SUMMER REPLAY: RICH LITVIN: Finding What You Want

Episode Transcript

Note: Transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. Please refer to the episode audio or video for exact quotes.

[00:00:00] Megan: Hey, everybody. It’s Megan Hyatt Miller here, and hey, just a reminder, The Double Win Show is taking the summer off. Hope you have great things planned for the summer, but listen, we will be back in early September with some brand-new episodes that are fantastic. We can’t wait to share those with you. In the meantime, we’re gonna be sharing some of our very best episodes from the past few years.

[00:00:20] You’re not gonna wanna miss them, and I bet you haven’t listened to all of these yet, but you’re gonna want to. So here’s one of those now.

[00:00:26] Rich: You know that person who you don’t like in the community you’re in? They’re giving you clues about what you don’t like about yourself. And the person you admire, they’re showing you clues about what you actually love about yourself.

[00:00:37] So coaching and community are two great ways to increase your self-awareness.

[00:00:43] Michael: Hi, I’m Michael Hyatt.

[00:00:44] Megan: And I’m Megan Hyatt Miller.

[00:00:46] Michael: And you’re listening to The Double Win Show.

[00:00:48] Megan: And today we are excited to share with you our recent conversation with Rich Litvin. Yeah,

[00:00:53] Michael: let me tell you just a little bit about him.

[00:00:55] Rich is somebody that I started following after I read his book, The Prosperous Coach. He wrote it with Steve Chandler. I was blown away by the book, and so I just checked out his website, subscribed to his newsletter, and got connected to him, started listening to his podcast. But he’s a highly sought-after leadership coach known for his transformational coaching style, and you’ll see why in this conversation that we have with him.

[00:01:17] But he’s co-authored, as I mentioned, The Prosperous Coach, which has become a blueprint for coaches around the world. He works with elite clients, including Olympic athletes, senior executives, entrepreneurs. He has over two decades of experience in helping clients achieve exponential success, but he does it kind of in an unconventional way- Yeah

[00:01:35] because he’s very holistic in his coaching.

[00:01:38] Megan: He is, and I think what you’re gonna enjoy about this conversation is you kind of get an hour to be his client.

[00:01:45] Michael: Yeah.

[00:01:45] Megan: You know, we’re gonna ask questions that you’re probably asking, that we’re asking ourselves, and I think you’ll, you’ll get the benefit of what it, what does it feel like to be coached by someone who charges $100,000 a year?

[00:01:57] You may not be able to afford that yourself, but you’re gonna get to feel what it’s like today, and he’s so wise, and we really go deep in this conversation.

[00:02:05] Michael: We do, and he has a British accent, so- Yeah, he’s

[00:02:08] Megan: just great to

[00:02:08] Michael: listen to … that just kinda amps it up.

[00:02:09] Megan: Yeah, he sounds extra wise.

[00:02:11] Michael: Okay, here’s our conversation with Rich Litvin.

[00:02:18] Rich, welcome to the Double Win.

[00:02:19] Rich: Well, hi, both of you. I’m excited to be here.

[00:02:22] Michael: We’re excited to have you here. I’ve had you on with our coaches, and we had a Zoom call last year, and I’ve gotten to know you a little bit and have followed your work, and just am so inspired by it. But I’d love for you to start with kind of the story of how you got to here, because it’s a little bit of an unconventional path.

[00:02:40] Rich: Just to give context, it’s fun, too, because when I saw you in the email inbox for my team, I was really thrilled because I’ve been a fan of yours for years. So it was– it’s been a fun connection we’ve had over the last few months as we got to know each other in person rather than just following each other’s stuff.

[00:02:54] Yes. So I’m excited to be here. You know, here’s where I wanna go. I wanna go back to 10 years old, and I’m told by the headteacher of my, what we call a primary school in England, that I’m gonna be made the school captain, and I have no clue what this means. I’m not even excited ’cause I don’t have a context for this.

[00:03:10] I’m the school captain, and I’m, I’m about to turn 11. It’s the final year of primary school before I go off to secondary school in England, what you’d call middle school over here. I have no idea what to do. And the next day, I hear some kids misbehaving or doing something naughty, so I go and tell the teachers ’cause isn’t that what you do when you’re the school captain?

[00:03:28] And then all the kids hated me ’cause I told on them, and that was my first ever lesson on leadership. What I take from that as I reflect back all these years later is- There’s nothing that you can learn about leadership from other people. You learn a lot of it from your mistakes along the journey.

[00:03:42] Michael: Mm.

[00:03:43] Megan: Mm.

[00:03:43] Rich: And other people will try and tell you about their leadership journey and what to do and how to show up, but that was their journey. And the problem with success is that we all want a book about success that tells us, “These are the seven steps that will take us into our future,” and it doesn’t work that way.

[00:03:59] Most of success actually is about mining your past. So I’m happy to talk about some of the things in my past and what I’ve learned, but that shot into my mind in this moment, that, that leadership lesson I got at 10 or 11 years old. Wow. So that, that’s where my journey begins.

[00:04:12] Michael: That’s beautiful. Well, I love the idea of mining your past.

[00:04:15] Yeah. So what were some of the milestones along the way that you’ve mined that have proven to be fruitful for what you’re doing now?

[00:04:21] Rich: My wife and I did an exercise a few years ago with a coach around values and shared values, and we discovered that our top two values are humor and adventure. And whenever we’re having a conflict, and we a- we’ve been married for 17, 18 years now, but conflicts come and go all the time.

[00:04:42] If we come back to that highest level of humor and adventure, then everything else will slip away. And last year we realized we’re both a little bit bored, and I’ve lived in the United States now for 17 or 18 years. I, I met Monique, I proposed to her 10 days after I met her when I first came to the United States.

[00:04:57] Oh, my gosh.

[00:04:58] Megan: That’s great.

[00:04:58] Rich: Um, and we wanted some adventure in our life. It was time for some adventure, and so we, um, we’re actually moving back to England this summer. Well, I, I’m moving back. My wife and kids are going for the first time. We’re going for a couple of years, and it is exciting, and it’s nerve-wracking, and it is overwhelming, and it would be so much easier to stay here.

[00:05:17] Megan: Mm.

[00:05:18] Rich: We live in California. We have a great lifestyle. We’re seven blocks from the beach. The kids are in a great school. The complexities of trying to apply to new schools, move a family and kids and a dog to a new country, and break down office spaces and bedrooms and everything feels overwhelming. But I’ve had this thought recently that no one really remembers a comfortable life.

[00:05:40] Megan: Mm.

[00:05:41] Rich: And so I’m not here to have a comfortable life. When I look back at my life, the most memorable things are the things I did w- that were uncomfortable. At 21 years old, I went to live in Botswana in Africa as a teacher. I went to teach kids who lived in huts that were literally made of mud, and these kids would run to school every day, and it was challenging, and it was the, the British equivalent of the Peace Corps.

[00:06:02] Michael: Hmm.

[00:06:02] Rich: So I didn’t get paid very much, but wow, I got paid so much more in experiences than I could ever have given to those kids. And throughout my life, it’s been those moments of adventure that have had the biggest difference.

[00:06:13] Megan: Wow.

[00:06:14] Michael: Beautiful. Now, y- you’ve spent quite a bit of time as a teacher, as I recall.

[00:06:18] Rich: Yeah, I was a, a high school teacher for 15 years.

[00:06:20] Michael: Talk about your first experience coaching. How in the world did you get into coaching?

[00:06:23] Rich: Actually, I was training to be a headteacher. In 2003, I was starting my training to be a headteacher, and coaching was in vogue at that time, and I was learning coaching skills.

[00:06:35] I went to a new school for a ve- worked with, for a very inspiring boss, and a week after I arrived, he was fired by someone at government level.

[00:06:43] Megan: Hmm.

[00:06:44] Rich: And the new boss who came in was the consultant who’d been working there for the two weeks I’d been there. I couldn’t stand this consultant. She was results-driven.

[00:06:52] She wasn’t about the kids, didn’t seem to care about children, only cared about numbers. Well, they made her the headteacher, so when I look back now, it wasn’t surprising that three days later she called me into the office and she fired me. And I went off to lick my wounds, really. I went to, went off to Thailand, and I just needed to get away from England.

[00:07:09] I, I can make it sound like a cool story ’cause I, I lived on a beach in Thailand for six months, but really, I was humiliated. I’d never been fired before. I didn’t know anyone at that time in my life who’d ever been fired, and when I look back, I think that’s what really happened. I was just embarrassed and I wanted to get away, and I found a yoga course, went and did that for, uh, two or three weeks, or four weeks it was, for a month, and I realized, wow, I could live on this beach in Thailand with the money I got paid from being fired.

[00:07:34] I could stay here for months longer than I could live in England. And so I went back home, rented out my house, came back to Thailand, and I lived there for six months. And I had these playing cards with me with coaching questions on. And it was the best way ever to start coaching, ’cause on a beach people wanna reflect on their lives, and people come over and say, “What are you doing?”

[00:07:51] And I say, “Well, this thing’s called coaching.” And they say, “Can I play?” And we’d get these cards out, and it would have great coaching questions on, and it didn’t get me in my… I wasn’t in my head about what am I gonna ask. And then a, a woman said to me one day, she said, “Rich, that question you asked me yesterday, that has changed my life.”

[00:08:07] Megan: Mm.

[00:08:08] Rich: And in that moment I knew I want to become a coach. And the rainy season was coming in Thailand, so I decided I wanted to go to America. I had no money left at that point, but I got an email from my accountant and it said that the Inland Revenue Service had just refunded me some money. It was just enough for a air flight to the United States to California for a coaching class.

[00:08:28] I jumped on a plane, flew across, opened my email when I got to California, and it was an email from my accountant and it said, “Oh, I’m really sorry, Rich, the Inland Revenue made a mistake.”

[00:08:37] Michael: Oh,

[00:08:37] Rich: no. “They’ve just written to us a second time saying that you weren’t meant to be refunded this money.” And I love that because I think back on that one, it was just the idea that I could afford it that had me jump on a plane and come here, and my whole life has changed.

[00:08:49] Wow. Met the woman who I’m, uh, you know, have been married to for 17 years, got kids, lived here, built a career, only because of a mistake. ‘Cause if I hadn’t got that email, I probably would’ve gone back to England and tried to build my career a different way, and who knows? But sometimes we hold ourselves back ’cause we think of these limitations.

[00:09:04] And take the limitations away, even if the limitations weren’t really taken away Then life can change. And I think about that a lot. But that’s how I began my coaching career, on a beach in Thailand, then in coming over to, to California.

[00:09:16] Megan: That sounds amazing. Makes me want to go to Thailand.

[00:09:18] Michael: I know.

[00:09:19] Rich: Yeah.

[00:09:19] Megan: Okay, I have to know, what are some of your best coaching questions? Like, what did you ask that woman, for example?

[00:09:27] Rich: That was 20 years ago. I couldn’t tell you what I asked that woman. But my, you know, my favorite coaching question is the simplest one. It’s, “What do you want?”

[00:09:33] Megan: Mm.

[00:09:34] Rich: And it’s actually the hardest one.

[00:09:35] Megan: Yeah.

[00:09:36] Rich: Mm-hmm. And it’s particularly hard, and I’m pretty sure you two will be able to relate to this, when you are really good at being there for other people, when you’re really good at taking care of others’ needs, when you’re really… When you’re the person others can rely on. You know, Jeff Bezos has a great question about agency.

[00:09:51] He says, “If you are thrown into a prison in a developing country and you don’t speak the language and you have no resources, who would you pick up the phone and call? You get one phone call. Who would you call?”

[00:10:00] Megan: Mm. “

[00:10:01] Rich: Who would get you out? And are you that person for anybody else?” And I know that I’d be that person for many people.

[00:10:06] Yeah. I guarantee that you’d be those people for other people, too.

[00:10:09] Michael: Mm.

[00:10:09] Rich: And so that means we’re, we’re givers, we’re there for other people. But see if you know this one. The most common thing that I say when someone says, “Rich, what do you need? Can I help you?” “No, I’m okay.”

[00:10:20] Megan: Mm-hmm. “

[00:10:21] Rich: I’m good. Thank you. No, no, I, I, I’m okay.

[00:10:23] I, I don’t need help.” You can Google it. There’s a talk from me on YouTube online called I Don’t Need Help. Mm. And it’s about what happened at some point, actually, when I had my, my kids. So I was… My wife was away, and I was at kind of rock bottom, and I called my male friends, my guy friends, who came around to help me out.

[00:10:41] It was so hard to receive.

[00:10:42] Megan: Mm.

[00:10:43] Rich: So that question, what do you want, seems so simple, but especially if you’re really good at helping other people, it’s actually really hard to answer for yourself.

[00:10:52] Megan: So how do you help people answer that?

[00:10:55] Rich: There’s a great exercise. I ask them to write down 100 things that they want.

[00:10:58] Megan: Mm.

[00:10:58] Rich: And I know that the first 30 will come out really easily, ’cause it’s a new suit or a new car or a different haircut they’ve been thinking about for a while. The next 30 are a little bit harder, but it’s the third 30, the third third. Then you have to get a bit crazy, a bit ridiculous, and I ask them to write down, you know, well, what would you want if you knew you didn’t have to do anything to make it happen or to keep it?

[00:11:18] Megan: Mm.

[00:11:19] Rich: Uh, what would you want if your fairy godmother could wave a magic wand and you could have anything you want just ’cause she granted you a wish? What’s a little bit embarrassing but you want it anyway? What’s a naughty want? What’s something that’s a little bit naughty but you want it anyway? And I get…

[00:11:34] Go through these questions to get them to come up with some of the things that they think are a bit outrageous, that it’s not okay to ask for. And then I even ask them, what are the things on your list that you think you want, but actually they’re really on your mother’s list or your father’s list or somebody- Mm-hmm

[00:11:48] else’s list, and they’re not actually on your list? Or here’s another one. What’s on your deja vu wants list?

[00:11:56] Michael: Ah. You

[00:11:56] Rich: know, the things on your list that were on the list last year and the year before and the year before that. Now, how many years have you been saying you wanna have a six-pack or you wanna do this?

[00:12:03] Look, if you haven’t got it now, you don’t really want it. Wow. So what would happen if you took it off?

[00:12:08] Megan: Wow. Okay, so funny story about that list of 100 things. Before I met and ultimately married my husband Joel, we’ve been married, we just celebrated our 16th anniversary, so we’re just- Congratulations

[00:12:19] about where you and your wife are. Yeah. Thank you. I had been engaged to somebody else. I had called off that wedding three weeks before it happened. It was it was a crazy thing to do. It was the best, hardest decision I think I’ve ever made. And as I was kind of recovering from that and putting my life back together, I’d gotten really sick and all kinds of things had happened.

[00:12:37] I thought to myself, I had read an article in O Magazine about a woman who made a list of 100 different things she was looking for in a spouse, and I don’t know why, but that really resonated with me, and I went to a local Marriott with my yellow legal pad and a couple of pens, and I wrote that list, and it was exactly like what you said.

[00:12:56] First 30, coulda done it in my sleep. Mm. Probably anybody who knows me well could’ve easily written those first 30 things down. Then it became much more difficult, and what I found is that there were all kinds of things that I excavated during that process that were really meaningful, and when I finally met Joel and we began dating and we were…

[00:13:16] We met and were married in less than six months, so kind of a whirlwind. Mm. Not 10 days, but, uh but six months. You know, what I found was that he checked every box on my list, except he didn’t wear cowboy boots- Oh … and he wasn’t tall. And as it turned out, who cares about those things? But, you know, 98 out of 100 is a pretty darn good match.

[00:13:37] Rich: Nice. I love that story. Yeah. Look, sometimes th- putting those things on the list isn’t ’cause you need to have them. Right. It’s to just to be honest about what you actually want. Yeah.

[00:13:44] Michael: Well, such a good question for the sake of clarity, and I think that a lot of people that we work with, and frankly us sometimes- Mm-hmm

[00:13:53] struggle with getting clarity for our own lives. And I don’t know if you remember this, Megan- Mm … but after your younger sister Mindy got married-

[00:13:59] Megan: Yeah …

[00:14:00] Michael: we all went to the beach and just were trying to recover from this big first wedding that we’d thrown, and, uh, I had that book, Write It Down And Make It Happen.

[00:14:08] Megan: Yeah.

[00:14:08] Michael: And so I challenged everybody, gave everybody a yellow legal pad, and the goal was to write down 100 things by the end of the week that we wanted. And just as you said, first 30, really tough. And we were fighting hard. We’d share what we came up with at dinner each night, and the list would continue to grow.

[00:14:23] But the funny thing about it was, then I discarded the list. I, I mean, I just didn’t think about it. And then I found it some years later, and it was amazing how many of those things actually came to pass.

[00:14:33] Rich: So Michael, I have a view on that around goal-setting, and it’s interesting at this time of year when everyone’s thinking about setting goals.

[00:14:39] A few years ago, I let go of setting goals because I realized I do exactly what you do. I’ve been trained that you’re supposed to set goals, so write them down at some point. They’re on a computer, they’re on a piece of paper. And then a few years later, I find that piece of paper in the back of a drawer, and I pull it out and it’s like, oh yeah, accomplished these three here.

[00:14:54] Turns out didn’t want that one anyway, didn’t care about it. This one I, I never did, but it doesn’t matter. And I realized I’m not a goal setter. Hmm. And, and there are three types of people in life. There are goal setters, there are problem solvers, and there are opportunity seekers. Hmm. And I’m an opportunity seeker.

[00:15:11] Megan: Hmm.

[00:15:12] Rich: I throw lots of little pebbles out into the world to see where the ripples come back, and then I seek those opportunities. But setting goals, I, I, I’ve let go of that. And it’s not easy because everyone seems to think that it’s what you’re supposed to do.

[00:15:24] Megan: Hmm.

[00:15:24] Rich: I’m working with a client right now who’s been super successful, and he wants to have this year be the year where there are no goals.

[00:15:32] But it’s so hard because he spent his en- entire career not just setting goals, but then breaking them down into little strategic points and steps along the way. And he’s in this real fear mode around, what if I let that go? And I said, “Well, you know, maybe don’t throw it all out. What if you decide to have this year about following your intu- your intuition, and showing up and being present in the moment, and have your goals as well, and then just watch what happens?

[00:15:57] Or maybe set some time aside on a Friday morning where Friday morning is intuition time. Where do I… What does my intuition tell me I should do today? How should I show up in the, in the weekend?”

[00:16:06] Michael: I like that.

[00:16:06] Rich: So i- it can be a mix of the two.

[00:16:08] Michael: This is kind of a, a left turn here, but what kind of people, if you could describe sort of the general characteristics, are the people who come for coaching and are coachable?

[00:16:19] ‘Cause I think this is an attribute That all of us need to cultivate and develop. You know, there’s lots of different kinds of coaches. There’s private coaching with you, there’s private coaching with me or Megan, there’s group coaching, there are masterminds, there are books, podcasts. But who… What’s the kind of person that comes to coaching?

[00:16:35] Rich: Well, there’s, there’s two questions in there, I think. There’s what’s the kind of person that comes to coaching, and then there’s are they coachable? Hmm.

[00:16:41] Megan: Hmm.

[00:16:42] Rich: And so what’s the kind of person who comes to coaching? More and more people know about coaching these days. Mm-hmm. My friend Michael Bungay Stanier wrote a book called The Coaching Habit that sold over a million copies.

[00:16:51] Yeah. I predict within the next five to 10 years, every CEO will have part of their package, they want a coach to be part of their package. Mm-hmm. It’s just what they, they’ll need to come and work with an organization. If not, they’re saying, “Here’s my coach, and they come with me no matter what.” Hmm. “You’re not appointing them for me.”

[00:17:09] So we’re, we’re moving… We’re, I think we’re already in the coaching century, and so people really do get that there’s power in this thing called coaching, and it’s life-changing. You know, there, there’s a, a tool I give my clients that’s really, really simple. WWRD. What would Rich do? And it’s based on the idea some Christians wear a bracelet that says WWJD, what would Jesus do?

[00:17:30] And that makes life really simple. You don’t have to refer to the Bible, you don’t have to go to seek wisdom or counsel. You ask yourself what Jesus would do, and then it gives you some guidance. So I use that for my clients, ’cause I ask them, “Well, what do you think I would do?” And they give me an answer, and it doesn’t matter if they’re right or not.

[00:17:46] It doesn’t matter if they’ve nailed what I would do. It gets them out of their own thinking to think like someone else.

[00:17:52] Megan: Yeah.

[00:17:52] Rich: And the problem is what got us here won’t get us there. So any way of being successful we’ve had until now is not gonna get us to the next level that we want unless there’s some way of doing things differently.

[00:18:03] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:03] Rich: So the, the simplest thing about coaching is it’s another way of thinking Uh, if you’ve got a great coach, I like to say I get paid a lot of money to mess with people’s thinking. That’s, that’s what’s fun for me. So now the second question, is somebody coachable? Well, when I’m doing an enrollment conversation, I’m finding that out.

[00:18:21] I wrote a book called The Prosperous Coach, and that book is about giving people an experience of coaching-

[00:18:27] Michael: Mm-hmm …

[00:18:27] Rich: so that they don’t have to decide, do I like this idea, this concept, this thing called coaching? ‘Cause what’s coaching? You and me are gonna talk, and your life’s gonna change. How do you sell that, right?

[00:18:37] And so, but I don’t have to. I give them an experience of working with me, because they come and sit and they talk, and we have a conversation, and I coach them. Mm. And at some point they know they want more of it or they don’t. So that’s how I find out if someone’s coachable. I give them an experience of coaching.

[00:18:52] Megan: So maybe a follow-up to that is what are the characteristics of someone who really benefits from coaching and also has great success, you know, in the whole of their life as a result of the coaching they’ve received?

[00:19:07] Rich: I think the most underrated skill in leadership is self-awareness.

[00:19:12] Megan: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:19:13] Rich: Most leaders don’t have a lot of self-awareness.

[00:19:16] The ones who are great do, and they all show up differently. That’s the problem with success. We’re trying to read… You know, if it was so, if it was simple, I would just give my clients Richard Branson’s autobiography. They’d all be billionaires. It doesn’t work that way, right? That, his biography actually share- autobiography shares what he remembers that he did to become successful.

[00:19:36] So self-awareness is something that you don’t see that often in leaders, and that’s the biggest key to success. Be able to shine a light on yourself and look at how you show up, and that’s not easy to do. And in fact, there are two ways to do that, to really help you do that. Some people do it naturally, it’s very rare.

[00:19:53] One way to do that is to have a coach, someone who’s by your side, who creates enough trust and honesty between you that you can really hear them, and you’re willing to ask questions and answer challenging questions. And the other is in community, ’cause community holds up a mirror to you, and it shows you up all your flaws and, and, you know, that person who you don’t like in the community you’re in, they’re giving you clues about what you don’t like about yourself.

[00:20:16] Mm. And the person you admire, they’re showing you clues about what you actually love about yourself. So coaching and community are two great ways to increase your self-awareness.

[00:20:26] Megan: I love

[00:20:26] Michael: that. So good.

[00:20:27] Megan: It’s really helpful.

[00:20:28] Michael: Well, you know, I think about the introduction to your podcast, which is called One Insight, and we will link to it in the show notes, but in the intro to that says that, you know, your job is to see what others can’t see and to say what others won’t say.

[00:20:40] Do I get that right?

[00:20:41] Rich: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[00:20:42] Michael: Yeah, I think I’ve, I’ve stolen it already, but I, I gave you credit the first three times, so- … there’s that.

[00:20:47] Rich: Like, here’s how I actually say, I say, the power of great coaching is that you can see things that others can’t see, and you’re bold enough to say what others won’t dare to say.

[00:20:55] Mm.

[00:20:55] Megan: I love that. And

[00:20:56] Rich: I think it’s that, it’s that bravery to say the things that others won’t be brave enough to say. And I’m not attached to being right. This is the other thing about being a great coach. I might be bold and challenge someone over something, but I’m not attached to if they say, “No, you’re wrong,” I’m okay.

[00:21:11] Then we move on to something else, or perhaps I’ll challenge them deeper. So I don’t come along as a sage to say, “Here’s how you have to do it.” Mm-hmm. When I’m working with a really high-level client, I work with some of the most successful people on the planet. I’ve worked with Olympic athletes who’ve won gold medals.

[00:21:25] I work with, um, n- former Navy SEALs, British Special Forces operatives, people who’ve done things that I would never dare to do. And that doesn’t matter, ’cause I don’t need to be better at what they do than they are. Mm. They’re the best on the planet at what they do. I’m the one who’s bold enough to challenge their thinking, and the problem with success is you rise to a point at which people stop challenging your thinking.

[00:21:48] People start saying yes to everything you say. The old joke used to be that the British Queen used to say that every building she went to that, “Oh, this is another building that smells of fresh paint.” Well, at some point you become like that as a leader, that people are doing the things that they think you need to, uh, that you want done, or saying what they think you need to hear, and the coach can be a challenge to that

[00:22:16] Michael: You know, I th- I think we’re in, in a moment too where the coaching model is becoming more and more adopted as the leadership model. So that if you’re in a corporation or you started a business, the big part of your role is coaching the people that are your teammates. But people struggle with this because of that second part where you said, “Bold enough to say what other people won’t say.”

[00:22:41] How did you get to that place where you had more courage? Is that just something that you either have it or you don’t? Or did you kind of hang yourself out there, not sure what was gonna happen, and then just through, um, enough exposure you got good at it?

[00:22:55] Rich: Well, let me tell you an embarrassing story first.

[00:22:56] So I was talking to my team the other day, and I realized… We were just reviewing the year, where are we going with business, what are we up to, what do we wanna do next year, and it dawned on me that my zone of genius is coaching. And I use that phrase with my team, “What’s your zone of genius?” And my job is to help them find the thing that they’re better at than anyone else on the planet, and go deeper and deeper into their zone of genius, and let everything else go away, so we’ll bring other people in to do those other things.

[00:23:22] And it dawned on me that if my zone of genius is coaching, why aren’t I coaching my team?

[00:23:27] Megan: Hmm. Hmm. And

[00:23:28] Rich: I said to them, I said to all of them, “You know, my clients pay $100,000 to work with me, but if I coach you, then it might look to you like, well, why would I wanna give $100,000 of value to someone on my team I’m actually paying?

[00:23:44] Well, because they can make decisions that can generate millions of dollars for us.” And so I said it with a little bit of embarrassment because it only dawned on me the other day that- … wow, I have not been bringing that magic into my team, and I need to do that more. You started by asking about how do you become bold.

[00:24:00] You just have to lean into an edge. Courage, the word courage comes from the, the French and pr- before that, the Latin, cour- Mm-hmm … which means heart. And so my definition of courage is following your heart. Now, that’s not easy, but if your heart tells you to say this, to do this, then you need to lean into that edge, even if it’s to start off by saying, “Hey, I feel a little bit nervous to say this, but here’s what my heart is telling me to say,” then you’re in.

[00:24:29] Megan: That’s so good.

[00:24:30] Michael: Megan actually taught me a great hack that I’ve been using for a couple years, and that is when I’m about to say something bold, to say, “Correct me if I’m wrong-” But here’s what it seems like. You know, ’cause sometimes I am wrong, right? And so it doesn’t have to be them being defensive, but they can kind of try it on and see if it fits.

[00:24:47] Megan: Actually, I have to give credit where credit’s due. That comes from Martha Beck, and what she said is, “Now tell me where I’m wrong,” and then she’ll fill in, you know, whatever her observation is. So it just leaves that door open. You know, if you are wrong, it’s like, “I wanna have a conversation about this with you-” Mm-hmm

[00:25:05] which I think is a great invitation to a deeper conversation.

[00:25:08] Rich: I’ve started using handwritten images when I’m running a, a session with clients. Um, but I was teaching something the other day and I’m using hand-drawn images, and my AV person told me the power of a hand-drawn image is that people think that the thought process isn’t yet complete.

[00:25:26] Mm-hmm. So it draws them in. If you do a webinar that has beautiful images that your, your, uh, graphic designer’s worked on for months and they look perfect, well, where’s the space for me? It might be a great idea, I might be interested, but there’s not much space for me to come in. And I think the start of that, uh, when you’re, when you’re saying to somebody, “Correct me if I’m wrong,” or, “What do you think about this?”

[00:25:45] Invites them in, and now there’s some connection.

[00:25:48] Megan: Yeah. I love that.

[00:25:49] Michael: Yep. Absolutely.

[00:25:51] Megan: So you’re working with people at a very high level. As you said, they’re coming to you as Olympic athletes or founders or whatever their, their particular profession is. What is it that people can’t do for themselves or that keeps them, I guess is really a better question, what keeps them from reaching their potential?

[00:26:11] They have… They’ve already reached a level of success before they decide to engage you, but there’s something they just can’t get to, and why is that or what is that?

[00:26:22] Rich: So there’s two things. First of all, now that I say this, Megan, you’re gonna realize, oh yeah, I’m wearing glasses. I’m talking about you, Megan- Yes

[00:26:30] who are wearing glasses- Yeah … anyone who’s listening to this. But a moment before, you’d forgotten you’re wearing glasses ’cause those of us who do, we forget about them.

[00:26:36] Megan: Right.

[00:26:36] Rich: But now that I say that, you’ll be aware of the rims of your glasses, and you can see them in your, your vision.

[00:26:41] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:42] Rich: But in a few moments, you’ll have forgotten that again.

[00:26:44] Sometimes I come into my house and I have prescription sunglasses, and I forget I’m wearing sunglasses. It’s the middle of the day. And then I start to… It’s, it’s 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon, it’s like, “It’s getting dark in a bit. Turn on the lights.” And I realize, oh, I’m still wearing my sunglasses- … and I’d forgotten.

[00:26:58] And so everyone is looking out through lenses on the world, and their lens has been created at a young age and they’ve learned other things and different lenses have gone in front of it, like that time you go and sit in the optometrist and all those little glass come- Right … things come in front of your eyes.

[00:27:12] And we have all of that in front of us, and we don’t know it And so the power of coaching is doing this, pulling it down so someone can look out and go, “Oh, wow, this is what the world looks like.”

[00:27:23] Megan: Huh.

[00:27:23] Rich: And we don’t know that. We, we forget that. So that, that’s the first piece to this, that we, we forget we’re wearing these lenses.

[00:27:30] With regard to highly successful people, I’m writing a book right now called Beyond Success.

[00:27:36] Michael: Hmm.

[00:27:36] Rich: And I… This is not a book about how to become successful, it’s about the unique challenges that very successful people face on the other side of success. So the thing about success at that level, here’s something that most people don’t know.

[00:27:48] If you sell a business for eight or nine figures, there’s an emotion that occurs quite quickly afterwards, and it’s depression.

[00:27:55] Michael: Hmm.

[00:27:55] Rich: And most people have no idea. When you’re an entrepreneur and you’ve created a business, your identity is part of that business, and that b- business is no longer there. Well, who am I?

[00:28:04] Michael: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:04] Rich: What do I have left in the world? And so suddenly entrepreneurs jump straight back into a business without giving themselves a break. So there are all sorts of things that go on at a high level for very successful people. Look, these are quality problems.

[00:28:18] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:18] Rich: Yeah. Don’t get me wrong, you know, it’s not for everybody.

[00:28:20] But I happen to work with these particular people, and my clients tend to be people making a big difference in the world, so I love spending time with them, but they do face these quality problems around what next? Here’s one of the other ones that happens if you’re highly successful. There’s a single addiction in this country that we praise people for.

[00:28:40] If you’re addicted to alcohol, to drugs, to sex, to the internet, we know it’s a bad thing. There’s all sorts of help you can get to support you. If you’re addicted to work, everything is set up to support you in doing more of it.

[00:28:54] Michael: Yeah. You

[00:28:54] Rich: get praise, you get accolades, you get awards, you make money, you get success, you get well-known, you become famous.

[00:29:00] So our whole world is built to keep us addicted to this thing we call work. Especially if you have a job that you love or is making a big impact-

[00:29:11] Megan: Mm-hmm …

[00:29:11] Rich: and I see you two nodding.

[00:29:13] Megan: Yep.

[00:29:13] Rich: It’s very easy to not see that side of thing ’cause it feels good. Well, I’m making more of an impact today. And at some point we burn out along the way.

[00:29:25] Mm-hmm. And highly successful people are susceptible to this because especially if they have a, a, a job or a business that’s making a real difference, at some point they just hit rock bottom. They… and they don’t know it until it’s too late.

[00:29:37] Megan: Hmm.

[00:29:38] Michael: Wow.

[00:29:38] Megan: Absolutely. You know, one of the things we hear a lot from clients is Well, I don’t really have any hobbies.

[00:29:45] You know, this is in answer to the question, what do you do when you’re not working? I don’t really have any hobbies because I just love my work so much, it is my hobby. You know, and that’s such a red flag. All the

[00:29:54] Michael: time.

[00:29:55] Megan: All the time. I mean, I- if I had a- a dollar for every time someone said that to me, right?

[00:29:59] Right. It’s just, it’s so common. Yeah. And, and the addiction thing is really difficult because, you know, for those of us who have kids at home, for those of us who have other things that are not where… They’re important, but they’re not where we’re getting those accolades. They’re not where we can check things off the list.

[00:30:19] They’re not where we feel successful or affirmed because it’s a long game. You know, marriage, parenting, other things like that, it’s very challenging because you get addicted to that dopamine reward cycle that happens in the brain, and it’s like almost nothing else can compete with that. So when somebody comes to you and that’s where they’re starting from, and maybe they know they’re out of balance or maybe they don’t, how do you help them find balance when there really is an addictive component to it?

[00:30:50] Rich: Yeah, I, I joke sometimes, you know, I, I can go spend another hour in my office and I can come up with an idea that can make me hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[00:30:56] Megan: Right.

[00:30:56] Rich: But I can go spend an hour with my wife, and if I’m not fully present or if I’m not really paying attention to her, it will have a negative return.

[00:31:06] Yeah. Not just it won’t make me $100,000, it’ll actually backfire. But what happens over time is that people don’t see that. Again, I said self-awareness is really important. A lot of people don’t have self-awareness. Well, so gradually over time, I just spend a little bit more time in the office, and a little bit more time.

[00:31:20] A little bit less time with the wife and the kids or the husband, and over time we spend up more and more time doing that thing that we think we love, and then there, there comes a moment when the partner asks for a divorce, the kids have stopped talking to us. The kids are now grown up in their 20s and they don’t see us anymore.

[00:31:35] We wonder why don’t they want to see us? Well, that tiny little gap that started at a young age has grown too big- Hmm … and you can’t cross it any longer. So I don’t know if I believe in balance. I’m not sure I believe in this thing called work-life balance. I was gonna ask you

[00:31:47] Michael: about that.

[00:31:48] Rich: Yeah, but what I do believe is you do need things that nurture your soul.

[00:31:53] You do need things that nurture your spirit, and as much as, uh, doing work that you love can feel great, it doesn’t always nurture your soul. And here’s the other problem that goes with that. If I put on my calendar that Friday’s a day off The problem is, as someone who really works well on a schedule, that when it comes to Friday as my day off, I think, “Well, you know, I’ll just go to the office in the morning and check email.

[00:32:18] You know, why not? I’ve got a free day.” But then I come out an hour or so later ’cause I’ve checked a couple of emails and they took me down a rabbit hole, and in the middle of the day I get a text from a client and I start answering that. I’ve discovered that I need to schedule my time off. I need to have things that happen in my time off so that I can actually enjoy the time off, ’cause otherwise that magnetic pull back to my work, which I do love, is really dangerous for me.

[00:32:43] Megan: Huh.

[00:32:44] Michael: So what do you say to the client that comes to you, and this would be many of the people listening here, and frankly it’s us from time to time, but what do you say to the person who comes to you and there is no margin for anything other than work? And they’re frustrated, but they really think that balance or more of the stuff that feeds their soul is just impossible.

[00:33:05] Maybe somebody else could do it, Rich, that’s fine for you, but I can’t do it. What do you say, or how do you help, help them kind of rethink that, reframe that, and begin to pursue a more holistic life?

[00:33:17] Rich: Well, at first I’d probably say, “You need me more than you think you do.” If you, if you really think that, that you don’t have space for that, because there are people who are more successful than you, whoever you are, who definitely have the ability to do more things than you’re doing right now.

[00:33:31] That’s, that’s the first thing. I want to provoke them a little bit- Mm … to, to deliberately trying to provoke their thinking. Second thing I often happens to me, a client starts working with me and they say, uh, “Well, let’s get started. I’ve got all these things I want to do.” Well, no, let’s first find out what do you really want?

[00:33:46] It’s the question I said earlier, right? What do you want? And we go deep into that question about what they want. There’s a, there’s a, there’s a story about Warren Buffett, and Buffett’s pilot says to him, “Hey, Mr. Buffett, can you help me? I really see how successful you are. You set these goals, you accomplish all these things.

[00:34:04] What help could you give me? Would you be willing to help me?” And, and Warren Buffett says, “Yeah, sure. Make a list of the 30 things that you really want to accomplish in life.” And he goes away for a few days, does some reflection, does some thinking, comes back a few days later and says, “Right, here’s my list.

[00:34:16] These are the 30 things I, I want to accomplish.” Buffett says, “Well, what, what are the top five on the list, and what are the most important ones?” And he goes away and thinks about it and, and comes back and says, “You know, here’s the top five, here’s the bottom 25. But I don’t want to let go of them. Like, they’re still staying on my list.”

[00:34:33] And Warren Buffett says, “No, here’s your problem. That bottom 25 just became your avoid at all costs list.”

[00:34:40] Megan: Huh.

[00:34:41] Rich: And that, I think, is the key for people who say, “Well, it’s all right for you. I haven’t got the time to do this.” They’re trying to do too many things. We’re all gonna be stretched too thin. An avoid at all cost list doesn’t mean you have to avoid it at all costs forever.

[00:34:56] It just means at this moment in time, if spending time with your kids is important, and doing these things in business is important, then you have to put these other things to one side And most people are afraid to do that, so they dabble in a bunch of different things, and then they can’t ever have success in any of them.

[00:35:13] Megan: I always say to clients, “It’s not magic math. I’m not gonna tell you something where I have some kind of trick up my sleeve that will enable you to do all 30 things. That would be dishonest.” It’s really about getting clear on what’s most important and then being able to connect with why they’re important and not…

[00:35:30] and discipline yourself to leave the other ones alone because there are only 24 hours in a day. Nobody gets more than that. Sometimes we think there’s some magic formula out there, some productivity solution, some planning solution, some goal achievement methodology that if I know it, then I can… I get the cheat code where I can still do all 30 when most people could only do five.

[00:35:52] And there’s a kind of arrogance, and there’s a kind of unwillingness to accept, I think, the limitations of life, and I really feel like those limitations are a gift in many ways because it forces us to identify the five. You know, if our time was limitless, whew, wouldn’t be good in many ways.

[00:36:12] Rich: I’ve read every time management book under the sun.

[00:36:14] David Allen, you name it, I’ve read them all. And I used to teach this stuff to clients, but what I found out is if you work with someone who’s really successful and struggling ’cause they’ve got too much on their plate, and you give them some great time management tools, they’re grateful for two weeks.

[00:36:29] But what you’ve done is help them expand their plate, and two weeks later, they can now do more stuff with their time, and it hasn’t freed them up. So if I was only allowed to do… take a single coaching tool into the future, you gave me one choice of one coaching tool forever for the rest of my life, the one I would take is the energy audit And I do this for myself every 90 days with my team.

[00:36:52] I sit down and I ca- grab a piece of paper, put a line down the center, and on one side I write down what drains me of energy.

[00:36:59] Michael: Hmm.

[00:36:59] Rich: And on the other side, I write down what energizes me. And I make a list of all the things, the people, the places, the thoughts, the habits, rituals. Rituals tend to be more energizers.

[00:37:10] But all of those things in my life, and I make a list of them. And people is there top of the list ’cause people’s uncomfortable. Sometimes there are people in our life who drain us of energy, and so we need to look at that. And so the first thing I do is make a list of the things that drain me, the things that energize me.

[00:37:27] And then if I’m working with a client, all I need to do is take one thing that drains them of energy and find a way to either remove it from their life or turn it into something that energizes them-

[00:37:38] Megan: Mm-hmm …

[00:37:38] Rich: and they have a bit more energy. So whatever your client wants to accomplish right now is limited actually by the amount of capacity for energy that they have in their life.

[00:37:47] Michael: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:48] Rich: And if you find ways to give them a little bit more energy, a little bit more energy, a little more energy, then the… you’re suddenly removing the cap on what’s possible. And they’ll come to you and say, without any coaching around the goals and things they want to accomplish, “Oh my God, listen to what just happened.”

[00:38:01] Hmm. “Listen to what I just created,” because you’re helping to create more energy in their life. Energy’s a real key.

[00:38:07] Megan: I love that. That’s a helpful distinction.

[00:38:08] Michael: I have a friend, you know him, who, uh, was diagnosed with a, I wouldn’t say it’s terminal, but a very serious chronic illness. And his doctors finally told him, they said, “You can work two hours a day, period.”

[00:38:24] And he’s now reporting after six months of this, best thing that ever happened to him, ’cause now he’s focused on the stuff that truly matters. Mm-hmm. And he’s realized that everything else is just kinda noise. It’s just-

[00:38:36] Megan: Yeah …

[00:38:37] Michael: he’s getting a psychological benefit from it, but it’s not additive to anything personally or professionally.

[00:38:44] So I, I love that idea.

[00:38:45] Megan: I do too. Yeah,

[00:38:46] Rich: Tim Ferriss asked that as a question. I asked it to my clients once in a while, but I, I got that idea from Tim Ferriss. If you were only allowed to work one hour a week, if you’re only allowed to l- work one hour a month-

[00:38:55] Megan: Hmm … I

[00:38:56] Rich: mean, it just sounds ridiculous. One hour a month, that’s all you’re allowed.

[00:38:59] Well, what would you do? Well, again, it’s a thinking exercise, but it gets you thinking about, well, what is really, really important?

[00:39:11] Megan: I wanna go back, Rich, to something that you said a few minutes ago about feeding your soul. I find that just like asking people, “What do you want?” That’s a hard question to answer for people, especially the people whose default answer would be, “Oh, my work.” You know, my work is the answer to every question.

[00:39:27] You know, sometimes we joke about Christians that, you know, it’s like every answer is Jesus, you know? Mm. And it’s like, it’s not. Every answer isn’t Jesus. Sometimes there’s other answers. And I’m wondering how you help people to discern what feeds their soul if they’ve been disconnected from their soul for a long time.

[00:39:46] Rich: Hmm. That’s a good question. One of, one of the most powerful coaching tools is a really simple one, and it’s the art of gentle reflection.

[00:39:55] Michael: Hmm.

[00:39:55] Rich: So what I would do in that case is I would say to somebody, “Okay, every night for the next 30 nights, have a bl- piece of paper by the side of your bed. And before you go to bed, ask yourself, ‘What did I do today that fed my soul?'”

[00:40:10] What did I do today that nurtured my spirit? And let’s talk in 30 days, and in 30 days you’ll have some information. If I ask you now what feeds your soul, it’s hard to do. It becomes a bit intellectual.

[00:40:20] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:20] Rich: But if every night you reflect, what did I do? Oh, you know what? I had 20 minutes reading to my son before he went to sleep.

[00:40:26] That felt so great. You know what? Today I went for a walk with my wife along the beach. That felt… You’ll gather some evidence over time. So I can’t come up with a list of things that will nurture people’s spirit. It’s different for each of us. But if they use some self-awareness and this gentle reflection every night for 30 nights asking themselves, “What fed my soul today?

[00:40:45] What nurtured my spirit?” They’d come up with some information that we’d have to talk about 30 days later.

[00:40:49] Michael: Was that a journey for you to kind of get in touch with that yourself? I mean, were you, like most of us, kind of addicted to your work and had to excavate your soul at some point?

[00:40:59] Rich: Just so to be clear, there- there’s no past tense at all.

[00:41:02] I’m in it as much as you guys are. Like, we teach what we most need to learn. Like, this is the most challenging thing for me. It really is.

[00:41:08] Michael: Me

[00:41:08] Rich: too. Um, we, we, we’ve just had two weeks off. I’ve been with the kids. You know, my kids are younger than you are. They’re 11 and 13, and I’m realizing, ’cause they went back this morning, and I’m realizing I don’t give myself any space for me.

[00:41:20] I’m a great dad, but it means I’m, in some ways I’m, I’m gonna catch that. I’m, I’m not necessarily a great dad ’cause I’m not necessarily modeling for them what I’d want. And I’m, uh, I’m, I’m saying this as I’m thinking it out loud in this real, in real time. I’m with them a lot when they’re away. We play together.

[00:41:35] We go on trips together. But I didn’t model for them, I need time for myself. And so today they go back to school. I’ve got this week, there’s nothing on my agenda apart from being with you guys this week, and I’m, it’s a little bit of time for me to, to slow down and reflect, but I’m realizing, oh yeah, that’s, that’s another area where I need to get better at, to actually to model to my kids that I take time for myself even when I’m with them.

[00:41:58] Michael: I would echo that. I think sometimes, you know, people come to us and are a little bit surprised and pleased that we don’t have it all together. You know, and I think the, the more we confess that and acknowledge it, I think it gives people the permission to be honest with where they’re at and then to pursue growth It’s not about becoming perfect, or you’re not gonna reach this milestone where, bam, now everything just works.

[00:42:22] You know? It, it doesn’t work at a higher level.

[00:42:24] Megan: You know, one of the things that I find personally is challenging about the things that feed my soul is that those things tend to be things that require my full presence and attention. They’re not things that I can sort of do… Like, like multitasking and feeding your soul, that’s not a thing.

[00:42:43] Those, those are antithetical. Um, they require my presence. They’re often physically engaging in some way. You know, uh, maybe I’m knitting, or I’m gardening, or I’m on a walk, or I’m having coffee with somebody that I really care about or find fascinating. And personally, one of the struggles that I have is that the digital environment, in particular social media for me, like Instagram, I’m very visual and I love aesthetics and all that kind of stuff, is so dopamine centric.

[00:43:15] You know, like you can just get hit after hit after hit, and there’s no end to it. There’s… It’s not like, “Oh, now I’m done with Instagram.” You know, that’s not a thing unless it’s so late that your eyes are crossing in bed. How do you help your clients? Or pretend I’m your client, and I have this kind of compulsive or addictive relationship sometimes with technology, with my screens, social media in my case, and I know that that ne- You know, when I get done being on Instagram, I’ve been off now for maybe five weeks, that when I get off of Instagram, I feel empty.

[00:43:47] You know, even though it’s beautiful and stimulating and exciting, I feel empty. I don’t feel connected to anybody or anything particularly. How can I change kind of what’s going on in my brain so that I have the capacity to engage in things that I know ultimately feed my soul, but they’re like a slow burn.

[00:44:06] You know? Mm. They’re not a fast bonfire. That’s a kind of muddled question, but, but help me, Rich.

[00:44:13] Rich: No. I feel that. I feel that. Look, we live in a world of empty calories. You can eat-

[00:44:16] Megan: Yes …

[00:44:16] Rich: ice cream, wat- zone out on Netflix, spend hours on Instagram, and it’s so hard to go to the gym sometimes.

[00:44:24] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:25] Rich: There’s massive resistance to going to the gym I’ve never come back from the gym and regretted-

[00:44:31] Megan: Absolutely

[00:44:31] Rich: going to the gym.

[00:44:32] Megan: Yep.

[00:44:32] Michael: So true.

[00:44:33] Rich: Eating too much ice cream, pizza, Netflix on some show I don’t really wanna watch, or Instagram, those are the empty calories. You, you said, “How can I rewire my brain?” I don’t think you can. Mm. Mm-mm. The best scientists and psychologists on the planet have been paid millions of dollars over the last 20 years by these social media companies to get us addicted.

[00:44:54] Yep. I was watching my father-in-law, who’s in his… almost, almost 80, at a family event on TikTok, and I was looking at it, ’cause I’ve refused to get TikTok ’cause I know what it’s, what it’s like, and, and I was just watching it, and I was seeing the algorithm has been honed ’cause he likes this… There are some challenges he likes with numbers that he, he does.

[00:45:12] He feels like it’s kind of challenging his brain, and it feeds them to him.

[00:45:16] Michael: Uh-huh.

[00:45:16] Rich: And so I don’t think you can. I think, and I, again, I, I’m, I’m, I’m talking to myself as much as to you, Megan.

[00:45:21] Megan: Yeah.

[00:45:22] Rich: Um, we, we got a safe- At home. I used to feel embarrassed about this when I did, uh… My, my kids were so addicted to their, their- Yeah

[00:45:30] iPads that if we didn’t hide them away somewhere, we’d find them in the middle of the night watching something on, on their phone. Absolutely.

[00:45:36] Megan: Yeah, yeah. Same.

[00:45:37] Rich: I Googled safes on Amazon and found out that all the reviews for those personal safes that you can have in your house, like, like in a hotel, that size, they’re all bought by parents doing exactly the same as me.

[00:45:48] They’re locking their, their kids’ gadgets in there. And I think that’s what we need to do for ourselves.

[00:45:52] Megan: Yeah.

[00:45:53] Rich: And the problem I find, the reason I find it so hard to do, is I tell myself, “Well, this is my phone that I might be get a call on for an emergency or something,” and so I, I… There’s no way. Business, can’t lock it away.

[00:46:06] But, um, I read something recently about getting two phones, a kale phone and a cocaine phone- … was the distinction.

[00:46:13] Megan: I love that.

[00:46:14] Rich: I forget who, who had the distinction. Who, who-

[00:46:16] Megan: You know- … talked about it … Andrew Huberman talked about that in a recent podcast. He didn’t use that language, though. That is fantastic.

[00:46:21] But, but yeah.

[00:46:22] Rich: Yeah. And so take a phone that has nothing on it, maybe Uber and a couple of map, you know, map apps and things like that, and you’ve given it to the people who love you that you’ve got… They’ve got your cellphone in there. And you have that one with you during the day. The other one’s locked in a safe.

[00:46:36] Megan: Yeah. That’s radical. But one of the things I’ve been thinking about, we interviewed a guest, Ian Cron, who’s a good friend of ours. He has a new book coming out called The Fix, and it’s basically like the 12 steps for everybody, you know, assuming that his assumption is that we’re all on the addiction spectrum somewhere.

[00:46:54] You know, there’s, like, really dramatic addictions, and we all know those people. We might be those people. But, but there’s also everybody has some kind of addiction. And I think part of the question that I’m asking myself, and I’m literally, uh, I have a spiritual director that I’m gonna be working with this year, and that I’m gonna be working with her on, is what does sobriety look like around this issue that I struggle with?

[00:47:15] Because to your point, you can’t completely abstain from using a phone. Like, you can’t just decide I’m gonna have a home phone and nothing else, and not use a computer. I mean, you could, but that would be prohibitive for the kind of work that you do and that we do. And yet I don’t think that means that sobriety isn’t important.

[00:47:32] And so when total abstinence isn’t possible, then there needs to be nuance, but I think that there has to be nuance that is uncomfortable, like locking it away or having two phones or whatever. You know, if we think, you know, the first of the 12 steps is admitting that you’re powerless and that your life has become unmanageable, and I think if we think, oh, I, you know, I can defeat the algorithms or I, I can s- somehow overcome, I can be strong enough to not let the pull of these devices pull me away, like you said, millions and millions and millions, billions of dollars really are going into keeping us on them.

[00:48:05] It’s like the, uh, CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings, said, the only real competitor that they have is sleep. Which is a terrifying thought, you know? Like, wow. Anyway, I, I think that that’s helpful to think in those terms because it’s a creative and effective way that most of us don’t even consider as an option.

[00:48:25] But if, if we’re going to feed our soul and have a life that’s worth living, then we’re gonna have to do something besides just, like, try to manage our screen time, for example, on our own or other things that, that take us away.

[00:48:36] Rich: Here, here’s how I see it. Present day Rich is strong. Future Rich is weak. I can have all these dreams about- Yeah

[00:48:44] how I’m gonna show up. So when I go to a hotel, my assistant calls the hotel before I arrive and asks them to remove all the junk food from the hotel room.

[00:48:52] Megan: Huh. ‘

[00:48:53] Rich: Cause I know I have three days. I’ve seen it. For three days, I won’t eat any of the Pringles, none of the Twix bars. But if I’m in a hotel, especially on my own for work, on day four, I will devour as many packets of Pringles as they have there-

[00:49:06] and all the Twix bars. And so I hate my assistant the moment I arrive in a hotel ’cause I can’t help it. I always check the minibar. Did she remember this time? Maybe she forgot, and I hate her. Like, she remembered. And I always pray if I’m going to an event where I’m running an event a- and I’m, I’m organizing the food, I find out what’s on the menu and order the food in advance.

[00:49:26] Megan: Ooh, I love

[00:49:27] Rich: that. And I, again, I always hate it ’cause the salad comes and everyone else has got the comfort food, but I know that future Rich is gonna be weak, and so I have to put some things in place because… and especially social media, you know, you- Yeah … you can’t fight it. We’re not stronger than the al- algorithm.

[00:49:41] We can’t be.

[00:49:42] Megan: Yeah.

[00:49:42] Michael: No.

[00:49:43] Rich: So we, we need ways to support… I, I’ve been on two plant medicine retreats the last year.

[00:49:47] Megan: Mm.

[00:49:48] Rich: And the best, single best thing about going on these retreats has been they took our phones away on day one.

[00:49:53] Megan: Wow.

[00:49:54] Rich: The thing that everyone talked about on the final day, how nervous they were about getting their phone back, and we all had these ambitions what were gonna happen, and I brought my journal that I wrote in after the first retreat to the second retreat, and I read through it, and I read all the notes I made at the retreat, which was really powerful, and then I looked at the journal I’d started keeping on day one after the retreat was finished.

[00:50:17] Day one. That was it. I wrote a journal one day after this retreat, and then I got back into life, and I had my phone, and- Ugh. Yeah … and so it’s very hard. It’s very hard. And I think rather than try and fight it, in AA they say you admit you’re an alcoholic, so you don’t have alcohol ever again.

[00:50:34] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:34] Rich: Well, and you do it just one day at a time.

[00:50:37] Megan: Yeah.

[00:50:37] Rich: I think you’re right. You can’t do that with a phone. We do need phones. So it, it has to be some simple rules, like I don’t bring the phone in the bedroom at night, or I lock the phone away at certain hours of the day.

[00:50:50] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:50] Rich: Things that can be simple to abide by because otherwise you’re gonna get caught into this trap where the phone just kind of sucks you in.

[00:50:58] Megan: Yep.

[00:50:58] Michael: Okay, you guys gotta help me with this because the one barrier I have to this, bringing the phone into the bedroom, is my parents are 91, and they live in assisted living, and if they were to call in the middle of the night, which has happened, I wanna be available for that, but that requires I have a phone-

[00:51:14] Megan: But that’s where the second phone comes in.

[00:51:16] I think that… I love the idea of the second phone. I think I’m

[00:51:18] Michael: gonna do that. I think I’m going to Verizon after

[00:51:20] Megan: this. Yeah, me too. Get me one while you’re there. Um, but I, I really think that that is the secret because the problem is you, you just sort of go into this trance around your devices, and you’re not intentionally choosing You know, you’re not saying, “I think I’m really gonna give an hour of my life right now to watch this show on Netflix,” or, “I think I’m gonna give an hour of my life right now this morning to surf the news and just see what’s going on in the world.”

[00:51:46] You know? You would never do that if it was a- You would never do it- Yeah … if it was a choice. But, but one thing, it’s like the, you know, R- Rich, your kids are probably young enough to remember these books, but you know the give a mouse a cookie, if you give the mouse a cookie, he’s gonna ask for a glass of milk.

[00:51:57] It’s like if you open your phone, you’re gonna end up, uh, on The New York Times, and then you’re gonna end up on Instagram. Yep. I’m just talking about myself. And then you’re gonna end up on ChatGPT, and then you’re gonna end up… And before you know it, an hour and a half has gone by and you missed your workout, and you, you know, you didn’t do your quiet time- True facts

[00:52:12] or plan your day. And I just think that putting yourself in a position again where you have clarity around what does sobriety look like, and you’ve taken the steps that you’re not, you’re not relying on your willpower. You’re not, uh, relying on your good intentions. You know, you’re just removing it, just like I’m not gonna, like, leave a bag of gummy bears out on the kitchen counter and tell my kids they can have two a day.

[00:52:34] You know, that’ll last- Yeah … for about 30 minutes, and then the whole bag will be gone by lunch, of course.

[00:52:38] Rich: Isn’t it crazy? Yeah. Three of us, very successful people in all sorts of ways, accomplish all sorts of things, and we’re having this conversation that we could probably speak about for two more hours-

[00:52:47] Megan: Yeah

[00:52:47] Rich: about this gadget that sits in our pockets-

[00:52:50] Megan: Yep …

[00:52:50] Rich: that we find so valuable and so insidious at the same time. Yes. It’s very, very interesting.

[00:52:55] Megan: Yes.

[00:52:56] Michael: Well, I hate to say it, but almost an hour’s gone by- … and we gotta land the plane. So we have three kind of traditional questions that we ask at the end. These are rapid fire.

[00:53:05] You don’t have to give us a long answer, unless you want to. So the first question we have is what’s your biggest obstacle, you, Rich, what’s your biggest obstacle in getting the double win? And again, that’s the name that we ascribe to winning at work and succeeding at life so that you’re pursuing both of those things.

[00:53:23] What’s the biggest obstacle for you?

[00:53:24] Rich: Oh, that’s hard to give a quick answer to that one. It feels like we’ve had… the whole conversation today has been about that- It has … in all sorts of different ways. I think I’ll go back to right where I started. It’s knowing what the double win is. Yeah. It’s easy to know what the win is in business.

[00:53:38] Mm-hmm. Yeah. It’s not difficult How much money do I want to make? Or what’s the profit I want to make? Uh, how many clients do I want to have? What’s the business gonna focus on? It’s easy to come up with lots of ideas on that side of things. It’s much harder to come up with the ideas on the other side. How do I set a goal around nurturing my spirit?

[00:53:55] Mm-hmm.

[00:53:55] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:55] Rich: How do I set a goal around how healthy I want to be for the next 20 years of my life? Those are much more complex, and so I think it needs real time, and it actually needs time with interesting people. And so I’m, I’m, those of you who are listening, I, I’m pointing at these two because this has been a fun way to talk.

[00:54:12] I, I heard a quote recently that Oprah credited a lot of her success to having people in her life who blew the lid off her thinking.

[00:54:20] Megan: Yeah.

[00:54:21] Michael: So true.

[00:54:21] Rich: And I think that’s, that’s what I’m craving a little bit more of myself right now.

[00:54:24] Michael: Yeah, me too.

[00:54:25] Megan: Okay, how do you personally know, to that point, that you’ve gotten the double win, that you are in this moment winning at work and succeeding at life?

[00:54:34] Rich: Time is funny. It feels like yesterday that I came to the United States. I remember being fired by that boss. I remember crying as I drive- drove home in my car, like wondering what was going to happen next. And now it’s almost 20 years later. Time goes by in a flash.

[00:54:50] Michael: Mm.

[00:54:51] Rich: Dan Sullivan has this lovely way of d- describing setting goals.

[00:54:55] He talks about having a 25-year

[00:54:57] Megan: mission. Mm-hmm.

[00:54:57] Rich: What do you want to accomplish in 25 years’ time? And by the way, when he was 75, he set his next set of 25-year goals. And the thing about 25-year mission is that it, it has to get you out of your head. You can’t, you can’t imagine. If you look back 25 years, there’s no way you could have imagined any of the things that you’re doing now 25 years ago.

[00:55:17] Megan: So true.

[00:55:17] Rich: So it gives you a chance to dream and scheme and be really big in your thinking. And then he also says, check in every 90 days. A year, everyone’s setting New Year’s resolutions right now. They don’t work, we know that, but 90 days is a good timeframe.

[00:55:30] Michael: Mm-hmm.

[00:55:30] Rich: And if you set some goals, things you want to accomplish over the next 90 days, well, every 90 days is 1% towards your 25-year mission.

[00:55:39] Michael: Mm-hmm.

[00:55:40] Rich: And so if you accomplish some great results, you’re 1% closer, and if you don’t, it was only 1%, and I like that thinking-

[00:55:46] Megan: Yeah …

[00:55:46] Rich: 25-year thinking.

[00:55:47] Michael: I do too.

[00:55:48] Megan: That’s

[00:55:48] Michael: great. Okay, last question. What’s one ritual Or routine that helps you to kinda get back into the double win-win when you’ve lost it or it’s slipped away?

[00:55:59] Or how do you keep yourself there as much as possible?

[00:56:01] Rich: What I have right now is walking 10,000 steps a day.

[00:56:05] Megan: Hmm.

[00:56:05] Rich: My wife’s been really s- inspiring me be- around that one because she, for six months she has not missed a single day.

[00:56:11] Megan: Wow.

[00:56:12] Rich: I’ve missed it quite a few days along that, but I’m, I’m getting back into it right now.

[00:56:16] And we walk from our house along the beach to the pier in Santa Monica, and we can get to the end of the pier and back, and if we leave like we did this morning before 6:00, we’re back before 8:00. It’s like an hour and 30, hour and 45 minutes, and then we’ve done 13,000 steps before the day has begun.

[00:56:32] Megan: Amazing.

[00:56:33] Rich: So that’s one routine, that ritual that feels great. Plus, it’s with my wife. And every once in a while we argue on the walks. We usually- … it’s long enough that we can resolve the argument by the time we’re back anyway.

[00:56:42] Megan: That’s great. Love it.

[00:56:43] Michael: I love it. Well, Rich, thank you so much for joining us. This has been, no pun intended, rich, and I’ve enjoyed this conversation immensely.

[00:56:51] Where can people find you? And if people wanna connect with you, where’s the best place to do that?

[00:56:56] Rich: Hey, thanks Michael. You too, Megan. I’ve, I’ve enjoyed really thoroughly being with you guys. Uh, if you go to richlitvin.com, you’ll find all my stuff there. You can put me or my name into YouTube or Google.

[00:57:07] There’s a ton of stuff I’ve created over the years. Yeah. Reach out if you wanna have a conversation.

[00:57:11] Michael: Well, I wanna say that, uh, I highly recommend that you all subscribe to Rich’s newsletter. I subscribe to a lot of newsletters, but I read very few, and Rich’s is one of them that I read all the time. So thanks again, Rich.

[00:57:24] It’s been a pleasure being with you.

[00:57:26] Rich: Thank you both.

[00:57:38] Michael: So Meg, what were some of your key takeaways from that conversation with Rich?

[00:57:41] Megan: Well, the thing that I’m personally taking away is I’m gonna get a second phone.

[00:57:45] Michael: Me too.

[00:57:46] Megan: It’s like, you know what? I can set up all these screen time things and use these apps and whatever, and really it would be so much easier if I just put it away and had to choose that because I really feel like the focus of this next year for me is about feeding my soul.

[00:58:02] That’s not the language I would’ve used coming into it. It’s really about flourishing, but I think technology is one of the biggest risks to that, you know, that it’s so enticing that pulling ourselves away from that and being present in the real world in ways that feed our soul, which happen almost totally in an analog space, I mean, I think that’s an interesting thing to contend with.

[00:58:26] I’m not able to do that through willpower or even some of the technological means to overcome the technology.

[00:58:32] Michael: Well, I don’t know if you remember this, but about two years ago I decided to do this.

[00:58:36] Megan: Uh-huh.

[00:58:37] Michael: So I got a Verizon line, and the biggest pushback I got was from my daughters, who just said, “It’s a hassle to have to have two numbers for you,” but the other problem was- Wait,

[00:58:46] Megan: are you blaming us right now?

[00:58:47] Michael: Kind of. The other problem was is that I actually just put another SIM card, an electric SIM card, in my existing phone, which meant I had to remember to turn off the one and turn on the other.

[00:58:59] Megan: That feels complicated. And- I don’t even really understand what you just said.

[00:59:01] Michael: Yeah. Well, it’s just… It’s basically you can have two lines on one phone.

[00:59:04] Megan: Okay.

[00:59:04] Michael: Yeah, yeah. And so you can just manually turn the phone that you use during the daytime off- Yeah … in the evening or on the weekends.

[00:59:10] Megan: Yeah.

[00:59:10] Michael: But I think a second phone. The truth is I’ve got some extra iPhones. I’m not gonna have to buy another phone.

[00:59:14] Megan: Right.

[00:59:14] Michael: But, you know, some that have… go back. But for something just like calls, I literally think I’m gonna take every application off- Yeah

[00:59:20] except text messages, which nobody will have the number except my family- Yeah … and a couple close associates, and the phone number.

[00:59:28] Megan: Yeah. I mean, I’m, I’m thinking I could probably use just text messaging, maps, Uber, like, for when I travel.

[00:59:36] Michael: Yeah.

[00:59:37] Megan: Maybe podcasts ’cause I like to do that when I’m working out. I just need to keep anything that involves my eyes.

[00:59:43] That’s where I get in trouble.

[00:59:44] Michael: Yeah. Me

[00:59:45] Megan: too. If I have to use my eyes for more than, you know, driving, that’s gonna be a problem.

[00:59:48] Michael: Well, I t- I tried the light phone several years back. Yeah. And that was just, like, too much. It just annoyed me all the time. Right. It

[00:59:55] Megan: has probably

[00:59:55] Michael: come

[00:59:55] Megan: a way. The interface is annoying.

[00:59:56] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:59:56] Michael: They

[00:59:56] Megan: do have a new one coming out this year that I know you can pre-order right now. Do

[01:00:00] Michael: not tempt me to get another gadget.

[01:00:01] Megan: I know, right?

[01:00:02] Michael: Right? Well- Your mother will kill both of us …

[01:00:03] Megan: I think that it was just a meaningful conversation about being present, about self-awareness. I mean, you cannot be self-aware if you’re not present.

[01:00:12] Michael: Tr- So true.

[01:00:13] Megan: If you are in the trance of addiction to work, technology, what- whatever your thing is, you can’t be present.

[01:00:19] Michael: Yeah.

[01:00:19] Megan: And if you can’t be present, you can’t be self-aware, and if you can’t be self-aware, you can’t feed your soul, and you also can’t make your most meaningful impact in the world. And I think one of the things for us to just think about with the double win is how do we help people- Be more present so they can know when they’re not getting the double win.

[01:00:39] Michael: Well, I think that’s right, and I think that one insight that he has, and one of the things we’ve talked about in the past, is it’s not enough just to say you’re not going to do something.

[01:00:49] Megan: Right. You have to be for something, not just against

[01:00:50] Michael: something. You have to be for something because if you just say, “Okay, I’m not gonna work on Fridays,” Rich talked about that, “I’m not gonna work on Fridays,” well, unless you have a plan, nature abhors a vacuum.

[01:01:00] Megan: Right.

[01:01:00] Michael: And that space is gonna get filled with what’s familiar and what’s comfortable, and that’s checking your email-

[01:01:05] Megan: And what’s easy … checking social

[01:01:06] Michael: media.

[01:01:06] Megan: Yeah. I, you know, I think, I think one of the realizations I’ve had since I’ve been really intentionally trying to limit my screen time and gotten off of social media and all that, is that the things that are feeding our soul- are not effortless.

[01:01:18] You know, amusement and entertainment don’t really require any effort.

[01:01:21] Michael: Right.

[01:01:22] Megan: But, like, if you want to fill your soul up, that involves, you know, maybe that’s reading books that are really meaningful to you or going on a hike or, you know, having s- people over for dinner. All those things take effort. It’s effort that’s restorative ultimately.

[01:01:35] But when we’re faced with, like, the empty calories, like what he said, you know, empty calories or a nourishing meal, I mean, it’s just easy to grab the processed stuff because it’s just right there, and it’ll, it’ll kinda fill you up for a second, but then it, then it goes away. And so I think we… The planning part that he talked about is useful for making a decision, like, “I’m going to go on a hike this Thursday,” because I know that when I’m done with that hike, I’ll not wanna do it on the way there.

[01:02:00] But once I get there, I’m gonna just… My soul’s gonna start filling up, and it’s gonna feel so good. And

[01:02:04] Michael: you just did that last week.

[01:02:05] Megan: I did that, and it was wonderful. It was so much fun. And I, I think that we just have to be intentional, and we can’t be intentional if we’re, like, walking around in a, a trance or a haze.

[01:02:16] Michael: You know, I, I think it goes back to the very first thing that we talked about, the question that Rich asked his client-

[01:02:21] Megan: Yeah …

[01:02:21] Michael: which is, “What do you want?”

[01:02:22] Megan: Yeah.

[01:02:23] Michael: And so I think all this conversation about technology and being present, it all comes back to serve what do we want.

[01:02:30] Megan: Right.

[01:02:30] Michael: And what I want is to be fully present in my life.

[01:02:33] I don’t wanna be a bystander or an observer-

[01:02:36] Megan: Yeah …

[01:02:36] Michael: or suddenly all the time slips away and I get to the end of my life and I go, “What the heck?”

[01:02:40] Megan: Like, nobody ever said, I w- you know, they get to the end of their life and they think, “I wish I would’ve worked more.”

[01:02:44] Michael: Right.

[01:02:44] Megan: You know, we know that from the research.

[01:02:46] Nobody ever says that. I don’t think anyone ever says, “I wish I’d spent more time on my phone.” That really is what did it for me is I looked at my screen time report. You know, if you have an iPhone, there’s, in your settings- It’s, like,

[01:02:55] Michael: unbelievable …

[01:02:56] Megan: it’s like eight hours a day was what, how much time I was spending on, on my phone.

[01:03:01] And I was like, “I am literally flushing my life down the toilet.” Like, that’s — That was the conversation I had. I was like, “I will regret this. I don’t wanna have regret.” I wanna do things that… And I think fundamentally this is at the heart of the double win. We want you guys and we want our, for ourselves l- not to have regret.

[01:03:19] We want to invest our life because really it is an investment. You either get, it’s either a good investment or a bad investment, and I want the return on that investment to be things that are, are worth having.

[01:03:29] Michael: Mm-hmm.

[01:03:29] Megan: Like people and rich experiences and all that kinda stuff, so.

[01:03:33] Michael: And our life truly is like a vapor.

[01:03:35] Megan: It is.

[01:03:35] Michael: You know, it’s here today, gone tomorrow.

[01:03:37] Megan: Yeah.

[01:03:38] Michael: Well, guys, thanks so much for joining us on The Double Win Show. We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode, and we hope you come back next week when I’ll have another guest that we’ll be interviewing. And in the meantime, if you could rate and review the podcast, that would help us in our mission to make it nearly impossible for people not to get the double win.

[01:03:56] We wanna raise awareness on this issue so we’ve got more people that are living with intention and with balance and developing rich lives and rich connections with people that they love. So see you next time.