The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
[Music]
scouting nation i’ve had several people
on the show that talk about how we keep
our internet lives are online lives
secure and they’re just people out there
that are trying to hack into our
day-to-day activities well one of the
ways they do that is we have very simple
passwords and if you are selecting your
own passwords and not using something to
randomize passwords you’re probably more
vulnerable than you think a tool that
i’ve been using for years is called
lastpass lastpass will create passwords
for you it’ll store passwords it will
autofill passwords on certain websites
you can even share your passwords with
people without giving them access to
your actual passwords lastpass has given
us an affiliate program which you can
access by going to
scalinguph2o.com forward slash lastpass
you can try out one of their free
options and you can see why i have been
a fan of theirs for years
welcome to scaling up the podcast where
we scale up on knowledge so we don’t
scale up our systems my name is trace
blackmore i get to host this awesome
podcast
i get to see all of you as we are
getting back to normal having
face-to-face events
yes it’s finally happened we are meeting
in person again so i cannot wait to see
some of you at the conferences that are
coming up now i won’t be at this one but
the us water treatment conference it’s
going to be november 3rd through 6th
if you are interested in that
go to our show notes page and we will
send you all the information that you
need to know about that and then having
said everything is in person well not
everything is in person of course we are
still taking advantage of webinars
there’s normally at least a dozen
webinars you can attend on a weekly
basis if you want to go out there and
find them sometimes it’s difficult to
find them so i’m going to make it easy
for you the rising tide mastermind the
scaling up h2o podcast and the
association of water technologies are
teaming up to bring you the business
webinar series and on october 29th
michael wardy is going to talk to us
via webinar about how do we prepare
for an eventual transition in our
company now there are a lot of people
out there that listen in the scaling up
nation that are getting ready to sell
their businesses they want to make sure
that they know what they need to know in
order to transition to the second
chapter of their lives now there are
other people out there that have very
new businesses and you are probably
thinking
i do not need to even start thinking
about
selling my company
transitioning to sell a company or
anything that is involved with that
process and i’m here to tell you
i hope you change your thinking because
if you own a business
and you run it
so
you could sell it at any time it doesn’t
mean you will but it means you’re
keeping up with your business
just recently we had a conversation on
episode 205 with marty stevens and that
was the advice that he gave the scaling
up nation to all the water treatment to
all the business owners out there that
the first thing you do when you decide
you’re going to sell your car
is you start
cleaning it up you get all of the crumbs
out of the cracks and crevices
you clean inside the doors you clean the
jams all the places that you’ve
neglected over the past three years that
you’ve owned that vehicle hopefully
you’ve owned a car longer than three
years that’s a horrible investment if
you’re trading something in every three
years but that’s a different show
the point is what you are doing is you
are making sure that it looks its
brightest and it looks its best
michael’s gonna share that with you
so again if you’re getting ready to sell
a company or if you just own a company
this is something that you are going to
want to attend you are going to have
handles after this webinar that you will
be able to start working on
some of these items now if you go to our
show notes page you will see a link
where you can register for this event
and you will not be sorry
something else i know you are never
sorry to hear is a james’s challenge so
folks here’s james
[Music]
hello scaling up nation the next james
is challenged as we grow as an
industrial water treatment professional
drop by drop is
[Music]
test for microbiological activity in
your cooling systems
i’ve left this challenge wide open to
make you think about all the
possibilities
does it refer to running aerobic
bacteria dip slides srb tests nitrifying
tests denitrifying tests atp
online monitors or others
does it refer to open or circulating
cooling towers or closed cooling systems
what are the action levels what do you
do when you reach those action levels
are there plans in place
be sure to share your experience on
linkedin by tagging it with hashtag jc21
and hashtag scalinguph2o
this is james mcdonald i look forward to
seeing what you share
nation there’s so many ways to test for
microbiological activity and cooling
systems i hope you are taking advantage
of that i hope you’re doing something
with the data too i can’t tell you how
many customers
that i have seen that do dip slides
every single week but they do not do
anything with those dip slides or
their water treatment provider does not
do anything with those dip slides and
normally they’re not working together
the company’s management group normally
says you have to run these dip slides
and then they just run them and perhaps
they actually get those dip slides from
the water treater but the water treater
doesn’t empower whoever is running those
on-site tests to give them information
so the water treater can make better
decisions on their programs i can go
into an entire
show about that maybe i will but it’s
not going to be today
as always i hope you are completing
every single james’s challenge and as
you do those please as james mentioned
hashtag your results hashtag
scalinguph2o
and hashtag jc21
nation one of my favorite things for me
to do for you
is introduce you to friends that i have
outside of the water treatment industry
there is so much to learn
outside of the water treatment industry
and then apply within the water
treatment industry i know that you are
going to enjoy my interview today
so here it is
[Music]
my lab partner today is paul edwards and
and paul i don’t even know how to
describe you to my audience you’re kind
of a renaissance man you do a little bit
of everything so i’m not going to do it
justice how would you introduce yourself
to the scaling up nation trace it’s a
pleasure to be here
and uh i like the renaissance man thing
there in fact i’m just gonna roll with
that we’ll start with saying i’m a
renaissance man but uh you know if you
were to put it into words if you were
put it into a description of what i do
and
entrepreneurial entrepreneur founder ceo
privileged leader of a team of fantastic
ghost writers
uh and content creators
and husband father and
uh disciple of god and iraq war veteran
and
uh part-time amateur bodybuilder and
also uh you do a lot of voice work as
well
i do a little bit yeah i uh
i’m always taken aback by what people
think
of my voice because i’m just listening
to it in my head and i like my voice but
i don’t i don’t hear what other people
hear and uh yes that’s turned into some
some lucrative opportunities for me yeah
you uh you’ve got quite a sort of a
randy travis thing going on
randy travis i like it i gotta check
that out i haven’t paid much attention
to it
now i also hear that you’re pretty good
with impressions
yeah well see that’s where the ghost
writing comes from right because
when you’re when you’re attempting to
write in someone else’s voice
it’s handy if you actually know how to
make your voice sound like theirs
because when you read the content you’ve
written you can say
well let me read it out loud to myself
in their voice and say does that sound
like something they would say or how
they would express an idea
and it’s helped me pull out so much of
my way of speaking from the content so
that it sounds like my clients are the
ones writing it
yeah somebody that you and i both admire
is aaron walker and he was on the
podcast a couple of weeks ago and i
heard you do a big a impression can you
do one for the scaling up nation
i believe i could do that i mean if if
big a were right here he’d say something
like come on big man
hey trace and paul edwards together in
the house man i’m fired up
that’s pretty good that is pretty good
if he ever can’t make a podcast i’m sure
you can stand in and nobody would know
the difference
i’ve thought about it you know because
both you and i swim heavily in his
ecosystem there with the mastermind
after a while especially in a
relationship like that you really get a
good feel for how people speak what they
say phrase the phrases they would choose
we’ve invested a lot of time and effort
learning his voice
it’s it’s it’s an easier than average
voice to learn because he’s such a
character and he’s got the thick
southern twang and all that but
he’s still got to be wary about he has a
great vocabulary but in writing what
would he say you know you have to be
judicious about that
one of the people that i’ve been working
with for years he’s my business coach
his name is tim fulton
he tells everybody that there’s a book
in everybody and he’s been on me to
write a book for at least the past 10
years i actually started this podcast
because it’s easier to do the podcast
than it was for me to sit down and write
a book but that’s what you do what
advice do you have for me and all the
other people out there that haven’t
gotten their book out yet
yeah you know the funny thing is when
people hear everybody has a book in them
we’re always tempted to to think in the
shallow end of things of our humanity
and what i mean by that is
in the same way that we think as
entrepreneurs right i do this
i specialize with this kind of work but
so do a thousand other people why would
anybody choose me right
we tend to think of our human experience
that way too oh well i’ve i’ve grown up
in this part of america and i went to
school and then i got a job or i started
a business so i got married i had kids
what’s unique about my experience
well
see when we’re when we start in the
shallow end
that’s that’s where we make our first
mistake
the book inside us is in the depths
but if you don’t if you don’t know how
to access that you need help
even if you do know how to access it
it’s better done with help because what
i find is like i can access the deep
stories inside me i have vivid memories
that i can that i can recollect things
pretty easily but i do even better if i
have someone interviewing me and saying
tell us about a time that this happened
and then all of a sudden this memory
that i had buried that i haven’t told
anybody for decades comes to come
straight to the forefront like i forgot
that i knew that
so when you’re writing a book right the
strength of the book
especially non-fiction fiction’s a
different ballgame and i don’t swim in
that pond and i and i have nothing but
respect for people who do
but when you’re talking about
non-fiction the most boring thing you
can do with a book
is tell people facts and figures
but if you can tell a meaningful story
in a sequence that that builds upon
itself as it goes through and shows
people
there is a different way to do things
there’s a there’s a better way to do
things and i’m not saying this because
i’m on my high horse i’m saying this
because here’s my story of doing it the
wrong way
versus how i do it now
it’s you’re just taking people on a
journey
through your stories which are
compelling because they’re relatable and
human so i tell people yeah absolutely
everybody has a book inside them
yeah a couple of things come to mind in
in listening to that one i just get so
distracted when i’m sitting down to
write it the littlest and normally i
don’t get distracted over things i can i
can put my mind to something i can get
it done but there’s just something about
when i try to write i’m not into it so
am i doing something wrong am i not in
the right place what do i do
well um
i you know i like to say that my clients
mostly have both the talent and the
treasure to do this if they could
actually find the time uninterrupted
unencumbered by their normal business
routine their family all that other
stuff in other words if you had as much
time as my team has to write
then you could probably get it done
what everybody’s lacking to some extent
is time because we’re all on a exactly
equal footing there nobody gets 28 hours
in a day
so the reality traces you probably could
now you may run into other problems that
most people don’t foresee with the
written word
and one of them is
that when you write
you lose all of the tonality body
language facial expressions and eye
contact that you have with an audience
when you’re speaking one-on-one whether
that audience is one person or a
thousand that’s not necessarily a
problem it just means that you have to
be even more sharp and clear about what
you mean otherwise you lose the reader
and there are so many ways to lose the
reader there’s run-on sentences there’s
going off on a tangent right in the
middle of something that makes sense and
then the next thing you know you’re
reading and the reader’s like what’s
this got to do with anything so you need
extra eyes watching
for when you’re doing this because if
you’re not careful it turns into babble
and it’s not coherent and nobody can
follow it and therefore you lose the
reader
so
i i dare say that
that is actually what for most people
it’s actually a blessing that you get
stymied when you try to start because
what god is trying to show us is
don’t write these stories alone
well that’s interesting and i’ll tell
you the things i have written my my wife
is just excellent with grammar
and and syntax and i’ll get her to proof
things and i’ll think what i wrote is
great she’ll read it and she what the
heck are you talking about
so i think a lot of what you just
described is happening in my writing
but i will say i enjoy speaking
and and it’s got to be exactly what you
mentioned that i’m able to use my tone
my inflections my facial expressions
and my process for speaking is i create
a i call it an ugly outline a coach i’d
work with in the past taught me that
terminology and just basically all the
high points that i want to cover
and then i’ll rearrange it so it has a
very concurrent thought going all the
way through it and then i’ll start
working on it to create a pretty outline
and then i’ll create the what i want to
create from there the story i think i’ve
done that with the book but when i write
it down again if i were to speak to my
wife in the exact same way that i was
writing i think she would say i got it
but when she raised it she’s like what
the heck are you talking about
yeah i’ve forgiven an illustration that
may ruffle a few feathers but
a very clear example of this is former
president trump
right if you watch a campaign rally he’s
all over the map but it’s okay because
you can see him you can see his facial
expressions yeah he’s going from one
topic to the next sometimes it’s even
difficult to follow him in person but if
you read the art of the deal it’s smooth
and coherent flowing right
he doesn’t leap from one thing to the
next faster than the average human being
can follow and that’s deliberate not
only did he hire a ghostwriter to do
that but that’s part of the
ghostwriter’s purpose is to make sure
okay let’s make sure that this actually
follows a narrative that people can
tap into
uh plus right the clarity it takes just
extra thought and extra eyes it’s a ma
it’s a mastermind process if you ask me
that’s why i i use a team rather than do
it myself
you just need extra eyes saying this
part makes sense this part i don’t get
what does that mean
until we get to the words that 99 out of
100 people are going to be like yep i
get it
well you mentioned telling the story
and when you mention that pat lencioni
comes to mind and pat will do a fable to
teach you a business lesson and i’m a
huge fan of pat’s but i like pat a lot
more in his last chapter than i do in
all the previous chapters because i
really don’t need all that story just
tell me what i need to do and i’ll take
something from it and i’ll go do it and
i’ve mentioned on the show before i
really changed my appreciation for pat
lincione when i brought his books to my
team
and they were like oh a boring business
book oh we got to read something that
trace would read on his off time but
they really got into the story and
because they got into the story they
learned what they needed so
there’s probably a disconnect there that
i maybe don’t think i need to tell the
story and and everybody else is asking
for the story so i need to find a way to
get that unlocked
so i can entertain as i inform
yeah you know there i’m i’m thinking of
the analogy of a symphony orchestra
while you’re describing that trace and i
think what happens for us as
entrepreneurs and ceos and visionaries
and our companies
is that we can conduct the orchestra
right
we can see all across the violins the
oboes
the brass section and the percussion and
all that
and we generally have some degree of
knowledge where all those bits and
pieces fit but if you send a musician
off to practice by himself and all he’s
playing is his violin part
or all he’s playing is his french horn
part he’s waiting to hear what does this
sound like when i’m playing it with
everybody else
right what does it sound like in concert
and how does my contribution
flavor what everybody else is doing
and i think that’s what the stories do
the stories
simply give us a context and background
to say oh i’m here doing this boring job
of you know licking stamps and putting
them on an envelope but on the other
hand those stamps and envelopes are
going out and money’s coming back in and
when it’s coming back in we get to
expand and i get to get promoted and
have a greater role so you’re showing
courtesy and maybe courtesy is not the
best word but you’re showing um
empathy for the
different roles within your organization
by opening it up and giving it
background and context and that gives
them a chance to say i want to buy into
this story i want to be part of it i
want to dig deeper into it
well you started out by saying as we
communicate it just unlocks stories that
that you’ve never thought about and and
as you were telling that i was a
trumpeter in high school i haven’t
thought about that in years but i
remember it was i believe it was my
junior year
i was in marching band and i tried out
and i got the solo for tiger of saint
pedro
and we uh we hadn’t practiced that with
any of the other band members
the band director just sent us out or i
think we had to go pick it up because
the email really wasn’t a thing back
then we had to go pick up our part we
had to practice it and i found a cd when
we actually had music on cds that was
tiger san pedro and i i would play with
the other instruments
and i remember when it was my time to do
the audition and everybody else was
playing it threw all the other people
off that were auditioning to be the
soloist and because i practiced in that
way i just went straight on through and
i think that’s why i got it
yes
because you knew the story it was not
virgin territory to you
it was it was practiced it was smooth it
was
oh i’m part of this much bigger scenario
that’s going on and i don’t see it and
so so a couple things happen there not
to get too off on a tangent here but i
think when people are called into that
story
they stop being you know unable to see
past their nose kind of thing and it
expands
their depth perception of what’s going
on around them so to speak
and as a leader
right this is this is the core of what
our agency really does everybody likes
to say well we write books and we write
content yes that’s the that’s the
product but at the core what we’re doing
is we’re making leaders better
communicators because when you have
leaders who are great communicators
great things happen right
they used to call president reagan the
great communicator and when he was in
office great great things happened right
the berlin wall came down the cold war
was over the economy boomed like never
before not because he was pulling levers
but because he was a great communicator
of inspirational and uplifting and
forward-thinking principles and
a mindset and optimism that galvanize
the entire nation
so it really is all about communication
leaders are successful if they can
communicate well companies are
successful if they have good
communication in their company books are
well received if that communication is
is received well from the author so
how do we get in that mindset so how do
we get that we’re now conducting the
orchestra everybody’s doing their part
everybody’s following along how do we
know we’re effectively communicating is
there a pattern is there is there a
three-step process we can follow
yes and no
because the simplest way to know if
you’re communicating well is to see if
you get a response to it or not
and is that response the one you want as
a practical
example of this i’m
have like an attorney client privilege
type of thing of mentioning specific
names
but i have a client who i write some
executive correspondence for
and
for years the executive correspondence
in in a company of that size
has been about what you would expect for
executive correspondents in a company
that size quote-unquote for ever for
people listening right it’s it’s
basically shallow corporate
correspondence nobody pays attention to
well we decided we were going to do that
differently because
he felt the client that it was
inauthentic to him to write like that
and it instead he wanted to write
in a much more engaging style
and so we did
and we started writing these letters
and he started to get responses from the
these people started to respond
you know he said some people who
responded were people who had never ever
ever responded to any email he’d ever
sent
so that’s one metric
the other thing is
over time what you should see
if we’re doing this
for the right reasons to the right
audience at the right time
what you should see is a gradual moving
of the needle
in some way shape or form if you’re
communicating to your email list for
example
you should start to see more engagement
you should start to see more
inquiries possibly even more sales if
we’re getting into sales copywriting and
that kind of thing
but otherwise you know you should you
should just see the open rates the all
of those things that you pay attention
to
should begin to trend upward in the
direction you want them to
and and when it comes to communicating
within your organization
the the general morale
should be enhanced by that at a bare
minimum it’s not that everything depends
on writing but is it the more you send
the right message
to the right people
in the right medium
over and over again
the more it sinks in and they begin to
respond to it and
that frees you up as the leader because
now you don’t have to spend so much time
repeating yourself
and correcting people’s
misunderstandings
a friend of mine does a newsletter every
friday to his company he owns a software
company and he’s doing extremely well
he’s just blowing it up here in the
atlanta market but his newsletter is
it always talks about the failures of
the week and he does that to show
vulnerability
and what people do with that and whether
how they try to make it a success or
they learn from that it is just amazing
and he was he was sick once and he
didn’t do it he he meant to do it he
meant to pre-schedule it his company
fell apart because they did not get that
friday communication he got it of course
got everybody all calmed down by uh
saying that he was sick but people were
really looking forward to that and i
have to say most leaders don’t like to
show vulnerability because they then
feel weak but i’ve seen so much success
happen for him because that’s what he
shares
yeah i stumbled across something i’d
written a little while back that spelled
this out and that is that um
when you are vulnerable
when you when you’re willing to let to
risk
that people see and know your weaknesses
you disarm accusers
because you they can’t accuse you of
something you’ve already confessed to
right
and you make other people who have
which is all of us right who have
frailties weaknesses failures and all
that you make them feel utterly safe i’m
like oh this guy knows
what it’s like to make a mistake this
guy knows what it’s like to have
something potentially embarrassing and
yet risk sharing it
so i can share that too i don’t have to
i don’t have to walk on eggshells around
this guy thinking i’ve got to be on my
p’s and q’s 24 7 or he’s going to can me
so when like my team started to to come
in when they first come in they’re like
the first draft i sent you i i i closed
my eyes and held my held my breath and
clicked send right thinking you were
gonna fire me you weren’t even and i’m
like no no no no that’s not what it’s
not what we’re about and when a leader
is like that right when when a leader is
willing to share
those type of things
yeah i mean that’s it’s magnetic
well let’s shift gears just a little bit
we’re talking about internal
communication what about external
communication because everybody’s using
social media and they’re talking about
themselves they’re talking about their
products and i’m going to tell you that
just turns me off i i don’t even read
those things
but i have seen people
that celebrate their customers
and those pull me in when i see them
recognize one of their customers for
something that they achieved
i i want more with that is that
something is that what we should be
doing when it comes to promoting
ourselves our companies how should we be
using social media and external
communications
i certainly recommend it if you can do
it i’m one of those rare businesses
where i can’t do it um
but um it’s it’s certainly something
with clients who have customers
we have written content like that we’ve
said yes absolutely if you get a
testimonial we’re turning it into a
social media post we’re turning it into
an email and you celebrate you know
celebrate the heck out of those people
you know something that you do so many
things well but something that you are
just a master at is networking and just
watching you it seems like your goal is
to help other people first
and you’ll reach out to me and you say
hey trace who do you need to know that i
might know that i can introduce you i
think a lot of us know that networking
is the key for us to do better because
it’s life’s all about relationships how
should we be doing networking
so you touched on basically the avatar
mentality of our clients right every
single client that i’ve ever helped with
ghost writing has that servant leader
mentality i want to make everyone around
me better the key to this to me
uh lies in the ancient wisdom that says
um
you know well the verse goes sprinkle
all your offerings with salt
and
what god was trying to get us to
understand there is that salt right is a
chemical composed of two toxic
substances sodium and chloride which
when you bond them together they become
nutritious delicious and beneficial to
all mankind which is to say right if i
want something if i want success if i
want
new business if i want opportunities if
i want publicity the best thing i can do
is go and give it away for free first
because then i can
you know i don’t do it for this reason
but i can have a reasonable expectation
that that will come back to me in spades
it’s just happened too many times
so when it’s when so when you’re talking
about networking right the main thing to
me is like i want to be a giver
i heard our friend brian mcrae talk
about this right givers are at the top
and the very top and the very bottom of
the social strata when it comes to who
benefits
in um in relationships and in between
them are matchers and takers right
so you’ve got at the very bottom are the
givers who never ask for anything so
they’re burned down and exhausted
because all they do is give then you’ve
got the takers
right who just take take take and give
as little as possible then you’ve got
matchers who yes they give but not
without getting something in return but
then at the very top you’ve got givers
again right and these are people who are
just
radically generous
but they also know what their time is
worth
and if you actually want them to help
you
you got to be prepared to pay for it and
they know what their value is so that’s
that’s the way i think about it is
i i give outlandishly
but if you need my help with
ghostwriting and my team’s help
happy to give it here’s what it costs
right and so many people i think
especially when they get started they’re
shy to to charge what they’re worth and
they’re really undervaluing themselves
and ultimately their clients because if
they’re not getting a win on that deal
there’s no way that they can get a win
for that customer because they’re not
going to treat them the way that they
really should
yeah that was a hard part for me and i
think you may remember from when we were
in nashville what i shared about that
we forget
that although
you’re very talented at what you do i’m
very talented at what i do
my team’s very talented of what they do
we we forget quickly
that
our abilities are
not the unique value proposition
at the core we are
there’s plenty of people who do
ghostwriting i’m not the only one
but only i do it the way i do it
with the people i do it with
um and i tell that to my fellow ghost
writers we’re a very collegial industry
for that reason we’re like we all know
there are people in your circle i can’t
help and vice versa so let’s be friends
because we can help each other’s
non-clients that way people undervalue
themselves because they re they think
that their value lies in what they can
do and that’s that’s true to an extent
but much more true even more true than
that is your value lies in who you are
uniquely as a person
and who your relationships are and
that’s what drives a lot of my pricing
is that i bring into my team and work
with the kind of people
so that when you get that piece of
content
it sounds like you it reads like you it
has almost no mistakes right
it has almost no corrections to make and
again i can’t advertise them but you
could ask any one of my clients we
hardly ever get a correction sent back
or i don’t like this and you know or
this isn’t this doesn’t make any sense
this doesn’t flow that all that kind of
stuff doesn’t happen
well i know one of them and and he was
telling me did i actually write this i
it sounds like me but i know i didn’t
write it paul wrote this
well i i have had that because because
i’m doing this right and i’m like i i
hope this sounds like him i’ve or him or
her i’ve done my best i’ve listened
carefully i’ve done my research i’ve
practiced it i’ve read it aloud in the
voice
but somebody might still somebody who
knows them well might still be able to
tell
but they can’t they told me themselves i
can’t tell if it’s you or him
you know it seems like every topic we’ve
talked about today has always come back
to relationships and of course you and i
met each other through the mastermind
and and that’s something that that we
join for the relationships to make sure
that that we’re not processing issues by
ourselves that we’re helping each other
and learning from each other’s mistakes
so we don’t have to experience it we can
experience it through each other i
started a mastermind that serves our
community called the rising tide
mastermind
and one of the issues that i have is so
many people are unfamiliar with the
concept of a mastermind and they hear me
come on the podcast and talk about the
successes that i’ve had and how much
people are getting out of it that are
actually members of the rising tide
mastermind but i think they expect me to
say that i find it difficult when
somebody has no idea what a mastermind
is to to really let them know what it
can offer them can you help me explain
that
not in one word
but yes i have had um i spent a lot of
time and that’s because
it’s not the entirety but i would say
probably a um
the largest majority of my clients are
in the personal and professional
development space
so when you talk about a mastermind
right there’s there’s uh there’s some
connotations that go with that word that
are like uh terrorist mastermind no no
we’re not talking about that
that’s man right
but yeah it i use the word mastermind
but what i when but when they kind of
their head and say what’s that all
about i said well what i found is
every time
my life is going downhill
it’s because i’m living in isolation and
making all kinds of decisions by myself
without input from anybody and every
time my life is going uphill
in a good way right
every time things are on the rise for me
and i’m getting and i’m improving and
growing it’s because i’m living my life
in community and i’m presenting
decisions and ideas and things i want to
do to a board of directors that i trust
who will give me unbiased advice
and from that i derive speed knowledge
accountability and relationships
speed in terms of both in both in the
positive and the negative right quickly
scuttling a bad decision
and quickly getting to the good decision
and eliminating all the others the
knowledge base obviously right if you
and i were sitting together at isi
there’s a whole reservoir of untapped
knowledge inside your head concerning a
whole multitude of topics that we
haven’t even broached yet right and if
you’re curious about your fellow human
beings everybody’s like that
accountability obviously right i
discovered that week one in in in isi i
was like i was having a temper tantrum
about something
and uh i said wait wait wait whoa whoa
if i if i keep behaving like this i
gotta walk into that online group on
monday and own it before these guys
i’m stopping this right here and i’m
posting it in the facebook group and i’m
making sure they know that’s not going
to happen anymore
and
i stopped having tantrums right private
tantrums right and of course
relationships right it’s
our lives are made richer by
relationships we aren’t meant to be
solitary creatures
and
especially men we really don’t do well
in isolation
yeah when you were giving me some advice
on on how to get the story out of my
head you alluded to imposter syndrome
that you know why would somebody listen
to me about my story
and and i think that’s what people
have when they are thinking about
joining a mastermind how am i going to
help this person that’s done all of
these things that i’ve just
referenced online
and the the short of that is yes you
have so much experience that uh it’s
different
so maybe you didn’t accomplish the same
things that i did
but you’ve done different things and now
you’re able to help me
with an issue through those experiences
because it’s different so i know nothing
about ghostwriting but if you brought a
topic to the group
and i started relating that to a
separate issue would you find that
valuable
yes
i’m thinking of a great example of this
as a matter of fact of how
each story
uh is is
is different and equally valuable
and maybe one story has a lot more
positive
at one point along the journey
but that other story that’s colliding
with it is going to be impacted by that
and then if that other story that other
person in other words takes that and
makes changes to their lives
pretty soon they get to be the ones
having the high impact so
um
just to give you a short story here
since we’re talking about stories
um i spent all of the
the 2000s right uh in the military
and i was
you know did a couple tours in iraq and
uh finished out the decade completing my
bachelor’s degree
and all of that
and at that same time
my future mentor
was not
fighting in the military he was busy
learning how to make money online we’re
exactly the same age
so
fast forward to 2017 when his ads begin
to appear for his fitness products
and i start working on his
fitness training program and then i you
know lose all this body fat get lean and
start getting into bodybuilding
eventually our destinies collide because
i joined his mastermind now by this time
he is way out in front of me
in terms of his uh earning power buying
power however you want to slice it but
that doesn’t matter because i’m being
impacted by his story at the right time
for my life
so now
it comes full circle for me now there
are people that i’m way out in front of
and those people their stories are just
beginning
and so they have spent the last several
years
you know kicking the can around not
really sure what to do working a
dead-end job not happy about it right
and they’re in this in a similar state
to where i was
but now i get to help them and inspire
them so
absolutely those stories are always
consequential they always matter
paul we’ve covered a lot of territory
here today and i really want to thank
you for coming on the show i’m not done
with you yet so don’t don’t think you’re
leaving but i wanted to ask if you could
only get one point across to the scaling
up nation today what would you want that
to be
more than uh ghost writing we’ve talked
about relationships
and
here’s the interesting thing trace i
realized this this very morning the
client sent me a note to say hey let’s
let’s go ahead with
the project
and
if you’re not of the judeo-christian
tradition don’t worry you have your own
version of this but i’m just saying i i
realized all of a sudden
boy do i ever need to pray
because because all of this stuff
bubbles up inside of me right there’s
there’s the the adrenaline the anxiety
the
the excitement but but what does that do
it it destabilizes me from my normal
pattern right and there’s all this stuff
and i don’t know what to do with it but
luckily i have somewhere i can take it i
can take it to god but then i also have
these human relationships
that i can take it to through the
mastermind and through my close friends
and business
and the way you develop those
relationships
is
as we talked about is by being a giver a
generous soul among the community that’s
what gets you people who are
consistently
recurringly interested in your life
and interested in what’s going on with
you and we’ll check on you if you go
quiet for a while so
from the point of view of
moving beyond your current place in
business there’s so many variables right
there’s so many things that could change
will change won’t change
and sometimes you don’t know which is
which and i would i was saying in my
prayer this morning i was saying i need
you now more than i’ve ever needed you
when things have gone bad it’s when
things are going good because i don’t
want to mess it up
i don’t want to get greedy i don’t want
to get proud i don’t want to get stupid
and go and blow a bunch of money or
call a shot without
outside eyes on it i just don’t and i i
can’t see everything i don’t i have too
many blind spots
so
i bring that right back to you gotta
have those quality relationships around
you all the time
and
if you don’t know where to start
if you’re listening to this show both
the host and the guest can point you in
a really good direction
i love it you brought up ronald reagan
before and i’m going to butcher the
quote but he said something like there’s
no limit to what you can achieve if
you’re willing to give away the credit
now in thinking of that quote in our
conversation today and when i first
started out in business
i was all about me and when things
happened it was because i did it and and
i took satisfaction in that i’m trying
to remember what happened that really
allowed me to open up and and be
vulnerable and share with others because
that was the turning point that’s when
things really started to snowball with
me because i wasn’t doing life alone and
and let’s face it it’s so much more fun
to share achievements with other people
so a question i have because i know
you’ve thought about this a lot is is
what has to happen to change that
mentality
well i would love to say
that so many of the
negative things that happened to us are
avoidable if we would just do this first
if we would put this first
i feel like that’s mostly wishful
thinking it’s not completely impossible
there are people who do it right there
are people who learn to listen first
time
there are people who do it way earlier
in life but but for a lot of us right
for me
i was age 39 when i realized
what a mammoth ego i have or i’m capable
of having
it took me 39 years to realize
edwards you just have far too high of an
opinion of yourself and your and and
what you think is right
so
sometimes it can be that sometimes it
can be disaster right sometimes it can
be
you know
you lose a key relationship you lose a
marriage you lose
somebody you love
it can be everything you’ve built and
the house of cards that you’ve stacked
up on your pride comes crashing down
people have that happen to them i think
what it really takes is that internal
shift
that is at least curious
to consider all possibilities as to why
it happened not just the obvious
external ones that you can point your
finger at and conveniently blame
if you’re willing at least to say okay
maybe i’m not 100 responsible
but maybe i’m 50 responsible or 25
and what could i do differently what
mistakes will i not repeat
so that this doesn’t happen again i
think that’s that’s the beginning of
wisdom there
i love that answer well i’ve got a
couple of lightning round questions for
you these are questions that i ask of
all of my guests and then of course the
listeners they bet and see you know if
they can guess the answers they don’t do
that
but it’s fun to compare so here’s my
first lightning round question you have
the ability to go back in time and speak
to yourself on your very first day
and starting your business as a
ghostwriter what advice would you give
yourself
it’s a good question
my very first day in business as a
ghostwriter i would have said
think deeper it sounds so easy now to me
to say that right when you’re starting
out it’s not so easy because you’re like
well i’d like to think deeper but to be
quite honest with you i don’t know what
to think about right so there’s a whole
litany of questions that follow that
statement of course
but having said that you know
i’ve got people that i know now who are
starting who are in their start point
you know near the starting line for
their
for their business journey
and if i get the opportunity i share
with them stuff that i’m like if
somebody who would have been there to
tell me this when i was starting out i
would be
so much further ahead right now
so
you know it might take some work it
might take a lot of phone calls it might
take a lot of zoom chats it might take a
lot of getting together with people and
waiting until you hear the right things
but i will say from the mastermind
experience that i have heard a lot more
of the right stuff way earlier than i
would discover it on my own
yeah i love that answer
what are the last few books that you’ve
read
i’m having a ball reading this um
who not how that we’re that we’re
working on right now
that’s a great one
i have to look over at my bookshelf now
i just oh yeah i just read the uh common
path to uncommon success the one that uh
big a gave us from john lee dumas that
was really helpful
and um
i i keep reading it i keep finding
new examples
real life examples from business secrets
from the bible by rabbi daniel lapin i
just i watch it happen i watch it unfold
in my business all the time
when they make a movie about paul
edwards who plays paul
well
that’s a good question
see i don’t know who the who the
hollywood actors are anymore i don’t pay
any attention to them so if you take
time out of the equation the uh there
there are a couple actors not many
people would necessarily know who they
are they weren’t like a-listers but uh
billy zane or arnold vaslu would be the
ones that sort of look like me and uh
there could be one or two others that
that’s that’s generally who i think of
i think randy travis you get a shot too
randy travis all right
we’ll consider him for the audience
there we go hollywood is working on the
script as we speak all right my last
question to you you now have the ability
to speak to anybody throughout history
who would it be with and why
i would have to go unquestionably with
um
yeshua better known as jesus christ
and
i speak to him all the time but audibly
replying is not as far less common
he does reply though i find the replies
just come in the form of nature or
something i read or
something that somebody says to me
but to get a chance to get the chance to
speak with him face to face
and to actually hear his voice
see like for me i’ve reached a point
where
i’m enjoying the success
but i said i said to myself this morning
if i can’t have god in the process
if i can’t have god through the process
and over the process
what’s it worth
you know it’s not going to last without
him it’s not going to have its intended
effect if i’m not over time maturing and
becoming more and more of a
disciple and a true follower of him who
who reflects his glory to the world and
actually behaves very similarly to the
way he behaved while he walked the earth
well paul this has been a lot of fun
i’m sure my listeners are wanting to
learn more about you where should they
go to do that
i have a uh website
the url is the
th e paul s as in simon edwards.com the
paul s edwards.com
we have a joke my wife is considering
starting to do some web design and
website building and all that on the
side and so her first project
is called
my husband’s shoddy website
which is to say
which is to say it’s not it’s probably
not the most glamorous place in the
world but you can find me online there
um you can also i’m on social media my
handle for all of the channels is at the
paul s edwards same thing so that’s the
best place for people to find me
and chances are we’ve already read your
books it’s just if you did your job
right we’ll never know that they were
your books there is a good chance of
that yep well paul thank you so much for
coming on scaling up h2o hey trace
thanks so much it was great to be here
[Music]
nation there’s no secret i get so much
out of being a member of a mastermind
group i would never have met paul if i
did not put myself into places where it
forces you to meet people and when you
get to know those people you start
realizing how you can help each other
and in a mastermind group that’s what
you’re there for how do you help each
other who do you know that you can
introduce somebody to
and how do you get that other person to
their next level of success paul is just
an incredible guy in fact after we did
this interview
he introduced me to one of his friends
and had me on his podcast
so more about that when that comes out
but again i learned how somebody else
did their podcast and he actually does a
podcast about podcasting
so i learned and that was all due to
paul edwards saying who can i introduce
you to
here’s some ideas of some people i think
you need to know and then he did it so
paul thank you for that and nation if
you are not a member of a mastermind
well i hope you check out ours which is
the rising tide mastermind you can go to
scaling up h2o.com forward slash
mastermind to find out more about that
but folks the point isn’t that you join
our mastermind of course i would love it
if you considered that but you need to
put yourself out there in environments
that force you to learn that force you
to grow that force you to help other
people i promise every aspect of your
life will get better because it’s being
looked at because other people are
forcing you to look at it and you’re
paying good money to make sure that it
does so please
try to find a group that allows you to
do that and as always if you want to
check out scaling up h2o.com forward
slash mastermind it’s a mastermind that
i created with you in mind i’d love to
have an interview with you to see if you
were right for the mastermind and the
mastermind is right for you
nation i look forward to bringing you a
brand new episode next week of scaling
up h2o but before i sign off i do have
an ask
if you have something you want to hear
on this show please don’t keep that to
yourself let me know what that is by
going to scalinguph2o.com
go to our show ideas page and let me
know what that is or better yet
record a voicemail on that page and i
will play your voice asking that
question and get your question answered
right here on the scaling up h2o podcast
have a great week folks i’ll see you
next week
[Music]
scout nation we have just started a new
group within the rising tide mastermind
i am so amazed at how successful and how
well received the rising tide mastermind
has been in our community and we are
starting a new waiting list for the next
group
if you want to get on this waiting list
so you can start with our next group go
to scaling up h2o.com forward slash
mastermind to see if this is the right
group for you and then after you and i
have a brief conversation to make sure
the group fits for you and you fit for
the group we can get you on that waiting
list i can’t wait to talk to you
remember scaling up h2o.com forward
slash mastermind
you