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Hey guys, Ken Courtright here from Today’s Growth: Growing Business Today. I am in the middle of a series right now; I am podcasting right now about stuff that I am paying very close attention to while I am away. If I am out there speaking or teaching at CEO Space, when I get done teaching, I am going right into the audience to listen to the next round of speakers, teachers, and mentors coming in. I am there with notepads, and I am taking notes. Most importantly, I am sitting there paying as close attention as I possibly can, not just to the speakers, but to the audience and how they are reacting and responding. I am gauging the level of understanding what the discussion really is today.
As some of you heard the podcast a couple of days ago, I was at Secret Knock in San Diego. I caught a good figurative smell that there was a lot of people in business today in the state of transition. I mentioned one specific person and how their transition was going.
After finishing that podcast, I knew exactly what I wanted the next podcast to be on because I was almost finished with a book called Pivot. I knew that when I finished that book, I wanted to dedicate a whole podcast to it. I won’t do this on a regular basis, but if you guys remember a podcast I had called “The Success Wheel,” I think it’s one of the most popular, most downloaded podcasts I have ever done.
Adam Markel Puts My Feet To The Fire
Adam Markel was the gentleman that called me on stage and put my feet to the fire in front of 50 people of how exactly we did grow in our 23 years, having some ups and downs. He asked me to try to pinpoint some certain ups and downs we had. I didn’t know he was going to pull out what I now understand as pivots. He has never explained it to me this way, but I cannot wait to be with him next time and say, “You dog, why didn’t you tell me what you were doing?” It was fodder for some of his thoughts.
Anyway, here is what is cool: Adam Markel is the CEO of New Peaks. Many of you know New Peaks from their day as Peak Potentials, but New Peaks worldwide is the largest occupier of convention floor space teaching self-help, personal training, start-up launches, entrepreneurial guidance, getting people unstuck from their current challenges. The guy that runs the largest teaching, training, coaching program in the world is Adam Markel.
Adam emailed me a screening copy of Pivot. He doesn’t know or think I am doing a podcast around the book, which isn’t even out yet. I wanted to set this up by explaining a bit about Adam. He is a man of vision and of action. It is pretty rare that you can see and feel both. In the multitude of times I have been around Adam, I can see him get things done via finesse, but I have seen him get things done where he wills things to happen.
I just watched Steve Jobs. People used to claim that Steve Jobs had a reality distortion challenge, meaning he didn’t see the world the way it was, but rather the way he wanted it built. Adam has singlehandedly turned Peak Potentials in a new direction, thus the term New Peaks. It’s phenomenal to watch. I get to see it as a coach and mentor to their mastermind programs and on some of their stages.
I had a chance to read Pivot before the world got to. Wow. It was awesome. I wanted to share not just overarching thoughts, but I wanted to dig into the book because I just finished a couple talks in my podcast about pivots. I just didn’t call them pivots.
I had mentioned a couple of podcasts ago that the very first podcast I had ever done was on the concept that entropy forces us to diversify. Entropy forces us to diversify and stack S-curves. I did a book with Brian Tracy on S-curves. I started my podcast knowing a lot of people will go to step one and listen to the embryonic podcast, so I carefully chose it to be on S-curves.
Pivoting In Life/Business Is Not Optional
S-curves at the root of it is a pivot. Now that I have read Adam’s book, I understand how he sees things and his view on change. The bottom line is you are either in a storm in life, or you are coming out of a storm in life, or you are about to go into a storm in life. There is no other option.
I wanted to explain what a pivot is in the eyes of myself and Adam. Here is what is incredible about this. Pivoting is not optional. After I read the book, I realized that I have had four major pivots in my life. In my years to come, I am sure I will pivot again as a company, as a person, and as a father. Because entropy is real, and the forces against us never stop, life and business is always pressing against life and business. It is critical to understand that the average male today has 3-5 major pivots in their lifetime.
I want to start with a sentence about a third of the way through the book. It says, “Pivot point: You have reached a true decision when the pain of not taking action becomes greater than the pain of acting.” After I read that a couple of times, I immediately thought of Tony Robbins. He has spent decades making sure everybody understands and buys into the fact that the root of all decisions is based on pushing us toward pleasure or away from pain.
Adam’s new book is the how’s, the why’s, and the important’s of a great pivot. When you are either in pain or severely want to chase pleasure, a goal, a dream, odds are good you need to pivot. You need to turn 90 degrees, 180 degrees. I was reading parts of the book, and it was giving me goose bumps. I remembered some of the very painful pivots I’ve had, as well as a few joyful pivots. They are not easy. After reading Adam’s book, they are simple. You need to focus on simple things when making these changes, but it’s necessary.
Adam sends me this pre-screening. He didn’t know if I would actually read it. I pre-ordered the book. Can’t wait to get it. I am a highlighter. I cannot wait to get my hands on it. I like to read it once in yellow. Then I will read it six to twelve months later in orange and pink and use different color highlighters because as the years go by, I change and grow. Certain sections of certain books don’t hit me now, but they will hit me later.
I’ll give you an example. Right in the middle of the book, Adam lays out the five steps to a solid pivot. I can tell you five to ten years ago, I would not have been ready for Adam’s point number three. Step three talks about finding, managing, working with mentors, stakeholders, and peers to help you anchor down your pivot. Stakeholders are those around you that are directly impacted by your current pivot. We are going to make changes. We are going to make deep, sometimes desperate changes. These are not optional; these are pivots.
From 5-10 years ago, I was very inward-focused on purpose. I wanted to see if I could trust myself in certain areas. I had no desire or concern to question or take input from anybody being impacted by our company, let alone being mentored. I wanted no business in being mentored at that time. It was a very strange time for me.
Those years, if I look back today, and this may be why Adam threw me on stage that one time to talk about this, but those years cost our company and me personally dearly. I think, as I’m reading this book on pivoting, I was only 60% of the way there. Of Adam’s five points to a pivot, what I call the controlling points, I was doing 60% of them. I was not doing two of them. Now I can see why I was in some pain.
Pivoting Uphill Can Be Painful, Listen To Those Around You
I was reading this chapter, and I realized our company was pivoting, but I was pivoting uphill because I did not have certain champions in my corner. Yesterday, as I reread Adam’s five steps to a proper pivot, I was figuratively high-fiving Adam across the country, but I was high-fiving myself for finally doing things right. It took me until 45 years old to listen to the world, pay attention, and get some mentorship, listen to the stakeholders around me. Maybe I am doing it unconsciously now, but I can tell you that 5-10 years ago, I didn’t want anything to do with this. None whatsoever.
I just want to cover the names. I am not going to go into depth. I am not going to steal the thunder from this book. This is obviously a must-read. This book goes step by step with the chapter I wrote with Brian Tracy on S-curves. I won a nice award for that book; I now have the e-rights for free for that book for life. I want every teenager and everybody to read my chapter on S-curves because it is about pivoting.
There will come times in your life and your business where you have to make big-boy statements and decisions and add multiple streams of revenue to your household and your business. It will not be optional. Then I am reading Pivot, and it is about a personal pivot. It is not necessarily about finances; it is about how do you physically move on a dime when you know it is time to change how you do it, why you do it, how you anchor it, and how you stay resilient?
Here are the steps. Baby steps, ritual, pivot people, resilience, and growth. I am here to tell you that until a couple years ago, I was severely lacking in two of those. I am not going to tell you which two; you have to read the book. But I think this book is awesome.
I want to read a short paragraph from the book, and then I will share why I think that this podcast may someday be one of the most downloaded podcasts because of this book. I am in the current series centered around me, paying close attention to those I respect and those I follow, Adam obviously being one of them.
This is a paragraph from the book: “In Secrets from the Millionaire Mind, T. Harv Ecker uses a simple metaphor to explain the results we get in life. He argues that your outer world is really a print-out of your inner world. For example, let’s suppose you have just written a letter on your computer. You hit the Print key, and the letter comes out of your printer. You look at your hard copy, and lo and behold, you find a typo. You take your trusty eraser and rub out the typo. Then you hit Print again, and it comes out with the same exact typo. What’s going on here is that the real problem cannot be changed in the print-out. It can only be changed in the program.”
I read that. I walked outside, and I asked myself, “When is the last time that I, Ken Courtright, updated my software?” I realized that sometimes I am still slipping in two of Adam’s five areas because the rituals and the stakeholders are not part of my program yet. I am still using erasers. I am still making the changes. In the growth part of our business and in me, it is still exactly where it needs to be because there are certain areas I am still fighting, so my habits and rituals aren’t allowing my results to flow.
Are You Willing To Take Part In The Next Step
Another pivot point right out of Adam’s book: “Am I willing to take the next step? This is the question that drives all pivots.” I like saying knowing what you want is one thing. Knowing what you are willing to give up to get it is everything. Think about those last two statements. They go hand in hand.
Here is another pivot point from the book: “A ritual is the master habit for your pivot that allows you to create other habits.”
I am going to stop from the book, and I am going to share some thoughts that will tie this all together. We live life either in a storm, or we just came
out of a storm, or we are about to go into a storm. Look around at the people you love right around you. Look at your managers of your company, look at your family, look at your parents. Ask yourself: If I am gauging them right now, are they in a storm? Do you have fact of that? Did they come out of one that you know of? I just received a photograph this morning via Skype of my uncle’s head. He was sliced open to remove a tiny pea of cancer from his brain; he has 84 stitches in his head. Are people coming out of a storm? Or are they about to go into a storm? Sometimes you have knowledge of stuff that we must let life hit people sometimes, so you know somebody is about to walk into a storm. It’s not your job to step in and teach those life lessons.
The point I am trying to make is this: Pivoting is not an option. I finished the book, and I was like, How do I summarize this to myself? What do I pull from this? What I pulled from this is very simple. Pivoting is not optional. It is a matter of fact. It is a matter of when, not if, and I think there is a lot of people, me included, that think kind of like a diet. If I am told what to eat, and I am told how to work out, I am going to be fine. I will lose the weight. I will be healthy. I will live longer.
What percentage of people get the ammunition, meaning they get told to do, and actually succeed? Isn’t it a microscopic percentage of people who actually succeed? Maybe less than 1%? I have paid for a full year’s membership at the Peak gym here, and I think I went once. I know what to do. But why? I don’t have the rituals. I don’t have my stakeholders in place. I don’t have the things that anchor a pivot around in that routine.
I love this book. I think it is mandatory. I think it should be on the book list for corporations. I think it should be a standard. The funny thing is I haven’t heard a lot of this vernacular before. Adam, kudos to you if you ever hear my podcast. A tremendous book. I pre-ordered it; I am waiting for the hard copy. I think it comes out in April. I am assuming you get a digital version if you pre-order.
Kudos to Adam. Adam Markel is the CEO of New Peaks. The guy is a machine. Every time I talk to him, he is either flying to Australia or getting ready to walk on a stage or write another book. I think this is his third book this year. The guy is a beast. Adam, you’re awesome.
For now, I am Ken Courtright from Today’s Growth: Growing Business Today. If you are going to have a pivot in your life, you might as well get the guide map to the proper pivot because as we know, the safest way to walk through a minefield is step in someone else’s footsteps. If you don’t see blood, keep going. If you want to make a proper pivot, you might step in the steps that have no blood so you can finish the pivot, unlike myself, who pivots and turns backward, pivots and turns backwards and doesn’t follow through because I didn’t understand what I didn’t understand.
Ken Courtright. See you on the trail. Bye.
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