June 21, 2022

EPISODE 225: Reinvention Update

Hey, guide culture fam, it is Macy here, May May. I’m here to give you a reinvention update. I hope you all are doing well hope you’re having a great start to your week. There’s been some fun, just like personal things that have been happening, one of which my little boy Rush, he has been in school officially for a week. It’s like the summer camp of the school he’s going to in the fall, and it has been so awesome. It has been so great for both of us, just for him to go to a place that he’s just like really learning. And I can every day he comes home and I’m like, wow, he is developing. I can really see it. I don’t know if it’s because he’s like away and then comes back or if he’s learning stuff. It’s just he’s been reinvented. He’s being reinvented right now, honestly. 

And then, just professionally and in the business. Man, it’s been so cool, because I have never would probably say this too. But I have never, ever been in the guts of the business like I am now. I know you’re probably listening to that and thinking, how was that even possible? How have you never been in the guts before? Well, fam, let me tell you, I have just always been in the mindset of I’ve got to sell, like my job is to sell it is not to sit there and make a system it is not to sit there and make a strategy and you know, draw funnels and really think of the backend stuff, I do not want to be in the back end. And I don’t need to be. And honestly, if you’re a business owner, like especially at the beginning, your only obsession should be to sell. And I’ve had such an amazing team just kind of come behind the selling and kind of pull things together as needed. And it’s been great. It’s worked so well, obviously. 

But what I’m about to tell you right now is going to prove to you why this has been so interesting, kind of the story that I’m about to tell you in just a moment. But being in the guts of the business has made me feel so confident. I’m so confident in the business. I’m so confident in the program, I’m so confident in the reinvention. I’m so confident in the results that our students get. I’m just so I just believe so much more than ever from being in the guts. Don’t get me wrong, still selling always be selling over here. But it’s just been a very interesting change of pace. And I think you’ve probably felt that a little bit in the content as well. So it’s all good, all amazing things. And I’m going to kind of give you a little reinvention update today. I know I said I’d be sharing lots of updates as we go. 

Honestly, it’s just been like a season of the dust settling. You know, it’s like after an explosion is way too aggressive of an analogy. But I’m just going to use it for now. It’s a little bit like after an explosion, things calmed down, the dust settles and you kind of look around to see what made it be explosion. Like I said, that’s way way aggressive and what’s actually happening. But that’s what it feels like a little bit. And I’ve loved it. I’ve loved it so freaking much. It’s been burning, like just like an exercise just felt like building muscle. It’s been burning, but it makes you stronger. Right? So I’ve been reading this book, it’s called The Last Word on Power by Tracy Goss. And I’ll tell you what, I would have never picked up this book from the title itself. The word power, it’s just you never know where people are coming from when they use that word. And just, you know, like personal power, your power from within. I just am not like super excited about that kind of content in general. But the subtitle said executive reinvention for leaders who must make the impossible happen. And obviously I heard the word or I saw the word reinvention. And that’s what sparked my attention. Good news is they use the word power in a way that I totally aligned with. So I feel good about that. 

He even says it’s not a psychological journey. It’s not a theological journey. It’s not a philosophical journey. It’s an ontological journey, which I’m going to define for you in just a second. But it has been a very cool experience reading this book, I’m only on page 30. And I’ve torn this book a part. And what’s wild about timing. If I, if I picked up this book, even three months ago, it would have not felt relevant to me. I don’t know if I would say, like, borderline wouldn’t even have made sense, I probably would have read it in thought, you know, this guy is way overthinking things, or this is just too much or, you know, doesn’t need to be this complicated. That’s kind of what I probably would have thought. But the season that I’m in, it’s been incredible. I’m going to share just some pieces of the book with you. I picked this up like two days ago, by the way. So we’ve already been in this process. But that’s what’s so wild about this timing is, this book just kind of confirmed so much and gives me a little bit more of a map, I guess you could say a little bit of a roadmap to continue on the journey.

The first sentence. Chapter one, sentence one says the power that brought you to your current position of prominence as a leader, the power that is the source of your success in the past, is now preventing you from making the impossible happen in your life and in your work. So he’s saying, hey, like the success that you’ve had, could be the very thing that’s keeping you from going to the next level, essentially. And that’s why I said, hey, everything has worked so well so far. But the fact that it has worked in a lot of ways might be the very reason that you know, things need to shift and adjust. He goes on to tell three stories, three circumstances three different people who have reached a major level of success. But then when they hit that level they either freeze, or they can’t move forward, or people like turn on them. Just crazy things. And so he tells a story about a CEO who reached this level and opportunity of a lifetime. But the very thing that got him there is the very thing that kept him from him being able to deliver.  

There was a another business owner who wanted to take her $50 million business to $1 billion. And she had tried a bunch of strategies for five years, and she was ready to throw in the towel. And he said she was ready to spend the rest of her life, merely improving what she had already achieved, instead of trying to accomplish anything els spectacular in her life. So he’s saying, hey, the 50 million business is spectacular. But instead of, you know, accomplishing something else in addition to that she was just going to improve the one spectacular thing in her life. And you know, what’s interesting about this money, like 50 million to 1 billion, when I read that, just just so you can see the lens that I see money through potentially, when I see 50 million to 1 billion, I don’t even see like the dollar sign. I see the type of person that it would take in order to get a business from 50 million to 1 billion like that is worth the journey. More than just to have a billion dollars, right. So to me, I’m so so inspired by that. 

So he talks about how success is the biggest threat to success. And I see that. We’ve been working on something very hard over the last good bit of time. And it’s been interesting because things have really started to unfold quickly. It started out as an update. It started out as merely improving what we already have, and it has kind of become this reinvention. It’s become guide culture 2.0, if you will. Now there’s a bootcamp happening this Thursday. Okay, if you’re listening in real time this Thursday, June 23 2022. It’s happening from 11am to 2pm Eastern time, it is a three hour boot camp where we are workshopping some really good stuff, all the notes are in the show notes. And I’m going to talk about a little bit more in just a second. But an announcement of this kind of reinvention, the first layer, I guess, you could say, of that announcement is happening at the very end of that bootcamp. And so I’m saving a ton of stuff for that. But in this episode, I just want to shed some light of kind of where that’s coming from maybe a little like foreshadowing, a little foreshadow moment. And kind of backing in to what’s going on. And I think when you see the announcement, you’ll be like, ah, like, yeah, that makes sense. 

Let me go ahead and define that word, ontological. Ontological mean, so he’s saying, hey, this reinvention process, it’s not a psychological journey. It’s not to fix problems and personnel, the character or style, it’s not a theological journey, it has no relationship with a higher power. It’s not a philosophical journey, not in the sense of being theoretical, it’s ontological. And the definition of ontological is that it deals with the nature of reality in different ways of being. It deals with the nature of reality and different ways of being. So he talks a lot about being a certain type of person, not just doing the right things. And now if you’ve been around guide culture for any amount of time, probably, you know that this concept is not new for us at all. We talk a lot about be do have this Zig Ziglar concept? I think it’s exhilarating.When was this book written? Is this the guy who originated it? I’m not really sure. But be, do, have. Be the right person helps you do the right things, then you have all the things that you want in life. We talk about that all the time. 

He talks about how you can’t focus on what you need to do. You’ve got to focus on who you need to be. He says you can’t do yourself in to being and I’m telling you, I get the question all the time. They see. What do I need to do? What is the next thing to do? What is the next thing to do? And it just doesn’t work that way? You have to think about who do you want to be? I’m gonna give you some more examples in just a second. So hang with me, okay? The waiver being at any given time, it determines your reality, the way you’re being at any given time to turn determines when you’re your reality. Now, when you change, you’re just making something better, right? You’re, you’re updating you are improving. And that’s a matter of doing it’s like, hey, if we want to update something, we want to improve something, what do we need to do, but to transform something completely transform, you’ve got to alter your way of being a transformation, he says is a fundamental and significant alteration in the way that you are being or the way that your organization is being. You know, this reminds me a lot of just doing someone else’s strategy I’ve been in the online business world for I think we’re coming on five, five years. Yes, five years. That’s amazing. And I see the strategies. I see the strategy coach, launch strategist, social media strategist, business strategist. Here’s the playbook. Here’s all you gotta do, you got to do your opt in, create some ads, build a funnel host a webinar or sell your product, you got to, you know, make a really awesome, like, guide or playbook that makes people want to opt in, make them read it. And then when they read it, then they’re gonna want to get on your email list and they don’t nurture them, and then they’ll buy like, you know what I am talking about when I say strategy. You’ve heard it, you hear all time and it sounds so sexy. A business strategy. Listen, it’s I’m in a reinvention season, I could see how that might be enticing to be like, Oh, if this strategy works for them, then it’s probably going to work for me. And I can’t tell you how many people they get the copy and paste strategy. They learned the launch process. as they learn someone else’s launch process, and they’re not getting the copy and paste results, copying someone’s playbook does not guarantee anything. Because it’s not just the strategy. It’s not just what they do. It’s who they are being and what does that look like? It’s how they talk. It’s how they’re thinking, what are they thinking? How are they acting? That’s what you want to look at way more than looking at someone’s strategy. Who are they? Not what are they doing? And so that’s been the question we’ve been asking ourselves is like, what is the context? Like? What is the way we want to think what is the way we want to talk, and what is the way we want to act? Context is, what I’m learning is the cornerstone of reinvention. Because if you don’t alter those things, if you don’t alter the context, you just end up doing the same thing and not changing who you are.

And questioning that has been really life giving. And also, you know, I don’t want to say nerve wracking, but just it heightens your kind of senses and awareness. In my opinion, one of the best ways in the first ways, and also this book talks about it, too, is really the, to change the context is to change the way that you are talking, the language that you speak. And this really kind of brought home to me, because of this example they gave in the book was the leaders of the American Revolution, they created a completely new realm of possibility by simply just changing the way that they spoke, they made a declaration. They made a declaration that human beings have rights by making now one declaration by just saying that one statement, it changed everything. It changed the political environment, it changed, you know, the the rights that people had, right, they had rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And once human rights were declared, actions that would have never been thought of came naturally to mind. Once something has been said or declared, actions, start coming to mind, ideas start coming to mind, things start unfolding in ways that you never perceive that they ever would. 

Now, what you’re going to hear on Thursday, the bootcamp honestly has a new declaration. Its new language, its new context of Guide Culture. And it’s a completely new world that we are stepping in. I believe that this one declaration that we’re gonna be sharing is going to change everything. For the way people go through their life, honestly, in the way that people see the world. It’s already started to change everything it’s unfolding, more and more and quicker and quicker than I ever expected. What’s cool about having context and really declaring a type of context is that it really forces you to be decisive. And it forces you to move and it forces you to change. And I have felt that in that force. It’s uncomfortable because like when you shove something like it takes energy, you know, but it’s been so life giving, it’s like jumping in a, you know, a fresh stream of water. uncomfortable and chilly. But refreshing. Now, really quick about the boot camp. While the announcement is part of the boot camp is at the very end, it is not the boot camp. 

The boot camp is incredible. I actually just finished up the slides today. And I’m like, Oh, my gosh, like we have never really taught this information in this way. We’d never workshops, this information we’ve never given I feel like so much at one time. We are going into some areas and just really workshopping it, how to break the game, how to break the cycle that you’re in and how to break the strategy. I’ll just give you a few little tidbits ever so that you can know what to expect. You’re gonna learn how to really draw out in lean into rejection information. Now I know that feels potentially counterintuitive. The rejection information is the goldmine for you, it is your time to shine when someone gives you something that might not feel good to hear, that is your time to shine. It is like the best ammunition you could have to help somebody. And, and honestly, it’s the only way you can change someone’s perspective is to change the story either that they’re hearing or change the story that they’re telling themselves. And the only way you can change the story is if you know the story that they’re hearing. And most of the time, they’re not going to just give you that information off the bat. You have to draw it out. 

I’ll give you just a life example of this real quick. Sarah Stapleton she’s our head of coaches. But this has always stuck with me. This is a very old story. I think we she took guide culture. Towards the beginning of her journey with us, she kind of told us a story. But a long time ago, her son was going into middle school and he loved football, loved it loved it loved it. But for whatever reason, going into middle school, he didn’t want to play his mama don’t want to play anymore. I don’t want to play anymore. I don’t need play anymore. And Sarah was so confused. She’s like, What? Like, why don’t you want to play you’re so good at it. You love it so much. I see you on the field, you are like one of the best players on the team, you were just so confident you have so many friends on the football team, like nothing made sense. But he suddenly just shut down about football, he wanted nothing to do with it. After weeks of asking him and drawing out the right information, you know, he finally shared he finally broke down and cracked. And he said Mom, I don’t know where the locker room is. That was his reason for not wanting to play football to him. It was I mean, of course to us as adults, we’re like, well, that’s not a big deal. Like Well, I’m just show you where the locker room is. But to him. So you know, sixth grade boy, it was the most important thing is for him to feel like he knew where he was going to feel like he was confident and to feel like he was not the new kid. And since Sarah had that information, and she had the skill, to be able to take his story and adjust it change the way he saw things changed his perspective and build value in the other direction, and encourage him in the other direction. Not only did he play, he ended up being incredibly excited about it and thrived as a football player. Now, she could have never done that if she didn’t pursue this rejection information. 

How many people are in your sphere, how many people are in your world, how many people are on the fence that have this very silly, small, but still very real to them? You know, I don’t know where the locker room is thought that you know, deep down, it’s not a big deal. It could easily be handled, it could easily be adjusted and help them think correctly. How many people have this thought in their head that, that they can’t even get over the hump or jump over the fence because you haven’t drawn out that information. So you’re going to learn how to do that. And then you’re gonna learn exactly what to do with that information. And that’s where we’re going to talk about our cast the net formula. If you had been around it all for a little bit, maybe not though, and that’s fine, too. We have a predictable people process. And one of the first things to do is to cast the net to your audience, okay, we got to cast the net or to your prospect event and see, hey, who like cares about this? Who would this actually help? Who would you know, so to speak, raise their hand, if they knew this type of information, it’s kind of a way to get people’s attention. 

And so going back to this life example, let’s say she knew this from her son, and she had the chance, for whatever reason to speak to her son’s peers who were also going into middle school and also thought about playing football, she could have a very specific net, like knowing that one person had this thought in their head, this one person who had this rejection information in their head and use that to cast the net to kind of get more of those people in the net to play football. So they can have you know, an amazing middle school career. So there’s a formula to be able to do this really well to add your your rejection information and to add your beliefs in there and then to get this really strong net to cast it and then you’re going to learn how to build value around that net. All of this we’re gonna go through and workshop together and you’re gonna walk away like with some really awesome content, some great conversation points. 

And honestly, if you’re not having those conversations, you’re gonna have some ammo to get into conversations. Because honestly, any activity is good activity when it comes to sales now out this boot camp, it’s $25 to come live. Look at your calendar right now, June 23, June 23, from 11am to 2pm EST, if there is anything on your calendar, move it. Because there is no recording. The only recording that you can have is if you come live and stay until the very end. And the reason is, like you can’t just have one of these cycles, you can’t just break the game, or excuse me, one of these things that we’re talking about, you can’t just break the cycle or just break the game, like it all is, builds on itself at all, you can’t come into the very end and know exactly what to do. So you have to come live. And you have to be there until the very end. And then you’ll get the recording and you’ll have it for life. We’re gonna be sharing your announcement at the very end, which I think that you are going to want to listen to and hear about because it’s, it’s a really big deal. It’s like a once in a lifetime situation. So definitely be looking forward to that. 

And just be thinking about this episodes you hear the announcement, and you’ll have some context possibly around it as well, I think you’re gonna really enjoy it. Okay, I want to leave you with a few analogies that have been so encouraging for me. Oh, my gosh, when I go to sleep at night, this is what I think about lately. So I kind of made a joke about an explosion in the dust settling at the beginning of this episode, and it is joke, but there has been some fiery things like we have burned down some things lately. And you know, I love to look for a good real life moment that can confirm, confirm or give evidence or just support what I’m going through or when I’m dealing with. And one of my favorite people to go to is Sarah, quick shout out to Sarah, she’s one of our rockstar, coaches and leaders inside of guide culture. She’s also an agriculture teacher and know so much about agriculture. And when I was learning about just fire and forest fires, and just it was kind of just searching for analogies and examples, I reached out to her I said, Hey, I would love to know, if you had any just information you could give me on like forest fires, what happens after you know any kind of encouragement and she gave me some incredible just notes and thoughts and information. And just the energy in her voice memo was enough for me to be like I’m gonna dig some more. 

So I have about eight I’ve eight things that I’m going to share with you just list them off as some analogies when it comes to things that are burning and things that feel hard. And the amazing things that come afterwards. Fires get rid of stuff that is out competing the trees. So things like weeds and brush, it gets rid of that stuff. And then the remnants of those burned weeds and brush the nutrients that go back into the soil. And they make the soil more nutritious than ever. Deep places in the soil after a fire are now exposed to light. She told me that Native Americans would regularly and completely burn the Valley of Yosemite to open up the pasture lands and nutrients so that the next year that the Native Americans would farm the soil, it would be better for them. They did it on purpose as a strategy to help them in the future. In fact, they even called it fire as medicine. I learned that fires prepare the seedbed. 

There’s an article I found and they kind of joke saying that some pines, they don’t know when to die. And this makes me think of this whole thing that like success is the biggest threat to success is like hey, the pine worked like the pine is good. But sometimes it’s time to die and they don’t even know when to die. And so a fire creates a forced renewal. A fire creates a forced renewal. And sometimes in this forest renewals there are plants and there are different types of grass that bloom only after a fire no other time just only after a fire. And this was really encouraging for me is that the recovery can be very quick. It feels devastating. It feels intense, it feels heavy. But there was one specific forest fire in New Jersey and in just 11 weeks, less than a quarter in just 11 weeks, the whole forest had recovered. And the forest is as luscious as ever. 

I hope that that encourages you. I know it definitely encourages me, I can see the roots getting deeper, I can see and I can feel the soil being so much stronger and more nutritious. And I can see how it has just been going to be more beautiful than ever. Another thing real quick is when there’s a forest fire, typically a tree that is burned down it regrows as the same tree. It’s not a different tree, it’s the same tree, it is just stronger, the roots are deeper, and it’s more beautiful. And that’s exactly what I feel like it’s happening over here. And that’s exactly what I wish for you. 

Make sure you come to the boot camp, go ahead and get your seat all the information you need to know is going to be in the show notes. Do not miss it, send it to your business besties This is an awesome thing to do together. I could totally see group of people doing the workshop together and then kind of meeting again in a week or so to kind of share or work through or almost even have some sort of lab of the work that they’ve done. So invite the people make it like a mastermind that could be so fun. Like I said there’s going to be workshopping, there’s going to be coaching we are going to give it our all and just lay it all out on the table for you. I can’t wait to see you there and go get em fam.

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