Episode 266 – Unstoppable Acclaimed Business Turnaround Expert with Danny Creed

Unstoppable Mindset

Meet our guest for this episode, Danny Creed. Danny grew up on a Kansas farm in what can only be called a very rural area. Even so, he clearly grew up with lots of drive and imagination. After high school, he entered radio broadcasting where he remained for 20 years. Like many in the industry he bounced around from station to station doing broadcasts, selling and whatever else that was asked of him. In the late 1980s he left radio after 20 years and became an entrepreneur working with 15 startups. As he tells us, they all were successful. He then spent a bit of time working at the pentagon and the department of defense again putting his entrepreneurial skills to work. One of the military leaders with whom Danny worked urged him to think about helping others by entering the new career of business coaching. He did and met some of the great motivational and business coaching leaders like Zig Zigler and Brian Tracy. Danny is the author of several books and has received many accolades and awards through his coaching career. About the Guest: Danny Creed is a certified Master business and executive coach. He is a noted sales and leadership trainer, best-selling author, international keynote, and workshop speaker who is an acclaimed business turnaround expert. Danny's personal coach and mentor is the legendary Brian Tracy. He is a certified Master Business Coach, Executive Coach, and Sales Trainer with over 15,000 logged coaching hours. In addition, he's an entrepreneur with 15 successful start-up businesses to his credit and over 400 business turnarounds. Coach Dan is the unprecedented Seven-time recipient of the FocalPoint International Brian Tracy Award of Sales Excellence and CXO Outlooks “10 Most Inspiring Transformational Coaches, Globally – 2022” Danny Creed is an internationally best-selling author of six business and motivational books, including the bestseller CHAMPIONS NEVER MAKE COLD CALLS and THRIVING in BUSINESS. Dan is involved in community and volunteer work and, when time allows, a professional musician. Ways to connect with Danny: LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/inbusinesscoachdan YouTube: Bit.ly/2F8exoh Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mrluckyinc1952 About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes:

Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Well, hello once again, I'm your host, Mike Hinkson, and we want to wish you a great welcome to unstoppable mindset, wherever you may be. Thanks for being here with us, and I want you to meet our guest, Danny Creed, who is a major certified business coach, among other things, with more accolades and awards than I can count. And if he wants to tell them all to you, that'll be up to him, because he probably knows them all without memorizing them. But we've been we were supposed to start this podcast a little while ago. We've been busy talking about mystery books that we both like and sharing stories of being around the Pentagon and Department of Defense and other things before and after September 11. So, ah, lots of stories. I'm sure we're going to have fun this next hour. But Danny, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. Danny Creed ** 02:10 Thank you, Mike. I'm really happy to be here. I really am. Michael Hingson ** 02:14 Well, really appreciate you taking the time to do it. Why don't we start by you telling us kind of about the early Danny, growing up, that's always a fun place to start. Danny Creed ** 02:24 Oh, yeah, and I've told you this. And okay, so I, I come from very humble beginnings. I was raised in a town of 120 people in southern Kansas. I was raised on a farm. My family's still on that farm 130 some years later, I had, I joke, I had, I had 16 kids in my senior class. I had seven girls, and five of them were cousins and but I knew, I knew that that wasn't what I was meant to do. So I left the farm, and only member of our clan for a long time to have left the farm and I went into broadcasting. Spent about 20 years in the great era of being in radio and TV. And from that, I learned a lot about I got bit by the entrepreneurial bug. Did my first entrepreneurial startup in the late 80s, and just, gosh, it was so exciting. Yeah, it went crazy. It was exciting. It was risky. It was CR everything. Michael Hingson ** 03:30 Yeah, did you go to college? Danny Creed ** 03:32 I well, I went to two years of college. There you go. And then my father died, and he died very young. And I always joked that we didn't know we were not poor, but we didn't know we didn't have much, you know, but we were on the farm, we always had a cow and a pig, and, you know, we were, we were happy, you know, but I had to go to work, and one thing I'd always done is sell and use my creativity, even when I was on the farm. And so I took off on a on a on a knowledge search of self education that you know, great, great minds, you know, of great creators in our in our world, in the our history, were people that Louis LaMoure, one of the greatest self of all time, had the equivalent of a Third grade education, but when he died, he had three honorary PhDs for his he credits that to reading 100 books that were very specific. And I found that list one day. So I just spent a lot of time reading, putting in a lot of hours. I went from I worked with a general who or an admiral who said, you know, based on your experience, based when I was at the Pentagon, you ought to go out and do something to help businessmen and women be successful, and not redo mistakes over and over again. Because I had been there, I'd been a business owner, I'd done startups. And so that's when I found my way. And I, by the way, I did 15 startups, which is. Why I don't have any hair today, but I really learned a lot about all kinds of businesses, and I became a business coach, partnering with some of my mentors, Brian Tracy and Zig Ziglar and some other people you might not be familiar with and and since then, I've been a business coach going on 17 years. I've got over 15,000 hours of log coaching time, business coaching time and and been very, very successful, because my clients have been successful. So I've been really blessed with that. And just a year ago, I was, I was honored by being listed in the top 10 in the world of the most transformational, inspiring coaches, wow, I'm a really a blessed guy, and it's all based on my drive to help people, as corny as that may sound as though, well, Michael Hingson ** 05:54 and it's also an issue of being humble about it and not thinking that you're the greatest thing in The world and have an ego, and that clearly comes through that you're you're not that way, and I think that that really means a lot. When did you first go into radio, Danny Creed ** 06:11 it was right out of off the farm. Literally, I walked off a farm. I was going to junior college, and one of the more inspirational people in my life. Was a journalism instructor there, and he goes, I know exactly you want to go on radio. I can get you a job as a copywriter. And that was 1971 and so I went in. During the day, I would write commercials, and at night, I did an airship from 8pm to 2am oh my gosh, turn around and do it again the next day. But I learned creativity in short bursts, which helped me my whole life, helps in writing blogs. And it was I would have never thought that I I went through I learned it was on the air. Learned communication. Then I got into sales and management and radio was really it was all selling, Michael, it was all about selling, learning to sell the intangible, sure, and that's one thing that a lot of people struggle with today. They have to have something in their hands. They have to have that app or something in their hands, where, if people would learn, and I try to teach this my clients how, how to sell an idea, a product, anything, sell the intangible side, which is, look here, touch it, feel it, smell it, versus how would you feel if you were sitting on a on a on An island next to the ocean, and the waves, warm waves, were coming in, and you wanted to relax and see, I'm selling an intangible feeling. I'm selling, how does it make you feel? And that was a big deal, and I still teach, if you want to be an entrepreneur, you want to be successful in business, you got to learn to communicate, and good communication, contrary to what a lot of people teach, good communication is all about really being able to sell a concept in the intangible side of it. How does it make you feel? What's your why versus here it is. Here's how it feels, here's how it smells. See, I can talk to you and make you smell something and Michael Hingson ** 08:25 I and I appreciate that. I love to tell people that after September 11, when people started calling and asking me to come and speak and so on, I realized pretty quickly and made the choice to do this, but I chose to believe it's a whole heck of a lot more fun to sell life and philosophy than it is to sell computer hardware. Yeah, it's all about intangibles, and I also talk a lot about blindness and disabilities and so on, and probably need to do more writing and all of that. But it's true that that everything really, no matter, even with even with the the physical stuff, any good salesperson will realize that it's not selling the physical stuff. Ultimately, you have to want to emotionally buy into it. And I also need to, as a salesperson, understand where you are, where you're coming from, to know whether what I can sell you is what you need to have, or whether I need to help you find other places to go. Danny Creed ** 09:30 Amen. I I've always said that the mistake that a lot of people in my industry do is that they come in and try to sell stuff. They tell people, here's what, here's why, you ought to buy my product. I firmly, honestly believe you can tell all your listeners right now that if you ever work with me or talk to me about working with you, I will never sell you stuff. What I'm going to sell is I'm going to listen to your needs from your point of view. Of and then I'm going to, if it there's a fit, because I'm not right for everyone, but if there is a fit, I'm going to, I sell hope. Yeah, think about that's what every good product should be sold on. I still hope that this will work, that I hate it when I go in to make a major purchase and they're asking me what I think? Well, look, when I had triple bypass heart surgery, which I did, and they told me I had 48 hours to live. You think, you know? And well, how would you feel if the doctor then said, So, how do you think we ought to do that surgery? 10:39 Yeah, well, I Danny Creed ** 10:40 don't know that's you're the Pro, yeah. And that's the way people look at anyone, you know, that's why they look at anyone selling an idea or a concept or a product. They want to help me understand if my needs fit what you're selling. And then maybe we can work together. Maybe we should work together. I'm always Michael Hingson ** 11:01 amazed with reporters and so on, when they interview somebody who's in the middle of a tragedy and so on, and they go, Well, how do you feel about that? 11:12 Yeah, hello, yeah, Michael Hingson ** 11:16 well, Danny Creed ** 11:17 yeah, how do you think I feel about it? Yeah, really. I Michael Hingson ** 11:19 mean, I'm I'm still waiting for the first person to say that. Danny Creed ** 11:23 But yeah, you know, Michael, you mentioned books earlier. I collect books, autograph books, and and I was, I've rather than go, you know, fall all over some of my heroes in writing, I always try to have one question that I asked him, and I asked him the same question here at the time. And the one I asked, have asked some really famous guys, as you know, what makes a great, best selling book, and one of the more famous thriller crime writer guys told me one that I've always remembered. He goes, You gotta, you gotta hook them. If you can't hook them on the first paragraph of the first page of that book, they're gonna, they're gonna close it up and go to another book. Yeah, you know. And that's selling. Hope that, okay, this is good. I get it, I feel it, I understand it, I'm excited about it. I'm gonna turn the page. And it's the same in business. I mean, you've got to sell. You've got to understand what people need and then talk to them about fulfilling that need rather than telling them what they need. You know doesn't happen. Michael Hingson ** 12:33 Ultimately, they probably know what they need and how to get it, at least subconsciously, and your job is to help them ferret that out. Danny Creed ** 12:44 Yeah, yeah, it is, you know, and, and again, a lot of that comes with, I, that's why I was intrigued with your show. And, and, you know, it's a great show, is this, is that mindset thing i I'm telling you right now that I work with clients all over the world. And again, I've I'm blessed enough that I can, I can work with lot of different people. I can help a lot of different people and and I'm telling you the one thing that that that helps people win or helps assist them in losing their business, their their success, or anything like this is where their mind is at, where they keep your mind at, I'm telling you, it comes down to, and I know you're you're kind of the expert on it. You do this great show, but I have it broke down. I really believe there's two mindsets to break it down, as simple as you can get. One is a mindset of survival, and the other one's a mindset of possibilities. Now survival is one where you're worrying about, what if, during covid years, 2020 21 and 22 I'm proud to say that 100% of my clients that I work with had growth while the rest of the world was on their head. Woe is me. But the secret to what I did is no secret. But I would go into every coaching session every day and say, Where's your head at today, because I can find when somebody has a survival mindset, all I have to do is say, Hey, Mike, how you doing today? Oh, just getting by, just making it. Michael Hingson ** 14:32 I never say that. Danny Creed ** 14:35 I had a guy one time i i One of my books I wrote, I was interviewing people on if they have goals or not. And this one guy just said, Oh yeah, I've got goals. And I and I won't do it all, but he I've got goals, and I read them every day and I believe in them. I said, What's your goal? Then, if you do it every day and it's that deep in your heart, he goes, my goal is go to work every day and break even. And I said, why? Okay. He goes, Yeah, you know, it's tough out there. Well, the people who won and what I tried to do with my clients were the ones that said, Look, you can't control the what if, yes, covid, good, kill everybody. Yes, we might have a government overthrow. Yes, there could be war and all this stuff. And you can worry about that, but that's nothing you can control. Hello. You can control the what is, yeah, and the what is, is what you have in front of you and what you can control. And you can manage that then. And if you think about the possibilities then that are part of what is, instead of the what ifs that cause survival, thinking you're going to be in the top 3% in the world, and people will come to you because all your other competition is in hiding, simply because the differences of your mindset Michael Hingson ** 16:00 absolutely true. I know that during the whole covid period, we locked down my wife and I did. She had rheumatoid arthritis, so she had a lowered immune system anyway, because she had to take meds to keep the RA kind of at bay, and that lowers the immune system. So I was sensitive to that, and that was a good motivator, but I also knew that traveling wasn't going to happen in it, and it didn't, and we just plain locked down. We We did choose not to ingest bleach or Lysol like some politicians suggested. Sorry, 16:41 yes, Michael Hingson ** 16:41 I know, but we we we didn't even fret about it. We did it, and we knew it was the right thing to do, and didn't contract covid. But I also believe if I have one goal every day, it's to have fun. And whatever I do, I've got to find ways to have fun, to make it happen. And and I always worked at doing that even, you know, even if it's in my own mind, finding a way to have fun. But I agree with you all too often people are so worried about all the things over which we have no control. You know, after September 11, I kept hearing people say, We got to get back to normal. We got to get back to normal. And it took me a while before I realized, and finally started to articulate, first of all, normal will never be the same again, and if we really got back to that, then we're going to have the same problem. So we're not going to get back to the same normal that we had. And people kept talking about what they were worried about, and I and I finally realized that the most important thing that I could say to people, and still say to people, is don't worry about the things that you can't control. Focus on what you can control, and the rest will take care of itself. And when you read thunderdog, you'll you'll see where that came from, because that's actually an integral part of the story, and for for people listening out there, Danny told me when we first started, that he has thunderdog on his desk, and he hasn't started to read it yet. So chapter 10, I think, is where you'll find it, but don't skip ahead, but it's Danny Creed ** 18:16 there. You made me reach for it, but I'm not Michael Hingson ** 18:20 sure you can hold it up, but we've got to not worry about the things that we don't have control over. And it's so very frustrating with all the stuff going on, like today in politics and all that, and it is easy to get very frustrated at some of these clowns, and I get frustrated, and two seconds later I go, Oh, that's not going to do any good. So forget it, you know, and just believe and have faith that that things work out because we don't have we don't have ultimate Well, we do have ultimate control. We have the right and the ability to vote, and that's the best thing that we can do. Danny Creed ** 18:57 Well, you know, Michael, you said to have fun. Well, I have a lot of fun in possibility thinking, Michael Hingson ** 19:03 Mm hmm. Danny Creed ** 19:04 Because if you're, if you have that possibility mindset, and you're an entrepreneur, an executive, a business owner, and you're thinking of possibility, it's a lot of fun to go, Holy cow, everybody else is in hiding, and there's an opportunity. Yeah, I can help my clients. I can, I can, holy cow, that's going to be fun. That's going to be exciting. Because I've never thought of that before. You know, the possibilities are out there. They're, you know, the analogy of the old boat analogy, you know that some guys don't, don't see the boats come by. They're on a desert island, they choose not to see the boats come by others, others see them, you know. And you've got to be able to see the opportunities, because if you're so negative and you're only thinking survival, you're not going to see the opportunities. And one of the books I wrote, I based. On me almost dying. And the one thing I learned out of that is a lot of people set back and they wait for their second chance. And they're set back and wait for somebody to come along, you know, and say, I'm going to give you a second chance. And the fact that that I realized was everybody can give themselves a second chance and a third chance and a fourth chance and a fifth chance. You've got to understand you can create that, that you can go out. We have the ability to do it every day, if we're thinking about possibilities others are happy with right now, and happy with moaning and groaning and whining and crying, and they're happy with where they're at, and they don't want it to get any better, because they're happy with the whining. And I just, honestly, I'm sorry to say that I just, I don't even want to breathe the same air as people, yeah? Michael Hingson ** 21:04 Well, I know for me, yeah, I know. I know for me the idea of the second chance, you know, I like to live in the moment, and I think that worrying about what's going to happen tomorrow. I mean, there, there is a place and a time for strategizing, but living for the moment and looking at what's going on in the moment, saying, How do I maximize what I can do and need to do, which is all part of the possibilities. Issue is, was what needs to happen, and I think that more people should do that. I know for me, I learned some time ago to spend time every night just thinking about what happened during the day. How did it go, what really worked well, and oh, by the way, could I have even done anything better about what went well and the things that maybe didn't work as well. Why and how do I deal with it? Going forward, I've learned that I have to teach myself. I shouldn't, you know, I used to say I'm my own worst critic, as I've told people on this podcast many times, and I've changed that I'm not my own worst critic, I'm my own best teacher, and I have to really learn and do work hard at teaching myself. And that's one of the lovely things I've learned from talking to so many people on this podcast, yes, Danny Creed ** 22:24 yes, I have to share with you, because you bring to mind, and I can't use his name, but he was one of the most successful businessmen in history, one of the wealthiest men in the world. That I had a chance to sit and talk to this gentleman three or four times, and I asked him one time I said, Do you do anything every day in your mindset, or how you think, how you act you? What do you is there anything you do every day that keeps your company growing and you growing, no matter what, no matter how much money you have, and because he has billions, and he I didn't even get it out of my mouth until he had an answer. And he said, there's three things. Dan, number one, protect your money. He says, what I mean by that is, fail fast. If you're going to fail, fail fast, have metrics in place so that you don't drag things out. And I say this to every business person. I say, You better know when advertising is working or not, when a strategy is working or not, when an employee is working or not, and get rid of it quickly and replace it with something better. So that's one the second thing he said was, I try to go to work every day in my multi 100 billion dollar plus company, and I try to have the same mindset and have my staff have the same mindset as we had on our first day of business. That point is that, well, that's work hard, you know, work smart, fail fast. He said, that's really important to keep in our minds. And the third thing I do is want kind of long lines what you said? He said, and when I go to bed every night, I sit back and say his name, he said, I sit back and go me, I could be broke tomorrow. Something happens tonight, stock drops, whatever I could be broke tomorrow. So what did I do today to prevent that from happening. That's long lines, what you said you if you looked at and I've never forgot that that was 2023, years ago when I told me that. And I think about it every day, and I actually teach the concept in a bigger form to every client I have, because it's powerful stuff. And you're right on, Michael, you're right on contemplating looking at what happened. You know, 1928 the great book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon, identified that that the best time to plan your next day is the night before, because you're thinking about. What happened, what worked, what didn't, and then you're thinking about, what do I need to do tomorrow? And if you're thinking clear enough, it's going to send a message out to the universe. And it is everybody I know has had a great idea in the morning in the shower, yeah, well, that's because you were probably thinking about it with clarity the night before, and the powers out there sent you an answer, and that works just as well on personal success, professional success, and just living a good life and a happy life and having fun, Michael Hingson ** 25:34 and that's really what it's all about. You know, the whole idea of regrets. You can feel bad about something not working out. Okay, I accept that, and now I'm going to work on figuring out what happened so it won't happen again. But my gosh, if we, as you say, spend all of our time whining and grousing about stuff, then we don't get anywhere. And I think it's so important to take the time at the end of the day to really think about what what happened and and anyone who says I don't have time, clearly doesn't know how to think, because, of course, you have time. Danny Creed ** 26:15 That's right. Damian, that's exactly right. Yeah, and some regrets there i They just stay. There's no good that comes from regrets. Yeah, no good I tell, I tell my clients, and I do a lot of charity work. I work men in prison. I teach them personal and professional development. Fact, I was there last week at a major penitentiary working with minimum maximum security. But I tell them all the time, I said, look, it's only a mistake, because a lot of these guys sit and think about regrets. So why are they in there? This and that? But anybody? Business owners, you know your regrets? Just, they they just think it doesn't go anybody but, but you can't do anything about so I always said there's, it's only a mistake if you didn't learn something from it, which is your story. So Michael Hingson ** 27:10 well, I and it wasn't a mistake until it happened. That's right. Anyway, go ahead. Danny Creed ** 27:18 No, I you're, you're, right, you're you're filling in the blanks here. So I use a four step process, what happened, be real, honest, not to point fingers, but what happened? Hey, very honestly. Number two, why did it happen? So analyze it. What happened, not to point fingers or blame, but what happened that caused this to happen. Number three, how will it never happen again? So watch your solution that you're going to learn from, and then number four is, see you later. I'm not going to face this again, because I learned something. So that's the way I live, and I and I teach my clients that, because so many people live in the past, and it doesn't get them anywhere. Michael Hingson ** 28:01 And if I don't know the answer to what happened or how to address it, I'm going to go out and take the time to interact with others and seek answers. And invariably, someone will have an answer that you may not have, and it's perfectly reasonable to do that. Danny Creed ** 28:19 That's right, that's right. Well, you learn. You know the old line I read about 50 years ago, Ope, you can learn so much from other people's experiences. And again, that's why I got into coaching, because so many people still do. They make mistakes over and over and over again. That costs 10 bucks or ten million and they keep making them Oh and, and they're so surprised. Oh, holy cow. When back to what we were talking about earlier. If you learn something from it, it won't happen again. So I my practice is based on, let's let's work on foundational stuff. Let's work on the basics of everything. Let's understand what we keep making mistakes on and learn from it. And create a rule. Create something that goes in your rule book, you know, in your business plan. But let's not make those mistakes again. And sometimes we've been able to 1020, 3040, 40x that grow their business just by correcting those mistakes and learning something from it. So you're you're right on and on what you say. Michael, Michael Hingson ** 29:30 well, and you know, it all. It all comes from thinking about it. I was going to say it all comes from experience, and that's true, but ultimately, it comes from thinking about it and learning. And I think that's and that that gets back to I'm my own best teacher, and should be, but I have to be open to learning and letting me teach me to do what needs to be done. 29:55 Well, Michael Hingson ** 29:56 you bring up a Danny Creed ** 29:56 good point, because I had a guy in a seminar. I do a lot of seminar. Work and such and and I could tell he just didn't want to be there, and he was disruptive. And so finally I just stopped. I was in Atlanta, Georgia, where this happened, and I said, Sir, I mean, what's going on? Other people want to learn what's going on. I know this. He was in sales. I know this. I'm the best salesman, you know, I I've been, you know? And I said, Look, let me ask you one question, have you been in sales? I said, How long you been in sales? 30 years. I said, Have you been in sales 30 years or one year, 30 times? And it well, well, that goes back to your statement. He went to one seminar 30 years ago and says, I know it all. I I'm not willing to learn anymore. That's the operative part about it. I'm not willing to learn anymore. But I see people in all walks of life, you know, I see them, you know, they try out these hot apps and they try it out and say, okay, yeah, that one worked. Are you still using it? No, no. I went on and I went, I'm trying out a new one now. I don't get it. If it works for you, and it works really well. Why aren't you? Didn't you add it into your curriculum, your vocabulary, your daily routine, and it is just, it's, it's very frustrating. But I also teach people how easy it can be to be successful today, if you're disciplined enough to find what works, to learn from mistakes, to learn from your history, and grow every day, it's really not that hard to be successful, you know, you just gotta apply those basics Michael Hingson ** 31:42 when, when you're coaching people, do you teach them, in one way or another, how to vision Danny Creed ** 31:47 absolutely that I, I've, I've learned a very complex way to learn it of goal setting and achieving. And I've, I've simplified it, but it's, it's a real tough course that I put executives entrepreneurs, through. But one of the key elements of that goal setting and achieving, course, one of the key elements is visioning and and I'm telling you, that's one of the hardest things, Mike, that that I can do in that process. And here's why, that so many people don't have a vision, because so many people have forgot how to dream. Mm, hmm. I work with a lot of corporate executives and such, and they flat forgot how to dream, because the only dream they have is one that they they received from the corporation they were working for, and they only have one goal, and that's the goal that the corp gave them. They don't have family goals, they don't have personal goals, they don't have personal income goals, they don't have charitable goals. They don't have any of that because the only thing they do is that one goal that the corporate gate given and that nullifies dreams, and dreams are nullified for fear, and so I really force them. I'm going through that right now with a very valued client in Arizona, and once we learned, I got them to just dream a little bit, drop the ego, forget about what is people analyze too much. You know what is potentially Well, that's impossible. Well, yeah, tell that to Edison. Tell me, you know, the Wright brothers. Tell that to Elon Musk. Tell that to you know, a lot of these people, you know, but if I can get them to create a vision, because vision is the starting point for goals, and I don't care how goofy and crazy that vision might be, tell anybody. You don't have to tell anybody what your vision is, but you can be in the back of the room laughing, going, Yeah, someday, someday, this is going to happen. What happened yesterday? Someday, we're going to put a chip in somebody's brain, and that chip will help them talk and run computers by thinking, you know, two years ago, people went, You're nuts. You know, I always go back to Edison again. Can you imagine that guy going around selling the light bulb to people going, look what this is going to do is replace that candle. You got to believe me, every household in the world will have one. Can't Get out. You're crazy, you know, but that vision is the key. Vision is the start of goal setting. And goal setting is the start is based on, well, dreaming equals vision. Equals a start for your goal setting. A goal setting is everything, Michael Hingson ** 34:45 and visioning can be accomplished in so many ways. A lot of people say, write things down, write it down, put it up on a chalkboard, or create a paper, or do whatever I don't because if. I write it down, still out of sight, can be out of mind. So I learned that that rather than writing it down, I need to think about it, although if I really need to make sure I don't forget something, I'll tell my lovely little Amazon Echo device to remind me about something, but I will make sure that I remember things. On the other hand, we do abuse Thomas Edison because he invented the electric light bulb. And as I love to tell people, and this is something I figured out last year, the biggest problem with most people is they don't recognize their own disability of being light dependents because Thomas Edison made electric light so on demand and available, especially over the last 146 years that now light is everywhere, but it doesn't mean that people still don't have that disability of being light dependent. So it's fun to have discussions about that, but, but, but still, the the bottom line is that visioning and dreaming are so important, and anyone who knocks it is really missing such an invaluable opportunity. Danny Creed ** 36:04 You're right on the target again. Simply the way I teach visioning as part of the goal setting process is i This is the way I learned it from a very famous guy, and that is, you sit in a room, have as quiet as possible. Shut off your phone, shut off everything Have and Have a recorder of some sort. You can have a digital recorder. You can have, you know, AI now, or whatever, but shut off all surrounding noise. Kill the noise. Warren Buffett says the number one cause of failure today is people don't learn how to shut out the noise. Oh so true. And and so the noise. Shut off all that. Lock yourself in a room for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, however, you can stand and just and no one's around. No one's going to laugh at you. No one's going to point fingers, turn on the recorder, whatever that is, and just go nuts. That's hard for certain personality profiles, but just go nuts and talk, you know. And I'll give you a personal example, if I may, if we have i The one I teach, because I don't like to release my goals and everything to people, but I will tell one way this works. I always wanted my wife and I always wanted a house in the mountains. So I visualized this house, and I had the vision for 15 years. But the vision was I could close my eyes right now. I can do it as we talk, I can close my eyes and tell you the positioning northeast, southwest of this house has the backside of it as a giant plate glass window. It's all made of pine logs. You walk in through the front door and there's a kelly green carpet with a elk antler chandelier hanging down, and I can be that specific. And we finally, we were driving around in northern Arizona, Northeastern Arizona in the mountains where we lived at the time, and we were driving around one day up there just for a long weekend. And we came up and there was the house in my vision, exactly as I laid it out and we bought it, and the only thing we had to do is replace the carpet. But I had this vision in my head of what my perfect getaway home would be in the mountains and my son, both of my sons, actually do this. One of them says, He manifests stuff, you know? He says, I need a new couch that I can't afford the full price. So he goes, he sets and visualizes it and what it looks like, and everything else. And he did that the other day on a couch. And his his his roommate, they have a big old house. His roommate goes, you know, I got a couch in the basement that I'm gonna I'm gonna give away. It's almost new. So would you like it? And Brett, my son, says he went downstairs and that was the couch He visualized. Wow. Now the point is, it's fun, but let yourself go. There's no ego. Shouldn't be any ego involved, you know. Just believe that the line that I use, that that one of my mentors taught me, is, how big would you allow yourself to dream if you knew you couldn't fail, how big would you allow yourself to dream? And people will go, oh, that's, that's baloney. That's, I don't care. Play with me. If you knew you couldn't fail, how big would you allow yourself to dream? And that usually gets people think, and I'm telling you, that's the key to success. You cannot be a success in business or life unless you can dream of what what makes a perfect life a better life for you? You've gotten to do that. And Michael Hingson ** 40:01 the on the operative part about it is when you're visioning and so on, it is also important not to put a timeline on, well, it didn't happen in the time I put, put out and specified. Well, okay, that's no surprise, because, as you pointed out you, you dreamed about that house for years, Danny Creed ** 40:21 yep, yep. Now in goal setting, I think I know psychologically that you can put a timeline on some things, sure, but psychologically again, they've proven that just to be a starter, it just puts a deadline in there, and if you don't make it at the end of the year, change the date. But you've got to have something that that you're working towards all the time. So it's always good to have, you know, have something there that says that by the end of 2024 I'm going to I will have done this, and if you don't, we'll change the day. Yeah, you're right. Michael Hingson ** 41:05 Yeah, if you you try to put timeline on a vision, unless you develop more skills than most of us have, you aren't going to accomplish, most likely, what you think. And if you do, then relish that and go on. Danny Creed ** 41:22 Well, most visions, really, we find most visions are actually rewards for accomplishing other things, like like, like that cabin. We couldn't get it unless I was successful in business and earned a certain amount and saved a certain amount and did those things, and then when I found that house, I go, I can afford that. Now I can do that, you know. So it's that starting point, you know. But again, I will share with you, Michael that we find that a lot of people, and I love to find people like that have all this ability and possibilities in their mind and everything else, but they nobody's led them to be think it's okay to visualize, yeah, because there's so much fear people have. I know, personally, for a long time, I said, Well, you know, I come from the farm, I'm not supposed to be real successful. Oh, I didn't go to college. I'm not supposed to be real successful. Oh, I didn't do this or that, or this or that, and that's a fear in me. And if you eliminate that, say, you know, I can learn anything I need to learn. I have the ability to work my rear end off and work harder than anybody else, and learn from my mistakes, learn from my lessons and grow. I can do that. I can give myself that second, third, fourth, fifth chance. If you can get your mind in that mindset, I'm I believe you can achieve anything you can, Michael Hingson ** 42:51 of course, absolutely, and I think that more of us should take that to heart, and we will, we will be all the better for it. Do you still have the house? Danny Creed ** 43:07 Now? When we had to help family out and we moved, I we split our time between Arizona and Kansas. We built a house in Kansas, where our family's from, and we helped out, help out family while we're here, and it was just to use the house only three or four times a year. We had a chance to really sell it in the real estate boom out there. So we sold it in but I plan to have, I'm now visualizing a lake home. I want to have a home on a lake so I can go fishing every day. Michael Hingson ** 43:42 There you go. And that will happen. Yo, yeah, I Danny Creed ** 43:47 know it will. And I've got, I've got the whole thing. I know what color the house is and where it sets near the lake, and how far away for water it is, and what the dock looks like. I've already done all that. Michael Hingson ** 43:57 There you go. Cool. So what did you do after radio? You were in radio for 20 years, and then what did you do? Danny Creed ** 44:05 Well, I then I got into entrepreneurship. I had the chance in the late 80s to go into one of the entrepreneurial startup that really was quite successful. We were very successful to me again, it was exhilarating, because I was the one non technical guy usually in the business. I I was the sales guy and the idea guy. And I'd come to all the technical guys and go, What if we could do this? And they'd go, let's see if we can do it. And they'd go out and build the product. And then I take off in the world and go try to sell it and and it was just so exciting. And we did our first startup, and that was really successful. And that's what got me to Arizona. We went out to do a startup there, and we we took it public three, three years after. Start up, and then we sold it three years after that to McKesson pharmaceuticals for it was a really good sale. We didn't always make money, Mike, but we, I don't remember us ever losing any money for an investor or anything. You know, because we were, we'd been around the block. We learned from our mistakes, thank goodness. And again, we were very blessed in how we learn to run businesses, particularly startups. So that gave me and then I told you about the Pentagon, one of the admirals I work with pulled me over and said, Man, you really there's a new industry called business coaching, and you really ought to think about that, because with your background you have, there's a lot of people this whole entrepreneurship thing. There's a lot of people doing well, there's a lot of people losing money. Because, you know, the statistics still is 90 I think last year, 92% of all startups will be broke in five years or less, and that's because they underestimate the amount of time, effort and money involved. They always underestimate it, and you know, or they don't know anything about the business they're going into, how to run a business, and so they go broke. So a lot of people go broke, and some are quite successful, but the suggestion to me was, help these people not make, you know, help help teach them. Help them protect their investment, give them hope for, you know, the thing that they have, a dream on, a vision on. And so I went from radio, which was very creative, into entrepreneurship, which was really creative in the side, because I didn't specialize in anything. I mean, if it was sounded fun and exciting, I count me in. And fortunately, my family stuck with me. But we did startups in healthcare field. We did military health. We did startups in the telephone, independent telephone industry, telephone publishing industry. We did startups and training and and we did startups and just all kinds of stuff, and if it was exciting and fun, because again, there are foundational rules to business. I didn't have to be the expert in any of them, but I understood the foundational rules of business. So that's what we would bring to the table. We'd make sure the basics we had them right. Because no matter what business you're in in the world, they all share the same 13 or 14 foundational needs. And there are things like clarity, time management, priority management, goal setting, visioning, sales, leadership. There are all these things that it doesn't matter what business you're in. I personally believe I can coach any business anywhere in the world, in any economy, because I am a master of understanding the foundational things that make a business work, make someone successful. So that was a natural progression. It was almost like for me, coaching was inevitable, and everything I done in my life led to doing this. So that's that was, that's my was my route. Michael Hingson ** 48:17 So how did you get started in coaching? What did you do that that gave you that foundation from a coaching standpoint, well, Danny Creed ** 48:25 I already a part of us. What you were talking about earlier is is, and I think a lot of people fail in business because they don't honor their past. I was smart enough because of some of my mentors. I was smart enough to say, Okay, I had some royal mistakes in my life, but what did I learn from and so I could relate to almost any business person or any executive to the issues they were having, because most of them are foundational. It's people problem, it's a money problem, it's a time problem, it's an effort issue, you know. So I learned from all those, I'm telling you, I did 15 startups, and then before that, I, you know, all the radio stations I worked for as a salesperson and Sales Manager. In a single day, I'd make sales calls on a lumber yard, a funeral parlor, a ladies dress shop, a shoe store, a Cadillac dealership. So I learned a lot about business, and I think everybody has a lot of this knowledge. Again, they don't they don't honor their past. They don't honor their mistakes and their successes by remembering them. Michael Hingson ** 49:43 And a lot of people don't go into so you went to a dress shop, you went to a Cadillac dealer, and so many places, and you observed, and you learn things while you were there. And so many people just go in and never observe and never learn and take that knowledge with them. Yeah. Yep. Well, I Danny Creed ** 50:00 tried to, I realized I had all this foundational and the admiral directed me that way. I'll be forever indebted to him for making me be aware of what you know and in that. And then I had some mentors, and Brian Tracy was one of them. And and Brian Tracy was putting together a coaching organization, and I got in very early with that and helped them build that. And from the standpoint of just my knowledge and successes and and I had access to a lot of, like I said, I didn't have the college, but I had, you know, I had quadruple PhDs in business because of what I've learned, the mistakes I made, and the people around me so blessed with the angels that put their arm around me said, Come on, let's, let's learn from this. I learned from Brian Tracy Zig Ziglar, people that weren't as famous in the public, but one of the greatest sales trainers of all time. He was a good friend of mine, one of the great coaches he's quoted at Harvard was was one of my mentors, and I had the luck to surround myself not be egotistic enough to say, look, there's people out there that know what I need to know. So I need to learn. I need to set at their feet. So it was just again, that never ending search for knowledge and but I always was very confident, and that's that's the key. Today, a lot of people just have lost their confidence and or don't have any, and you've got to be confident, because people are searching for people, for experts. They're searching for trusted advisors that act confident. You know, I always example I use is I, you know, I was faced with situation where I I was I was told I had 48 hours to live because my heart was dying. Now I make joke of that by using example. I said, if you found yourself in that situation and you had the choice of doctors, which one would you choose? The first doctor guy comes in and says, I am the head of cardiothoracic surgery for all of America, for this hospital system, I have the best team in America. Or the other guy sitting over here with a laptop and YouTube up on how to how to do a triple bypass. So which guy would you choose? Well, you choose the cardiothoracic surgery, right? Why? Because he's an expert, because he's an expert, and he told you he's an expert, versus the guy who just has, well, I'll give it a shot. Yeah, so much of that is perception. I try to have confidence that a lot of people don't have, and I think anybody can do that, because people are looking for people to help them that have the confidence they don't have, but you've Michael Hingson ** 52:55 got to have the confidence, and not just the ego, it's you've got to have the confidence and the knowledge. And that's the real issue, of course. Well, Danny Creed ** 53:04 that's the follow up side. Yeah, you better be able to deliver. But again, I found, you know, Michael, I found the the lost art in American business, worldwide. Business actually, is art of listening. Nobody listens to anybody more. Nobody acts like they're listening. That I read someplace that the actual that the average attention span of the teenager up to middle age today is seven seconds. So nobody listens. So I try very, very hard to and I'm working on it, but I tell people I'm a world class listener, so let me try to understand your needs from your point of view. And I'm telling you that gives people confidence. And I don't have to be the expert in everything, Mike, I just have to ask the best questions Michael Hingson ** 54:00 well. And you also, I am sure, say to people, let me make sure I understand what you're saying. Danny Creed ** 54:05 Absolutely that that's part of question. That's part Sure. And feeding back and asking questions, let me help you understand. If I can help you, because I'm not right for everyone, and if I can, we ought to do business, right? Yeah, you know. And people go, Oh my gosh, I can't tell you. I'm not. People go, Oh my gosh, here's somebody's actually listening to me, trying to understand, really, on a simple form, is the difference between telling and asking. You know what? Michael, people don't need told anymore. They don't want to be told anymore. You know why? Because of this little device here called a cell phone, a communication device. I read someplace that today, the the modern day cell phone has replaced, like 140 other products, they've replaced. Replaced the telephone. They've replaced a recording device. They replaced the game thing. They've replaced everything you can think of it. They've replaced, you know, GPS. They it's just crazy. People have access to knowledge instantaneously. They don't need to be told anything. But yet, some of the great training organizations of the world today will come in and teach you to tell let me tell you all the reasons you ought to buy me. Well, look, I can teach people to come in and go. Let me ask you some questions and see if we ought to be working together, because I'm really good at some things. And so let's talk. I understand what that you're facing. And people go, Wow, Michael Hingson ** 55:48 somebody. And the reality is, of course, you end up by doing it that way, telling them things, but you're not really telling them. You're you're relating, well, Danny Creed ** 55:58 I'm relating and telling based upon what they've told me, right? I might say the way I understood standard is, this is an issue for you. Am I right? I might have a solution for you. Can I share that it's way different from let me tell you, Oh, absolutely you need to do. Let me tell you what you ought to be thinking. Let me tell you what, people just I don't need it. Yeah, Michael Hingson ** 56:25 and, and we have gotten so far away from listening. We've gotten so far away from conversing. In general, people are afraid to have conversations today. Danny Creed ** 56:35 Oh, it just makes me sick. Go to a restaurant and see a family of four sitting there, and everybody's looking in their laps. We forgot how to converse. We forgot how to talk. So I'm saying and that that's fine for them, but I'm saying that one of the things I teach is that's one of the keys to success today, if you can just learn to listen. Here's my rule, ask a question, shut up, listen, feedback what they're telling you, and then solve the problem. Michael Hingson ** 57:12 One of my favorite lessons of all times came from someone who worked with me. We were both in sales, and he told the story of selling some products in Washington, DC, and I don't remember where or whatever, but was something relating to the government. And he was invited to come in and do a presentation, which he did. And he eventually got to the point of saying, as he described it to us, and now it's time for me to ask for the order. And he said, so I made my presentation, and then I asked for the order, and then I shut up and didn't say a word. And the guy I was talking with sat there on the other side of his desk not moving, and my friend John sat on his side of the desk not moving. And they sat that way for about 10 minutes, and then the guy he was talking with said, well, don't you have anything else today to say? And John said, No, I asked you for the order, and there wasn't anything else for me to say. And he got the order because of that. It was a trick that the guy used, but rightly so, and it's wise not to always have to talk. Well, Danny Creed ** 58:28 it is you'll talk, you know, it's true in sales, it'll talk yourself out of an order. Yeah, Michael Hingson ** 58:32 I've seen it happen so many times. You know? Danny Creed ** 58:35 I actually did that one time and I set for 42 minutes. No one said anything. In fact, my my my client, actually picked up the newspaper and read the newspaper, because the old axiom is, whoever speaks first solutions, you know? So, yeah, yeah, I agree with that. But you know, it just comes back to people, general courtesy. People want to work with people, whether you're a coach or a counselor or a minister or a school teacher. People just don't need to be told anymore. They They want somebody to listen to them, and the world is crying out for people to listen to whether it's a child in school or big time executive. I tell you, I work with a lot of executives, because this isn't the right word, but, but they're lonely. They don't anybody talk to they can't talk to directors, they can't talk to their spouses, they can't talk to their employees, and they don't anybody talk to about business issues. And I gladly will work with them. I'll gladly listen to them and help them make better decisions. I don't have to have all those answers, ask questions and help them make a better decision. Michael Hingson ** 59:53 That's what a coach does, yep. Which is, tell me about some of the book code. Go ahead. Go ahead. No. So tell me about some of the books you've written, if you would please. I read Danny Creed ** 1:00:03 a book called A Life best lived, a story of life, death and second chances. That was about the lessons I learned in that process where I was almost died, and it's been very successful, particularly in like prisons, soldiers, veterans coming back and that just need to believe that they can get a second chance and a third chance and everything else, and it's done really well. I have another book called champions. Never make cold calls. It's a I love that title. It's a business, business book that can be applied to anybody who owns any kind of business, whether you're multi level, or you're selling medical supplies or printers or copiers or selling coaching. It's just about how ripe the market is for you to leverage who you know and who they know to get referrals. I created this concept about 40 years ago, the champions concept, and then I put it into a book eight years ago, and, and I've had a white paper on it, but I figured somebody's going to steal it. My idea, gotta put it in a book. And, but it's, it's all I've ever used in 16 years of coaching, 100% of my clients have came from referrals. My whole idea is to create an army of people that will refer me so I, you know, I talked to a guy a while back that a businessman, and I said, So of all the things you do, if you could spend 100% of your time doing it, which would be the number one thing? He said, Well, sales. I said, So how much of your current time do you spend doing that? He says, 20% I said, What do you do with the other 80 and he goes, Well, I got meetings, and I gotta run things, and I gotta pick up the mail. And I go, whoa. So what would it mean to you if we could make 80% of your time selling and 20% your time all that other stuff? He goes, it'll mean millions. Okay, so that's way a lot of people in sales or or most business owners don't know how to sell, but if you're in sales, you need to quit going to networking meetings and quit doing all going to planning meetings and marketing meetings, all that stuff. You need to be out swinging the bat for home runs. So I wanted to figure out, how could I do more of that in less meetings, and I created the champions concept. And the champions is leveraging who I know and then who they know. So that's been, actually, it's still selling after seven years, and it's a great book if you're in any form of selling, even if you're just selling your ideas or trying to ask the boss for a raise, it's just it's helped so many people. I've used it and taught it worldwide. So that's another one. And then I have one called Straight Talk on thriving in business. And then I've done two or three other books that are collaborative books, where I've asked to be with two or three other offers authors and do a book. And those have been fairly successful, but the ones under my name are the the Straight Talk series, and then champions, and then life best lived Michael Hingson ** 1:03:31 well, and we have pictures of book covers in the show notes. So I hope people will go out and and get some of those books, because clearly there's a lot of neat information here. What do you think are some of the most challenging issues for entrepreneurs and business people, and then people in life today? Danny Creed ** 1:03:51 Work ethic. Most people don't have a work ethic at all, and that's again, where I draw from the farm. I learned how to work there. I learned how to work on the farm, and a lot of people will work hard for a little while, and then they'll quit, and they'll stop, or they don't, they give up to quit. So I actually teach this to a lot of entrepreneurs things. So you got to have, you got to have a work ethic. Number two, you've gotta understand what success looks like for you, cuz so many people put themselves up against people other people that they're highly successful, but you don't share any of the same standards or anything like that, and everybody's definition is different of success. So you need to understand exactly what what you want and what that looks like, because everybody's debt like, you know, some of I've got friends on the farm that their definition of wealth is much different than some of my people. And Silicon Valley friends, you know their definition of well, but that's okay. I You can't say you're not successful. You're not a wealthy person. If you don't make a half a million a year, you may be very happy and just absolute, living the best life ever, making 50 grand a year, but you got to know what you want out of it. Be satisfied with that so and be happy with that, but know exactly what you're looking for. So have metrics in life. The the third, the third thing is that I always tell people is, learn to sell. I don't care what you're doing, you've got to sell, whether you like it or not. And I used to have people go, Yeah, well, I'm not a salesman. I you know, they had to. Everybody thinks the old thing that if you're in sales, you're like the the old, goofy used car sales, if you're if you're going to do anything, particularly if you're an entrepreneur, or you're trying look, you have to sell from the day you're born, you've got to scream if you want to eat, you've got to scream louder if you want your diapers change, you've got to sell your mom to go out and do things. You've got to sell people to, you know, sell a girl or a guy to go on a date. You have to go sell yourself to get a job. That's right, you have to sell, to earn a living, you've got to sell your ideas to a banker or an investor. Learn how to sell. Get rid of that old crap, out crappy idea of well, you know, I'm the salesman. Yes, you are everybody. You have to Michael Hingson ** 1:06:33 learn everybody's a salesperson. Yeah, um, phase up. Find Danny Creed ** 1:06:37 a good course. I mean, but you've got to learn to sell. Because a lot of the people who fail today in business with their entrepreneurial ideas fail because they can't sell their idea. They can't sell. Let's go back about 30 minutes. They can't sell their vision. Yeah, you've got to be able to sell. So again, I stay on pretty much those foundational things. The other thing that I talk about is you gotta have goals. You gotta written goals. And so here's the statistic, 70% of our society has absolutely zero goals. 28% of our society says they have goals, but they're not written. 2% and that's arguable, have written goals, Oxfam, the International Organization for tracking wealth in the world, will just put out a paper that says the 2% of our 2% of the wealth of the world, or 98% of the wealth of world, is held by 2% you know, and, and I choose to believe. And if you talk to some of the great people, like Brian Tracy and such a lot of them will say that's the people who have written goals, you know, again, you've got to have a division. You can't just go, Well, you know, I want to my brother in law's a minister, and he used to tell me one of the biggest issues that he had is getting people to pray clearly, because they will say, there, I pray to be rich. Okay. What does that mean? Yeah. You know, everybody's definition is different. How does God or whoever know what to deliver by saying, I want to I want to be rich, you know, so be very which I guess, could tie into another issue, but you got to be clear on what you're looking for, what you're asking for, and and that's where goals are. Very important to be very clear. Don't say I want to be rich. I want to go to Hawaii. I want to what, how you how? What does that mean to you? And I will, again, Michael, when I work with people, a lot of businesses just have no clarity. Yeah, they have no clarity on what they want. So they're upset, they're frustrated, they're, you know, I I talked to a lot of salespeople. I worked with a guy one time that all he did was gripe and moan, I'm not making any money at this and did it. He was putting down the guy, one of the leaders, sales leaders, and I said, Look, wait a minute. What's your metrics? What Michael Hingson ** 1:09:21 do you mean? I Danny Creed ** 1:09:22 said, Well, how many presentations do you make? A month, a week? Well, I don't know. And I said, Well, that's your first problem. You haven't tracked it. Go back and figure it out. How many presentations did you make last year? And it turned out he made around 40 presentations. So that worked out to about one presentation asking somebody to buy about every two weeks. Okay, every every 10 days. So the guy that he was criticizing, we got his numbers, and his numbers said that he did over 180 presentations. So I looked at the. Guy said, so, he said, So what's the secret? I go, Well, your secret is this. Your secret is that you did 40 you were making one presentation every 10 days. He was making seven presentations a week. Yeah, the law of averages says he's going to be more successful in you. So unless you're willing to do that, make seven presentations a week and change the odds, shut up. Really. I you know I hear you. Shut up. So again, that's back to where we started. That's back to work ethic. So learn to sell. Have a work ethic, track everything you do, have goals, have that strong vision. I mean, it's back to basics, isn't it? It is. It's always better. No, magic app, Michael Hingson ** 1:10:52 no. It doesn't need to be. Well, there is, but it's, it's what we've been talking about. If you want to regard that as magic, that's great. I learned to sell because I was confronted with being laid off or going into a sales position, and I said, I've never sold professionally. I didn't say I've never sold but I said I've never sold professionally. And they said, we'll send you to a Dale Carnegie sales course. And I took it and learned so much about what selling was really about, oh yeah, but that was still only the beginning, and that happened back in 1979 so a long time ago, but I value what I learned from that, and of course, what I've learned since. But you're right, we all sell, and this podcast is a sales presentation, if people think about it, I know I have learned so much from all of these and it helps me, and I hope that that's the case for everyone else. So all we can do is keep working at it. Yep, that's right, absolutely. So tell me if people want to reach out to you. How do they do that? Well, the Danny Creed ** 1:12:03 best and easiest way is go through my website. And the best URL there is www, dot real, real world coaching.com, and you can find out all about me. And then there's contact blanks in there that you just fill it out if you want to talk, and I always do a complimentary coaching session, just to see the listen to your needs and see if there's a fit, and maybe give you a few ideas along the way. So I'd love to talk to people. Michael Hingson ** 1:12:35 Well, I hope people will reach out real world coaching.com and I hope people will do it, and I want to thank you for being here, but I want to thank everyone for I was going to say tuning in. I guess you can. I guess tuning in is just as good now as it ever used to be radios and all that we still tune so Thanks for Thanks for joining us and for tuning in. We really appreciate you being here. I'd love to hear your thoughts about today. Please feel free to email me at Michael h [e-mail] that's m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I at, A, C, C, E, S, S, I, B, e.com, you're also welcome to go to our podcast page and their contact forms and other things there as well. Www dot Michael hingson.com/podcast Michael Hinkson is m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, o, n.com/podcast, and by the way, if you're on Michael hinkson.com you can learn about what I do as a speaker. And if anybody needs a speaker to come and talk, and I hope some of you do, I'd love to hear from you and find ways that we can help, and I know that Danny is ready to do that, and what he does as well. So please feel free to reach out to us. So Danny, one more time, I want to thank you for being here. This has been fun. Danny Creed ** 1:13:52 Thank you, Michael. I really appreciate it, and thank you for all the listeners who stuck with us. Thank you. Applause. Michael Hingson ** 1:14:04 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. 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