IAM2229 – Best Selling Author and Coach Shares About Mastering Mental Performance

Title: Transcript - Mon, 09 Sep 2024 12:43:33 GMT

Date: Mon, 09 Sep 2024 12:43:33 GMT, Duration: [00:16:57.16]

[00:00:00.20] - Kam Knight

And what's really challenging is if we don't know what I just explained, that there's a part of us that stops us. The natural conclusion that somebody comes up with is that, oh, I must be lazy. I don't have what it takes, or I, you know, I'm just not good enough. And then it becomes a feedback loop or a downward cycle where it becomes even harder to do things.

[00:00:25.23] - Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, level up your business from awesome CEO's, 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 Imceo podcast.

[00:00:56.77] - Gresham Harkless

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gretch from the Imceo podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Cam Knight. Cam, excited to have you on show.

[00:01:06.87] - Kam Knight

Thank you very much. I'm excited to be here as well.

[00:01:09.12] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. It should be an awesome conversation and Cam is a wealth of knowledge. So super excited to kind of dive in and hear a little bit more about what he's doing and all the awesome impact that he's having. But of course, before we do that, I want to read a little bit more about Cam so you can hear about some of those awesome things. And Cam is a coach, international speaker, and bestselling author of a dozen books in the area of mental performance and personal mastery. He is known for bringing fresh solutions and insights that are a rare departure from traditional ideas. Because of his fresh perspective, his books have become the gold standard for their respective topics, which have helped over 500,000 people. When he is not coaching or writing, he is traveling, having traveled to over 100 countries around the world and absolutely love when I was reading a little bit in preparing and listening to some of his interviews that I think a lot of, maybe all the things that he started to do came from that CPA exam, which sounded like it was a transformational experience for him. And he has this quote that I'm super excited to kind of delve in deep, I hope during our interview where he says, intelligence is something that is overrated. So, Cam, excited to have you on the show. You ready to speak to the Imco community?

[00:02:15.91] - Kam Knight

There you go. So, yeah, awesome.

[00:02:17.34] - Gresham Harkless

Well, let's get it started then. So to kind of kick everything off, what I wanted to do was rewind the clock a little bit, hear a little bit more on how you got started. What I call your CEO story.

[00:02:25.63] - Kam Knight

Okay. Well, as you kind of touched on, after I graduated college, I had a really hard time finding a job. In fact, first I got laid off, and then I had a hard time finding a job. And I went through about 15 interviews, interviewed with over 15 companies, and, you know, sent out hundreds of resumes, as well as talked to dozens of recruiters to finally land the job that I did. And it was really below my level, but that's what was offered, so I took it. And because it was such a big and draining experience to one find a job coming out of college and then get laid off and then go through another challenging job hunt, I really wanted to make myself feel valuable. So I decided to study for the CPA. And at the time, the CPA was considered one of the most difficult certification exams to pass. It had, I believe, a 15% 1st time pass rate. So challenging, to say the least. And I thought before studying for the exam and signing up that I should learn some ways to learn and remember better, because I thought the time I spent to learn some of these techniques, hopefully that it could save me time in the long run. And it did. It was such a great decision because I learned a lot of fantastic memory tools and techniques like mind mapping, that really helped me organize all the vast information that it's covered on the certified public accountant exam. And I think a lot of the challenges people experience with exams and such a big exam is not really that the information is difficult, but there's so much information that it gets jumbled in our head. And the techniques I learned really helped me with that. And I ended up almost passing on the first try. I ended up passing on the second try. So the first try, I passed three of the four parts, and the fourth one I just missed by a few percent. So I just had to take the fourth part over again, and I got my CPA. And again, it got me thinking. It's like intelligence is overrated. We're led to believe that intelligence is this big thing, that either you have it or you don't. But what I realized is that if you can learn the right techniques and systems and tips and use and present information in ways that the brain likes to receive and store information, we can operate just as well as the people that we call genius. In fact, the people who we call genius seem to have already figured it out on their own, and their brain just does it naturally. But if we can learn it, we can operate just as well, if not better. And since then, I've been on a path of writing books in the area of mental performance. Some of my, you know, top selling books are on speed reading, memory, concentration, as well as mind mapping.

[00:05:32.88] - Gresham Harkless

Nice. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more and hear a little bit more on how you're helping people to kind of learn these things, hear more about your books and all the impact that you're having. So can you take us through how you serve the clients you work with?

[00:05:43.98] - Kam Knight

Yeah, sure. So, mainly I serve my clients through writing. I'm an author, and as we kind of touched on before, I'm an author of a dozen books in the area of mental performance, which includes speed reading, memory, concentration, mind mapping, and also an author in the area of personal mastery. So I have books on self talk, visualization, goal setting, assertiveness, and. Yeah, so words, the written words is my forte. I've always wanted to write, and I enjoy writing. In fact, I put a lot more effort in writing than I did talking. So for a long time, I didn't do podcasts and I didn't market myself because my craft was in writing.

[00:06:32.10] - Gresham Harkless

Nice. I almost wonder if that's, like, part of what I would like to call your secret sauce. It could be for yourself or, you know, the books, all the awesome things you've been able to create. Is it obviously be able to kind of understand how to speed read or how to do mind mapping those things, but to go deeper to understand that human part? I always say we forget about the human part of business or life, but is it that ability to couple those things along with the understanding that things like resistance do come up, that we are human, that those things happen? Do you feel like that is what sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:07:01.00] - Kam Knight

I think that was a huge part of my success because for most of my life, or as far back as I can remember, I've been a fairly different individual. It's hard not to be living in a society with so much personal development, content, and everyone telling you to do more and have more and be more? As a result, I've wanted to do more, have more and be more. And although I've had my fair share of success, it was kind of a struggle. You know, even though I may have techniques of improving memory, speed reading and mind mapping, it was still a struggle to, like, learn it and then to apply it. And I wondered why that was. Why is it if I want to do something, I know what to do, I know how to do it, and I have the motivation and desire to do it. But for one reason or another, I can or don't do it. And for many people, they experience the same thing. They have the motivation and desire. They want to do things, but they can't do it. And I think where my success came is understanding that, oh, my gosh. Wow. There's a part of my brain that's designed to hold me back and it's actively working to hold me back. And anytime I want to start something or anytime I have a ambition or aspiration, I know this part is going to be there working to stop me. And the fact that I am aware of it and can prepare for it, it gives me that edge that a lot of people don't. Because if you don't understand that you can have a desire or a want or an aspiration come up and think, you'll have. You just have to work hard and you'll get there. But if you don't understand, there's a part of you actively working to stop you. And it's got all these ways of how it's going to do it. Some that are so sneaky and sly, you just can't even imagine. Then, of course, you're going to be stopped in your tracks. And what's really challenging is if we don't know what I just explained, that there's a part of us that stops us. The natural conclusion that somebody comes up with is that, oh, I must be lazy. I don't have what it takes, or I, you know, I'm just not good enough. And then it becomes a feedback loop or downward cycle where it becomes even harder to do things. But when we can understand that, hey, you know, time, we want to do something, there's gonna be a bit of a battle and we can prepare for it. We have a higher chances of winning the battle. But what's even more is if we can understand our enemy, which is resistance, then we increase our chances even more of being able to do the things that we want or attain the goals and aspirations that we have.

[00:09:40.32] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that's so powerful. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or even a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:09:52.97] - Kam Knight

For me, it's. I wish I could say something that was, like, really original, but sometimes going after originality is a trick that our mind uses to keep us from making progress. Because if we've heard something a lot of times, we either think it's not going to work or we think, no, we want the new and the different. And chasing the new and different is one of the ways our mind will sabotage us, because it'll keep us from doing the thing that works. And one thing that has been really hugely effective for me and on so many levels, not just professionally but personally, my mental health as well as my emotional health is a morning routine. And every morning I have a set routine that I go through of like different affirmations, I say different things I want to put out into the universe. I do some exercises, I make sure I drink my water, my take my supplements and all of that.

[00:10:52.59] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I love van syndrome. And I wonder if that is your co nugget, which is kind of like a word of wisdom or piece of advice to make sure that you're not always looking for the new thing, the most innovative thing, that sometimes those tried and true methods are said over and over again for a reason, because they work. We just have to maybe do a better job of executing on them. Do you think that's part of your CM nugget?

[00:11:15.01] - Kam Knight

No. That's huge. That was a big, big tough lesson I had to learn is that one of the challenges I was having in not having the success I wanted was because I was chasing the new in the novel. And I realized that was my brain's way of sabotaging me. As long as I wasn't doing the true and tried stuff, I wasn't getting results. And as long as I wasn't getting results, my self sabotage was winning. And the whole time I'm thinking, you know, oh, I'm being great because I knew a novel, but at the end of the day, I wasn't getting results. So I really want people to understand that some of the tried and true are really important. And one of the reasons we have a hard time doing them is because they're going to give us results. And so it's just much easier for the brain to convince us that nu is going to be better. And it's just a very intricate way of us sabotaging ourselves. And this is when I was talking about tricks of resistance, you know, these are like how sly our mind and self sabotage are in keep us from doing things so really important to be aware of when you're making a decision, like, are you doing it because it's going to help you, or is this like a really sneaky way of your brain trying to stop you? And these are the things that has really helped me in my successes because I'm always like trying to be on top of the decisions. My mind's making and making sure I'm doing things for the right reasons and not for the wrong reasons. And so this whole concept around resistance is what's really giving me an edge. And you did say a word that I want to rip off, which is shiny object syndrome. And this is one of the ways. Also, resistance shows up in our life. When resistance doesn't want us to do something, it'll create a desire for something else. And then when you start on the something else to stop progress, it'll create a desire for something else. So then you move to something else, and then if you want, and as you're making progress and it's thinking, oh, wait, you know, you're doing much better than our self image or how much we deserve and all that we need to put our brakes on this, it's like, okay, well, then I'll just make you get excited about something else. And as you move to different things, you lose momentum in the stuff that you already worked on. And when you go back to them, it's like you have to start from scratch again. And then you're always putting in work and putting in effort, but not getting anywhere. And it's all premeditated and orchestrated by this self sabotage mechanism.

[00:13:58.50] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That ends up being such a huge thing. Like, so I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition, what it means to be a CEO. And our goal is to have different, quote unquote, CEO's on the show. So, Cam, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:14:10.38] - Kam Knight

I think being a CEO, for me, means freedom. It means the freedom of doing what I want to do versus being told what to do. And in a way, we're all somebody's. Like, we all have to serve somebody. So even as a CEO, I if I'm not listening to my customers, you know, I'm not getting results. So we have to listen to somebody or take orders from somebody in some way. But as a CEO, I have a lot more control and freedom of the things that I want to do and the things I want to focus on. And if, you know, I get to also decide if I want to go after something that's going to give me personal joy and pleasure, or it's just gonna be a money thing. Because if it's just the money thing, there's a lot of things I could have done that could have brought money, like, I could have done real estate. I could have stayed in accounting or in the finance world. And I have a mentor who says something awesome. He's like entrepreneurs are crazy enough to leave a 40 hours week job to work 90 hours a week. And so. But we do it because we get the freedom to do what we enjoy and we're passionate about awesome, awesome, awesome.

[00:15:30.15] - Gresham Harkless

Well, Cam, truly appreciate that definition and of course, appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is 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 people can get ahold of you, find about all the awesome things that you're working on.

[00:15:45.32] - Kam Knight

And if people want to find me, they can find me on my website. It's camnight.com kamknight.com. and they can find all my books there in their mental performance as well as personal mastery. And I actually have a course dedicated to resistance. It's called conquer your internal resistance to achieve your next goal.

[00:16:07.50] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Cam. Of course, to make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you, find out about the books, the course, all the awesome things that you're working on, and I hope you have a.

[00:16:18.70] - Kam Knight

Phenomenal yeah, thank you very much. It was fantastic. I really enjoyed this.

[00:16:22.42] - Intro

Thank you for listening to the Imceo podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at Imceo Co. Imceo is not just a phrase, it's a community. Want to level up your business even more? Read blogs, listen to podcasts and watch videos at CBNation Co. Also, check out our I am CEO Facebook group. This has been the Imceo podcast with Gresham Harkness Jr. Thank you for listening.