Steve: 00:41:40 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I was very, very lucky. I mean, people say the luck doesn’t figure into success, but I think that, that, that’s, that’s not even close to cheer. I think there’s, there’s a lot of luck and success, you know, you’re sometimes, I think you’re just at the right place at the right time, and that certainly was the case when I met bill gove of the father of professional speaking, um, uh, he was 85 years old when I met him. I was 32 and we just kind of, I went to his workshop, he had a keynote speaking workshop, um, that’s called the bill gove speech workshop, and he had started in 1947 and he had trained Zig Ziglar and Bob Proctor and Cavett Robert and Jim Cathcart and Tony Alessandra and Mark Victor Hansen. All these speakers, and
Michael: 00:42:22 I just want to interrupt. Excuse me, one second. The speakers other than zig, that’s a common name to most people. The others are the top speakers in the legends in the speaking profession. They were all legend legends, and they learned from the legend the father, which is bill gove. So guy had kids. I just wanted people who didn’t know who Mark Victor Hansen, the creator of chicken soup for the soul and Bob Proctor who’s just a huge success in the speaking coaching business. So I wanted folks to know who these people were other than zig, that they’re the top in our profession and they were taught by bill gove. So go ahead.
Steve: 00:42:58 Yeah. He had coached over 80 speakers that were seven-figure speakers or high six figures if there was way back in the sixties and seventies, um, further time. And, and I was failing in the business my first year and I emailed a couple of different speakers that I mentioned. Jim Cathcart, typhoid. Again, if you’re in the speaking business, you know, these guys. But if not, these are top speakers as you mentioned. Mike. And I just said, look, they don’t, they didn’t know me and this is 1996. I said I’m failing in the business. I can’t figure it out. Can you give me any advice? And uh, and, and I, and you know, they started trying to help me a little bit, some of them. And uh, then I emailed them back a couple, a couple of weeks later when I when I heard about bill gove and I said, you ever heard of this guy?
Steve: 00:43:35 Bill? Go. And in one day all 10 of them that I emailed, emailed me back and said, if you can get to build both, he has a workshop reading workshop. If you’re lucky enough to get and you can afford to go because it’s not cheap you need to go. Like today he is right, he’s old. He’s 85, but he’s the best. He’s coached, everybody. And I had been coached, as I said my whole life. I knew the difference between a great world-class coach and just the coach. And the difference is substantial. And I don’t know if most people know that if they haven’t been coached at eye level, but you know, there’s a reason a Bella check makes what he makes. There’s a reason these top guys are multimillionaire coaches because they’re that good. Then it is, there’s a big difference. The high school coach football coach is making 50 grand a year and Saban, Nick Saban is at Alabama’s making 12 million.
Steve: 00:44:22 There’s a, there’s a reason he’s making that much more and it’s not because of the size of the football and his team is different, you know. Um, so another level. So long story short, I went to his workshop, Bill and I connected. I went three more times that year to his workshop. I couldn’t afford it, but I felt, felt like I couldn’t afford to do it. We became fast friends. We were kind of connected somehow even though 53 years difference in age, um, we were just really fast friends and I was very, very fortunate and he took me all over the world for five years and we started a business together before he passed away. I spent five years going on stages in front of five, 10,000 people every week almost. I’m with him. He, what was that like? It was surreal.
Steve: 00:45:07 I told my wife every day when that was happening, every time we go on, which is all that, it was constant for five years. I said this is like living in a movie. It’s just incredible. I mean that this guy is the best I’ve ever seen in my life and he was so generous with me. He was just, he was overly generous, you know, he just gave and he gave and he gave me. He taught me these skills and he said, if you learn these skills, you’ll write your own ticket. They’ll never work another day in your life. And he goes and I know how to teach you. All you have to do is be coachable. And that was the one thing. I mean, man, I’m not the brightest guy on the block, but I can be coachable that I knew how to do it. One thing I actually knew how to do was listened to be coachable because I’d done it my whole life and he, he taught me the skills and I was able to parlay those into a, you know, a decent career. So I was very fortunate.
Michael: 00:45:51 Okay. And then what happened is you wanted others to benefit from those skills in that coaching at the highest level. So you actually put a program together and you call it the bill gross bill gove speech workshop.
Steve: 00:46:05 Well we can. When bill died, Bill died in December 2001 and when he died we purchased the master license to the bill gove speech workshop. That’s the one. All these people had gone through since 1947. So we just continued his workshop because I had been doing it with them for five years and so when my wife and we are facilitating with them while he was coaching in and we just took it over and we’ve been running it ever since. Um, we run it in Australia and Europe and uh, you know, here at the mansion now, of course, we have one this weekend as a matter of fact. We have people coming in from Europe. We’ve got a guy coming in from China, one from Japan, um, coupled from Europe and then the other people from the states and from Canada. But they come in from all over and not because of me but because of, because of the bill, because of its all built. I just facilitate and coach and now that he’s gone, but he was the past, you know, I couldn’t carry bill gove’s bags, but he’s no longer here, so we. We keep it going.
Michael: 00:46:54 Well that’s wonderful. I’m sure it makes a difference. The speakers or to be speakers or want to be speakers and there’s a lot of people listening to this. They’d have goals or aspirations to speak, to have others learn from their mistakes or learn their lessons. They say everyone has a book in them and people want to share their experiences in order to do that. Like anything else in life, you can’t wing it. You wouldn’t want a cardiologist when you need open heart surgery without the proper training to go in and when you’re open heart surgery you need to go and you want to get the very best training and I know this extremely well and the the best, like you said, Steve, have gone through it yourself included and it’s really how to master the craft and art. Do they also touch on the speaking business? The.
Steve: 00:47:42 Yeah. We talked a little bit about the business. I’m in the no and how it works and how the money flows and that type of thing is people are always interested, but the one thing that most speakers message to build their skills, they, they, they, they overrate their skills, which I think I’m sure I did as well before I met Bill, but it’s like being a professional athlete. There are amateur athletes like when you play in college and then when you go to the pros, it’s like another level. I mean these people are, they get paid big money to do what they do with, you know, as, as an athlete and they’re just another level and you’ve got to be in speaking is no different. It’s one thing to speak at a rotary club or it tells Masters Club or a chamber of Commerce. It’s another thing to get paid 20 slashes 15, 20, $25,000 for an hour to do it for a company or an organization and be that good.
Steve: 00:48:27 And the, and the companies know the difference. So my point of it is that we focus on the skills and that’s what most people. It’s not the sexy part. It’s not the flashy part, it’s just the most important part because if you’re not, if you’re not really highly skilled, you will make money and most people jump to the marketing way. They think it’s marketing that’s going to make them and what makes you as a speaker if you want to make big money in it or your skills and that’s something that takes years to build it.
Michael: 00:48:50 Exactly, and it’s like that movie, if you build it, they will come. A speaker’s product is the speaker speech and the more you create or perfect that craft, and I know even as a speaker myself, Steve, literally every single day I’m focused and I when I when I commit to it when I have to, I put time aside. I commit to improving and refining the presentation to the client that I’m presenting to, to, to that speech that I’m going to be delivering. I’m always looking for ways to make my opening better, my closing better, the middle of my speech, better to make it more compelling to accomplish the objectives that I’ve been hired to accomplish, which is to get the people to think and act and perform differently, to get a different and better result, to hit them in the heart and their head and to make it enjoyable at the same time and engaging and all those things are much simpler said than done and it’s this course that you have that really teaches the the the, all the little things that make that big difference, the pauses and the dramatic when you make a dramatic point, how you make, how you transition.
Michael: 00:50:08 So all those things, right? Steve?
Steve: 00:50:11 Oh, no question about it. I think in that Brian Tracy said to me one time when I first got started, he said, he said, you know what? He says, if you really worked super hard on your skills for five to seven years, you got to shop. He goes, you don’t have any better than that, but you got a shot. And I went to a bill and I told Bill that because bill a train brian many years before and bills that he’s absolutely right. He says, all these people that think is going to happen overnight. He said, this is like being a professional athlete. And I said, I get that. I trained for that my whole life. I said, I’m in it for the long haul, man. I want to go for it. He goes, well then you have a shot. He said, but if you think this is going to happen in three years or four years, you said, and you’re going to half-ass it. He goes, you’re going to get killed. Like almost everyone that enters this business does. He said, but if you take it seriously five to seven years and you do everything I tell you to do. He said he used a systematic approach. You got a real shot. And now 20 years later, after he told me that I’m Brian Tracy told me that they couldn’t have been more, right. They were absolutely 100 percent right. And luckily for us it worked
Michael: 00:51:07 well. I am enclosing, Steve, I want to really kind of wrap this up and told the listeners, have you tell the listeners what the greatest takeaways that you’ve seen both in what you’ve done in your life, Mr Modesty and what you’ve helped others accomplish with big companies like Caterpillar and John Johnson and Johnson and the large network marketing companies that you’ve worked with. What are some of the things from your book, your experiences, what are the one, two or three things that you could share with our listeners that will help them get through the challenges that we all face in life and in business and uh, and make it to the top on a sustained basis that we’re, we’re, we’re living large and not just for a day, a week, a month, a year, but for the rest of our lives, like you said in your book, get tough and retire rich.
Steve: 00:52:01 I think, you know, I wish I had something really, really a dazzling that would be something different. But I think it’s been said so many times before worth repeating, but certainly, I didn’t come up with it. But I think you gotta know what you want. I think very few people know what they want. I mean, last Friday I was in, I was interviewing a guy who’s getting close to being a billionaire out in California, silicon valley, and he said to me, he said, did you ever want to be a billionaire? He’s a young guy. He’s 36 years old and I’m going to be in my next book. And I said, never cared to be a billionaire. I said, I just don’t need anything that costs a billion dollars, you know, because I want to live on a private island. I said, what do you think about that? Because a lot of people think I’m wrong.
Steve: 00:52:37 I said, Hey, God bless you man. That’s what you want. Go for it. You’re, it sounds like you’re halfway there. I think most people, I mean, I’m, I’m glad that he knows what he wants and other people don’t, you know, need a lot less than some other people do. And that’s fine. I think you got to know what you want and then say, okay, what, uh, what, uh, how do I match my skills with what I love to do? You know, everyone’s heard that before. Do what you love. I don’t think you can overstate the importance of that. I mean, I love the speaking Biz. I love to write, I love to speak. Um, and those, that’s all I do. That’s all I do every single day. That’s all I’ve done for 20 years and it’s been a lot of fun, you know, and it’s, people go, well, you know, they, they say you guys like you and I, we worked 12, 14 hours a day. I had 16 hours yesterday. And people are like, well, you’re a workaholic. You know, you don’t have to do this anymore. Why do you do it? Because you love it. It’s like playing. It’s like going to Disneyland for us. If you can make you know your, your, what you do for a living, what’s something you love, you’re the richest person in the world. Even if you don’t have any money. I mean, I think that’s the most important thing really.
Michael: 00:53:36 Right, and you’ve had some challenges doing that and others that are listening have challenges doing that and that’s where the mental toughness, so you would encourage people to, when I know you’ve done this, to read books, take courses, listened to podcasts, to do the things, to keep things in front of you, like your vision board, Steve, that all these things, these little things add up to the big things to allow you to sustain your focus, your mental toughness, your concentration, your intensity in a life that pulls you away and throw roadblocks in front of you. You have to continue to put things in front of you that will knock those roadblocks down and, and things like, uh, you know, vision boards and, and podcasts and reading and surrounding yourself with people that are smarter than you. That’s what you’ve done. And I know you’re, you’re, you’re very modest and you’d say, well, you, these people are all smarter than me, but you’re smart enough, Steve, to hang out with people that are smarter than you.
Michael: 00:54:34 And, and, uh, in the book Mindset by Carol Dweck talks about to a mindset. So you have a growth mindset, a fixed mindset, and the folks with the growth mindset are successful because they believe that effort is the answer to everything. You put effort with the raw, obviously, a is the right roadmap. You just put tons of effort in the right roadmap. You never stop its effort. Plus the right roadmap equals success and perseverance and resilience mixed in there. And they say that, that growth mindset folks hanging out with people smarter than that because they know that in order to grow and get better, they want to stretch and reach and grow outside their comfort zone to get better all the time because when they get better, their finances and everything else gets better. And I know everything you have done, Steve, in your life, and I’m saying it for you right now because as everyone knows by now that you’re very modest, the, your brilliance is in the fact that you’ve always been able to, with your own growth mindset. Steve, hang out with people that are smarter than you. Glean from them. What they do and then master it and even sometimes improve upon it and then you graciously and successfully at the same time share it with others so they could build their wealth as you’re building your wealth.
Steve: 00:55:49 You know, I think it’s, I think it’s a good strategy. It luckily I don’t have a problem finding people that are smarter than me. I find them all over. I’m joining, joining, joining the crowd with you on that one. Steve, one thing that you said that I just wanted to comment on because I think you made a really good point that, you know, take, it’s easy to say, you know, do what you love. The money will follow that old idea and I think that’s a great idea and it’s a great book as well, but I think it’s worth making the point that you just mentioned Mike, then that’s, it’s not an easy thing to do. So if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, oh yeah, these guys just go from success to success. Well that, that’s nonsense. I mean, I, I don’t know anyone that’s done that and again, I’ve been interviewing all these successful people for 34 years now and I’m still doing it and I’ll be doing it for, for a long time hopefully.
Steve: 00:56:36 But you know, I think that you to realize it’s not easy. Maybe it’ll come easily to you if you’re listening to this, but if it’s coming hard and you’re trying to find out, you know, you’re trying to figure it out, don’t feel bad because you’re in the majority. It’s it. I, I at one point where I was interviewing all these millionaires for roughly six, seven years and I really got into the money part and I never had any real money, you know, as I was coaching athletes, but I didn’t really ever make that much money doing it and never made more than about $40,000 a year. So I really hadn’t had any. But I was interviewing all these super rich people and then I had an opportunity to get into a business where I could. I could do really well. And so I did that because I thought my, my real passion was the money because I never had any.
Steve: 00:57:15 So I did that for a couple of years. We made millions and millions of dollars. We were over within two years, we were all multimillionaires and I was. So I was a 31 year old, 31 years old, I guess it was 30, 31, whatever. It was a multimillionaire. And I was miserable and I couldn’t believe it. I was like, I got what I wanted, I got million. I don’t even ever have to work another day in my life. We’re going to build a $100,000,000 company, which we, well on our way to doing. And um, and it was obvious, but I was miserable and all my friends were saying, you’ve got it made the kid. You got what you wanted. I’m like, I got what I want, but now it turns out I don’t want it to go, what do you want? My God, people thought I was an idiot. They’re like, you know, what do you want?
Steve: 00:57:54 I said, I don’t want this. I don’t want a bunch of stuff. I mean, I want it like everyone else wants it, but if I have to sacrifice what I do every day and I’m not happy doing what I do every day and with the people, I’m doing it with, well then you can have this fancy Porsche and you can have this. You know, I lived in a penthouse apartment in Fort Lauderdale. It was ridiculous. 17 floor overlooking the ocean and all the stuff, but I was, I literally was miserable. I know people read about that and books and rich people are miserable. I was miserable so I walked away. Cost me $10,000,000, so walk away and stock and I literally walked away. I didn’t get a penny. I would. I was totally broke and I walked away because it was all in on paper and I couldn’t get it back and.
Steve: 00:58:34 But it was the best thing I ever did in my life. So my point of the whole thing is, is that I thought it was money and it turns out it was really doing what I wanted to do every day. Then I had to figure out a way to do what I wanted to do every day and get the money back and luckily that worked out well, but, but my point of it is that you know, be careful if you’re talking to, if you’re, if you’re down on yourself thinking, God, it’s just taken me a long time. It takes a while to figure this out, at least it did for me and a lot of other people, so keep hanging in there. Don’t give up and realize that it’s not the easiest thing to do. Ninety percent of the population in this country doesn’t ever figure it out because they either don’t try or it’s just or it’s just too tough, but don’t ever give up trying and it’s well worth it at the end of the day.
Michael: 00:59:13 Amazing, amazing lessons. And Steve, I can’t tell you as, as a friend and a colleague, just what, what treasures you shared with me and with others listening on this podcast. And Ladies and gentlemen, we’re listening. Take Steve’s advice. And remember this podcast is not about information providing information for information sake. It’s about action and the action is then about results and as Steve said, you have to make sure that you tie it all together. Start out with what do you want, why do you want it live your passions, work your passions, stay with it. Be Persistent and resilient. State focused and intense. Don’t give up. Don’t let failures or setbacks to find you. Rather let them refine you and understand your journey is not alone. If you continue to fail, fail forward. That’s Steve’s done. I’ve done. We’ve all done that. It’s the norm. It’s not the exception. And believe me, Steve reached this level of success by not only having ensuring these principles with everyone but living them. So Steve, thanks a million buddy. I appreciate all your wisdom. I appreciate your friendship and, uh, until we talk again, brother continued happiness and success.
Steve: 01:00:32 Can I say one more thing before we break?
Michael: 01:00:34 You say whatever you want. This is your show. What’s my show? But you’re my, you’re me. You’re my number one guest right now.
Steve: 01:00:40 I appreciate that. My pleasure. Speaking that, that workshop, go into that workshop. It’s the website is speech workshop, Dotcom, speech workshop, Dicom that they’re interested in that case, they, they email you about that or whatnot. But the last thing I wanted to say was, um, you know, I’m glad you’re doing this podcast, Michael, because you’re one of the few people that, that I know I have known for a long time that’s truly a war horse. I mean, you really are what you talk about and I talk about you all the time and you know, I’m a big fan of yours and have been for since we met and you know, you’re one of the guys that you’re not one of the flashes in the pan guys and there’s a lot of guys doing podcasts and stuff and you listened to them. I was dumb and they’re nice people and everything, but they’re kind of flash in the pan. They haven’t really done that much, but you know, but you’re, you’ve been in there. You, I’ve watched you for 20 years, be a war horse. You’re, I guess you and I are both old warhorses now, but you got that mentality that never quits and I’ve always admired that about you and I’m glad you’re doing this year. I think you’re going to help a lot of people that said, I appreciate you having me as a guest.
Michael: 01:01:36 Well now I feel like I’m your guest. Thank you, Steve. It’s nice being on your show. The comments really appreciate it and thanks a million for that. And remember folks, Steve Siebold, he gave you the new book that’s coming out. You got to get that, especially if you’re over 40. Get tough. Retire rich and the website one more time, Steve, for the speaking workshops,
Steve: 01:02:00 a speech workshop.com. Okay. Have a waiting list. You can’t just sign up there. Do we only do three a year now here at the mansion, but uh, it’s a, it’s a, you can get on the waiting list and we’ll, we’ll let you know in the work that when we have openings face. Perfect.
Michael: 01:02:13 Hey Steve. Thanks a million, brother. Always a pleasure. Thanks, Michael.
