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Join Brian and Bernie Maloney as they explore the transformative power of mental models, emphasizing the shift from a mechanistic to an organic mindset in Agile organizations. Overview In this episode, Brian and Bernie Maloney discuss the profound impact of mental models on organizational culture. Bernie delves into how our beliefs and assumptions shape our thinking and behavior, particularly within Agile environments. He discusses the importance of transitioning from a mechanistic to an organic mindset, focusing on problem-solving rather than merely delivering solutions. The conversation also highlights the role of psychological safety in fostering a culture of experimentation and learning. Bernie shares valuable resources, including Amy Edmondson's 'The Right Kind of Wrong,' to further explore these concepts. Tune in for insightful strategies for enhancing your organization's agility and effectiveness. Listen Now to Discover: [1:03] - Brian welcomes Certified Scrum Trainer® and Principal at Power By Teams, Bernie Maloney, to the show. [2:15] - Bernie delves into the concept of mental models, sharing the origins of his philosophy of "making new mistakes" developed during his time at Hewlett Packard. [5:55] - Bernie illustrates the power of mental models and belief by sharing a compelling example that brings these concepts to life. [13:46] - Join us for a Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training, where a year of coaching and development with Mike Cohn, Brian, and the Agile Mentors Community of Agile leaders is included with your training. [14:39] - Bernie discusses how applying mental models can enhance the effectiveness of Agile transformations, creating a naturally adaptive and innovative climate. [18:12] - Bernie offers language as a powerful tool to support the shift to a new Mental Model. [23:30] - Bernie demonstrates the use of mental models for product owners through the Mobius Loop, providing actionable guidance and examples [26:27] - Brian shares a big thank you to Bernie for joining him on the show. [26:59] - If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend, and like and subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast so you never miss a new episode. [27:27] - If you’d like to continue this discussion, join the Agile Mentors Community. You get a year of free membership to that site by taking any class with Mountain Goat Software, such as CSM, CSPO, or Mike Cohn’s Better User Stories Course. We'd love to see you in one of Mountain Goat Software's classes. You can find the schedule here. References and resources mentioned in the show: Bernie Maloney Power By Teams Mobius Loop The Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well by Amy Edmondson Agile Teams Learn From Spikes: Time Boxed Research Activities by Mike Cohn Certified Scrum Product Owner® Training Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Mike Cohn’s Better User Stories Course Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Join the Agile Mentors Community Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Bernie Maloney is an Agile leadership coach and international speaker, leverages his 25 years of engineering and leadership experience to help teams and organizations unlock their full potential. Known for his engaging workshops and impactful coaching, Bernie believes in making performance breakthroughs both achievable and enjoyable. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We are back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I am with you as always, Brian Milner. And today I have a very special guest with me. I have Mr. Bernie Maloney with me. Welcome in, Bernie. I am. Bernie Maloney (00:14) Thanks, Brian. Happy to be here. Brian (00:16) Great. I'm so excited to have Bernie here. Bernie and I have touched base for years over conferences. We've run into each other and had chats and shared our shared passion for Hawaii and other things. But Bernie was speaking at the recent conference and we've gotten into some conversations. I wanted him to come on because I wanted him to, first of all, if you're not familiar with Bernie, sorry, I see, I just want to jump right into it. If you're not familiar with Bernie, Bernie is a CST. He works at a company called Powered by Teams. He teaches classes, Scrum Master product owner classes and leadership classes and other things as well. But he is a principal at Powered by Teams. So just wanted to give you the basics there before we dive into anything. But the topic that we started to talk about that just as a jumping off place for us is a topic. the topic of mental models. So Bernie, why don't you explain to everyone how you define that, mental models. Bernie Maloney (01:23) So, Brian, this is a great topic. I find myself talking about it all the time. And y 'all, I warned Brian, like, he can press play on this, and it might be 15 minutes before he gets a word in edgewise here. It touches on mindset. It touches on a lot of topics. My talk that Brian was referencing at the recent Scrum gathering in New Orleans was make new mistakes, leadership lessons from an Agile success. which goes back to where I really kind of cut my teeth in Agile at Hewlett Packard. See, I'm a mechanical engineer by training. And I cut my teeth in Agile in the consumer PC division at HP about, this is scary to say y 'all, okay, about 27 years ago starting at this point. And some of the fun stuff, it was a bang up enterprise. It was the fastest business in HP's history to hit a billion dollars. And it was just... Brian (02:05) Yeah. Bernie Maloney (02:18) a great proving ground. We had hardware, we had software, we had distributed teams where volume manufacturing was in Asia, engineering was here where I am in Silicon Valley. Go -to -market for Europe was in Grenoble, France. We had high volume. Some of our products had 100 ,000 units in a single model run, with like 200 models in Europe on a quarterly basis at times. So high volume, high mix, tight margins from a business perspective. A lot of technology products want to have 20 % to 30 % gross margins. That's before you start taking off deductions like expenses and salaries and things like that. On a good day, we had 8 % gross margins for Christmas products, maybe 2 % gross margins. We used to refer to it as we were shipping rotting bananas. And like I said, I was there. When I started, we were shipping six products a quarter. We grew to 20. By the time I left after eight years, we were doing 200 products a quarter in Europe alone. Brian (03:04) Ha ha. Bernie Maloney (03:16) hardware, software, distributed teams, high volume, high mix. And we did all that with weekly iterations of a plan. At one point in my career, I was tactically responsible for the delivery of 2 % of HP's top line revenue with zero direct reports. And part of the secret sauce of success in that organization was really that mental model of make new mistakes. So that's where the talk title comes from. And in fact, makenewmistakes .com will point to poweredbyteams .com because I own that domain too. But that mental model really helped the organization thrive and not just survive. We went from like a number one to a number five share. Sorry, from a number five to a number one the other way around. Because the founding executives recognized that in that tide of a market, mistakes were probably going to happen. And so what they did is they established the psychological safety. Wow, look, there's another great topic. Make new mistakes. You knew that if it was an honest mistake, it would be forgiven. Just don't make it again. Get the lesson is one of the things that they said. I can even tell you the story about the weekend I blew a million dollars of HP's money and I was forgiven, but you'll have to come to a conference talk for that. So that was just like a great experience. And... Brian (04:32) Wow. Bernie Maloney (04:39) After that experience, I went on to TVs. Another part of my background is I shipped the very first internet connected TVs. Look it up, the Media Smart 3760 from HP. It shipped even before Apple TV. It bombed. Okay, it was way ahead of its time. But I recognized that that had been such a joyride. And then I recognized some other stuff that really gets into the psychological, the mental aspects of leadership, high performing teams. And I could, Brian, I could talk about that too, but okay. But that kind of got me to recognize that with those skills, the success that I had experienced at HP could probably be replicated. That's kind of been the path that I've been on for the past 15 years is really helping organizations go along that path. So mental models can be really big. Let me give everybody here an example. And so Brian, I'm going to speak to you as a way of illustrating mental models. So imagine you are physically where you are right now. Brian (05:24) Yeah. Bernie Maloney (05:37) but it is 150 years ago, okay? Imagine you're physically where you are right now, but it's 150 years ago. Now, Brian, let me ask you, can man fly? Brian (05:47) boy, you're testing my history knowledge. Bernie Maloney (05:52) Okay, make it 200 years ago, okay? That makes it easier. Okay, cool. Great, now fast forward to the present. Brian, let me ask you, can man fly? Brian (05:54) No, yeah, no. Yes. Bernie Maloney (06:02) What changed? Nothing about the laws of physical reality. It was just your mental model of what for man to fly means. That's the power of belief, okay? And belief limits a whole bunch of stuff in the way that people behave. So you'll hear Agilent talk all the time about, this is all about changing mindset. I'm probably, Brian, gonna give your listeners some ways of. Brian (06:06) invention. Bernie Maloney (06:30) changing mindset as we go through this, but that's going to illustrate the power of mental models. Now, a big one that I like to use that's specific to Agile comes from Gabby Benefield. She's an Agilist out of the UK, and it's called the Mobius Loop. And I think she's got the domain mobiusloop .com. So everybody can imagine a Mobius Loop. Okay. And what I really like about this model for her... Brian (06:32) Sure, yeah, please. Yeah. Bernie Maloney (06:56) i s the right -hand half is what a lot of organizations think Agile is. Build, measure, learn, build, measure, learn. The whole idea of the build trap that we talk about in Agile. It's all about the delivery of a solution. Okay? But the left -hand half is all about the discovery of the problem. Okay? And the discovery of the customer. And that's a part of Agile too that most organizations overlook. So you got to ask why. And it comes down to kind of mental models. So when I was at Persistent, if you go look me up on LinkedIn, you'll find some of my employment history. I was at Persistent for a while. They had a really good mental model. And it's something I still use when I go into a client. And they would talk about there's kind of three eras of a company culture. And so culture is really the environment that an organization lives within. And there's an era. where cultures were formed before the internet. So things like finance and government and mining and manufacturing and oil and gas field developed. I mean, I've had clients in all of these areas. And in that sort of an environment, okay, it was, well, an era. One of the things I'll ask, and Brian, I'll kind of like let you represent the audience. Would you say in general, the people that you work with, the markets that they serve, Are they moving faster and all up into a thumbs up, slower, thumbs down, or about the same, thumbs sideways? Are the markets moving faster, slower, or about the same as they were, say, five or 10 years ago? Brian (08:32) I think everything's moving faster, yeah. Bernie Maloney (08:34) Cool. Okay. Now, how about the technology that your clients use to solve problems for that market? You know, moving faster, thumbs up, slower, thumbs down, or about the same as it was, say, five or 10 years ago. Faster. Yeah, cool. Okay. Now, when things are moving faster, thumbs up for yes, thumbs down for no. Do they always move in a straight line? Brian (08:46) No, faster. No, not always. Bernie Maloney (08:56) Okay, cool. So now things are moving faster, but they're not moving in a straight line. So let me ask you, do most organizations try and plan and predict? Is it possible for you to plan and predict when things are moving faster and they're not moving in a straight line? Is it easier or harder to plan and predict? Brian (09:19) I think it's definitely harder. Bernie Maloney (09:21) Yeah, but organizations are trying to do that, aren't they? And it's because their mental model is as a machine. So organizations born before the internet have a mental model of the entire organizational system being a machine, the industrial age, which you can plan and predict. They treat people like cogs in a machine. In fact, the thing that us Agilists will say is, when you say resources, did you mean people? See, that's... Brian (09:35) Yeah. Bernie Maloney (09:50) That's kind of now we're starting to get into some of the culture aspects of this because language actually forms culture. And so you'll hear Angela say, did you mean people? Like when that whole word of resources comes up. But organizations born before the internet, they've got one culture. Okay, they were born in an era of plan and predict. They've got a mental model of the system being a machine. And your listeners would probably agree most of them struggle with Agile. Okay, now there's another era born in the internet but not the cloud. So some examples like here in Silicon Valley, Cisco, PayPal, okay, lots of us have had exposure to them and lots of us recognize they still struggle with agile because agile wasn't really fully formed and articulated. Then there are organizations that were born in the cloud and so places like Striper Square and I use payments because I've had... clients in finance across all three of these eras. So Stripe or Square, they were born in the cloud where things were almost natively agile because the Agile Manifesto had been published by that point. They just inherently get agile. So these mental models of your organizational system being a machine get reflected in the language. So things like people or resources, it turns them into objects. It enables something I've heard called pencil management. Wear them down to a nub, go get a new one. In fact, if you do the research on where the word resources was first applied to human beings, it might shock some people. So I don't talk about that openly. They'll have to find me privately. I'll be happy to point you out the reference. And once I do, it's like, ooh. But one of the jokes I'll crack. And this is one of the ways that you can start to shift the language. If people call you resources, because you know that turns you into an object, start calling them overhead. Brian (11:23) Yeah. Ha ha ha. Bernie Maloney (11:48) Okay, it can kind of make the difference there. Okay, so, but you know, if things are moving faster and they're harder to plan and predict, that mental model needs to shift. In fact, in agile, we talk about you need to move to sense and respond. When things are moving faster, it's kind of like Gretzky, skate to where the puck is going. You need to sense and respond to the situation. So a better mental model instead of a mechanism is an organism. Because think about organisms, like cut yourself, it heals, okay? It senses and responds. Or like a forest fire comes in, wipes things out, and nature always kind of fills things back in. Sense and respond. This gets reflected in the language. So Brian, do your clients talk about metrics? Brian (12:37) Of course, yes. Bernie Maloney (12:38) Okay, cool. So do they talk about efficiency? Brian (12:41) I would say a lot of businesses will talk about that. Yeah, sure. Bernie Maloney (12:44) Yeah, cool. That's the language of machines. Probably better language is diagnostics instead of metrics. That invokes some of the curiosity. And probably instead of efficiency is effectiveness. One of the things I'll say is scrum is not efficient. It's not about utilization of capacity. It's about the production of value, which is all about effectiveness. See, efficiency or effective. Do you go to your doctor for an efficient treatment? or ineffective treatment, Brian. Brian (13:16) Effective, hopefully. Bernie Maloney (13:17) Awesome. Do you go for blood metrics or blood diagnostics? Brian (13:21) Yeah, diagnostics for sure. Bernie Maloney (13:23) Yeah, so now you're starting to get some hints about how you can start to shift the mental model. What you're really doing with Agile, y 'all, is you're shifting the culture, and culture is hard because it's not visible. The tools, the processes, the practices that folks like Brian and I will teach and coach, they're super visible, they're super valuable, but they're often not enough to start to change things. So, Brian, would you say most of your listeners are familiar? familiar with the language of Tuchman of forming, storming, norming, and performing. Brian (13:56) I'd say there's probably a good percentage, yeah. Bernie Maloney (13:58) Cool. I actually like to draw a Satir curve. So Bruce Tuckman, Virginia Satir, they were contemporaries. They were both just researching human systems. So Virginia did a performance axis on the vertical and a time axis on the horizontal. And the way Virginia described it is you're kind of going along in a certain status quo. And so you're kind of along that baseline. And then a foreign element enters and some change. And then you descend into chaos. And you can't see it. like your performance goes down until you have a transformative idea and then through some practice and integration, you rise to a new status quo. This happens to people all the time when they introduce changes in their life like New Year's resolutions. I'm going to get fit and healthy this year. You know, it's a beach body time. And you start doing it and it's like, this is so hard. You're in chaos. And what human beings want to do is they want to go back to the way things were instead of moving through. OK, this happens when you introduce agile into your organization. You'll hear Agilist talk about this as the Agile antibodies. You introduce it, this is so hard, and people want to go back to the way things were instead of kind of moving through. So the tools, the processes, the practices, they're really good, but they're not powerful enough. You got to start changing the culture. Culture is like what we all swim in, but climate is something that you can start to affect. So climate is a little bit closer in to your team, and you can start talking about these mental models. Like when I was at TiVo, I was hired into TiVo to bring Agile in because I had shipped TVs, I knew about Agile. And I was hired in on, I think I can say this now because we're more than a decade past. Have you all ever streamed anything? Yeah, okay. So TiVo was working on that in like 2009, 2010. I got to see that stuff and I was like, really wish I had taken off for them. But that program... Brian (15:42) yeah. Bernie Maloney (15:54) disbanded, okay, and the culture kind of spread in the organization. And I knew that this was a possibility, so when I brought it in, I made sure I didn't just work with my team that was doing a Skunk Works project, where we were just kind of doing some internal development that we weren't, you know, or stealth is probably a better word these days. So a stealth program inside of TiVo that you couldn't talk about. I knew that... when Agile would spread, it would hit some of this resistance, these antibodies. And so I made a case for bringing in people from outside my team so that it was familiar. And when that program disbanded, it organically spread on the cloud side of TiVo because of some of this stuff. So within your own team, you can kind of create a climate. And then when you start to see results like that, that's going to start attracting kind of the rest of the culture that's there. But these mental models, like shifting from mechanism to organism can really help an organization recognize where their limiting beliefs are about how things go. And it's going to be reflected in language. So if you like dive into anthropology a little bit, you're going to recognize that it's really well established. You can change a culture by starting to change the language. And all of us, okay, if you're observing what's going on in Eastern Ukraine here in 2024, that's what's going on. with the Russian occupation, they're changing the language because that's going to change the culture. That's why they're doing stuff like that. So, and even language starts to shape the mental models that you've got. A good example of something like that was when European, you know, when European explorers is the language I'll use, came to the Americas, the natives didn't really have a language for ship. And so they saw these people coming in floating on the water. And that was the way that they could describe it. So even language kind of gets into a cultural sort of a thing. So these are techniques that you can put into your toolkit. Start shifting the language to start shifting the culture, which can kind of help with the mental models. When you got the mental models, that's where the language starts to come from. If you don't have the mental models, you're probably not going to have the language. And I encourage all the folks I work with, start shifting from the whole idea of mechanism to organism. Okay, Brian, was that 15 minutes? Did I go on for as long as I predicted I would? Brian (18:27) About 15 minutes. Yeah. No, but I think that's a good point. There's a thing that I'll talk about a lot of times in my classes where I would all say, you know, the waterfall paradigm is one that's based on manufacturing. And there's a false understanding of what we're doing as manufacturing and it's not. It's more research and development. So you have to kind of shift the process to be one that's more conducive. to research and development. So that's very much in line with what you're talking about here. I love that. Bernie Maloney (19:01) Yeah. Do you think people would appreciate some book references that can kind of like help you? Okay. So specifically on that whole ethos of experimentalism that you just touched on, Brian, I'm currently going through Amy Edmondson's The Right Kind of Wrong. Really good book. Now, Amy is well known because she helped establish psychological safety as a super important topic in organizations. Brian (19:07) absolutely. Absolutely. Bernie Maloney (19:30) So she was coupled, I think, with Project Aristotle at Google. And in this book, she unpacked some really interesting stuff. She talks about failure, and there's types of failures. There's basic, there's complex, and there's intelligent failures. OK, intelligent failures, they're just native to science. You know things are going to go wrong. You're going to have Thomas Edison, the I Found 1 ,000 Ways. to do a light bulb wrong, sort of. That's like intelligent failure. Basic failure, she breaks down into, let's see, neglect and inattention. And those are the things that you really want to start to squeeze out of a system. With that mental model of a mechanism, I would say a lot of, call it management, tends to think of a lot of failures as basic failures. And that's where blame starts to come into a system. Okay, so now we're back into psychological safety. Okay, where you want to establish, you know, that was an honest mistake. Hence the talk title of make new mistakes. Okay, so you can have processes and procedures that can kind of squeeze out some of those basic failures. Complex in the middle is really interesting to talk about. As I'm getting into the material, she unpacks... Now, complex failures are those chain of events, you know, Brian (20:30) Yeah. Yeah. Bernie Maloney (20:54) This thing and this thing and this thing all had to line up and go wrong at the same time for this catastrophic failure to go on. And in medicine, which is where her original research was, they talk about it as Swiss cheese. And she says, if you go into a lot of medical administrators' offices, you're going to find some model of Swiss cheese there. Because they talk about it's like all the holes have to line up for something to go sideways on you. So complex failures. It's a chain of events, a bunch of little things. And she points out that in the research, these often happen when you have an over -constrained system where there's no slack, where you're trying to operate with, get this, Brian, 100 % efficiency. You're trying to load everybody up. So that is just like, it's not just juice on psychological safety, but like, looking at the whole idea of intelligent failures that we want to encourage versus constraining out basic failures versus working to reduce those complex failures and not just thinking complex failures are basic failures, but they're systemic failures that then might be part of the system, might be part of the mental model that's going on that's there. So super juicy stuff. Brian (22:11) Yeah, yeah, that's really good stuff. I've always loved Amy's work and I feel, you know, silly calling her Amy. But Amy Edmondson's work has always been great. Yeah, Professor Edmondson. She, the work on psychological safety, I think was just amazing. And the examples she used in her research are amazing. And, you know, all the stuff with Project Aristotle. Bernie Maloney (22:20) Okay, Professor Edmondson, yeah. Brian (22:36) I love the concept of psychological. I mean, again, not to make this the topic of our podcast, but, you know, I love the idea that they, they, they found that psychological safety was, so foundational that nothing else mattered. That if you didn't have that, that not no matter what else you layered on top of it, it would not fix the problem that you didn't have psychological safety. Bernie Maloney (22:58) Yep. And that's one of the reasons why I say Agile is actually a social technology more than anything else. I mean, that's why it's people and people over processes and tools. This is really a social technology that we deal in. Brian (23:10) That's a great way to put it. I love that social technology. Awesome. I love that. Bernie Maloney (23:14) So kind of talking about Amy and psychological safety and kind of all these systems that we're talking about, another mental model that I like to give particularly my product owners, going back to that Mobius loop. and like on the right hand side is all about delivery, okay, that's where you give team solutions to build. That's what a lot of organizations do. Versus on the left hand side with discovery, it's all about problems to solve. So I like to encourage my clients to instead of just giving people solutions to build, give them problems to solve. Now, for product owners, if you imagine like an onion that's kind of stretched out left to right, so kind of an odd long little onion. Brian (23:41) Yeah. Bernie Maloney (23:58) and on the far right is your sprint. And then as you go to the left, you're at a release, and further out to the left, you're in roadmap, and way further out into the left, you're into these vague things like vision. So product owners kind of deal with this whole span of things. And in between, product and sprint goals start to make things a little bit more concrete. Okay, and... One of the things I'll do for my product owners is I'll take that Mobius loop and I'll overlay it on a planning onion like that and go, do you get to see how, like what we're talking about here, you're starting out way vague in discovery and you're getting way more concrete as you get into delivery and into the sprint. And really the job of Agile and Scrum is both. It's not just about turn the crank on the machine. In fact, I think it's unfortunate that there's a book title out there of twice. the work in half the time. I actually like to pitch this as more it's about twice the value with half the stress. Okay, now as you imagine that Mobius loop kind of overlaid, one of the things I'll unpack for folks is when you're way out in that vision area, there's a lot of uncertainty that's there, okay? And you're actually going to have to do discovery. You may have to run some experiments. Brian (24:58) Yeah. Bernie Maloney (25:24) Okay, and it's only as you get closer into delivery that you want to get closer to certainty. And really, that's kind of the job of a product owner is squeezing uncertainty out of the system. Initially through discovery of the problem to solve, who to solve it for, what the market is, but it's the job of the whole team in Agile to squeeze that uncertainty out of the system. Brian, I'm sure you've had folks like talk about spikes. You ever have people get wrapped around the axle about like including spikes in their product backlog? Brian (25:48) Yeah, for sure. yeah, for sure. Bernie Maloney (25:54) Cool, the way that I frame that up, okay, so here's a mental model. That's just technical uncertainty that you've uncovered. Great, okay, so now we've got to go squeeze that uncertainty out of the system. So stop getting wrapped around the axle on stuff like this. Just like stop trying to plan and predict things. Instead, kind of get into sense and respond on all of them. And there, I've kind of brought it around full circle for you, Brian, for where we started. Brian (26:09) Yeah, no. No, that's great. That's great stuff. And I love the fact that we can bring it back full circle. Well, this is fascinating. And like you said, we could press play and go on this for another half hour very easily. But we'll be respectful of people's time here and keep it to our normal time length. Bernie, I can't thank you enough for coming on. I really appreciate you sharing your experience with us. And... what you've learned over your years of working in this profession. Bernie Maloney (26:50) Thank you so much for asking me, Brian

Blewey has not had the courage to tell his wife Katheryn that he is playing 36 holes of golf this Saturday. So Bernie and Jars took the liberty of telling her themselves.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I've been blessed to have some truly remarkable guest on this podcast. I've had authors, subject matter experts, physicians, and PhDs. I've also had inspirational guests who have overcome incredible obstacles and undergone amazing transformations. And I've loved every one of these conversations, and I've taken something away from each and every one of these interviews, and I hope you have as well. Today's guest reached out to me and asked if I'd be interested in interviewing an average senior fitness consumer. Someone without in-depth fitness expertise, but rather is representative of the general silver edge over 50 population… perhaps someone like you. So today I present an interview from the perspective of the average fitness consumer. But in editing this podcast it struck me… perhaps this story isn't so “average” at all, in fact, I found it extraordinary. I struck me in listening back to this episode that those of us over 50 who are prioritizing our health and fitness aren't average at all, but exceptional. And since you're listening to this podcast right now, I'm guessing your story is exceptional as well.My guest today is Bernie Rhinerson. Bernie is a self-described 70-year-old average fitness consumer. Bernie was never particularly active or health conscious until he hit retirement at about 25 pounds overweight. Somehow a book founds its way into his hands that stated your new career after retirement is your health and fitness. So Bernie joined a gym, hired a trainer, and lost his excess weight and now at age 70 is as strong and as fit as he's ever been in his life. But he's not done yet, Bernie has plans to increase his strength and fitness, to up-level his nutrition, in order to pursue the things he's passionate about. Join us as Bernie shares how he started his fitness journey at age 60, how he got into the best shape of his life at age 70, and where he plans on going from here.We mentioned the following resources in this episode:Bernie's Instagram - @bernieprBernie's Blog - https://sdbernie.blogspot.com/Book – Younger Next Year - https://www.amazon.com/Younger-Next-Year-Strong-Smart_Until/dp/1523507926/

Hi i am here with Forbes Riley, She is a Award-Winning TV host, Author, Motivational Speaker, Entrepreneur, One of the World's Leading Health & Wellness experts (National Fitness Hall of Fame inductee). Forbes was voted the "Top 20 Most inspiring People on Television" through her roles as a sought-after spokesperson, broadcast journalist and Success/Results Coach to celebrities, sales teams & CEOs, here is the Highlights of the episode hope you enjoy. Listen to the full episode in your favorite podcast app. Ari Gronich 0:08 Welcome to another episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your hostAri Gronich, and I am here with a legend. And it's not Joshua self it is Forbes Riley 0:20 Oh yeah, Ari Gronich 0:22 is Forbes Riley. And Forbes has known as the billion dollar woman, she has been on HSN. She's been in movies, she's been in TV. But here's the kicker. And the reason why I wanted to talk to her is this woman has become a master of self improvement, and the human condition, and the pitch, which to me is kind of like, a, a way of talking to a person's soul so that they understand what you're saying, and want what you have. So Forbes, let me Forbes Riley 0:59 Oh, you that's a very, that's a very lovely way to say it a way of talking to somebody's soul. So they want what you have, I may have to use that. Ari Gronich 1:08 You know, I learned something here and there from you. So Forbes, why don't you tell us a little bit about your history, and what made you become this, you know, to me, a master of the human condition. Forbes Riley 1:20 So I'll tell you what, one of the things that makes you who you are, is that you get an understanding that life happens for you, not to you. We've all been through a lot of ups and downs. And if you haven't, shame on you, if you haven't really experienced some very high highs, which seemed to also have some very low lows, you're not living the best of life. I had very frizzy hair grew up on Long Island, and my mom was 260 pounds, fast food just hit my town when I was born. And that's what we had a whole lot of money. And so I was chunky or chubby or soft stick whatever word the little girls like a bully me with. And the other side of that is that I was really smart, like, weirdly smart, like smart enough to sit in the principal's office and do linguistics and second grade, build a computer when I was in fourth grade, I'm eight years old, standing up in front of my class talking about how a schematic and magnetic relays work in a silicon strip to turn these, you're like, Whoa, what's wrong with this kid? And so, the thing for me is it didn't make for very good friendships. I was a very lonely little girl. And that was okay, because my best friend was my dog, Snoopy, and my television. And I watched a lot of television and movies and I dreamed a lot. I didn't know I was doing that at the time. But I can tell you trivia on every show from idema Genie to monkeys Partridge Family, f troupe, The Munsters, you name it, I knew it. Because there was no DVR back then I watched all that live. And so one of the things that I wanted to be, and one of the things that I stressed to all my listeners is you have to know what you want, life doesn't kind of happen. You decide I want something, and then you actually create a path to go and get it. And there's a system for that, so that you can get anything and I'm not gonna say anything that you want. And you know, it's funny when we talked about not having dads, well, two of our presidents didn't have that Bill Clinton and Obama did not have a dad. So it's interesting how they grew up with this, want this need to succeed. So we all have this path that we can or could be on. But so often, shame on you, most of you listen to your friends. Oh, who do you think you already get that? Oh, yeah, you think you're all that in a bag of chips? I mean, I can't do that. You can't. Let me tell you something. I didn't have those voices in my head. I had my two parents are like, guess you could be anything you want to be. And I wanted to be James Bond when I was little. And so that's part of my idea now that you dream. I mean, I have now worked with major celebrities, opposing national talk shows I own a TV studio. I'm in love with a very exotic, amazing man. And I have the two kids that I desperately wanted, but didn't have inside was 42. Because part of getting what you want is knowing what you want. knowing why you want it so Ari you started a podcast? I'm sure there's a real reason behind the why you create a podcast called create a new tomorrow and we'll get to that in a second. So knowing what you want, why you want it and giving yourself permission to just freakin Go for it. Ari Gronich 4:08 That is, that's pretty awesome. You know, I've been lucky enough to be around you in different ways for many, many many years. I had the pleasure of working on some injured shoulders and getting your spin gym. You know, that was part of part of my What? Forbes Riley 4:29 You just mentioned my national fitness product that I've sold, 2 million of know, Ari Gronich 4:32 it did I did, I did mention that but you know the thing about you and the thing that I love, I think most is that you know how to bring people on board with whatever it is that you want to do. And that is a skill that so many people would love to have that skill of being able to pitch something an idea, a thought A dream and have the masses come on board with that thought and that dream of yours, right? So you create movements is something that you have absolutely mastered. So Forbes Riley 5:16 Well, thank you, you know, that thought of pitching. And this is where people seem to get confused. So pitching is not selling, when you when, in fact, I call the three E's, you excite someone, you engage them, and then you enroll them into what you're doing. You're not selling anything. Now, it doesn't mean you can't make money and, and get yeses from a pitch. But that's not really the point of it. And so so often people talk at people, or they just talk, if you ask somebody, what they do, they'll go I do this, or I do so many things, or whatever they say. They're not communicating. So as I'm talking to you, I'm listening to my my inner soul that saying, there's a lot of people listening to this as well, who want to uplevel their life, who are passionate about people that you bring on. So I'm going to speak into their hearts. And that's the intention of why I'm talking, I don't need to just tell my story. I know my story. And that's the problem is people don't realize who they're talking to, or why they're talking. And the second thing you really, really need to think about is if you've got a product or service and idea that you want to communicate to other people, you don't want to tell them that they need it. Well, you need to get fit. Okay, thank you very much. Because people don't buy by the way people love to buy things, they just hate to be sold. So people are not going to buy what you think they need, they will only buy and you've only bought what you want to buy. Ari Gronich 6:32 Yeah, you know, college these days is such an interesting thing. You know, we're homeschooling my six year old, and I just don't see the schools being like the schools were when you and I were young. They don't teach as much. And they definitely don't have the kind of training that's for the modern world there. There's still back 50, 60 plus years ago as far as what they're learning, but I'll give you just a little quick story. my six year old was on the homeschool computer class. And this was like the week that we decided to take him out of that school completely. But so the teacher asks, what how everybody's feeling about this new format of doing zoom classes. And my six year old son says, I'm angry. And the teacher says, Well, why are you angry? And he says, I have five businesses and nothing you're teaching me is going to help me with any of them. Forbes Riley 7:43 Wow, what is your son do? Ari Gronich 7:45 Oh, he's got a ninja family club. He just started his YouTube channel. He's he makes jewelry out of paper clips. And now like necklaces and bracelets out of paper clips. Yeah. sells his old toys. That's a business for him. And and I think our lemonade stand too. Forbes Riley 8:08 So well. apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Well, you know, we haven't same conversation because as entrepreneurs, and you and I are we're raising entrepreneur children a couple years ago, so my daughter was in class. And we both parents had to get called in because it was like a computer class when she was learning how to make a resume. And the teacher was like, you need to do this. Because when you get hired, you're gonna need to do this. And McKenna said, I'm not working for anybody said, Oh, no, you need to finally we had to get called in because it got to kind of a heated moment. And the teacher said, Look, your daughter's being a little disruptive. We're doing resume so that when she wants to work, she wants to go out in the workforce, she can get hired. And she's telling us she's not working for anyone. And I said, Well, she's 100%. Right? In fact, if she does it, right, you'll work for her. And the teachers like, excuse me, and my daughter makes $5,000 a month right now and she's 12 do you make 60 grand a year and she looked at me like, I don't even know what you're talking about. as well. That's too bad, because that is the new world. And so you're 100% right, six years old. That's frightening, too, though. That's actually exciting as all get out. Ari Gronich 9:06 Yeah. You know, her best friend or his best friend is Niva Lee. And I don't know if you've heard of the rekluse but they have a podcast and a book. And it's called the superpower experts. And so her podcast is superpower kids. Forbes Riley 9:25 Mm hmm. I think I met her at secret not Ari Gronich 9:28 you might have because she's definitely been there. She she's, she's been mentored by Bernie Dorman and CEO space. I mean, forever. Yeah. So I know Bob knows her. She she's been on stage on ink. She's been considered to be I think inks, one of inks, most influential kids in America. And so that's his best friend. So Bernie, at three years old says to my son, Gabriel, it says, you know niva you know, just gonna pass you by, you've got to get your business going. Forbes Riley 10:04 Oh challenge I like that. Ari Gronich 10:07 So he challenged them. And then they worked all dayon on a pitch for his business. And, and they ended up creating his business and his business was I want to help people be happier. And so he does these pictures for the frigerator that makes people happy. And Forbes Riley 10:24 I love that McKenna did a she did a boat, she didn't go fund me. I called McKenna Riley's boat calm. She said, Mom, I want a boat. I'm like, you're 14. She said, Well, no, but I want the boat to take disadvantaged kids out because I get to go out on the water with dad's boat. And I think I can do this, I got my boaters license. And she great she raised $10,000. Like it was nothing. And we've got adults who can't figure any of this out. Maybe because they went to school, I Ari Gronich 10:46 think I think that's the that's the breakdown is the school teaches you how to get a job. And those jobs that used to be a 40 year job, and you get a gold watch at the end don't really exist too much anymore. And so we're, we're in Forbes Riley 11:01 even the whole concept of how we teach. So McKenna said to me recently, should mom getting really tired of this, I go out with my friends and adults look at us like, Oh, you can't think you know everything. And she said, Mom, you give me a cell phone in 20 minutes. And I do know everything. Anything you want to know it's right here. And I thought without being you know, annoying, she's right, you want to move across the Potomac. You know what river Washington cross bam, it tells you want to do math, you know, you're walking around with a calculator that is faster than what they used to go to the moon with, and an entire room full of computers in your hand at all times. It's not like this is going away anytime soon. And so if that's true, schools really do need to change their game. And it's a little confusing, it's happening way faster than the system can handle. And so how ironic that the system broke down, that kids are being homeschooled, and that school itself is now falling apart. So maybe it all supposed to happen this way. I don't really know. Ari Gronich 11:55 Yeah, you know, the thing is, though, the systems in general, in my world, I look at the medical system, I look at the health care system, I look at the agricultural system, and none of them have moved at this speed of technology. None of them have been shifted or changed or progressed as fast as technology has progressed. So for instance, we have all this ability to do hydroponic growing of our food, but in the communities where it's needed most. Where is it? Forbes Riley 12:32 Oh, that's interesting point. Ari Gronich 12:34 Where is it? It's not it's not in Africa. It's not in Detroit, Michigan, you know, I mean, we have the ability to create these amazing buildings that are gardens, and that will feed the entire city. But where are they? They're in other countries. Forbes Riley 12:57 They got it. They're not here. So systems are kind of breaking down. And in your world, you know, you've been a pioneer. So what what would you say to people who are creating new inventions that want to have those things sold and and out in the world, and mass produced and mass consumed? What would you say to those people, have a plan, have a structure, have a mentor and then go for it? Too many times people will tell me their idea that they've been sitting around thinking about for the last 10 years, like Well, that's too bad because your son and my daughter have zoomed past them. I am afraid someone will steal it, well, then just get it out fast, you may get a great name because you don't even need a patent. Let me tell you something. If you've got a product, and someone wants to take rip it off, odds are they've got more money than you do. And you're gonna spend all your time legally fighting them. There's no point to that the system is not designed for you. If you really think it's such a great thing, license it to somebody else. And don't have it be your only idea. That's one of the big things that people have, you know, if someone takes that, yeah, they're liable to that's kind of how the world works. That is how a lot of it works. And if that crushes you, then don't get in the game at all. We all have fun ideas. We want to communicate. You're always enrolling people if you're smart. Otherwise, you're boring. Yes. Ari Gronich 14:16 Yeah, I've never been accused of being boring. Forbes Riley 14:19 No, I don't think so. So I'm excited. What's one of your favorite habits? Ari Gronich 14:25 So one of my favorite habits is I go into the sauna in the morning when I wake up. And I meditate for a little while. And listen, while I'm meditating. I listen to Jim Rohn. Forbes Riley 14:40 Love that. Ari Gronich 14:42 Right. So I am continually programming my brain with positive messaging, and things like that. And you know, one of the things that I have from Jim Rohn in my head that just won't go away is don't wish it were easy. Wish you were better. Forbes Riley 14:58 Oh my god. I was just literally think Have that quote that's I actually just wrote that yesterday and one of the books I'm working on, say it against everybody can hear it, Ari Gronich 15:06 don't wish it were easy wish you were better. So at the end of every call, I ask every single guest three things that are actionable tomorrow that somebody can take that's listening to this. And you've already given about 1000 of them. But I want to just condense it at the end to three things that somebody can do, literally, as soon as they listen to this to change their world and create a new tomorrow, today. Forbes Riley 15:38 So number one, go get a book, a blank book, that becomes your journal that becomes your mind on paper. And a couple things you're going to do with it every morning, wake up, and just brain dump, literally two or three pages of just get stuff out of your head. So you can start your day with a clear path. In that book, write down and you can write it down every day. What do you want? What do you want today? What do you want overall? What do you want, and begin to articulate what you want, because as soon as you can start to see it, and dream it, and I'll tell you what, in my trainings, we take that to the Instagram, we have a What do you want deep dive exercise? Why do you want it and then we have vision boards, because in my experience of getting things that I want it, you can manifest almost anything. Ari I'll tell you what, I call it, what have you, Forbes lately. So the form something is not necessary just to manifest it, but it's manifested, especially when people say, Oh, well, you can't get that. Who do you think you are. And you get to write down all the things that you've manifested. And just like you, if you look around your house, you've manifested all kinds of things. But you didn't even realize it or give yourself credit for it. So this book becomes something that's very important to maybe when you go to sleep at night, you write, hey, I accomplish this, I'm proud of myself, or here's what my plan is for tomorrow. So that book, and I have a lot of them lying around me know my little journal book that I use. That's number one. Number two, I would tomorrow. And I have to brag here, I would sign up for my pitch class on Sunday, it's $19. On Sunday, at five o'clock, for two hours, I teach a master class and just what I've been doing, the difference is how I played with Ari, I do that with everybody in the zoom class, I keep them very small. And for two hours and $19, you get to go wow, I never thought about that way about my business. This is exciting. And so I think that's fascinating. And number three, I would get one of these. Now why would I do that? Well Ari has one, I have one and so do 2.2 million people. Most of us are sitting behind a desk almost all day. And I will tell you the most important thing about this is not as a fat loss, although that's cool. I mean, my arms are tight and toned and sort of my abs like this works that fast. Something Yeah, five minutes a day you tell me this, but your heart health. Too many of us are now stuck inside not being healthy. And when you could elevate your heart rate this fast this easy. I'm literally doing it while I'm on a call, you put it down. If there was a better product, I would be showing that to you. But I think the spin gym is honestly the most amazing thing I've ever created, or that anyone's ever created. It's not a resistance span. It's not a dumbbell. Mary Collazo, who used to work in my office, she had two hip replacements who was always very overweight, or he lost 168 pounds. That took her a year and a half I ever before and after picture and you're just going. She's 70 years old. So number one, it's never too late. Number two, it's very, very affordable. And number three, it's five minutes. Literally just love yourself that much that you write down what you want. you surround yourself with people who are up leveling each other. And number three, you take care of you. Ari Gronich 18:39 Awesome, thank you so much for for being here. This was a great conversation. I literally could spend another two hours having this conversation and getting down into the nitty gritty dirtiness, of, of you and of the world in general of the that we've been in. And, and so I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. I know how busy you are. I know I Forbes Riley 19:03 got a challenge for you hang on a second. All right. So I think we should do another one of these with two more boxes, your son and my daughter. Ari Gronich 19:12 We could do that. Forbes Riley 19:13 Yeah, I think that would be a worthwhile and exciting conversation for everyone to hear. Because our kids think differently even than we do. But certainly almost everyone else I've ever met. Ari Gronich 19:21 Yeah, absolutely. We can we can definitely schedule that. So thank you so much for being here. And, and I appreciate you and have always appreciated our friendship. And so you know, people you really really want what Forbes has to offer. What she says speaks to the soul of what you need. And if you want to move your world forward, your personal world forward, just having the pitch fest for $19 I'm talking about breakthrough that happens in your soul. When you feel Figure out how to how to communicate what it is that you do and what you want. I mean, that alone is much more valuable than anything we could we could ever give you. So, anyway, this has been another episode of create a new tomorrow. Thank you so much for being here. I'm your host Ari Gronich. And, you know, let's create a new tomorrow today. Forbes Riley 20:26 Thank you, my friend.

Hi i am here with Forbes Riley, She is a Award-Winning TV host, Author, Motivational Speaker, Entrepreneur, One of the World's Leading Health & Wellness experts (National Fitness Hall of Fame inductee). Forbes was voted the "Top 20 Most inspiring People on Television" through her roles as a sought-after spokesperson, broadcast journalist and Success/Results Coach to celebrities, sales teams & CEOs, here is the full episode hope you enjoy. Listen in your favourite podcast app. Ari Gronich 0:01 Has it occurred to you that the systems we live by are not designed to get results. We pay for procedures instead of outcomes, focusing on emergencies rather than preventing disease and living a healthy lifestyle. For over 25 years, I've taken care of Olympians Paralympians a list actors in fortune 1000 companies, if I did not get results, they did not get results. I realized that while powerful people who control the system wants to keep the status quo, if I were to educate the masses, you would demand change. So I'm taking the gloves off and going after the systems as they are join me on my mission to create a new tomorrow as I chat with industry experts, elite athletes, thought leaders and government officials about how we activate our vision for a better world. We may agree, and we may disagree, but I'm not backing down. I'm Ari Gronich and this is create a new tomorrow podcast. Welcome to another episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your host Ari Gronich, and I am here with a legend. And it's not Joshua self, and is Forbes Riley And Forbes has known as the billion dollar woman, she has been on HSN she's been in movies, she's been in TV. But here's the kicker. And the reason why I wanted to talk to her is this woman has become a master of self improvement, and the human condition and the pitch, which to me is kind of like a way of talking to a person's soul so that they understand what you're saying, and want what you have. So forbes let me Forbes Riley 1:57 oh, that's a very, that's a very lovely way to say it a way of talking to somebody's soul. So they want what you have, I may have to use that. Ari Gronich 2:06 You know, I learned something here and there from you. So Forbes, why don't you tell us a little bit about your history, and what made you become this, you know, to me a master of the human condition. Forbes Riley 2:18 Well, I hope you have like four and a half hours to do this. So I'll tell you what, one of the things that makes you who you are, is that you get an understanding that life happens for you not to you. We've all been through a lot of ups and downs. And if you haven't, shame on you, if you haven't really experienced some very high highs, which seemed to also have some very low lows, you're not living the best of life. I've talked a lot of people who just it's kind of an average road, you're like going along going, that's not what life's supposed to be. So for me, I started out as a little girl, Long Island talking like this, two loving parents, and I will tell you, I think that is my ace in the hole. If you have two loving parents, you have a step up above almost everyone else. So many people I talked to him coach, I have had a parent who is narcissistic or verbally abusive or physically abusive, or not there. And that definitely sets you on a path because the all the training that I've done in studying and I've been studying the brain for almost three decades, that you develop neural pathways of behaviors. If you've ever done a behavior, like why do I keep doing that? Why do I keep saying that, or I want something but something says I can't have it. All those are actually fixable things in your brain, because your brain is nothing more than signals that connect and the roadways. And it's interesting. You know, if you've had an abusive father, you hear the word Father's Day, your signals go to Oh, I feel bad right now. Well, that's not a real thing. You don't need to feel bad, we can actually rewire your brain when it hears father to go in a different direction. So for everybody listening, there is hope, no matter where you are in life, and I've proven that over and over again. So I am when I was little about eight years old, I had a baseball bat hit my nose and my nose were very crooked off the side of my face. And I end up being a very ugly awkward little girl I had braces for eight years of my life from that time I was eight to 16 full railroad tracks. Which also you know, if you're not smiling as a kid, that's not so cool. I'd very frizzy hair grew up on Long Island and my mom was 260 pounds. Fast Food just hit my town when I was born. And that's what we had a whole lot of money. And so I was chunky or chubby or exotic, whatever word the little girls like a bully me with. And the other side of that is that I was really smart, like, weirdly smart like smart enough to sit in the principal's office and do linguistics and second grade build a computer when I was in fourth grade. I'm eight years old, standing up in front of my class talking about how a schematic and magnetic relays work in a silicon strip to turn these like Whoa, what's wrong with this kid? And so, the thing for me is it didn't make for very good friendships. I was a very lonely little girl. And that was okay because my best friend was my dog Snoopy, and my television. And I watched a lot of television and movies and I dreamed a lot. I didn't know I was doing that at the time. But I can tell you trivia on every show from me Do you need a monkey's Partridge Family f troop, The Munsters, you name it, I knew it. Because there was no DVR back then I watched all that lives. And I developed this sense of what else is out there beyond the tiny little house that I grew up in, and I was embarrassed, I even had friends, I would never invite anyone over to my house. You know, we had plastic on the couches, and we just kind of an odd, Goofy family, we had CB radios, my dad did magic and he was inventor, I swear, it was a very unusual childhood that I wouldn't change for anything in the world. Which is kind of ironic, right? It makes me very unique, different, I think differently from everyone else I've ever talked to. And now I know why. That's how I was raised. And so one of the things that I wanted to be, and one of the things that I stressed to all my listeners is you have to know what you want, life doesn't kind of happen. You decide I want something and then you actually create a path to go and get it. And there's a system for that so that you can get anything and I'm going to say anything that you want. And you know, it's funny when we talk about not having dads, well, two of our presidents didn't have dads Bill Clinton and Obama did not have a dad. So it's interesting how they grew up with this. Want this need to succeed. So we all have this path that we can or could be on. But so often, shame on you. Most of you listen to your friends. Oh, who do you think you are to get that? Oh, yeah, you think you're all that in a bag of chips? I mean, Oh, I can't do that. You can't let me tell you something. I didn't have those voices in my head. I had my two parents are like, guess you could be anything you want to be. And I wanted to be James Bond when I was little. So what does that mean? That means I wanted to snow ski and water ski and have one of those little jet things that powers through the water and I wanted to wear fancy clothes and be a spy? Well, I will tell you that little need for that actually materialized in my 20s I developed a company called stripper ground. And I got to punk people and literally, kind of pretend I was a spy pretend I was somebody else. And it made me a ton of money. And it was interesting, but that's why what I wanted to do. I also managed to snow ski all around the country, I got a job at a thing called ski view where I skied every weekend for 10 weeks a year and got paid for it. I did stand up comedy and ski resorts. And that turned into me hosting the original X Games for ESPN. Now that's not kind of a James bondish life. I don't know what it is. And so that's part of my idea now that you dream. I mean, I have now worked with major celebrities, I've hosted national talk shows I own a TV studio. I'm in love with a very exotic, amazing man. And I have the two kids that I desperately wanted, but didn't have until I was 42 and an end. And I got a picture right here. And I've spoken on stage in front of 10,000 people. How do I Oh, look, actually, there's a picture of Joshua, wait a second. Oh, look, I should check this out. I didn't notice on my desk. There's a picture of my man. And here's a picture of me starring in a television series with my man. And you're like, how did you get all that? I'm gonna tell you something. I'm not related to anybody. I've never slept with the right people or the wrong people. I just wanted it. And I teach that now. Because part of getting what you want is knowing what you want. knowing why you want it. So Ari you started a podcast, I'm sure there's a real reason behind the why you create a podcast called create a new tomorrow. And we'll get to that in a second. So knowing what you want, why you want it and giving yourself permission to just freakin Go for it. Ari Gronich 8:21 That is, that's pretty awesome. You know, I've been lucky enough to be around you in different ways. For many, many, many years. I had the pleasure of working on some injured shoulders and getting your spin gym, you know, that was part of part of my Forbes Riley 8:41 What? Did you just mentioned my national fitness product that I've sold? You know, you know Ari Gronich 8:46 It did?I did, I did mention that but you know the thing about you. And the thing that I love, I think most is that you know how to bring people on board with whatever it is that you want to do. And that is a skill that so many people would love to have that skill of being able to pitch something an idea, a thought or a dream and have the masses come on board with that thought and that dream of yours, right? So you create movements. And so I really am I'm fascinated by the idea of creating a movement and having that movement to create a new tomorrow is all about how do we create movements that move the world forward and stop the lack of progress in ourselves and in our society. Right so how do we stop the bullies is that's my biggest thing is to me all of the system as it is is a bunch of bullies, and bullies best friend Is the silence of others. And if you want to bring people on board, you got to be loud about it. And that's something, you know, creating those movements and being loud about your thoughts is something that you have absolutely mastered. So Forbes Riley 10:18 Well, thank you, you know, the thought of pitching. And this is where people seem to get confused. So pitching is not selling, when you when, in fact, I call the three E's, you excite someone, you engage them, and then you enroll them into what you're doing, you're not selling anything. Now, it doesn't mean you can't make money and, and get yeses from a pitch. But that's not really the point of it. And so often people talk at people, or they just talk, if you ask somebody, what they do, they'll go I do this, or I do so many things, or whatever they say. They're not communicating. So as I'm talking to you, I'm listening to my my inner soul that saying, there's a lot of people listening to this as well, who want to uplevel their lives, who are passionate about people that you bring on. So I'm going to speak into their hearts. And that's the intention of why I'm talking, I don't need to just tell my story. I know my story. And that's the problem is people don't realize who they're talking to, or why they're talking. And the second thing you really, really need to think about is if you've got a product or service and idea that you want to communicate to other people, you don't want to tell them that they need it. Well, you need to get fit. Okay, thank you very much. Because people don't buy by the way people love to buy things, they just hate to be sold. So people are not going to buy what you think they need, they will only buy and you've only bought what you want to buy, think about. So then my job is not to tell you what you need. But to enroll you and go Hmm, so Ari, if you've got a shoulder pain, and you've tried other little therapies, let me tell you something, this thing rotates at 200,000 RPM, it just vibrates through your whole body. It's portable, and sits at your desk where you are in the zoom call most of the day. If this did any of those things, would this be a good idea for you? Ari Gronich 11:55 Oh, absolutely. Forbes Riley 11:56 Bingo. Now you want it. That's all I had to do is to create the one in your head. And that's a very different skill set. And I've been doing this professionally my entire life. I didn't actually have any idea what I was doing when I auditioned for body by Jake's fit TV, early 1990s. And there was a pattern on the desk was a sign that said look at the camera, sell me the pen. I'm not a salesperson, I don't like to sell. I don't even I mean, I hate to be sold. So I looked at the camera. And I said you know, the funny thing about pens, but I got to college, I was really young. I was 16 years old. My mom used to write me longhand notes every day. And with a purple pen, actually. And I kept the entire stacks like two and a half inches thick. Because it meant to me that this little thing this little pen could reach out and touch somebody's heart. Well, body by Jay came out grabbed my face, and you're gonna make me a lot of money. And what happened from that for the next five years is I wrote the pitch for every Fitness, Health and Wellness product that came out and you go to YouTube and see this, it's pretty extraordinary when I look at it 1500 different products. We sold the network to Fox for $500 million. That turned into my infomercial career to date I posted 189 on Monday, I will shoot my hundred 90 infomercial. So this concept of pitching I intuitively know I really do. And I've known it all along. I don't know how to clean or bake or drive race cars, but I can pitch. And then I took that into home shopping for 28 years I've been on home shopping, you have to pay you have to actually pitch and sell 2 to $5,000 a minute, every minute that you're on home shopping 28 consecutive years I've been doing that. And then I realized somebody said to move Can you teach what you do? My first instinct was? No, I'm just so special. And then I thought well, you know, I actually do the same thing over and over again. I think about what the audience is I think about where they're sitting I think about kind of a tennis game about how you volley back and forth and and you slam that point that you want to the next person. Remember, I've never seen their faces because they're on a TV camera. Well, I've now taken that over the last three months. And now I've done that online on zoom calls where I can see everybody's faces. And now I teach pitch at an amazing speed. Every Sunday, we have a two hour masterclass that I've been doing for 12 weeks. And then I take people through a process, I've created a movement we call opp other people's platforms, and how you can take whatever you do, and market it and get it known just like I'm doing on your podcast. I don't own your I didn't do your podcast, I don't own your audience. But if I'm exciting enough to them, they're gonna want to follow me and that's how you leverage other people's platforms. So what I've done my whole life, and it's a very exciting movement. So people are now getting their pitch their free gift together, their funnels together and we're teaching them how to do all of those things. So that during this time you're not suffering. So many people are committed to having a mom and pap store they have to have a business where they see people face to face. That's a great idea. But all of you have something that you can enroll somebody to online. And the cool thing is I've got two 17 year old kids right now not so cool. They're sitting at home doing homeschool going, Mom, what happened to my senior year and think about it, they are being deprived of that they don't get the prom, they don't get the football games, they don't get all the things that we all grew up with. And it's very disconcerting. And so my daughter said to me, mom, she's been doing funnels for five years. She's very successful in her own right. So charge $5,000 to a customer. She hasn't graduated high school yet. And she said to me, Mom, you're not traveling, like you always do. I normally travel like 200 days a year to speak around the world and shoot TV shows. And I'm sitting here in my home office. And she said, What if I work on the business with you and for you to help others get the pitch thing down? 12 weeks, in the first week, we opened this business we grossed $25,000. She's 17. In the first month, she grossed 100,000. I gotta tell you, we got some The biggest problem now is I don't think she's gonna go to college. She can't afford to go to college. She's making too much money. Ari Gronich 16:00 I don't think you could afford for her to go to college. Forbes Riley 16:04 Well, that's true. Actually. It's funny. There's an I set aside the 529, whatever it is, she's got the money, but I can't afford that or go either. You're right. Ari Gronich 16:14 Yeah, you know, college these days is such an interesting thing. You know, we're homeschooling my six year old. And I just don't see the schools being like the schools were when you and I were young. They don't teach as much. And they definitely don't have the kind of training that's for the modern world there. There's still back 50-60 plus years ago as far as what they're learning. But I'll give you just a little quick story. my six year old was on the homeschool computer class. And this was like the week that we decided to take him out of that school completely. But so the teacher asks how everybody's feeling about this new format of doing zoom classes. And my six year old son says, I'm angry. And the teacher says, Well, why are you angry? And he says, I have five businesses and nothing you're teaching me is going to help me with any of them. Forbes Riley 17:25 Wow, what is your son do? Ari Gronich 17:27 Oh, yeah, he's got a ninja family club. He just started his YouTube channel. He makes jewelry out of paper clips. And now like necklaces and bracelets out of paperclips. Yeah. sells his old toys. That's a business for him. And I think our lemonade stand too. So Forbes Riley 17:50 well, apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Well, you know, we haven't same conversation because as entrepreneurs, and you and I are we're raising entrepreneur children a couple years ago, so my daughter was in class. And we both parents had to get called in because it was like a computer class. And one she was learning how to make resume. And the teacher was like, you need to do this. Because when you get hired, you're going to need to do this. And McKenna said, I'm not working for anybody said, Oh, no, you need to finally really get called into this. It got to a kind of a heated moment. And the teacher said, Look, your daughter's being a little disruptive. We're doing resumes so that when she wants to work, she wants to go out in the workforce, she can get hired. And she's telling us she's not working for anyone. And I said, Well, she's 100%. Right? In fact, if she does it, right, you'll work for her. And the teachers like, excuse me, and my daughter makes $5,000 a month right now and she's 12 do you make 60 grand a year and she looked at me like, I don't even know what you're talking about. as well. That's too bad, because that is the new world. And so you're 100% right, six years old. That's frightening too, though. That's actually exciting as all get out. Ari Gronich 18:49 Yeah. You know, her best friend or his best friend is nivo Lee reckless. And I don't know if you've heard of the rekluse. But they have a podcast and a book. It's called the superpower experts. And so her podcast is superpower kids. Forbes Riley 19:07 Mm hmm. I think I met her at secret not Ari Gronich 19:11 you might have because she's definitely been there. She's been mentored by Bernie Dorman and CEO space. I mean, forever. Forbes Riley 19:20 Yeah Ari Gronich 19:20 So I know Bob knows her. She she's been on stage on ink. She's been considered to be I think inks, one of inks, most influential kids in America. And so that's his best friend. So Bernie, at three years old says to my son, Gabriel, it says, you know, naevus you know, just gonna pass you by you've got to get your business go. Forbes Riley 19:46 Oh, challenge I like that. Ari Gronich 19:49 So he challenged them and then they worked all day on on a pitch for his business. And, and they ended up creating his business and his business was I want to help people be happier. And so he does these pictures for the frigerator that makes people happy. Forbes Riley 20:06 And I love that McKenna did a she did a boat she did a GoFundMe, I called McKenna Riley's boat.com. She said, Mom, I want a boat. I'm like, you're 14. She said, Well, no, but I want the boat to take disadvantaged kids out because I get to go out on the water with dad's boat. And I think I can do this, I got my boaters license. And she great she raised $10,000. Like it was nothing. And we've got adults who can't figure any of this out. Maybe because they went to school Ari Gronich 20:29 I think that's the breakdown is the school teaches you how to get a job. And those jobs that used to be a 40 year job, and you get a gold watch at the end don't really exist too much anymore. And so we're Forbes Riley 20:44 even the whole concept of how we teach. So McKenna said to me recently, should mom getting really tired of this, I go out with my friends and adults look at us, like, Oh, you can't think you know everything. And she said, Mom, you give me a cell phone in 20 minutes. And I do know everything. Anything you want to know it's right here. And I thought without being you know, annoying, she's right, you want to move across the Potomac. You know what river Washington cross bam, it tells you, you want to do math, if you know you're walking around with a calculator that is faster than what they used to go to the moon with. And an entire roomful of computers in your hand at all times. It's not like this is going away anytime soon. And so if that's true, schools really do need to change their game. And it's a little confusing, it's happening way faster than the system can handle. And so how ironic that the system broke down, that kids are being homeschooled, and that school itself is now falling apart. So maybe it all supposed to happen this way. I don't really know. Ari Gronich 21:37 Yeah, you know, the thing is, though, the systems in general, in my world, I look at the medical system, I look at the health care system, I look at the agricultural system, and none of them have moved at the speed of technology. None of them have been shifted or changed or progressed as fast as technology has progressed. So for instance, we have all this ability to do hydroponic growing of our food, but in the communities where it's needed most. Where is it? Forbes Riley 22:14 Oh, that's interesting point. Ari Gronich 22:16 Where is it? It's not, it's not in Africa. It's not in Detroit, Michigan, you know, I mean, we have the ability to create these amazing buildings that are gardens, and that will feed the entire city. But where are they? They're in other countries. Forbes Riley 22:40 They got it. They're not here Ari Gronich 22:41 So systems are kind of breaking down. And in your world, you know, you've been a pioneer. So what would you say to people who are creating new inventions that want to have those things sold and out in the world, and mass produced and mass consumed? What would you say to those people, Forbes Riley 23:06 have a plan, have a structure, have a mentor and then go for it? Too many times people will tell me their idea that they've been sitting around thinking about for the last 10 years, like Well, that's too bad, because your son and my daughter has zoomed past them. I am afraid someone will steal it, well, then just get it out fast, you make it a great name. Because you don't even need a patent. Let me tell you something, if you've got a product, and someone wants to take rip it off, odds are they've got more money than you do. And you're gonna spend all your time legally fighting them, there's no point to that the system is not designed for you. If you really think it's such a great thing, licensed it to somebody else. And don't have it be your only idea. That's one of the big things that people have, you know, if someone takes that, yeah, they're liable to that's kind of how the world works. That is how a lot of it works. And if that crushes you then don't get in the game at all. But fear is a big thing. So I actually have a new book coming out on October 16. Very excited about this. And this is a fascinating story behind the book. So it's called one habit for entrepreneurial success. There's a gentleman out there who created a one habit series of books. And he and I met on a phone call eight weeks ago. Wait a second, Forbes, you have a book that's in somebody's hands on Amazon, and a number one best seller in eight weeks? Yeah, this one surprises even me because my last two books each took three years to get out. Not doing that anymore. So I meet him in kind of a he was prospecting, which means that you're out there on LinkedIn, and you're trying to make connections and you're figuring it out. And then when you meet somebody, what's your pitch, because you can probably get to almost anybody, most of you, when you finally get to me, you just can't pitch me. But I have the best I've ever met and I'll just hang up on you. I just don't have the time for pitch. It's not well organized, because that means I can't invest in you and your company. There's some basics that you need to know. And by the way, if you come to me through my classes, odds are I will help you with content. And by the way, if any of this is interesting to you go to www.Forbes360.com. All my information is there how to find me on social media how to find some of the free gifts. I've got from You guys, it's all in all lives right there. And so it gets me on the phone. And he tells me what he's up to. And I looked at his website and that, you know, this is interesting. And he does these compilation books of like 50 authors, and it was a reasonable price for authors to get involved. And I said to him, I said, How long does it take for most books, you know, a co author to get their office? He said, about three to six months. I said, great. I'm going to do it in 24 hours. Excuse me. I said, Yeah, I said, I've got a whole tribe of students who are on it, who I've trained to take massive action. I'm going to pitch it tomorrow, and I'll have all 50 authors in 24 hours watch me. Well, he got so excited that he goes home and he sends me a book cover. And the first book cover he sends over I don't like it's of a man. And I thought, you know, I now know my branding. I'm much more feminine than that can have a guy on the cover. Sorry. Next one he sends over is a woman but she's got like a sweatshirt on. I'm like, now that looks like the unabomber. Then he says to me, how about putting you on the cover? I said none of the books not about me. The book is about habits for entrepreneurial success. This is all about understanding your ego and your place. And all this about four hours laters now the middle of the night, and he comes to me with a light bulb on a chalkboard, which happens to be two of my favorite things in life. The light bulb represents Edison and ideas on the chalkboard is something I've always had a passion for. And I thought man, you just nailed it. So I get a book cover in about four hours. Next morning, I put this out to my friends and my team members. Damn, everybody signs up. We've got 50 he just Steve is on the phone going. No one's ever done this before. I said, Great. Well hold tight because now I'm going to go get 50 celebrities. I'm going to get amazing people that we all know so I got that I got Kevin sorbo who played Hercules, the guy who created Make A Wish Foundation who's granted 450,000 wishes. The man who created the Ugg boots that we all wear the man who created Pictionary, whole bunch of other celebrities. I've got Chuck Liddell is an MMA fighter and a TV star Paul Logan's a movie star. I got Marla Gibbs is a five time Emmy Award winning actress from 227. And a whole bunch of my celebrity friends from all walks of life, all talking about their one habit for success. I got Kerry Gordy, Motown son, I mean, his dad created Motown, they're all in this book. And the entire book, everyone's got about three pages. It's your one habit that you would wish on other people. And then that make you successful, and then unhappy that you'd like people to get rid of. It's 820 pages long. It's a massive book is now the largest entrepreneurial success book for habits ever produced. And it launches on the 16th. And I recommend that everybody get one I'll tell you why. Ari Gronich 27:33 It'll be today Forbes Riley 27:33 Cause you while it is if your show is airing today, but if your show is going to air for a long time, you want to go to one habit for entrepreneurial success on Amazon. And you don't read the whole book, you just crack it open takes about five minutes, you read a habit you go home, if I incorporated that one habit, how would my life be better? And I will tell you, that's how I built my life. A couple of fantastic habits that are not in the book for me, is one, I learned this from one of my ex partners, who was a fundraiser for major politicians, and we'd be on the phone all day. I'm like, Who are you talking to? He said, Well, here's my habit. You call people when you don't need them. So they're there when you do. Oh, too many times you call your friends, hey, I need help. Dude, why didn't you call me on my birthday? Or say hi at the holidays? Oh, well, I didn't want to call people when you don't need them. Ask how they're doing. Do a little word of encouragement, at least on Facebook, reach out to them and touch your friends touch your database, their living, breathing people. And odds are you will need something I want people to come by the book. So now I get to reach out to my friends and they're not surprised. And it's not like you Only you only reach out when you want something. Another habit is I like pitching all the time. I just pitched you my book. Now I'm pitching all the time. I'm always enrolling people into a class into a new idea into the fact they could get fitter with spin gym. That's what I call pitching. So you know you pitch me already to be on your on your podcast. And I said yes. Why do we do that with each other? Because this is how we communicate and uplift each other. And if we all have fun ideas, we want to communicate. You're always enrolling people if you're smart. Otherwise, you're boring. Yes. Ari Gronich 29:12 Yeah, I've never been accused of being boring. Forbes Riley 29:15 No, I don't think so. So I'm excited. What's one of your favorite habits. Ari Gronich 29:20 So one of my favorite habits is I go into the sauna in the morning when I wake up. And I meditate for a little while. And listen while I'm meditating. I listen to Jim Rohn. Forbes Riley 29:36 Love that. Ari Gronich 29:37 Right. So I am continually programming my brain with positive messaging, and things like that. And you know, one of the things that I have from Jim Rohn in my head that just won't go away is don't wish it were easy. Wish you were better. Forbes Riley 29:54 Oh my god. I was just literally thinking of that quote. That's I actually just wrote that yesterday and one of the books I'm working on Say it again. So everybody can hear it. Ari Gronich 30:02 Don't wish it were easy. Wish you were better. Forbes Riley 30:06 Yep. That's a great, great quote. Ari Gronich 30:08 That is one of my favorite quotes. So I listen to a lot of those kinds of things. You know, I'm not a creature, too much of habits. I don't like addictions of any kind, whether they're habitual and positive, or habitual, and negative. So I've learned how to have kind of habits that don't equal doing something a certain amount of times per week, right or a certain amount of times. But what I do is I assess. So I have a habit of assessing and reassessing and assessing and reassessing, which he learned how to do when I started working with Olympic athletes, because if I didn't assess where they were at, and then reassess after a few weeks, six weeks and 10 weeks, right, then I wasn't sure about the results that we were getting. And so I wanted to make sure that they were sure. And I wanted to make sure I was sure that the results we were getting were quantifiable. And so I try to make things as quantifiable as I possibly can by assessing and reassessing and saying, okay, that didn't work, what is going to work? This is working good, but it's not optimal, what will make it work better? And so I just continually have this questioning in my brain. And I think questions are really, the habit that I've gotten into, in general a lot in my life is, I'm always curious as to the nature of people, and to how they live. And I want to understand people. And it's funny, I just read a book with my son, because I'm reading him the books that I read when I was a kid, which are these value books. They're called the value books. And each one is a value and a historical character that exemplified that value. So this last one was understanding. And it was Forbes Riley 32:19 what is that? What is that called? is it a series called the value books. Ari Gronich 32:23 Yeah, the value books Forbes Riley 32:24 I've never heard of them. That's actually a great idea for my classes. Ari Gronich 32:27 Yeah, I have a copy. Actually downstairs, I'll show you a copy in a second. But, um, they the book, so the one I just did was understanding the value of understanding. And it was all about Margaret Mead. Forbes Riley 32:41 I love it. Ari Gronich 32:42 Who doesn't know who Margaret Mead is? She was an anthropologist, who was very curious about people and started writing books, she went and lived with tribes and different, like the samoas. And different Forbes Riley 32:55 Yes she did Ari Gronich 32:56 Wilson, and so on. And she would learn about people. And in this day and age, especially with all of the protests and crap that's going on. Wouldn't it be awesome if instead of judging, we were more curious about understanding? Forbes Riley 33:15 Oh, well, don't even get me started about that. Ari Gronich 33:19 Oh, yeah, this is my kind of this is the stuff I love to have these discussions that you know, all of that what's going on in the world has an explanation. And the only thing that we are missing is the proper questions. How do we ask them? And then how do we listen with an open heart versus a judgmental heart? Mm hmm. And that was the lesson of Margaret Mead. That was that was what she exemplified. And that's been something that I've striven for my entire life is to understand people because like you, like, I was bullied, I was treated very poorly in my childhood, not a very, I wouldn't recommend my childhood on anybody, because of the kinds of things I had to go through. Forbes Riley 34:12 And now but now I'm gonna share it, I'm gonna stop you right there for a second. I do a training a two day training every month called breakthrough. And only take 12 people through it at a time. What you just said, I'm going to turn around for you. While your childhood may have been frustrating and bad, and you wish it would have been different, you wouldn't be who you are, which I think is pretty extraordinary. And how you're raising your son. And so then you've got to go back and what I would reframe in your brain honestly, and I would take a moment to reframe it, is that you've got to thank your childhood and thank you bullies and thank all the crappy things and find a place in your heart. see so many people do exactly what you just said. They're like, everything was wonderful, but that was horrible. No, actually, that was what got you here. And I have people literally turn around and thank all the crappy people. in their life from a very, very bizarre what I do is not you can't teach this thing you have to go through this experience. Because it shifts your internal barometer, it shifts the the acid in your stomach because you're no longer in the back of your mind. Still going, Oh, screw that bully. You, in fact, fall in love with the people who hurt you most, because they're actually not real anyway. But in your brain, they're still in the negative side. And we get to push them over to the way you love them side. Wow. I mean, I've had people Honestly, I know that sounds crazy. But tell the person who killed her brother that she loves him. I know that sounds bizarre. But in the whole scheme of making you a healthy, happy human being getting you disease free, which is dis ease. You go I love my childhood, because I love who I am right now. And that changes everything. Ari Gronich 35:50 Yeah. And what I was saying is I don't wish my childhood on anybody else. But I think it was exactly meant for me. That was the the caveat was, I believe that I was uniquely put in those positions because of how I could handle them like that saying, God doesn't give you anything that you can't handle. Right. And I don't believe that what I could handle is what somebody else could handle just like what somebody else is handling is something that I could handle. It's those experiences were uniquely designed to make me who I am. Forbes Riley 36:32 I have a phrase that says you are the some of the obstacles you overcome. And I can't change anything in my past. Because everything, including all the bad things, and there's some pretty bad things. I raised a little boy in South Central who was murdered. That was pretty tragic to go through. Joshua and I are eye witnesses Las Vegas shooting everything that you see on the overhead footage was on my iPhone. Yeah, I mean, lying in the hospital with a kidney stone very, very close to death. You can't change any of those things, because I now talk about what I do. You know, and it's funny, we talked about pitching. If you're listening to this amazing conversation, congratulations. But one of the things is when you want to take action in your own life, one of my students, and typically students will come to me they'll say things like when I say what do you do? Oh, I'm a, I'm an author, speaker, entrepreneur. Well, that actually doesn't say anything. I don't know what you're an author about what you speak about. And they're all very generic words, people use them all the time. And so one of my girls is, well, I really want to speak and empower women. I'm like, that's nice. That's your pitch. Yeah. What do you do it because I love it. Like, you hear the generic nism of this, it sounds like everybody else. You know what she says today, her name is Teresa. And she will say, Forbes, I speak on stages to empower women. Because when I was little, I was repeatedly raped by my older brother. And my mom wouldn't listen to school didn't listen. And it was a House of Horrors. And because I've overcome that, and through my life, I now and it's a mission of mine, to give women who do not have a voice, a voice, so they don't squish it down for the rest of their lives. That's a pitch that will get her on stages that will get her talks and podcasts. And all she did was reveal a little bit about give herself the credibility. And I'll tell you what, it's a non stop pitch, Neil. Well, that's a pitch and like, that's what we teach. Ari Gronich 38:18 That is an amazing ability. And I highly recommend anybody who's listening to this show right now. You know, go check out Forbes, and it's what Forbes360.com And Forbes Riley 38:34 every Sunday, I teach it now watch. I'm going to do something with you for a second. So when I asked you what you do, what do you say? Ari Gronich 38:41 I'm a sports and injury rehab therapist Forbes Riley 38:44 Okay, that's nice for you. Would it be okay, if we kind of tweaked that a little bit? Ari Gronich 38:47 Sure Forbes Riley 38:48 Alright, so why do you do what you do? Ari Gronich 38:51 Because as an athlete growing up, I was continually getting injured, I found out I had a brain tumor. And at 18, I was dead for 26 minutes. So I ended up waking up in the hospital Three days later saying I think I need to become a healer. Forbes Riley 39:08 Okay, so I had to ask you that question here would be my interpretation of how you pitch when someone says what do you do? I would actually say, as somebody who grew up as a very frustrating, frustrated athlete never got to the pinnacle, how to bring tumors actually dead at one point because of this. And when I woke up, I became set on a mission to help other athletes achieve their greatness. So Forbes, I am a sports and dudududu, it takes another minute, it's not too long. But if you said that, we would go Oh, wow. So the technique here is to incorporate a little bit of why you do what you do and not just answer the question. It's very different. You watch the reaction of people when you say this, what do you do and you tell that little story? They'll be like, they'll just fall in love with you. They can't help it. As opposed to going I'm a sports it rather. Oh, who cares? It's about the eye. So that's one of my many techniques is to give people a little bit of a bit more information than they technically asked for. The other way you can handle it is to tell people what you can do for them. care if I asked you about that, I don't need your skill. So the conversation kind of ends there. We have to go and How's the weather? Right. But what if I asked you a question? Hey, Ari, what can you do for me? What would you say? Ari Gronich 40:25 I would ask you a question back. Well, what is it that you would like to help? Forbes Riley 40:29 Nope, nope, nope, you don't get to ask question. That's not the right way to play this game. Okay, so I'm going to ask you, what can I do? You never actually hear this question anyway. But what can you do for me? Think about it for a second. make some assumptions. Ari Gronich 40:43 Okay. I'll make an assumption. I could make you perform better than you ever thought you could Forbes Riley 40:51 In what, in what arena? Ari Gronich 40:52 Physically, physically, as an athlete. Okay. But I'm not an athlete. Even if it's walking out of your getting Forbes Riley 41:00 now. This is? Ari Gronich 41:02 Yeah, absolutely. Forbes Riley 41:03 Okay. Well, that's an interesting. Okay. So do you also teach mindset for athletes? Ari Gronich 41:08 Absolutely. Forbes Riley 41:09 All right. So here's what I would say, ask me what you could do for me. Ari Gronich 41:13 What can you do for me? Forbes Riley 41:14 You know, for us, I know that you're a top performer in your field. But every once in a while, I'll bet that you get frustrated or unmotivated. Even at your level? Well, I'm someone who trains top athletes. And while you're fine physically, what if I helped give you a superstar mentality? Would that be of interest to you? Right, so so that's where the assumptions Yeah, so you don't ever need to ask somebody, I can assume exactly what you need based on what the vibes that you get. And that's a skill I teach people, because it's called the assumption, whenever you meet someone, you can pretty much assume how you might be able to help them given what you do or not. But most people are not even thinking about the other person when they say what do you do? Because the point is, when someone asks you what, what do you do? It's a social platitude. They don't care really what you do, unless they really care about what can you do for them? Then they're invested, then they're interested. And I'll tell you, it's been an interesting observation. I have hundreds of students. And just recently, I got two students, one who does this thing called nameology, and the other who does handwriting analysis. And they're probably the most successful new students, because everybody wants to know, ooh, look at my name, what is, what is the first letter a meeting, my name is Ivan, it's all about me. And it proved my point. They want to know all about them. And so when you're talking to somebody, you should always have that in the back of your mind. And this is why along with my daughter, one of the things that we do is to encourage everybody to have especially in the online environment, some small course I'll give, it's a $10 course, about what you do, that everybody could benefit from. So Ari most people are not going to be Olympic athletes, or even athletes at all. But the mentality required maybe the top 10 things that every entrepreneur needs that I learned from training, high performance athletes. So when you're talking to somebody and say, Oh, you know what, yeah, I train high performance athletes, if you know any, certainly reach out to me, but I got to tell you, this little video training that I've got this helps everybody. Like, oh, and so now you've made a transaction and interaction. And I think that's how people can best serve the world and each other. Ari Gronich 43:25 Awesome. Yeah, I've been creating a mastermind that I'm calling create a new tomorrow mastermind. Forbes Riley 43:33 Yeah. Ari Gronich 43:34 And, and it's being I'm designing it the same way that I train Olympic athletes, but it's for entrepreneurs and activists, people who want to change the world, and want to make money while doing it and create movements. But it's designed the same way that I have taken an injured athlete from an injury to a gold medal or a world championship. Forbes Riley 43:57 That's perfect. That is exactly what you need. Because a lot of us need to benefit from some of the skills that you know, and the techniques that you know, that have nothing to do with actually being an athlete. Ari Gronich 44:06 Right? Absolutely. So yeah, I just had to think about it a little bit differently. Which is, Forbes Riley 44:12 that's what I do for people, I get you to think differently, I get you to realize you have much more earning potential than you ever imagined. I get you to stop being on you know, not confident forms. How do I get confidence? Well, let me check my Wizard of Oz book bullshit. You know what, you've got the confidence, somebody squished it in you a long time ago. So I get to uncover people's confidence, a sense of freedom that they can accomplish anything. And then I have tribes of people, I'm going to invite you and everyone else to come to my Forbes Riley inner circle. It's a Facebook group. It's totally free, the most interactive supportive group you've ever seen. We have all one goal that's to lift each other up. And he posts that we make you're going to get 30 to 40 comments, you're going to get people wanting to know more about you. And then we train people, and we just want something last night I'm very excited about. So my daughter who's 17 has a different sense of accountability than you and I do. Or you know why? Because we're not in school, because nobody says we have to get A's on our tests. And if we get an F how bad we feel and have to show mom the report card. So the accountability factor as an adult, is pretty much non existent, especially if you're an entrepreneur solopreneur. You even forget entrepreneur, January 1, I'm going to lose 20 pounds, make that declaration make right? January 15, you gain 10 pounds, who cares? Okay, you know, it didn't work. But what if you were part of a group that every four weeks you make a declaration, and you write out the action plan, we give you that everybody checks in with each other every Thursday night, and we hold each other accountable to whatever it is, you said, that you want to do. At the end of the month, we have a pool of money, and everybody you get in a lottery if you achieve your goal. And so you get money for reaching your goal, or you get demoted in our ladder system for not reaching your goal. And so we've just launched this, I it was so much fun to launch this last night. Because there was like, Oh my god, this is what I need. I'm like, I know, that's what you need. You can take all the classes you want in the world and learn all this stuff. And everyone's out there teaching class. But what you need now is you need a group of people who are super supportive, all different areas of expertise, so that you can say, Hey, I made an obstacle, I need help with this. And technology, I need help with this. And shipping or manufacturing, can you help me. And that is now an evolution, I'm very, very excited to be to really create this community of people who are only looking out for each other. Ari Gronich 46:34 That is awesome. So at the end of every call, I ask every single guest three things that are actionable tomorrow that somebody can take that's listening to this. And you've already given about a thousand of them. But I want to just condense it at the end to three things that somebody can do, literally, as soon as they listen to this to change their world and create a new tomorrow today. Forbes Riley 47:03 So number one, go get a book, a blank book, that becomes your journal that becomes your mind on paper. And a couple things you're going to do with it every morning, wake up and just brain dump literally two or three pages of just get stuff out of your head. So you can start your day with a clear path. In that book write down you can write it down every day. What do you want? What do you want today? What do you want overall? What do you want, and begin to articulate what you want, because as soon as you can start to see it, and dream it and I'll tell you what, in my trainings, we take that to the Instagram, we have a What do you want deep dive exercise? Why do you want it and then we have vision boards. Because in my experience of getting things that I want it, you can manifest almost anything and I'll tell you what, I call it, what have you Forbes lately. So the Forbes something is not necessary just to manifest it. But it's manifested, especially when people say, Oh, well, you can't get that. Who do you think you are. And you get to write down all the things that you've manifested. And just like you, if you look around your house, you've manifested all kinds of things. But you didn't even realize it or give yourself credit for it. So this book becomes something that's very important to maybe when you go to sleep at night, you write, hey, I accomplish this, I'm proud of myself, or here's what my plan is for tomorrow. So that book, and I have a lot of them lying around me know my little journal book that I use. That's number one. Number two, I would tomorrow. And I have to brag here, I would sign up for my pitch class on Sunday. It's $19. On Sunday, at five o'clock for two hours, I teach a master class and just what Ari and I've been doing, the difference is how I played with Ari, I do that with everybody in the zoom class, I keep them very small. And for two hours and $19. You get to go wow, I never thought about that way about my business. This is exciting. And so I think that's fascinating. And number three, I would get one of these. Now why would I do that? Well already has one I have one and so do 2.2 million people. Most of us are sitting behind a desk almost all day. And I will tell you the most important thing about this is not as a fat loss, although that's cool. I mean, my arms are tight and toned and sort of my abs like this works that fast. Something Yeah, five minutes a day you tell me this, but your heart health, too many of us are now stuck inside not being healthy. And when you could elevate your heart rate this fast this easy. I'm literally doing it while I'm on a call, you put it down. If there was a better product, I would be showing that to you. But I think the spin gym is honestly the most amazing thing I've ever created more than anyone's ever created. It's not a resistance span. It's not a dumbbell. Mary Collazo who used to work in my office. She had two hip replacements who was always very overweight, Ari she lost 168 pounds. That took her a year and a half I ever before and after picture and you're just going. She's 70 years old. So number one, it's never too late. Number two, it's very, very affordable. And number three, it's five minutes. Literally just love yourself that much that you write down what you want you surround yourself with people who are up leveling each other. And number three, you take care of you. Ari Gronich 50:04 Awesome, thank you so much for for being here. This was a great conversation I literally could spend another two hours having this conversation and getting down into the nitty gritty dirtiness, of you and of the world in general of that we've been in. And so I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. I know how busy you are. I know Forbes Riley 50:28 I got a challenge for you hang on a second. All right. So I think we should do another one of these with two more boxes, your son and my daughter. Ari Gronich 50:37 We could do that. Forbes Riley 50:38 Yeah, I think that would be a worthwhile and exciting conversation for everyone to hear, because our kids think differently even than we do. But certainly almost everyone else I've ever met. Yeah Ari Gronich 50:47 absolutely, we can, we can definitely schedule that. So thank you so much for being here. And, and I appreciate you and have always appreciated our friendship. And so you know, people, you really, really want what Forbes has to offer. What she says speaks to the soul of what you need. And if you want to move your world forward, your personal world forward, just having the pitch fest for $19. I'm talking about breakthrough that happens in your soul. When you figure out how to communicate what it is that you do and what you want. I mean, that alone is much more valuable than anything we could we could ever give you. So anyway, this has been another episode of create a new tomorrow. Thank you so much for being here. I'm your host, Ari Gronich. And, you know, let's create a new tomorrow today. Forbes Riley 51:51 Thank you, my friend. Ari Gronich 51:52 Thank you for listening to this podcast. I appreciate all you do to create a new tomorrow for yourself and those around you. If you'd like to take this information further and are interested in joining a community of like minded people who are all passionate about activating their vision for a better world. Go to the website, create a new tomorrow.com and find out how you can be part of making a bigger difference. I have a gift for you just for checking it out and look forward to seeing you take the leap and joining our private paid mastermind community. Until then, see you on the next episode.

When you record a podcast and you literally can't wait for it to be out in the big wide world! This sis that episode!! We could have talked for hours and I'm sure we will do a part 2 one day as well! So Bernie is a Health & Lifestyle Coach, Running Coach, amazing mum of 2, Asics Ambassador and so much more. With a Phd in Sports Psychology and and a Masters in Lifestyle Medicine which together Bernie combines into her Body and Mind approach to coaching she truly is an expert in the topics we discussed. Bernie kindly talks you through her own incredible journey which I found emotional and how that spurred her to make the career change from academia to the coaching she does today. We covered running and its positive effects on mental health to start and spoke about how running needs to implemented with a plan like everything else, especially right now. We then went on to discuss what stress actually is and how we can understand our of own thresholds and red flags, specifically from a mental health point of view. The stress bucket analogy we focussed on paints such a clear a picture and we discussed varying tools and tactics you can use to manage your own individual bucket. we spoke about a vide on YouTube which demonstrates this and that is linked below https://youtu.be/ld5JypUYT-o Bernie provided some great references to books which are linked below along with her instagram and website, which I have no doubt you will be looking into after listening to this. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=when+the+body+says+no+gabor+mate&adgrpid=52869081573&gclid=CjwKCAjw8J32BRBCEiwApQEKgQALFSce5k1qZqT_XQF8yXYF5x_8CxV3cHroeY9JPo01WrUDLr-zvhoC3eIQAvD_BwE&hvadid=259070519502&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=1007127&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=b&hvrand=3489279275557421929&hvtargid=kwd-361110709597&hydadcr=24460_1816155&tag=googhydr-21&ref=pd_sl_96nv4jg2hp_b https://www.bernadettedancy.co.uk https://www.instagram.com/bernadette_dancy_healthcoach/

With the surprisingly good performance of Joe Biden at the recent debate, Thom muses that Biden has shifted more to the left than the Democratic Party has been just a few months ago. So Bernie has left his mark even if he may or may not get the nomination. Plus the latest on the Corona Virus and listener calls.For the Book Club, Thom reads from "Revolutionary Love: A Political Manifesto to Heal and Transform the World" by Michael Lerner and "Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao's Revolution" by Helen Zia.

On Friday Gayle and Shelby brought us here at GX94 A beautiful cake, well with the weekend almost over there's still a good chunk that remains. So Bernie from Archerwill called in with a solution. -Stephanie

This week you’re gonna hear from Lisa Suennen, Venture Valkyrie herself - she shares her thoughts on blockchain in tech (whiz bang buzzword alert!), on price transparency, and how tech continues to transform the healthcare landscape … slowly. The combination of technology and humanity will indeed be the winner. That’s what I’m working toward, and what Lisa Suennen is devoting her time, talent, and treasure to on the daily. If you wanna stay woke on separating shiny objects in healthcare technology from the real tech-human acceleration machines, follow Venture Valkyrie’s “what would Lisa Suennen say?” insight factory, also known as her blog. She’s got a podcast, too - Tech Tonics, which she co-hosts with David Shaywitz. Lisa Suennen on Twitter https://venturevalkyrie.com/ https://twitter.com/VentureValkyrie https://venturevalkyrie.com/ https://venturevalkyrie.com/the-tech-tonics-podcast/ Venture Valkyrie press clips: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/lists/female-health-it-leaders-to-know.html https://www.statnews.com/2018/06/06/lisa-suennen-health-care-gatekeeper/ Mentions: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/upshot/costs-health-care-us.html https://medium.com/@mightycasey/selling-my-health-data-cut-me-in-bitches-447880201004 https://evidation.com/ https://allofus.nih.gov/ Corrie Painter, Broad: https://www.broadinstitute.org/bios/corrie-painter Metastatic Breast Cancer Project: https://www.mbcproject.org/ Angiosarcoma Project: https://ascproject.org/home Prostate Cancer Project: https://mpcproject.org/home THIS WEEK’S RANT! Speaking of spending like drunken sailors on healthcare, this week saw some hilarious fist fights over a report from the Mercatus Center, a libertarian think tank at George Mason University, that pearl-clutched over Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill in the Senate, exclaiming that Sanders’ plan would increase US healthcare spending by THIRTY TWO TRILLION DOLLARS OVER THE NEXT TEN YEARS. Oh, the humanity!! But … wait a minute. We’re spending close to three and a half trillion a year right now, with costs predicted to increase in the next ten years by an average of 5.5% a year. Back of the napkin, simple arithmetic, that means that we’ll be spending close to FIFTY FIVE TRILLION bucks on healthcare in the next ten years with our current status quo payment model. So Bernie’s Big Idea looks like it could SAVE us almost TWENTY TRILLION BUCKS! And everybody would be covered. So … LET’S DOOOOO EEEEET! Oh, right, that’s a terrible idea. ‘Cause helping every American person be as healthy as possible is just a shitty idea, right? ‘Merica! It’s a wonderful country! Just don’t get sick! Sponsor: Danny van Leeuwen, also known as Health Hats - with his diverse and prolific health experience, Danny uses his multiple hats to empower people as they travel toward their best health. To join Danny on that best health journey visit his blog. Music: Movin’ On Up by Podington Bear http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Upbeat/MovinOnUp Podcast distribution rights: Creative Commons 3.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

This week’s episode features slices from a recent conversation I had with Matthew Holt, who is, among many other things, the founder of The Health Care Blog, co-founder of the Health 2.0 universe of conferences, now leading SMACK.health, an advisory and consulting network in healthcare and health tech. If you want to know about what’s happening in health IT and technology, ask Matthew. No, really, just ask him - not only does he KNOW, he knows it really fucking WELL. Like, he’s totally OG in WTF is going on in HIT. Fo’ realsies. OECD social spending with bar graph - Financial Times https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2014/11/27/2053392/welfare-spending-across-the-oecd/ US spending since 1960 - Statista https://www.statista.com/statistics/184968/us-health-expenditure-as-percent-of-gdp-since-1960/ Healthcare outcomes by country - Commonwealth Fund (2017) https://www.commonwealthfund.org/press-release/2017/new-11-country-study-us-health-care-system-has-widest-gap-between-people-higher BoltyBoy on Twitter https://twitter.com/boltyboy Matthew on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-holt-6b52/ The Health Care Blog http://thehealthcareblog.com/ Health 2.0 https://health2con.com/ SMACK.health https://www.smackhealth.com/ EP3 Foundation https://www.ep3foundation.org/ [Casey sez: interesting looking initiative on data security and public health imma keep my eye on] THIS WEEK’S RANT! Speaking of spending like drunken sailors on healthcare, this week saw some hilarious fist fights over a report from the Mercatus Center, a libertarian think tank at George Mason University, that pearl-clutched over Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill in the Senate, exclaiming that Sanders’ plan would increase US healthcare spending by THIRTY TWO TRILLION DOLLARS OVER THE NEXT TEN YEARS. Oh, the humanity!! But … wait a minute. We’re spending close to three and a half trillion a year right now, with costs predicted to increase in the next ten years by an average of 5.5% a year. Back of the napkin, simple arithmetic, that means that we’ll be spending close to FIFTY FIVE TRILLION bucks on healthcare in the next ten years with our current status quo payment model. So Bernie’s Big Idea looks like it could SAVE us almost TWENTY TRILLION BUCKS! And everybody would be covered. So … LET’S DOOOOO EEEEET! Oh, right, that’s a terrible idea. ‘Cause helping every American person be as healthy as possible is just a shitty idea, right? ‘Merica! It’s a wonderful country! Just don’t get sick! Sponsor: Danny van Leeuwen, also known as Health Hats - with his diverse and prolific health experience, Danny uses his multiple hats to empower people as they travel toward their best health. To join Danny on that best health journey visit his blog. Music: Movin’ On Up by Podington Bear Podcast distribution rights: Creative Commons 3.0 license