You Can't Afford Me
You Can't Afford Me
Harnessing the Art of Storytelling and Strategic Refusals to Elevate Your Business and Authorship Journey with Kyle Gray
Have you ever wondered how a simple story can propel your career or business to new heights? Kyle Gray joins us to unravel the mystery, showcasing how a well-told narrative can be your most powerful asset whether you're closing a sale, crafting a book, or captivating an audience. As we traverse Kyle's personal evolution from academia to entrepreneurship, we uncover the secrets to communicating visions that aren't just heard but deeply felt, driving listeners toward action.
Venturing into the world of remote work can often feel like sailing uncharted waters. I share the turbulence and triumphs of leaving behind the office for the autonomy and sometimes isolation of a home environment. We dissect how to keep a laser focus on the horizon, steering through distractions, and aligning our daily efforts with our greater mission. Kyle and I also touch on the dance of strategic refusals and how the art of saying 'no' can actually be one of your smartest business moves.
In this conversation, learn how the timeless three-act structure can transform your personal experiences and client testimonials into captivating tales that resonate with authority and authenticity. We also reflect on the journey of authorship—emphasizing that the path to becoming a thought leader or speaker is trodden through the act of doing. And for those aspiring to leave a legacy, we discuss how consistency and purpose in creating content can shape not just your professional identity, but a legacy that endures. Join us for an episode that's as enriching as it is enlightening, and might just inspire you to pick up a pen or step up to the mic.
www.themrpreneur.com
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Sam:Hey guys, thanks for joining us on another episode of the you Can't Afford Me podcast. Guys, today I got somebody from the islands on the podcast today. Today we're going to be talking about storytelling, how this can improve your sales, becoming an author, public speaking, all that good stuff that you guys know I'm into. And today's guest we have Kyle Gray on the show. Kyle, how are you doing today, buddy?
Kyle:I am so happy to be here. Thanks for just creating this amazing platform. It's moments like this that make me do what I do. Thank you for having me, Sam.
Sam:For sure I love it and, as always, every time I get you on the call I got to tell you you have the most awesome background of anybody when I jump on a video call with.
Kyle:This was something I visualized. You mentioned. I was on the islands and I've been a traveling digital nomad moving around the world for many different years. And one of the downsides of that lovely lifestyle is often you're setting up your office in your bedroom and having a blurred background, and for a long time I was picturing this background that we have with the checkerboard, with a bit of a vanishing point in a corner point in a corner. And finally I actually moved off the island about a year ago and moved into a more permanent place where I had a good office, dedicated setup and I was just thrilled to be able to get good video backgrounds. I was tired of the blurred background. So I appreciate that you recognize how far I've come through the background oh, absolutely.
Sam:So before we get too deep into it, man, take a few seconds.
Kyle:Tell everybody who you are and what you do.
Kyle:I am a crafter of vision in many ways. I work with people who are too smart for their own good for their own good and through a process of understanding what a story is and what a story needs and what great teaching really is that teaching that moves people towards taking action and making decisions. And I use that knowledge to ask questions and draw out the ideas and help these experts explore their own deeply forested minds and come out with the real gems of who they are, why they're doing what they're doing, what can they teach? What's the least smallest amount that they can teach in this time that's going to create the biggest amount of action and how do we connect with who we are in a way that's not only going to get our hearts beating a little bit faster when we talk about it, which is really important. You got to get yourself excited first, but we want our audience, those who we want to help, to feel that exact same feeling in their hearts, and there are reliable, repeatable ways to do this.
Sam:I think we lost each other for a second.
Kyle:Oh, I'm back. I can hear you now.
Sam:All right, cool, yeah, keep going. You were saying for people to find, like, the thing that gives them that heartbeat.
Kyle:Yeah, and there are repeatable, reliable ways for you to create this effect. There are ways that you can be present and aware of who you're speaking to, whether it's a podcast audience, whether it's standing one-on-one, in front of person or on a sales call or on a stage of thousands of people. There are ways that you can understand who these people are, what they need, and look within yourself to find the right stories that will create that action.
Sam:I love that, love that. So let me always like to start with guests at this area. Before you became an entrepreneur, what were you doing?
Kyle:Um, my only job uh, full-time job that I've had was working at the university of Utah. I worked in the study abroad office and I was helping students travel to um, south America, africa, the Middle East or Spain Any students that were traveling to those locations. I loved to travel and had no idea what I would do with my life. Anything else didn't make sense except for getting the opportunity to travel around more and for a long time. I was listening to podcasts. I heard about people who were living all over the world, working from a laptop and building successful businesses.
Kyle:I spent years listening to podcasts, hoping that one day, while just sitting there and listening to a show, I would have the ultimate business idea that didn't have any competition, that was going to be a surefire win.
Kyle:And as soon as I had that, I could finally get started in my journey of entrepreneurship and took a couple of years doing that, while between working full time, helping people go to different countries and have great job at the University of Utah, graduated with my master's and then had the opportunity to work for a founder of a startup, helping them create the story of what they were doing through blogging and content marketing, and that opened up the door for me to travel where I wanted to work where I wanted to work and live where I wanted to live. And I had to learn a lot of different skills from not just the practical skills of blogging and content marketing. But how do I communicate remotely, how do I manage projects, how do I develop relationships with people who are all over the world? And that's how slowly how I started finding my way into this world, and it took a few different failures and bad business ideas that I had to pursue with my a little bit more so number one talking about just working remote.
Sam:I think when this concept and this idea really started to take off after COVID, people got really excited about the thought of working from home. But not everybody can work from home and be productive. I quickly learned that and I did it for a very brief period, just that time that I was forced to because of COVID, and then the second I could, I was back in the office. A lot of people have difficulty doing that because it's one of those things where, like you're going into the fridge 20 times a day just because a lot of people are just wearing their pajamas and not getting dressed and taking a shower and treating it like it's a workday, so you feel like you're just schlepping around the house all day long. For you, what was that mindset shift of like being in corporate America and working that job before and transitioning to something like this where you're working remotely? What type of person do you find can be effective from working at home and what tips do you have for people if you are working at home how to be the most productive?
Kyle:So I feel I got a headstart on the working remote and started developing these skills in about 2014. And it was worth it to be able to live in many different places and travel and have the flexibility and I have certainly fallen prey to all of those same things of not really getting anything done in a day, going to the fridge, allowing myself to be easily distracted, and I would say, if it's possible for me, it's possible for you as well. I personally don't feel like the most productive. I personally don't feel like the most productive, focused person, but by doing simple little things, of understanding what's important to me and this will change whether you're. If you're working remote for somebody else, then it's likely that you have somebody who's telling you what your KPIs are and what you need to do, and that's helpful. If you're working on your own, then there's few things more terrifying than the silence of an empty calendar and an empty screen and trying to figure out what you're going to do with your day to fix your business. It fuels a lot of sales of courses and coaching programs. In fact, I have a joke business called Certiholics Anonymous for just these type of people. That's, certifications, aholics Anonymous, because I see this happening a lot and we try to take on a new program to stop that feeling.
Kyle:And the most important thing that I find that sometimes I'm doing well, sometimes I'm not doing well is tapping into that vision. It's the same thing that the story does for us. If I have a reason that I feel aligned with, that I'm feeling excited about, that allows me to wake up in the morning and do the thing that I need to do, even if I don't want to, because I can see and feel and smell and taste the future that I want to create. The reason why I'm doing this work gives me a context. The clearer that I am on that and the clearer that I am on myself, the easier it can be to recognize what's a high-value activity that I can do with my day and what's a low-value activity that I can do with my day and what's a low value activity that I can do with my day, and start to say no to those things and construct my days appropriately.
Sam:That is the hardest thing, I believe, for an entrepreneur is to use that word you just mentioned no. As an entrepreneur, oftentimes we feel like you have to say yes to everything and if you say no to somebody you're missing out on an opportunity, when I've in fact found that oftentimes, when I say no to something, something better comes along that I actually want to spend my time doing, and it will propel my business even further.
Kyle:It's a paradox, because you probably want to say yes a lot when you're in the beginning and you're not very good at stuff. You want to take opportunities to make mistakes. But yeah, you're exactly right. There's a point where you're you start to feel afraid to say no and that's actually a worthiness thing. That's a sign and a symptom that I'm not tapped into, what my highest value is and what my highest story is.
Kyle:And as you start to ascend in your career as an entrepreneur and get better and become more valuable, you will naturally start to ascend in your career as an entrepreneur and get better and become more valuable. You will naturally start to attract more people who want you to do stuff, who want, who offer you yeses for, to cooperate on this thing, to do this other thing, to change this direction. And and yeah, it's very difficult to say no to and yeah, I've experienced that too but the power of your no is one of the most essential things, Because anything that we do that's worth doing even in this time of AI, where it can do all of our work for us in eight seconds is great things that are worth doing take a long time and a lot of focus and you're going to have to say no to a thousand things, to say yes to that one thing that really matters.
Sam:Absolutely. You hit on something else there too. Sharing that story, I want to talk about developing relationships from afar. So when you're working remote, being able to develop these relationships with people.
Sam:I've often said because obviously I'm I'm real big on, you know, social media, marketing and things like that, and I've heard over the years people saying like, oh, social media is just like pulling us apart.
Sam:Things are a lot less personable now and my thought with that is that if you feel that you're not more connected to people because of social media, you're not utilizing it in the right way.
Sam:You should be taking these virtual relationships, take them offline and create real world relationships. So much in fact, I met my wife on Facebook. So it's like if you have the skill set of being able to turn a connection, a friend, a follower on your social media channels and convert that into a real world relationship, that's really where the power is. So kind of talk to us about that, because I'm actually in the process of hiring on more remote editors for my media company and it's a much different task than it's easy for me to like to open the door and go across the hall and explain how I need something edited to one of my team members. But when you're working with somebody from afar, oftentimes in different cultures if you're not very specific and you don't know how to effectively communicate over email or Slack or things like that, things aren't going to get done correctly. So kind of talk about how you've been able to develop and curate those relationships working remotely.
Kyle:Absolutely. There's a couple of facets to this that you've hinted at. The first is how do I develop relationships with potential clients and partners and collaborators and how do I communicate effectively on a team? Let's start with connecting a few. Wow, the opposite of what just happened there communicating effectively on a team. So what I found, especially in my first few years of working remote the emails and the communication. I got felt a little bit terse or in my heart and it felt harsh in a way. But what I really think is happening and there's something that feels a little bit confrontational in this, which is why we tend to shy away from it but it's being very precise in your communication and when you try to increase the precision of communication, sometimes people feel like they're being questioned. So we don't want to do that. And here's an example of this If I'm talking to my team member and they say the laptops will be here next week, there's a lot of different, there's a lot of ambiguity in this.
Kyle:Let's say, these laptops, I'm running a new podcast and I need to have my laptops ready. So well, when really are they going to be here? Are they going to arrive on Tuesday, and does that mean that the laptops are going to be in boxes at my doorstep on Tuesday, or are they going to be opened up and fully booted up and ready to plug and play? Is it going to be opened up and fully, like booted up and ready to plug and play? Is it going to be Tuesday morning or Tuesday afternoon? What do we need to do between them arriving and plugging them in and playing to get them set up? And it's being able to ask these questions and think about these things to eliminate any ambiguity. And we, by nature of I don't know if this is an American thing or just a human thing, but we tend to leave ambiguity in because it feels more comfortable and it also gives people a little bit of a backdoor.
Kyle:If you just say the laptops will be here on Tuesday, then because of the lack of clarity, that person doesn't have as much responsibility. But if you can really get down to, the laptops will be here in the boxes on Tuesday and then Tuesday afternoon we're going to open them up and do all the things and get to that level of precision. That's what's really important. And then building relationships with people online to grow your business is also really important, and I'm certain you get as many of these messages as I do, but it's the worst. People are the worst at this in the world. I get so many messages on Facebook that's just like hey Kyle, do you want clients? Hey, kyle, check out this person for your podcast.
Sam:That's my LinkedIn page. I get that all day long on LinkedIn, yeah.
Kyle:Yeah, hey, sam, I see we're both humans. Why don't you add me on LinkedIn? Because we have so much in common.
Sam:And the big thing there, too, is that you can tell when these things are automated or it's like some AI thing because, like, somebody will go on my LinkedIn profile and be like hey, do you have some spare time to make extra income? Well, if you really looked at my profile, you see I'm running like four or five companies. So where in the world do you think I have spare time? So, no, you haven't read that. Plus, it doesn't have that personal aspect to it. Like if somebody reached out to me and be like hey, man, I see you're a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. What do you think about Justin Fields coming on the squad this year? That's something that's going to incite a conversation, versus somebody just hitting me up saying, hey, you need more clients. Well, who doesn't?
Kyle:Yeah, and it's. It's about creating a relationship Like. One of the reasons I love having a show is it creates a space for me to have conversations like this, and I wouldn't get to have this conversation if you wouldn't have had me on this thing. We couldn't. We wouldn't have had as much fun as we get to be philosophical and have a good time and develop ourselves with each other. And even what led to this was how I approach this. Is just like what you were saying.
Kyle:I reached out on Facebook. It was a friendly, personal message and it's my goal to create value. I don't know where the next business opportunity is going to come from, but when I see people who are aligned with me, who are doing my work, I reach out and we find ways to add value to each other. I'm not trying to immediately get a cold outreach conversion boost, but through the process of creating good content, of helping each other out, of spreading each other's messages, I trust that if I do this at scale, the right opportunities will come the right way, if I know who my ideal client is well enough and I am focused on serving others, not myself, through this process.
Sam:Yep, we're good, we're at internet's all over the place today yeah, yeah, I hope this works out if it.
Kyle:If it, I think we'll this should be editable and fixable, but if it's not, I like to run things raw.
Sam:Man. It's real life. This is what entrepreneurship is about. Man, we're gonna show people the realness I like your point on that too, um, to get people to understand. So you and I have actually been connected on facebook for years, probably yeah and we had never had a conversation.
Sam:And then I made a post saying hey, I'm looking for some interesting guests to bring on my show. Who do you guys know that would be good for me to interview? And a mutual acquaintance of ours, jeremy slate which I think is the original reason why we were connected on facebook to begin with tagged you and tagged one other gentleman and said hey, I think I introduced you guys a long time ago, but now you guys definitely need to talk. So to your point, like what you said there, it's not connecting with someone and immediately trying to get the business out of them. I have people that I connected with years ago that are just now reaching out to me and saying hey, man, I'm now in this space. I've been following your content for years. I think you can help us out. When can we talk?
Sam:And I think so many people are just so hungry, like to jump on an opportunity, that they don't let stuff breathe. Man, you got. You got to plant the seed. You got to water it, you got to nourish it. The fruit will eventually show up. To water it, you got to nourish it, the fruit will eventually show up. But if you go in, like immediately trying to get something out of it for you and not looking at how you can assist someone else. It's going to be a long time before your business really gets off the ground.
Kyle:Absolutely. This goes back to the same thing that we were talking about time management and working remote. If you know who you are and the real value that you're creating and who your ideal client is, and you can trust your process, trust your value enough, then you can build these relationships with an open heart and an open hand and get much better results. And I know this because I've been on both sides of this equation. There's been times where I've been really needy and it comes through in my sales calls and people don't call me back and there's been times where I'm feeling aligned.
Kyle:I know who I am. I know why I'm doing what I'm doing and I'm showing up to serve these people, not try and get a result. I'm showing up because I believe in the magic of relationships and, who knows, six years after meeting somebody for the first time on Facebook and not talking, now this is here and this is like we don't know how all of these relationships will unwrap and unfold. But I'm here to surround myself with great people that inspire me, that are fun to have good conversations with and serve and make this world better, and I know that if I can stay true to that and really believe in myself. Then, yeah, the sales are going to come through and people will raise their hands at the right time.
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Sam:Mr Prenuer, empowering your entrepreneurial spirit Absolutely. And it's all about the right time, because typically the right timing isn't the time that we expect it to be. There have been multiple times where, like you know, bank accounts getting tight, I'm reaching out to people. I'm like man, I don't know where I'm going to get this money to make payroll and X, y and Z, and then, out of nowhere, somebody that I talked to like a year and a half ago pops up at the right time. They're like hey, we don't need a full discussion, I just need you to write a contract because we need this in a couple of days. Cool, like it always comes through when it needs to.
Sam:One big thing I want to talk to you about today is like with your brand, the Story Engine that immediately caught my attention about your brand, because we recently changed our slogan at Enzo, but for years it was Enzo Media Firm. We bring your story full circle and I think if more people would just simply understand the art of storytelling. I actually came across this post from a guy on Instagram I believe it was yesterday or the day before and he said you know, if you're talking to somebody and they ask you, hey, kyle, what's your favorite color? And let's say, your favorite color is green. Well, he told the whole story behind this. He was like well, actually, when I was growing up, you know, I grew up in Florida and you know, one of my favorite things as a child was to go down by the boardwalk and hit the beach. Of my favorite things as a child was to go down by the boardwalk and hit the beach. And I'll always remember, from that first day of us getting in Florida, the palm trees just blowing in the wind, and, of course, palm trees are green. So ultimately, green's my favorite color. The fact that you shared that story. That person is way more likely to retain that information. And let's say, for instance, they want to pick up something nice for you for Christmas. They find a t-shirt and they come in several different colors. Well, what color do you think they're going to go for? They're going to go for that green because they remember that story that you told for them. And you know, this isn't a new concept in terms of storytelling. Like this is how humans have been engaged for centuries, and I think one of the most valuable things, especially in the marketing space, is for people to understand how to curate stories, because this is what engages people Like.
Sam:For me personally, my favorite movie of all time is Rocky, love Rocky, and it's for two reasons. One, the story itself. The script was amazing, just about this underdog and how he had to build himself up and he ultimately became world champion. But it's also the story behind how Rocky was made, where Sylvester Stallone's writing out the script, he's pitching it to different studios and things like that. They're offering him like pennies on the dollar, things like that, and then the money starts to actually get real.
Sam:Like this guy's living in poverty and I think the first studio offered him like a hundred K and he turned it down and he said, well, no, I'm going to need at least 300 and I'm going to need to be the lead role, and they were like man, you're not an actor, like you don't know how to. No, we'll buy the script, but we don't want you as part of it. He's like all right, then I'll pass. So eventually got to the point where somebody took his offer and he also got the starting role. But it's the story behind that. Once you learn the story like you guys can't see right now, but I got tons of sneakers here in my office the things that sell a pair of sneakers is the story behind it. If you can attach a story to something, somebody is far more likely to do business with you. So kind of talk about that with your brand, how, how storytelling has been an intricate part in what you do.
Kyle:Yeah, what you're pointing out is something important and controversial in some ways. Most people who are beginners at storytelling they either think that, ah, this stuff like green palm trees, that that's not interesting, useful information to teach. Why would I talk about that? I've just got to get into the real good stuff that I have to share, and what you're pointing out is that there is a use to stories, and our problem is that we think stories only have one use.
Kyle:But I like to see storytelling in the same way as a martial art, which means there are many different moves that you do in a martial art to get a result. And the more that you practice these moves, the more natural they become, the less you have to think and I would say, the more authentic you are because of your practice. And if you just have one move, if you have one amazing Sylvester Stallone haymaker punch or a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick, that's a great story and that's probably it'll. You'll win a few martial arts battles with with that or or with that move, but it's it's not going to be you. If, if Rocky just had one punch, he wasn't going, he wasn't going to win the fight, and Chuck Norris just had one. And so it's about knowing.
Sam:Hold on, Chuck Norris only needs one move.
Kyle:Chuck Norris does only need one move. Thank you for correcting me and I'm sorry, chuck Erase, that we do have to edit that part out of the podcast, but if you only have one Chuck Norris move, that's a problem. So, like what you illustrated with the green and the trees, oftentimes this is like the framework of an origin story, or I sometimes call it an authority story. This is a way to talk about who you are and what you do. That showcases the why behind it, purposes that happen behind stories. Then we are better able to tell the right stories, to sift through the many, many ideas and moments that we have in our brain, and one of the biggest problems is people don't understand those really important details of why we're telling the story, what's the purpose of this story, and so that's what creates people who have these long-winded, winding, boring stories that don't seem to go anywhere or have any effect. We've got to run through our understanding of the filters and the frameworks to do that. One story since you're talking about this and you mentioned Rocky, the three act play is the core component of a good authority story and it has three different ingredients and we can understand the purpose and start to think how, about how we teach, instead of just thinking about what we teach? So a good origin story will start with a painful moment, and what I do with people is I have them write down the three biggest pain points of what their client is experiencing and then we immerse ourselves by reading it out loud and expressing what happens from those painful moments, to actually conjure those feelings and emotions in our own body. And I ask when did you feel like this? And we find a moment in their life that matches this. And then the magic is we actually take the client's language of how they describe what they're going through, and we paint it over our moment in our life. So we're doing this in service to them. And then in the next scene we have our Rocky montage.
Kyle:In the Rocky movie there's a couple of minutes scene where he's like punching different bags, running up the stairs, the girl of the now music is playing and in a few minutes Rocky's so much stronger he's ready for the fight. And that's exactly what the scene two is for us. And instead of punching bags or describing like well, I wanted this unique thing in my solution, I wanted something that was easier. You're describing the benefits and the unique qualities. You're not teaching us what you've learned, but you're giving us that same montage, and then we end the story with an opposite scene.
Kyle:We started with the pain points. So what are the three things that they want? What are the benefits that they get once these problems are solved? And also, when did you feel like this? This will focus our story down, paint our client language on it and make it so that when we're telling our story about who we are, we're showing up in service to our listeners and, ideally, they're starting to feel both excited, understood and just the tiniest bit nervous, because they feel like we snuck into their house last night and read from their journal in order to craft this speech.
Sam:Love that Because biggest thing about that, what you just explained and for those listening, you need to rewind those last few minutes, what Kyle was just saying there and take some serious notes, because that was a major gem right there. People want to feel like they're being heard. So the way you just described that, to put yourself in the position of that client, live in their shoes for a moment and work through that thought process and ultimately deliver the solution to them. What you do, but if you can paint that picture for them, they're much more likely to do business with you than they are someone else, because with everybody else that's quoting them and sending them proposals, it's just a basic, dry template. Here are the numbers, here's what we can do, but the way you just did it like to be able to go through and describe to people and show them you understand the position that they're in and you understand their pain points man, that's powerful. I'm going to personally go back and listen to that and take some notes on that.
Sam:One big thing I wanted to hit on here, too, is is your book. So in one of your Facebook posts you said something pretty powerful here is that you become an author through the process of writing. You don't, you're not an author, and then write a book. You become an author in that process. Same with speaking. You don't, you're not an author, and then write a book. You become an author in that process. Same with speaking. You don't. You know, become a speaker just by booking one appointment.
Sam:It's through the process of speaking that you then become a speaker. So talk to us about that. Like I know, there are a lot of people that you know they get in the business for themselves, they start doing something, they they see a little success and a lot of people are immediately pushing them to do a book. I know I personally have people on my back telling me, sam, like when's, when's the book coming, and I still feel like there's a lot more that I need to do and get through to write the book that I ultimately want to write, through, to write the book that I ultimately want to write. So talk about that process. Who should be writing a book? What are the benefits of writing a book? All that good stuff.
Kyle:Absolutely, and thank you for asking and checking out my own page. It's always an honor to see when people are reading. The first concept I want to go into is is, yeah, writing a book makes you an author, or right Be being a speaker makes you a speaker. And there's an idea, uh, an old teaching adage, and it's called do one or see one, do one, teach one. It's how to learn something. First you see somebody do it, then you do it yourself and then you teach somebody, and that's how you become a master at something. And the problem, I see, is a lot of people they do the C1, and they do a lot of the doing ones, but they're not doing the teaching one, and so we're missing out on this process of mastery and actually doing something.
Kyle:The benefit of writing a book is not just what happens after your book is published, the benefit of writing a speech although I do say this, and I sell this when I'm on my own sales calls of once we write this speech, you're going to get ROI, but that's not really the magic that happens. It's as we are writing this speech together, as we are writing this book. I'm going to challenge your ideas, I'm going to make you say it shorter. I'm going to make you say it more concisely. I'm going to ask you to dig deeper on this thought and find the gem that's really hidden underneath it.
Kyle:And it's through this process of going back to it, of sharpening who we are and what we're doing and reflecting, that makes our thoughts better. It makes us better at what we do through visiting the chapters over and over and looking at it again and thinking, man, I hate this book over. And looking at it again and thinking, man, I hate this book. It's stressing me out and you show up anyway.
Kyle:And through crafting this and learning, how can I get all these thoughts in my head in a way that's going to be useful and teach somebody, will improve how you think about what you do and will give you treasures beyond that. And that's what I would say about actually, how do we write a book, as if you can see it like that, then it's a process that you're engaged in throughout. You're not just writing a book and it's a slog until one day it finally comes out. This is making you better at what you're doing and making you more refined and professional, I would say these days, if a lot of people like that express they want to go to college. I would say just write a book about whatever it is that you want, and and setting out to write a book and crystallize your ideas into something that could be sellable, that could be marketable and useful for people, will be as powerful as an education, I think.
Sam:Love that. So two things on that. One, I look at it's the same thing with my social media content, with my podcasts, all that stuff. Where I look at these things as this is how you leave a legacy, this is how you live on. Where I look at these things as this is how you leave a legacy, this is how you live on because years after you're gone, your content is still going to be online. The books you've written are still going to be on shelves available to purchase, your podcast will still be streaming on the internet.
Sam:Like this is a way, because I often think as a as a young dad, like my daughter's four and my son's about turn three, I often think, if I end up leaving this earth early and I don't get to see all the years of them growing up, there will come a time where they're eventually going to forget about that, and what I mean by that is like they're not going to remember my mannerisms, they're not going to remember the jokes I used to make things like that, but because I make content, I've left a legacy. I've left them with lessons that they can take and say this is what my father taught me. So that's one thing I love, just about content in general. But let me ask you this how long do you think?
Sam:Well, how long did it take you to write a book? And I know part of your answer there will probably be. It wasn't when, you like, took pen to paper like you've been writing a book throughout this whole process ultimately. But when you made the firm decision of, hey, I'm going to write a book from that moment till it was produced, how long did that take you?
Kyle:So for my three books the first one I had built a course that was very bad course. That was the skeleton for my book, so I had like the ideas that I wanted to write out there. But then started putting in my stories and putting it all into writing and I followed the miracle morning process of waking up an hour earlier every day and trying to get at least 500 words out a day. And if you can write at least 500 words a day, five days a week, that becomes 2,500 words a week, which becomes 10,000 words a month. And so at about that pace I wrote my first book in three to four months. I wrote my second book, which had a large body of work of blogging and content that I had written before that was repurposed into a book, and same with my third and I'm working on my fourth, which is not quite on the four months timeline. That's been a little bit slower but, yeah, sometimes it takes longer. But I think that's a great framework and to turn it around, or just to observe something you just said, what I really like about what you said about your content and why you're doing this is you're doing this for your daughters and you have a reason behind this and this is one of the most important things. I admire that you feel good about your work, that you show up in front of this microphone and in front of this camera and you feel excited about what you have to say, because you're not only serving your daughters, your family, but you're serving people, and this is one of the most important ingredients that I don't think we fully grasp or understand or talk about. I think it's noodled on in the kind of mindset world. But if you're not stoked about who you are and why you're doing what you're doing, then you're going to be watered down on camera. You're going to be less good in your sales, you're going to make worse decisions with your team. Your team's not going to do as good because they don't really know what's what they. They can't draw this energy from you in this process and all of these things are watering down and slowing down what you're doing and what you just hinted at.
Kyle:It's so important and on a day where you don't feel good and things are hard and things are busy, you're still going to show up, not for the sale, but because you're thinking about your daughters in the future experiencing this. Daughters in the future, experiencing this, and this is where, through the process of creating stories, we usually tap into the things like this, and this will change how you make your choices from day to day, and I admire this, because there's been times where I haven't felt tapped into that and what's left is usually me thinking about okay, well, how do I get more sales? And oh man, this content isn't that good, nobody's reading my stuff and I'm not excited about me and who I am and what I'm doing. And then I show up and less ideas appear for me to write about in content and I have less energy to reach out and try and book the sales calls and all of these things.
Kyle:What you just pointed out right there, I think, is the most important part of this whole thing. It's the source of fuel that if you don't get this right and lined up, then nothing else is going to line up. And if you can't get yourself feeling this way about what you're doing and your product and your creations, then how can you expect somebody else to trust you? This is what people are really looking for and it's what you hinted at earlier. It's can you understand them and their problem and be able to describe it Not just try and prove yourself or get a sale, but serve them through this.
Sam:Thousand percent and I want to point this out here too is I don't want people thinking that when you do find your calling and your passion, that every day is sunshine and rainbows, there are days I don't feel like showing up.
Kyle:Trust me.
Sam:Yeah, Plenty of those days. But it's reverting back to your why and understanding. Why did I start this to begin with? Because there've been moments where I'm like you know what, man, maybe I should just sell this company off, Like I thought I knew what I was doing and you started to second guess yourself on several different things. But when you just stay in it and show up like that's one thing I love about. Physical fitness is half the battle of getting healthy is literally just going to the gym. I remember I just finished reading terry cruz book uh, not too long ago, a couple months ago and he said when he first I mean terry cruz is like the biggest jack, him and the rock are like just monsters um, and he said when he first started working out, what he would do is, I think, for the first two weeks when he got a gym membership, he didn't actually work out.
Sam:He got a gym membership, he didn't actually work out, he got the gym membership and he just made sure he went in the building every day and he just walked around, you know, sip some water from the fountain, you know, got a lay of the land and he walked right out the door. He was like, if I can just get myself in the habit of showing up every day, like something good will happen. And I've seen that happen in so many areas of my life. Like there've been networking events where I'm like, no, it's been a long day, like I don't feel like going to this networking mixer at four o'clock. Like, you know, I'd rather just wrap things up and head on home. And it's been those moments where I was like you know what? I'll put this on my calendar for a reason, I need to show up.
Sam:It's been those moments where I've showed up, where I've made some of the best connections, like right now, a networking event I went to probably about a month ago. It was one of those situations. I just didn't feel like going. It was the end of the day. It'd been a long week. I was like whatever, but I ended up going One of the people that I met there I really met like two, three people.
Sam:One of the people I met there that day we met with her company last week and we are quoting her Potentially they're going to be the largest client that we've ever closed like a monthly recurring client, and it's like man, if I had just been lazy and stayed here in my own element, that never would have happened. So a big part of the battle is just man just showing up and getting out there, like being able to rely on your why. You need to fully flush out that why. Why are you doing what you do? Because there are going to be those moments where it's not going to make sense, it's not going to feel good. You got to be able to fall back and remember why you started this. Last thing I want to ask you here I'm not sure this question just came to me. I haven't asked anybody this on the podcast before Um, what would you say has been the biggest benefit of entrepreneurship coming into your life?
Kyle:Oh, so good. This is actually what I would. What I would say in response to your last observation and statement as well yes, not every day is going to be sunshine and rainbows. When you have your vision, and no matter what you do in your life, you're going to face challenges of one kind or another and you can choose to choose what those challenges are and this would be the way of entrepreneurship or they can be chosen for you to some degree. However much control you want to give away, these will come one way or another.
Kyle:Nobody's getting out of life without a few scratches, at least along the way, and so it's not about hoping to have a life where these things don't happen, but it's being able to have the meaning and the story and the reason to carry you through those moments. Because there's been times in my life where I haven't had that story and I haven't had that focus and I haven't tapped into the thing and, yeah, I want to sell my company, I want to give up, I want to stop, and it's very. It brings me right down to my identity and it's been challenging. I feel a little crazy because my identity is very tied up in my business and the work I'm doing and what I'm creating. And if I don't have that story, then the failure I'm experiencing, the suffering is just suffering the setbacks in my business. I'm mad at myself, I blame myself.
Kyle:If I am tapped into the thing, then the setbacks are exciting, or they're tolerable, or I can keep showing up and do the thing just like you said. It makes meaning of the inevitable suffering or pain or discomfort or uncertainty that will challenge you, and this is what entrepreneurship is the constant mirror for. It's the ultimate self-development tool and most people don't come into this for this reason. But entrepreneurship will always show you the skeletons in your closet, the limiting beliefs and frequencies that you're holding, and present you opportunities to do it. There's very few other roads you can walk down that will consistently challenge you in this way, and you must become a better, more integrated person to be the leader that can create the success that you're seeking.
Sam:Amen to that man. I love it. That's a perfect note to end on Kyle if people want to get a hold of you, they want to buy your book, they want to connect with you, how can they reach you?
Kyle:You can find information on my books, my podcast, lots of different blog posts and infographics on storytelling at thestoryengineco. That would be a great place If anybody's interested. I also have a little mini course that outlines how to create an authority story at the storyengineco slash perfect. This is a short 45 minutes of videos that will walk you through the three steps to create a story that I talked about today and help you create your own. And yeah, that's where you can find me. It's been an absolute pleasure and I am honored again that you would share this space with me.
Sam:For sure Appreciate you, brother. Thanks for coming on and we will see you guys on the next episode. Dream of launching a business that combines innovation with social impact. Legacy Vending Machines Entrepreneur Program is a gateway to make it happen. I'm Sam Anderson, co-founder, inviting you to join a movement reshaping the future of vending. With personalized coaching, access to prime locations and a unique model that supports nonprofits, we empower you to start a profitable vending operation that truly gives back. Whether you're new to entrepreneurship or looking to expand, we're here to guide you every step of the way. Be more than an entrepreneur. Be a legacy builder with Legacy Vending Machines. Apply today to take the first steps towards a business that makes a difference. Visit our website now at wwwlegacyvendingco. Your legacy starts here.