into this brain training thing and you'd been a, you know, seen as a brain training expert. I mean we've had your end, whether it's memory where he could recall or a sales, but what sparked that for you and then how's that evolved?
Yeah, so I should probably put this out there. I'm not an academic by trade. I get asked this question all the time. Are you like a psychology per neurosurgeon, neuroscientist? No. Um, my neighbor across the street is actually a brain surgeon and a neuroscientist, but I am not yet for my neighbor across the street. It really is brain surgery. People always like, Hey, this isn't brain surgery for him. It is for me. It's not.
The way that I got into the brain thing is when we started freedom, personal development, and we started giving talks. Our first product that we brought to market was a memory training workshop. Um, there was business reasons behind that. It was a good thing. I kind of knew about it through my work in, in developing my own skills and ability to teach people how to improve their memory. That was really the sole focus of what we did. I just really got interested in, all right, what's our move?
The brain science behind this. Right. So I just sort of took an interest as a business person in how does your, how does improving your memory affect your brain and then vice versa, how does your brain affect your ability to recall information?
So I started reading, I started reading the books and going to the seminars and, and I guess I developed enough, uh, I guess I developed enough knowledge to be dangerous to the point where in 2011, uh, Wiley reached out to me and said, hey, we heard you teach stuff about how to, about the brain. And that's sort of a, a big deal these days. We think we'd like to publish your book.
So yeah, I feel like I kind of came by my, whatever knowledge of the brain and how it impacts us, I feel like I came by it honestly. Right. Like I'm not an academic at all. Everything that we've ever done has been about how do you go get better results in your business or your life.
Right. But I think that's really cool because you've been immensely helpful to our organization as well and like to think that's true. Thanks for saying that. I'm brutally honest. I wouldn't be saying that if it wasn't true, but so what I want to say there is for those out there that are thinking about going down the academic path or not is that you went down the academic path and a different way. It wasn't that you went to school for it.
You did the academic academia yourself and studied it enough and been around enough people where this became an expertise of yours. Sure. That's, that's totally correct. Well, I'd just like to think out there, there's a lot of people that are graduating with degrees in a lot of people that don't even use those degrees in a lot of people that do use those degrees. You didn't go to school for this, but it became something that you are passionate about. Our New people seek you out as an expert in
it is, I would say a good example of where regardless, and this is one of the things that we teach people about not just improving your learning capacity, but just about living a successful, happy, prosperous life. Your education doesn't matter.
Sure.
Set that your education doesn't matter. It's just that what you would get your degree in doesn't matter nearly as much as, okay. Are you developing yourself? Do you have something that you're passionate about and are you willing to put in the time and the effort into it? Right. Yeah. I've often said this. I don't know if I'm excited about, I think I'm a combination of embarrassed and excited about this, like to do what I do now.
Speak all over the country, coach professionals on how to be more effective and successful technically requires about a third grade education. It's helpful if you can read and then beyond that, um, you know what it is. It's a good, it's a good, hopefully a good way of understanding that anybody can do it. You don't have to be an academic genius. You don't have to have 85 letters behind your name.
You don't have to have advanced degrees to be able to run a great business and really have an impact in the world.
That's perfect. That's really what I was getting there. Cause there's some people out there that think that going to get a degree or an advanced degree is the only way to become successful. And that may be true if you're trying to climb a corporate ladder or go for a niche type thing. Yeah. But what I've learned is the average person drives 300 hours per year. So that's 300 hours of windshield time. And that's also coincidentally about the same time to get takes to get an Mba.
So you could literally get your own Mba and whatever topic you wanted to get your MBA in every single year just by being purposeful about what you listened to in the car. And so you can do your own activity academia, the resources that we have nowadays, you know, the blessings and the curse of the Internet and social media and all that. The blessing is that you have every bit of information you ever need it right into your fingertips. Curse,
double edged sword. It's a double edged sword, right? You've got, it can be unbelievably valuable. Um, but you have to be focused and scaled and how you use it for sure.
Absolutely. So in your book, train your brain for success. You cover topics such as instant memory, recall reading capacity, energizing your girls, time management and mental care. And I don't want you to give away your burger. I want people to grow up and buy your book me Til I figured as much. But could you give us a tactic? Could you give someone a tactic on memory recall? Cause I think this is
okay.
People are awful at this nowadays and I know you know a better than others, but people can't even remember their parents or their spouse's phone numbers because we're so reliant on our devices. So as the chest
any more. In many cases we never even know the phone numbers. Correct. Right. Like you just get the contact like you just always
her name, never look at the number. Right, right. Yeah.
Interesting. If you asked me my, I could come up with it, but I'm even this way with certain people, like my oldest son, if you ask me to tell you his phone number right now, I don't, I would, I would really to work at it. Uh, I'm good news on this podcast. I could say anything and y'all would have to believe me, but they're experts in certain areas. I think that that's fine, right?
Like there's this old, this legendary story of when Henry Ford was on trial for his business practices and somebody was grilling Henry Ford, you know, magnate of American business at the time about all these dates in history and the quadratic equation and all this stuff that was clearly just a, an unwarranted test of his general knowledge. He basically said, listen, I don't need to know that sort of thing.
Um, I have people that can look up anything like that that I ever need, but if you ask me how to run my business, I'm sharp as a whip on that. So it's important that you were asking about okay. Tactics for improving your memory. Correct. It. You're right in that we have so many, um, intellectual and informational crutches right now that the, just the ability to be sharp mentally can suffer if you're not careful with that.
So in terms of somebody wanting to hone their mental capacity or their ability to recall information, uh, I'll give you two. I'll give you two things. I'll start with the one that's most popular. Anybody who's listening to this right now, if they're sitting there going, God yeah, I need help with my memory. The most frequent application that people immediately jump to is the ability to remember numbers.
But names like, there's this whole, I, everywhere I go, people ask me about, oh my gosh, how are you so good at remembering everybody's name? Cause I'm terrible at that. I meet people in five seconds later, you people tell me their name and five seconds later, I can't remember their name. Uh, it just goes in Wa I had one guy who goes, hey man, I could walk into a room full of three people and I could forget four of their names. Mathematically that doesn't work. It doesn't work.
But you know, he had a serious problem. Um, so the biggest thing with that particular one, let's just get this out of the way. What I'll always tell people is that truthfully in that experience where a person's name goes in one ear and out the other, it's actually not a memory problem. It's just a listening problem. It's just a, you're not paying attention and hope that, I hope that our listeners take that as almost like a, like a compliment because that's how it's meant.
People don't have memory issues, quote unquote because they're dumb. They almost always have it because they're too smart. Your brain moves you. You can think roughly seven times faster than you can speak. So it's just really easy for somebody to be going, hi, I'm Roger Sipe and but you're halfway through the conversation mentally with the person. You're like answering objections in advance before they even got their name out of their mouth.
And the result there is that you just missed like the single most important detail of the whole conversation. So you've got to slow down in our new book, master your mind. A lot of it is about how when we slow our brains now and we get all kinds of results much, much faster. Uh, and remembering somebody's name is a classic example of that.
My rule of thumb with remembering names is that if you'll just consciously invest the first as much of the first five seconds of the relationship as possible in just being a good listener, it makes you exponentially better at, at capturing and remember their name. And um, it also makes a much better first impression, right? People, it's such an old thing to say people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Yeah.
And if you'll just actually listen to sunlight for five seconds, it's amazing the impression that that
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Now back to our desk. Um,
in terms of more general, how do you improve your memory? My number one tip is I would say go by train your brain for success. Um, but if people are looking for a, a philosophy or an overall tactic and more that you can learn to visualize information, it's rote memory, which is what people are generally brought up on. Just repeating something over and over again basically sucks for remembering anything with any level of, uh, of longterm retention or any level of complexity.
So what we always teach people to do is to create a mental picture. Like one of the things that we teach in the book, we call it the mental file folder system. We teach people how to create vision, things that they can see in their mind. And then when you can visualize, um, any piece of information, even if the, if it's a mental picture that doesn't make any sense. If you can see it, it just becomes easy and very natural to, to, to recall it.
I don't know if I'm answering your question well or not.
So I know rhyming has been brought up in past Karma. Not Bad, not bad. So now, not the best but not bad.
It can be a little sure. Like if you can remember. Okay. So I have a, a number of my older relatives on my wife's side of the family, uh, you know, her parents, her uncles, that sort of thing that would always call me Roger dodger because it was a nice rhyme and help them remember my name. Great. Um, the issue is that it doesn't work so well if there's nothing to reimage, you know, um, your brain always your brain.
I don't know if we'll get into this, uh, on, on this particular, but one of the things that I'm learning about now that we write about and teach about a ton is how much your brain, specifically, your subconscious brain, responds to clear images. It does that with remembering information. It does that with you accomplishing your goals. It does that with you being more productive. It does that with people getting results that almost feel in your business.
I find that when people just in general get good at creating clear mental pictures of what they want, whether it's what they want to remember or what they want to accomplish, the more clear they can be in those pictures, the more likely they are to happen that sign. And that sounds a little touchy feely. Woo. Some people, it's really good actually, in
instance, that I thought of as a, you know, if you were coming up with a, uh, not a rhyme but an image as you thought about, I was thinking about Roger Rabbit.
Sure. See, now that actually works really well. That's not a rhyme. That's a picture, right? Like if you've seen the movie, uh, who framed Roger Rabbit was the name of the movie, right? But if you've seen that movie, that's a very clear picture, right? And if somebody wants to remember my name and they can picture a big couple of rabbit ears on my head, I mean, I got it right now. I'm sure you do. And the great thing about it is that it gets a little laugh, right?
It gets a little chuckle, which is important for life and write the next time you see me, that image will still be there. It seems a little odd, but that image, like just that goofy little thing that you just did in your head actually would make you much more likely to remember money if you need it to.
Oh, it's really good. So I will, I'd love where you're talking about the brain science stuff all, all day and maybe even get your neighbor tell more of the scientific side of things, uh, on how this stuff works and why it works, I guess because, uh, cause that's what he does for a living, including operated. I'm brains. I don't know that I've met someone that was a brain surgeon and a neuroscientist.
Same time if he's kind of an amazing dude. That's interesting. So what are you guys's conversations like? Well, we don't see it. We both have teenage kids and where he's got girls, I've got boys, they go to different schools. So we don't actually see each other though. So truthfully, our conversations are usually about, hey, you want a glass of wine? I'm making waves. Want to come on over with teenage kids. I'm sure that's the case. Yeah. But I've had a company, it's interesting.
Um, he, he, it turned out there was a coincidence between me and him, one of the most influential, um, stories that ever heard about. And I share with audiences all over the place about how important a person's attitude is. A friend of mine, this was almost 20 years ago now, was um, sustained a pretty significant brain injury. He was down State Street, was working with my company at the time and, uh, he tripped and hit his head.
He was six foot nine guy fell over backwards and hit his head on the curb and sustained massive brain damage. And it was, um, we, we probably don't have time to get into the entire long story about him, but it was one of the clearest experiences that I ever had about w w what the doctor said is that a person's chances of recovering from a serious brain injury like that is really all about the person's attitude.
And the choices that they've made about how they want to see it interact with the world. Um, up to that point. And, uh, I had been sharing this story about this young man and his experience and then his kind of miraculous recovery. And I was talking about it with my neighbor and he's like, that's funny. I did that operation. Yeah. It was kind of a cool little small world experience.
It's probably not going to forgive someone if you forgot the navy was probably not going to forgive someone that was six, nine booty and six, nine and six, nine and woke up from a medically induced coma with the words on his lips. This is going to be a great day. That's a positive room. Yeah. And that's a fee. That's a true story. The kid was an kid. He's, I mean he's my age, mid forties now, but this was, he was late twenties at the time.
And, uh, I knew him because I worked with him in the book business, which was a wonderful culture of, like I said, it was a great place to just learn personal development and how to make yourself full of energy and, and, and effectiveness. And that's one of the things that, that we learned there as great. As soon as you wake up in the morning, you start the day with, this is going to be a great day.
I thought it was a little weird, but that's, I adopted that practice and my clients actually love hearing about starting your day off on the right foot. That's how I think every day for the last 30 years I've started my day with this is going to be a great day. Well yeah, he had ingrained the habit and do his brain so strongly that he woke up from a coma and the first words out of his mouth were, this is going to be a great day. Well that's awesome. Powerful experience.
Really powerful stories as well. So I love morning routines and you just touched on that. Yeah. Do besides you waking up saying, this is going to be a great day. Do you have a morning routine? The structure, I do. I think this is one of the questions that you actually did prepare me for is a, I think it's lower. I think it's further down in your, in the outline that we created. Yeah. In fact, a chapter 17 in train your brain for success is all about what I call the power hour, right?
Um, there is a brain thing that you will, you'll probably find this interesting and maybe you already know this, that when you wake up in the morning without getting into like every bit of neuroscience and hormonal mix and theta brainwave pattern, neuroscience stuff, um, a good practical application is just understand that when you wake up in the morning, how you wake up in the morning and the how you sort of allow input into your brain during the first 30 to 60 minutes that you're awake really
sets the tone for your entire day. Do you know what I'm talking about? The first thoughts that you have implant very deeply in your subconscious brain and you will carry them around with you all day. So you wake up in the morning and go, this is going to be a great day. Your subconscious brain is like a big old elephant. And he goes, oh, great day. Okay, let's go get that. But a thing that you need to understand about your subconscious is that it lacks the ability to judge or evaluate.
So if you, if you, it just accepts whatever you tell it. So if you wake up and you go, Oh man, this is going to suck. It's like you make that big elephant go gonna suck. Okay, let's go get that. And so how you start your day is a huge deal.
Um, the morning routine that I work with and that I teach my clients, I call it the power hour because it's basically a way of running the first hour of your day in the way that sort of guaranteed to set your day off on a positive note and, and, and make you as effective as possible. Yeah. It starts with a little bit of affirmation.
Yeah. First thing when your eyes pop open, if, if the only thing that'll listen or did was start tomorrow, that way you, Josh would probably get a bunch of emails about what a difference it made immediately. So then there's a handful of others. There's actually 16 things that I describe in the book that I do. I mean some of it is real small like brushing my teeth. Some of it is a little bit more esoteric, like affirmations. I do some visualization, I meditate, I do some light physical exercise.
Don't hit the snooze alarm, do a little bit of reading to try and drink 20 to 30 ounces of water as soon as I can when I'm awake. That makes surprisingly just drinking a big glass of water first thing in the morning. It makes a huge difference in the quality of your day. Um, I do what I call a daily big six. I don't have a lengthy to do list. I'll have a to do list for the day that I sort of look at it. It's no more than six items. We can talk about why that is if you want to.
Um, and then the big thing about the power hour, my, my big thing about people's morning routines and there's a lot of, I, I don't know, I, I'm not listening to every episode of inspire people impact lives, but I'm imagining that a lot of your other guests talk about morning routines. It's a hot topic, the Super Hot topic today, right? Um, and you don't need to do my 16 different things or Tim Ferriss's four things or five things or whatever it is.
But you do want to have, uh, oh routine for yourself. My big thing is whatever it is, count up wins. This is probably the thing that, that I think is maybe unique about my thing is like the last thing about your morning routine is you look at all the stuff that you've done right? And you count them up in your head and give yourself a little pat on the back. I mean, you think about that.
If in the first hour of your day you've done some pushups, done some set ups, even if it's just one or two, you've made your bed, you've brushed your teeth, you've taken a shower, you've drank a bunch of water, you've gotten your energy or your head on straight for the day. You know you're set up for a productive day and you've got 11 to, or in my case, 16 things.
Here it is, it's six 30 in the morning, seven o'clock in the morning, you've been up for an hour and I get to look back on my morning and go, dude, I'm 16 and all day, Sun's not even up yet and I'm undefeated. It's just a great way to walk out the door and get started on an awesome day.
Yeah, you're, you're ahead of everyone. It reminds me of my business coach. True tells this when he goes on a speaking gig through where he talks about the little wins and in the bathroom after Washington, his hands, he'll take a hoe, crumple up the paper and shoot a basket and he won't leave the bathroom until you,
I was just gonna say what happens if he misses it takes a step back and shirts again is what we got to lead. He's got to leave the bathroom on a high note
through those little wins add up because we're so inundated with negative things. You starting the day 16 and oh before anyone can touch you was a huge deal and or furthermore, what I didn't hear is that you pick up your device.
No, that's actually one of the wins, right, is don't mess with screens. Yeah. I, I've given a couple of things that, okay, if you only do this, that'll make your life and your business work better. If the only thing that you did was take the first 30 minutes of your day in the last 30 minutes of your day and just avoid screens as much as possible. It does so many different things for you sleep better at night.
I don't because, because we know that that first 30 to 60 minutes of your day, the inputs that go in are either going to download directly into your subconscious or you're just going to remember them really well whether you want to or not. Right. And so yeah, you start checking email or social media or any of the things that we typically do with the device. You're just kind of asking for trouble, you know, keep it clean and your email can wait until at least six.
Yeah, there's not eight or nine huge for me. And uh,
the one thing that I've gotten some push back on it, I was like, well I have a meditation APP on my phone. That's fine. Can Be very helpful to you. But are you also telling me that you have the willpower not to click on your email, not to click on a Facebook notification, not to do it. Like you're just going to touch that APP. If that's the case, then so be it. Great. But it's so hard. It's a slippery slope. Yeah. Yeah. Cause we were trained back in the blackberry days.
Why that red flashing light, we want to clear it. And so that's where it's still a red notification on your Facebook app or a Instagram APP or anything. Linkedin, anything. It doesn't matter. Or even your email, it's a link that you're missing x amount of messages. And so our brains are not trained
missing out. I'm missing something. Fomo. Well Lay, I mean we're so wired to act upon that. And guess what? Facebook, Twitter, blackberry, every single news outlet in the world, they know that. You think that they're not trying to get your attention. I mean there's so many just entities that compete for our attention. They've gotten very, very good at attracting it. Eyeballs they want or I just want eyeballs. Right. And so it's, it's super important. I'm glad that you brought that up.
That's a good, good catch on your part. I can't believe I didn't say it that. Um,
yeah,
right. Technology is, uh, it's, it's very much a double edged sword, right? I'm not, again, I'm not anti technology. I'm just anti technology eating people's lives.
Yeah. Well that's right. So another thing that you talked about in your book, the two hour solution, you talked about that for time management. So I feel like this is a good segway as a morning morning piece now some more time management the to our solution. Can you describe that for the audience?
Yeah. This is uh, this is uh, probably the biggest pillar of my coaching relationships with people when people go, hey, I need, I need a business coach or a head coach.
Um, this is probably the biggest thing that we try to create accountability around because as a practice, one of the things that we know a person's brain needs, if your brain is going to pull you forward instead of pushing you backwards is it needs a person to, we call it designing a schedule that gives you space and people always sweet space. What do you mean a schedule? It gives me space.
Space just means that as your week progresses, you have to have some space built in ahead of time for you to focus on and accomplish the big important things as opposed to just giving all of your time and energy to the minor details and the interruptions and the putting out fires.
You know what I'm been talking about in your role as a leader, Josh, I would guess that it would be really easy for you on any given to devote all your time and energy to the minor details in the putting out fires or literally
every minute in a meeting and not have any time to think forward.
Right? Yeah. The way that businesses, the way that business is sort of viewed and set up right now and the way that we're wired, we haven't had a chance to talk about are unhelpful default settings, but we've got all of every human being has wiring in their brain that causes us to get addicted to the little things. It's a survival mechanism where your brain, what you know, what it is, it's that your brain is easily consumed with urgent things at the expense of important things, right?
It's a tremendous survival mechanism. Like if we lived in the wilderness, you want your brain to be consumed with the urgent thing because in the wilderness the urgent thing is like a grizzly bear that wants to eat you right and you want to act on that immediately. If for the grizzly bear wants to eat you, he wants to eat you in now, not next week, and so over generations we've just gotten so wired into let's pay attention to whatever just moved that.
It's really easy to become addicted to little things. All that to say, this is why the two, what we call the two, our solution is such a huge deal for people and it's a really simple concept. All of the two. Our solution is, this is a meeting, a weekly meeting, just a, it's a once a week thing. The power hour is a daily thing to, our solution is sort of the weekly pillar of how you design a schedule. That gives you space.
So weekly meeting that we teach people how to have with themselves, just them or an hour or two, typically somewhere between sometime between Friday afternoon and maybe Sunday evening, right? Sometime sometime between the end of one work week in the beginning of the next. And the purpose of it is really, really simple. It's number one to reconnect with your goals, right?
It's, it's amazing to me how, how little time people devote to actually thinking about what are they trying to accomplish and why. So went on a weekly basis. You can take an hour and devote a small portion of it too. Just reconnecting with your goals and your values and your vision and like why the heck am I going to have a week in the first place? That's huge. And then the second purpose is just to plan out your upcoming week. Right?
And I know like we're all sitting here kind of going, yeah, because I'm imagining Josh, that you, you have some practice like this for yourself. I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I'm guessing that you do this.
I have to applaud on time. Uh, so first of all, I, I create an ideal schedule, so I have an ideal schedule no matter what the, that that's being followed in the people that are running my calendar. Follow that so that I can get in what's important to me, whether it's going to a children's event, whether it's working out, whatever it might be. Secondly, I found more and more with an organization of now about 200 people.
You can't be in front of everyone on a daily basis and it, whether you're in the,
you'll melt,
right? Right. So even if you have an organization of 10 people, that may not be possible because you're running in different directions. So the point is a, I'm trying to get it there as I have to set meetings for myself to plan out conversations I'm going to have in future meetings. And so thought because I am only in front of these people x amount of times on a weekly or monthly basis, my messaging has to be really clear. So I have a meeting set up for that.
I'm always, I've got, I'm so diligent and I'm add to one of the highest degrees, but I've over swung the pendulum so much where if something pops up on my calendar unexpected, I kind of Mentally Freak out because Sofa in my wife knows this and my main assistant that's running my calendar knows this. So like they have to like, like kind of let me down gently that something new is on my calendar that day cause they know mentally or internally like I'm kind of freaking out. Right.
Cause I had in my head what the day they looked like and what the week looked like and this is what it was going to be. And I was set up for that and now there's a sudden change and I don't mean to change by like something fallen off because some fallen off. So like a breath of fresh air.
That's what my mom calls a golden moment.
Yeah. It's, it's something getting added to that. I'm like, wait, wait a second.
Yeah. You can swing the pendulum too far to where little things knock you off. Kilter enough. That right that you start freaking out over it when it doesn't maybe need to get freaked out over super green, not that big of a deal.
Point being, you asked me about the two hour solution, what the to our solution is functionally, it's just a weekly meeting that people have with themselves for an hour or two as a block where they reconnect with their goals and then create some version of a plan for their week. They think through and mentally create their week in chapter 11 of train your brain for success. There's a whole seven step procedure that that I do for myself and that my clients do.
It would probably be a waste of time to get into all seven steps here because it doesn't necessarily, it doesn't matter as much that you follow my seven steps as much as it matters that you give yourself an hour or two once a week to reconnect with your goals and then think through your week in advance with the knowledge. What I would tell you, Josh, is like you make your plan with the knowledge that guess what? The week ain't going to go exactly according to plan.
The big thing that happens though, when people do this, even if you're weak, ends up looking very little like the plan that you created. Even if you have to like can your whole plan, it's seven 58 on Monday morning, which happens to business people sometimes like things come up to, big things happen though. When you go into a week with a plan and this is guaranteed like this, this is regardless of how the week actually goes.
Number one, you're way more likely to the results that you wanted to get. I have a lot of weeks where I have things, I have results that I want to get in a week and I create a plan to get there with my two hour solution, I have a lot of weeks where the how I got there looks nothing like what I planned, but I got exactly where I wanted to get. Does that make sense? The end result ended up being exactly what I wanted or better.
But even if that doesn't happen, something like the two hour solution, it just puts people in control. You end up running your week instead of your week running you, which is possibly the single most foundational thing that a person can do just for their own mental health and their own
productivity, which is also a big reason why the morning routine and why that's such a hot topic right now is this the same thing
sets you up. It just sets you up to win. Yeah.
So, okay, so let's get a little bit more granular on this. Cause I, I, when I was first given this advice, I think I was, I would get to that hour or two hour block, I put in my calendar. So I've put in my calendar, I'm now there, I put my phone away because we're, I don't want that distraction. Now I got it. Now I've got a piece of paper or something and I'm ready to go. What do I do?
Oh, you want me to give you the seven steps?
Well, not necessarily what I'm thinking is like if you want to, great. But like I was in that position of taking that advice and I don't remember if it was you that I heard it from or someone else, but let's just say that I get to that, that spot. I go to the library, I'm, I'm out of my office so I can't be distracted. I'm out of my house so I can't be distracted. So I've done all the right things and now I'm there. I'm like, I don't have my phone, I'm not around people and not in my office.
Like w w what was I supposed to do again?
Yes. So I w I would encourage, I would encourage you to actually have two things with you. Like I would encourage you to have some version of a calendar that you can look at. And this is where I would tell people, I think it's wise to sort of put your phone maybe on airplane mode. That's good, that's good. Right? But have your, your scheduling tools. We like to me having some sort of a calendaring tool where you can look at a week at a glance is actually central to the process. Okay.
US Fair? I was thinking more of, I think on some of the advice I got on that was also for a reflection an hour.
It is like that's, that's part of it, right? Part of the two hour solution. If you want to get granular and get into the, okay. Specifically what do you do? I would tell people take a little bit and just kind of review the week that you just had. That's a great experience. Where did I win? Where that could I have done better. That's healthy just to do, right.
Take a little bit of time where you don't need your computer at all because somewhere I would imagine you've got goals and a vision statement and values and that sort of thing. Probably they live on paper or someplace where you can look at and besides your computer, have that, make that make that sort of activity the first at least 10 to 15 minutes of this two hours. And then I actually think it is okay to get out some kind of a calendaring too.
I actually use Google calendar for my two, our solution and I really enjoy it. I have, cause I need to share my calendar with a handful of people and it's a great way to share a color coded calendar. Yeah, that looks nice. Yeah. In a way that's free. Um, so I don't mind diving into Google calendar for this and then you find your own, find your own order that you want to put things in. I mean, okay, so in the book I described, so here's what you, the seven steps in the, to our solution.
The first, the first one of them is just what we just got done talking about. It doesn't involve calendaring at all. It's just reconnecting with why you're doing the things that you're doing and maybe have a little bit of a review. Um, in looking at a week, you obviously want to notice your commitments. Like that's kind of the first thing that that's sort of the first thing that you would do with the calendar is just go, all right, so what, what do I have that's already there?
And look at each one and go, okay, well what kind of preparation do I need to make? Does this meeting need to be there in the first place? There's like 11 questions that I give in the book about a good questions to ask yourself about a commitment starting with does it need to be there at all? And then if it does, okay, what do I need to do to make it as effective as possible? And then you schedule some excellence. I call it excellence time. You can call it whatever you want.
It's the time for the things that you, that make you better, stronger, smarter. But we're very likely to skip. It's things like working out, right? I put my workouts in my calendar ahead of time because I know that if I don't put it in there, but even if I do put it in there, sometimes life gets in the way and I ended up not making it to the gym, which tells me that if I don't put it in there, I'm never making it to the gym and that's not good.
So it's things like reading and it's things like meditating. It's things like your, what am I going to do my next power hour? Like when will I be able to put that into the schedule? Right? That's excellent time. Then there's what I call green time, which is this stuff that directly makes you money or is the core of your job. Then there's red time, which is more like support activity. Then there's what I call flex time, right? A good calendar.
But from what you were describing before, I would tell you that you might want to like intentionally allow just a little more flexibility in your life if, if, if you're, uh, if you're freaking out over any changes that need to happen, it's an indicator that you probably need to just loosen your grip a little bit or just stop being a control freak. Oh, you're not a control freak. You're a control enthusiast job for better verbiage, more positive version control enthusiast.
Um, and then I always tell people to make sure to schedule some fun in their job. Right? Like if you're not, it seems a little counterintuitive, but right. If you don't, if you don't have a little bit of just recreation or if you really want to get technical about the word recreation, it's actually re creation. You don't have any of that kind of just time for enjoyment and recharging your batteries with no schedule or no agenda at all. You're missing out. Like life's not just about work. Right?
It's about life in front of joy. Yeah. So when you connect with that, it's just good for your brain and good for your product.
Deputy of ways. I was thinking about my former self that showed up to the library with a blank piece of paper and I'm like, okay, I'm here. What am I your name?
My one of my sons is, is pretty add. So I've done a lot of studying about this. I'm just picturing you with the a blank piece of paper going squirrel.
Wait, wait, what am I filtering through? Our first session didn't go very, a little structure and a good starting point. You'll be way better off, right? I have improved. All right, so I want to be respectful of your time. We got to get going here, but I always follow or end with a couple of questions and we talked a lot about your book. Train your brain for success. I think we'll have to do this again on your new book. Master your mind. I'd love that. Uh, this came out in December.
It was the number one business book in January.
Yes sir. Awesome. Master your mind. I wrote it with my colleague. Rob's the Bursky. It's published by Wiley, right. Came out in December of 2018 January of 2019 it was the number one business best seller in the United States. That's pretty fair. Enough about that.
That's fun to be a little put on the resume too. That's great. So congrats on that success. I'm going to be checking that out since I've read your previous book before, but so can include one of your own books now. What's your favorite book or maybe one that you're most read that's been most impacted
for for you? Lee. Okay. If we want to go all time, there's two that I would say all time, most impactful books from me where it's seven habits of highly effective people. Beautiful. And a book called what to say when you talk to yourself. Yeah. There's a whole chapter in the, in the new master your mind book about upgrading yourself talk. I learned that early.
I read that book early in my sales career and yeah, when I understood what was really going on with how we talk to ourselves all the time and how you can sort of be intentional about how you talk to yourself. Yeah, I tripled my income the next year. Interest. It's not a bad result. That had a huge impact for me. Uh, and then recently my, my, my, my book that I've read recently, have you ever read anything by Ryan holiday? So talking about the former baseball player?
No, no. He wrote a book, he's, he wrote his first book was called confessions of a media manipulator. Savage, something like that. It's confessions of a media, something. I haven't read that book. He digressed into, um, sort of a modern day study of the, of the Greek philosophy of stoicism. Hmm. And he wrote, he's written a couple books on the one that I read most recently that I'm saying I'm giving it to all of my clients. It's a book called ego is the, and it is just, I just love it.
No ahrefs or are pretty sure I've seen that title probably in one of my audible recommendations or something
go you should, you should listen or listen to or read it for sure. You'd love it.
And that's second book you mentioned that, uh, besides seven habits or was that again,
what to say when you talk to yourself? It's by Dr Shad Helmstetter. It's old school. It was written, it was one of the first books that was sort of neuroscience based, right? A homesteader was the guy that identified the whole concept of what's called neuroplasticity. There are right for a long time, uh, you might actually be young enough that you weren't taught to us, but I very much remember getting taught that once you reach adulthood, your brain becomes set, right? You can't form new habits.
You can't rewire your brain once you reach a certain age. And that's patently false helps that it was one of the first people to identify, nope. For our entire lives. We can benefit from this concept of neuroplasticity, which is your brain's ability to change itself based on training and circumstances and, and stimuli.
If I was taught that in school, I don't remember, uh, about would be my own problem through to my add, not because they didn't teach one worry about it too much because it was bs to begin with. So anyhow, so how can our listeners follow you, get in touch with you? What are a, or kind of keep up with your ongoing success? Sure.
Um, website is freedom, personal development.com. That's the name of my company. It's freedom, personal development.com. Uh, if you want to send me an email, you can do that at either info at freedom, personal development.com or if you want personal Roger, r, O, g, e [email protected]. If you want to follow me on social media, I'm reasonably active on Facebook and linkedin. Just look for Roger Syep. It's s, e, I, p. And.
M. You can check out our blog on our website, check out our youtube channel, which we're just starting a, we're out there just Google Roger Sipe and or freedom personal development. And you'll find me.
Yeah or good, one of his books. And you'll be able to spell his name correctly and pronounce her road correctly now, and that's an even better choice, Josh, master mind or train your brain for success. Roger's been a pleasure having you back in the office. Yeah, it's been great to be here. Thanks for having me. We'll do it again.
We'll do it again on master. Your mind will take care. Everybody. Thanks for listening to another episode of inspire people impact lots. If you've been inspired today, please share this episode with as many people as possible so that together our impact is exponential.