Special Guest Expert - Alex Brueckmann: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Special Guest Expert - Alex Brueckmann: this eJwljk1Lw0AURf9KeAtXsTFJ09ZAkVpFQXAjLcVNGCYv6Zj5YuZNEi397yZ0ey_n3HsBbjShpop-LUIJO4hBaE9Mc6xEDWW2LjZZnhcx8ODJqODR3YpVuloWWQyMcxMmwxzmm8ciXcfQCJR1pZmanY2QOGm7gbnWQ3mB4OQUn4msL5NkGIZFa0wrkVnhF9yopHaix6TPkhn1SdoX790DvZz0aBS3x8NZ-vZnP_6dvovP44fYPzFJW4W1YHfeBMdxW5tBS8PqwzQVAwmS85Mvi1wwGb0F9BS9jhYdRffRTuIYPbuAvFNM6wlojFOMJkLZJVyv_-OzZDI:1naMJh:bSllSLTvRzZEDN0u8eg213uIoxk video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Speaker1:
So here's the big question. How are entrepreneurs like us who have been hustling and struggling to make it to success, who seem to make it one step forward, only to fall two steps back? Who are dedicated? And driven. We finally breakthrough and win? That is the question. And this podcast will give you the answers. My name is.

Speaker2:
This is the mind body. Hello everyone and welcome, welcome, welcome to the Mind Body Business Show. We have another phenomenal, phenomenal show lined up for you because our guest oh my goodness, Alex Brookman, he is in the house and he is waiting. He comes to us all the way from Canada. Yeah, it's a long way. And he's sitting right next to me. Well, virtually, he's still where he is in Canada. I'm in Southern California. The Mind Body Business Show. It is a show that has been put together for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs with the Express Mission to help you to be able to learn the secrets to other success so that you can simply model them, which is a is a fancy word for copy. So you can copy them and do what they do so that you can get that, quote unquote, shortcut to success for yourself, for your for yourself, for your business and for your family. And that's what the mission of this show is. We have phenomenal, phenomenal guests on all the time. And you're going to love Alex. This this guy is awesome. And so the Mind Body Business Show, it's about what I call the three pillars of success over the course of, I'd say, about ten years. I focus solely on successful people. In other words, what made these people more successful than, say, someone like me? And when I did that, I found over and over and over, time and time again, these three things kept bubbling up to the top. And those three things were part of the very name of the show. So mind being mindset to a person, each of these individuals had a very powerful yet more importantly, very flexible mindset and then body. Now, literally, they took care of themselves and take care of themselves.

Speaker2:
For those of them that are still with us, both through nutrition and through exercise, pretty amazing. And business business is very multifaceted. And what I found was these very successful individuals had mastered the various skill sets that are necessary to build a thriving business and to grow it. The skill sets like sales, marketing, team building, systematizing, leadership. I could go on and on and on. I think you get the idea. The thing is to master anyone's skill set can be quite a task. In fact, I don't know many humans that could master every task that's necessary in one's lifetime because it's very similar to being an expert in anything. I forget what the number is. I think it's 10000 hours of focused effort on that. One thing makes you an expert. That's a long time. That's a lot of hours. The good news is you only need really one. You need to master just one skill set. And it's actually in that set of skill sets I just mentioned. If you just master this one, then you can pretty much take care of the rest, almost by osmosis. And that one skill set is the skill set of leadership. Once you've mastered that, you now have the skill set that enables you to bring in those that have already mastered those skill sets that you currently haven't and may never master. And that's the good news. And I'm sure Alex is no different and he's crushing it and I can't wait to bring him on real quick before we do that. Another another fantastic attribute of highly successful individuals is they're very avid readers of books. And with that, I want to quickly segue into a little segment I affectionately call Bookmarks.

Speaker1:
Bookmarks. Born to read bookmarks ready steady. Read bookmarks brought to you by reach your peak library dotcom.

Speaker2:
There you see you reach your peak library dot com. And real quick word of advice for all of you watching even if you're listening to this on podcast is rather than go click away or type it in your phone if you're listening on a phone and checking out these resources and I know Alex is coming with a lot as well is rather than do that, I would implore of you to get out a piece of paper, a notepad, and write them down. And by doing that, you can keep your attention on what Alex is saying. Why is that so important? I've spoken from stage many times and I would get to that point while we're doing, say, a two day conference and I'm training all of the first day and I get to this one point where I know that I'm about to hit the sweet spot. I know I'm about to give that piece of information that can change lives literally. And I'll see an individual or two get up right at that time and walk out of the room either to go to the restroom or take care of that incredibly important text or or voicemail that they just received. And I learned to make this very clear. It's like, make sure you stay in the room as much as you possibly can, not just with this show, but any time you are in something where you're going to be learning potentially something new and life changing. Be sure to stay there and keep your attention and focus on that right and take notes. And then after the show, you can then visit all those resources. Sound cool? All right.

Speaker2:
Reach your peak. Library is literally something I had put together with you in mind. I'm not kidding. I know it sounds a little cheesy, but you, the audience member, the person watching, the person listening. Why? Because I personally did not read books for a very long time. Not until about age 47. I'm now 57 at the time of the show, and once I learned the incredible sheer power of just reading the right books, it changed everything for me. And so I began cataloging every book I had ever read that had a profound impact either on my business or me as a person, personally, or my family, any or all of the above. And I just started throwing them in there. I have my team put this together and they are not in here in any order of any kind. There's no rhyme or reason, so just scroll through it and pick the first book that kind of grabs your attention. Go get it, go read it. You don't have to get it from this website. This isn't for making money. If you want to go get it from a different source, that's fine. All of these go to Amazon. They come from Amazon, I should say. Go wherever it takes you. Doesn't matter. Just do it. Start reading right away or continue reading right away. And this is a resource I just love to give away and have you reap the benefit from that. So that is it for reach your peak library dotcom and now the man of the hour, you guessed it, he is coming on right now. Let's bring on out.

Speaker1:
It's time for the guest expert, spotlight. Savvy, skillful, professional, adept. Trained, big league qualified.

Speaker2:
And there he is, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, it is the one. It is the only.

Speaker3:
Alex Burkman. Hey, Brian, nice to be here. Thanks for the warm intro.

Speaker2:
Oh, yes, I'm excited. Oh, my goodness. We were getting to know each other before the show started. We were having some fun on both sides with some technical fun. Got it figured out. And here we are. Thank the Lord, because I cannot wait to share your genius with everyone out there watching live, watching the recorded video or on podcasts on 25 different podcasting platforms. All you got to do a search for mind body business. You'll find us. But before we get going with Alex real quick, a little bit of housekeeping. You see that red and white logo up there above Alex's left shoulder if you're watching on on screen. The big insider secrets. They are the sponsor of this very show. And they give us the ability every show to give away a five night stay at a five star luxury resort. And this every every single show, we get to do that because of Jason Nast and the big insider secrets and a couple more. And then we're going to start picking on Alex's beautiful brain. Here we go. So if you're struggling with putting a live show together and it's overwhelming and you want a lot of the processes done for you while still enabling you to put on a high quality show, very important and connect with great people like Alex Brookman and grow your business all at the same time. Then head on over to carpet bomb marketing dot com. Carpet Bomb Marketing. Saturate the marketplace with your message. And one of the key elements that is contained in the carpet bomb marketing program is one that you'll learn how to absolutely master. It's the very service we're using at this very moment to stream our live show, The Mind Body Business Show.

Speaker2:
And over the course of gosh, it's probably been ten years now. I've tried so many of these, quote unquote, TV studio solutions for live streaming. And I'm here to tell you that streaming is the best of the best. It combines supreme ease of use along with unmatched functionality. So write this down. It's our IP. I am for slash stream, live all together, no spaces and all lowercase our IP. I am for slash stream live. You can start streaming high quality professional looking live shows for free with streaming. As soon as this show is over, remember, write it down. Don't go there yet. So let's bring on the man, the myth, the legend, Alex Brookman. And now it's time to give him the introduction he deserves so that Brian can finally take a breath and stop yakking. And you can listen to Alex, who's the real genius here. Are you ready? Alex built and scaled companies in Europe and Canada and lead client projects across the world. He is a strategy, entrepreneur, author and speaker. His passion lies in helping his clients build profitable businesses rooted in purpose and impact. He particularly helps entrepreneurs close the expensive gaps in their businesses so that they can increase profits and build the life they want to live. Who does not want that? Alex has two books in the making. Wow. Two at the same time. And when he doesn't work, he loves riding motorcycles, gardening and exploring the outdoors around his home in Maple Ridge, B.C., Canada, with that officially formally. Alex Brookman, welcome to the show, my brother. How are you doing tonight?

Speaker3:
I'm great. Thanks so much for having me. Brian, how are you doing?

Speaker2:
I couldn't be more ecstatic about having you on here and just picking your brain. And that's what I like to start with. Alex, if it's okay with you, is I'd like to start with the mind component. And I do this with every guest that comes on because in my humble opinion, the mind is our mind, your mind, everyone's individual mind is the foundation, the baseline of either our success or lack thereof. And when I bring on successful people such as yourself, then I want to know what is your secret sauce? So Alex, when you get up in the morning and you know that the day lies ahead, as an entrepreneur, it's not always just perfect and it never is. It never is, I don't think. But there are sometimes arduous tasks that are coming up. There might be a client you don't want to deal with that. You know, you have to whatever the case may be, to keep going and keep succeeding like you have. What is it? What's the secret thing that's going on between that big, beautiful, those two ears of yours in that big, beautiful brain of yours? What is going on when you get up that keeps you going day in and day out and week in and week out and month in and month out and so on. What is it for you?

Speaker3:
The biggest mistake for me in my earlier career was that I tried to separate my job from my personal life. And that probably sounds very counterintuitive for most of us, because we're always talking about work life balance, which immediately implies that work and life are two different or opposing elements. Whereas I realize at some point in time that my brain basically never stops thinking about work. Wherever I am, whatever I do, I can I can sit in my garden with a family and for hours just don't think about work. And all of a sudden that comes an idea that helps me solve a problem that I've been having. And. The earlier Alex would just push this thought aside because it was private time at this moment. And I missed out on many of of the ideas that I had in mind that I didn't know down that I didn't pursue. And as a result. Those thoughts, those ideas, ideas disappeared and the other way around the same thing. When I work, sometimes I get great ideas that have nothing to do with work. So you can either choose to take these ideas and put them aside because it's work time, or you at least capture them.

Speaker3:
Or sometimes you just pick up the phone and call that person that you wanted to talk to. And so I stopped fighting this work life balance fight and moved on to what I call work life integration. So I don't try to separate the two. I just am conscious about how much time I spend in each of these modes. So when I'm in work mode, which I'm which I mostly am during the day, because that's what I do, I allow myself to have thoughts and moments that have nothing to do with work and the other way around as well. And it was a concept that I had to explain, for example, my girlfriend when we met, because for her it was kind of disturbing that I all of a sudden when we were watching a movie, for example, took out the phone, noted something down, and you have to explain to people what you're doing. Otherwise you're like, what's going on? It's it's not enjoying the time with me and so on. So letting people know how you function, how your brain functions, how your system operates is truly helpful. I guess I guess that's my my answer to your first question.

Speaker2:
Buddy. Right off the bat, you're doing it. You know what you're doing. That's it.

Speaker3:
Yes.

Speaker2:
Dropping smart bombs. Bombs of wisdom, bombs of knowledge, because you're like, I've never heard of anyone. You're the first time I've heard anyone say that they integrate work and life work in personal life. And the other thing is so you're actually just trained one golden nugget for business owners to say, look, it's okay. You don't have to feel guilty for thinking of it. Because, look, here's the thing with me and it probably is with you, Alex. I love what I get to do, and so I rarely stop thinking about it ever. And while you're watching a movie, things will remind me of. And I don't even know if I call it work. It's fun, but it's part of what I love to do. And the other thing you provided, which is another great nugget of advice, was you told your significant other This is how I operate. And wow, if you set the table and they'd say, okay, I'm still cool that I don't understand it, but if she's still cool that at least you've done that and it won't just be the shock or surprise like, Geez, Louise, man, do you ever pay attention to the movie that we're going to together or do you ever pay attention? Well, you should talk. You should pay attention when she's talking at dinner, though, I got to tell you, you should do that. But there are.

Speaker3:
Moments when phones are that loud. That's as easy as it gets. For example, when we have dinner as a family and we have a 26 month old at the point of the recording of the show, I don't want him to see his parents be on the phone all the time, even if it's difficult sometimes and I pull out the phone while we're at the dinner table, then I get the look or one on the on the chin, you know. Then, yeah, you sometimes need that recalibration.

Speaker4:
It's just how it goes.

Speaker2:
I love it, man. And God bless you. 26 month. Oh, that's just over two. Oh, the terrible twos they call it. Oh, yeah. Not every child fits into that mold. But yeah, we had I think one of ours was kind of that way. We have two grown adult kids now, but they were they were both phenomenal. We were so blessed and still are. I just love them to death. And it's great to hear you're also a family man and that you're taking care of everything at once. And it's a juggling act and it's a beautiful thing to work with someone who has a family. And I'm not trying to put anyone down that's not married or doesn't have kids yet. Please don't get that wrong. For all you watching and listening, it just takes it another level and added layer of responsibility that you have invited into your life. It's a huge responsibility. The cool thing is, in my opinion, it makes you a more rounded individual. It makes you more dependable as a business person because you had to be dependable for your child in addition to your wife or significant other if you're a woman. So I just think it takes it an extra level. I mean, I just threw that out there. I just the thought just came to me. What are your thoughts on that, Alex? Have you noticed a difference between someone that may not be quite as mature, maybe in age that just hasn't gotten to that point in their life versus someone who's already had children or bringing up children. Do you notice any difference in day to day?

Speaker3:
I was in my early forties when I had my son. I think as an individual you never stop running yourself out. You never stop learning in your life. However, I think it's a huge difference whether you have kids in your twenties or in your forties. I think in your twenties, naturally you can be as rounded and as as responsible as you might be in your forties. And I believe that still this additional layer of responsibility, which came not as a weight, it came as something that released a lot of pressure because I always wanted to be a dad and it took very long to become a dad. I believe that having this additional element or perspective of being a father in life actually helped me focus my time and integrate work in life in a in a new way, simply because I, I now have a reason. Not to prioritize work. And I enjoy this every day.

Speaker2:
That's well said. Well said. And yet it does form a bit of I don't know I don't know if the right word is urgency, but it gives you more of a path of focus. It's more, I don't know, defined. I can't think of the right word. It's not coming to me right now. But it does change how you think about everything all the time. And I'm not saying in a bad way, and I'm not saying it's a better way than those that don't have. It's just different. And I just can sense and notice different. The way that someone goes about their daily life, how they talk, everything. It's interesting. And it was immediately apparent to me and we just met a half hour before the show went live, and it was immediately apparent to me that you are you're a man of authenticity, of great character and maturity. And I could tell that you're you're well grounded, both as a business person and as a person in your life. So I love showcasing individuals like yourself because we need more of you on this planet.

Speaker3:
Let's just thank you so much, Brian.

Speaker2:
Absolutely. And I appreciate you. And you're spending your time, your valuable time coming on here to help others to take their life to the next step. And you've already given several. I mean, we can just we can just close the show out right now. I'm good with that. I know there's so much more in you that it would take weeks to extract it all from me. So let's get to it to some more of these wonderful nuggets now. So you've been around the block. You're over. You're approaching that half century mark. And welcome to the club when you get there. I know you're not. You've got a ways to go. That's good. So that means you've got the chops. We say in the industry, you've got experience and this, you know, the skills necessary to be where you are today. We're most likely quite different than what they were maybe a decade ago where you were there. So given where you are today, if you were to have to name three of the top skills that are helping you and helped you to get to where you are today, right now at this moment, what would those be?

Speaker3:
The first one is for sure, and without a doubt and by by a landslide self mastery, really about understanding who you are as an individual, what is driving you, what is the impact that want to that you want to create in this world, especially when you're an entrepreneur, you have this wonderful opportunity to use your business as a force for good while doing well at the same time. And it is something that inspired me tremendously, building out my new business here in Canada when I moved here two years ago and. The topic of self-mastery for me includes just facing your your your traumas, childhood traumas, loss that you had in your life. Anything that makes you suffer emotionally or that prevents you from going somewhere. Once you've once you've opened yourself up to exploring those emotions. I realized that a lot of anger that I had in me just disappeared and that it allowed me to tap into other facets of who I am. So. When I experienced a certain emotion like sadness. My default behavior wouldn't mirror that. I'm sad. It would tell people that I'm angry. So being angry was my default mode. Now that I've explored these emotions more, I just realized that mastering. Who I am, overcoming my ego patterns, overcoming who I am as not who I am, who I was. And. And allowing myself to explore a broader.

Speaker3:
Just a broader range of feelings and being open about them, being vocal about them. That was just the biggest booster for my for myself as an individual, as a family member, as a friend, and also as a business owner. I think this is by far the most important one. Self mastery. The second one is probably what I call strategic acumen, the ability to think and act strategically. So we're not talking about tactics here. We're talking about the bigger picture. So asking yourself what is the what is the living legacy that I want to create? What is what is it that I want people to say about me, how I influence them in their lives? And I'm not talking about legacy in a sense that I pass and what's left, what I leave behind. I'm talking about a living legacy. I'm talking about if you pick up the phone now and ask my clients. What is it to work with Alex? Or if you ask friends of mine, why are you friends with him? They should have an answer to that. And if you have this in mind when when building your life and building your business. What you do becomes grounded in a strategic approach. It's not just winging it, living day in, day out, and just going with the flow and saying hi to people in your life and goodbye to other people in your life.

Speaker3:
It becomes more more conscious, more intentional, more strategic. So strategic acumen as number two and number three. Probably curiosity. Curiosity that helps you explore who you are. So curiosity helps you with the first two, right? It helps you to be to master yourself. It also helps you to be more strategically savvy. But curiosity in a very broad sense, just about as it says, Curiosity killed the cat. Right. But what's the point of living if you're not curious about life? So curiosity is something that. Let me put it that way, Brian. Whenever I see or hear something that I don't understand and that can be just a word that I've never heard before and I don't know what it is in my mother tongue. So I'm German. So every every day I learn a word, I look it up. That's how I learn. If I don't know if I experience. What's that? Then? Then I pick up the phone and I start educating myself. And this type of curiosity helps me to explore different aspects of life in a in a new light. And it helps me to approach every day as a humble learner. I get up in the morning and I kind of, look, let's see what this day brings. Let's let's be open. Let's be curious. Let's learn something. I think these are the three.

Speaker2:
Hmm. Those are powerful. I mean, self mastery is a lot like mind and mindset and everything that goes with it. Strategic acumen. Now, I love how you very, very eloquently describe that you're talking about living legacy. Man, that was wonderful to hear because I've heard so many that and I have nothing against those that want to do this, but they want to leave a legacy after they're gone. And I'm thinking, what for? What? You're gone. Why do you.

Speaker4:
Care?

Speaker2:
You're gone. What does it matter? Living legacy. So it's good to do things that others will benefit from when you're gone. And I don't mean to diminish it or demean it in any way, but what you just said is like, how it matters is while you're alive, how are people reacting when they hear your name? And that's that's huge. And if you've gone about life like Alex has in a very authentic and high character manner, then the obvious response is going to be, Oh, Alex, I love this guy. You know, if you haven't worked with anybody in this area, he's the one to work with or, you know, he's a great guy to hang out with. And we go, we do gardening together and write some motorcycles. We have some fun, but he's a guy you just want to be around all the time. And, you know, if you have an impact on people while you're on the planet, you can have a bigger impact. Because guess what? Alex is continuing to grow and he will impact more other people. He will scale bigger, larger once you're gone. Well, if your book gets sold more and more and more, I guess you can spread that way. But it's not a it's not the same thing. So I appreciate you making that distinction because I've never heard anyone do that. I know others probably have, but I have never heard of it.

Speaker2:
And then curiosity, man, you are hitting some great points here saying look it up or or actually pick up the phone and call and ask somebody. That's something guys don't do. Like we get lost. We don't ask for directions. Even though we now have GPS, we don't have to. But what that is, that circles back to number one because of self mastery, because the reason guys wouldn't do that or gals is because of that ego. You know, I can do it any time you ask a question. Guys are thinking, if I ask a question, that means I look dumb because I don't know the answer. And that's the ego talking. We won't say that out loud or you'll never hear. Except I just did. But you won't hear many guys admit to that. I will. I'm 57. I don't care anymore. It's like, you know, it's time to be truthful about everything. And you just get farther, faster when you're when you're able to just peel back the onion and be more transparent and let people know who you truly are at the core, and then you're either going to be a fit or you're not. That's the other thing, right, Alex? I mean, no matter what you do with all three of those skill sets, are you going to be the right person for every single person that runs into you that might need your services?

Speaker3:
But totally not. And not. Not even just from a business perspective. I'm very picky about who I have around me because I just don't want to be friends with everyone. I cannot be friends to everyone because being a friend is a massive commitment and you can't have that commitment to 100 people. So I'm certainly not for everyone and not everyone is for me.

Speaker2:
And I wish more people in the entrepreneur space would get that. I mean, at a deep level because they're trying to be all things to all people and they're burning themselves out, trying to please everybody. And in the process, they're bringing on clients that are not a value fit. You know, their value system aren't fitting or in alignment, so they become that client from hell. They can be a cancer to your business, literally, and cost you more time and effort than any money you're making from them. And so, yeah, those are very wise words. And it took me well, I mean, deep into my forties to really, truly learn what you now already know. So you're way ahead of me, man. And I'm a competitive guy, so. But I'm happy for you. I'm happy.

Speaker3:
For you. The further you reach down in your business, the clearer it gets who you work with and who you are. Therefore, that means that those who really need you will identify you. They will recognize you, and everyone else isn't for you anyway. So don't try to please them. It's totally counterintuitive. The more specific you are, the more you reach down. The more successful you will be. Because the more people will actually start talking to you. You can talk to a million people at the same time. If these are not the right people, they won't talk back. If you talk to ten people and they are the right ten. That's more than you can get from ten people than you can get from a million.

Speaker2:
So true. I mean, how many times have you been to like a networking event or a seminar and with a sea of people sitting down, it might be maybe a small gathering. It doesn't matter. You have a break and what is everyone doing outside in the hallway? They're networking. And what are they doing? Most of them. I don't know if it's still happening these days with all the technology, but in my day it was handing out business cards like to everybody that had a heartbeat. And my mentor shared a perfect way to handle this, a great philosophy. He stopped even carrying business cards. What happened was, he said, if if someone doesn't ask me for my business card, then I'm not going to give them my business card. Because if they don't ask you either, there's not a value alignment. You may just not have what they have to offer. Or there might be another thing going on just between you as personality types. And that's okay. If it's not a fit, then don't try to force. It was his and I'm like, wow. That just it took all the pressure off every break I got. After that, I'm like, I'm relaxed and I'm not worried about how many cards am I giving out and and not being that that person, you know, everyone knows that person that hands out a card.

Speaker2:
Hey, here's my card. Then they take off. Like, who are you? I just put that in the round file. So, yeah, that was phenomenal. So what you're saying is so spot on. And when you said curiosity, another story by my mentor, he met Richard Branson, you know, the guy, Virgin Atlantic and all that in person at a break during one of these. And they were in a hallway and my mentor was leaning up against the wall and Richard stood up next to him and lean against the wall. He's he's like building rapport. And he just started peppering my mentor, who is actually 18 years my junior, much younger than me, he started peppering him with questions, Hey, man, what are you doing? What are you up to? What do you do? What do you do for business? Blah, blah, blah? And he kept going and my mentor saying this from stage all the time, I was like, You're Richard frickin Branson. I want to ask you some.

Speaker4:
Questions that really.

Speaker2:
Hammered home the point of what you just talked about. Number three was the having that that skill set of being curious, being genuinely curious and asking questions. Here's one of the richest people on the planet asking somebody who's never met all about his life. How do you think Richard Branson got there? One way, was asking questions. So, man, you are on it, brother. So I wanted to give you an opportunity because you're just I just need to. Part of my mission here is to help get the word out about folks like you, what you do, how you help others. Who who are those people like? It's a multipart question. So get ready. So, like, who are the types of people you cater to? Are they business people or entrepreneurs? Are they family members, spouses, kids, whatever the case may be, could be combination corporations, maybe. And then if you have a success story or two, which I know you do, I see in your website that you would like to tell. I would love to hear that. And I'm going to pull up your website as you go through those. That's cool.

Speaker3:
Sure, no problem. What I basically do is I help businesses of various different sizes transform their businesses and make them really strategic. This is a term that is being used all over the place nowadays. Everyone calls themselves a strategist. But the difference between strategists and strategists is some people know what that is, and other people just call themselves a strategist. It's like people calling themselves coaches. There are coaches that have a proper coach, education and others that call themselves coaches. It's kind of the story of my life. I'm a trained journalist, journalist. Everyone can call themselves a journalist. They don't have to be a journalist. So it's kind of following me from my life. First it was journalist, then it was coach, now a strategist. What I do is I help business owners and entrepreneurs build businesses that they are proud of, turn their vision, their big dreams, the impact that they want to have in the world into reality. And I do that by using what I've learned in the past 15 years in the strategy space, working with large corporations and global brands, both as an internal strategy consultant, as an external strategy consultant, and build it into a proprietary process that I use with dedicated tools, with dedicated templates that I hand over to people that that can benefit from it. And it's when I work with large corporations, those strategy programs, they can easily take two or three years. The difference between those corporations and, let's say small business, small businesses that have a handful of people, there's actually only one difference in what I do with these.

Speaker3:
It's speed. It's speed of implementation, how fast they can move. So I basically do the same with large corporations. And with small corporations, obviously in a different scope, in a different size and in a different speed. So what that means is I help business owners and entrepreneurs create clarity around where they want their business to be and help them to identify how they can measure that they're moving towards this ideal state in the future, and then to help them understand what their priorities need to be in order to move those measuring criteria in the right direction. So it's no fluff. It's it's numbers driven, it's purpose driven at the same time. So there's this one business I currently work with here in Canada. Interestingly enough, my only, only client in Canada. It's a business that is relatively young, two years in the making, but the people in the business, they haven't been in their industry for decades, so they know their industry inside out. Why do they talk to me? They don't talk to me to consult them on how to run their business in their industry. I have no idea about their industry and that's why they ask me, because I don't come in and fall into the trap of trying to tell them what to do and how to run their business. What I bring is the process and the know how to guide them through this process. End to end to help them. Shape, shape and again shape where they want to be in the future.

Speaker3:
It's this constant iterative process that I help my clients go through to identify and clarify and sharpen anything from their purpose and mission statement to what they do as a business. Like their business definition, whom do they cater to and what is it that they basically sell? How do they make money to the values and behavioral guidelines that they want to see in place when they operate as a business with others, but also within their business? It's anything from purpose, mission values to a solid business strategy, including a vision. How to measure that you move there. What are their priorities in order to get there? And then how do you anchor it in your organization? What are the management systems that you need? And those can be very simple when we talk about small companies and they need to be bigger. When we talk about bigger companies like incentive structures, remuneration systems and things like that. And we talk about. How do you translate strategy into operations? How do you put them into action? How do we help every individual in your business understand how they contribute in bringing your strategy and bringing your iconic organizational identity to life? So those nine elements that I just mentioned, they form the nine elements of organizational identity. And they are the core of my upcoming book that I that I pulled together over the last months. And yeah, let's hope let's hope you can hold it in your hands very soon. We're in discussions with publishing houses right now, so it's in the making.

Speaker2:
Right on. I want to have the first signed copy.

Speaker3:
You can't have the first. It's already promised to my wife.

Speaker2:
Okay, I'll take the second. I'll take the second.

Speaker3:
You got it.

Speaker2:
Completely, completely respect that one. Oh, my gosh. Completely. I love that organizational identity. Yeah. So it sounds a lot like the importance of establishing a solid culture within your business.

Speaker3:
That your culture is exactly the the result of that if you implement those nine elements properly, because culture is culture, it's not like having free coffee and fruit for everyone. Culture is not the the fun sport and games and having drinks together after after a long workday. That's not culture. That's these are elements of. Of pop culture, if you want, in a company. True culture for me has always the connection to strategy. It's performance culture. How do you take what you want to build and actually build it? Does everyone understand their role in it? How do you talk to each other? Is your culture built off on companionate love or is it competitiveness? Is your is your culture built on say? Does your culture accept gossiping about others in the business? About your client, about suppliers, about anyone? So it's these things that truly matter. And more and more people understand that the human aspect of business is at least as important as the financial aspect of business, the economic aspect. And if you bring those two together, that's really powerful culture.

Speaker2:
I got a question for you. So I've witnessed this. So I'm curious if you have witnessed it as well, that oftentimes the culture that is established, the identity that is exists, is often a reflection of the leader, the person at the top. Have you noticed that?

Speaker3:
It depends on how how large the organization is. Generally speaking, I agree with you 100%. If you take, let's say, a multinational corporation, it depends more on, let's say, leadership as a whole. What how the leadership culture. Forms. The organizational culture. But if you if you take a look at smaller businesses, it's really interesting to see what's accepted and what's not, because in the end, we are still we are still monkeys. We look up how the how the big guy operates. And apparently that's how you how you become successful. And then we imitate that these behaviors. And there are some very large corporations as well that have been formed by very charismatic leaders that are still in charge, where you see certain behaviors that this person emulates as an individual, also being transferred into, let's say, organizational behavioral guidelines, which is truly powerful. So it can have a very positive, but also a very negative effect.

Speaker2:
Yeah, definitely. I worked in corporate for quite a long time and I've seen both sides where you have the type of leader that is nurturing and lifting, not not nurturing to a to a bad extent. It's still a business. Right. But they're there to to support you and help you to advance. And that includes making mistakes and being okay with that. And then I've been on the other side of the fence where I've seen where you make the tiniest mistake and they're berating you in front of your peers. I mean, unbelievably, horribly. And I learned so much just from the experience of being on the other side of the fence, being led by either a fantastic I had one that was just you wouldn't know that this guy was a manager of anybody because he just went about things as if we're all friends, even though it was a business atmosphere and it was professional and we got the job done, we got it done. We got it done quickly because we wanted to excel for this person because of what he had established in his demeanor. So leadership was one of the things I was talking about at the opening of the show. I think that kind of fits this area where be be wary. If you're a small business owner, what is your leadership style? Is it commensurate with a growing organization or are you just there to get the next task done and check the next box? Is it more important to get those done or is it more important to build an everlasting organization? And I don't know if you have similar thoughts about that. Alex I would guess so.

Speaker3:
But it's what I what I always tell people that I work with when, when leadership teams bring me in, especially in larger organizations, we don't really work for the entire business. In that case, we work for, let's say, a business unit, a division. And what I always the first thing that I check is how long has this person been in this seat? What's their next career step? If this person tells me I want to I want to have my next career step in the next six months. I say thank you, but no thank you. If that person wants to start working with me to build something that is truly, truly valuable, then in six months we can't establish that. It's just not how it goes in large corporations. And the reason for that is I've been part of a team where the leader had moved on shortly after the first, let's say low hanging fruit would have been reaped in an identity program and a strategy program. Once that person had left, everyone else just fell back to their previous behavioral patterns and the whole thing went down the drain. So if you want to build something of of value, especially in a big corporation, you need to make sure that your leadership team is not just in it, because they see their current position as a stepping stone to the next title and position as soon as possible, but that you build a functioning team first. If the team is functional, if they if they really are open and vulnerable and are able to share who they are as human beings, this is just different than only having a work relationship and trying to get stuff done that is on your plate every day.

Speaker3:
The moment you realize that a leader is in it for the long run, they just give it their all. They know that this is a unique opportunity. And I love these moments when organizations, no matter how large they are. As I said, some of my clients are very small businesses. I love these moments when people understand the connection between. Ego, business and success. Once they break through this barrier. And they they just accept that there's work to be done on themselves, on the business and with others. That's just truly powerful, because then you you just align the stars. You work into one direction. You can't build a business that is super successful and at the same time, be miserable about your own life. How how should they work? It just doesn't. We aren't business people and personal, private individuals. We take our sorrows, hopes and dreams that we have in our daily job. We take them back home. At the same time, we bring the sorrows, dreams, hopes, and fears that we have for our private life into work. So we need to balance those in a way that. Yeah. That it doesn't make us schizophrenic, if you know what I mean.

Speaker2:
Yeah. Oh, my goodness. So much great stuff. I mean, I remember one. There's so many great approaches to creating an effective team. One such individual I remember I interviewed him on the show, a friend of mine. He's an Internet marketing multimillionaire, and he would bring on people, employees into his company. And he told me this. He said this on the air while we were on the show. He said he would train them and teach them along their journey of working for him and with him in such a manner that it would guarantee if they ever did want to leave him, they could and they could start their own business. And I thought, that's wonderful. At the very same time, I was using what are called apprentices that by definition of this program, they were only going to work with me 90 days at a time and they were done. And so I instilled that from day one. I'm like, they're going to be gone. So the purpose of it was to help them, to mentor them as part of this deal that that I used and it was awesome. So it was perfect alignment when he said that and that's one great way. And what that is going to do is many of those that are business owners are going, Holy crap, I'm never going to do that. I don't want to lose my greatest people. You're going to lose some of them, but you're going to keep probably a greater percentage of them because they love you so much for being that kind of helpful mentor. Always lifting them up, always helping them grow, not getting stagnated in one role forever. Oh, I saw that so much in corporate. It was like it was like watching The Walking Dead people go into their cubicles, sitting down the same exact routine every day, just no life. I thought, man, I got to get out of here.

Speaker3:
Yeah.

Speaker2:
So I've seen all of this, and everything you're saying is ringing true. I just. I love this. My gosh, I just look at the time, and here we go. We're getting late again, so. A lot of people will. A lot of entrepreneurs that I know, I know, quite a few of them. They'll come up with this great idea and they'll start putting stuff together. They'll put a blast, an email blast out. They'll post a couple of times on social media. It doesn't go anywhere. Oh, that didn't work. I'm on to the next thing. It's like it didn't even start yet. Why are you moving to the next? That's a that's the extreme version of it. But I've seen it many. I've been guilty of it, I will say back in the day many times for sure. For you, Alex, I mean, it's hard to decide sometimes. How long do you keep trying? How long do you stick at it? How long do you keep not succeeding at that one idea until you finally say, I've got to break free and move on for you. Do you have any kind of criteria that you abide by that helps you to determine when it's time to just say, I've got to pull the plug or to keep powering forward?

Speaker3:
I'm in the situation right now. I am building a new business in a new country that I just moved to. Apparently I am not as successful today as I was with my former business in Europe that I had built for seven years. I mean, it just takes time. And in addition, the business model that I'm using for my new business is a different model than for my old business. So I'm in exactly that position right now. It's not growing as fast as I might have imagined. But the question is, am I doing the right thing? And you sometimes are stuck in a in a thought that it's not going to work while everyone around you is like, dude, you're crushing it. Just keep up the work. It's great things that you do. People love what you do. So the question that you should ask yourself is not why doesn't it? It doesn't seem to work. What is the next big thing? That's not the right question. The question is for you. If you feel that it doesn't work. Ask yourself, what aspect can I change to make it work? Is it your offering as a whole? That is crap. No. Most likely not. It's maybe just something in your messaging, or maybe it's something in in your how you commercialize your services.

Speaker3:
It can be so many aspects. And I mean, you can build the greatest systems, the greatest business. And then there's a tiny tweak. That makes it explode and makes it grow like crazy. And sometimes you just don't see that tiny tweak. Sometimes that's someone coming in and telling you. This. This is the switch used to switch. And he goes, boom. And sometimes it by the way, it goes boom is a metaphor for it takes ten years. Every overnight success has been in the making for a decade. It's just not how it works. You need to learn which aspects of my business can tweak, where can I do things differently? What works today? What do my clients say? And the best, best opportunity that you always have that you should always use is ask your clients why they work with you. Find out what the value drivers in your business are, and use those value drivers for your pricing. Use them to inform your marketing, your communication, anything you do, it's never. It's never digital. It's not one and zero. It's it's not that that you need to move on just because something doesn't work. Ask yourself, what can I do differently to make it work? And it goes back to curiosity. It goes back to self mastery. It goes back to what we talked at the beginning of the show, Brian.

Speaker3:
Right now, my business is going fine, but I want it to be I want it to be great. Not fine. So I'm asking myself constantly and the people that work with me, what can we do differently in order to take the next step and the next step and the next step? It's not those massive leaps. It's the increment, the tiny increments on a daily basis. And when you then look back like two years, three years where you started, you're like, Holy smokes, we've come such a long way. And sometimes you don't see that. You don't realize that in the daily work and the grind and hustle and yeah, stop, pause, turn around and enjoy the view because you're halfway up the mountain so you see something already. You are above the trees already. And if you're still somewhere in the trees, yeah. Then ask yourself, what can I do to, to take that last step that brings me above the trees. I don't believe in overnight success. I don't believe in all these. Amazing stories that you see out there, those funnel hackers and like this half percent that ever makes money with this stuff, but it's positioned in a way that it's easy and that everyone believes they can do it.

Speaker3:
Of course it is. That's how they make their money. But in the end, you need to understand if you are an entrepreneur, if you want to build a business, you put in the work now to live the life that you want to live later. This is the trade off. You can stop that tomorrow. Go for a paid job and try to develop and learn and grow in a paid job. No one is asking you to be an entrepreneur or business owner. No one's forcing you to do that. It's your decision. So the longer you stick with something and just you. You mentioned the 10,000 hour rule in the beginning of the conversation. Well, it has been busted many times that you don't necessarily need 10000 hours to reach a good level. But if you want to reach, great, then, you know, 80, 20 rule those last 20% of the way they cost you 80% of the time and investment. And you just have to accept some some realities in business and some of some of them are just you can't change them. And that is that if you believe that success is an overnight success and if you are attracted by the shiny stories of glamorous entrepreneurs, ask yourself how long it took them to actually get there.

Speaker2:
Yeah. And I think you're you're hitting it. I mean, it's it varies for different people, but it takes ten years to become for every one of them, to become an overnight success. And that's the thing. People don't see all the work that went into it, but then when they get done, they make it look easy. You know, network marketing companies are known for this goodness. You know, just find ten people and then make them your clone, which you can't do, make them like you. And it just doesn't work that way. It's like amazing, amazing, amazing. Oh, we got Kevin Kwok is in the house. How are you doing? Kevin Kwok Digital Marketing. How you doing? Thanks for coming in and saying hi. Yeah, definitely. Drop some messages in here. Say hi to the amazing Alex as we're about 4 minutes away from closing.

Speaker4:
This show up. I love it.

Speaker2:
So, my goodness, so many unbelievably powerful go to nuggets. And there's no doubt in my mind you're going to have this back up and humming like you wanted or like you had your previous business or even better from because you've learned from everything you did in that business as well. And kudos to you for taking that leap, you know, and being willing to change your business model. That's not many people will do that. It's funny that I personally have made a lot of micro changes to mine going the whole time, all the time, never ending. Just I mean, so many things you said made me think of what has helped. And it's like finding other people to joint venture with, finding other people that really buy into what you're doing from a mindset or from a mental standpoint and say, What can I do to help? Hey, I got a referral program if you want to jump on that and you make it as easy as you can and give them a swipe copy and just hope they send it out. But you just keep going, keep going. Never, ever, ever give up and all these different things. It's about building relationships. Alex One of the biggest, best things I ever started doing was this show because of amazing people like you.

Speaker2:
I'm convinced we'll be friends forever unless I do something really kick you off, which I hope I don't. But, you know, it's not about I'm not here to say, Alex, come on my show because I want you to go buy my crap. That's not why I do this show. In fact, I'll be quite honest, oftentimes the reverse happens I'll become a client because I'll be watching, listening and hearing and taking notes. See, I'm taking notes. Look, look, everybody. I got notes. I'm running the dang thing. And, you know, there are times where I'll go, Hey, that was really interesting. I want to know more. Can you tell me more? It's just about two people getting together, talking. If I have a pain point that you solve, great. Otherwise, if it's the other way around, great. But that's not my purpose. It's just let's have a chat and get into the brilliance of each individual. And you know what I learned from all that, Alex? That has become my number one mode for marketing. I just have the chat. I provide value, just like the business card approach, you know, if it's not there, they won't ask for it. If it's there, they'll ask. I don't have to go chasing anybody. I'm indifferent. It's like, whatever, I'm good. It's not like.

Speaker3:
I believe the more value you provide to people for free, the more interest they either get in the topic or it's just not for them, which is fine. But they need to taste it. They need to get an experience what you do and the value that it might create for them. And if they believe that they can do it on their own. Be my guest, please. I never hold anything back. I always give everything away. In some people, they use it for for their business without ever talking to me, which is totally fine. And others, they reach out and ask me to come in and support and that's when we create an automatic together.

Speaker2:
I think that's a great model for everyone to follow it. I call it it's the opposite of the quick kill model trying to get after it just for the sale. That's a lot of times when you're first starting out and you're in that mindset of scarcity, which every one of us, I think if we're honest, we're in that area in the beginning to some extent, but oh my gosh, it's the end of the show time. But we still have one more question I want to ask you, Alex, and it's one I love to close every show with. It's very profound. I found and I kind of came across it by accident by asking it several times in the beginning, over three years ago when I started this show. And I just love the variety of answers that have come as a result. Before I do that, I did promise everyone who was watching live until the end. I did. I am forgotten how you can win a five night stay at a five star luxury resort, all compliments of the big insider secrets that red and white logo you see up there. For those of you that are watching, I'm going to pull the information up on the screen. Just write this down and visit it once we close off, because you don't want to miss his answer to this question. You don't want to miss it. So write this down. Here it comes. It's coming up on the screen right now. What you want to do is go to our type im for vacation and that's our WIP for vacation and you will be entered to win. Have a nice day at a five star luxury resort. And the big insider secrets. Decent ask my good buddy are the people behind that. And now we're coming back to Alex, the man, the myth. Yes. And the legend.

Speaker3:
Is the.

Speaker2:
Legend. Yes, Kevin. Thank you. Relationships is everything. You're absolutely right. Yes. And you know what? Can you tell this guy? He's about relationships. He's about helping the individual. He cares about each person. And that's the kind of people you want in your camp, whether he is if you're his client or if he becomes maybe your your mentor, whatever the case may be. He's the kind of person you want to hang out with and learn from and provide value back to him to, you know, he doesn't know everything. I don't know everything. We all can learn from each other. And you can tell Alex is a curious guy. He knows the value and power of being curious. He's teaching about it. Of course he knows. All right, so enough of Brian blabbing. So this question, Alex, the cool thing about it is there's no such thing as a wrong answer. It doesn't exist. Flat out, in fact, the opposite. It's the only correct answer is yours. Because the answer will be unique to you. That's the only thing that it kind of makes it a little personal. But that's it. It's not like getting dig into your knickers on personal side. So with that, are you ready for the big question?

Speaker3:
Fire away.

Speaker2:
All right. Here we go. Alex Brookman. How do you define success?

Speaker3:
Spending time with my son and not thinking about work. If I if I have a day where I know things are just running smoothly and I can therefore. I'm unwind and spend the day either with my son or gardening or riding a motorcycle. Just those things that. Help you forget everything else and be in the moment. That's success for me.

Speaker2:
And you know what's coming, don't you? Yeah.

Speaker3:
My goodness.

Speaker2:
Ladies and gentlemen, this has been Mr. Alex Brookman on The Mind-Body Business Show. He's an amazing, amazing young man. I appreciate you for taking the time out of your incredibly valuable day, Alex, for sharing your wisdom, your experience, your knowledge with everyone here. And I love the fact that we're keeping this. It's also audio podcast. It was live, but we're also going to hear you're going to be able to impact lives for far into the future just by planting those seeds and sharing your wisdom. So appreciate you, my brother, and we got to get together. You ever come down to the US or I go up north and it sounds like you're like directly above me.

Speaker4:
We all get together and.

Speaker2:
Drink whatever beverage we like a coffee, tea or whatever it happens to be. It doesn't matter to me. As long as we hang out, that would be cool. So if you happen to come down to Southern California and I find out about you and call me, I'm going to be upset, brother, and vice versa. You should be upset, too.

Speaker4:
I will. I will.

Speaker3:
Brian, thank you so much for having me on the show. I truly appreciate the conversation.

Speaker2:
Oh, fantastic. And yeah, thanks so much and appreciate you. That's it, ladies and gentlemen, that's the end of this edition of The Mind Body Business Show. I'm your host, Brian Kelly. We'll be back again next week for another fantastic episode. So be sure to be on the lookout for that. Until then, everyone keep crushing it. Make a difference in someone else's lives. So long and blessings for now. Bye bye, everybody.

Speaker1:
Thank you for tuning in to the Mind Body Business Show Podcast. At WW.

Speaker2:
W the Mind Body Business.

Speaker1:
Show.

My name is Brian Kelly.

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