0 (2s):
Light that spark Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Inclusion and Marketing. Today we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we'll be breaking down Upgrading Your Emotional Operating System for the 21st Century. To drop these value bombs, I brought Michael A. Johnson into EOFire Studios. Michael is a business mindset consultant who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs learn the necessary tools to find their superpowers, upgrade their emotional operating systems, and deal with the challenges of life and business. And today Fire Nation, I will talk about how It is your right to feel good take control and learn how to feel good from the inside out.

0 (43s):
We'll talk about our emotional operating system governs how we feel and how we respond to the things going on in this world and so much more. And A big thank you for sponsoring.

The Sales Evangelist (52s):
today's episode goes to Michael and ours sponsors Sales Evangelist hosted by my friend Donald Kelly, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Each week Donald interviews the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales. Right now, a recent episode you should definitely check out is The Five Ways to Do Daily Outbound with LinkedIn. Listen to sales evangelist wherever you get your podcasts.

Thought Leader (1m 22s):
Ever thought of giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. In four time TEDx. Speaker Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit ThoughtLeader.com/fire to join Taylor's free trading where he teaches you how to land a TEDx Talk and spread your message to millions.

0 (1m 43s):
Michael say, what's up to Fire Nation? And sh, what is something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with?

1 (1m 53s):
What's up? Fire Nation. Michael Johnson here. I'm excited to be here with you guys. You know, one of the things that I believe about finding success and and being successful is that the skillset of mechanics aren't as important as the skillset of the mindset. And so many people rely and fall back on the mechanics. But, but the mindset really is where it all comes back to

0 (2m 17s):
Mindset. Fire Nation, it starts between the years, you know this and we're talking about Upgrading, Your, Emotional, Operating, System for the 21st Century. So let's start off by talking about your personal development company called MajicForLife. What is MajicForLife all about?

1 (2m 37s):
Well, through the years, MajicForLife has kind of come to mean a lot of different things for a lot of people. I have been privileged to work with artists and dancers and the creative arts. And for them it represents the ability to share their souls through their art and through their creativity. For the athletes that I've worked with, it re represents their heart and soul. That kind of helps 'em find that zone, that one zone place that all of our athletes are trying to get to. And for my entrepreneurs, it represents the balance and alignment of the body, the mind, and the soul that inspires us to uplift those that we're privileged to impact and lead through all of these crazy ups and downs and our experience that we go through. So, you know, through the years that that Majic name for our company has come to sort of have its own little acronym, we say Move and motivate, align and allow joy in the journey inside out inspiration and create with clarity.

1 (3m 33s):
And it sort of, kind of keeps us on path and on track to be able to remember what MajicForLife is really all about.

0 (3m 40s):
I call my listeners Fire Nation. I mean people who are listening to this podcast right now, I lovingly refer to them as Fire Nation. And my audience is all about lifestyle, freedom, location independence, financial freedom and fulfillment. You Michael call your tribe lifers. So I'm kind of curious, what is a lifer and what is being a lifer all about?

1 (4m 4s):
Lifer is sort of a fond name that I came about with one of my early mentors and she pulled me aside and said, you know that that client that you have, you know they're a lifer, right? And I said, well, what do you mean? And, and she pointed out that they were in for life. They were, they were going to follow me to the ends of time. They were gonna be a client forever. And, and one of the things I did at that point was learn about what made them so passionate about continuing and following the path and being on track to attain their goals. And so lifer stands for learn thyself. That's from the very beginnings of of philosophy with Socrates and you, you've gotta get inside, you've gotta learn what you're about and who you are about and how you operate.

1 (4m 53s):
And then the I stands for Imagine the possibilities. We have to get into a place where we can imagine what could be possible. Because the things that exist in our world today, were a far cry from even imagine from most people, you know, even a Century ago. So we have to be able to get in and imagine the possibilities. And the F stands for free Your mind. We've got to get to a place where we are open and we have freed our mind from the constraints of past generations, the constraints of our own limiting beliefs. And that's a process you have to get in and free your mind. We then move to the E, which stands for Engage Your Soul.

1 (5m 36s):
We have to get to this moment in time where we start to realize that the feeling, the inside out is the most important thing. How we feel, how we are engaging our soul every day will determine what we observe. It'll determine what we experience in our world. And that leads us to the last one, which is the R. And I usually capitalize that R because it stands for a couple things. We have to represent our experience. And that means two things. One, we have to start to look at what we're experiencing and represent it in the way that we want to see it. Not the way that everybody else wants us to see it, but the way we choose to live our lives, the way we choose to feel.

1 (6m 17s):
And it also stands for re-present. We've got to get present again, so many people are living so far in the future or so far in the past, and they are their past. We have to get re-present again. And so to be a lifer means to embody these things and to be on a continuous journey that allows us to remember we are lifers, we're in this for the long haul, and we're going to do these things on a regular basis no matter what.

0 (6m 44s):
When you said free your minds, I could not help but thinking of that great en vogue song, free your mind and the rest will follow. And I was just like, that's the perfect words right there. Free your minds and the rest will follow. And Fire Nation, so many of us need to do just that. We need to free our minds and then the rest will follow. And of course, all the other letters and all the other words and descriptions you used for lifer were, was so powerful for very obvious reasons. So really appreciate you sharing that. And I wanna talk specifically about our emotional operating system and why we need to upgrade it in the 21st Century.

0 (7m 24s):
Well,

1 (7m 24s):
You know, there's this interesting thing happening with the pandemic and with all this stuff going around, we're in an unprecedented time, but not of necessarily the pandemic. It's a time where we can say something and get that message across the world instantaneously. And that means that in this 21st Century, our message can get broadcast to everybody. But that also means that we can be influenced by messages coming at us left and right from this person and that person, this political view, that political view, this idea of living and this way that, or an idea that that way of living is no good.

1 (8m 8s):
So we have so much bombarding us with media and with this ability to have instant access to the entire world. And so the need for Upgrading, our emotional operating system has become massive because we have to learn how to manage our own emotions from the inside out. And what we've accidentally, and I mean I, I like to look at the world as a very positive place. I think there are a lot of really amazing things happening. For goodness sakes, the world spins and we don't have to do anything about it. The sun rises and sets and we don't do anything about it. It just happens. So there are a lot, there is lots of good going on in the world. So this emotional operating system is our own internal operating system.

1 (8m 51s):
Much like our operating system on our phone. We all know that when we get an operating system on our phone that needs an update, our phone starts acting slow, it starts acting weird and we start to freak out about it and then we go, well, okay, I should do this. Well, my wife came to me the other day, she said, can you help me update my phone? It's just not working the way it needs to. I look in, there's an update that's been there for like two months. It's just been sitting on her phone. And so as I look at it, I realize, okay, well we just have to install this new update to get your phone working better again, as we look, there's no space, there's no space. She says all her videos and pictures and everything she wanted to keep from the past on her phone.

1 (9m 33s):
I said, well, we have to get rid of some of this. She's like, but I don't want to. Those are all my memories, those are all the things that I've brought with me. I said, well if we don't get rid of some of this, we can't update the operating system. And so finally we download all her pictures, we get 'em all off, we update the operating system. It took a whole bunch of space and then all of a sudden you're thinking, great, I did it. I upgraded my operating system. Now what? Now she comes back to me and complains that everything's in a different place and everything works differently and she doesn't know how to use it. So then she has to go through the learning curve of dealing with this new operating system. So our emotional operating system basically governs how we feel, how we respond to the things that are going on in our world.

1 (10m 17s):
The information that's coming in gives us knowledge of what's going on around us, but we get to interpret it. And our ability to interpret it actually wasn't taught to us along the way. We didn't learn it in elementary school, we didn't learn it in middle school or high school or even college. There weren't any classes teaching us how to use our emotional operating system. And, and I got to a point where I just felt like, gosh, you know what? It is time for us to learn how to use this operating system. Now that causes challenges because for some people they have so much of their space blocked up, they don't have any space to put in. And that was where that lifer idea came in of, of free your mind.

1 (10m 58s):
You have to open up some space. Once you download that new operating system on how to use your emotions, how to use your ability to fill and give meaning to the experiences that you are having now all of a sudden you have this new operating system and most people come back and say, oh my gosh, I don't know how to use it. What do I do with it now? And so this is why right now, in today's world with so much bombarding us, we have to learn how to use our own internal operating system to take our life to the next level so that we're not being run by our external forces and things outside of us, but we're actually being run by our own stuff from the inside out.

0 (11m 39s):
Fire Nation, I love the theme that's developing here with this chat with Michael, which of course is just free your minds like, we need to free your mind of all of this baggage and clutter that we just have in there all day, every day. It doesn't need to be there, it doesn't have to be that way. And we're gonna talk about a controversial subject as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors.

Hubspot (12m 2s):
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Thought Leader (13m 4s):
Do you have a message inside that you know is meant to be shared with the world? Giving a TEDx talk is one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And Thought Leader can help you get there. Thought Leader is a speaker coaching company that has helped over 550 and counting coaches, speakers, entrepreneurs, authors, and experts land TEDx talks. Thought Leader is not affiliated with Ted or TEDx, but they're able to get these results because their founder Taylor Conroy is a four-time TEDx speaker himself and past EOFire guest. You might be thinking a TEDx talk. Sounds great, but where do you start? Taylor has put together a free training that is going to teach you how to land a TEDx talk. And as little as 90 days join Taylor, learn exactly what 10 x organizers are looking for in their speakers, how to write a talk that goes viral once it goes online and more. Visit ThoughtLeader.com/fire. Join Taylor for his free training and get your message out of your head, out of your heart, and out into the world where it belongs. That's ThoughtLeader.com/fire .

0 (14m 5s):
Fire Nation. We are back. And Michael, let's dive right into this. You teach the concepts, we do our emotions, which frankly seems a bit controversial. What do you mean by we do our emotions?

1 (14m 18s):
You know, I've come across this subject so much and I've taught it through the years with so many of my clients and so many of the people I've been privileged to help get to that next level. And whenever I say we do our emotions, it's a, it's a slightly strange way of talking about it. But what we mean by that is that nobody can stick their hand inside your head and squeeze the hypothalamus gland in the back of your head and say, you must be happy, you must be sad. Nobody can do that. Nobody outside of yourself has the control to go into your internal system physically or otherwise and make you feel anything.

1 (14m 59s):
So one of part of our creed is that no one can make me feel anything and no thing can make me feel anything. I do that work, I do the job of making me feel something. So then how do I do that? Well, I do that by actually going in and understanding how to turn on an emotion or turn off an emotion. And I always tease and say, well, if I can teach you how to turn on an emotion, then you clearly have a representation now that you can turn it off. And that tends to be a bit controversial. A lot of people, you know, lash back at me at times and say, well gosh, you can't turn that off. If I'm feeling this way, there's no way to turn it off. Well, the thing is, is that you gave it the meaning.

1 (15m 40s):
And yes, it may be hard, and yes, it may be a challenge. And yes, there may be some work for you to learn how to give it different meaning. But we have so many stories. We have so many representations in our world that prove to us that somebody who has no arms and no legs can live a healthy, happy life and be extremely happy because they've learned to give meaning to their situation that others could not have given. But they learned how to do it. They learned how to take their world, give it the meaning that they felt was best and that was best for them. And that in itself proves over and over again that we can indeed do our emotions. Now I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying that there isn't work to be done, but we do indeed do our own emotions and we do have control.

1 (16m 28s):
And it's time really for people to start working on taking back that control.

0 (16m 32s):
Personally, I like specific advice. Fire Nation likes specific advice. So Michael, what are some things that we can start doing today, like literally today to start Upgrading this emotional operating system that we're all dealing with?

1 (16m 49s):
Well, let's start by sort of mapping out what we're gonna talk about. I believe there are four things that we really gotta keep our focus on. We're gonna realize, actualize, internalize, and finalize. I love the eyes, right? 'cause it helps us see. So, so we're gonna start with realize, the first thing here is we, I teach this concept for better or worse. and we all know those words, right? For better or worse comes with a contract that we sign for all time and eternity, right? And that contract is usually in a marriage. And what we typically forget is to make this contract between our conscious mind and our subconscious mind. If we can sit down and have that conversation with ourself, which isn't weird, you're not strange, you're not crazy.

1 (17m 31s):
If you're talking to yourself, you have that conversation. You say, listen, I no matter what, have a choice, no matter what, to make something a little better or a little worse. Every moment, every day, every second, every minute I have a choice to make it a little better or a little worse. I'm going to choose as often as I possibly can to make it a little better. And it doesn't have to be a lot better, it could just be a little better. And that's the first part, that's the real realization portion. We are realizing that hey, we have a choice. So that's number one. Number two, we go into actualize. And this is where we talked a little bit about that upgrade to our system.

1 (18m 11s):
And so we have to download that update. We have to start the process of downloading that update. That means we gotta find our books, we gotta find our coaches, we gotta find our podcasts, our masterminds that we're gonna sign up for our courses that we're gonna take, our challenges that we're gonna do. We've gotta find these things and we have to start the process of downloading the update. Now of course, there's a lot that comes with that. 'cause as we said earlier, if there's no space for it, you're outta luck. So we have to get to that point where we're downloading the update and that is a huge piece. Now, number three, we go into an internalized state. We want to get it inside. We have to start actually doing the update, not just downloading it.

1 (18m 52s):
I think a lot of people get stuck in this phase where they go, oh, I just got this new book and I read the whole thing and it was amazing. But they never actually start the update. So we have to create time every day that you commit to being selfish. Yeah, I said it. It's the crazy thing. You have to be selfish. Selfish comes first. And I know that might also be a little bit of a bee in people's bonnets, but we have to put on the oxygen mask first. They say it on the plane every time we get on. Why? Well, because at a certain height in the air when you're flying ex ex, oh, I can't even say it now, asphyxiate, I can't say it either.

1 (19m 34s):
I just lost it. I can normally say it. Asphyxiation I, oh my god, close enough. Rather, someday I'll be able to say. But that kicks in within seconds. If you don't put your oxygen mask on first and you try to be the hero and save the people next to you, you'll be dead before you even can get the mask on at all. So it's really, really valiant and people are really heroic and I get it. But we don't have to be martyrs. We can put our own oxygen mask on first and we can make sure we are sound and solid. And that's where we start to update that, that download that we just took in.

1 (20m 14s):
We have to start taking the time every day to commit to being selfish. We have to get ourselves better. We have to make time for that. And then four, we have to finalize, we have to create our first, for many of us, our first SOP, for our emotions and our mindset as business Owners and entrepreneurs, we create SOPs all the time for business. In fact, one of my mentors says that if you do something three times, then you need to create an SOP for it. Now, SOP stands for standard operating procedure in case you didn't know it, right? And what I find fascinating is that we will create SOPs for our VAs, our executive assistants for all the people in our company, our system, our our employees.

1 (20m 57s):
We'll create SOPs for everything. But when it comes to our emotions and mindset, we tend to forget to create SOPs. We need our standard operating procedures to make sure that we are on track to attain our personal legend. And unless we set up those SOPs, it won't happen. Right? What you focus on grows and we know that. And so we have to set these SOPs up.

0 (21m 18s):
Alright, you ready for this brother? I looked it up. Asphyxiation, yes. Get on

1 (21m 24s):
Asphyxiation. Oh man, I can't believe usually I could say it, but today it just, you got me nervous, John.

0 (21m 29s):
That's what it asphyxiation. And let's end with a bang. Michael, you have a challenge called the feelgood challenge. Tell us more.

1 (21m 38s):
The feelgood challenge is going to be rocking. We are starting soon. So by the time you hear this, it, it'll be right around the corner. And the feelgood challenge is all about learning how to feel good. Now, at first, and maybe at face value, it seems like this isn't that big of a deal. But really, truly, if you think about it, how often do you spend in your day not feeling good? You look at some of the most successful people in the world and you go, well gosh, I really want to be like them. I really want to do what they're doing. I really want to have the success they're having. And they look so happy.

1 (22m 19s):
And in many instances that is true. But we are all human and we all have this challenge of feeling good on a regular basis. And that could be anything from feeling stuck, feeling lost, confused, sad, depressed. Those are all things we experience, frustrated, angry. But how much of that are you doing on purpose? You see, all of our emotions have a place, they all have a lovely spot in our world. So to say that you shouldn't ever be sad is not sensical. You know, it just doesn't actually jive. We need our emotions, the dark emotions and the light emotions because these emotions are our navigation system for us to be able to lead a wonderful and beautiful life full of amazing experiences.

1 (23m 10s):
and we deserve each of us. Each and every one of you deserve to be able to feel good and not just accidentally and not just externally. 'cause this is huge. If you only ever feel good because of something that happened outside of you, you're headed down a really, really dangerous path. You see, the media has taught us to rely on our outside experiences to tell us how we should feel. And things like death, worry, fear, sadness, depression, all of these different emotions that are really just navigational indicators for our life.

1 (23m 51s):
Those things we've been told how to fill. We've been told what we should be doing. We we've been told how we should react. And those are things you can figure out for yourself. Those are things that if you do the work, you can learn from the inside out, how to feel sad on purpose, how to feel angry on purpose. They all have their appropriate time and their appropriate place. You can also learn to feel happy. And I'm not talking the happy that when you go to Disneyland, everything's like woo, yay, and maybe a little bit fake. I'm talking about the happy that isn't excited and bubbly. I'm just talking about the normal calm. I am content and peaceful and happy with my life and with what I'm doing.

1 (24m 37s):
Learning how to feel good is what that's all about. Now here's the thing. This challenge is set up for 21 days. And so it's a a nice 21 day challenge. And in that 21 days, what you're gonna learn is you're gonna learn how to feel good on purpose, on demand, and from the inside out. And so if you can imagine a little teeter-totter in your mind right now, right? And you got two people on each side, if one person's heavier, it just sits all the way down to that one side and it doesn't teeter-totter back and forth. What we wanna do is we wanna find a balance and an alignment within ourselves where we can actually choose to be happy on purpose. Now, when I say happy, I'm using happy as the represent, representing emotion.

1 (25m 20s):
If you wanna feel sad on purpose, that actually is part of your happy. You may be Choosing to feel sad on purpose. When my grandfather passed away, I wanted to feel sad on purpose, but I also understood it well enough that I could turn it off when I was done. And that's something that so many people don't have the skill for and we haven't been taught, right? We want to have on-demand access to our emotions and our feelings. We want to then move to the internal side of how we feel, not the external. We can all go binge watch friends. I totally get it. I've done it too. And yeah, that might make us feel good for a little bit, but we have to learn how to feel good from the inside out, not from the outside in.

1 (26m 2s):
And what we wanna do is we're gonna learn how to get all of those resources prepared and learned over that 21 days so that you can feel good on purpose, on demand, and from the inside out. And so this is really what the Feelgood challenge is all about. It's gonna be a blast. We're gonna meet every day for 21 days. We're gonna really upgrade your internal operating system so that your emotions are yours to control.

0 (26m 25s):
Fire Nation. That concept of feeling sad on purpose, I hope that's resonating with you because it's resonating with me. I mean, there's sometimes when you need to give yourself permission to not feel on fire, to not feel super happy, to not feel like life is perfect, but to just let it feel how it's supposed to feel in that moment. 'cause that's okay. So Michael, in just a couple sentences, and I'm gonna challenge you here, brother, a couple sentences, what is the one takeaway you want to make sure that we get from this entire chat today? Give us a final call to action about where we can find out more about you and your awesome stuff, and then we'll say goodbye.

1 (27m 1s):
Listen, it's your right to feel good, right? And as a pursuit of happiness is your right, it's time to take back control, learn how to feel good from the inside out.

Feelgood Challenge (27m 16s):
And you can do that by going over to take the feel feelgood challenge.com/fire and you'll find the information to sign up for the feelgood challenge. And we're gonna change your life forever.

0 (27m 29s):
Change your life forever. Michael doesn't make bold statements unless you actually consider that a bold statement. So Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And hello, you've been hanging out with MJ and JLD today. So let's keep up that heat and head over to EOFire.com. Type Michael in the search bar and the show notes page will pop up for everything we chatted about today. Best show notes in the biz EOFire.com. Michael, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation, today's value Bomb content was brought to you by Michael Johnson.

freepodcastcourse.com (28m 7s):
If you're ready to rock your own podcast, check out our free podcasting course where I teach you how to create and launch your podcast for free. freepodcastcourse.com.

0 (28m 18s):
I will catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side.

The Sales Evangelist (28m 23s):
Sales evangelist Hosted by my friend, Donald Kelly is Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Each week Donald interviews the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales. Right now, a recent episode you should definitely check out is The Five Ways to Do Daily Outbound with LinkedIn. Listen to Sales evangelist wherever you get your podcasts.

Thought Leader (28m 49s):
ever thought of giving a TEDx talk. It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. In four time TEDx. Speaker Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit ThoughtLeader.com/fire to join Taylor's free trading where he teaches you how to land a TEDx Talk and spread your message to millions.