Bourbon and Breakthroughs
Chris Goodman is a leading life coach for executives and business owners. His clients include startup founders, real estate experts, influencers, world-class coaches, CEOs, and small business owners across dozens of industries. He brings 15,000+ hours of coaching and training to every conversation and has a reputation for asking tough, transformative questions in an approachable way. After years of coaching inspiring leaders in life and business, Chris brings their profound wisdom, advice, personal growth tips, and heartfelt lessons to your ears so you can grow relentlessly to become your best. Book your own coaching consultation at www.goodmancoachinginc.com
Bourbon and Breakthroughs
EP 014: The "La Dolce Vita" with Rob Murgatroyd, social media sensation and author of "I Like You Better in Italy"
What would it take for you to live the life you truly want? Maybe it’s time to stop asking how much money you need to achieve it, or how you’re going to get there, and instead, uncover what type of life would excite you most. Joining us today is Rob Murgatroyd, whose life-changing transformations have been years, if not decades, in the making. While the bulk of Rob’s career was spent as a chiropractor, his life today could not be further from that reality. Not only has he moved his family from the US to beautiful Florence, Italy, but his TikTok videos on being an American in this food-obsessed country have made him a social media sensation! However, his journey from being a chiropractor to where he is today has not been straightforward or smooth. There is no way he would have reached his destination if he had not been willing to step off the familiar path. Similarly, our conversation today takes many fascinating turns that never would have happened if we had tried to plan it all out. While our conversation kicks off with Rob’s first taste of Bourbon, it ends with profound reflections on the nature of creativity, with insights on where it comes from and how you can learn to turn down the noise and listen to the voice within. In between all that Rob shares the many side journeys he had to go on, like traveling, becoming a DJ, and receiving coaching, to uncover the revelatory lessons that would help him shift his mindset and find himself where he is today. Join us for a truly expansive conversation and find out how his wife's fateful words 'I like you better in Italy' prompted his transformative journey, why he decided to use this phrase as the title of his upcoming book, and what ingredients he would use for his cocktail 'la dolce vita', and much more!
Key Points From This Episode:
- Welcoming back today’s guest, all the way from Florence, Italy, Rob Murgatroyd.
- Chris breaks down everything you need to know about drinking bourbon for the first time.
- Rob tries out his first-ever bourbon drink according to Chris’s instructions.
- The transformations Rob has gone through since he and Chris first met.
- What Rob gained from chasing what made him feel alive; from traveling to becoming a DJ.
- The challenge of subtracting what doesn’t bring you joy.
- Rob’s experience of trying to leave his chiropractic career behind.
- His advice to anyone going through a transformation, or gathering the courage to do so.
- The confluence of influences that helped Rob change his mindset.
- Answering the question ‘Where does creativity come from?’
- Learning to turn down the noise and listening to the voice within.
- Detailing and naming Rob’s cocktail, La Dolce Vita!
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Get to know Chris -
- Connect on Instagram
- Coach with Chris
- Learn more about Goodman Coaching
Music.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome to the Bourbon and Breakthroughs podcast, where entrepreneurs reveal their biggest breakthroughs, both in life and in business. I'm your host, Chris Goodman, and I'm a life and business coach on a mission to help people change their lives and grow their businesses. On this show, you'll get to distill your own life-changing lessons from my friends, clients, and the best entrepreneurs around the world. During our conversation, we feature and taste a new or notable bourbon or something like it and raise a glass to personal development, business growth, and squeezing every drop out of life. So whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, join us for this episode of bourbon and breakthroughs. Cheers. What is up? Long time, no see. It's been a couple of months since we put out a new episode. I decided to take a couple of months off after the podcast wasn't my one thing anymore. If you've listened to the show for a while, you know, I'm big on the book, The One Thing and prioritizing what is most important for your life, your business, your relationships, for everything really. And for a couple of months there, this project of the podcast was not at the top of the priority list. So I had to take my own advice and deescalate that priority. which means we are now catching back up the beginning of a brand new year. We have Excellent guests to bring to you. I'm so excited that the first episode features, I shouldn't say the first episode, but the first episode in a few months. How about that? This one anyway, that you're about to listen to features Rob Murgatroyd. He's been a friend for years. We were in a mastermind together. He's been a client. He's somebody I reach out to when I have really high level questions or coaching concerns, or even if it's just a life question, I see him as somebody who has collected and earned a vast amount of wisdom over his years. And he's a highly strategic guy as well. So on top of that, he's hilarious. And if you've never listened to his episodes on the earlier podcast that we've recorded together, I think you're catching him in his prime. And you're going to hear a couple of his stories. But real quick, if you don't know who Rob Murgatroyd is and you haven't seen him online, a couple of things. You can scroll down in the show notes real quick, click those links, and go follow him on TikTok, Instagram, everywhere else. And I do want to give you this quick background. Rob's story is one of daring transformation, coming from Queens, New York, and currently residing amidst the enchanting beauty of Tuscany, Italy. For 25 years, Rob dedicated himself to the world of chiropractic in Atlanta. However, a pivotal moment shook him to the core when his wife uttered these words, I like you better in Italy. This simple phrase ignited a profound shift within him, sparked by a desire for change and a yearning to escape the monotony of chiropractic and into living what they call La Dolce Vita in Italy. Rob's forthcoming memoir, I Like You Better in Italy, illuminates this extraordinary journey of self-discovery and revitalization. And beyond his literary pursuits, Rob and his wife, Kim, offer Rob and Kim's Italia, a captivating five-day experience to uncover hidden treasures in Florence. Additionally, they host the Platinum Roundtable event, a mastermind event focused on helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses through unique experiences and around the world. In addition to these immersive experiences, Rob provides coaching, guiding individuals as they script the next thrilling chapter of their own lives. So like I said, you can scroll down to the show notes, find the links to follow Rob on TikTok and Instagram, or you can just Google him real fast, but make sure you do follow him today because he's always sharing inspiring tales of his Italian life, Italian insights, the food, the environment, the community, and how to have a well-lived life by design. So I'm gonna shut up and get out of the way because there's a lot of great points in Rob's episode here. Listen carefully to how he talks about how impact changed his business. And when he started to focus on impact, that power automatically just moved toward him in new and unforeseen ways all the time. Listen to his reminders about believing in yourself and not just in a positive talk BS kind of way, but really finding something that motivates you, that you're passionate about, and that you can commit to and have a rock solid belief in while you pursue it. And then lastly, listen carefully to how he talks about creating a clear narrative of your vision for your life, and why that vision must be compelling, why you need to be able to see it and feel it and even taste it, especially in his case where he lives in one of the food capitals of the world. So like I said, you're going to have a blast listening to Rob. You're going to laugh. You might cry. And either way, make sure you follow him and do us a favor. Leave us a quick five-star review on whatever platform you're listening to this podcast on and share the episode to help us get the word out about these great guests, the bourbon that they're getting into, the excellent brands that have partnered with us to make this podcast come to life. And by the way, have a good laugh in this episode because you get to watch Rob take his very first sip of bourbon. So, all right, enjoy everyone. And we'll catch you on the next episode after this one. All right, welcome back, everybody, to Bourbon and Breakthroughs. Today, you get to visit with my friend and past client here, Rob Murgatroyd. If you've followed the show, especially when it was Relentless Growth, you've heard from Rob. If you're on TikTok, there's a 99% chance you've seen Rob. If you're on Instagram, there's probably a 98% chance you've seen Rob. So visiting with us all the way from Italy today, thank you, Rob, for being on the show.
SPEAKER_00:It is my pleasure. And I am so excited to try. Do you know, I'm going to tell you, I am 57 years old. The only time I've tried bourbon is one time at a mutual friend, Chris Harder's Mastermind. And I think this is bourbon. Is Louis the whatever a bourbon or is that not even a bourbon?
SPEAKER_02:No, that is, I believe they, they bill that as a cognac and that's, that's a hundred years old when you taste it. So that there's kind of like a bourbon on this level and then Louis Trey, like way, way, way above that level.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So I've never had bourbon then is the answer.
SPEAKER_02:Fantastic. And so some of you are going to get to see this on video. Some of you are going to get to listen to his reaction. Do
SPEAKER_00:I have to fake it? And do I have to like, make you think that I love it?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely not. This is... Okay,
SPEAKER_00:good.
SPEAKER_02:What a silly game that would
SPEAKER_00:be.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, this is my favorite. I'm not going to drink any more of it, but I love it so much.
SPEAKER_00:Spit bucket, please.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. No, this is actually part of the fun. You know, when I started designing this concept, it was, if you and I were hanging out together... we would have a Negroni or something while we chatted, or maybe a cup of coffee or an espresso or something. We would have something though, like even sharing a meal, especially you being in Italy now, that would be important to us. And so this is really to be authentic like that. Some of the best feedback I ever get from listeners is, you know, we feel like we're sitting on the couch in a conversation with you guys. It just feels so natural and everything. So no, funny enough, Rob, this came all the way to your desk in Florence, Italy today from about 30 minutes from my house. Every bottle of that is made. Wow. Yep. Every single bottle of it in the world is made right down the road from where we live here in bourbon country.
SPEAKER_00:Do you think... that you're into bourbon because you've grown up around it or because you just happen to like it or probably both?
SPEAKER_02:I think it's more that I happen to like it because we have other things around here that I'm not really that into, like horse racing. You know, we go to the derby, we have a good time. Big hats. Yeah, big hats and nice suits. It's fun once a year kind of thing. But this is something that I think is, it's kind of like art. It's an appreciation. It's an experience. It's something... Not everybody's going to get into, but the more you learn about how it's made, the deeper you appreciate it. So I think that's what got me into it. Cool. Okay. So first things first, we're going to get Rob into his bourbon, let him taste it, let him, you know, have the full experience. Rob, you have, you have some ice there, right? I
SPEAKER_00:do.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm going to teach you kind of, if this were wine, I'm going to guide you almost like a sommelier would guide you through this, except for not that bougie.
UNKNOWN:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:You don't, this being your first experience with bourbon, and if you're playing along at home, you don't want to just go straight into it because at 90 proof, this one is, I think, yeah, this one's at 90 proof, 45% of what's in your glass is alcohol. So you're used to wine and other spirits. This one though is so much more alcohol that your body's actually going to think it's poison if you don't get it acclimated first. So first you want to kind of just get your nose in there, get familiar with.
SPEAKER_00:You're really selling it. Your body is going to read it as poison. So let's go slow. So we chose to use Buffalo Trace instead of arsenic tonight. It's a little less, but kind of the same thing.
SPEAKER_02:Arsenic just doesn't have that good oaky. It's
SPEAKER_00:just not done in those Kentucky barrels. Okay. So I'm going to pour it in. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. All right. So I'll go about a quarter of the cup.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I don't have much faith you're going to drink all of it, so we're going to see. You might surprise me, right? How do we do this? So just get your nose in there a little bit first. Oh my God, we have the same glass. Oh, wow. What are the odds of that? Literally the same glass. That's
SPEAKER_00:crazy.
SPEAKER_02:It's actually not. I mean, if you're listening and you're not watching the video, I jokingly showed up in a blue sports jacket with a perfectly coiffed handkerchief in my pocket because I knew that's how Rob was going to show up. We have a lot of things in common. So, all right, let's get to this so everybody can move on with the damn show. What do you smell at first? What comes to your palate? What comes to your nose? Crack your mouth open a little bit while you breathe in.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Strong alcohol, for sure. Duh. The first word that comes to mind is caramel. That's about all I got. Maybe a hint of
SPEAKER_02:vanilla, maybe. Yeah, you're right on. So part of the process is essentially scorching the barrels with real fire. And that caramelizes sugars and other things in the wood itself that when they put the bourbon in there, it helps draw out those flavors, those sugars. So you get all kinds of notes of caramel, vanilla. And then usually one of the first things people say with their first few experiences with bourbon is oak because it's so potent. But nonetheless, As you taste this, don't taste it yet. I'm going to teach you what's called a Kentucky chew, because like I said, it is so strong. You basically want to put just a little bit. I'm talking a couple of drops, like two drops onto your palate and then move it all around your mouth. And it's going to look like you're chewing it, but that's going to help your body understand, oh, this isn't poison. This is, you know, it's a high alcohol drink, but it's not going to hurt me. And knowing, and I'm taking you this way, particularly because I know how you take your drinks. So let your mouth, let your palate get acclimated to it. And then you can swallow it, but just a little bit. Okay. I wish you guys could see his face right now. I've seen Muppets that look like that.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. I did it. I feel like I'm on fear factor. I did it.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. So what's your reaction now?
SPEAKER_00:Fire. I feel like if I light a match, I could flame throw. I don't get it. I'm a little scared to go further, but other than that, Mr. Lincoln, the play was great. That's
SPEAKER_02:right. Well, you're right on cue because- I
SPEAKER_00:feel like I want to cough. Yeah. I feel like I just picked up a smoking habit. Go
SPEAKER_02:ahead. I did this event a couple of months ago called Bourbon and Breakthroughs, and some of the people who showed up-
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I had a breakthrough.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. Yeah. You were out of your mind for a minute there, I think. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Or out of my body anyway.
SPEAKER_02:So some of the people coming had never tried bourbon and we go to a distillery tour and one of the distillery owners was kind enough to let us thief whiskey straight from the barrel. So they're drinking 130 proof. Yours is 90 proof there. They were drinking 130 proof straight from the barrel without any ice. And their reaction was pretty hilarious. But here's the thing with bourbon. You can take it however you like. Tons of ice, extra water, all kinds of cocktails that dilute the strength of a 90 proof bourbon. So as we go along here and as that ice melts down into your bourbon, it's going to open it up and make it much more palatable for somebody's palate who's not used to drinking such strength. I
SPEAKER_00:could literally feel my heart racing. I swear to God. You know how you get strong alcohol? Anyway, go ahead. I'm just a wuss.
SPEAKER_02:You feel alive.
SPEAKER_00:I feel alive. Yeah, that's the way to
SPEAKER_02:put it. All right. Well, speaking of being alive- At this point, people have scrolled down and clicked on your TikTok or your Instagram and pulled you up, or they know you from the other shows, or they just know you from you being you. They know that's really one of the things you're all about is squeezing every single thing you can out of life, out of food, out of relationships, out of your environment. I mean, we've come a long way. We're kind of joking about how it's been, or maybe this was just in my head. I thought we were joking about how it's been about five years since we met. In that five years, you've transformed. You've done a complete 180, including where you live. What is different about you today and how you squeeze everything out of life versus how you used to be?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I guess we would have to pick a date in time for me to compare it to. But I think perhaps a better way to answer that question, if I can refine it a little bit, would be to say that I'm always looking for something that's lighting me up. I'm always looking to chase that thing that makes me feel like I'm coming alive. And I'm always trying to find a way to subtract what isn't. And sometimes the subtraction of what isn't making me come alive is difficult to get rid of. For example, when i was a chiropractor and i was no longer happy about doing that it was my family's primary source of income so it's very difficult to say this is not lighting me up anymore but it didn't stop me from taking a bite out of a lot of different apples and so if i can give you a couple of examples of trajectory here one of the things that i did as a chiropractor that kind of felt disenchanted was travel. And I would take some time to go travel and I'd come back from traveling with my wife. And it was the thing that like gave me the shot in the arm to get through the next couple of months. And then I was like, what if there's a way that I can capture this travel on film? And it's when YouTube, literally it was the year YouTube came out. And so we took a little video court recorder with us and we said, let's make a travel show just for fun. And there was a television show called wild on, on E and it was a girl who just kind of like traveled around the world. And so we modeled a lot of what we wanted to do after the style of the show. And we would come back and I was so excited to come back and sit there and edit the videos and find the right music and post them because Facebook and YouTube was just starting and post them online. And it never turned out, we wound up selling guidebooks to the destinations, made a couple of bucks. We didn't get rich, didn't allow me to leave chiropractic at all, but it rolled into like another thing in my life that lit me up. So when that chapter closed, I remembered being in Ibiza. And I remembered watching a DJ on one of the shows that we were filming. And I was fascinated by how the DJ could take three or four different songs, put them on top of each other and make a new melody. Like that was just fascinating to me. And so I came back and I said to a friend of mine who ran a nightclub, could you get me DJ lessons. And he looked at me like I'm out of my mind. Like you're 45 years old. Like you want to learn to DJ? Like are you Joe? I'm like, no, I really do. And I hired this guy to come to the house once a week and teach me how to DJ. And that led into him asking me if I'd be interested in playing in a nightclub one night. And it was terrifying to me, but I did. And I was, I felt alive and I wound up getting a residency at a club in Atlanta and And then I wound up traveling as a DJ in different cities. And then my wife got pregnant. And as you well know, it was very difficult coming home, fist pumping with 20 year olds who were on ecstasy. Not that you know that, but you know, having a baby, it was very difficult to do that. So I had to stop that career.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and for context, how old were you at that point? Probably 47. Okay. I just think it's relevant for people who don't know your full story, how many turns there have been that were significant in that 10-year range.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And then after that, there was something that was in there. And that's around the time that I met you at our mutual friend, Chris Harder's Mastermind, where I was trying to say, okay, well, what do I do now? I still haven't found a way out of chiropractic to replace my income. And each one of these things I did sort of like led me to like the next thing. And so when I met you, I was in that mastermind trying to figure out what was next. And so I took pieces of different things and I went, I love travel. I love music. I love interviewing people. And that led me into, well, what if masterminds were sort of like all the rage at that time? I was like, what if I did my own masterminds? But what if I did it my way? And what if we weren't sitting in the back of a hotel room and we were doing it like, because I always find that the best connections that people have, it's always at the bar, at the hotel, or it's at the pool in the afternoon. It's never sitting there listening to the prepackaged speaker. And so I was like, well, what if I did that? And then that led into doing masterminds. And so I can keep going. But the point, the answer to your question is that I used to find, I used to be embarrassed by that and feel like the guy with the resume that only has like, you know, a job for a year and a half. Do you know what I mean? Like, do you have any stability in your life? But I reconciled it because I did have the stability. I had the 25 years of chiropractic, but it was the constant changing while I was in that trying to find my lane. And so to answer the very long answer to your question, but that allowed me to reach the place where I am now, which we can talk about.
SPEAKER_02:You know, you make it sound so almost smooth in hindsight when I've experienced it as more just volatile. And I don't want to say character shaking because your character has never been up for debate, but it's been sort of an identity change. journey along the way of like, is this who I really am? I am the brilliant, successful, tenured doctor that drives the Porsche. No, I'm the guy that sells everything and moves to Southern California and is kind of a beach bum. And no, I'm somebody else. So going back, because I know some people listening to this are in the middle of that transition themselves or hoping to get in the courage to get in that transformational process. What words of wisdom would you have for them while they're in the thick of that identity shift?
SPEAKER_00:To not bullshit yourself and to be very clear about what it is that's lighting you up and not doing the logical next step. It's very easy to do the logical next step. It's very easy to say, I was a chiropractor, so maybe I should do chiropractic consulting if I don't wanna see patients anymore. But somewhere for this person, There's a voice. It's quiet. There's a thing that's just not going away. They've had it for years. When they're well-rested, pops up, and then it's a flash and it gets out of their head. They think, I probably couldn't make any money at this. There's a million people that are doing this. I don't even know where to begin. So none of that voice is ever heard. And so you just start living a life by defaults. and continuing because you got to pay the bills and you got a kid and all these other things. So the advice would be to get really honest about what that thing is and like separate it from the how. And me being, it's awfully funny for me to be the guy giving this advice because you are the one who's on the receiving end of my continually asking how. And I really believe that you were in my life as a coach at that time to help me. And by help me, I mean you metaphorically grabbing me by the shoulders and banging my head against the wall every week and me paying you an ungodly amount of money to do that.
SPEAKER_02:You got in while rates were low, don't complain.
SPEAKER_00:But eventually you gave me, you interrupted the pattern enough for me to see that my desire for wanting to know how was actually the biggest block that I currently had in my life. I truly believe that. And it wasn't until, I mean, I wish I can tell you that we did a coaching session and it changed. It was like well after. I needed you resonating in my ear and percolating for me to continually see that habitual problem. But I don't have that now. I'd love to talk about that because I think people would really, really get something from this.
SPEAKER_02:Please, because for you, it was more of an unlearning than adopting a new skill set, mindset, something else. It was really letting go, shedding that. But I don't want to speak for you. I mean, go ahead and-
SPEAKER_00:No, you're right. It was more about letting it go than it was learning a new skill set. And- You know, I think in life, sometimes there's a confluence of things. I think you were the one that gave me the awareness that this could be a potential issue in my life. Just having to know, how is it going to happen? Tell me how this is going to happen, right? And my friend, Matt, he's a really smart dude. And I reached out to him. I'm writing a book now, which we can talk about later if you like, called I Like You Better in Italy. And I really, really value... Matt's opinion. And so we talked about it one day. And so he was like, well, what's the book about? And so I started to tell him the story about it. And I'll just give you one quick example for context. I said, I wanted to have, I read him something I wrote and I said, I wanted$10 million. And he said, okay, we'll stop right there. And I said, okay. He said, why'd you want$10 million? And I said, oh, I know because$10 million will throw off about the amount of money I'm making as a chiropractor. Because for context in the book, it was, I wanted 10 million when I was a chiropractor. I said,$10 million will throw off about the income that I'm making as a chiropractor in interest. And so I'd never have to touch the principal. And he said, okay, where'd you come up with that idea? And I said, where did I come up with that idea? I don't know. He said, well, think. I said, where did I come up? I, oh, I remember I was with my friend, Darren. I was at a chiropractic seminar and we were doing like a breakout session. And he said, so you came up with the idea and you gave it to Darren? And I said, no, he came up with the idea. And so he looked at me, he goes, it wasn't even your fucking idea. And I went, okay. Well, he did that. That's one example of a trillion. He did that with, every decision i made why why did you do that why did you and he would would not accept any surface answer i gave him and the interrupting of that pattern every week started making me realize so much about myself that i was not thinking I was looking for a strategy. I was looking for a model. I was looking for what somebody else did. I was looking for what's going to get me a million dollars. I was looking for what's going to create the income that I need to live my life, as opposed to what would excite me to do. It's the stupidest, most ridiculous question now that I look at it, what would excite me. And one day about, maybe about six months ago, Tim said to me, you know, these little stories that you're writing in your book, why don't you go on TikTok and tell a 90 second version of them? And I was like, hmm, that might be fun. And I had like this little twinge of, yeah, but that's not what I'm known for. Yeah, but like, is it going to sell coaching? Is it going to sell a course? Is it going to sell a mastermind? Like, what the hell has that got to do with anything I'm selling? But then- Between your coaching and his why, why, why, I said, you know what? I think this will be fun. I just think it will be fun. So I went on and I did a video. And the video was about the most stupid thing you can ever imagine. And it was when I first moved to Florence, everybody talks about how you got to get the Florentine steak. You got to get a bistecca. So I go into the restaurant and I say, I'd like a steak. And I'd like it well done. And he points to a sign and the sign says, don't even ask me to make your steak well done because I'm not going to do it. And so I looked at him and I looked at the sign. I looked back at him and he's deadpanning me, looking straight on like, I'm not giving you a well done steak. Like it's not happening. And so the story in the TikTok was, but I should be able to have a steak however I want. I'm a paying customer. And if I want to kill the cow twice, Such an American thing to say, right? Well, this is the point, right? So I woke up the next morning, there were 100,000 views. Then it went 200, 300, 400, 506, eight, nine, 1 million, 2 million, two and a half million views, okay? Then I was like, oh, people are really interested in well-done steaks. So then I did the next one. And I won't bore you with that one, but I did the next one, goes to a million and a half views. And I went, oh my God, I am talking about something that I am ridiculously... Don't know why, but I am ridiculously interested and passionate about, and I'm getting literally millions of views, okay? So then I went one after the other, and they don't all get millions of views, but they get a lot. And so now I'm at the point where I walk down the street. It's... It's happened to me literally every day. I was on my way here and this couple just comes running up to me wanting to take a picture, right? Hey, we're from Miami. I follow all your TikToks. Can we take a quick photo? There's not a day, not one day that I walk through the streets of Florence where someone doesn't stop me to take a picture. Okay, why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because if somebody would have said to me, first of all, It is impossible that somebody could have said to me, you want to know the secret? Make a video on the steak. And then when you walk down the street, people are going to stop and see you. And then you can sell them trips to Florence, okay? Well, then we announced we're going to do a trip to Florence. We sell the trip out in two hours, literally two hours, okay? We said, we're going to do 12 people, 10 grand each, and we're gonna give them the best Florence experience that money can buy. Like it's gonna be over the top crazy, great. With all our connections and blah, blah, blah. We go to a Halloween party, we put it up for sale. We go to the party, we figured, you know, we'll see how it does. At middle of the Halloween party, Kim checks her phone, we're sold out. She's trying to figure out how to turn it off. In the time that she took to turn it off, we oversold it from 12 to 18 people, okay? None of this could have been calculated. None.
SPEAKER_02:There's a book from, I think, the late 90s called Power Versus Force. Have we talked about this before?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you've screenshotted it for me. You've screenshotted this thing.
SPEAKER_02:So there's a scale in this book. The entire idea is that there is a major distinction between power, something that is authentic, something that is in alignment, something that is true to your heart, for instance, and that comes organically to you and is just the essence of you incarnate, that is power, right? Versus force that requires so much of this feeling of rolling the boulder up the hill and strategizing and manipulating circumstances and controlling and forcing, in other words. That to me is the biggest reward of watching your entire journey is watching you slip into this ease of your power where you go, yeah, I'll just, This sounds like fun. You said this literally sounds like this could be fun. And you even said, what if there's a way? And these are pieces of things I love. And even the language just reflects how unforced that was, if that's even a word. For you, when you're approaching things now, how do you stay in that lane of power versus going back to the how and forcing it?
SPEAKER_00:Here is the good news of the obstinate personality that I have. Once I cross over to the dark side, you can't get me back the other way. I become an ex-smoker. Do you know what I mean? I become a zealot because I know what it feels like. And so now, if I'm writing a chapter in the book, I'm like, that's bullshit. That's not honest. If I am doing a TikTok video that my heart isn't in and I think it's going to work just because I... I just know it will. I won't do it. Conversely, if like, okay, here's a really good example. Yesterday, yesterday I did a TikTok video. It's in editing now. It's not out yet. It probably will be by the time your podcast comes out. And I was like, when I was thinking about doing it, I was like, oh, this is stupid. Nobody's going to give a shit about this. And then I went, I do. I don't care. So when I go out to dinner with Italians, It's loud. The hands are waving. The vibration comes off the wall until the food comes out. Then when the food comes out, they put the plate in front of them and it's silence. It's like they're like a fighter pilot looking at a target, trying to determine whether or not this is friend or foe, trying to assess the bogey in front of them. And you can literally... hear the like the collective fork going in and the table at once taking a bite and then collectively like their eyes go in the back of their head and they go oh and they start waving their hand all at the same time and then boom like the table snaps back to the conversation like none of it ever happens they are so food obsessed that It's fascinating to me, right? And so I spent three hours yesterday trying to find the right words, the right way to explain this, like what was in my heart, right? And the day before that, I went to Bologna, right? And I found it fascinating that They had a big fight in Bologna trying to figure out how thick should the width of the tagliatelle be, which is basically a noodle. How big should it be? They're fighting over millimeters. Here's how they settled it. They said there's a tower in Bologna called the Asinelli Tower. They decided that the gold standard will be 1 12,700th of a millimeter of the height of the tower. So you can't, because right now your brain is going, what the fuck? Like, why? And it's because they want to take history and food and find a way to meld it. I find this stuff fascinating. So once you get a taste of looking around and going, is that interesting to me? Like I found the guy earlier last week, and this will be the last one. I found the guy last week that is a third generation, which means his father's father's father does one thing. They make rolling pins, handmade rolling pins. That's it. That's all he does from the moment he wakes up till the moment he gets to bed. It's his entire life. And next to his workstation, his son is seven years old. He's got a workstation. Okay. He's teaching him how to make a rolling pin. Once you get lost in something that you're passionate about, somebody else would be, I don't care about rolling pins. I don't care about the width of pasta. This is boring. Great. I'm not your guy. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:That's it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's just that simple. So, but once you get a taste of connecting with the DNA that's inside you, I can go on and on and on about the thousands, literally thousands. I used to get like six people commenting. There are thousands commenting now because somehow I connected to my thing.
SPEAKER_02:You said that like it was an accident. Somehow I connected to my thing, but you worked at this. You essentially spent 10 years in search of that Florentine steak moment.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because I think it's sometimes it's knowing what it's, Sometimes it's all the things that didn't work that allow you... I think the word is contrast creates clarity or the phrase is contrast.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that or failing forward because in the moment it can feel like failure. Like, oh, I worked really hard on this one video and I put my heart and soul into what I thought was what people really wanted and it didn't do shit and it feels like I failed. And then I record this one about this steak and... Suddenly, now everything is exploding, and we're selling out, and I can't go get a gelato without people flagging me down. And I think that's just such a good lesson for people to hear that, like Susan Scott says this, everything happens gradually, then suddenly. Everything.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's so good. Isn't it? And it's so true. That's so good.
SPEAKER_02:Especially those among us who are really driven for our own results, we get impatient, right? And we want to start to stranglehold everything and control everything. And I'm saying we, because I'm definitely in this boat, but I also mean entrepreneurs. We tend to be the type who say, I'm going to direct my destiny. It is up to me. I'm going to make it happen. And we get into this train of thought that, well, it doesn't matter what it is. I can make it happen. And so when we get to a speed bump or something that's going to take a long time to turn into something, it feels extremely frustrating, like excruciating to have to endure something and go, this is so gradual, this is so gradual. And then suddenly, boom, I got a client right now who is, his birthday is today, he's turning 29. And in the last 18 months, he has written a book that in its first two weeks has 194 five-star ratings on Amazon. It hit, yeah, it hit number six in self-employment. It's endorsed by Amy Porterfield and the guy who wrote Profit First. What's his name? His name is Brian Lubin, and the book, we'll put a link in the show notes, so he's going to be so excited.
SPEAKER_00:I know him.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, you do? Yeah, you do know Brian.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I feel like I connected him to you in some way, like years ago, or maybe he reached out to both of us at the same time.
SPEAKER_02:A past client of mine, I think he interviewed you before we met, and then a past client of mine connected me and him. Yeah. This is the circles we run in, right? It's getting smaller and smaller.
SPEAKER_00:Great kid.
SPEAKER_02:Great kid. It's funny to say kid because he's almost 30, but he is so energetic. The book's called From Passive to Passionate. And it's in this line of what we're talking about that your timeline is not infinite. Your health is not infinite. Your most energetic and enthusiastic years of your life are not going to be in retirement necessarily. They're probably between 20 and 50. Or at least 30 and 60. So what are we doing with our lives, our businesses, our income, even our passive income, to help explore that and unlock something new? And that's what I mean, though. It is frustrating because even though he was working every single day for 18 months straight, putting out almost 500 podcast episodes, direct messaging over 5,000, 6,000 people, all these things, suddenly, boom, he's exploding. And I think it's such a good reminder for each of us, whether we're self-employed or not, to hear that and go, you know what, some things just take a little time and then overnight it can all change.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, but here's the highlight I would put on that because the entrepreneurial grits that it takes in many ways, hear me out because this is going to sound like antithetical. The grit that it takes to accomplish something in some ways, I think was my Achilles heel. And let me explain what I mean. I would look at something, not think about whether or not it was for me. I would set a goal and then I would just go after that goal. And very often I was leaning my ladder up against a building that was the wrong building. And so that spirit, that drive to get there was actually not the issue. The issue was the where, like, where are we going? Like, Let's put the drive. Let's put the 500 podcast episodes and all the reach outs and the book. And let's put all that aside. Where are you going and why are you going there? And here's what, here's the thing that the only thing that I care about right now relative to this conversation is why does it matter? Why does it matter? Why do I give a shit about this? And if you unpeel the layer of these silly little TikTok videos that I'm doing, it matters for me because I get to have somebody step away from their life in the chaos of the world that we're in and have a stupid conversation about the width of pasta and talk about, it's my way in to art and culture and history and life and living. That's why it matters to me. It's not the fucking pasta. Do you know what I mean? It's about my way that I can get in there and share something that I know you're going to have an opinion. I know when I did the steak that you're going to have an opinion, whether you want it rare or medium, or you think I should be shot for having a steak. I get it. But at least we're talking about something that's fun and light. and soulful and historical. And I get to bridge. The best part is when the Italians stop me because 44% of my audience, I just looked at it yesterday, 44% of my audience is Italian and 42% is American. So it's very interesting because the Italians are laughing at me looking at their culture and the Americans are laughing at me about the Italian. So it's this weird thing. But for me, the point is, why am I doing this? Why does it matter? Why do I want to write a book about I like you better in Italy? We just created a course because everybody wants to know. They're like, okay, I get it. I get it. Italy's great. How do I move there? So we just created a course. How do you move there? We gave them a thing and it did phenomenally well. It matters to me because being here with me asking questions You, should I move to Italy as a coach? I was torn. Should I live in California? Should I live in Italy? And you're like, well, if you had two years left to live, where would you live? That one question got us here. It just did. You know, I've told you that a million times. And so now we're here. I want people who perhaps have that same calling, that same thing to do it. But even more than that, I want them to find their Florence because I believe neighborhood matters. I think there's nature, nurture, and neighborhood. You can't change the nature. You can't change your nurture, but you can change your neighborhood. I'm a different guy than I was living in New York. I'm a different guy than I was living in Atlanta. I'm a different guy than I was in California. And I'm certainly a different guy living here in Italy. Environment dictates so much. When I wake up to the sounds of church bells and I walk into a cafe and they're like, bonjour, Roberto, there's a different feeling that I get. When I eat the food and like I described to you with the hands, I'm present with the people at the table and the food and it's soulful. So nature, nurture, I think really matters as well.
SPEAKER_02:You're spot on. There's no debate in it. And we're even seeing evidence on documentaries coming out about how community in blue zones is a predictor of longevity in life. So it's not really up for debate. Is it possible you're onto something? I mean, we know you're onto something. And then marrying that with Yeah. that just didn't hit the mark. But you do keep coming back to one of the others, which is if this were fun and simple or even easy, what might it look like? What could it look like? Something like that. To unlock this part of you that goes, oh, I can just have fun and that's valuable or entertaining. And then I can turn entertainment into a currency and that currency can turn into another currency and so on and so forth. So for people, did you have something there that looked like you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I did. You're so good. You can literally tell my Botox to eyebrow raising.
SPEAKER_02:It was more on what you didn't say or how you changed your breathing.
SPEAKER_00:You're so good. The big question, like you gave me the one-two punch with that question, which I think was the thing that like loosens the top of the container. But the question now for me is why does it matter? Why does it matter? That is leading everything I'm doing right now. I don't know why... But when I answer that question, honestly, earnestly, soulfully, it matters to me because then there's no stopping me.
SPEAKER_02:So if there's no stopping you, where are you headed?
SPEAKER_00:I'm kind of happy with like threes right now. A book, the end of the year. I like you better in Italy. Some courses. We've got two courses. One is how to move to Italy. And the other one is our ultimate vision course, which is people like They're like, I don't want to move to Italy or I might want to move to Italy, but I keep setting these goals over and over again and they're just not happening. And I did the vision board party and I cut out my head on somebody else's body. I put it on the vision board. I cut out words like inspire and it looked like Jeffrey Dahm being out of prison across from it, but it's still not happening. So that's that course.
SPEAKER_02:Mine had a picture of you breathing fire on it. That's
SPEAKER_00:funny. And then the third one is a couple of events. We're doing a Florence event in the fall where we take people. It's not a business one. It's just fun. And we take them to the best spots we know, the secret spots, really, where very few people know about. And we bring them on a ride for five days. The other event we're doing is, I can't actually say to that one yet publicly, but it's going to be a more business event.
SPEAKER_02:So watch your Instagram, watch your TikTok for... details when they come out. Yeah. And these things have really blown up. I mean, it's, it's so fun. I'll bring it up to a client. I'll be like, you know, have you ever thought about, and they're like, oh, I've, I've followed for him for years. You know, him start telling like we're saving right now because in two years we want to be able to go do the big trip, you know? So it's so much fun to see that. So kind of winding down because you're, you're enjoying your bourbon so quickly. I don't, I don't want you to get sloppy here or anybody who hasn't watched the video.
SPEAKER_00:By the way, there's no way that I can fake this because I literally have a camera staring at my face. Literally, there's no way I can go, I've been drinking it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, it's good. It's good. No, it's good. The ice melted. That's what you're saying. Here's the thing. You have the book coming, so there'll be another opportunity to get to know you on a different level. But when people are hearing this and then they go back into their daily life, what do you really want them to connect? What do you really want them to know?
SPEAKER_00:This is going to sound really cliche. But, and maybe you've heard this before with regard to Michelangelo and the David, right? There was a big piece of stone and he chipped away all the pieces that weren't David and what was inside was the David. It's a great metaphor, I think, to answer your question because there is a life, there is a vision, there is a ideal of what someone has that matters to them that would get them out of bed really excited. And they kind of would do it for free. They don't want to, but they kind of would do it for free. And that creative part that's in there, if they're willing to listen to it, play with it, think about it, journal it, ask it questions, can literally change their entire life. That's what I would say. Hopefully that made some sense.
SPEAKER_02:It makes perfect sense. One of my favorite quotes is from Michelangelo. He said, I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free. And you and I have talked about this, where as entrepreneurs, we, in a way, are artists. We are creating something from nothing. We are carving this vision out one little chip at a time. And it definitely doesn't go how we think it's going to go, but sometimes it turns into something really beautiful that we get to share with people who do appreciate it. So I think you're right on.
SPEAKER_00:For sure. There's a great book, I think, if anybody wants to learn more about this. There's a great book on creativity by Rick Rubin.
SPEAKER_02:While he finds the title, double check on Spotify for it because they just downloaded millions of titles that you can read for free. The Creative Act, A Way of Being?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's basically Rick Rubin, for those of you that don't know the name, he's behind Adele, Johnny Cash, Jay-Z. The list goes on. He's done everything and he's known for having no musical talent whatsoever in terms of he can't play an instrument. He has no musical training at all. He simply knows what he likes. That's it. And to give you a quick example, Jay-Z's in the studio and they're doing 99 Problems and they start with music. And then he says to Jay-Z, do the first line with no music, just acapella. And
SPEAKER_02:the rest is history.
SPEAKER_00:Rest is history. And he's got a story like that for every single thing. And the book really gets to the heart of it. Like, where does creativity come from? How do you tap into that? And that's like all the stuff that you coach, all the work that people do in listening to podcasts, you got to peel that noise off of you in your life to be able to hear that soulful part of you that has the answers.
SPEAKER_02:I just want to let that resonate because if they could only do one thing from this podcast and just turn off the noise for a minute, and because I can say this with confidence, every single person I've ever coached turns the volume up on everything else except for that voice. And that little voice of whispering of like, you really love this. You really light up with this. This feels light and easy and exciting and exhilarating to you. I had to do this. You are... Probably the biggest force behind this podcast. Well, definitely the first iteration of the podcast. Fucking hilarious. You sat in my house in California and you're like, why don't you do a podcast? And I gave you a laundry list of excuses and you're like, that's it? So if we could solve that. It's all you got. Yeah, we saw that in 10 minutes. I was like, uh-huh, what? And then the podcast was bored. So thank you for that. And that's fun for me too, because talking about Brian, one of his big things in his community is your audio needs to match your video. And for you, for the last five, six years, your audio has definitely started to match up with your video of like, who am I? What am I all about? Why is this important to me now? And taking really courageous action Even if it's moving to Italy, even if it's giving up really lucrative business opportunities, even if it's letting go of things that used to serve you that don't anymore, you really walk that talk, man.
SPEAKER_00:And I'll tell you something else too. I know you'll land in the plane here, but I think this is helpful as well for people. There are parts of me, when we talk about creativity, there are parts of me that go, like when I started doing the videos, I was like, I actually don't want to be me right now. I want to be an over-the-top version of me and I want to have fun and I want to be silly and like almost theatrical, right? You? No. But not like trying to pretend to be me, but really just being theatrical. Like I want to go all in on going, I am going to create a character for this thing and I'm okay doing that, right? And then I said, but there's another side of me. I look at things a little differently. than when i'm out in the fields and so yesterday we're in bologna or the day before we're in bologna and we're walking around and we're walking around a food market and i'm creating a video that's not a character that's me like trying to understand the food in bologna right but then there's a third version and the third version is that kim doesn't tell me i don't have my lashes on. I don't have my suit on. It's in the morning when I'm on my way to the gym where we have coffee and she pulls her phone out and she says, okay, here's what this person commented. What's your reaction? And so I film an immediate reaction without knowing what it is. And so you get three different versions of me in the way that I want to share that with you.
SPEAKER_02:This is really fun thinking about that because I see you going where Stanley Tucci has gone, people like that who are sharing something that was a passion project, but now they realize, wow, people really are into this. And there's a lot of value in sharing these things because they don't have the opportunity or the money to go chase these things down themselves. The three different versions of you is like, it's so fitting too, because it's like you got the art, the food, the environment of Italy. I see why you're gravitating toward threes lately.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they're just, they're like threes. Like the last one we did, I did it on my terrace and I don't know why, but Italians don't use dryers. They have to like hang their underwear so the world can see, you know, their underwear hanging. So like I'm there and I'm literally hanging my underwear to dry on the clothesline. And as I'm explaining it, the wind comes and knocks the clothesline over and we kept it in. Do you know what I mean? Like, so I'm like, I'm just finding ways to communicate Like I see why these science people, Bill Nye, the science guy, or what's the other one? The one from the Hayden Planetarium, Cosmos guy, Neil Graston Tyson. Yeah. Like I see how they're trying to, they have something in them, but they want to find a way to get it out. And so he does star talk where he brings a celebrity on to talk about the cosmos. But when you have that in you, you're just like, you want to share it. And if that's the way it's going to work, great. And if it could work that way, that's okay too. Because none of it matters. What matters is, am I getting it out?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's kind of like that idea of if you don't know what radio station you want to listen to, you'll just oscillate back and forth between all of them. But if you know what you want to listen to, there's something out there for you if you just tune into it. And it's so counterintuitive because we think we need to be so strategic, especially when it comes to selling a product or a service. It's like, no, you have to have all of these things and we get all locked up and there's no flow in that. No. So let's do this. You know, everybody who's been on the show so far takes a moment to think about their story right now, where they are, the breakthroughs they've experienced recently to get here. You know, we talked about gradually, then suddenly, suddenly you're here. You've sort of arrived on TikTok. You know, you've been working the Instagram game for years. But for where you are right now, if we turned this different version of Rob into a cocktail or something, what would it be? in terms of what kind of ingredients would go into it. And I don't mean necessarily one part bourbon, one part bitters, whatever. I mean more substantively. What would you put in there? And while you're chewing on it, what would you call it? And you can take your time.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I've never been asked this question. It's such a great question. The cocktail would be called La Dolce Vita. It would be consistent with my threes. It would be one part, why does it matter? It would be one part, belief in yourself. And it would be one part, a clear narrative of your vision. Because if you have the vision, and you know where you're going, you know what the story is, and the one page, just for context, the one page narrative is the story of where you're going next. And I could tell you my story for my next one if you want. And if you have belief, And if it matters to you, then you have everything or you have La Dolce Vita.
SPEAKER_02:That's what I was going to say. And you're living this.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I don't have any notes or questions because I'm just looking at this. I'm like, that's you on the page, man. Right? Because I thought for sure you'd say, I like you better in Italy would be the title. And you went a totally different direction.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You know why? Because I like you better in Italy for me is the before picture. La Dolce Vita is the after picture. Because baked into the I like you better in Italy is when she said that to me, she didn't like me then. She did, but she didn't.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. So it's hilarious because usually at this point, guests are getting a little red in the face. They're slipping over their words a little bit. You got none of that. You got none of that. I interviewed a brilliant author, and in the last five minutes, we had to pause because- It was slurring? Yeah. He's like, you should have told me to eat a cheeseburger or something before your interview.
SPEAKER_00:You did a great job, by the way, with the, and I don't know if this is the same guy, but you did a great job with, his name escapes me, but he's the one who wrote, sold like the bazillion books on- Oh,
SPEAKER_02:Phil M. Jones?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was a great interview.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. It was just complete... For everybody listening, if this at all looks put together, just know that there are shit show moments where everything is going sideways. That was the most challenging interview, probably the most challenging anything I've ever done in terms of every technical thing that could go wrong went wrong. And it went wrong twice because we had to reschedule that interview. So I'm glad that it came across like that it was... Well done. Yeah, thank you. And he's such a pro that he honestly made it easy. But that's also like talking about you appreciate food, you appreciate Italy, you appreciate community, these things. I appreciate just having a way in sometimes with people. And bourbon is that for some reason, it's just a way in with some people. And I found out that he actually created his own bourbon and then named it after his brand. And in finding that out, I learned we're connected in all kinds of ways. Like one of my top clients right now is coaching with one of Phil's best friends, all kinds of stuff. So it is, but it isn't, right? Because had I not been looking for that thread that goes through these circles and these personalities, these opportunities wouldn't show up. So what I was going to say, and then I got on a tangent, was usually people are like, you know, really loose right now. And you... You're in the zone though. Is there anything else on your heart or in your mind that you want people to take and run with before we wrap up?
SPEAKER_00:No, because I think we hit the highlights. I think, not to belabor the point, really think about what it is in your life right now that matters to you. I know, your wife, your kids, I get that. Beyond that, like what matters to you? Because we got one shot at this life and as I'm approaching 60 now, I'm starting to realize that there's only so many years that I get to make a difference and feel like I'm doing the thing that I was put here to do and not just occupying space. Yeah, here's what I would say. Power, when you're trying to do something, we haven't talked about this, but when you're trying to do something that makes a difference in the world, power moves to you. It just does. It just does. When you're doing something for yourself, it doesn't move quite as fast. But when you truly are doing something because you really, really want to make an impact, you want to lighten someone's load, you want to put some shockwave out into the world where somebody feels something, nothing makes me happier than when an Italian stops me and says, you made me fall in love with my country again. Like, nothing. There's no thousand dollars that anybody can give me, a hundred thousand dollars that can chase that feeling. None. And so when you're doing something like that, when you find that thing, it's a whole other level.
SPEAKER_02:Man, you're on a whole nother level. This is so much fun to see you lit up. You don't have the burden on your shoulders anymore. How of strategy of comparison. So thank you for this. This is, this is awesome. This is great.
SPEAKER_00:Great. This was incredible.
SPEAKER_02:For everybody listening and watching, you can scroll in the show notes and catch Rob on his website. Look for the book to come out, I Like You Better in Italy, and obviously on TikTok and Instagram. Anywhere else you would send people right now, Rob? Nope, that's it. That's it? All right, man. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to the Bourbon and Breakthroughs podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please do me a quick favor. It would mean the world to me, and it would help us book better and better guests every week. Take just a second, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast, and leave us a quick review of the show. Thanks again, and cheers to your own breakthroughs.