Wisdom Transfer Dilemma

We believe life is precious. This is it. We've got one shot at this. It's on us to live life to the fullest to maximize what we've been given and play the game of life at our full potential.

Are you living up to your potential? Are you frustrated that despite your best intentions, you just can't seem to make the changes needed to take things to the next level. So you can impact your career relationships and health.

If this is hitting home, you're in the right place. Our mission is to open the door to the exceptional life by showing you how to play the game of life at a higher level. So you're playing at your full potential, rather than at a fraction as most people do. We'll share the one thing that once we learned it, our lives were transformed. And once you learn it, watch what happens. Welcome to Think It Be It the podcast. I'm Kelly Hatfield. Hey,

And I'm John Michell. So Kelly, I've been looking forward to seeing you and doing this podcast and the topic is the wisdom transfer dilemma. Let me say that, again, the wisdom transfer dilemma. And the reason I, I think this is an important topic is and I know, you've believed this as much as I do. You've seen how impactful your life has changed from gaining the wisdom from other people, right?

Yes, absolutely pivotal.

So I have a statue in my house that you've seen and that I'm looking at it right now. And it's a statue of three men sort of climbing, they're climbing these wires, and I'll describe it for our, our audience. So like, one guy is at the lower level, and he's struggling, then you got the guy in the middle, that is sort of going sideways. And he's sort of struggling. And then you have the third guy going straight up. And you know, when I when I look at that, ever since I bought the statue, I always liked it, that's my life, the guy in at the lowest level was me in my 30s. And the guy going sort of sideways was me in my 40s. And the guy in this going straight out was me in my 50s. And it like I said, sort of before we started this, I even look at that this statue is my life, even after I sold my company, and evolving, make it be it in that, you know, there were struggles in the early years. And now I feel like I'm going straight up. But this whole idea of transferring wisdom is fascinating to me, and especially teaching it at the University of Texas, like I'm looking at this guy that that is going straight up, you know, and he's above the other guys. Well, he sees things the other two guys don't see. And, and he wants to share what he's seeing with those other two guys to help him. But oftentimes those other two guys are not that interested in, in hearing what he's got, you know, they end up, you know, doing it their own way and making it infinitely harder than it has to be by you. You What's your take on that?

Yeah, no, I agree with you 100%. And when I look at this kind of representation of your life, too, I'm looking at the guy going straight up. And then the others are kind of going off in another direction. And I think to the point that you just made, you know, you can tell the the the one guy going straight up is like, hey, you know, wants to show him the way and they're kind of taking the hard way. It looks like Robert right. Yeah. You know, it looks like they're really struggling and kind of pulling and it looks like they're taking the hard path there. And I can relate to that. You know, definitely I think this is a representation of any evolution of anything that you're, you know, potentially going through, like you could assign this to anything, whether it's businesses, whether it's your life, whether it's a relationship, whether I mean it's a I think it's a really great representation of that cycle that we often go through, when we're when we're learning and we're going through something well

And you know, it's the difference between working smarter or working harder and and you know, the other thing that I'm thinking about you is so what would I? What about those guys that are going sideways and struggling? You know, why aren't they more receptive to hearing the wisdom of somebody who has had success at what they're trying to do? Well, you know, one of the reasons is, and this is the I'm sure this is true, that I don't remember too many people in my life, that were certainly my age. And, you know, we're usually associated with people who are age generally, that had any great wisdom that I didn't have. And so it wasn't like I had, you know, a lot of people around me with wisdom that I needed. And I think that's true with most people, because candidly, most other people don't have wisdom you need, I mean, you know, 98% of them don't have anything of particular value. I mean, that may be overly used stating it, but what do you think, if I know I think you're,

You're right on the money, because there's so much research that says kind of where we're at is really in direct relation to the people we surround ourselves with. And so if you're surrounding yourself with peers, or you're not seeking out that mentorship, it's not likely that you're going to be around people who are going to be that person that you can kind of draft behind, you know, that you can learn from and work smart to the point that you just mentioned. So I would agree with you 100%, that, oftentimes, it's either a the people we surround ourselves with, be not actively seeking out mentors or looking for that in our life, where it's like, hey, there's gotta be somebody before me that's done this, I don't reinvent the wheel. So I think that's one of the things John, and I don't know whether this was part of where you were gonna go to, and I think sometimes to its ego, I think people let themselves, you know, ego get in the way is like, Oh, I know how to do this and stuff. And it's like, really, you know,

You know, I tell you, I'm amazed at how many few good ideas I've had so much. Whatever success I've had, was not through my good ideas, but it was from the brilliance of other people, and me being awake enough to fake their good idea. That would be the way What do you think is? Do you feel the same way

100% Or seeing something like even just with my first business that I started was growing up in that same environment and going, Wait a minute, I could do this, you know, so much better. You know, and here's what I would take from this, though, it was taking something that, you know, building off of something that somebody else created, and just making that better. And so I 100% agree with you, like, these ideas aren't original at owning a recruiting firm isn't original, some of the ideas and things to grow it, you know, also came from an idea that maybe something sparked an idea, and I'm like, oh, you know, what, if I do this, so I agree with you. 100% so many of these spark original ideas that have helped my businesses grow, you know, well meet and grow as a person sometimes.

Well, yeah, you know, and think about this is that maybe this is the essence of, of this, this topic of transferring wisdom that would be valuable to our audience. You know, I look at at what was the most significant thing I ever learned in my life? Well, it was at 95% of my daily thoughts and actions are unconscious. And I learned that from thinking Grow Rich, well, that subtle thing, that subtle thing, coupled with your daily actions determine your success in each area of your life. You know, those two factoids that I learned from thinking Grow Rich, truly changed my life. And so the things that you can learn are, they're subtle, but as subtle as they may be, they can be life changing, and you know, just like it taught you think it be it, and it impacted your life or, you know, it wasn't. I mean, it wasn't, I wasn't like teaching you how to split the atom, you know, but I just taught you a new way of looking at life and a tool for changing your lives. And off we go.

Yeah, and I think done. One of the things that kind of stands out to me while you're you're talking about this, too, is when we talk about the method, and you know how on several episodes this always comes up is the reticular reticular reticular activating system,

Easy for you to say,

Oh, like how that was a mouthful today. But we we bring that up. And what's interesting is that when you bring this into your awareness, then you start to see those ideas, those little nuances, those things that you just mentioned were like, Yeah, because you have so much clarity around where you want to go and what direction you want to go move in, that you can bring those mentors and those great ideas and that growth that's aligned with the direction that you want to move in, you know, so that you can make those leaps and bounds and work smarter and follow those, you know, footsteps and stand on the shoulders of those that have come before you and but I think that's part of where people struggle with and well, why don't they do that? That was the question you mentioned earlier, why won't they take the, but I think it's about the people they surround themselves with. But it I think it also too, is about being unclear about where you're going what you want to do. You know, and so bringing that into your awareness, bringing those mentors and that not that, that growth into your awareness. Right, it does challenge if you don't know where the destination is, or what you're headed for it have a clarity around that. Exactly.

You know, I tell you, you know, we talked about this a couple episodes, you know, I was, I was listening to a podcast by Joe Dispenza. And he talks about how people are oriented to their past when they wake up each morning. And the effect of it is a recreate their life, they continually recreate their past life. And, you know, that was one of those recent epiphanies I had, because you know, it here in that just hearing that allowed me to connect some dots that I already knew, you know, the idea that we're innately wired for survival, which causes, you know, 70% of our thoughts to be fear based. And then you couple that with what else also already knew that 95% of your daily thoughts and actions are unconscious, you know, but here and what the Joe says, you know, well, you're, you're oriented to the recent past, when you wake up, I saw Oh, yeah, I see, I, first of all, I see why you're going to be fear based and reactive naturally. And, and therefore, you would naturally go to your problems. And, and it makes sense that you'd be oriented to your recent past, and that, it's not like you wake up in the morning, and you're flooded with all the negative things in your life. But again, you might have some of that at a conscious level, but so much is going on underneath that, that's what that what you what you don't see is really the problem. And, you know, Joe talks about how, you know, a negative, you start thinking, a negative thought, and that produces a negative feeling. And a negative feeling creates another negative thought, and you're in this negative spiral loop. And people get stuck, because they have nothing pulling their lives forward. And, you know, I now have come to appreciate that such a perfect explanation of the power of think it be it is the, you know, to, to pull your life forward. And so yeah, just learning that, from Joe Dispenza has been really beneficial to me.

Yeah, I think too, it really illustrates, again, the point that you kind of made at the beginning about this kind of knowledge transfer dilemma. You know, it's, I mean, those things go hand in hand with each other. It's also one of the reasons and the explanation about why that isn't happening, to the degree that it could in somebody's life, is that for that very reason,

Right? Well, you know, I'll tell you something you'd find interesting. We have more people listen to this podcast than I thought or the that you thought. And you know, just for audience, you'll find this interesting. So so we do our podcast and we have a company called Captivate sponsors in our den sponsor it, but but puts it all together. And Michelle, the owner of the cavity, tells me she says you have a pretty, pretty large audience. I'm like, Michelle, we don't have a large audience. I mean, what are we there? We got bots, listening to us, we don't know about this. You know, I'm like, I'm not buying that we have a big audience. And you know, it did matter because I just like hanging out with you. And, you know, we do it out of the gate. We just like each other. And so, so I never bought into it. But you know, it's interesting. I had two people contact me just last week, and were raving about how much they like our podcast, and one of them happened to be, he's from Kansas City. His name is Bill. He was coming down Austin. And he said, Could I meet you? So he comes over to my house Sunday morning. And he's very enthused with thank bed and, and said that he had listened to, you know, like 20 or 30 episodes of our, you know, we've done 80 Did you know that?

I did? Neither is No, I just look, I just show up every Monday because I look forward to these conversations and we happen to record on that's all right.

Yeah, I know, I know. i It's unbelievable that we got like, 80 of But anyway, he was he was over here. And, and, you know, he's, he's taken notes. And as we're sitting out is it was raining, so raining. And so we're sitting out on the deck looking out at the lake and but very sharp guy, and he's like, 35, and has a military background. And, you know, he's, I was telling him he's in the 2%. You know, that's, that's the evolution that that we've gone through is it what we have is not for the 98% proud of it, you know, it's really for the, the 2% that want to please play the game of life with their full potential. But he opened my eyes to something that was really interesting. You know, when when somebody contacts me, from our podcast, you know, typically the first thing I'll do is, I'll respond to the mail and offer them the nine minute video that explains the full secret of thinking grow rich, and shows our template and explains the science. And then if they find that interesting, then then we'll maybe proceed to, to doing a zoom call or something. And again, I have no, you know, ulterior motive to sell them anything, I have a way to teach it to too. But you know, we don't commercially try and sell it. But anyway, he was he was there, we're talking. And he says, you know why said that video, four or five times. And every time I watched it, I got something more out of it. And he had even sent me an email of his vision of his life. And I look at it. And and, you know, it's, it's pretty good. It's, I mean, it's, it is not applying the science of the human mind. And is is not doesn't, you know, do all the bells and whistles our template does and, and has the proper sentence structure and, and, and applying the science. But nevertheless, he had done what more than 98% of people would have ever done. But and so I wrote back to him before I met him. I said, you know this pretty good. But, you know, here's the flaws in it. He was telling me that at first, he sort of took offense to that. But then once he watched the video, and listen to it two or three times, he saw what I was talking about. So the lesson he taught me was that what is maybe painfully obvious to me, or you is not so obvious to other people, and they have to hear something numerous times before it starts to click. David, what what do you think about that?

Yeah, I think you'd have to hear something. If that repetition, right. We'd live not all the time. And I think also being in the right place. And you know, to receive it, right life, you know, being in enough pain, whatever the case may be, you know, and then I also think we talk about this a lot. It's ego, because I'll tell you one thing, and your story brought this up for me. When I first did my first draft of No, it wasn't my first draft. It was my questions to the question. When we first started working together, you and I several years ago, you kicked it back to me. And you said it's an it's death. This is all super surfacey you've got to be much deeper in and you said try again. And I think it was and I was like wait a minute, like immediately, because this is to its personal. Right? It think it's easy to go? Well, you know, there is a lot of detail there, you know, like right away to be defensive about it. Right. Right. And then it was like, Well, wait a minute, stop, that that ego aside or whatever that is, you know, that I feel they're that resistance or whatever it is to push back on this and to say is this true? Right. And I was like, kind of went back and read through it. It is pretty surfacey why slam that out? You know? So I think there's a couple of different things, I think at play there when that happens. But that was that was my experience. So immediately when you said that It was funny because like that I remember, right? Going kind of through that very same process at the beginning. Because here's another thing about that, though to John, when I gave you what I gave you, and I'm sure when Bill sent you what he sent you, I hadn't thought about my life. Yeah, so great detail. And so I did feel like it was a, like, it was a big stretch for me in terms of putting all of that information down, it did feel like I had, you know what I mean? Like I had, because I hadn't put much thought into my life at all, like most people, I hadn't gone deep. I didn't know what deep was, until you kicked it back a second time. I sent it to you. You said try again. Ron, I'm like, All right, you know, like, Oh,

I missed.

You know, but I think that when we're talking to you about the power of mentorship, and right, those people that have gone before you and the value that that, you know, again, it ties it back to that knowledge transfer, I could have went, you know, what, it's guide the laser, you know, I could have shut that off, if I hadn't been at the right point in my life. Now. If I'd let my ego get away, I'm in. So I think that really kind of, again, brings home the point of what we've been talking about from the beginning about the the knowledge transfer challenge,

right? Well, you know, I think you hit on a great point that, that I, easy for you and IB actually not get this, in that you always like, it's like going on a on a on a trip, you know, is it going to be better to have a clear destination that you're gonna go to Carmel, California? And, you know, here's the path to get there. And here's what we're going to do when we get there? Or are you going to have the, the idea? Well, I'm just gonna go west, you know? Well, you know, I think most people and I see it is is exactly what you said, they never really thought about their life at the deep level. And if you're talking about raising your level of success, and happiness, and you know, maybe more happiness and success, but but the to go hand in hand. Sure, you got to get to know, you know, what are your core values? What do you believe? What motivates you? What are the behaviors that Erica has, is going to create the health that you want to hand? And in your business? What moves the needle in that business? And what's your strategy for success? And, you know, you gotta get all sorts of clarity. And of course, I'm like, this is a labor of love, you're talking about your life? You know, why? Why is this? Yeah, it may be hard, but it's, it's a labor of love. And, you know, I see that, like, when I send people, the video, you know, the essence of it is, yeah, you're going to create immense clarity in your life. And you're going to put it on our template, and then you're gonna feed it to yourself every day. And after 21 days, science kicks in, and the right actions start happening automatically. And, and then those enhanced right actions create the life you want. I mean, that's it, that's as simple as it is. And what is puzzling to me, man, maybe out this, what I'm learning is that is as simple as that is, when someone else hears it. They hear it, but they gotta probably hear it four or five times, six or seven times before they really go, oh, oh, I got it now. You know. And so, you know, my hat is off to bill for making me stop seeing the world from my point of view and seeing it from the other point of view. Very helpful. I learn more from him probably than they learn me.

Well, and that I think, is another point that drives home everything that we're talking about is the here you are at this stage of life at the pinnacle. You said I feel like I'm right now at the pinnacle of my career, and you're right where that you are open minded and willing to receive and you're always seeking out like, okay, how can I grow? How can I get better? How can I and so being having that willingness to learn from everybody, regardless of what station in life there out, you are a you're a learner and a grower and I think that that, you know, is is exactly what we're talking about having that mindset, you know, that helps speed you up and move straight up instead of taking those. Right, right, well off shoots.

Well and, you know, maybe the final point on on wisdom transfer, you know, as I have created this, this new course, at the University of Texas, that was really sponsored by the athletic department, where, you know, they're going to require essentially, all 550 athletes to take the course with the idea of, you know, creating the the exceptional life, in fact, the value proposition of the class is, let me show you how to create the exceptional life rather than the average life, it takes 12 minutes a day, and you're applying the central concept of the topic the world on success to your life. And so, you know, you say that to college seniors who are bad to enter the real world, and 100% of our all in, and but if you make that same value proposition to adults in their 30s, and 40s, and 50s, only 2% of them are in, and you know, there's something about life that beats the ambition out of some people. But you know, when I, when I say, well, it's only for that 2% Well, you know, that 2% is not defined by income is really defined by the desire to play the game of life, at their full potential. And so, you know, I'm pretty busy, but you know, someone in that 2% comes to me, even though we're not, you know, actively soliciting people. But if adults come to me and want to learn it, by God, I'm going to, I'm going to figure out a way to teach them if they're really serious about it. Yeah, no, and, you know, I almost have more respect for those adults that somehow find our podcast or find you or me and contact us. And because they've made an effort, they, you know, in this world of clutter, they have made an effort and if they get to me, I'm like, by God, I'm helping, you know. So, you know, it's, it's fun. It's fun. Okay, well, any other pearls of wisdom on your end, shoot.

Nothing that comes to mind. I my pearls are right now.

Okay, well, hopefully, we've laid some value bombs on everybody today. And so, until next time, we'll see you.

Thanks for listening today. If you've had your own aha moment from today's episode, send me or John an email. We'd love to share your epiphany with our audience. So email us at Kelly@thinkitbeit.com or John@thinkitbeit.com. In the meantime, live the exceptional life