Jun 22, 2021
Visualize Your Goals and Build an Action Plan to Achieve Your Dreams with Steve Gamlin
Start to think of what your goals really are and what they look like. Feel like, sound like, even smell like attach them as emotionally as you can to your senses and really get a gut feel for what you want. In my definition of success may be different from yours, somebody else's and 10 different people could be all different.
About Steve
Now in his 17th year as The Motivational Firewood™Guy, Steve Gamlin shares his back-to-basics blend of positivity and humor with corporate and conference audiences around the country. Drawing from a decade in the radio industry, 7 years of stand-up comedy and a 30+ year personal development journey, Steve teaches his clients to ‘SEE’ their desired outcomes, understand their ‘WHY’...then build Action Plans to achieve them, utilizing his Vision Board Mastery program as well as live (and virtual) events.
www.motivationalfirewood.com
www.businessofbusinesspodcast.com
Full Transcript Below
Visualize Your Goals and Build an Action Plan to Achieve Your Dreams with Steve Gamlin
00:00:08
Roy
Hello, welcome to another episode of the business of business
podcast. I'm your host, Roy, of course we are the podcast that
brings a wide variety of guests that talk about a whole diverse set
of topics, trying to, help our businesses out there succeed.
Sometimes we don't know what we don't know. So we get some really
good ideas. Sometimes we know where we need some help. We just
don't know where to turn. That's kind of what we hope to provide
you with this. Some answers, today we is no different. We are, very
blessed to have Steve Gamlin with us. Steve is now in his 17th year
as the Motivational Firewood Guy. And, he shares his back to
basics, blend of positivity and humor with corporate and conference
audiences around the country drawn from a decade in the radio
industry, seven years of standup comedy in 30 plus years, personal
development journey.
00:01:07
Roy
Steve teaches his clients to see their desired outcomes, understand
their why, then build action plans to achieve them, utilizing his
vision board mastery program, as well as live and virtual events.
Steve, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to be with
us. Looking forward to this.
00:01:28
Steve
Thank you, Roy. Very happy to be here. Thank you so much for
inviting me. I appreciate it. Yeah, you bet. Yeah. I, you know,
00:01:34
Roy
Your message is awesome first, before we even jump into that,
though, I'm going to hit you up on the, where you got the
motivational fire would get, and that's interesting, but we've
talked, prior to this, a lot about, just being nice about the whys,
making sure our why's are really the, what we want the why should
be and kind of how we get there and how we can build that roadmap.
So, anyway, let's start out with, where did the motivational fire
wood got come from.
00:02:05
Steve
Very early on in my speaking career, we're talking probably 2004,
2005. I was invited to attend a national speakers association
meeting in the Boston area. Cause that's where I live is in the
Northeast. And so I went down there. It was my first time. I got
one of those, blue name, badges of shame is what I always called it
because everybody just knows your note. You're new and you're
clueless. I just have, written across this blue badge and I walked
in and this gentleman comes over and says, hi, my name is Don. What
type of speaker are you? And of course be new. I go, I'm a
motivational speaker. He goes, all right, what sets you apart? I
said, I want to help people. He goes, well, you're not helping
yourself set yourself apart here. He said, so many of us are what
makes you different? And he was so gracious and so patient and so
generous with his time.
00:02:57
Steve
And he kid gloved me big time. I, he just helped after about five
minutes of me trying to say what made me different? None of which
made me different. I said, well, look, if someone's paying to come
hear me speak, they've got a spark of something in their heart that
they want better about their lives because they've done, right.
You're a speaker. If I share a story or a lesson or one of my own
examples of how I survived everything I did to my life and became
successful as it's I'm sharing motivational firewood. If they add
it to the spark and take an action, they can make their life
better. He says, all right, one more question. Do anything about
trademarks? I said, none of that. He said, I really liked that
concept because he goes, go write that down and then go look about
trademark.
00:03:39
Steve
About $1,100 later, I've, officially been trademark or register
whichever one, the motivational fire wood guy. Nice.
00:03:47
Roy
I like that concept too. Cause that's what we got to have that
spark in order to, start the bigger fire. Unfortunately, if we
don't have that, it's hard to, spark somebody else. So that's a
very good illustration. Let's talk about seeing, what we want and
the why I'll let you choose where you want to start. And, don't be
concerned. We're not under attack. We just live pretty close to an
air force base. They're flying of train in the train in this
morning. If you hear it coming over, it's a, actually it's a
comforting feeling for us when we don't hear them flying. We always
question what's going on.
00:04:29
Steve
Well, the importance of seeing what you want, I mean, over the
years we get the people that do their new year's resolutions and
what are they right? Every year they bust out their broad brush
pencil and they're right. I want to be happy. I want to be healthy.
I want more money. Well, seeing people say that every year. Right
during that week, between Christmas and new year's, they look in
their living room and they're cleaning up and they see this little
folded piece of paper, keeping the lamp from rocking. It's got some
salt sustains on it and the pizza guy's number and they go along to
where this is, then they'll put up, they go, oh crap. It was my
resolutions for this year. Right? Exactly. What do they do? They
changed the date. They just make them for next year. Right? So what
I do with people, individuals, entrepreneurs, and company teams
that say, look, all right, companies, stop handing down these
numbers every year with the numbers and said, here's your goals?
And people stop broad, brush him like he happy, healthy and more
money, right.
00:05:25
Steve
Start to think of what your goals really are and what they look
like. Feel like, sound like, even smell like attach them as
emotionally as you can to your senses and really get a gut feel for
what you want. In my definition of tests may be different from
yours, somebody else's and 10 different people could be all
different. If we each dial into what we want and in the case of the
work teams that I work with, if you walk into work everyday or dial
in or whatever it is you do now, if you're connected to why you're
there, right. What that paycheck is going to help you to earn in,
do it would all of you collectively bringing that energy and
dedication to creating your own individual goals and achieving them
what that's going to do for the company talking about engagement.
Yep. That's what I do with people is break it down to what do they
look like? Feel like sound like in many cases, even smell like or a
goal.
00:06:15
Steve
Yeah. That's where I start with people.
00:06:17
Roy
I think that's a good point. You bring up the Y and when we set
goals, it's good to, instead of me just telling you, I need you to
do 80% of this, why and the how, and a, a, just a brief example is
in, when I was younger, I worked for a public utility and we had
these big, old, rubber gloves that, when we got around anything
that was energized or we thought may be energized, we put them on,
they had inner liners, the rubber glove, and then a big outer
leather glove. There was a very specific way that you had to fold
them to put them back in their little carrying case. And, we had
safety guys that would come out and that was the first thing they'd
check. And, you get deemed, if they weren't right. I'm telling you
for about three years, I could not get those right.
00:07:06
Roy
Every time I took them out, I had to go back to a manual to figure
out how they went in there until the guy took me aside and says,
here's why you do this. And all the pieces fell into place. I'm
like, okay, now I get it. I understand. I remembered it for the
next 20 years. Never even had to think about it again. Yep.
Yeah.
00:07:27
Steve
It just provides such a roadmap when, Y the story behind something,
right. It's like, you're playing a role. All of a sudden the script
becomes so natural. Right. It just becomes a part of who you are
when you're connected to that. When you said he was going to show
you why I thought he was going to show you some like really crispy
critter, after pictures, like back in biology in college, they go,
here's what a combine can do on a farm know, they show that. Yeah,
yeah, no, that's what I thought. That's where that was going to go
for a second. I get nervous. And, they actually,
00:08:01
Roy
Used to the power company would come out and they would take
hotdogs and stick in those, fingers and poke a hole in them and,
show you what you did if you didn't take care of what would happen
to you. Yeah, I mean, this was just the simple of, you put the
inner liners palms together, and then the outer ones went with the
palms out, just in case you had any splinters in them. It wouldn't
poke a hole, but, like I said, for a couple years, I just couldn't
figure it out. I couldn't wrap my head around it until, somebody
said, this is exactly why you do that. So I think it's important.
We talk it's off track, but when we'd bring people into our
workplace or on our teams, sometimes it's like, here's your chair,
here's your computer, here's your task. We don't really give them
the how integral part do you play in this whole operation? And I
think we, as managers, as company owners, I think that we miss out
on, that's our deficiency that we really don't sit down and educate
these people on the wide range of where do you fall into this
bigger scheme of things and just how important you are, because I
don't think people realize in their job it's vital.
00:09:16
Roy
You're not just somebody that we could do without you're vital part
of this team. Here's why, because, we wouldn't need you if you
weren't an important.
00:09:24
Steve
Yeah. I used to tell the companies I worked with, they said, look,
even if we don't do vision work project right off the bat, I'll
tell you what the holidays are coming up. Best thing you can give
each one of your team members is a picture frame and you ask them
to put whatever's most important to them in their lives. Why
they're there for that paycheck every week in that frame. Once a
week, I want you to take five minutes and have a conversation with
someone about what's in their frame. Just say, what story behind
that, or, wow, who is that? Or what is that? Or why is that so
important to you? So you're going to start seeing the why and hear
it and feel it. You also get a feel for what these team members are
all about and how best to communicate with them and support them
and cheer them on.
00:10:05
Steve
And, just start connecting with people at that level. Yeah, you
don't get the old crack, the whip, here's your numbers, here's your
guests, your computer, and catch it at the end of the year and see
whether or not we're going to keep you on. Yeah.
00:10:18
Roy
And, and I, I do some work with companies on employee retention. Of
course that's one of the big steps is getting to know your people
beyond just getting to know. I think that guy's name is Steve. He
says like three chairs down, or, he shows up every now and then it
comes in, I guess he's a worker. I don't know what he's doing here,
but anyway, get, really get to know them, their families, you
should know everything about them and it's not always easy, but you
have to take that extra step to have that connection in order to, I
think I feel to keep people engaged and, keep that whole team
spirit going because I, I feel like if I just leave Steve over in
his corner working, Steve may not be happy. And, instead of getting
his job done, he may be over there looking for, he may be scrolling
through a one ad or postings trying to see where he can go
next.
00:11:14
Roy
So, that personal connection, it's just invaluable. And it's
something that we've lost. I feel like, I, I am a show my age for a
minute here, but, instead of picking up the phone and calling you
is like, I'm just going to send you a text or an email, hope that
you respond and hope you get the message and you take it well,
instead of having that personal communication. Anyway, didn't mean
to derail you there, let's talk about the vision of the vision
board and that whole process. It's always very interesting to me
because it, I think we can do that as a company probably, and then
also can do that as individuals. I'll let you kind of take off on
that one where you want to start.
00:11:58
Steve
Sure. Yeah. I first heard about vision boards back in the early two
thousands when the secret came out well, the secret I've got mixed
feelings on the secret. I was a big fan of it and I still am, but I
think they got some of the things wrong, like putting in the genie
in the magic lamp, like your wishes, my command, okay, you went a
little overboard there, but two-thirds of the way through the
secret DVD, there was a guy named John ass wrath, and he was
talking about how he had built vision boards in the past. And he
had them boxed up. One day his son was asking what's in the box and
he showed him and he said, oh my gosh, we're actually living in the
house that I poured on my vision board several years before. It's
having, it's not a magic slate or a magic lamp, but what it is
really dialing in what you want your goals to look like, and then
identifying with as much detail as possible and connecting to it as
best you can to plant that seed.
00:12:51
Steve
What it also does is when you put that kind of an emotion in your
head, the opportunities to get there, start to pop up all around
you. You're going to hear things that you'll wait a second. That
might be my next step to get to. Now that I know what the X is on
the treasure map, at least I can point in the right direction,
right? Meet the right people, engage in the right resources, learn
new skills. If I have to make connections with certain people.
Yeah. That's what I try to do with the vision boards with the way I
do it. Versus like at the beginning of the year, you hear people
say, Hey, we're having a vision board party with wine, cheese
crackers says the moon steaks. People show up to those that drink a
little wine. They laugh. There's good energy in the room.
00:13:32
Steve
Some of them bring all the pictures of things they already want, or
they sit there laughing and joking, cutting up magazines and they
glue them on a board. Well, they haven't done any of the work yet,
right. In my opinion, to establish where they are now and assess
where they are now. Right. Figure out where they want to be. So
they can establish that road right. To wait. I mean, if you're just
sitting there drinking your wine and hanging out with a bunch of
people laughing, you're going to think a bunch of pictures are
really sexy that day. And this is what I want. When a couple of
days later you might look at it and go, it's not feeling it. And
I'm not inspired by it. Believe me, I know this, my first two
vision boards I made in 2005 or an absolute mess, they were
worthless.
00:14:11
Steve
Now it, two weeks later, I just looked at it and go, well, this is
all stuff I could have just busted out depending on dear Santa
Claus, no one connected, except for building a recording studio.
That's the one thing I, I was so connected with that. I made it
happen that year.
00:14:27
Roy
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. The, I think the roadmap concept, because
you use this in strategic planning for people and it's like,
everybody wants to get on board with, and I always kind of use
geography, but it's like, okay. We really want to end up in Chicago
this year. That's where, you know, that's our place. That's great.
Okay. If we don't know where we're at, we don't know whether to
turn, go to the east or we don't know where to go to the west. If
we're in Utah and we said, well, maybe we'll just head out to the
west. We're never going to make it. I think that's one thing I
always tell people is, if financially, or, in a lot of realms of
planning is you've got to know where you are and you have to do a
really honest assessment either. We can't do the smoke and mirrors
of where we hope that we are, where we would like to be.
00:15:21
Roy
I mean, it's like, we're really, are you in this process?
00:15:25
Steve
Yeah, yeah, exactly. You got to know. It's just like, when you plug
in a GPS or you use Google maps, it will determine where you are.
With like my old GPS, I had to, turn it on. It, won't figure out by
satellite where I am. Even older, back in the days of the roadmaps,
when you unfolded it to the size of the picnic table, you had to
know where you were to be able to know how to get where you want to
go. And it's the same way. I mean, there's seven steps in my vision
board mastery program. I 10 steps, sorry, we don't even gather
pictures till step seven or six are all assessing where you are and
where you want to go. Yeah. That's, that's not serious vision board
parties. Well, they may not have the depth of work. That's where I
created the t-shirt line that says friends, don't let friends
attend vision board parties.
00:16:14
Steve
It's all pretty good because people thought it was funny.
00:16:17
Roy
Yeah. Well, and the other thing I think that, comes out of the,
that party environment like that, or if we just tell somebody to do
it is, the vision is nice, but we need the, I think the meat of
that project is what are those steps that we have to put in place
in order to get there. I, I'm not saying that, okay, we want to
get, a certain goal, we can put five steps. Those are going to be
dynamic. I I'm kind of phrasing this as a question, but my opinion
is, those are dynamic. That's where we start off today. As we start
that journey, we may discover new information or new things that we
need to add or subtract. It's, it should always be, I guess, in a
way that you can update that.
00:17:04
Steve
Yeah, no, everything's a work in progress. Yeah. I've had people a
month after doing events, call me up and go, Hey, Steve, I achieved
this goal. I'm like, great, excellent, awesome. I'm jumping up and
down and cheering and clapping and here in the studio, and then
I'll say, all right, what's next? Like you wanted this, what could
this lead to? And then they'll say, well, this, all right, what
does that look like? And then I'll say, no, go ahead and put that
picture over the other picture, but leave a quarter inch hanging
out. If you have a really successful year, your vision board might
look like a relief map of Dakotas, but it's always a work in
progress. It, no, it's not a, it doesn't have a beginning or an end
until you make another board, which is the continuation of your
board. That's what I tell people.
00:17:50
Steve
Don't throw these out 10 years from now. You may have five of them
or 10 of them in your office. Go back to that first one, look where
you are now, it could blow your mind. Yep.
00:18:03
Roy
Which also brings us to a good point that I'd, something I've tried
to become more evangelistic about is celebrating our wins. I guess
that it also gives us a, something we can look back on because as
people as humans, I guess we tend to be hard on ourself. I use this
example all the time that, I got 10 things on my to-do list today.
I get seven of them done. Instead of celebrating 75%, which if I
could hit 75%, I'd be making millions of dollars in baseball. I
think about those three that I missed and I spend time, why didn't
I get those three? And we started out those three, instead of
saying, what, I got seven done. Awesome. And move on. Anyway, just
the keeping, the vision boards, I think is a good idea. So we can
celebrate our accomplishments.
00:18:56
Steve
Yeah. I have people reach out to me. I, I tell all my clients is to
look every time you achieve even an incremental part. I talk about
it like an old wooden rollercoaster, because it has to go click,
and you got to do every single quick fee to the top of that first
hill, because it's all the way the mechanics of it work. Right? You
can't skip you. Can't cheat. There's no hacks. There's those super
secret formulas. You have to take every single one. You can go over
the top and enjoy the ride. Right. I tell all my clients, I said,
look, if you have a significant click that happens during the week
and you share it on social media, you had better tag me on that
because we have a hashtag with my clients. It's hashtag click, baby
click. Oh, cool. Celebrate all the incremental.
00:19:38
Steve
I get tagged almost daily on social media. I'm in here jumping up
and down, smiling, laughing, Hey, sometimes I cry with my clients.
They're so overjoyed at something. I sit there and I get emotional
with them. It's, it's beautiful. It's all comes down to those
little clicks and you got to celebrate those seven out of 10. And,
and believe me, I've been guilty of staring at the three and saying
really why exactly I'm celebrating the me. I've done it too.
Yep.
00:20:02
Roy
Yep. We do. I think that's the benefit of having a coach, somebody
like yourself, because, I call you up and say, Steve, left three on
the table today. He'd be like, yeah, but what'd you take off the
table, ? And again, if we prioritize where the seven you got done
where the high priorities, then it's a win. I mean, we'll take that
and win every day. The, yeah know, so.
00:20:28
Steve
I work with my people too, like don't oh, I'm sorry. No, no, you're
fine. Go ahead. You work with your people. It's going to say, when
we look back at those first steps and we're going to be perfectly
imperfect, especially at the beginning, and we're going to be
clunky or we're going to be awkward. So wins are going to be ugly.
I used to be so bad. I look back at my early stuff and I'd go, oh
my God, how did anybody pay me to deliver that? And I would take
stuff down offline over the past couple of years, I adopted a new
way to look at my earliest steps and my earliest interviews, my
earliest creations, I just look at it and I go, oh my gosh, that's
adorable. It's soft. Blows it a little bit. It also helps me
realize how far I've come.
00:21:08
Steve
So yeah. Cause some people say, well, Steven's just this like, well
a week ago you wouldn't have even been done. Just that. So, all
right. How, how comfortable are you going to be? Next time? One of
my clients did her very first radio guest interview last week on
Friday. She was nervous all week and she sent me a message Friday
afternoon. She goes, oh my God. That was so amazing. I have another
one Monday. I'm so excited. She goes, now I get it. Yeah.
Consistency plus momentum equals competence. So she's off and
rocking. Well, and.
00:21:36
Roy
A couple of other things is that w we, for some reason we think
that when we're at starting 0.0, that we should be the expert and
do everything right. And get everything right. Which, that's
something, that's a message. I think social media has perpetuated
because we only see the good things. We never see those bad things.
And, just like myself, there's a lot of things out there that I'm
not proud of, but I look at them as, what it was a bad day, or it
was that growth phase that, you're getting over. It kind of shows
you how far you come. The other part of that is, we're not going to
be on our game every day. I would love to because I have awesome
guests. And, this is such a fun thing to do this podcast, but I
mean, I'm going to tell you, I got times that, maybe I'm just not
feeling it that day.
00:22:26
Roy
It's a, a lot clunkier of a show than what some of the better ones
are. We just have to say, what, that's life, what is it? Success?
Doesn't look like a, a line from the bottom left to the top ride. I
mean, it's like, you're all over the place as you go through there.
Oh.
00:22:46
Steve
Yeah. I used to tell people, I said, look, it's like dry. It's like
trying to draw something on an Etch-a-Sketch in the backseat,
Ricard doing 85 miles an hour over speed bumps. That's, that's what
the road looks like. Exactly. Exactly.
00:22:59
Roy
Let's talk about what do we want to put on our vision boards and
how we select it? Cause we've had a lot of conversations, about
happiness and what we think about happiness is, and, so let's talk
about what, how would we best suited to select these items that we
want to put up?
00:23:24
Steve
I think the first thing people need to understand is that we always
hear the whole work-life balance thing. People think it's work in
it's life. I prefer Tony Sai was the CEO of Zappos for many years.
Very sadly. He passed away recently. One of the concepts that he
championed was work-life integration, meaning all parts of your
life because you wear so many hats all day long, right? so I work
with a life wheel and it's a pretty standard thing. That's out
there in personal development. It talks about, let me see if I can
get them all, your career, your finances, your physical health,
your emotional wellbeing, your relationships, your connection with
the world in a real way. Your spirituality, your ethics, morals,
integrity are in there as well. All these different parts of your
life is where I start with people. I said, look, if even if you
just set one goal for each of them for the entire year, right,
you're going to be so much farther ahead than most other
people.
00:24:16
Steve
You're going to all of a sudden find out that they all work
together. Like if you would intentionally say, here are the
emotions. I want to feel them on a more regular basis that may
change some of your relationships. You may cancel some of them.
Yeah. Because they bring you down. You may want to be around the
people who put you in that mood all day. Great. If you eat well, if
you get enough sleep, if you drink enough water during the day,
you're going to have enough energy to do more work, to make your
career better, to make more money. That's great. Connection with
the real world right now where we're so virtual with a lot of
things, a lot of people miss that day-to-day connection. I seen so
many people out there saying, when this is all over, I'm going to
hug. Like it's ugly because right.
00:24:57
Steve
Cause they want that connection again. Some people and you, and I
will find that it's very hard to believe. Some people will. There
are people out there whose ethics and morals are really low because
they want to succeed financially. That happens as well. What I try
to tell people is they go, well, look, mine are all good. I said,
okay, think back to the last 10 business decisions and
interactions. Were you that ethical integrity, moral person in
every single one of them? Yeah. I might've fudged jumping a little.
Okay. Well, let's just make sure that from now on, we try to live
up to the best of what we feel is the best version of us. Now, what
society tells us, what we can live with. Right. And, and all those
things added together is what will, can make you happy because if
I'm happy, then this must be working in this and this.
00:25:47
Steve
They all work together. Yeah. Because if we, I was a workaholic for
my decade on the radio, I worked 50, 60 hours a week and I was
deejaying weddings and corporate events every weekend. I absolutely
fried myself. I wasn't sleeping. Well, I was eating. I was living
on fast food. Yeah. At age 35, I was just falling apart physically,
mentally, emotionally, spiritually, just falling apart. That's what
led to me becoming a speaker was that whole year or two in the
ashes of all of that. Yeah. That's when I started to learn what I
now teach everything I teach now came out of my notes. Cause I'd
take a lot of them. Yeah.
00:26:25
Roy
Yeah. It's a, it can't be a detriment, but I'll speak for myself.
That when you enjoy what you like, it's like, you never work.
You're having fun or that's your hobby, but you can still tend to
overdo it. You still have to, I've got somebody that can tap me on
shoulder and say time to turn it off and let's have a little us
time and, take that time for our relationships instead of, but it's
not a drudgery in that, but that can be a drawback because it's not
a drudgery. It's fun. There's always like 10 other things to do.
And you're always scrambling around that. It can get you in trouble
if you're not careful. So, the other thing I, like you saying about
drinking water, sleeping and eating. Cause I, I used to have a note
over my desk that I had like six or eight things that, I needed to
do every day.
00:27:18
Roy
That's it because sleep is so important to us, being happy and
healthy, which kind of leads us to the next thing is our happiness.
It's a tricky thing because I think on our vision boards, a lot of
times we want to put the big house, the fancy car, all these,
monetary gains, things like that objects. Very seldom, when I see
these, do I, you see people with relationships or health or all
those things. I, I guess let's just talk for a minute about that
false sense of happiness. I put the big house up there and so I'm
working work in, I get it. It's like, okay, now what, there's that
let down, you don't get that emotional high. Like I achieved it.
It's it's there it's because that's really not where that happiness
is going to come from.
00:28:18
Steve
Right. I mean, you were sold a bill of goods because you probably
saw some big motivational guy who in a video and he's there
kneeling next to her, his Lamborghini with the yacht in the
background and the mansion and all that. What most people don't
know is all those videos. Most of them are all just rented anyway.
Yeah. Those videos, but you were sold what somebody else's opinion
was of happiness and you're not emotionally tied to it. Yeah. You
were just told that. That's what it is. W you follow that and all
of a sudden, if you do happen to achieve it, Hey, rock on good job.
You're not emotionally connected to, which is the approach. I try
to tell people and some of the people I talk to and say, Steve, all
I want is a cabin in the woods with a really good wifi signal.
00:29:02
Steve
I'm happy because I can go fishing at lunchtime or I can go
snowshoeing in the winter. They said that, and I, I sit there and I
watched them while they're telling me the stories. That's my
favorite thing is telling me the story behind that, like, why you
want it when I see them light up, I go, okay. I believe you. Yeah.
What can we do to get you there? Yeah.
00:29:20
Roy
I'm going to tell you my story because it ties in, it's funny you
say the cabin in the woods with wifi. I mean, I've got two or three
right at this moment. We're working on the wifi, but, about six
years ago, I just made a decision to, sell everything and move out
to a little cabin in the woods. And, it sounds counterintuitive,
but I'm the happiest now because I don't have all these, all this
stuff. I mean, it's just stuff to keep up with, but I get to wake
up in the morning and see the deer out in the back feeding, I got
woke up last night with, my, one of my cameras outside going off.
It was a little family of raccoons that was running across the
front porch. So, to me, those are the things that really bring me
joy. Every time we get out, walk around and go walk the dogs and
all that, it's like, eh, it just makes me well up that, with that
happiness.
00:30:20
Roy
It's, like I said, it's counterintuitive because we took a huge
step. What a lot of people would say a huge step backwards, but
it's been the most awesome thing because this is what we enjoy.
This is what we want. And, people talk about being on vacation. I'm
like, were lucky. We were on vacation every day. You know, we live
in paradise. All we have to do is step outside. I guess the point
with all that is just be very selective and be very thoughtful and
mindful of what we put on these boards that, what do we want to
achieve? What is really going to bring us that happiness?
00:30:56
Steve
Yeah. Most definitely. I, sometimes I have people that say, well,
Steve, I've got three or four different ideas. I don't know which
one's going to make me happy. I said, okay, you have a mirror in
your house anywhere. Yeah. All right. You get the pictures. I want
you to look in that mirror and I want you to hold up the picture in
the mirror and look at it and then look at yourself. Whichever one
makes you smile the most start there, because that way it's really
you and it's your heart and it's your mind. It's your, who you
really are. Right. That you're going to be that tied to it. I mean,
there are people out there and I've seen these by our vision board
starter kit. We've got a picture of a house, sit, a car and all
this stuff. Like, really somebody asked me to Steven should make a
vision board starter kit.
00:31:40
Steve
Oh, hell no, because I don't know what you want. Right. Right. I
would never do that to somebody it's all about you. If the lessons
I share inspire you to dig deep in yourself and find it rock on, we
win. Yeah. To tell someone what success is and have them buy into
that, boy, that's going to be a hollow victory when they yeah. They
scrape in their way to the top of that hill thinking that's where
the happiness was. Well, it was your credit card has already been
charged and you just bought somebody else's dream. Yeah,
exactly.
00:32:12
Roy
Yeah. We need to really make these personable. And, I think, just
give it some thought, it's not something I think you can just put
together. I like your idea about holding the picture up in the
mirror and saying, this is really me. Because, sometimes it's not,
sometimes it's what we expect, what we think society expects of us,
which it's, that's just, that leads to a lot of heartache. Yeah.
And some of us are again, because.
00:32:41
Steve
Some of those victories are really all over. Yeah.
00:32:43
Roy
Yeah. Some of us, we're lucky enough to find out what we really
love and what we really want and are blessed. Some people, I think,
I guess you just have to do a lot of soul searching and a lot of
reflection, take some time out for yourself just to be alone with
your thoughts. I think that's something that we don't do enough.
These days we've got so much stimulation with computers and phones
and go in here and go in there that we really need to take more
time to just be with our thoughts.
00:33:13
Steve
Yeah. And, and I, I recommend to people, even if you burn it after
I don't care, put pen to paper, write in, just go be brutally
honest with yourself about start off with what you love most about
your life right now. Like what's really going well, what's making
you happy. It could be the tiniest thing that you make the best
pancakes of anybody you've ever met. Awesome. Start with that. I
make great pancakes and just start from there about what you like,
and then switch gears and say, all right, what's not perfect yet.
Yeah. And then this is nothing I've created. I mean, other people
may industry say this. I want people to understand that I'm sharing
what has come into my circle. I then share back. That's one of the
best things is I put pen to paper every day. I start everyday with
three moments of gratitude, the things I'm thankful for.
00:34:00
Steve
You want to talk about fueling your fire. You write down the three
weirdest cool, fun, awesome, positive things that happened to you
yesterday in less than a line each five years later, you did it.
Right. You're going to feel that same joy just by reading it. And
I've proven it over and over. Yep.
00:34:16
Roy
Yeah. Very important. Especially, in today, I think sometimes we
can get hung up in that negative, but we do have some, most of us,
there are people that have tragedies and I don't want to make light
of that or be little them. We do go through those periods in life,
but like went on a walk this morning and it was nice and crisp.
When were coming back, the base, which is quite a ways away, they
were playing, the, national Anthem. I just, were just talking
amongst ourselves, like how cool is that? that we can hear this
national Anthem from the base where we are, it's coming across some
traffic and other stuff, that you'd think would cut it off, but
it's just those little bitty things. I think when you have a clear
head, you can just be, thankful for other people might consider
that to be corny stuff, but it's really something to be, that we
are thankful for.
00:35:15
Steve
Yeah. If you can find those moments every day, I mean, gosh, at the
end of 2020, I saw these things on social media, Facebook described
20 in three words and I saw like 20, 30 different versions of total
crap storm just in a row. I mean, I'm not even going to say what
some of the words were because I want to respect your show when I
wrote, learned new ways. Yeah. Because it did, it taught me, if
anything else, the isolation and happened to switch to virtual
actually is inspired me to, with my digital team, create new ways
to deliver my programs and products throughout the world that we
hadn't even thought of prior to that. Right. Now that's the basis
of the core part of what we do. I can't say it was a throwaway year
and I still managed to even in 2020 even been in the pandemic and
one of my business just getting a wrecking ball to it, the DJ
business is just gone because there's no events.
00:36:10
Steve
Yeah. I still wrote about a thousand moments of gratitude. Wow.
Last year in the midst of it all. I've got close to a thousand
reasons why last year was pretty dang good. Still despite
everything else not to minimize. Cause I know a lot of people, I
was hit very hard by it, but I choose to just keep finding that
little bit of light coming through the clouds, even though where it
is, storm it out there. Yeah. I just keep trying to follow wherever
that lights hit and I want to stand there and look up through.
Yeah. And you.
00:36:40
Roy
Know, my, I think my priest put it the best that I've heard in a
while is that our minds are grinders and they grind 24 hours a day,
seven days a week. We get to choose what we grind through there,
whether it's the negative stuff that we pick up or the positive.
And, I think in our previous conversation, we talked about this,
that as long as we're grinding positive, there's no room for that
negative, to move in there that we can kind of keep it pushed out.
Not that we're not going to have a bad day. Not that something's
not going to upset us, but when it does, we can think about, yeah,
that went really bad, not happy, but let's think about what I am
happy about for about five minutes and put that smile.
00:37:24
Steve
If nothing else, it puts us in a good place to take the next step.
Like we're not just taking that negativity because what a lot of
people fail to remember, we are 100% responsible for how we react
and respond to what happens to us. It's on us too many people
forget that, negative in negative, right. Back out nag notified.
Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah.
00:37:50
Roy
Yeah. We control our joy and I think that's, I will say that I have
been guilty of this and it still happens is something bad happens
in the morning and it just wrecks your whole day. I mean, you have
to tell the wife and the kids and the dog stay away from me cause
it's bad. He, at the end of the day, you think, well, why did I let
that thing wreck my whole day? Because again, so many other great
things, but then it kills your productivity. It kills your
creativeness. It just really can set you on a bad path to spiral
out of control. Best to, be in touch with yourself, pick up on
those feelings so you can, kinda redirect.
00:38:32
Steve
Yeah. Or that it happened to me. Very, very. As you're saying that
you see me nodding, I'm like I'm reliving a recent experience where
I was trying to do an act of kindness and help a family member. I
was frustrated because I had to help somebody else I felt should
have been helping. Yeah. I had a compressor in the back of my Honda
CRV and it rolled in the corner and the handle went right through
one of the side windows and smashed it to bits. That day nobody
wanted to come hear me. I finally got myself back under control. It
took about a day and a half. I realized, look, nothing good has
come from this, me being this way. I threw my little tantrum, I
stomped my feet. I said a couple of loud words that my mom would
probably roll her eyes at and get over it and went out and earn the
money to pay for the replacement of them.
00:39:24
Steve
So.
00:39:24
Roy
No, and I think that's, we have to let ourselves feel that way. We
can't not feel the upset, but I think it's, like how long do we let
that go on? And, it's such a such good advice to just have our
little, have our moment and then pick it back up and put the smile
back on and figure out how we're going to get past this.
00:39:48
Steve
I think we should actually videotape ourselves having our little
tantrums. When we're better look back at it and go really? Yeah. Oh
my gosh. Again, oh my gosh, that's adorable. Look at him, throwing
his little fit, look at what we stomped this feet. He's giving the
finger to the door and it's some of it just comes off real silly
when we get back in a good head space and we got to blow off steam
now, and then it happens. It just does because I can't stand the
people who say every day above ground's a great day, because that
is the biggest steaming pile of crap ever. They're not all good,
but it's how we react and respond to what, how we choose to
proceed. That's that's what makes it a good and kind of tying.
00:40:34
Roy
That back to, our eating, drinking water and, getting our sleep and
our exercise because that's the other thing, I try to, if I can get
out and take a few walks every day, it makes me feel so much
better, but I tend to handle adversity better when I'm, doing what
I need to be doing for myself. We'll put it that way. I don't know
how, when I'm taking care of me, it's like adversity doesn't. If
you've been up all night eaten, been through the drive through the
last three meals that you had, some little bitty thing will tend to
set you off versus, when we're in a good space, we can deal with
it.
00:41:16
Steve
Yup. Yup. It starts right from the get go first thing in the
morning. I mean, I used to be like, grab some toast or if there's
some leftover bacon or what we call paper bacon, you can cook it in
the microwave in like 26 seconds. One day I said, look, I'm just
feeling sluggish by nine o'clock. As I got bacon grease in my blood
stream. I started just this mantra in my head. I said, let's take a
trip to mango swamp. I started making smoothies with, either kale
or, collard greens are real good for your heart. Mango or
pineapple, a banana, some yogurt, some cinnamon in there too. Cause
that's good for an appetite suppressant and some coconut water. I
just started making these smoothies a couple of days a week and it
only takes me a couple minutes. Yeah. And it tastes so good.
00:42:07
Steve
Ours got to remember to rinse the cups cause otherwise the kale
gets stuck inside the straw and then it won't come out. My wife
doesn't like that word. I just, I get up in the morning and I'll
just be like, I'm feeling tired. I bet to get down to mango swamp.
And I just gave it that name. So, someday I'll have a smoothie
stand called mango swamp. Nice. It gets me in a good spot. I got
better energy all day. It's these little decisions we make in
getting enough sleep. If I'm not feeling it in the morning, I'll
hit snooze and go back to sleep for an hour and wake up better. I
just always do.
00:42:40
Roy
Yeah. When you, when you open up your smoothie truck, if you'll,
park it at Hampton beach out there, I'll be one of the first
customers lining up.
00:42:49
Steve
I'm going to put it right near blinks fried dough, which is
legendary out that I'm just sit there and cry because I'll
actually, I learned how to make fried dough as well. So, but the
mango small swamp smoothie is probably a little better for me than
all that fried note. Right. Exactly.
00:43:05
Roy
All right. Steve, we appreciate you taking time out of your day to
be with us for sure. Today. It's been an awesome conversation. A
lot of great things to think about before I let you go. A couple of
questions first off is what is something that you use in your daily
life, professional, personal what's something that you do that you
really feel adds value?
00:43:25
Steve
I think the greatest thing I ever learned was the lesson I got from
one of my grandfather and he never actually said it, but he lived
it. It was just real simple leave at least one situation a day
better than you found it. It could be with a kind word, an act of
kindness. You could just smile at somebody cause you never know how
their day's going. Right. If you just look for that opportunity to
keep your head on a swivel. If you're one of those people that
says, well, I never have ideas. Next time you go grocery shopping.
If you see an abandoned carriage out there in the parking lot,
don't complain that people are lazy and left it there, put it back
in the corral or bring it all the way back to the store. If you can
even better wipe the handle down and offer it to someone else.
00:44:05
Steve
Awesome.
00:44:07
Roy
Yeah, I think once we, once you do that enough, you'll start
picking up things, but there's always something we can do to help
somebody out. All right. Well, great. Well, Steve, how can people
reach out and get ahold of you and get started, letting you help
them coach them through this process?
00:44:24
Steve
Yeah. It's nice and easy. If you go to motivationalfirewood.com.
Everything I have is right there under that roof. So
motivationalfirewood.com.
00:44:33
Roy
Okay. Awesome. Well, thanks again, Steve. We appreciate it. A great
conversation. You can find us of course, at
www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com. We're on all the major social
media platforms. A, a video link of this will go up on YouTube as
well when we get the, episode published. Until next time, take care
of yourself and take care of your business.
www.motivationalfirewood.com