A Step By Step Process to Accelerate Your Career Goals with Rob Kalwarowsky

(Intro Narrator at 00:00:00) Today, we're talking to Rob Kalwarowsky, best-selling author and leadership coach. We're covering his step-by-step GOLD method to help you accelerate any career goal. And listen carefully to this one because we're doing another giveaway. Tune in to find out how you can win a book and a free coaching session with Rob. You're listening to Joel Beasley, Modern CTO.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:00:28) Hey, Joel. How's it going?

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:31) Life is good, Rob. We're here. We're doing it. I haven't gotten to learn about the GOLD method yet. Is that what we're talking about today?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:00:37) Yeah. It's something that's come up a lot lately and I think it makes sense, right? Everyone in their career—and I see this a lot, it was for me as well at the beginning of my career—I never learned anything about power and influence in school. And I got in my job, and I was like, all we need to do is work hard because working hard and getting results, that worked in school, worked in sports, it worked. And I thought, "Hey, this is how it works." And then what you started seeing is the boss's friend gets a job, or the guy who made friends with the boss's nephew gets the promotion, or people who are less qualified and less technically advanced were getting the promotions, who were getting the advancements, and it wasn't happening. And I didn't really get it at the time. I was just like, "Hey, that's how it works." And especially now when I started learning about power and influence and I started working with leaders, I see the same thing across the board.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:01:46) And especially, I see it with technical leaders because we think that it's our engineering, it's our coding, it's our technical expertise that's going to get us to those higher levels because that's what we've learned. Right? And it's actually the inverse. Working hard is the biggest lie that we've ever been taught in our lives. It's just keep your head down, work hard, and the work will speak for itself. It's bullshit. And the GOLD method is really just how do we step out of just thinking about working hard and use some simple strategies that will help us. One is build power and influence, but that helps us get promoted, get raises, achieve our goals, and then also lead and influence people, whether we're trying to do digital transformation or anything with respect to change or getting people to follow you as a leader.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:52) Well, I'm excited. We're going to go into this GOLD method here. But last time we had you on the show, we ran some sort of contest where people emailed me, and that was fun. And then some of the people, you ended up engaging with and talking to—how did that go?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:03:10) Yeah. So it went well. I mean, I think we sent out, if I remember right, 12 books, and we had one winner. They got a—well, actually, we had, I guess, 12 winners. We had one person win a six-week engagement, and then I think I gave away 11 sessions, one each to each winner. And so, yeah, it's been cool. Everyone was really impressive people, and I did my best to help them on their journey.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:45) Are we going to do that again today? Are we doing something like that, similar?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:03:48) Yeah. I can't give away the six sessions this time. But I can give away 10 books and 10 sessions. I mean, obviously, if we go over one or two, we can definitely do that too. And then I have a free workbook for everyone.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:04) Okay. Last time we had them email me something. Are we going to—should they email me "gold"? Do you have something?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:04:10) Sure. Let's do that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:11) We can email you "gold." Email [email protected], "GOLD." The first 10—we're not going to let them go over. We're only going to give them to the first 10 people. We'll give books. What's the book that we're going to give them, Rob?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:04:23) Yeah. So the book's still Capitalizing on Chaos. We'll give you a copy of that, and then you'll get one session with me, and we'll work on whether you want to work on power and influence, mindset, how to achieve your goals, whatever it is, we'll make it happen.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:38) All right. Awesome. So let's go over this GOLD method. Let's just start at the beginning. G, what does this stand for?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:04:44) So the first part of this is your goal itself, and so that's the G. And so it's really being clear and defining what your goal is. And of course, it's really important because it's going to inform the rest of the strategy. But even something as simple as writing down your goal increases the probability that you achieve it by 43%. And if you take that goal and then you also share it with someone else in your life, you increase your probability of achieving it to 70%. So literally in five minutes, by writing it down and sharing it with one other person, you've dramatically increased the probability that you can achieve your goal. And so that as an exercise in itself is something that everybody listening should do.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:38) Now what—help me understand. Some people, they're just on autopilot. They're just cruising. They don't have specific goals. Is that the case?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:05:48) It's absolutely true. I've done this keynote for a few hundred people, and one of the ones, it was about a 50-person room, and I was like, "How many of you have a goal?" And maybe 10% of folks put their hand up. When I was working group sessions with Nokia, I was asking a lot of folks would say, like, "I didn't actually have a career goal. I just worked hard, and I just got opportunities, and I got promoted." And some other 1,400 or 1,500 tech executives, it was actually the reason why I built this worksheet was they said to me, like, "Rob, I've been working at this role"—and this person was a CFO of a department of 6,000 people at a Fortune 500 tech company. And he's like, "Rob, I've been working in this job for six years, and I've worked at this company for 20 years, and I've saved them $750 million. And I haven't been promoted in six years." And I was like, "Where—what job do you want? Have you told people about what job you want? Have you talked about the work that you've done that saved them all this money?" And he's like, "I don't believe in doing that." And that was where I had to go, like, "Okay. Well, we need a process." Because this guy's incredibly bright. He's incredibly effective. He's the dream person you would want to work for you at your company. Right? And you should be giving this guy as much money as he wants, so then he stays. Right? And so it's like, but we need a process to take this person from, "Hey, I have this goal through the mindset of I can't—I just have to let the work speak for itself," to, like, "What's the process that he can follow so he gets the result he wants?" And that's where this was born.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:50) Interesting. So what did he do?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:07:52) Yeah. I mean, the first thing was defining your goal. Right? So the first step is what job do you want? And for him, he had gone on this very much this journey where they talk about the Christmas tree. Right? It's like you switch departments, and you get promoted, and you go up the ladder. Right? And so part of the issue was the people above him didn't know what job he wanted because he had gone into sales. He'd gone into marketing. He had gone into IT. He had gone into technical support. And so his skill set was so broad that they weren't sure for him what the next step was. And so when jobs would open, they'd just naturally think of somebody else and not him because he hadn't defined it. And so that's where we started. It's like, "What is the goal? What is the job you're looking for?" Then we had to work on the mindset, which is the second part, which is O, which is overhaul outdated beliefs. And one of those beliefs is "I don't speak about the work that I do because it's bragging or it's cocky or I let the hard work speak for itself." And I'm not saying you have to stand up there and be like, "I'm the greatest employee in the world." Right? But it's things like making updates. It's like when you're saving people money, it's like, "Hey, you know, we made this shift, and this saved us this much money." And there's ways to do this that you can turn into a process, whether that's weekly updates, monthly updates. You can recognize people on your team. You can recognize people who did a good job. All of these things start to build that brand of you. And that's ultimately what you're trying to do is build a personal brand. So then when Joel's not in the room, what are they saying about Joel? And you want to be the person who wrote that. I want them to talk about me in this specific way, not Rob saying what he thinks about Joel.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:02) Yeah. When I started looking at myself like a video game character and realizing that I could kind of design myself, that was a lot of fun. It was way better than what I was doing. I kind of had this realization mid-twenties. And so I had a good, you know, from 15 to 23 timeframe where I was just kind of doing stuff and not really thinking about it at all. And then I realized, like, "Oh, you can intentionally design a life. You can be intentional about this and treat people well." Like, I always admired—I saw this, I met this one dude. He was so cool because he was so calm. He was so relaxed. He made you feel like you were the only person in the room. He was very successful in business. I was like, "Oh, I want to be that person."

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:10:47) You didn't meet that early.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:49) I didn't meet that. Rob with the joke. I had another guy who was a mentor of mine. Like, there was no official mentorship. I just consider him a mentor because I learned a lot watching him work. And he would do this thing, Rob. It was so great. So he would surround himself with really bright people, like really the best people he could find. And then he would, at company events where he would have them invite their families and stuff like that, he would say the nicest things about them. Like, for me, he'd be like, "Do you know Joel is the best?" He would tell my girlfriend at the time—or my, she's now my wife. He would say, "Do you know Joel's the best programmer in the entire world? Like, I've worked with so many of them." And I was pretty good, but I was definitely not the best in the world for sure. And he would say just nice things, but I asked him about it once. And he goes, "Well, what I do is I surround myself with really competent people so I can say nice things and I don't have to lie." And I said, "Oh, what a strategy." And then he just—I saw so many people get fired. I worked with him because he has zero tolerance for not great people. And then his thing was he got to speak so well of them to their family and make the—he would tell their kid—I didn't have kids at the time. He would tell the kids, he'd be like, "You know, your dad's the best, whatever." And I took that forward. So I started doing that myself, and I'll do that until I die.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:12:09) It's funny. Right? There's a great quote by Nick Saban, and he says that high achievers will not put up with people who aren't high achievers. And so if you want to create a very high-performing team, you have to get a bunch of high achievers together and put them on a mission. And from a mindset perspective, what you find is what we judge others on is actually the part of us—judges us—the most harshly about. And so when, you know, you feel that, like, "This person sucks at their job," or, you know, "This person, they made a spelling mistake on their email and I get mad at that," it's actually the inner critic of me that's mad at me if I make a mistake. And so those are just good signals for folks is if you notice yourself judging, it's a great place to dig.

(Joel Beasley at 00:13:11) Yeah. I've had to have talks with my inner critic. You know what I do to get that guy in line?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:13:16) What?

(Joel Beasley at 00:13:16) I remind him that we're all going to die. I was like, "Look, we don't get out of—we all die. Like, this is it. We have a limited number of days. Like, this, at one point in time, will be over." And that kind of—or I go outside and I lay in the grass and look at the sky, and I'm like, "I'm on a rock spinning around the sun," and just remind myself that this is life. And that kind of helps that inner critic a little bit. But he always gets out of control. I just got to reel him back in.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:13:47) Yeah. All of our parts are trying to help us. And so that's the biggest shift, and yet it's the hardest thing. And it's something for me, when I was really struggling with mental health and depression, was to look at the part of me that wanted to end my life and be like, "It's trying to help me. It just doesn't know a better way." And once you can find that curiosity and that compassion for that part of you, that's the switch.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:25) What's the L stand for?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:14:27) Leverage relationships. And the way I work with folks on this is who are the 10 people such that by building a relationship with them, they can help you achieve your goals. And they can be 10 names. Right? It could be like, "Hey, it's Joel. It's Josh. It's Rob." Or it can be an avatar of a person. "Hey, I want to meet a founder of an AI company that works in San Francisco and that works on this specific health care problem." Right? Because once you have that, then you can start building those relationships, and those people can help you achieve your goals. Example, I worked with an Olympic gold medalist, and she was one of those fringe people. She was a women's hockey player. And she was one of the fringe people on the team. And what she started doing was during that training camp or the selection camp, she really focused on building relationships with the coaches and with the senior folks on the team and getting their advice, taking their coaching, implementing it, really listening and digging in and being that person who's going to do the dirty work that everybody wants. And that ended up making her get picked for the team, and that ended up with her winning the gold medal. But had she just put her head down and worked hard and not really focused on the relationships, you know, she was one of four that could have been picked. And so who knows what would have happened? But people are the ones who help you, not just that you're a better coder or that your program's better or, you know, you deliver more results.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:23) I want to talk more about that because I had some early beliefs. And if I would have heard this earlier on, I'll tell you some of the excuses that I would have made. Okay? I would have said something like, "Oh, that feels kind of like salesy or networky, or I don't want to go do that. I'd feel bad." So that would be like—I would be against almost taking that advice because of that mindset. Now being on the other side of it, now what I've been able to see is, one, it's absolutely necessary. It just took a lot of frustration of me seeing other people have it and just saying, "Fine. This is just what has to be done." Two, I found out I could do it in a non-creepy way for lack of a better term. And the way I can do that is by following that advice. The guy's name was Robert, actually. The mentor I was telling you, where I go build that relationship with someone who I genuinely believe is competent. And then the third thing is that what's happening when—from the outside not having those relationships, you just imagine it's like a networky type thing. But what you realize is once you get in this volley back and forth of maybe a coachable situation or some sort of coworker situation where I'm doing something and coming through for you, and then we're collaborating. It creates a trust bond that no—so if you're looking at a set of 10 people and, you know, you've got five of them that you know are really good because they've got A ratings or whatever it is, and you know they meet all their checkmarks.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:56) But then you have another one who's like a B plus, but you have a trust bond with them. You're going to pick the trust bond over the smarter, quote unquote, choice because that's how humans work. I know if I write that check to that person that they're going to come through. These people, they have the credentials that I don't have the trust bond with them. So that girl, that's what she did.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:17) She created a trust bond. She implemented and showed the coaches she was coachable. And then when they had to pick, they're like, well, I'm going to pick the one I know is coachable.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:18:26) It's 100% right. Here are the choices, right? You can go to work every day. You can watch the less competent people around you get promoted.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:18:39) You can watch people get raises, and ultimately you can go home at night and feel that you're technically sound and feel like you are in the right. And yet you feel powerless to get results. You feel powerless to achieve your goals. You feel frustrated and angry that less competent people are taking your jobs from you. And you can sit there and go and get mad and yell at your pillow and scream and be frustrated.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:19:12) Or you can take action and choose to lean into the strategies that actually work. And exactly what you mentioned, Joel, it's not that people are—I mean, people are biased, right? If we were nonbiased robots, like, okay, maybe it would be different.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:19:33) But ultimately, people like people. People like people that they can trust, that they're friends with, that they know better, that they like. And those are the people who get jobs. Those are the people who get promoted. Those are the people that, like, I've had clients where someone made a job for them that was like the perfect nexus for them because of that relationship.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:19:58) They don't do that for an AI-generated resume when you post a job today. And you said it, you said it before we jumped on, was like, how many AI-generated emails do you get a day, right? Like the people who post a job now probably get like a thousand AI-generated resumes within a day. Of course, they're going to pick somebody that their friend recommended or that they know from college or they know from some group.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:20:28) That's just how the world works.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:31) Because I would rather pick somebody I know and I have a good bond with who can go find the more technically competent person and get it done rather than me trying to find the highly technical, highly social person and build that relationship for the first time. I see that happen all the time. People just give, they're like, look, I can't have this on my plate. Here's a budget.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:52) You go find the smart people because I trust you. And then that's how opportunity goes. Then it just keeps going down the chain. And it's their ability to attract the right people that I see as when I see them be successful. It's because all those things kind of line up.

(Joel Beasley at 00:21:08) Now I've seen people hand money to idiots, and idiots do stupid things with the money for sure. Absolutely. But I've also—

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:21:15) I've done a lot of dumb things with money.

(Joel Beasley at 00:21:18) I've done a lot of dumb things. I've made a lot of mistakes. It's actually one of the greatest features I have is I've done it wrong so much that I know how to do it right.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:21:27) And this is actually like, Joel, you see, this is part of some things that people talk about with power influences, like putting yourself in a position where people want to work with you. And that's what you've done with the show, right? As people outreach to you and go, hey, Joel, I want to be in a room with you. And that allows you, one, is to have a big network, but then also you have barriers to entry. And that allows you to curate. And now what you can start doing—and I mean, you would do this already—but it's like you can introduce folks to each other in your network, and that just builds, it basically builds your reputation, and it takes minimal work. And like, I do this all the time with my clients and people I know, is like I'm like, hey, you need to meet Joel. You need to meet this person. You need to meet this person. And it's like, it's so easy, but it shows, one, is that you care about the other person, and two, is it adds value to them. And that just keeps reinforcing this great cycle that everyone can win.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:36) Oh, I've realized that maybe like three or four years into the show when I just kind of did it a couple times, and then I wasn't really thinking about it. It was just happening. I wasn't intentional at all about it. And then I remember hearing, like, I followed back up with one of those—it was two brand name, home name brands, whatever. You would know them.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:57) And I'd introduced them to each other, and I didn't think much about it. And like a year or two later, I came back, and they had become pretty good friends. And they built that entire concept on, oh, we met through Joel. They both listened to the show. They both were on the show, and then they both met. And so now I have become like a key part of the narrative on their relationship. I was how they—I was their meet-cute story. And then I realized I can do that. I can introduce people to each other and then selfishly, because you always have to look at incentive, it makes me look good.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:32) If I introduce one really brilliant person to another, I get credit for that. And which is wild because I'm not really doing anything.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:23:42) It's funny, right? It's very simple. Like, none of this stuff is hard, right?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:23:49) But it's exactly what you do with your day to accomplish your goals, right? It's like block time for specific things. Be deliberate and write down your goal and write down those 10 people. And of course, folks, if you're listening, like, send Joel an email that says "gold," we will send you the Power and Influence Playbook.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:24:09) You can start doing it. But it's like, write these things down because once you've defined it, then it's easy to go out and execute. And then it's not this thing that I think about once in a while. It just becomes part of my time and what I do. And then the goals aren't, "I hope." It's "when are they arriving?"

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:33) Yeah. And also, there's some people like, I could find myself at one point where I had achieved a big goal, and I had nothing else backed up behind it. And then I just started to get depressed and become ineffective. And I realized after talking—I was talking to people about how I was feeling this way—and one of them pulled me aside, and they're like, what happened was you accomplished this big goal that took you a year or two that you were working towards. You had nothing lined up after, and now you're kind of aimless.

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:01) And I was like, oh, that's it. So now I always make sure that I have series of goals set up so that I can continue to go.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:25:11) So that's a classic high achiever response. This is real stuff. Now one thing I want to mention for folks, right, is we've all been there, right? You are like shooting for that promotion. You got it. Now you're like, now what? You're shooting for $10 million in revenue. You got it. Now what?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:25:33) You're shooting for, you know, getting married to your dream husband or wife, and you got it. And now what? Eventually, sometimes the goal is so big, there is no next step, right? And so this is where it's actually a transition.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:25:53) And where you need to start looking is looking inward and start defining yourself differently than somebody who achieves goals. And that's the pivot. And so it's starting to be like, what are my values? What brings purpose and meaning into my life? Where do I want to leave an impact as a person and as a legacy?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:26:17) And that's a switch from this external validation to internally validating yourself.

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:25) But don't those become goals anyways, like a goal to live with your—are they like unattainable goals? Like, unachievable? Like, I will continue to live the rest of my days living out my values. Is that the goal at that point? Like, how do you go goalless?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:26:40) It's not about going goalless. You still have goals. The change is when you're extrinsically motivated, so I'm motivated by something outside me. If I don't achieve that, I feel this, Rob is less than.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:01) Oh, okay.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:27:01) I feel this inner pain. And so this was me, and this is like, this is how I lived my life, was like the reason I got depressed was I was doing everything I could to succeed, and I needed somebody to be like, hey, Rob, you're doing a good job. And I needed that external reinforcement. And then when that was not possible, it was like, what's wrong with Rob? What's wrong with me?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:27:24) Now it's not that I don't work hard and try to achieve goals in these things. It's just like, if I'm following the process, I am internally validating myself that I'm living in alignment with what I believe is good and right. And it's like, if the goal happens tomorrow or it happens a year from now, I'm not getting really, what's wrong with me. It's just I know who I am, and I know where I'm going, and I'm going to get there.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:27:56) And if I don't get there, that's totally cool too because life has a range of outcomes.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:02) Oh, yeah. Yeah. I found that helps with, this is going to sound so lame, but it really helps with, like, when you have a goal and then you start getting down about yourself or you feel like you're less than. I just start listing—I took this from some motivational YouTube video—I just start listing things I'm grateful for. And I would tell you that the 23-year-old me would laugh at you for saying that. I'd be like, are you stupid? Like, what is that?

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:30) But now I'm just like, look, I've got a wife who loves me. I've got three kids. Like, when I go on stage and I'm like, you know, oh, there's 3,000 people here tonight. If I go screw up on stage, when I get home, my kids don't care. I'm still the hero. I walk through that door and they jump up and down and yell, "Daddy!" Like, they love me. It's going to be great if my wife doesn't care if I mess up. And so that kind of really helps me, like, put different things in perspective, that gratitude list.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:28:57) That's exactly why you want to have a broad life, right? So broad is like, you want to have professional goals and personal goals and spiritual goals and financial goals and community or friend goals, right? And I'm not saying like they're all going to be equally weighted or like they're all going to be equally distributed.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:29:21) But it's like, if you're only focused on one specific thing, if that doesn't work, then it's very catastrophic. But if you have a lot of things, then it's like, oh, well, that's not working as great as I can, but I have my wife. I have my kids. I have friends. I have community. I have God or whatever you believe in, right?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:29:38) The other thing, one thing is, is I've often found it very difficult to, especially when I'm in tough places, is to feel the gratitude. And so a trick for folks is sometimes—and then also like a lot of folks recommend affirmations as a thing. Like, hey, you just say to yourself, like, I'm successful.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:08) Yeah. Look in the mirror.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:30:10) Yeah. And then that little voice is like, you're a piece of shit, Rob. Like what a loser. Actually, this actually happened to me not that long ago. It was about probably a couple months ago. I met with a younger guy, he's running a nonprofit and he's just about to graduate college. And I was like, hey, like whatever. And he's like, you know, I love being part of this group because I can meet successful people like you. And like the part of him was like, if he only knew what a fucking loser you are. And I was like, oh, no.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:30:46) But one thing I have learned is, and this is real, affirmations, they don't always work because if you have that critic or you have a part of you that's like, something's wrong with you, it actually can make you feel worse, is you can stand in front of the mirror and say, hey, I'm successful. And he goes, no, you're not. And you're actually reinforcing the fact that you're not.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:31:11) The key is, is called a blended affirmation. And so it's adding something on the front, like, there has been a time in my life where I have felt successful. There has been a time in my life where I felt I was loved. And so adding that caveat at the front helps you feel it in the end. Now don't do this when you're catastrophically hurting.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:31:40) But if you write them down as a daily practice and like a gratitude thing in the morning where you write, you know, three to five things you're grateful for is incredibly great practice. But if you start doing that, that's what's going to really help. And then it'll also silence that voice of like, hey, you're not doing as best as you could be.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:01) Yeah. I've also found that if my voice is sucking, like it's not doing well, I can install like a new voice by listening to, I don't know, Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn, Tony Robbins. I just put them in my ears, and I let them essentially think for me. I always imagine it's like Avatar. Have you seen the Avatar movie where they like take their ponytail and they like connect into the animal?

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:24) I was like, yeah, I can connect into someone else, and I can let them think for me. And I can watch and observe how they're thinking because their mind is healthy and almost overwrite whatever software is in my head. And that's what I do. When I notice that my brain's getting a little wonky, I go to YouTube, and I pull up my favorite Jim Rohn playlist or Tony Robbins or Brian Tracy, whoever it may be. And I just start listening to them because I'm like, that's right. I need to think like this.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:32:53) It's not wrong, right? Is the—so like your conscious mind is basically an operating system. And you can perform a Windows update as shitty as they take two years to do, and you get that blue screen of death. And it's, you're, it's like, oh, I'll be done in five minutes. And then you're waiting two hours later for it to update. You can literally do a Windows update. And the way to start is looking for those moments where you're feeling those feelings. I feel mad. I feel frustrated.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:33:28) I feel sad. I feel depressed. I feel powerless. I feel like, anything that we would consider a bad feeling is those are moments where it's telling you that there's a place in your brain to update or at least to look in deeper and see, is this something that I want to believe, or is it something that I want to choose to believe something differently about myself? And that's that moment where you go from, I am just the computer running code, to I am the architect, and I am choosing what code my brain is running.

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:03) Absolutely. You can rewire it for sure. People actually can consciously rewire their brains. I can take my lame failure self and I can rewire my brain to achieve success. Like, I feel like I have figured out the system that will help me continually become like better.

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:24) It's working pretty well by my metrics of happiness and family and money and all of that. And so I'm like, right, this is working. Let's keep pushing the snowball down the hill.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:34:36) Pushing the snowball downhill is exactly it, right? Is the beginning, it feels like you're pushing it up the hill. And then there is that, there's the moment of realization or it's when you start seeing yourself differently, and then that's when you crest the hill, and then everything after that becomes easier.

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:57) Oh, I just like Freudian told you my truth. You're right. A lot of people I've heard people, they'll be at the point where they're talking about pushing it up the hill, and it's hard pushing it up the hill. It really is.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:35:11) The other part, right, is like the harder it feels, the more people want to fight it. And it's actually holds you back. And I'll give you an example, right? It's like when I was really struggling, I wanted—I would do anything to feel better.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:35:29) And so I was doing therapy three times a week, and I was like, I mean, if this is anything like sports, I trained seven days a week. I was doing two-a-days. Well, that means I can do the same thing and I'll get better faster. And actually, your body will regulate change.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:35:50) Your brain will regulate change. There's nothing you can do to accelerate it. I mean, there are some, you know, if you take psychedelics, your brain becomes neuroplastic. There's some things, right?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:36:01) But ultimately, you cannot jam through progress. And so that's why we call it wisdom, because wisdom is knowledge plus time. And so it is walking the path, but if you're taking those steps every day, that's ultimately when you turn around a year, five years, ten years later, you're gonna see how far you've come.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:26) And it's not, for me, it's not perfection. My goal is always to minimize the time between when I realize I'm screwing up and when I implement a fix. And it's happening all the time, constantly.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:40) I'm always like, oh, there I'm screwing up. Alright, now I gotta implement a fix. And so that, to me, has been the game. There's no perfection.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:47) There's no winning it. You die and then it's over. But there's no winning it. It's just like, okay, while I'm here, I have to notice when I'm screwing up and then implement a change as quickly as possible.

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:00) And you'll ask some people, Rob, just in normal life, people will tell you that they've been screwing up for years. And it's like, well, how about today you put the fix in place?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:37:11) That's the crazy thing about how your brain works. So this is why, last time I was on and we talked about that Find Your Reason work worksheet, your brain is designed to keep you safe and alive. Now, being safe is not the same as being happy. It's not the same as being successful. It's not the same as being even physically or mentally healthy.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:37:42) Safe just means I've done this thing before and I'm not dead. And so there are so many people, and I was one of them, stuck in a job you don't like, but you're not applying for another job. You're stuck in a relationship that's not fulfilling you, but you're not leaving it. You know, deep inside, if you tune in, you know what? One of my friends actually said this to me the other day.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:38:09) He had a fight with his girlfriend and they resolved it. And I was like, well, how's it going? He's like, oh, it's better, but I don't think this relationship's going anywhere. And I was like, well, what are you gonna do about it? And he's like, well, it's hard to break up.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:38:28) And I was like, you know the answer. Half of what I get people to do is I'm just like, tune in to what you already know and then do that. And the people listening, you already know what you need to do. You need to cut that person out of your life. You need to apply for that job or call that person or ask for something that you want. Get out of your own way.

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:56) It's almost like working with you, you give them permission to do what they already need to do. I'd say the only thing we gotta work on with you is your Windows references. We gotta bring you over to the Mac references.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:39:10) Yeah, the Windows 1995, the greatest OS of all time.

(Joel Beasley at 00:39:17) Oh my goodness. Alright, we gotta do D. What's D?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:39:20) D is discuss your goals endlessly. And the reason for this is when you discuss things, and this is true in leadership, right? If you're an executive at a company and you want people to start buying into your mission, you need to talk about it and write about it. And everything you need to do is continuously repeat it. And you're gonna be like, Rob, I've talked about it too much.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:39:50) And the time you know that you've talked about it enough is when someone comes to you and says your own idea back to you like it was their idea. That's the moment. Because in marketing, they talk about this. They call it the rule of seven, which is somebody needs to hear something seven times to take an action on it.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:40:12) And so as a leader, as somebody who wants these 10 people to help them achieve your goals, you need to say your personal brand statement, whatever you're trying to get them to tell the story about you. You need to continuously say this stuff and write it and be in front of people all the time because, honestly, most of the time they're not paying attention because they're thinking about themselves. And so, but once you start saying this endlessly, eventually someone's gonna come to you and be like, hey, Joel, you know what? I think you're interested in this job. What about it? Or, hey, Joel, if I remember right, you wanna meet founders in San Francisco that are in AI and healthcare? Well, actually, I know a guy. Do you want me to introduce you to him?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:41:04) Right? Like, that's what's gonna happen. But it just takes you getting, again, getting out of your own way and just talking about what you truly want.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:14) It's like we're little nodes on the network and we're broadcasting a signal. And anyone else who's listening to that port, they might have a resource that'll help us do it. But if you don't broadcast the signal, you're just another entry on the list of devices. You know? What's your — so because you brought this up, I have to ask you — what is one, I know you've probably got many in different sets of them, but what is one goal that you're currently discussing endlessly?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:41:41) My biggest goal is I wanna do 15 keynotes this year. And so I have a speaker agent. I've been talking about keynotes. I go on stages as much as I can. But that's my biggest goal for this year is really to get out in front of more folks and really spread what human-centric leadership is.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:03) Where are you at with that goal?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:42:06) Three so far. So if you're listening, folks, if you —

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:11) We're kind of coming. We could pull at least one.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:42:12) Get me going.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:14) Yeah. Do you guys like Rob's advice? Have him come speak to your team. Have him come speak to your group of people. We'll put his information in the show notes.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:22) Josh will get that taken care of. And then, of course, send the email if you wanna apply to meet Rob. If you wanna win the — we're not meeting with you, are we? Or they get the book.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:42:34) They get a book and a free session.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:36) The first 10 people will get a book and a free session. Yeah. Okay. Joel giving away too much?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:42:44) It's good. It's your community. They're great folks. What's your — what's your biggest goal you're talking about?

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:53) I've got many in different areas. You want, let's see, a fun one? You wanna do a fun one?

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:42:58) Well, one I could probably, or the listeners could help you with.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:01) Nah, they can't help me with this one. But maybe they can. Right now, a current goal of mine is to get 60 minutes of stand-up material. So I'm at 31.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:12) And I'm doing about four or five shows a week, anywhere from 500 to 2,500 people.

(Intro Narrator at 00:43:19) I love this.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:20) Yeah. Yeah. So I don't talk about it a lot on the podcast, but I started it. This week is my hundredth show. I'll be in Arkansas.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:27) Yeah. Last week I was in Ohio. And so, yeah, I'm opening for Jeff Allen. He's popular. He's got seven specials and over a billion views on Dry Bar Comedy. And so I'm his opener for his tour.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:43:44) Yeah. Dropping your tour dates below.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:48) Dude, I have, like, 80 upcoming tour dates. I haven't told people. This is actually, I think, one of the first, at least first, second, third time I've even mentioned this at any point in any episode, because I just wanted to get good.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:03) I was like, I need to just get good. And I'm at the point where I'm good, and the way that I — I have really low confidence in general, I'm really slow to confidence in general — but the way that I've been able to just say it just now is because opportunities keep coming to me. And people, if they think you're funny, they wanna introduce you to people that will help you. And so the comedians watching you, then they're like, oh, he's funny, and then they connect you, and then they connect you, and so these streams keep coming in. And we just found out today that we're gonna have Don McMillan on the podcast.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:41) I don't know if you've come across his humor at all? No. Oh, dude. He's a comedian engineer. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:48) He's been doing it for 20 years. He sells out theaters. He's huge. And boy, is he funny. But he's gonna be coming on the podcast in a couple weeks, so I was excited about that.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:45:00) Amazing. That's so fun. I always love hearing stories about that. I actually had a client who was an engineer who, we started working and that was one thing he wanted. He wasn't gonna transition jobs, but it was something he started doing on the side.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:45:16) And I love that. Yeah. It's so cool.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:20) Yeah. I wanna keep doing the podcast. I just, like, doing this during the day and then at night. Because the shows with Jeff are at either 4 p.m. or 7 p.m. They're not really late.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:33) I'm in bed by 10, and it's Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sundays, things like that. So I still have all of this other time to do stuff, and I love technology. So —

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:45:47) And then the other goal out there for the technical folks who can really help with this is Joel's spending too much money on his claw bot. So if you know how to reduce the expenditure, get in touch with us.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:03) Well, okay. So everyone listening, send the email, [email protected], subject "gold," and if you're the first 10 people, we're gonna send you the worksheet here to walk through this.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:46:20) Everyone will get the worksheet. So even if you're past 10, you'll get the worksheet. That's easy.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:26) We'll give the people past 10 the worksheet. Okay.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:46:29) And then the first 10 will get a copy of Capitalizing on Chaos and one session with me.

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:34) There you go. Alright. And Josh will make sure we kind of — we invent these giveaways when the show starts with Rob. That's been the running situation. And so Josh will make sure that we follow all the rules and everything gets listed out correctly. And Josh, can you also add it in the intro too? Somewhere in the intro.

(Intro Narrator at 00:46:53) Will know what's going on or else I've done my job wrong. So —

(Joel Beasley at 00:46:57) Okay. Yeah. Thank you for doing it. I appreciate it.

(Rob Kalwarowsky at 00:47:00) Thanks for having me.

(Joel Beasley at 00:47:01) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you would like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email, [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.