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Introduction: [00:00:00] Welcome to the#PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings, where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. And let's get this party started.

Russ Johns: [00:00:17] We have a seasoned veteran in the room. Pirate Eric is here. Eric, how are you doing my friend?

Eric Miller: [00:00:25] Super fantastic. How's that for an answer.

Russ Johns: [00:00:29] That's a good answer. Super fantastic. I always used to say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Eric Miller: [00:00:37] Now we're dating ourselves.

Russ Johns: [00:00:40] I'm okay with dating myself, I've earned these wrinkles and bumps. You've been working on several programs that I want to dive into some of the things that you're working on. Some of the activities you're focused on and some of the people you help and let's work backwards and talk about how you're helping others around you, because it's been an interesting ride for you in the last couple of years 2020 with COVID and all of the activities you've got going on and walk us through that process for us.

Eric Miller: [00:01:16] Yeah. Great. And again, thanks to being back on your show. I love chatting with you. So thank you. Yeah, 2020 to say the least was a disruptive year. And primarily we coach executives on premise. They'll come to my office or I to go on location to do leadership development workshops in all day events. So then 2020 happened. And we had to really look at how we're going to serve moving forward. So like with a lot of organizations we had to pivot. So I had been a course creator, few years back. I decided to go that route again. I created a lot of my work is in near linguistics programming with leaders and emotional intelligence to uptick emotional intelligence skills. So the one-on-one work is really translatable in the digital trends and digital platform. So we created a new mindset Academy. About that time, I was introduced to you and I was launching with a free course called abundance mindset in 12.2 minutes. And thank you for helping me with that effort. You're really a giver in the community  and well known for that.  By the time it's scaled, it's going to be subscription model. So we'll still do the one-on-one and in the workshops with corporations, but we're moving more towards a subscribed model where there'll be 30 courses when it's scale and not just me as an instructor. I'm going to have other instructors in the Academy as well, but on leadership development on mindset, change on sales, we're going to have sales courses in there as well.

Russ Johns: [00:03:08] And for those that have not created a course. There's 10,000 details in creating a course. There's a lot of, writing scripts, rewriting scripts, it's, what's the topics, what's the approach? How do you platform it? What do you put it on? Learning management systems, all of these details. And so congratulations for going through that process and forging ahead on a course cause it's not an easy process for a lot of people.

Eric Miller: [00:03:39] As you know that you've done yours too challenging us and it's the model is changing quite dramatically words becoming gamified. And we're going to be incorporating that into our future model as well, where appropriate, where we can do  the emotional intelligence types of exercises that we can gamify it to make it funner. But yeah, you're right. I had to go back to school to learn how to do the courses. I had to take a course to learn how to do a course.

Russ Johns: [00:04:05] Yeah. Taking a course to learn how to do a course. How meta is that?

Eric Miller: [00:04:09] Right. It's changed so much. The first one I created was I used another platform. That's now got a lot of competition to it, but that was one of the Kajabi is one of the very first ones I knew of back in 2016 ish. So it's not been that long ago, but it's changed so dramatically since 2016 on how content is delivered.

Russ Johns: [00:04:31] It's interesting to me. So what was the biggest challenge you had in the course creation process this last time?

Eric Miller: [00:04:40] Creating the models, the examples that are meaningful enough? Because when I'm one-on-one with someone I get to know them as a person and what they'll understand and relate to. So making the examples relatable enough to a broad audience of leaders. That was the biggest challenge in making sure that those were meaningful. And I think we've nailed it. The one that I wanted to talk to you about today recalibrate the uncommon success map because we're in the new year , that one's been doing well, but currently I'm creating another one called self-image reimagined. And that one is upticking, self-confidence, we've been through. The tough year and shattering those limiting beliefs that can be created as a result of going through traumatic and tough times.

Russ Johns: [00:05:31] It's interesting to me to, and this is really important conversation we're having, because Eric has gone through, and if you're familiar with NLP and  the language that you can use to inspire and encourage and motivate people to do great work,  NLP is at the core some of those practices of being able to distinguish how you use language in your sales process, in your demonstration and your coaching and your speaking, a lot of that comes into play. And taking that and transferring it into a course where it's available to many people all at the same time, it's a much different process than having a one-on-one coaching session. So even the language has to be a little modified.

Eric Miller: [00:06:33] For sure. And, NLP is a diagnostic tool. It's the math is not the territory. So we have a map of how to work with someone and using modalities different modalities to help them repattern behave, thoughts and speech. So those are incredibly powerful. I was exposed to it going through recovery from trauma issues and PTSD back in the nineties, Tony Robbins, I was introduced to it for the first time and intrigued me so much. And within a few sessions I was transformed and that word is used a lot. It's become a cliche, but I can tell you that the issues I had been carrying along with me for years went away and I thought this can be used because  entrepreneurs when someone's fantastic, it's usually at the expense of something else. You have a legendary athlete and he's recovered then tasked he's a winner, the champion. So he's just come back in the last couple of years, as I'm sure you see these examples all the time of leaders that are fantastic at one particular area, but the emotional intelligence is not to the point where it's disruptive in other parts.

Russ Johns: [00:07:46] Oh, I've spent years working on myself, and I think we have to continue to work on ourselves. We're all in different phases, in different places in our life. And I don't believe that there's anyone that's perfect and we can always improve in different areas. There's things that we can have in courses like what you're providing and what you're delivering are so important and so critical for those that are in that place where they want to be able to make a change in their world, take something and apply it. And, the analogy I use Eric is always, life is like an instrument. We just have to continue practicing at it until we get it right.  And the reality is we have an opportunity to learn something. So talk a little bit about what the course, this current course delivers and what the outcomes could potentially be for someone that takes this course.

Eric Miller: [00:08:59] Yeah. Great. So I'm involved in a mastermind and I'm on social quite a bit and of course coaching the combination of those three. Last year I was hearing the chatter about what do we do in this uncertainty? No one knows how to go through a pandemic, like what we've been experiencing and we're doing it for the very first time, all of us. So how do we lead people when we aren't certain about the future and about what to do. So recalibrate is about first of all beliefs, shattering, limiting beliefs, if you want it, of course I'm writing or writing right now is about values. So the two of those things is what governs our lives. So the beliefs part I started with first, because it was in demand for how do we set proper goals? How do we find direction? Because the next best thing to having certainty as a leader is to have clarity. And we ourselves, as leaders need to have that clarity internally before we can lead others to help them have clarity on what to do next. And that's what it is in leading. It's what, knowing what to do next and helping others do those things that we're not great at. So we're tapping into them to run our organizations.  Recalibrate is about, first of all, going through some exercises to question beliefs. There could be limiting performance, so it could be related to confidence. It could be related to self-esteem those types of confidence. Self-esteem those two go together, of course, but it could be on, how do we collaborate? So perhaps the leader's been through situations where collaboration has not been a priority, but collaboration and I've experienced this, I think you have too recently in the last year, I should say, that collaborating is huge because collective minds together can solve a lot of problems. So that's what we tackle. The first part of the course recalibrate the uncommon success map is first finding a belief to question and then do the exercises. We shattered that belief and then reframe the belief to something greater, optimize it, and then go through the process of setting goals.

Russ Johns: [00:11:13] The one thing that I want to tag on to something and amplify this a little bit, reframe your belief. Identifying a belief that you may not even recognize that is a limiting belief and it could be an adjustment in the way you see it. One of the things that I've been spending a lot of time on right now is this idea that my value is associated with my experience and not necessarily with the time I can spend on a task, from an entrepreneur's journey. The value that I bring to the table is the experience I've had over the years to be able to apply different tactics and techniques and different strategies to a solve a solution. It's not necessarily that I can work on it for eight hours.  It's not that I could outwork you cause we all have the same 24 hours. It's not associated with an employee's mindset of this is how much I'm worth per hour. It's more about if I solve a problem, if I solve a big problem is incredibly valuable to your organization that holds a lot of value, even if it's just knowing which lever to pull or which sentence to say, or  what magic words to put in your marketing program. And I think removing the association, my historical association with earnings and money. And that's a huge one for a lot of people. Is that something that your program is going to talk about and reframe for people? Because that seems to be a big struggle for a lot of people and I'm not alone in that struggle.

Eric Miller: [00:13:09] And I admire you for the work that you do because you, your life experiences are what people relate to. And so I'm a believer that there's nothing new under the sun. I just did  an article  last week we talked about Socrates and questioning, right? The five layers of questioning you asking the why five times and that why is so important. So that's been going on for generations and people like me repackage it in different ways, right? So then it comes into, what is the why am I doing it and how, what matters the most in what I'm doing today to, fulfill that why? And then having that in front of me. So I've got on  whiteboard over here. My why and why I'm doing this. And throughout the day I meditate, I'm a meditator. And I visualize on that. Why? Because quite frankly, it's been a challenging year for bringing in. New revenue. We've been blessed with being able to survive this, but when those challenging times come, you really have to go back to the reason why it is, and then prioritize from there.  So you're working backwards in that for you, for example, is figuring out those activities that are going to be able to boldly express, your purpose out there. And you do a great job at that and with what you do with #smilesarefree, I love that whole...

Russ Johns: [00:14:33] #kindnessiscool and # smilesarefree

Eric Miller: [00:14:35] love that, and your boldly expressing your purpose out there. And that to me, then everything goes backwards. We were talking before the show about your growth for 2021. That's super exciting in what you're doing. And I think you probably did these things, right? You discover your why you're doing it. So that's what recalibrate does as well. So recalibrated reached out to those beliefs, reframe perceptions about what we can do, and then dig into the why

Russ Johns: [00:15:02] I want to talk about why part of my, why has always been, I want to make sure that people have a voice. They have an opportunity to speak up and be heard. And Jorge from Spain is back in the room. Thank you so much for being here all the way from Spain. Michael Baker is an amazing supporter of the #PirateBroadcast™. And Michael, we need to connect in the afternoon. I know you're in Florida, so I'll reach out and make a connection. Jenny Gold is in the house. Jenny. She sent me some amazing products from a company recently, hemp based products, which is  a growing, expanding industry. Jenny's going to be a pirate here in the future. And I just love what she's doing and all of the energy she brings to the roo m . Michael Baker also says skills have to be developed to reach your potential. And you say a lot of things here, Michael. And if you're in the comments, timeout, Michael's over on YouTube. And for anyone that knows YouTube is a place where you can get notified LinkedIn, you get notified. If you happen to be on LinkedIn at the time you get a notification, there's a lot of ways. YouTube is really a great place to get notified. You can go to the channel, you can get notified. You can put that up out there. Michael's in from a YouTube silver Fox Darleen. Hi morning, checking in. Hello. All pirates she's in from Florida as well. Love that you're here. Michael Baker also says, prioritize your priorities, focus on the process to get results. And I want to speak to that a little bit, Eric, and have us  go  in a  different direction because you mentioned the idea of have the why in mind. And a lot of people struggle actually with finding out, they have a kind of a, an area direction they feel like it's important. For myself I think it's really important for myself. This is my why is I want the freedom to do think and have the space that I can actually do deep thinking and a lot of creative process in my world. And when you're so busy being busy, It takes away from that. And a lot of times what entrepreneurs do when they first start out is they're so busy because they're wearing all these hats. They're doing all these things because they don't have the revenue. They can't delegate. So my mantra for 2020 was document and delegate. And now this is this year, I'm delegating and opening up that space and allowing myself to actually grow because for 10 years, I was telling myself this story of I'm just going to create a few websites. I'm going to do some marketing for a couple of companies. I don't want to be in the corporate world. I don't want to build a company now. It's to the point where it's like, Hey, if I create something amazing, I can help a lot of people for the next five years. And then, shifted my focus in and step out of the business and then allow that business to continue to run and operate without me having to do everything. And my why is around this idea that when I'm freed up I can create amazing things for other people and do some other things that are of interest to me. And so just taking care of my family, making sure everybody's okay. Taking care of, what  expenses are necessary. I'm a minimalist And and then just moving forward in that direction and helping as many people as possible. So my goal is a hundred shows every month, recurring. Boom.

Eric Miller: [00:19:10] Yeah. Awesome.

Russ Johns: [00:19:11] So to manifest that and go back and work backwards, it took me a while to get to that point where I could commit to that statement and actually make it real. And so how do you...let me ask it a different way is what tools or what process can we use to get clear on our, why?

Eric Miller: [00:19:39] It has to be in the forefront because I wrote an article on Sunday is entitled how to take back control of your life. And it's a tickler. So it's a way it's a clickbait title, because most of the time can't control anything. We can control our actions.

Russ Johns: [00:20:00] We control our response to what happens to us.

Eric Miller: [00:20:03] There you go. And that's in the article I talk about find the hidden treasures in the disruption. So when you're having problems, in goal setting I talk about and recalibrate is to measure and pivot. Measure and pivot if need be. Because if you stay on the same path, if you're setting smaller goals, you had this big audacious goal, like what, you've got a hundred broadcasts and, in getting there, there's a lot of smaller things you got to accomplish to hit that goal.  So if something happens with your channel, then you got to pivot, find a new channel. So at some point when things are imploding, but then an organization where, cause everything, when you have something new. A lot of things are untested. And in going after as an entrepreneur or create a new product or growing a company when you're incorporating new business systems in that process, things are going to be untested. So you have to go back and measure it. So I've found over the...we're in our 11th year of coaching or in my practice 11th year. And I found that a lot of times entrepreneurs give up on their goals when these things happen. So the article I wrote on Sunday was to address that. So find the hidden treasures and the disruption and then pivot from there and be able to measure your results. Not necessarily focusing on the short-term goal outcome, because actually let me reframe that you want to focus on the short-term goal outcome, just make sure it's working, but you want to really be focused on the big picture to get there. If you have a goal that you know is a short-term goal, you can change that goal to get to the ultimate goal. Does that make sense?

Russ Johns: [00:21:42] Absolutely.

Eric Miller: [00:21:44] So finding the hidden treasures and last year we found quite a few because it can be easy to ... there's a lot of people unemployed. Is easy to get stuck in that rut. There's nothing I can do to get through this. And there's a lot by taking a course, for example, but that's one of the things you can do is to uptick your skills. Someone said just on your chat there, uptick your skills to learn how to move forward.

Russ Johns: [00:22:13] Absolutely. And then Michael says here, yes. As coaches, we have to help others see things  for themselves  so they become aware no matter what they may be. And it's really, and I've said this on the show so many times Eric is that in every obstacle, there is an opportunity because if it's a challenge for someone and you can provide a solution to that challenge, that's an opportunity. So don't look at challenges as from a victim's perspective. Look at it from a helper's perspective, look at it from how can I help solve this problem? How can I initiate a plan of action to remove this obstacle from our path? Some of those things and thinking differently and doing differently you'll end up being different and learning, constantly learning is a great way to start.

Eric Miller: [00:23:25] I view it as an adventure. Hey, I went down this road for a short way and measure the results. It didn't work. So I need to change roads, change, routes to get to where I want to go.  It's that adventure mindset in, in me. I love the adventure.

Russ Johns: [00:23:40] Yeah, treat it like an adventure. I love that. Angie says good morning pirates. Love that you're here. Love you. Angie thank you so much. She says the #PirateSyndicate™ helps so many people. Tracie is the producer of the show, Eric, and she helps. She's a tremendous asset and value to the show and the #PirateSyndicate™, building steam. I got a lot of live events that I'm doing right now. I've got clients, I'm doing all of the OGGN oil, gas. They have a million downloads on their podcast, and they're just doing a lot of live streams with lots of large sponsors and all of these activities are building  muscle and building solutions and building, practicing outcomes for, how to do this process, how to help more people. And all of these things are leading in that direction because I set an intention of the goal and had a why. And it's so amazing that. .. and I say the universe is conspiring to help me, cause I'm very clear on what I need to do. I don't know the, how, I don't know everything along the way that's going to take place in order to accomplish this goal. I just know that I'm moving in that direction. I'm learning every day, I'm taking courses, I'm teaching courses, I'm creating courses and helping people along. And it's amazing to think that's all you need to do. Just do the work. There's no shortcuts. There's no magic dust. There's no snap your fingers and it's going to be there.

Eric Miller: [00:25:25] I would add to that. I'm a recovering pessimist and I, for me, I've got to really watch my attitude. So I get that stinking thinking they can pop up out of nowhere during the day. I got to monitor that, and I do. And It works. Yeah, I'd add to that for a person like me. It's a recovering pessimist, but the mindset's happening. What's going on with that?

Russ Johns: [00:25:51] Yeah the optimist is always disappointed and the pessimist is always surprised, right? I'm going to just keep swinging. I've been kicked down so many times. It's like almost like exercise now,

Eric Miller: [00:26:07] Les Brown. I got to meet him several years ago. He's a great guy. And one of his favorite sayings of his is as long as I can look up, I can get up. So it's fantastic. He's still out there doing his thing. It's amazing.

Russ Johns: [00:26:22] Yeah.  And that's my goal is I just want to continue, retirement is not in my vocabulary. I love what I do. I love who I help. I love helping others and finding a way that we can do this is great work. And thank you so much for doing this. Tell us before we take off, Eric. How do people access your courses , your course that you have right now. And I know that you wanted to share a a little bit of an opportunity with people.

Eric Miller: [00:26:51] Yeah. Thank you. Could you put up on the screen, mysuccessblueprint.us Is that possible to do? Yeah. Okay. So that's where they go to get it. Mysuccessblueprint.us. For your viewers, I'll offer a coupon for a hundred dollars off the course that can be the DYI or the DYI plus called the gold or the platinum. So it's a hundred dollars off either  one of those and the coupon code is 100OFF.

Russ Johns: [00:27:29] Is that it, mysuccessblueprint.us?

Eric Miller: [00:27:33] So the coupon code is 100OFF. It's all capped and they can get a coupon that expires tomorrow night. So put a sense of urgency on that, maybe I should have done it just for today, but give a little bit extra time, a hundred dollars off.

Russ Johns: [00:27:51] The reality is that we're bringing an opportunity to the world. Who sees it, how they see it when they see it, the timing may not necessarily be there. However, Eric you're always creating great stuff. Great content. And thank you for coming back. And I know that this is an opportunity that people can change their direction. They can change the way they see things. They can change their future by learning something new, doing something different. And taking action and actually doing the work. So thank you so much for sharing this with us today.

Eric Miller: [00:28:29] Thank you again for having me. I love being on your show.

Russ Johns: [00:28:31] Yeah. And also everyone I'm talking to you now go subscribe to my YouTube channel. In 2021, I'm continuing to work on the YouTube channel. You can get notified for all of the shows and we're actually on Twitch now. We're doing Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, all of the primary socials. And you can download the podcast. I'm even on Pandora. I don't know if you listen to Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio, where all fine podcasts are sold. So just reach out, grab this information. Give it a listen, review it five stars. That'd be great. I'd love that you would review it.  Support the pirate community. A lot of great people like Eric coming on board, sharing their information, doing the work, helping others. And I just want to make sure that everybody has a great day and continues to grow with the opportunities that are out there. So any last parting words of wisdom.

Eric Miller: [00:29:42] Pay it forward. I think that's what you do very well. And it's a good example in what we're experiencing now, what we have been experiencing for the past year, as, being willing to help out. That's what you do so well. So I think that's a great role model you to have to pay it forward for others.

Russ Johns: [00:30:03] Kate O'Hara joined us. Good morning. Love your goals and practicing message. Never heard of the #PirateBroadcast™. Please come on our global hemp platform to discuss industrial hemp and how to reach our farmers. Connect with me, track me down on LinkedIn. DMEK happy to connect and have a conversation as always everyone #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree and you #enjoytheday. Thanks Eric. Appreciate you.

Eric Miller: [00:30:37] Thanks.

Russ Johns: [00:30:38] Everyone. #Enjoyyourday.

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