Achieve More Now

Starting the conversation:

Mental flexibility is foundational to building personal and professional resilience. What can we do to build mental flexibility? Be present. Pause. Follow through. Jess Dewell and John Davis discuss how to achieve more now on this Livestream of the BOLD Business Podcast.

Host: Jess Dewell

Guests: John Davis

What You Will Hear:

Transcript

ANNOUNCER 00:03
Welcome. This is the Bold Business Podcast. Your business has many directions that can travel, the one true direction of your company creates the journey for you to move toward a new, exciting level. We call this the Red Direction. In today’s program, we delve into one idea. The idea will support you as you work on ever-present situations, including how to stay competitive in a changing market, how to break through the business plateau, and how to anticipate the changing expectations of your stakeholders. Jess Dewell is your guide, Jess brings you a 20-year track record of business excellence, where strategy and operations overlap. Your Path comes from consistently working from the special place, your unique True North. Now, here’s Jess.

Jess Dewell 00:52
Everybody, everybody, this is the live stream version of the Bold Business Podcast. And you know, these are my favorite ones to do, because it’s the one thing I’m doing right now. So after this when I eat lunch, my lunch is going to be my favorite thing to do. And after that, I’m going to come back and I’m going to optimize some videos. And John is going to be my favorite thing. Again, John is going to be my favorite thing twice today. So just so you know you are here you are in the right place for conversations on how to increase your capacity, and your capacity, the capacity of your leadership team. This is important because when we don’t look in the mirror first. And we don’t develop our own skills, we can’t meet anybody else where they’re at. So it’s all about this conversation is all about the skills, we need to be resilient not only as individuals but also in our business as leaders carrying the visionary torch that we do. All right, my guest today, I’ve already let his name slip once. But that’s all you know about him. So now you get more, John Davis suffered a serious back injury that left him paralyzed, he developed his five F system of achievement. Because of this. The system hacks the fight or flight response that we all face when we’re stressed out now and again. And here’s the thing, it allows us to shorten the learning curve and increase more successful outcomes over time. Using the system he regained his own mobility. And he went on to perform 4000 live comedy five sword, sword fighting shows, you know, I’ve practiced that one, and I still am like, sword fighting, you’re right up my alley. And then not only was it 4000 live shows it was across 16 countries around the world. John is known as the corporate action hero. And you can find him online at corporate, corporate action. hero.com. How are you doing today John?

John Davis 02:49
I am doing great, what a great introduction. Thank you for having me, I’m really excited that talk about this, this will be fun.

Jess Dewell 02:55
I’m really glad. And I have to tell everybody who might be joining us for the first time who I am. Otherwise, they’re just gonna think I’m some crazy funny lady. And really, in addition to the Bold Business Podcast, my name is just dual. And I am a strategic business advisor at Red Direction, where we provide unique customizable frameworks that are designed for leadership teams to fail faster and bounce higher. Okay, so getting into what I do best, which is asking questions and being super curious, John, what does achievement really look like?

John Davis 03:24
What does achievement really look like? Well, achievement to me is, is I set goals and reach those goals. So achievement to me is taking present moment action and dynamically getting to what I set for myself.

Jess Dewell 03:40
When you do that, and I’m thinking about this, like holding up the mirror, this, this holding up the mirror piece. Because I think that’s key. We have to know what success looks like for ourselves. And if people think they know what success is, but they always feel like they’re failing, do they really know what success is?

John Davis 03:59
Right? The interesting thing about that question is, for me, success is freedom to you know, we’re free to have be free from debt. And we’re free from living in a, in a dump. And we’re free from being in a bad relationship. You know, if you’re living a life where you’re not, you’re, you’re free of all those things, then you’re I know a lot of people who set a monetary figure, but they’re not really free until because they’re a slave to get to that number, right? And then they get to that number and then they’re, they’re still not happy because they don’t have all the other elements in play. For me, success comes about an achievement comes about is when you feel more and more free. And so freedom to me was an interesting thing because as you said earlier, I was paralyzed. And it to free myself from the bed was, was a huge achievement for me.

Jess Dewell 04:48
And it’s interesting, because you’re right, and especially in business, we do think about success or achievement being associated with a revenue number. And that’s not As in business that’s necessary, because we’re trying to employ people, we’re trying to make sure we have product to sell to people, we’re trying to make sure the right people know about those products. And all of those things, take money. And what I’m hearing you talk about is that, of course, that is necessary, because that’s how our world works. And we’ve all decided what our income stream where we add value, so we can create income, so we can go spend our income and make up make the world a better place and make our lives a better place. And so I think what I’m one of the things I’m thinking about with this concept of freedom is that if we can, if we can shift the way that we look at revenue from a business, and maybe this is even personal financial goals, too, if that becomes a result, instead of the driver, How do things change? John?

John Davis 05:47
Well, it’s interesting, you say it that way. Because the result is there is the driver, we all set goals for our future. Sometimes those goals are monetary numbers. Sometimes those goals are, you know, reaching the next level of sales. You know, sometimes it’s literally, you know, keeping the lights on, too, sometimes that’s hurt as well. Right? Yeah. And so and so the idea that that that level that you’re trying to achieve is out there, that’s a goal, you’re going to set the goals. But the thing is, it’s fascinating, and this is something that I learned the hard way. Great successes never magically appear in your present moment, the only way you’re they come to you is by you making small successful present moments right here. And so by living in this present moment, and looking at that, that goal, and thinking I have to get to it, you’re actually making it mentally harder to get to work, because in reality, it’s the small successful present moment. So you make here that achieves the big goal because the big goal is being pulled to you by each one of those little, tiny little things you do if you make successful.

Jess Dewell 06:51
So then we have to even understand that we are having success because it’s each one of those things that we’re doing, that gives us the momentum to keep going and sometimes to power us through. I mean, in my world, if I don’t put on lipstick in a day, you know, I’m having a bad day, because I like it’s a really bad day because it doesn’t matter what it is, I will always put on my lipstick. And I will always keep going because the momentum from yesterday, and the momentum from where I’ve been, and my drive to be calling myself forward is what gives me that to get through those tough times. And, you know, I think we often overlook those present moments, and actually seeing what they are as up not only as opportunities but as a kind of achievement. How do you reflect in the present moment to No, this is my success, or here’s the success of this moment?

John Davis 07:47
Well, this, this moment is the only moment that you’re conscious anyway, it’s the only moment that you can do thought word indeed, your past experiences are now stacked in your subconscious mind as memory. And those memories have subconscious beliefs that are giving you ideas and beliefs. And like I said, your future is just a place for you set, present moment experiences. Now, the thing that I see is people doing their present moments. And they’re making them successful, every so often, they mess one up, or they do it wrong, or they have a problem like that. And they go, I’m so dumb, and they start beating themselves up. That’s why I’m bald. did definitely get yours right. The thing, the thing is, what I had to do is I had to come to a place where that moment where I mess up is not another moment to waste in self-defeating talk or beating myself up in said, I just go. That’s silly. And I do the next present moment. So I’m making them my bad moments fun. Because if I do something, something dumb, or I do something that doesn’t feel right, I laugh at it because it’s funny, because here’s why it’s funny, because I’m going for a goal. And this thing I just did doesn’t match the goal. So it’s just silly that it happened. Because see, you’re going for your goal, right? You’re making a goal come?

Jess Dewell 09:03
Absolutely. Alright. Well, that’s interesting, because I agree with you about the past, but for a whole different perspective and a whole different viewpoint. Because I always live in the future. So even in this moment, I am, I am straddling this moment with the future. And I look at the leadership teams that I work with, and some rely on the past to figure out where they’re at now. And some like me, in general, rely on the future to know where I’m at right now. And we forget to be in the right now. And so that’s actually something in the last five years or so that I’ve really put a lot of attention on is I thrive in the future. I want to know what’s coming next I want to see what is out there to go find and I can’t forget exactly where I’m at because not being present here means we might miss the turn off on the trail means we might miss the, the I’m going to call the wild strawberries that we, that we might find along the journey that we could stop and enjoy by a river, right? There’s so many things that we miss. So I look at the past in the future, as a, as a place of strength to bring back to ensure I’m as present as possible here in this moment. And by the way, that literally just takes practice. And it’s, it seems almost to your point about maybe I don’t I’m not bald yet. I’m surprised I’m not. Those things that I do.

John Davis 10:28
This could be genetics to for all It

Jess Dewell 10:34
cracks me up. All I know is that I think that when we think about our goals, and we and by the way in life is going to happen. And so if we are looking at this world, in relationship to what’s happening to us, instead of how we’re showing up to the happenings, I think that makes a difference, too, don’t you, John?

John Davis 10:51
Absolutely. They’ll do it. But the one thing you have to remember about your, your future, your past, and your present, is that there’s only one of those three, that you can actively do something, there’s only one of those things that you can take thought word and deed, right. And it’s the present moment, right? You can’t go to the store next Thursday, right now, you can’t go to the store last Thursday, right now, you can only go to the store right now, right? So you have to take this, this moment and make it truly active. As I said earlier, you know, a giant goal that you set out in the future, it’s great, it is great to dream and, and plan and create. But, but all that dreaming, planning, creating without present moment, action is just dreaming, planning and creating, you’ve got to have the action for it to be coming into fruition and into reality. And the thing is, when you’re dealing with when you’re dealing with teams, and you’re dealing with, you know, the, the teams that you’re trying to bring up to another level, you have to realize you have to get them very present. And you have to get them doing present moment action so they can develop sex and successes. That past experience that we talked about, which is very, very unique in the fact that that subconscious belief that I talked about earlier, is really one of the most prevalent driving forces in your team’s experience because they have past traumas that they that have diminished their belief, sometimes they have past failures of the minister. And there’s some who’ve got these great successes that have a different belief, right. But if they’re driving from the subconscious beliefs, in the present moment, they’re just repeating those subconscious beliefs, yet again, that that same experience, so you got to break them free of the past, or the end, the end the future, enough, you have to stay in the future in to have the goals and the dreams, but you have to, you have to stay in the present enough to make things happen. And the cool part is, is when you make these successful moments, you make a lot of them, your subconscious mind completely changes. You literally alter the subconscious mind. And your life gets great because now it’s on autopilot.

Jess Dewell 12:44
Isn’t that fantastic? And you know what, I can give you a real-life example from this morning of not being present in the present moment. But taking action and having it go a little awry. I was putting an English muffin into the oven so that I could take my kid to school and come back and have my breakfast. Okay, so my tea was ready to go, everything was ready to go. But I’m listening to my son, tell me all the things he’s doing and getting round and he’s headed out to the car. And I’m slicing in my hand with this knife. This English muffin. I cut myself on the Camino, it was silly. And I did. I was like, Oh, well, that’s crazy. So I’ve got my, I’ve got my English muffin in one hand, I’ve got my other hand up. Hi, I’ve got to get in the oven. And I’ve got to get a bandaid on before my son gets worried that he’s going to be late for school because he’s a social butterfly, like his mama, and wants to get there as early as possible. And so I get in the car and he goes, we’re already late. And I said, Hey, you’re still putting on your snow boots. And I even got a bandaid on my cut before we had to actually leave the garage. So let’s be right here right now. And so it starts early people. One of those things is are we always looking to what’s next? Or can we see to John’s point? What is actually here right now? What can we use? And how are our reactions and responses to that? Actually, reinforcing what’s between our head?

John Davis 14:07
Right, right, right. Exactly, exactly. And you’re gonna have, you’re always gonna have people in your life are going to going to give you what you should think about your life and what you should think about your experience. You know, I had a doctor one time tell me, you’re never going to be a stunt man. You’re never going to be a fight director. You’re never going to do those things. You’re never gonna have a physical career. And I could take his belief and stop. Or I could say no, I’m taking my own belief and move forward. And what I did was I went on to do over 4000 live comedy sword fighting shows all over the world, including the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan on six USO tours. I’ve worked with movie stars, I’ve jumped off towers, I’ve been on fire. I’ve done all kinds of physical things that most people will never do in their entire life. And I did that all after the doctor told me I never would. And it literally is about leveraging your present moment and set your goals. Absolutely. For me. I had to set the goal that I was going to be a stunt man and fight director. To set that goal, but I had to hold on to that goal. And when I held on to that goal and didn’t let anything stop me is when I achieved that goal.

Announcer 15:07
You were listening to the Bold Business Podcast, we will return to the show soon. But first, I want to take a moment and give you a peek into what additional services and solutions you could access to Fast Track Your Business. This program was created to develop your capacity on demand by sharing insights, tips, as well as lessons learned by business leaders, unedited and uncut. And we don’t just stop there, there are three additional benefits to help you reach your growth goals. You’ll also have unlimited access to one hearing tips and insights to develop yourself as a leader to get better results more often, to experiencing viewpoints from many different business leaders. Three, receiving frameworks to build core competencies and to more effectively focus on business growth and leadership. altogether. The Fast Track Your Business program will allow you to face uncertainty, anytime, anywhere, you can access what will become your most personal tool in your toolkit by going to Fast Track Your Business today.com. Now, back to Jess.

Jess Dewell 16:11
And knowing what to do first, I think is a big part of that. Where am I? Where am I going? Because we can’t look and rely on a skill we don’t have yet. Otherwise, we’re setting ourselves up for failure and a lot of head-slapping.

John Davis 16:25
Right, right. Right. Right. That just gives you a headache. So why, why do that? Why do

Jess Dewell 16:29
I know? I know I running it running into a wall repeatedly to is also advisable, I think in the grand scheme of things. So do you come with the thing that says don’t we that should be part of your signature, your signature here? Don’t try this at home?

John Davis 16:50
Yeah, go ahead. And when I do my speeches, I use bullwhips and nunchucks in my speeches, and one of the, one of the things that’s so interesting that I think you’re gonna enjoy this is when I do my main corporate action here is speech. I’m talking about leadership, and I’m talking about how you guide others from where they are, and take them where you want to be the word leader means that you’re leading, not dragging, and so and so. Right, right. So you need to make sure you’re going there and meeting them where they are bringing where you want to be. So I go out my audience, I choose the most timid person I can find to come to my stage. And I bring that person to the stage. Now I know the first fear they have is being in front of their peers. And sometimes that’s 1000s of people, you know, depending on the stage I’m on. And first thing I do with everyone on the stage, I say, thank you so much for coming, I start giving her positive reinforcement with that nods. Right, thank you for coming. And then I turn to the audience, they say, Isn’t she a rock star, and I start getting positive reinforcement to her to feed her right. So then I say, I say up, I’m going to teach you a simple skill. Today, I’m going to teach you the best way to cast a fishing rod. And I start talking to her from a place of calm and serene because what happens next is I pull out a bullwhip and I hand it to her. Okay, so now she’s holding a booklet right. And now, I keep saying it’s a fishing rod. It’s just a fish. I’m teaching you fishing, that’s just a prop. Right? So I start talking to her about fishing rods because I don’t want her thinking, pain, danger, them her mindset, her attitude in your business, your weakest link will always be your weakest attitude. And so, so if I can say if you can find your weakest attitude and fix it, you can fix it, you can solve a lot of things right away. So I get her thinking about calm, serene casting fishing rods, I get the audience members on the side of the audience that she’s facing, to make fish faces. They put their hands underneath their chins like this, and they flap their, their gills and they do fish facial like that. And what happens is, she’s laughing she’s having a good time, right? I’m keeping her out of the place that she’s holding a bullet in her hand. I said that I say, now what I want you to do is I want you to choose which fish you hate the most. And I get circle app, right? And so just cast your fishing rod and she cast the fishing rod and guess what happens? The bullet cracks because it’s the same motion. And it cracks. So then I say all right, so now you know how to do that you’ve got a skill, you now know how to crack a fishing rod. So now, let’s, let’s try something here and I pull out a target in what it is. It’s a, it’s a pretzel rod like you buy at the store. And I hold out a pretzel rod. And the first thing she sees is that I’m holding a target. Now she’s seen me earlier in the show, take a target out of somebody else’s hand. So now I’m holding this target and she’s like, Ah, so I know for as a leadership in leadership that she is now in a fear of hurting me. So I say to her, I said look, did you hear it crack? She said yes, I said so you already know how to make it crack. I started nodding my head you already know how to make it crack. So I’m now giving her positive reinforcement. I’m also shifting her timeline from learning the skill to knowledge of the skill. Once I get her shifted into this new timeline. Then I say to her And I quote, I promise you’re not going to hurt me. You know, sometimes when you’re leading somebody to do something stressful, you got to lie to them. I’m kidding. My job, my job in that moment was to meet her where she was and to bring her where I wanted her to be. So I had to understand that her fear, the thing that was stopping her was her fear of hitting me. And so for me, I had to literally say, I probably take that fear away from her, and say, just look right here and cast your fishing rod. And the next thing she does is she cracks the target out of my hand without hurting me. And she does all of that in under five minutes. Yep, yep. No, that’s right. It’s just a matter of correctly leading her from where she is, rather than where I wanted to be.

Jess Dewell 20:47
I think that part takes time. It does take time. Right? And that’s, I think, where most people I mean, let’s think about it, right, we set a goal. What do we do? We try and jump to the end really fast, or shortcut our way through. And you know, what, if we have help along the way, like what you’re talking about somebody that can guide us through this very, to understand the basics of what we need right now to keep moving forward quickly, I think is key. I also think there’s another piece I heard you talking about, which is, well, somebody’s got to do, to do the designing. And if it’s not, if it’s, if it’s not me, the person in charge that’s asking everybody to follow them. Who is it?

John Davis 21:26
Right, right. Well, the thing is, is, is if you’re truly a leader, you want people to follow you, then you have to, you have to demonstrate a couple of things. Number one, you have to demonstrate, demonstrate your respect for them. Yeah, because I have asked audiences all over the world, what was most important in their life, and I have never had one audience member say my job, right. As always, they always say my family, that’s number one, right? And so if I can demonstrate to them that I care about, you know, them and their family and their purpose, and I can share it and then communicate to them, how what we’re doing for the business is going to help them and their family, then what happens is they are more will engage and they take ownership of the business to take ownership of their job, right. So I’ve talked to so many companies that could, that foster that competition environment, and I watched them all collapse, I watch all those companies go away. Because when you, when you create competition between your coworkers, you’re creating a cancer within your organization. And it’s just going to disintegrate into nothing. Foster that that positive work culture, that positive environment. What’s really interesting, I’ve seen a huge shift over the past several years speaking, there’s a huge values base shift in, in the corporate world. And they’re all going, coming back to the values base. And I spoke for the Dwyer group. And, and have you ever heard of the Dwyer group before?

Jess Dewell 22:52
I have heard of their name, but I don’t know much about.

John Davis 22:55
The Dwyer group is the one of the largest franchise companies in the United States. Mr. Rooter, air serve. All these companies are underneath the, the Dwyer group. And the Dwyer group has a, has a value system called the rich value system, respect, integrity, customer focus, and have fun. That’s, that’s their value system. And when I was at their, at their national conference, they call it their annual family reunion. That’s what they call it. And I went, and I was sitting at the bar that evening, and I was talking to all the franchisors who had their businesses with them. And I said, so why did you choose the Dwyer group? And they said, because of the rich value system, you know, it made them feel good to be part of that sort of environment. It’s the same sort of environment you need to instill in any business if you want it to be successful.

Jess Dewell 23:43
True that. And it’s funny, because during that time, where it was in one pendulum swing to the other is kind of when I started showing up, and I’ve been talking about values forever. And I’m like, why am I the only one? And then to your point, that very recently, there has been a little bit of a shift, and it’s like, Oh, great. And I’m like, Thank you. Thank you. And right, before we get right, before we remind everybody who we are, what we’re doing here, John, I wanted to say that I think that it’s really important to know, to know who we are and why we’re here in this present moment.

John Davis 24:17
Right? It’s, it’s, it’s key to everything.

Jess Dewell 24:21
It is everything. And it’s necessary because how we don’t know forward is if we don’t know where we’re at. Right? Is what I hear you saying,

John Davis 24:29
all right. Well, it’s like GPS, you know, when you put your, what you put your destination in your GPS, it gives you directions to start from. But the first thing you have to do is type, to type the destination in before you can get the directions.

Jess Dewell 24:44
Exactly. All right, you’re listening to the live stream of the Bold Business Podcast. And we are talking about achievement, achievement, not only in times of despair, not only in times of high stress or uncertainty but also in everyday life where we can have fun, enjoy the ride and actually build a better future by being right here right now, I want to do a shout out again to our amazing guest, John Davis for being here for sharing his knowledge and reminding us that we really do have the power already within us to do what we want to do. We just have to start. And with that in mind, you know, you overcame a huge obstacle. And did you I have a question for you? Did you have your five F’s of achievement before this happened to you and you apply them or did it come out of your forward momentum and desire to make your own reality?

John Davis 25:35
They, it was born out of my injury. My injury is an interesting injury because it was, it was actually a condition I was born with. And I didn’t know I was born with it until I was 22 years old. Yeah, I was, I was I was already well on the way to becoming a stunt man and a fight director and I was going through my black belt in Taekwondo, and I was rear very fit. And back in those days, I had long Fabio hair. Thank you very much. But this is a bald head man. This is a solar panel for love machine.

Jess Dewell 26:11
It’s a different kind of chic, this.

John Davis 26:13
Yes, exactly. So 22 years old, a buddy of mine says, Hey, can come help me unload my van. He was a professional pottery van that was filled with 80-pound boxes of clay. And I got out to his van and I, in my mind, I’m thinking it’s just another workout because I was really fit. When I climbed up in that van, I picked up that first box. And I turned to set it outside of the van. And my upper body literally disconnected from my lower body and I collapsed. And they took me to the hospital. And they told me that I had a condition and a Spinal Bifida occulta, three of my vertebrae right above my pelvis never formed properly at birth, and with the extra 80 pounds and the twisting motion. I literally clicked my spine into and pinched off my spinal column. And the doctor told me flat out you’re done. No, there’s no stop work. There’s no fight direction. There’s none of that stuff. And while I was laying in that hospital bed, someone and this sounds like a cruel joke from by somebody. But somebody came in and gave me a gift. And the gift he gave me was called The Tao of Jeet Kune Do a book written by Bruce Lee. So it’s a martial arts book at a time when I couldn’t do martial arts, right. But it was I read that book, that book is an interesting thing, because that’s his philosophy on martial arts. And what I did not know is when Bruce wrote that book, he was in traction and just been told he’d never do martial arts or lift weights again. And he did every movie that we ever knew him for after that. And so this book was very apropos at the time. And so I latched on to one element in that book, mental flexibility, and staying very present those two things, actually. So by deciding that I’m going to be flexible, and I’m going to leverage my present moment, I then started to build towards my goals. Over the course of time, I started studying neurolinguistics on hypnosis, and I started studying how the brain comprehends and achieve things. And then I started putting it into practice and started noticing it another so I was on the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan. And I talked to a soldier and I’d get his piece of the puzzle. I talked to a stop man, I’d say what’s your piece of the puzzle, and slowly but surely, these five F’s achievement came together and what the five F’s does is literally hacks the fight or flight response, and puts you on a path where you are achieving more in the present moment than you ever thought possible. And then your goals come to you twice as fast, just like that young lady with the, the bullwhip in the show, cracks in under five minutes, just by trawling these key steps.

Announcer 28:45
We’ll be back to Jess and the Bold Business Podcast shortly. You can Fast Track Your Business with on-demand information curated to help you build a resilient business that achieves its goals. But why? Why is it so important that you take the steps to invest in yourself and your leadership team with subscriptions to this program? We all need to save time and get relevant and trustworthy information when we want it. This program will reduce your overwhelm and increase your opportunity with high-quality information on demand. This straightforward approach ensures this program answers the most important question what do you need to know to Fast Track Your Business? We answer this question by providing you a vast set of resources to help you work through complex challenges with exclusive articles, videos, podcasts and access to Ask Jess Your Business Questions. You receive several benefits above and beyond what is available for free with a monthly subscription. To find out more visit Fast Track Your Business today.com. Let’s get back to the show.

John Davis 29:49
And then your goals come to you twice as fast just like that young lady with the, the bullwhip in the show. Cracks it in under five minutes just by following these key steps. Will you share one are two of them with us, I will share all of them if you’re, if you’re better go.

Jess Dewell 30:05
But I really want to thank you for being, you know, amazing and saying why let’s do them all?

John Davis 30:11
Well, I tell you what I do, I do podcasts to be a value because the word action means to create motion, start momentum or to do something, the word hero is the most important part of that hero means is a person who achieve extraordinary results in service of others. And so I deliver value whenever and wherever I can. So I love sharing the five Fs because I know if they never hear me speak today, someone may get the five F’s and be able to implement it in their life and create extraordinary results.

Jess Dewell 30:41
So let’s before you begin, by the way, everybody, this is why John is on our show, you know, from listening to me in the way that we do this, and how we’re different from other podcasts, that this is in full alignment with that. And from the very beginning, when I first was learning about John, I was like, Well, this is it, this is it. And now you’ve heard it from his mouth to go, right.

John Davis 31:04
And when this is all done, I’ll give you I’ll give your audience the gift of the five F workbook and I say gift, it’s free, which means you don’t even have to don’t have to give me an email address. It’s a place you go and download. Okay, so let’s get into it. So the first of the five F’s is something called fearlessness. Now, that’s the toughest part for some people. But the thing is, when people are in fear, the first thing they have to do is label it, they have to set their fear and go, Okay, I’m in fear. Once you label fear, you’re no longer inside of it is now external, and you have control. But if you allow yourself to sit inside of it, you’re stuck. Now, how do you, how do you release it? Now? Here’s, here’s a little simple trick you can use. And this is based 100%. In the fight or flight response, whenever if you have ever watched National Geographic shows on TV, yes. Okay, so you know that one episode with the gazelle?

Jess Dewell 32:01
Okay, well, that’s a lot of episodes with.

John Davis 32:08
That’s my, that’s my one joke about the National Geographic Channel. They’re all out there eating the grass in the field. And suddenly, the predator cat hits a field, the first thing that Gazelle does is go a guest for air, right? That is a natural, primal response that every animal on the planet has, including humans, if you’re a parent, if you ever seen your child almost do something and hurt themselves, you know that you have gone? Oh, right. Yeah, that moment, right? Well, most people when they’re in fear, they think they can’t breathe. Well, it’s not that they can’t breathe, it’s that their primal response is holding as much air as possible in their lungs. So they can run further and faster. Actors on Broadway or train that if they forget their lines, they are supposed to exhale, and relax all their muscles. And when they do that, it shuts off the response. And immediately, all their lines rush back into their head, because it shuts off the survival response, and puts them back into cognitive thinking. So if you find yourself in a place where you feel all tense in the chest and your shoulders a little bit raise, and you feel afraid, or uncertain or negative, take that moment, just go. And suddenly, you’re gonna have a much clearer thought process. So that’s the first one. But you also have to remember the fear is not present in your present in your, in your present moment. Fear is rooted somewhere else. And the interesting thing about that is fear when you break it down scientifically, is an emotional reaction to some future event that may or may not happen with you focus on a negative outcome. And that brings us to the second F focus for you to see focus, right? Once you get focus on negative outcome. Yeah, have you ever bought a car before?

Jess Dewell 33:56
A few? A few.

John Davis 33:57
Did you choose? What kind of car did you have? Did you ever choose what kind of car you wanted? Before you went to the store to buy it? No, no. Have you ever bought a big-ticket item that you or x barrier? When you bought your car? Did you notice you started seeing lots of that same kind of car?

Jess Dewell 34:11
Yes. The answer to that is absolutely yes. But not until I decided that’s the one I wanted.

John Davis 34:17
There. There’s the key once you decided right. So your conscious choice, your conscious mind chose something your subconscious mind kicked in to help you achieve it. That’s the other element of your subconscious mind. Right? Negative people are constantly looking at negative things, looking for negative things because they are focused on the negative and their subconscious mind is showing them that more and more negative things. So if you want to achieve something more in your life, the first thing you have to do is get your focus very positive. Right? Yeah, I couldn’t focus on what the doctor said about my life. I had to focus on being a stunt man. Right. So that was so fearlessly focus. The third one is the heart is a hard one. Not the hardest, but it’s a hard one. But it also is the core element of all five When you have five, there’s one little one that holds up the other four. Right? Yeah. It’s faith, confidence belief. You know, I don’t know, if you find your, if you find your faith in spirituality, that’s fine. I’m talking about confidence and belief. And so if you can, if you can confidently believe it, so you get fearlessly focus and put real faith behind it, real belief behind that outcome. Right. Now, it’s the hard one. Number five, follow through. It’s the why. So when more people fall down, will follow through is only done in your present moment. Yeah, is only this moment here. And you have to take this moment. And you have to leverage this moment. By making these moments as successful as possible. Sometimes you’re gonna have mess-ups, like we talked about before. But the reality of it is, you need to make your, your present moments as successful as they can be. So predominantly more successful than those, those other moments. So just keep stacking small moments. Don’t think about giant to tackle the giant thing. Think about taking the small moments that are pieces and parts of that giant thing. And do that. So you get fearlessly focus with faith and follow through. And the last one is when we actually started this conversation on, and that’s flexibility. Whenever you’re, whenever you’re going for a goal, something is always always always going to come up, that’s going to seem contrary to what you’re trying to achieve. always happens, right. And those moments in those moments, you can say, I’m done. You can say, well, that’s set up, we can’t do it now. Or we can say okay, this is a part of the process that I needed to deal with this so I can get to my goal, right? When when you look, when you look at this, this thing, this thing I said about the subconscious mind and the conscious mind, that negative car thing we discussed, if I’m focused, if I’m positively focused on a goal, and my subconscious mind shows me this obstacle, it’s because my subconscious mind wants me to tackle that obstacle to get to my goal, it’s part of the process that needs to happen. And you’ll be surprised as a leader or a business owner, how often this thing that comes up will either be incorporated into your final goal, or it’ll be something that you can eradicate entirely out of the system, where it’s something that you go, Okay, I’m aware that’s there. And I don’t need to do that. I just set it aside. But it’s, it literally is you keep focused on your, your outcome, your goal positively, and these things that come up, or just things that need to be addressed.

Jess Dewell 37:27
Do you use the word focus as one of your EFS and I’m thinking about that I’m like, I need another word besides focus. Because one of the things that I see that the torchbearers in a company really struggle with, is trying to be all things to all people. And by the way, everybody listening, none of these things, say anything about anybody else, they can come along, they get to be part of it, they can be included, they can be held accountable, they can be invited. In the end, though, it’s on the end goal, and whoever is going to come along is going to come along. And I think that’s the part where we get a little stuck sometimes and hold ourselves back is in the service of others, or am I really being a servant leader, or I’m supposed to be doing this to ensure engagement. I mean, we could be doing all of those types of things, which will slow us down, hold us back and allow more negativity to creep in, when we weren’t even expecting it or thinking it because as soon as we accommodate something like that, that has negativity, now we have negativity all the way through. And what I’ve been hearing you say, John, is that we’ve got to focus on not the negative, the positive, the opportunity, we have to know it, we have to accept it, we have to recognize we might not be able to avoid it. But that doesn’t have to be what we put our attention on.

John Davis 38:48
That’s correct. That is absolutely correct. And you have to realize, if you’re focused on something negative, you’re actually focused on fear. And because if you’re having a negative response, it’s a fear response. Because if it was something you were focused on something positive, you wouldn’t be in a bad mood. Right? Right. So so that whole concept of negative, negative thought, is literally going back to your fear. So whenever you feel negative, I want you to just go relax those muscles, get that air out. And let your mind get back to thinking positive. You know, it’s funny, the whole idea of when I was laying in that bed, I went to dark, dark times in that bed. And I mean, I really considered suicide at 20 years old. And now here’s the interesting thing was, is that when I started to figure this thing out and move forward, those dark things went further and further away from my experience, you know, and now because I went through that process, and now I understand how to hack my own personal fight or flight response, now dandified director, a comedy sword fighter and artistic director of theme parks, a college professor, note speaker, I’ve been inside The Pyramids of Giza, I’ve been on top of Machu Picchu, I’ve been to 30 countries around the globe. And I’ve done all these amazing things. Because I know that I am wanting control of my experience. And when I’m a leader, I realized that I can help bring an experience to someone else that empowers them to take it up. One of the things I do in my speeches, I pull out a pair of nunchucks. And I do a really fancy not routine all around. Well, the reason I do that it, I use it as metaphor. There’s two rigid objects. And it’s the flexibility in between, you know, as to theaters that there’s this crazy one twirling it like this, and at one point, I’m opening in the nunchucks, are spinning around my hand here, and on the other side again, and I say, I’m not I’m micromanaging, every moment, I’m trusting the systems, processes, technologies and individuals that I have in place to do their job. So that I am not wasting time trying to control everything, I’m just putting myself in the right position and putting the people and processes in the right position to do the job. Well, you know, and then I’ve got to I’ve got a setback and trust them, I’ve got to let them you know, and be empowered enough. And the thing is, unless you let go of them and let them be, have those empowered moments, they’re not going to stick around, and they’re never going to grow to become an even more dynamic employee or a dynamic team member, you have to make sure that you are letting it happen.

Jess Dewell 41:22
That’s and that I’d say both sides are a very positive outcome, you’ve got that side of the positive outcome. And the other is when you let people step up and trusting themselves and, and show up, the ones that want to be carried along also become very obvious. And it’d be kind with the way that work is done in an organization. The, the reinforcement of that creates an opportunity for growth by the individual in their own action, hopefully,

John Davis 41:51
right. Right, sometimes, sometimes, when I’ll give you an example, I was directing a festival. And it was a Renaissance Festival. And I came in, and I was brought in to basically save the festival because they were going under, and I had already saved several of them just by coming in and taking over. And I came in I just started assessing the situation, I saw this one guy who was a great actor, a great performer. And everybody looked up to him. And you know, His ego was huge. I fired him. He was the, he was the number one guy I fired him. And they’re like, What are you doing fire? He’s the show. I said, No, he’s not gonna. He’s not the show. We’re the show. And what happened was, I got rid of the I got rid of him. And then the five people he was holding down holding in place, all replaced him. So now I had five of him. And we’re not egos but really doing a good job. The show got, you know, five times better by getting rid of the person who was holding other people down. That’s right. Foster relationship in your in your

Jess Dewell 42:54
and be willing to take action because by not doing that, that erodes trust, it erodes other people’s ability to have faith and why they come to work every day. Why they’re choosing to work with us every day. And I think and it’s going to be sharp it this is I mean, I have to tell you, Hello, John went from not walking to all of these crazy, amazing feats. It’s not easy. There are sharp things, there are bad things, there are horrible days, you even heard some of that. And I can relate. I have never been I have never been in a situation quite like yours. However, I’ve had a lot of sharp things show up unexpected, life-changing instantaneously life-changing things happen. And to whatever degree that is for any one of us when our life changes. I’m gonna take this away. Huh? That’s it,

John Davis 43:44
right? Brett, let’s let it brush right off of you. Because the thing is, too is the five F’s. Yeah. Fears, the one constant that you’re going to constantly be addressing. Every, every time you try something new or go to the next place. Your, your primal response is going to be assessed as a threat or not. You know, and so you’ve got to think about, you know, when I get into a negative space, even though I’m, you know, into the fourth F Right, right, I get a negative space. That’s a fear again. Yeah, so it’s not, it’s not that you have to start over. So the five apps are happening simultaneously. You just have to watch how your primal reaction reacting. And what’s cool about this, as a leader is understanding the five apps you can see, when someone’s not breathing well, you can see where they are in the level. And you can address those moments and help them get out of those moments. That woman on the stage with the whip. I was taking her fears away. I was giving her positive reinforcement. I was getting her focus on the outcome. I was giving her faith by having her teamwork with her and giving her positive reinforcement, right. And then in the end, when I held that target up, I had to get her to remain flexible because some new obstacle just arose. And then even through that process, as I promised, I went back to fear. I promise you’re not going to hurt me. And then she takes it Margarita in my hand, what happens in five minutes time, she did learn to skill did it at expert level and came away knowing that she could. Yep. And because I chose the timidest person in the audience, all those people who know that her as a timid person are like, Oh my God, it worked for her. Right? So we’re changing lives. And the key about the five F’s is the fact that if you’re in sales, it’s the same process your customer, prospect or client is going through, it’s the same process that your team is going through. It’s the same process that you personally are going through. It’s a natural primal response. And if you understand it, you can work as a leader, as a salesman. As an end, even in your personal achievements in life,

Announcer 45:45
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Jess Dewell 46:14
When you were talking about the, the person in charge, whoever that is the person who is the one that’s got to let go of all control, and make sure that they’ve done all that pre-work that everything is going to happen the way that it’s going to happen now because all that pre-work had had intentional effort put into it, that person who I’m going to continue to use torch bear, we probably ought to use bullwhip holder or Chuck slinger. Because I think that how I think that’s also appropriate here is what it comes down to, though is I think that they have to be present in the moment to recognize a rat what’s going on around them, they can’t be thinking about the next meeting, they can’t be thinking about the next deal, they can’t be thinking about whatever is coming next. Because otherwise, they’re missing those cues that truly allow a situation to be to your word leveraged to be able to get people all there at the same time because that’s when real magic happens. And I wanted to say thank you for bringing that up because I have a phrase called dimensional leadership. And that’s what it’s all about is until we know where we are, we can’t see where anybody else is. And she’s making a shift as somebody who’s ensuring we’re removing obstacles, so people can go do the work that they want to be doing that we need them to be doing. That’s key. And we you know, and in this world, coming back to the values piece, we also expect everybody to have a full time job and then kind of develop people and then kind of manage to the next thing. And then but we all have to have, we all have to have this concept of of work. And I think we need to shift that because removing obstacles for other people is as important as closing a sale is as important to keeping customers happy and support requests down, making sure there’s toilet paper in the bathroom. All those things are equally important. And somehow we forget that.

John Davis 48:10
Right? Right. You know, that environment, you, you’re trying about all those things, that it’s an environment, that’s a feeling, an emotional place that you’re creating, as a leader, and you know, you’re talking about, you know, always thinking about the next meeting or the next thing. That’s why they have calendar apps use them. Because I look at my calendar every night before I go to bed. And every morning when I get up and I go okay, this is what I got to do today. But I’m not focused on, you know, two days ahead or three days ahead when right here right now, I have things I have to solve and do. And, and when I have a truly empathetic leader and I believe in empathetic leadership, I’m looking at my team and I am going okay, where are they in the process? I’m bringing them a gigantic thing. Are they all freaked out? And if they are all freaked out, how can I support them through the process. And if I myself don’t fully understand it as well, and I’m feeling overwhelmed by it. I make sure they know that they guys I’m a little overwhelmed by this as well. So maybe we’ll work on this together. Now I’ve created a camaraderie to choose solve this problem or go to that next level together as opposed to a hierarchy of here and there.

Jess Dewell 49:19
So you said you have a download for people where do you want people to go to get this download? So they have this five as well?

John Davis 49:26
They’re gonna have to go in your show notes because it’s so awfully weird little link. I know it’s weird. Okay. Yeah, it’s like corporate action hero coms, slash free underscored gifts slash dot HTML or something like that.

Jess Dewell 49:40
Yes, the link will be there. We will include it all the way around.

John Davis 49:44
Now, let me tell you what’s cool about that five, five F thing that that workbook starts with you finding out where you are, and you’re setting your goals. And so it’s showing you the process so you can go through, assess yourself, and move forward, and then you’ll understand the process once You’ve gone through it yourself. So that’s what that book does. And like I said, completely free, I don’t get anything for it. But when you go to the link, you’re gonna be on my website anyway, just look around, you’re gonna see I do a daily vlog every day, piece of motivation comes out of me on YouTube, and it goes into my daily vlog on my website, my podcast is there, the interaction here, and all kinds of other crazy stuff is there. And if you, I’ll tell you a little secret if you want to see some really fun videos, go to the My for, for planners page under the speaking tab for planners, there’s all kinds of videos under those be with whips and nunchucks. And you actually see someone with the whip in her hand taking the target out of it with

Jess Dewell 50:39
Uh-huh. I will never be on stage with you, I am not shy enough. And that’s okay.

John Davis 50:47
Choose you for that reason.

Jess Dewell 50:49
I mean, I’m like, we’re sharing a stage and we could share a stage, but I will never be somebody, you would pick out an audience because I’d be the one and I’d be wherever I went, I’d be like, me, me, me, me, me.

John Davis 50:59
And I would immediately not choose you.

Jess Dewell 51:03
And we, I want to end with that note. And that’s important. Because when we know where we’re going, we know what’s out. And, and that’s, that’s so important to know how to go forward because then we’re going forward more.

John Davis 51:17
Right? Right, I completely agree with you. I call it being an action hero rather than a reaction zero.

Jess Dewell 51:25
Note, we can’t, there’s nothing that can top that that is going to be the end of our show. So you’ve got to remember to go to the corporate action hero.com website, I will put a link in the show notes to that wonderful PDF that you can use to, to pull down the five F’s and work with them on your own. And we want to hear from you, John, and I want you to join in this conversation and tell us well, what’s something that you’ve overcome? How did you do it? Did you inadvertently lean on one of the five F’s? Did you come up with your own system and process that will, that work for you because the more we know about this topic from each other, the more we get to learn and carry it forward? Because it’s together what we define what that resilient leadership looks like, not only for ourselves but for the teams that we lead. Until next time.

Announcer 52:19
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