1 (2s):
Who's ready to rock today? Fire Nation JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. With great shows like CEO School. Today we'll be breaking down how to unlock the full potential of the greatest change agent imaginable. Your mind. To drop these value bombs, I brought Christina Curtis into EOFire Studios, a thought leader on goal attainment. Christina regularly contributes to the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, the Psychology Today and More. In her new book Choosing Greatness, she provides an evidence-based approach to achieving exceptional outcomes. And today Fire Nation we’ll talk about choices and being intentional. We'll talk about people who walk around on autopilot zombies.

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We'll talk about confidence and value over volume and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Christina and our sponsors. Many EOFire listeners have launched franchises and a variety of industries outside of food. And FranBridgeConsulting has guided them to these premier opportunities. The founder, John Austinson, has done more placements than any other in the country. Sign up for a free consultation with John or get a free copy of his book Non-Food franchising at franbridgeconsulting.com. Outbound Squad hosted by Jason Bay is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

1 (1m 24s):
Tune in for convos with leading sales experts and top performing reps to help you land more meetings with your ideal clients. One of my faves, the monthly app with Jason Ethan, where they share hacks, tips and tricks. Listen to Outbound Squad wherever you get your podcasts. Christina, say What's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree
0 (1m 50s):
with. John, thank you for having me. I'm feeling so fired up to talk to entrepreneurs out there and share some of the things I've learned over the years. Gosh, something I believe about becoming successful, most people would disagree with. This may be controversial, but I think people believe success comes down to hard work. And I am not saying, I'm not saying hard work isn't necessary, I think it's a critical ingredient, but I don't think it's the most important one in the recipe card. I actually think it's how we set our mind up to be our greatest competitive advantage. And here's why I find those I work with who achieve exceptional outcomes, like really stratospheric levels of achievement. They have been very clear on the daily conditions that are required to bring out their best quality thinking to reach and influence their network, to generate trust rapidly and sell their ideas with passion and communicate in the most impactful way.

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And to do all of those things, they have to make sure their mind is primed for peak performance. So they have a clear plan that they put in place every week so they can show up at their best. And to me that is the biggest game changer. No different than, than like a professional athlete who creates regimens required to maximize their speed or agility or strength. I think we need one for our brain, for our mind. So we don't show up cloudy or reactive or our relationships aren't strained or our message falls flat. That to me is the critical differentiator.

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It's a great start to a podcast Fire Nation that is all about unlocking the full power of the greatest change agent imaginable. Your mind. And Christina, you've made some very intentional choices that have led you to where you're at today. Here chatting with us, the founder of a successful leadership consulting business. You are, you're the author of Choosing Greatness. Talk about how these choices that you made very intentionally led you to hear today.

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Sometimes John, you know when you step back and you see all those choices you made along the way and you can tie them into this really nice narrative, it's just lovely life story. But when you're in it, when you're making those choices, it can feel so hard. And the most pivotal choice for me was about 15 years ago. And I was running the Xerox National Sales Training program up in Canada at the time I was in Toronto. And I've been called out to facilitate this workshop for Xerox agency owners in Niagara Falls. And I was pretty stressed out. I have at the time a two-year-old son who was experiencing these blackout spells and he would just stop breathing and he'd fall unconscious often without warning.

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And it was super scary and terrifying. And so the hospital had run some tests to figure out what was going on. And there I was wrapping up this workshop and I got the call, the call from the doctor in the back of the room. And I remember having this moment listening to the doctor speaking where I could almo. It was like it was in this fog and, and she said, Christina, we figured out what's going on. It's the signal from your son's brain to his lungs that just stops working. It just stops working. And so he's waking up every 45 minutes cuz he is gasping, literally gasping for air or he is blacking out because he is running out of oxygen. And that very moment I realized, I am not where I need to be.

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I am like, I am not in the right place. This is not where I'm supposed to be right now. I need to be home and I need to be with my family. And I picked up my laptop in the back of the room and walked it over to my boss, hand handed him the laptop and said, Hey, I, I can't be here. I have to go home, be with my family and if I take this laptop home, take this laptop home with me. I will, I'll be back at work on Monday and I need to, I need to hit pause. And he said, no, no, Christina, honestly, take your laptop, go take care of your family, come back on Monday and we'll think through it. And, and I left the laptop there and got in my car and I was shaking and I called my husband and I said, Steve, I just quit my job.

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And he was like, what? What are you talking about? And other, also in other news, we gotta bring our son to the hospital tomorrow. And I drove home on the phone with my husband just crying and about our family issue and also super clear had made the right choice and got home. And that little two year old wrapped his arms around me and gave a big squeeze. And that moment of choice to choose my family at that time gave me six months reprieve so I could get him on the right trajectory towards good health, which we did. And after that, I started my own company. So that was a really pivotal moment for me in my life.

1 (6m 32s):
Wow, that's powerful. And Fire Nation, some of you may not have had quite the wake up call, some of you have, but I mean, man, let me tell you, you shouldn't have to wait for something like that to make these type of choices in your life because huh, it's, it's all out there for you to choose greatness as Christina's book, choosing Greatness is all about. And Christina, a lot of humans, they have their brain on autopilot. I mean, talk about what needs to happen to these walking, talking, eating zombies.

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Yeah, well I always say we set goals and then our habits happen, right? It's this, the brain is ultimately this economical organ that is not going to wanna spend it's neurological reserves when it's already made a decision, it knows how to engage with this person. So it'll do that again. It knows how to deal with this problem. So it'll do that again. And actually John, we end up spending 40% of the day on autopilot plugging in coordinates of where we've been versus frankly where we wanna go in life. And that was a massive eye-opening experience. Actually just watching my son go through some neurological challenges, I learned a lot about this power of habit and I think we think of it as a really good thing. And it can be in situations where there's very little variability like going to the gym or grocery shopping or brushing your teeth or filling up that water bottle on your desk.

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Those are habits that are helpful because very little variability is required. But as you know, the world around us is constantly shifting. Emotions are changing, relationships are shifting, macro pressures are constantly evolving. And so we have to really pause and think, we gotta like elbow our way into that space between an event and our reaction to it and choose what's gonna align with our best outcome. It's it, and it sounds, it sounds simple but to me it's transformative because you think about something like your phone, we look at the phone 96 times a day, it's once every 10 minutes and and seemingly harmless, as soon as you look at it, it shifts your brain away from whatever you're doing into another task.

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It's like it pulls your energy away and it can lead up to 30% of a productivity decreased just because that simple action or like gives you that low grade buzz anxiety. You know where you're thinking, gosh, did someone text me? Is her a new note? I better look, I'm gonna just

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Take a quick look.

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And it pulls us away from relationships. You're sitting with your partner on the couch having a conversation and they pick up their phone and you think, gosh, I, for whatever reason, even though logically you know why they're looking, you don't feel valued. So that's a really simple habit that people can look at and say, is it bad in itself? No, it's just eroding our ability to be hyper successful. And so anytime you choose something else, like I'm not gonna look at my phone, you're gonna feel discomfort cuz you're breaking a pattern. The brain's like, I wanna do this pattern. You say, I don't wanna do that pattern right now. And you feel discomfort. And oftentimes we'll just then say, okay, I'll just do it anyway instead of scratch it ma'am, discomfort be damned. I'm gonna choose this other action.

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I can hold discomfort and still choose. I can hold speaking up in a meeting in the discomfort that brings and still choose to do it. I can hold starting my own company and the stress involved of that and still do it because discomfort is just us saying, oh, okay, you're breaking a pattern. This is not the pattern we're used to, but do it anyway. Do it anyway when you know it's in, in service of your long-term goals.

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Fire Nation, I can't see you, but I can feel a lot of you nodding your heads as Christine is talking right now because we're all guilty of this and it is eating away critical productivity from our lives. I like to say my definition of productivity is producing the right content. And guess what? You are not being productive, looking at your phone, checking your notifications. In fact, I, I honestly have had so many conversations with people that like have sound notifications on their phone or computer. I just tell them, I say, Hey real quick, are you as successful as you want to be right now in this moment? And they're always kind of like, well not really. I'm like, your sound notifications on your phone are the reason why.

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And they're like, what are you talking about? I'm like, once you get that, you'll get it. And until you do like just keep on coming up short in your life. Now Christina, you're a huge believer in confidence. How can Fire Nation become more confident in our workplace and our professional goals?

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I think the most important thing is to recognize that confidence is a skill. So it's something you have to build. It's not a trait. You're not born with it or born without it. And I think people think confident, people are confident all the time, but there is not one single executive I work with at any level in any organization who doesn't struggle with confidence as well. I I people find that actually surprising the executives can't say. So one of them actually I said, oh can I quote that in my book? And he said, well only if you want my stock price to drop. But

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Cause people don't

0 (11m 24s):
Want to write a CEO to not be confident. That being said, it's human nature. It's human nature to have self-doubt show up. What's problematic is when we think it's predicting the future, right? And doubt is a universal neurological safety mechanism that's triggered anytime we think or even like think of stepping outside of our comfort zone. So if you have some meeting or presentation coming up, sometimes it can fire even when there's no threat in sight. But it is helpful, it helps us look at situations with our eyes wide open and really scrutinize information and act as a barometer for risk. So it's helpful as long as you don't let it run the show as long as you don't give it the mic. And so confidence, one easy way to think of it, I'll share a story of Daniel Nester who has won eight Grand Slams and Olympic gold medal in doubles tennis.

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He's actually won more doubles tennis matches than any other person in history. He's from Canada. And he and I were talking in my book and he said, gosh Christina, I used to be out there on center court. Wimbledon, imagine yourself there, it's really fun just for a moment you're out there on the court and you hit the ball and it goes in the net. And for him, when that happened, what he found himself doing is immediately beating himself up. Gosh, how'd you do that? Oh you're gonna lose the match. Why are you, why are you screwing this? Shut up. This is the moment. And if you can imagine it, all of that neurological resources he had driven towards the point just went back into his head and focused on himself and his inner critic. It was like taking all that horsepower and driving it internally versus back in the game.

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And so for him, what he did is he saw, saw a sports psychologist and worked on confidence building and addressing it in the moment by coming up with what he calls anchor words. So it just breaks the pattern. He'll, he'll hit a shot that'll go in the net and he'll say, okay, put your body into the ball, step back. What do I need to adjust? That's it. You act, you adjust and you keep going. You act, you adjust, you keep going, you don't make it a big deal. You're learning each time, you're getting stronger as you go. And so for him that really helped him break that self-doubt soundtrack that kept looping in his head and allowed him to build the confidence. And and interestingly there's a fascinating study where they looked at the 2000 Olympics to see what's the difference between people who make the medal and who don't.

0 (13m 41s):
And those who won the medals were the people who had the positive talk track playing in the background. And John, that doesn't just mean Christina you're great Hot

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Five sister. Like it's not like

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That. It's just, God, I made a mistake, what did I learn? Let's go next point. Continuing to channel your passion and be in the state of activating rather than allowing your energy to flop and drain and ruminate over the weekends. So for me, confidence is a skill. Choose it every day. Don't wait for it to come. You gotta feed it, you gotta fuel it. Your success depends on it. And remember, it is not the same thing as perfectionism, perfectionism and striving for excellence. It's striving for excellence. You think about anytime you're striving for excellence, you have high standards and you're always learning, you always wanna get better to that next level of excellence. Striving for perfection, any deviation from excellence is seen as a failure.

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And I think that's partly where we get tripped up. From a confidence perspective, any deviation, any setback is seen as failure. That's not effective for performance. So just feed it, fuel it, and continue to build that skill

1 (14m 46s):
and Fire Nation, if you've been digging these tennis analogies, you have to watch break points on Netflix. It is fantastic. Just a little segue there, but also, I wanna say we are gonna be talking about the number one thing that you need to remember when it comes to achieving your goals, Fire Nation and so much more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. More and more entrepreneurs and investors are discovering the awesome franchise opportunities that exist outside of food franchising can simply be the better path. And interest in franchising is at an all time high, lucky for you. John Austinson, founder of FranBridgeConsulting and a frequent EOFire guest is here to help you explore the premier franchise opportunities.

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Today John and his FranBridgeConsulting team are part of the largest brokerage in the US and have vetted the market thoroughly. FranBridge is hands down the premier source for the best opportunities in the non-food franchise worlds. They represent every type of non-food franchise from healthcare to dumpsters, use soccer to oil changes, specialized senior care to dog training, to insulation and floor coatings. John has served as an Ink 500 franchisor and a multi-brand franchisee, and he does more placements than any other in the country. Sign up for a free consultation. Call with John today or get a free copy of his book Non-Food franchising at franbridgeconsulting.com. That's franbridgeconsulting.com.

1 (16m 7s):
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1 (16m 48s):
AI power tools designed to help save you time but get more done and grow your business faster. The easy-to-use CRM just got even easier in a world buzzing with AI solutions. HubSpot just released some incredible tools that are going to level up your productivity and grow your business. Get early access to HubSpot AI today at hubspot.com/artificial intelligence. Christina, you've worked directly with many high-profile executives, leaders. What's your number one takeaway from these interactions?

0 (17m 18s):
It might be unexpected, but it's actually around energy. Energy is the most contagious thing in life. You can actually have two people sit in a room and not speak and the person with the dominant mood or energy will transfer that energy to the other person and under 10 minutes. I mean that's how powerful it is. And so, the high profile executives and leaders I see have found a way to manage their energy effectively and understand that it's essential. They actually are able to galvanize the, the energy of those around them. So, they'll walk in, they'll ask the powerful questions, they will bring the right mood to a meeting. They will almost act like electricity running through the neurological wires of the group to maximize performance by sparking ideation and excitement and drive.

0 (18m 6s):
And so, I think energy is something we take for granted. We, we get pretty burned out by the end of the day. And you have to remember at that point your impact on a room is going to be neutral or negative. And how can you take a five-minute break to quickly maximize your physical wellbeing and get yourself activated again so you can again bring the best out of those around you. It was fascinating. I was reading the study, it's actually a 20-year study where they were able to actually identify groups of happiness and unhappiness across a community with negative people being surrounded by clusters of negativity and positive people being surrounded by clusters of positivity. I mean that's just how contagious it is.

0 (18m 47s):
So I think it's also important to watch who you're around, what energy you're catching and then what energy you're transmitting. Cuz it will ripple through not only your your sphere but also their spheres. It just keeps on traveling almost like electricity,

1 (19m 1s):
Fire Nation. Have you ever said yourself, I don't really know why, but I like that person. Or I don't really know why, but I don't really vibe with that person. It's all energy. Like it's energy. That's the reason some people are just great energy emitting from their soul. They don't have to say a word and you're just drawn to them. You like them cuz we are energy. All we are is energy when it really comes down to what we are as beings. Christina, talk to us about the concept of value over volume.

0 (19m 35s):
Value over volume. This concept came to be because I find we tackle a ton, we take on a lot of volume, but we don't always analyze the value of what we're taking on. And, and that means we're burning a lot of calories potentially in places we don't need to be because the brain only has so much cognitive bandwidth available. And as soon as you burn through that you can feel your intelligence stems or mine does. I get a little bit, I get a little less bright. My decision making suffer. I become more reactive when the kids say something I can, I can spike pretty high without need to. I can be more impulsive. And so it's really important that I'm not just walking headfirst into a log jam and saying yes to everything cuz that will block my path to success and being able to achieve my goals.

0 (20m 21s):
So value look every week with an eye towards value on what you're taking on. Even using a calendar, it's a super helpful way to look at the past, present in the future simultaneously. So you can optimize this where you double or triple booked, right? Is that which one is high value, which one isn't? What days are you unable to eat? That's probably a low value moment for you. Where'd you forget to include exercise? Where are you so busy you can't actually get things done? What meetings do you not need to be in? What, what can you defer? What can you delegate? I mean it's a constant, constant mechanism each week when you're not in a hot state, meaning you're not in the week, it's before the week is started. So, you can actually tap your prefrontal cortex and critically think about where do I need to invest my time and what will have the greatest return on my effort and energy and intellect in the next seven days.

1 (21m 11s):
Fire Nation, we talked about energy, we talked about value over volume. I promise Christina that we are gonna talk about the number one thing that we Fire Nation need to remember when it comes to achieving our goals. Take us home strong.

0 (21m 27s):
Trust in yourself. I mean, you can do this, you may not want to do it, in which case pressure, test your goals to make sure you're running after the right ones. I just challenge people. I meet thousands of people every year who I'm working with and those who are tolerating fine or okay, things are okay, I just gotta get through the next couple months. I challenge you. Life is too short. You work too darn hard for fine to be your future. And every single one of us has had our fair share bumps. John, I mean, setbacks, failures, relationships, breakups, work issues, it's, it's proven that we can get through those. So, if you're in a low slump, find the people who can bring you back up and pull you onto shore and get you on your feet so you can keep going.

0 (22m 7s):
And if you're on a high propel yourself forward, use it as a flywheel, bring others around you and just trust that you're going the right way at the right time in the right moment. And this is your life. So, make it count.

1 (22m 19s):
We're gonna make it count. Christina and I know Fire Nation enjoyed this interview, so give us a final call to action. Where can we connect with you? Where's the best place to go to get value over volume and then we'll say goodbye.

0 (22m 32s):
Yeah. Well, the book Choosing Greatness is coming out May 2nd. It's available for pre-order and there are gonna be some programs that you can get specially if you order now between now on May 2nd. It's available on Burns and Noble or amazon.com and come check me out. I've got a website, Christina Curtis official on Instagram and Curtis Leadership Consulting online and let's continue the conversation. I'm looking forward to

1 (22m 57s):
It. Fire Nation, her new book, Choosing Greatness provides an evidence-based approach to achieving Exceptional Outcomes. Why don't you want that? Christina, thank you for being on Entrepreneurs on Fire, forgiving us, your value, your knowledge, your time, because Fire Nation knows they're the average of the five people they spend the most time with and they've been hanging out today with CC and JLD. So, keep up the Heat Fire Nation. Any direct questions for Christina? Find this episode on the podcast listening app. Paolo posts a comment, get the conversation rolling. eofire.com type Christina in the search bar, the show notes page will pop up with links to everything.

1 (23m 36s):
Christina, Fire Nation salutes you. We thank you. We'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Christina for sponsoring today's episode, Fire Nation. What can 3000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs teach you? How about how to achieve financial freedom and fulfillment? My first traditionally published book, the Common Path to Uncommon Success, is a revolutionary 17 step roadmap that will lead you to the lifestyle you've been dreaming about. This book took me 10 years of accumulating the genius of the world's top entrepreneurs, and you can get it all in one place when you visit uncommon success book.com. And I'll catch you there or I'll catch you. On the flip side, many EOFire listeners have launched franchises and a variety of industries outside of food.

1 (24m 21s):
And FranBridgeConsulting has guided them to these premiere opportunities. The founder, John Austinson, has done more placements than any other in the country. Sign up for a free consultation with John or get a free copy of his book, non-Food franchising at franbridgeconsulting.com. Outbound Squad, hosted by Jason Bay is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Tune in for convos with leading sales experts and top performing reps to help you land more meetings with your ideal clients. One of my faves, The Monthly app with Jason Ethan, where they share hacks, tips and tricks. Listen to Outbound Squad wherever you get your podcasts.