IAM2293 – Author and Speaker Shares on How to Reframe Your Mindset for Business Success

00:00 - 00:19

Sean Douglas: We have a responsibility as creators, as influencers, to highlight the awesomeness that people are doing and the rock stars in the world and not just use this media platform to showboat and peacock and showcase ourselves.

00:20 - 00:47

Intro: Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

00:48 - 00:56

Gresham Harkless: Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I have an awesome guest back on the show today. I have Sean Douglas. Sean excited to have you back on.

00:56 - 00:58

Sean Douglas: Dude. I'm super pumped, man. Thanks for having me.

00:59 - 01:26

Gresham Harkless: Yeah. I'm super pumped as well too. Sean's doing so many awesome things. He was a wealth of knowledge and information the last time we spoke. So I'm super excited to reintroduce him and to get to talk about some of those awesome things. But of course, before we do that, I want to read a little bit more about Sean's and hear a little bit more about some of those awesome things. Sean is a US Air Force retired, a three-time TEDx speaker, keynote speaker on resilience, leadership, team building, and team performance, and business and podcast positioning, as well

01:26 - 02:03

Gresham Harkless: as a two-time bestselling author. He's the international podcast host of the Create, Launch, Monetize podcast, and From No Worth to Self Worth show. Sean's why is that he overcome his battle with stress, anxiety and a suicide attempt and is dedicated to empowering others to do the same. And as the founder of the Success Corps in the business positioning strategies, he works with entrepreneurs, speakers, and podcasters to improve market positioning and define their category to increase profitability and reduce anxiety, ensuring their businesses thrive and reach their highest potential. And as I mentioned, he was a guest on

02:03 - 02:31

Gresham Harkless: episode number 73 of our IMCO podcast. It's been way, way, way too long. So super excited to have him back on. And 1 of the cool things, maybe not so cool, but I think it's hearing his story is so powerful that he struggled in school due to undiagnosed dyslexia, but that didn't stop him for pursuing media, doing all the awesome things that he's doing. And he has a phenomenal TEDx talk called Hack Your Brain for Success. And I absolutely love everything he's doing. Sean, excited to have you back on the show. Are you ready to speak

02:31 - 02:32

Gresham Harkless: to the IMCO community?

02:32 - 02:48

Sean Douglas: Dude, I'm so pumped, man. Like, oh man, I remember when we had done that episode and I remember jumping on the email list and I'm still to this day, still on the email list.

02:48 - 03:01

Gresham Harkless: Yeah, absolutely love that. And we appreciate it because so many awesome people like you have been doing phenomenal things. So excited to have you back home, so to speak. And I wanna hear like all the things, tell us what you've been working on, how things have been going since the last time we spoke.

03:01 - 03:48

Sean Douglas: Okay, so Life Transformation Radio was my show last time, right? Well, I retired from the military in 2021, and I sold it. So I sold the show started 2 more, like a month, maybe 2 months later, I started create launch monetize, turn that into a program of launching podcasts, launching books, launching businesses for people. And then in 2022, I launched from no worth to self worth. I launched that and that bestselling book turned into a podcast and now, we're trying to turn the podcast into a TV show. So that's going to be super fun and, been

03:48 - 04:00

Sean Douglas: retired since 2021. And now I am working on creating an equine therapy ranch in Michigan for veterans that suffer with PTSD and anxiety and all the things.

04:01 - 04:19

Gresham Harkless: Nice. Well, I appreciate, you know, hearing. I so often say that we are media companies and I use media in a very broad way. I feel like you probably do as well too. And being able to kind of take 1 form of media and being able to reproduce that and create more and more value and impact in the world.

04:19 - 04:51

Sean Douglas: Yeah, oh, absolutely. And we have a responsibility as creators, as influencers, to highlight the awesomeness that people are doing and the rock stars in the world and not just use this media platform to showboat and peacock and showcase ourselves, but to highlight, even if you're doing a solo episode, be a person of value and success comes money and success is the byproduct of the value that you deliver.

04:51 - 05:18

Gresham Harkless: Absolutely. And I think so, like you said, so many times we have this microphone literally or figuratively and are could be a pen or pencil, whatever that might be. And we sometimes don't use it to provide that value. But I love how you said that word responsibility because I think a lot of times we have gifts and opportunities, but it only becomes your responsibility. I think if you pay attention to that and you realize that it's a gift that is not just for you to hoard, but for some, to make the world a better

05:18 - 05:57

Sean Douglas: place. And I love that you're still doing this. We had met around 2017, 2018, got on each other's shows, and here we are 6 years later, right? 8 years later, whatever it is, yeah, 6 years or whatever it is. And here we are, you're still rocking it, crushing it, growing the nation, right? Still doing the podcast, still growing the email list, and I'm still speaking at PodFest, I'm still doing TEDx talks, I'm still speaking. It's almost like this isn't our job, but a calling. And we don't necessarily have an emotional attachment to it, but it's just

05:57 - 06:29

Sean Douglas: we feel called to, like, this is where we live. We found our calling and everything that I do is rooted in past experiences. So I spent 20 years in the military and now I'm going to do an equine therapy ranch for veterans because I want to give back to veterans. You know, I retired from the military and got my CDL and was driving a truck for ABF freight for, for, you know, part time, like on and off, you know, they would call me, hey, let's go cool. I'm coming. And then other times I'm just building the

06:29 - 06:42

Sean Douglas: business building the speaking business. I've got my retirement. I've got my VA disability, you know, it's, it's, it comes down to a life well designed. When we talk about like, I am CEO, CEO of your life is included in that.

06:42 - 06:54

Gresham Harkless: Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So you might have touched on this, but it could be like an app, it could be a book or even a habit that you have, but what's something you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient?

06:55 - 07:40

Sean Douglas: Okay. Well, I'll do all 3 quickly. So a book. Everybody in their life needs to read, play bigger, how pirates, dreamers, and innovators create and dominate markets. It's from my very good friend, Christopher Lockhead. He is the godfather of category design. This book will single-handedly revolutionize the way you look at business. It'll reprogram your mind. It'll show you things that you would have never even thought of and how the major major number 1 category King and Queens of their industries are dominating their own market. A podcast that I suggest that everybody listens to immediately is called

07:40 - 08:24

Sean Douglas: As It Relates to Podcasting. It's probably by far the best podcast on podcasting because it goes through YouTube, social media, Pinterest, start to finish, launching, monetizing, post-production, everything. And the author of that podcast, the host of that podcast, Simone Costantini is absolutely fantastic and is head and shoulders above most podcasters in their space. So as it relates to podcasting, everybody go subscribe to that show, it's absolutely fantastic. And then a hack that I think you should absolutely employ is reframe your mind, You will reframe your life. If you're not where you want to be, ask how.

08:24 - 08:46

Sean Douglas: Just just ask how because the presupposition part of the brain will automatically want to answer that question. Science will find a way. And so you just ask how. Always, always, always. When you come up to an obstacle, how? When you want to create something, how? When you want to start something, how? That is the most important question you will ever ask yourself. How?

08:47 - 09:11

Gresham Harkless: Yeah, I absolutely love that. I appreciate you sharing all 3 of those. I feel like that's even along the lines of your TEDx talk around like understanding the brain and how you're able to ask how to actually see those things come from wishing, but also to maybe even know how we sometimes get on that treadmill of life and not realize that we can make those pivots and changes. And a lot of times that starts with the brain love anything about podcasting as well too. So I have to check that out. And you mentioned play bigger. I

09:11 - 09:28

Gresham Harkless: did not read it. So this is my commitment. I am going to check it out and listen to and read it because I think probably along the lines of like asking how, when I imagine that you're trying to play bigger and trying to win, sometimes recreating the game and seeing like how you could do it rather than being on that treadmill is the way by which you do that.

09:28 - 09:29

Sean Douglas: 100%. Yep. Nailed it.

09:30 - 09:41

Gresham Harkless: Yeah. And so what would you consider to be a little bit more of what I call a CEO nugget word that could be a word of wisdom piece of advice. I like to say it might be something if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self,

09:42 - 09:43

Sean Douglas: don't

09:47 - 09:48

Gresham Harkless: get hung up on the past. Whatever happens happens,

09:48 - 10:20

Sean Douglas: make peace with it, accept it, the good decisions, the bad decisions, every part of you is a learning experience. Every decision you will make, every tear, every laugh, everything is all learning. We are constantly learning. And so a CEO nugget that I will have, I built 4 businesses while serving in the military, and sold the podcast, sold the businesses got exited out of 1 because I developed that drink. Remember, we talked about I developed the drinking problem and all the things and the suicide and all this stuff, right? That's a learning experience that I can't just

10:20 - 10:58

Sean Douglas: take that back. Oh man, that was a big mistake. That kind of made me who I was. So I never go back and say, man, I wish I wouldn't have done that. But John Maxwell has a great book called failing forward. That's the CEO nugget fail forward. Be comfortable with failing. Be very comfortable with not seeing the results right away. And get very uncomfortable of where you are. Because if you get comfortable and you rest on your laurels, I always hear from a partner, she always says, you cannot go where you're going with what got you

10:58 - 11:31

Sean Douglas: here today. And I really try to internalize that all the time. Like, okay, I can't rest on my past behaviors. I can't, okay, what got me here is great, but I need to do something else. I need to not pivot, but like, learn, grow, expand, be uncomfortable, be uncomfortable with where I wanna go. Get rid of the imposter syndrome. Get rid of all of the unbeliefs that I have. Be uncomfortable with saying that, man, I can make a million dollars, I know I can. Or I can make 450, 000 or 500, 000 or whatever. I'm gonna

11:31 - 11:49

Sean Douglas: do that equine therapy. I'm gonna be a TEDx speaker. I'm gonna do these things, you know, and be uncomfortable with how that feels. But then be comfortable. With how it feels at the same time, don't just rest, ever grow and always keep moving. Keep moving forward.

11:49 - 12:00

Gresham Harkless: I love that. So now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which you already touched on this, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. Our goal is to have different quote unquote CEOs on the show. So Sean, what's being a CEO mean to you?

12:01 - 12:45

Sean Douglas: CEO, man, it's living a life that you designed. You know, episode 73, I was just building that speaker business, just in the resilience training, just doing all the new podcasting and all this stuff, right? Just in the, for real, I was maybe a year into podcasting. I look now on everything and what I've learned or what I've grown to learn A life that you design. That's been my motto this whole year. A life that I design is how I want to live. If I want to get up and go and go travel somewhere, I can. If

12:45 - 13:17

Sean Douglas: I want to take a speaking gig, I can. If I want to build something, I can. If I that's the opportunity. We always talk about time freedom, life freedom, business freedom, money freedom. Like it's all abundance, but it's how you design it. If you want to work a 9 to 5 and you're very comfortable living in a corporate setting, maybe you want to be a cop, maybe you want to be a fire person, maybe you want to be, you know, whatever. It's a life that you design. So it's not that I have to have a job

13:17 - 13:49

Sean Douglas: so that I can pay bills. It's I want a job. I get to have a job and everybody always talks about that. I get to. But how many people actually employ it? That is what a CEO means. I get to run a business. I get to pay my bills because I have the money to pay them. I get to see my kids I get to go travel I get to because I designed it that way So if you're uncomfortable with your life Great, you're halfway there now. It's taking massive action. Now. It's writing out the how

13:49 - 14:01

Sean Douglas: Now it's designing your entire day. It's designing what you wanna do, when you wanna go to it, and how you're gonna get there. That's it. Where do you wanna go? How are you gonna get to

14:02 - 14:28

Gresham Harkless: it? Awesome, I love that, especially understanding that if you're not saying the get to, then maybe you have to go back or you should recalibrate in terms of how you're designing your life, because we do have a life, but have you designed? And that's the question. And if you haven't and you aren't saying the get tos or you aren't being appreciative of those things that maybe we're Accounting on a daily basis Maybe it's something that we can do in order to recalibrate so that we can start to see those get to see that abundance see that

14:28 - 14:30

Gresham Harkless: Opportunity that we have within all of our lives.

14:30 - 14:33

Sean Douglas: Mmm So good

14:34 - 14:50

Gresham Harkless: Absolutely, well Sean truly appreciate that definition, Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get hold of you, find a bunch of podcasts, all the speaking, all the awesome things that you're working

14:51 - 14:51

Intro: on.

14:51 - 15:30

Sean Douglas: Yeah, check out our podcast, create, launch, monetize podcasts and from no worth to self worth. One's the business show, one's the self worth, self esteem, self love, self care show. And they're all on the homepage of the success core c or ps the success core.com and my final words to you would be like how how will you do it And then you have to take action. It's fun to dream about the billion dollar powerball, but what happens when you win it and you win it by designing the life that you want to live and going in

15:30 - 15:34

Sean Douglas: living it. And then we need to have you on the podcast as well.

15:35 - 15:59

Gresham Harkless: Yes, absolutely. I'm looking forward to it. And I truly appreciate all the awesome things you're doing. Of course, we're going to have everything in the show notes as well too. So you can click through, listen to the podcast, find out about all the awesome things that Sean's doing. And I really love that how piece. I often say that so many times we should be so focused on the why, but I realized that a lot of times the execution piece is what's missing. And I think if we don't start to take those actions, we don't start to

15:59 - 16:16

Gresham Harkless: see that how come to fruition, then those whys don't, they don't, they don't go anywhere. The engines don't go anywhere. If there's no wheels, if there's no tires, all those things that happen. So I appreciate you so much in bringing that to a forefront. Remind us of how important answering that how is. I appreciate you. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:16 - 16:18

Sean Douglas: Absolutely. Back at you. Thank you for listening

16:18 - 16:47

Intro: to the I Am CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at imceo.co. I Am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Check out the latest and greatest apps, books, and habits to level up your business at ceohacks.co. This has been the I Am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkness Jr. Thank you for listening.