EE 397 - Think Like a Founder: Brain Mastery Special with Keith Barry

It's this guy. It's one of the best brain hackers in the world, keith Barry. This was an absolute privilege. This is a masterclass in figuring out your brain and your psychology. Here is my chat with Keith. It takes courage and belief in yourself and your business idea to take the step to set up your own business.

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So it was 90% fun, factor 10, 15% working with companies, corporations and individuals, but in the last I'm going to say pre-COVID working with companies, corporations and individuals, but in the last, I'm going to say pre-COVID six years. Ultimately, the model has completely changed. So now, yeah, 85% of it is hacking brains to fix whatever needs to be fixed in people's brains, you know.

Obviously I'm a magician as well, so I do a lot of different things, but ultimately the model that I saw was always that you get to the peak of performing publicly and then you transition into the corporate space, which is what the likes of Tony did many, many years ago and the reason I always looked at that and it's interesting, I'd say when I was 18, I saw Brendan Grace and lovely man, I got to know him reasonably well and fantastic performer.

I got to see him down in one of the hotels the Grand Hotel in Tremor Place was packed. But then a couple of years later not that many years later I went to see him again and there might've been, I don't know, like 30 people in the audience and they all had white slash gray slash blue hair and I always said to myself I never want to be this, and that's not a knock on Brendan, but Brendan just kept going, kept going, kept going.

And I always said to myself I want to get to a certain kind of pinnacle, and this was early on, I thought of this. I want to get to a certain pinnacle in my career and then I want to do other things, basically, so look people probably don't know this I'm the number one selling artist that's ever performed in the Olympia. I've done the Olympia. I've put more bums on seats in the Olympia than anybody else in history, which is mental to say and so like.

For example, earlier this year I decided to do, you know, some legacy based stuff, so I did the Borgosch fill that that was 2,000 people. So I still love performing publicly, but I never wanted to be that person that just went on too long in the public eye. Now I'll still do public events, I'll still do things, but my model has completely changed. So I transitioned in.

But again, you know, I've been assisting people with their mindset, if you want to call it that, since I'm 23 so that's 25 years now and it was just always a small part of my business.

Then, pre-covid, six years ago, I started to do more and more corporate work, corporate events, so the likes of keynotes, motivational talks and ultimately then I suppose COVID probably did fast track it a bit as well, because when COVID hit, you know when everybody else was baking banana bread and jumping up and down the trampolines. I was like I don't need any of this, like I'm already spending enough time with my family.

So you had all these people who are Instagrammers and so on, you know, showing that they're spending enough time with their family. Now, all of a sudden, I'm like but shouldn't you be doing that anyway? It was like they're all finding themselves, which I found a bit sad. Actually, I was like shouldn't you all already know who you are? But when that happened, I was like that's not me, I'm already spending enough time with my family. So I thought let's create a business here.

So I flipped online, went virtual and look, that's a whole story in and of itself which we can talk about if you want, but how I made that happen is kind of interesting. But ultimately, to cut to the chase, I was probably in the top 10 virtual performers in the world for a good year and a half. So, in other words, I was just online every single day performing for Google, amazon, dell, microsoft.

But you can't throw a stick and not hit a company that I performed for during COVID and that kind of fast-tracked me further into the corporate world which I was very happy to do. So I knew the transition time was right and I'm of a certain age that I knew was the right time to transition as well.

Like I'm 48 now and you know I've enjoyed the work in the public space, on stages especially, but there's certain parts of the public stuff that I haven't enjoyed, so I was happy to leave that behind as well. Like television is a good example. Like I may do television again in the future, but television it's a difficult medium and it's only getting more and more difficult.

So you know, at the end of the day there's a lot of opinions involved, you know, and I'm a visionary, so I would envision something, I would create something, but very often the end product doesn't represent who I really am. So I find that difficult as a person, as a creative. So I was happy to kind of just park that for a while and just go on to do stuff that excites me.

And what really excites me is being on a stage predominantly, and I don't mind whether that's for fun or as a keynote speaker, I really don't mind what that is, I'm just really happy being on a stage. So that's kind of my main model now is being on a stage consistently enjoying that performance, enjoying that talk, whatever that may be.

I think it's because it just overexposed itself so much that people want freshness and they also want. I haven't seen Keith in a while. Oh, he's actually playing one-off show this year. Yeah, that's it, yeah, yeah. And then you're either there or you're not. Perfect example we are sitting in baseline and last week I put on VIP only, invite only event for all the founders that have been on the pod. Yeah, can't buy a ticket, can't just show up?

That's the model I look for and that's the model I'm moving towards, because I think there's just there's power in scarcity, there's power of being part of something that isn't just commercial and generic.

On linkedin, which is interesting again to talk about, a lot of people don't realize that I'm on linkedin and it really is me on linkedin, which is intriguing because you know, when everybody else is doing stuff over here, I always look at that and I go, okay, that's brilliant, that's working and it's working. And everybody will tell you to jump on that train. I will normally go the opposite direction. Yeah, so everybody's doing. A good example of this is like instagram.

So everybody's doing instagram reels right now because reels seem to push through the algorithm. So I said to my videographer there about four weeks ago not that long ago I said to dylan, my videographer, let's do long form content and he was. He thought it was crazy and I was like no, no, trust me, let's just do something really like long. So we actually made it too long. It was 20 minutes long and it was a weight loss video.

Because I'm a hypnotist, I like to help people, you know, shift their mindset with stuff like that. So I made a weight loss video, put it up on Instagram and like while we're chatting, I'll take, I'll take the phone, we'll look at the stats, right, because it's important, um, but ultimately that went viral like crazy viral, and that was interesting to me. So the same thing with Instagram itself.

I put a lot of energy into Instagram, mainly for my public events, but I put most of my energy into LinkedIn. Now, if we are sitting here on your podcast I haven't talked about this before, but I'll only talk about this because, to your audience, it'll be interesting. Ultimately, I did that very purposefully because I realized, well, there's nobody like me on LinkedIn. Like you know, let's be honest, tommy Tiernan's not on LinkedIn Do you know what I mean? And he's unlikely to go on LinkedIn.

It's not his bag, but for me, I realized I need to talk to business owners, I need to go B2B, I need to talk to people, ceos, all of the decision makers. With regards to events, let's just call it events, because very often I'll get booked for an event. A good example is, like we were talking again earlier, like my only booking right now, like I've been booked solid the whole of this year, like I could not keep up with the amount of events that I did this year.

That's why I'm not doing any public events next year, because I just couldn't keep up this year. But, like next year, I've just got one event booked in so far, maybe two. Like MRAID looks after my diary so I haven't really looked, but I know there's one big event at the end of January. I'm in the States for a week. Now that week is I'm the MC for a full conference for a week. Wow, so I glue the whole thing together.

So I'm and it's an interesting idea, right, because people don't necessarily see me in that space yeah, but you have a choice. You have a choice. You can get the standard MC for a week who will glue things together and do it in a very efficient way, or I bring something a little bit extra because I'll energize in and out of all of the different speakers. I'll glue it all together. I'll do kind of whatever you want to call it brain hacking, mind games.

Like this event has 7,000 people coming to it.

Like, very often people will come to us and they'll say they have a certain budget and I'm very often over that budget and you know the prices, the prices, the prices. They say there's any amount of speakers out there for €500. There's any amount of them in Ireland. There's a lot of them around the kind of €3000 mark. Like I'm way above that, and I don't mean that in a facetious way, I just mean I have a certain price point.

They'll charge a lot of money for a 15 minute call. I don't I just make sure that I'm the right fit for a company, I explain what I do and ultimately then it's based on that and it's based on, I think, an energy, an energy between me and the person I'm speaking to, and then we'll decide if I'm the right fit or not. And you know, very often you know I'm not the right fit and you know I'm not the right fit, and then I might recommend somebody else, maybe, or um, I will.

Just, you know, we'll call it there. But you know, for me, more often than not, I kind of am a right fit because I'm just a bit different. I'm a scientist first and foremost. So most people don't know that about me. So everything when I speak from a stage at a keynote event, for example, all the topics that I talk about. So I've got any number of keynote topics.

So I've got redefine the impossible, which is how to redefine the impossible on a daily basis, regardless of circumstances beyond words. Is my keynote on non-verbal communication tactics, like, yeah, I've got a leadership keynote, I've got loads of them, right? Metamorphical thinking is my workshop on creativity. So I'm always just trying to, you know, present ideas and concepts that they wouldn't have gotten elsewhere. And then my USP is that I entertain as I perform.

So even in the keynote, I'll do 70% content or takeaway and I'll do 30% entertainment. Now here's the interesting thing that can be skewed by the client, so it doesn't have to stay like that, right? So sometimes they'll say give us 50-50. What do you really want? Yeah, big question right. Like I did an event for Broadridge. They're a fintech firm out of the US, so I did an event for them mid-COVID. The first one was pure entertainment and after that the CEO just said that was brilliant.

But now I want only content so I can do only content. So I probably did another 10 events for them that were just content.

It went to Instagram, but it was too long for Instagram, so it actually cut off, right. So here's the interesting thing it's 22 minutes long, but as a post you can only go 15 minutes, right, and I didn't know that when I put it up.

Now, what's really interesting to me with that is that's what brands out there listening to this need to be looking at is not some influencer who claims that they have 2 million followers Like brands are not really paying attention at all. Let me tell you, to interactions. They're not really paying attention to algorithms. When it comes to paying influencers, and I know this because I'm looking at, like you know, people out there who are doing endorsement deals.

I'm looking at the results of those endorsement deals and people are spending a lot of money on crap, and what I mean by crap is, like the influencers aren't crap, but the analysis of their Instagram and Facebook or whatever it is that they're on, is not being done by the brands. I don't do many brand deals Like I done by the brands. I don't do many brand deals Like. I do a few, but I don't do many. But it's intriguing to me. I've only 80,000, 85,000 followers.

I say only like, but it's still a decent bank, it's chunky yeah. If you're looking, but it's interesting. Any brands I've dealt with, they've never asked to do a deep dive into my insights and I'll allow them, like some influencers won't, because a lot of their audience is bought right, so they're not real. But it seems that brands are lazy to me still even knowing what we know.

And I've never paid uh, never is the wrong word I haven't paid in the last like three years any boosts on any of my Instagram. So it's all real, it's all organic. Yeah, and interestingly, like over here, I've got one of the biggest Facebook pages in the country and I barely use it myself. So, like, I've got 150,000 followers on.

And that's really hard to solve that problem because I think where it's at is Facebook wants you to pay. They want you to pay to reach your audience and I refuse to pay. Have you a business page? Yeah, yeah, but I refuse to pay. You see, you have to have a business page because it limits you to 5,000 and then you have to flip it into a business page. That's how they get you. Yeah, you know so it's.

But it's intriguing to me all of that Like, like there's a, there's a campaign out there at the moment that I've observed it, and it's with a very well known influencer in Ireland lovely person, good, solid brand, I would say. But I can see the campaign's doing nothing, like the campaign's not getting any comments, it's not getting any interaction and that person's getting paid a lot of money for that. Isn't that just wasted money? You know, I did a campaign recently, uh, for a movie.

I barely even remember the name of the movie, but they really only wanted access to my tiktok page. Now on tiktok I've only got 55 000 followers, but it's interesting to me that the brand was one of the bigger studios. I don't want to name it because I'll just get it wrong but ultimately it was for a movie, something in the purple crayon we could look it up, but it was a family movie.

And ultimately I was on holidays in Marbella and the inquiry came in and I was like, can you do something in the next 24 hours for this movie where, basically, whatever the character is things appear when he uses a purple crayon. I was like sure, here it is. What do you want?

So I'm O'Brien's official coffee ambassador. So Brian's Sandwich Bar.

I'm having a meeting with them tomorrow, but it's for I don't want to say too much but it's for a supplement company. I haven't agreed to do it with them yet. I want to talk to their scientist. Now another influencer will just say yes, straight away. I want to talk to their scientist and learn, because I'm a scientist, so I can talk scientist to scientist. I want a deep dive into the supplement before I get behind it, especially if you're putting it into your body.

You scan a QR code and you get put into a mindful moment with me drinking your coffee. So, in other words, you get to listen to me. Just take three minutes out of your day while you're drinking I like that, but then create an anchor with the coffee. So not just in that moment, moment after that, when you're having your coffee, it'll remind you of a certain thing from your life.

To just give you like a dopamine hit and just that mindful moment while drinking your coffee, as opposed to just slurping coffee.

Yeah, even that level of depth, it's just very much kind of here because I think that's worked for a while. But I think the influencer scene is dying a slow death, because I think you're right, they're not. I think it's going to go to. It's going to go to. It's going to go this way People like yourself, who have a career and have a skill, are going to flourish. People who got famous for being famous are going to die in the vine.

So you have to be so careful about people's time. I think too many people, like you said, will just kind of go.

It's clear cut for me in my own brand, but I do have also an understanding of other brands as well, other influencers, like we were talking earlier on. Like one of my contemporaries good friend of mine in the UK that we both started off kind of doing the same thing. Like 20, like 27 years ago. I was just doing close-up magic. That's all I did, right.

So I was just playing with a deck of cards, going around Dublin doing events and doing close-up magic with cards and coins and all the rest of it, and we both started doing the same thing. And here we are, all these years later. I'm still friends with him and he's kind of scratching his head because he's still like and I'm not knocking it I love Close Up Magic. I think magic is a great addition to events, but that's what he's still doing and he's not loving it anymore.

Like he's not loving it because he's just doing the same thing day in, day out, and and he's just still performing at weddings, whereas now, all these years later, I've done I was saying earlier I actually have to like just do a quick synopsis for fun more than anything of the amount of television that I've done, because even I forget some of the TV shows that I've done. I've done so many, so what's the difference?

But I think I have an inherent level of fear of failure and I'm not sure where that comes from, and I also have a fear of not being able to provide for my family. I definitely have that fear. I think it's probably a healthy level of fear, but I do have these mad ambitions, right, and I'm driven and sometimes, you know, too driven. So you know I just wanted to be the best that I could possibly be, whatever it is that I'm doing. So a good example is I wasn't good in school.

Not that I wasn't good, but I was below average, I would say, in school. Because I was, and I put that some part down to the fact there's in a really bad school, like really bad, like just bullied and teachers were crap and it was just a bad school. And look, some teachers are out there who probably taught me thinking oh, we weren't that bad. Okay, I'm not talking about you.

So Seamus Barry, who was our career guidance counsellor, he gave me an aptitude test in school and he said whatever you do, just don't do science, because your aptitude test says you wouldn't be good at science, so that's why I picked science.

And then when I came out of there as a cosmetic scientist, did that?

So I was performing magic at the Kitchen Nightclub, which was owned by Bono and U2 at the time, and I was doing weddings. I was doing like everything, but then during the day I was like nine to five, I was a cosmetic scientist, but by the age of 23,. I was looking after full-scale production or overseeing full-scale production for Oriflame in Poland. So I was flying over to Warsaw I was 23. I was overseeing like their emulsions and their creams.

I was the guy standing there as a scientist putting like a number of drops of aloe vera into the emulsion you know, so marketing could rightfully get the claim. You know aloe vera anti-agingulsion, so marketing could rightfully get the claim aloe vera anti-aging property and so on. So I was good at that, but I always knew what I was going to do. So eventually, at 23, I just sat down, typed in my notice and said I'm off. And they were like what do you mean? You're off?

And I was like I'm going to just try this full-time magician. Why did you make the decision? Why did you make the decision? I knew I would always regret it. I knew I would always regret it. And it's interesting I see my daughter now. She's really driven. She's way more driven at her age than I ever was. So she's 16, really driven. But I see myself in her a little bit now.

But then, secondarily, you know, set up your business but then write it as a side hustle and when the side hustle becomes like busier than your main business, then you know, you inherently know, intuitively. I agree, if you just start now and start today and like you might just you know, you might just have way too many failures that bring you down, you might just never make it.

And a good example of that is like here we are 27 years later, like no other magician's done TV show in Ireland Right, except, actually I say that, but I almost forgot Joe Daly. Good guy, he's got a kids magic show. It's kind of a magic show on um the RT Junior. But besides Joe, nobody else has done a magic show. Nobody else has done what I'm doing. And here's why because, a I don't think a lot of people have the drive, but B they just don't get that timing right.

So a lot of the magicians and entertainers that I know and I don't want to get too caught up in magic either, but just as an example a lot of them leave school early and they just start doing magic. I think the best thing I ever did was fight through my leaving cert. The best thing my parents ever did was get me to college because I learned life skills. I learned how to be good at like chemistry and maths and all of these different things, which then I applied to the business.

And then all these years later, like, I self-manage the team. The main team is me and my wife. She runs the back end of everything that I do. Then I've got an extended team of about seven people who help, depending on what the projects are, and that's it. But like I wouldn't be able to do that without all these different life skills that I learned over all, the years, you see the bigger picture.

I really need to understand that I need to reach out to other people for help when I need help and with areas that I don't understand, for example, I need to learn new skills. And that's when I realized actually I just need to be a businessman first and foremost. So you know, a good example of that is what happened in COVID, which I mentioned earlier, but just as an example, right as a business person. Everybody else bounced back to that story.

Everybody else bounced up and down their trampolines, and here's what I did. I got lucky in one regard I just built a cabin in my back garden to get out of the house and have a new office when COVID hit. So I had an empty think of an empty shell in the back garden and then, when COVID hit, a few weeks later or into COVID. I just rang my one of the extended team. Joe Clear has worked for me for over 20 years now. He runs all my live shows, but think of him as actually a real life MacGyver.

He's MacGyver, he can do anything Handy lad to have, but he built his own house and stuff. He's predominantly a musician. He's a singer, songwriter, very successful. He's one of these guys that people don't really know in Ireland but he's out there. He could be in Germany or something this week writing songs for somebody. You'd know his songs. You might know his name Exactly. Yeah, and ultimately I rang Joe and I said listen, let's set up a studio in the back garden. Here's the budget.

Go get a camera, let's set up a green screen and let's figure out what the Zoom thing is. He was doing that and when he was doing that, that's when I went on LinkedIn and I started to fire up LinkedIn and I'm telling you now, and I started to fire up LinkedIn and I'm telling you now, I learned more than most people would know about LinkedIn In a short. I took courses on LinkedIn. I figured out LinkedIn fast. I figured out LinkedIn ads. I figured out like a lot about LinkedIn.

And then I went to Fiverr. Did you ever use Fiverr? Yeah, I went to Fiverr and I got some person there to get me 3000 email addresses. Okay, I wasn't even thinking about GDPR at the time, but anyway, it's too late now.

So I said get me 3,000 email addresses and get me LinkedIn Of who Like of like directors so just people who were in charge of events within companies Okay, so mainly the marketing people, assistants to directors, directors themselves as well, but ultimately 3,000 people involved in potentially booking. Somebody like me Got those 3,000 emails. I use ActiveCampaign, so I've got ActiveCampaign. What is that? So it's a CRM, so I could have used that to blast email all 3000 people.

I chose not to, so I gave a thousand email addresses to Maraid. I gave a thousand email addresses to a guy I mentor in Cork, daniel Kremen, and I took a thousand email addresses myself and we got electronic press kits made up about the fact that I was performing virtually. This is before I even had any materials. This is what I'm talking about. Being a business person, I'll figure out the show after the fact. I just need to market this is brilliant.

It was like the first gig and the first gig the camera didn't work. Before we figured out the camera wasn't rigged up, so I just did it on the laptop. Do you know what I mean? Like literally sitting there on a laptop on Zoom doing a gig, but it worked, and then I think that person put up a recommendation on LinkedIn or whatever. Anyway, if I got one, I got them all. For a year and a half the avalanche happened. It was just like the perfect timing.

They don't work as far as I can see. They're not good.

You know, I have an opportunity in January to do lots of different things podcasts like guests like this, right, I'm just being straight with it. Like in January I've nothing really to sell, like in my head, you know, I'll just be busy doing my own thing and figuring out, mapping out the year and so on. So I'm just saying no to everything in January.

So if I do a public show, it's going to be the three arena, because that's legacy based, right. It's like let's do the biggest, let's do the one I haven't done, whatever it is. 12,000 Like that excites me, that gets me, why, yeah? Like doing the Olympia, it's fun, right. Still, love it. Never lost the hunger and desire for it.

I love it, I didn't even I didn't even turn the whoop on really because I just have no interest in technology, like it's actually that first and foremost. Like I've got a fitbit, I've got a whoop and I just I don't, I get it's interesting because you're very good on social.

So I purposely put a lot of energy into Instagram the last year and a half, so that's why I'm up at 85,000, all real, all organic, mostly Irish, but yeah so. So when it comes to projects like first of all, I'm infinitely curious. I'm really curious about everything interestingly other than tech, but that's a blessing and a curse right, yeah, so it is a curse. It can be a curse because you just get interested in so many things. It's like, where does your attention go?

But like, so the tech stuff, I generally farm out, except I realized I farmed. So this is interesting. I farmed out like years ago, long time ago. I farmed out like my socials, right. So I hired people to do my socials for me and I realized like I'm being sincere with this the majority of them they're just gangsters, like, because when you look at the back end of what they've done, they say they won't do something and they always do it.

So, in other words, I'll never, ever, buy followers, I'll never, ever do anything untoward. And then if you really gain your keys back and you look at it, that's exactly what they did to get those followers and so on. So I realized that was kind of smoke and mirrors, so I had to get good at that and now I look after all my own socials and I'll never give them away, ever again. So it's really me. On LinkedIn.

So a good example is you know, I did a LinkedIn campaign there about a year and a half ago. I realized I needed a campaign going. I did a campaign. I remember a guy came back to me Johnny was the name and he came back and he said this is obviously a scam. This can't be the real Keith Barry, you know and he was basically attempting to go away.

And then we went back and forth and then I don't know, like six weeks later I was down in Portugal doing an event for him. Nice, do you know what I mean? Okay, but back to the projects. I said the voice note thing here in the pod about a year and a half ago and I was like I I'm not answering for you.

I realized, like I'm not a great sleeper, like, naturally I'm not a great sleeper. So a year ago, or well, I suppose a year and a half ago now, I realized, okay, well, actually, and this is how things come to me, right, I'm a hypnotist. I've literally put tens of thousands of people to sleep, both on stage and privately, and the last thing I say to them is sleep deep.

So those three areas combined will help you with deep sleep, whereas other books that I've read or that I've looked at, they might just go with dietary advice or they might have a couple of quick hacks, whereas mine is a system. You make your own system out of what you think will work for you. You pick one part from each section, you combine those three areas and ultimately you try that for a month and then you see how you get on.

I have yet to meet somebody whose sleep hasn't improved by just doing that alone, and then they tweak it as they go along. So what works for me might not work for you. So that's what the book is about, and then I really was interested in the kind of new science that's out there. So I mentioned to you earlier on like what works for me is two kiwis Every single night, three hours before bedtime. I eat two kiwis Because I realized you can't buy melatonin in Ireland.

So two Kiwis binaural beats work for me. So they're two different frequencies played into your ears and your mind kind of hallucinates, relaxes you down into a, you know, alpha theta, hopefully down to a delta brainwave sleep.

I look at them and I go well, what's your backstory like? Why are you, like, qualified to talk about leadership? And I mean that just in a, I suppose, a curious way, because very often we don't hear their backstory. And again, I would say the same about myself. People would look at me and go, well, what does he know about leadership?

Well, what if I told you when I'm in the olympia theater, I'm leading a team of 100 plus people like people don't think of it like that right, like my core group is seven. So I'm leading a team of seven consistently through the year, like off and on, like you know, depending on projects. And then when I'm in a theatre, I'm leading up to a hundred people.

I don't know how I discovered this, but, like, if I'm thinking of a live show, like the last live show is called mind games, the one I just finished and literally I just thought of that title, mind games and then went all the way backtracked down to the start and then back up again. Same with sleep hacks, sleep hacks good title. Then what is a hack? Hack is something short that you can apply to your life, to try and make your life, you know, more proficient, more interesting.

You know, hack something down, so it's short, so you can use it quickly. So then backtrack all the way down through that and with the leadership illusion, you know, I think it's interesting that all of the different leadership keynotes that I've heard, people are talking about purpose and there's a lot to be said for these things. So don don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking this, but they're all very samey and companies out there are looking for that twist. What's that thing?

That's a bit different. So it's about, you know, very often leadership is about authenticity, purpose, vision, yada, yada, yada. It's kind of rinse and repeat. Some people do it in an interesting way there's relevance to what they're saying, but it's still the same content very often, whereas I'm kind of saying, well, isn't leadership just actually an illusion? And how do you create that illusion of being a good leader? And the answer to that I don't know.

Yet I'm writing this like right now, but I give myself a timeline on that.

Gary, you know I've taken away these couple of things how I can improve my mindset. Because we talk about business, body and brain. We'll get to the body piece shortly. How do you work with them when you go in and say, right, session one, here's what we're going to cover. Or do they come to you with a?

They're very often these people have assistance, so you know they'll have assistants, so you know they'll have, you know, good diet, because they'll eat what's provided by their assistants so they're not having to grab for crappy snacks or whatever, so they'll very often have that in check. Where they're mostly lacking is relationships within the family, like not being present in the moment.

So a lot of people, like nearly all of my clients, find it difficult to be present in the moment, so their relationships suffer. The more their business gets more successful, the more the relationships suffer.

Like he's pretty regimented about the fact that he doesn't work weekends, and he's spoken about that. He might not even work Fridays, I can't remember, but he's good at just like here's the time I'm working, here's the time I'm not working, and he seems to then be present with his family. The problem with these people is they do the nine to five. They tell everybody not to bother them, but then they still procrastinate over business.

When they're at home with their family, they're sitting down, they're playing Monopoly, they're not playing Monopoly with the kids, they're thinking of the business, thinking of the business, thinking of the business, and they're caught in that spiral loop of what's next, what's next, what's next? And for a lot of these people it's an addiction.

It's also like overthinking and over analyzing everything in their life and then over analyzing the past and getting caught in that belief system that's stored in them from previous experiences, often very traumatic experiences, and my job very often is to unpack that. But then not all of them are healthy lifestyle wise, either I said the majority, or a lot of them are.

But like, a person came to me a number of years ago, about two years ago, and he came to me about just being a better communicator with his team. He wanted to learn about non-verbal communication tactics and sometimes, by the way, like sorry, a lot of the time people will come to me about how to negotiate better, because they realize that I can negotiate and I can negotiate very well, very high, high-end deals. I'll give you an example of that in a minute.

But these are people who know this about me, a lot of people. I'm getting the layers here today.

Well, for example, I restructured an office one time in Sweden in an investment firm, and I explained to them why I was restructuring their office, because that's where the deals are getting done for hundreds of millions, and what they were doing wrong in the office and ultimately, like as an example, I got them to put in a glass table instead of this kind of table into their office so that when they're negotiating with whoever they're negotiating with the lead person so let's

say there's three of you in from an investment firm and there's three of us identify who the the real decision maker is out of the three. The reason the glass table was there and this is just one of like we'll just say a hundred things that I taught them it was to notice a, what the legs are doing underneath the table in your peripheral vision. But also, if the legs are crossed, there's an artery that goes down the back of our leg.

I always forget the name of the artery, but it's a big artery that goes down the back of our leg. So if the legs are crossed, there's a bounce of the upper leg. That bounce is not a tick, that's actually the person's resting heart rate. So if now I can actually measure that over a 15 second time period because I can look at my watch, notice like just in my peripheral, I can do this while I'm talking. Notice my peripheral vision.

The second, not in this watch, but if I have a watch that has a second hand, ultimately over a 15 second period, I'll quickly doesn't have to be exact, I'll quickly count the bounce. I'll quickly, it doesn't have to be exact, I'll quickly count the bounce. So, whatever that bounce is, all times by four. That's the person's resting heart rate. So I know, during the chit-chat period, when we're just talking about the weather or whatever it is, I know roughly their resting heart rate.

So I'll know if it's whatever, it is like 60 beats or 50 beats per minute, whatever it is. And then, during the course of a negotiation, if I've said something that's made that person feel uncomfortable and I see the bounce going faster, I know now that person's uncomfortable with what I've said. So if that's about price point, I know it's price point, if it's something that they've said to me.

So if they've said something to me, like a sentence, whatever that sentence is, and I see the bounce rate going up, then I know they're potentially lying to me, right?

They're already the person they don't want to be. So if you can define that, you can then move as quickly as you can away from that. Do you mean traits like deceitful, dishonest, nervous? No, no, no, I mean so. For example, who do you not want to be? I can tell you exactly who I don't want to be. I don't want to be three words an absent father.

Because I travel so much, it's very easy for me to get caught up in that rat race and become an absent father and not see my kids, not know my kids, and very often people end up there right, I know loads of people who are divorced. They get to see their kids now every other weekend because they're divorced. So they ended up exactly where they don't want to be, because of the rat race, because of business and because they weren't mindful of who they don't want to be.

So we all get caught up in what's our compelling future, but I think it's a very interesting prospect. That is fine. First, who you don't want. Anti-goals, yeah, yeah, don't get too focused on those, because then you can go into the negativity of that. But very often, who do I not want to be? Well, I don't want to be a smoker. Well, are you a smoker? And if you are, is that the person you don't want to be? If that is the person you don't want to be, then stop smoking.

Ah, the person you don't want to be. Then stop smoking. Ah, it's too hard to stop smoking. No, it's not. Go to Tony Starr. He's 83. He's my mentor. He lives in Camp Thiele Sharp. As a breeze I meet him Still does 10,000 steps every single day. Like not a bother on him. Sharpest guy in the country. He's gotten tens of thousands of people off cigarettes. Go to him, give up smoking. End of story, right. So who do you not want to be? So I don't want to be an absent father.

I think it's a really powerful question to ask yourself, you know. And then, like I don't know what the other one was going to be, but like here's an interesting one. Like I talked to this about all of these oh yeah, that's what I was going to talk about Like a guy came to me a number of years ago and he was, he was.

He came to me specifically to communicate with his employees more, but I noticed there's a rash on his neck here and I said, well, before we start talking and they're paying me for this advice, so my job is to be brutal, brutally honest I said what's the rash on your neck before we talk about communication skills? He said, well, it's a rash, you know, I've had it for a while. And said, well, well, tell me about that. And then he said, well, it's all over my body.

He said, sorry, all over your body, yeah, and I said, okay, tell me more about that and tell me about your diet and tell me about, you know, the body, as you put it. And then he told me, like he doesn't eat breakfast, so you might consider that, oh, that's a good thing. He's an intermittent faster. No, he gets up and has a cup of coffee with a couple of cigarettes and then later on in the day for lunch he'll consider have what he considers a healthy lunch.

But that healthy lunch would be a chicken roll from you know some spa or something or center or whatever. You know what I mean. Okay, and then tell me about your dinner. I have a good hearty meal for dinner, you know? Uh, like bacon and cabbage or something I said. Okay. So your weight, you're about, you know, 80 kilos. You're probably at 160, 170 pounds. You should be getting 1.2 grams of protein per pound. You should be, you know. We'll just say at least minimum 180 grams of protein a day.

You're getting about 30. I'll be generous to you. You're getting 50. You haven't told me about some protein you're getting. So you're getting less than a third of your protein goal per day to add to your skeleton muscle, to add to longevity. You've got no vegetables in your diet. The carnivores out there will say that's a good thing, like that carnivore was that totally alien information to him? yeah, yeah, no, like people know this stuff but, they pay no attention to it.

Yeah, so I just said, let's forget about why you came here, let's just deal with all that. First turns out he was smoking like 40 or 60 cigarettes a day. He was really heavy smoker, you know. But then people are out there vaping like some of the richest people are. But I look at it really funny because people are vaping now like the dummy in their mouth. For babies People won't want to hear that that are listening to this podcast.

It's ridiculous, like they've got the vape in their hand all day long, so it's not like a cigarette where they might have another cigarette, like we know that's bad for you. People are vaping, they're just vaping all day long. I look at it like like, honestly, I look at it like a baby.

When you deal with high level founders, what are the fundamentals you get them to do?

It's SW plus MA times. Satt equals GS, and that covers the mind of a lot SW plus MA times SATT equals GS, so your SW is your subconscious. Why? So? I've got a unique way of helping people find and define their subconscious. Why? Very quickly, quickly, you just write down two words why, what? Okay, I used to years ago limit people to why questions, but now I found that too limiting, so I allow them to ask what questions. You're not allowed to ask any other question except why, what?

So, for example, I do this once every two months, so I did recently. Why is it that I'm here in Broadway, new Jersey, giving a workshop on creativity? I like to provide value to other people. What is it about providing value to other people? That benefits you, keith? Oh, I get to gain back the asset. The asset's time. I'm always time crunched. Why is it that time is important to you? What is it?

And so every answer that comes up, you ask another question, but you keep going until you get a revelation, and everyone will get a revelation. If you keep going, you will think of something you've never thought about in your life before. So you just go level, level, level yeah keep going, layer, layer, layer. so after 47 layers recently, what came up to me is I want to shut down all 32 raw sewage pipes pumping raw sewage into the seas around Ireland. That's my defined subconscious.

Why and everybody will tell me that that's an impossible problem to solve.

I'm a big proponent of massive action, so you know we don't have too much time. But the body, for example. You know, with the body I take massive action. I intermittent fast. I do ice baths every day or every other day if I'm too busy. I've got a sauna and ice bath in my back garden. Love it. You know I'm privileged to be in a position to be able to afford that. But before I could afford that, I just had a bucket in the back garden where I'd make my own ice and I'd jump into that.

Before I had that, I just had cold showers. When I couldn't afford that, there's no excuse, right, there's levels. Yeah, always, jump on the sea, jump on the sea. You don't need. Yeah, jump on the sea is free. Yeah, like Saturday. I think it's like 15 quid. Greystones, I was there Saturday just gone, were you, I was in the sauna. Yeah, so I do the barrel sauna. So I have no affiliation with them. I pay my way, right, like everybody else, not anymore.

Game changer for me in terms of information, reducing inflammation, my body, uh, overall mindset Wim Hof method then for uh, you know, part of massive action self-hypnosis. There's a lot of information on that, and sleep hacks. If you're not interested in sleep hacks, brain hacks is my other book. A lot of information on that.

I'll link them both in the show notes as well, and then, with Massive Action, I tell people delete off an app that you know is sucking down your time and does not serve you. So I've deleted off Sky News off my phone recently as an example. I've deleted off Twitter.

You said it earlier perfectly what works for you won't work for me.

But she got six things done that she procrastinated on one of them for a year and a half. She got them all done immediately after the sun ice bath. So, but for me, meditation is brilliant, but I prefer self-hypnosis with a creative visualization and heading towards my compelling future. We're gonna do a quick fire round. Yeah, very quick. So now you gotta go quickly.

Before before you do that, look at me focus on something that you haven't focused on in ages focus on your pin for your bank card, okay, okay, now, this is important. You haven't told me earlier on what your pin is for your bank and nobody else knows this, correct? I have to literally look at the keypad myself. Okay, throw me over your pen, your paper, for a second, right, let's try this. Okay, look at me, just focus, put out your finger like this, but don't move it.

Just imagine that you're moving. It. Don't actually move. In other words, don't give any clues. Imagine your front of a bank machine and imagine that you're plugging in the first digit of your pin. Don't move your finger. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 8, 0. What's the first digit of your pin? Be honest Five. I wrote down a five as well. There it is. There, right? So focus on this. Tell you what. Forget about the second digit. So don't focus on the second digit.

Now here's what happens, psychologically speaking when you try not to focus on something, you jump to the, you focus on that, but then you also jump to the third digit, right. So I saw in your head you jumped to the third digit. And yeah, and the third digit is zero. Is that correct? Yeah, now focus, focus on zero. Focus on one of the two digits left zero. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, six, six. There's a six in there somewhere, is that correct?

Be honest, yes, focus on where the six is. Focus on whether it's in the second position or not. It's in the last position, is that? No, it's in the last position, is that correct?

And it's by an amazing human being, edith Eager, who is still alive to this very day on Instagram, and ultimately she was in a Nazi concentration camp and she still believed that she had a choice of how to think even in those dire circumstances. And I think we can apply that to our business lives as well.

So I've missed out on time in years gone by with friends and you know I don't regret that because that was in a period of time where I was really hustling hard. I think that's necessary, but now I am mindful of that. So that's why I was in Greystones at the weekend with my best mate, Al, in the sauna, in the ice bath and then down the road to that. I've never learned the name of the place, but the coffee shop down on the harbour, the harbour one. You know where you walk down to.

It's in the middle of the apartments there, you know halfway down.

For more information about how Enterprise Ireland can support you on your startup journey, visit enterprise-irelandcom. Enterprise Ireland helping Irish startups go global. What would you do today if I give you 10 million euro?

So 10 million euro, yeah, I like the idea of going to Hawaii instead of a magic bar and just chilling out.

It's okay to know it's not okay to be not okay. You don't want to be not okay. You don't want to be depressed all of your life. You don't want to be anxious all of your life. It's not okay to be like that, because 99.999% of people their DNA is okay, their mindset is okay, they don't have a hormonal imbalance. It's other reasons that they're not feeling okay. And then the other percentage of people of course they need medication, of course they need professional help.

But I think people need to understand it's not okay to not be okay, and a lot of people would disagree with that statement. But I'd stand behind it because I come from a good place saying that I want people to know that you can heal and you can heal fast, you can heal quick because I've helped people heal fast and heal quick and then to know it's it's not okay to sit with that for the rest of your life because you want to have a fruitful, positive and productive life.

I sprout, so in other words, I make my own sprouts which have very high level of probiotics, prebiotics in them and so on and so on. So, yeah, paying attention to your gut health and doing things for your gut.

So that is when I become an absent father for a set period of time, being mindful of the fact that I never wanted to land there. But if life's not going my way, super activity mode, and in that super activity mode nothing is stopping me. So like nothing is stopping me. So being driven by my compelling future, so knowing what that is, and then take that super activity mode to get there.

If you go into that super activity mode for that short period of time, knowing what your compelling future is, then nothing will stop you. You'll become unstoppable.