Meet Jim Britt: decisions and personal transformation

Jaclyn Strominger 0:23

everybody involved into another amazing episode of the Unstoppable Six Test Podcast and your host Internet Commander and on this podcast we hear from amazing professionals who share their leadership insights, their proven success strategies, and the real stories behind how they created unstoppable success in business and in life. And today's guest, favorite of mine, Jim Brent, an internationally recognized business and life strategist, keynote speaker, and award-winning author of 15 best-selling books. And for more than four decades, Jim has shared his success strategies with audiences around the world, reaching two million people, probably more. And early in his speaking career, he spent eight years as a business partner to the legendary Jim Rohn. And during that time, Tony Robbins worked under Jim's direction in the early years of his own speaking career. It's pretty amazing. So Jim, you know, is full of great information, but he has dedicated his life to helping people break through limitations, strengthen their mindset, and create meaningful results. So get ready for a powerful conversation about success, personal transformation, and what it takes to live life at the highest level. Welcome Jim.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Thank you very much everyone it's great to be here.

Jaclyn Strominger 1:42

Yeah so I mean I'm just gonna jump in. You have had so many great successes if there was one thing you could tell people what is the biggest biggest key? Like I feel like I'm all of a sudden I felt like I I was all of a sudden thinking about Billy Crystal in in the movie when he's like with curly I don't know all of a sudden I'm like can't be the name of the movie but it's like one thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Yeah I saw a little comedy clip a couple of days ago I forget the the old comedian but he was very dry no sense of humor never cracked a smile I'll think of his name but he he was doing a counseling he was a psychiatrist in his role and he was doing a counseling session and and he said so what what's your problem? No he said it's gonna be very short. How long is it going to be he said five minutes and it's a dollar a minute and it's gonna be very short. Well my go over five no five minutes that's it and he said so what's your problem she's well I I have I have this fear I have this dream like I I'm in a box and they're burying me in this box and when I go in near a box I I get freaked out. If I go into a tunnel I get freaked out if I go into anything built like a box like a house I get freaked out he said so you've got a claustrophobia yeah that's what it is and he said okay I'm gonna give you two words she said should I write those down he said no you'll remember them stop it that was success can be the same way at pretty much anything if we just stop doing what's keeping us from being successful. It's like there's real power in being able to let go of things. And the fact is that we most most humans spend about 50% of their waking hours trying trying to control things over which they have no control. If you really think about it you know you're you're off someplace trying to control something that's out of your hands you're upset about it you're criticizing it or whatever but you're wasting time your own time and that's that's the most critical thing and that we have we have a shopping spree every day and we're spending 24 hours and pretty much everybody has

From a postponed goal to a finished book

SPEAKER_00 4:07

24. I don't know if you have more than that or not but I have 24.

Jaclyn Strominger 4:11

I I the last I checked I am still human and I live on this earth I have 24 I haven't figured we have a we we have a choice we can spend it however we want right so you know I think the most important the most important of a thing I found it's not goal setting it's not law of attraction it's in one way it's mindset but actually what it is is is making a firm decision about what it is you want to do with your life or with your business or whatever it is you're going after make a firm decision nothing less than that will do because that creates the mindset.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

It's not the goals that do it because the goals are out there in the future someplace. So we set a goal to do this by this. My first book a good example you mentioned I'd written 15 I'm working on four more I never thought I could ever write a book. It took me 10 years literally 10 years from 1986 to 1996 every year I set a goal to write that book and I never did it because I talked myself out of it every single year. Well I don't know how to type I don't know how to write English was my worst subject that's why I dropped out of school it's multiple characters I don't know how to put all those together and on and on and on but every year started out January that book is coming out this year until one day one night about midnight I'm walking into the Long Beach Hotel Long Beach Hilton Hotel and checked in heading for my room I walked past the wall that was a mirror I didn't realize it was a mirror and I and I caught a glance of somebody else which was actually me in the mirror and I and I wasn't thinking about the book at all and I turned and saw it was me and I just stopped for a minute and looked at myself I don't even know why I did it. I just stopped and looked at myself and I thought I'm writing that book and nothing's gonna stop me. I felt chills all over my body like this is it. Of course the time I got to my room I'm already now I'm catching myself coming up with all the excuses why that why I can't do it I don't know how to type I don't have a computer I don't you know I don't know this was you know 1996 and then suddenly I'm going just stop it okay telling myself stop that I'm gonna write this book then I thought okay well I know how to talk so if I can find somebody that will sit with me and type if they can type as fast as I can talk. So I found this woman in this event it was an event I knew her and it's an event we did every other month uh for entrepreneurs and so I approached her and she just freaked out about it said oh yes I'll do it I'll do it I'll do it and she said well we have to spend a lot of time together and I said okay well where do you live she said Maui I'm going okay she said my husband and I over you know if we have a home on Maui you can come over and stay with us as long as it takes so I was over there for five weeks five weeks and I talked for eight hours a day literally and told stories and all it was the most probably the most rewarding experience I'd ever had bringing back all my life and things that I'd gone through and all the details of it and all of that and we put it together and it's a miraculous book. In fact when I first sold it it I sold it for $25 hardcover 367 pages is pretty pretty healthy my guarantee was if if you don't think this book is in your top five that you've ever read if not your number one I'll double your money back and you keep the book that was my guarantee and I sold 30 some thousand books um with the guarantee and no returns. So it was so I finally got the book and then once I did I thought heck I can write so my next book was 330 pages and I wrote it in less than 45 days.

Jaclyn Strominger 8:21

And and I did you do the writing or did you have some did you have two fingers I have two fingers.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Yeah she taught me that she said you got because she said we have to edit by email and I said I don't have email well you got to get it I said well I don't have a computer well you got to get one and I said well I don't know how to type and she goes look at my keyboard and look for the A took me about 10 seconds to find the A. And she said do you have two pointers and I said yeah and she said poke on that she said now you'll get good at it so I memorized the keyboard through these two fingers not all of them I tried that I couldn't do it so I got I guess I got to add it too fast. But anyway that's a you know once you decide what you want then every action you take is going to move you toward it or away from it. That's a simple success principle there are no black and white it's only you know I should say that there's not any gray area only black and white right it either is or it's not right and I was talking to recently she said she wanted to lose 50 pounds and she said but I really like having a big Mac once or twice a month I said I'm not judging it. You can have as many as you want you have two a day if you want but I said my question is is that one or two taking you where you want to go or is it taking you away from it? Well it's not that bad. And I said no it's black and white which one is it and she she finally goes okay it's taking me away but I'm still going to have one I said no that's up to you but I said just be conscious of it when you eat it because it has a cumulative effect which everything else does too right anyway.

Jaclyn Strominger 10:03

So Jim I have a question. So what were you doing in then in 1996 when you wrote that first book like what what was your business?

SPEAKER_00 10:13

The same business I'm in now uh speaking so I've been speaking as a professional speaker for 45 years. And I was even in business with Jim Rohn and that's how I got into the business I met Jim in a direct sales company which was my first business venture. As I mentioned I dropped out of high school I pumped gas for about a year and a half I worked in a factory wiring telephone switchboards for about a year and a half then I joined up in a direct sales company that was my first business venture literally changed my life my first my first year I lost everything I owned and that changes your life when you're down to 15 cents in your pocket the notice on the door from the sheriff saying you got to be out in five days and both vehicles repo got a wife and a child and no food in the house and no place to go. And that will either highly depress you or motivate you one or the other when I had a little combination of both scared to death I knew how to do something and they told me if I talked to 10 people a day for a year well it didn't they didn't say a year. If you start talking to 10 people a day you're gonna get rich they didn't bother to tell me what to say or how to ask questions and how to listen and how to find out if people even needed what I had and I talked to 10 a day for a year and I made one sale. Interesting thing is during that five day period before I had I had to be on the street I went to to hopefully get the guy that bought one one product from me before to buy another it was about a $20 item back then. And he bought it so I figured I got food for for a few days for the family but I still didn't know where I was going to live but that turned into an opportunity that one sale turned into an opportunity that provided me with $300 a week a vehicle to drive a three bedroom furnished apartment for free and an opportunity to earn me over the next 12 months over half a million dollars and in the same five day period somebody knocked on my door I thought it was a bill collector I thought they'd already repo'd everything I had and opened the door and the guy said I'm from I'm from the direct sales company corporate headquarters I understand you're really a hard worker but you're not making any money he said can we talk and he said I tried to call you but your phone's disconnected and we talked for two hours and he taught me what I what I was doing wrong and how to sell how to recognize a prospect and things like that. Simple stuff. That business I worked at night while I was working the other opportunity and that one earned me just under a half a million the next 12 months so I went from 15 cents to millionaire in a year because not not because I wouldn't quit I couldn't quit because I had no place else to go. So I decided I was going to continue and then the first first thing was how do I get food so I walked three miles in the Oklahoma heat carrying a five five gallon container of carpet shampoo if you ever carried five gallons of liquid for three miles in a hundred degree weather that's a hard that's hard word. Right that's hard that's hard but it was worth it right so I don't know why those things happen you know it if you look back on it I don't know if it's just like time fate circumstances God steps in I don't know what it was but somebody must have said hey we he's not gonna quit we might as well give it to them I don't know what happens but certainly didn't know then I was just uh excited that things turned around and turned around in a big way and then I then I had to wrestle with all the money I made because I'd never had any I mean never had money and grew up in poverty we didn't have electricity till I was six years old lived in a train box car for two years abandoned lived in a house that I remember it slightly I remember it had a tin roof and it was really loud and there was no insulation between where we were in the tin. So I think it might have been a barn. I'm not really sure and I know the roof leaked pretty bad and we didn't have air conditioning or anything like that. But you know you go from nothing to a million dollars pretty quick. And today they talk about billions or trillions like nothing but a million dollars back then was a lot of money.

Jaclyn Strominger 14:50

I I still think it's a lot of money yeah yeah so I went to work to spend it I mean I bought stuff that I didn't need went down to buy a new car came home with two of them same car but different color had a cut one car for about four or five months had a flat tire I went traded it got a new one not a new tire a new car you know so I did weird stuff you know and but I I caught myself one day I walked into the garage and there are two big boxes and they're all bound up and I'm going I've I've been watching seeing seeing these boxes here for the last couple months I'm going what is in those things anyway so I had ordered some stuff and I popped the thing open and I'm going what am I doing with this anyway I don't even need it obviously I didn't open it when it got delivered so I set up a a target for myself I said from now on anything over $100 I'm gonna wait 24 hours before I buy and so I did and that that stopped me from spending the second half of my million dollars so that's actually that's that's actually a really good I mean it's a great lesson I feel like everybody you know listeners that's actually really huge because spending is one of the people what I think people's biggest problem because it's so easy to go and buy you know today it's easy no matter where you are online shopping at whatever but do you need it is it need or want yeah you know you know but do you need it you know did I need a new fishing rod?

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Yeah I needed that pretty bad so I sold them all trying to live I sold my boat my camper my pickup my fishing equipment my guns everything that I had for relaxation and leisure I had to sell to live and even with that I lost my own well but but it's and and and those are life lessons and I think this is the other really key point that I think is really important is that you know you don't have to wait to be in the dumps.

Jaclyn Strominger 17:04

But I mean but sometimes it's when when you hit that you know look at is it fight or flight right like are you going to fight or are you gonna just what are you gonna do? And and you have and but no matter what what whether you're you don't have to be in that mode but you just have to know am I ready to go all in and what am I gonna and am I going to be distracted um from the other things or am I just going to be able to focus to get this done.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

You know that's why it's so so important for the decision because I mentioned mindset and law of attraction I'll I'll tie those two together because the decision creates the mindset. The mindset determines how you show up to the world and it determines how the world shows up or those in the world show up to support you. Because if you hadn't made the decision let's just say to be a millionaire or to make a million dollars a year or something like that if you hadn't made the decision to do it why would you even see the opportunities you wouldn't you wouldn't recognize them. They're all around you but you don't recognize them so and then people people say well I'm the the law of attraction is going to bring it to me and I don't believe that I don't believe that for a heartbeat what I think happens is the law of creation because when your mindset changes your view of the world changes and you see the opportunities that you wouldn't have seen that you could take advantage of too instead of saying I'm gonna have this and I'm gonna wait for it to come to me. No. It's like driving down the highway and saying well I'm hungry I'm gonna get a burger and a soda well I could just manifest those and they'll be on my console here in a couple minutes without stopping doesn't work.

Jaclyn Strominger 18:56

That's the law of attraction and people can look at it and go well be me down it's come on well Amazon's gonna follow you in now and and it's you know the drones and it's gonna you know got a sunroof open it's there target yeah so well it's you know I I just have a different way of looking at things that people most people write down their goals.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

I don't I did way back and I found out that 90% of them didn't accomplish anyway. And the reason is because they're out there someplace it's like playing football. You watch a football game and I'm not a sports fan I've only watched one Super Bowl my whole life so the goal is to get across the goal line but the objective is to focus on the play right now. Not the play three days three days from now or the one happened yesterday or the play before it's a play play right now. And that's where the decision comes in because it determines what actions you're going to take and the goal to me is the incremental steps to getting where you want to go ultimately it's a foundation for everything. Without that nothing happens.

Jaclyn Strominger 20:10

You know I I I I want to stop this is like I I think this is such a brilliant point to because it's so true. You can set the goal right but the goal is out there but you really have to focus on the day activity or the thing that you're the thing that you're doing right now in the moment that it's it could help you get to the goal the goal is to win a game right but if you're if your head's in the cloud and you're not focusing on what you know and you're the receiver and and the you know quarterback is throwing it to you and you don't you're like up and you're like where you you know and you miss the play it goals the fact that they're in the future it's so easy to change them or so easy to put it off.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

It's so easy not to do something today because you got tomorrow but tomorrow's not your friend today to today is your friend that's it and we get to spend it however we want so it's like a a I I was on a live event online the other day and this guy from Australia he said hey are you the Jim Britt and I was going I don't know I I'm the a Jim Britt and he said could I read you one of your quotes it's he said it's a two part quote he says and if it's yours then I know you're the Jim Britt I went to an event of yours about 30 years ago in the US and he said once you make a decision then every action you take is going to move you toward it or away from it. And he said then the second part of that was it which really changed my life he said if you don't make a decision it doesn't matter what actions you take I said yep that's me and he said you can't Imagine what that's done for me. That's on my wall in my bathroom and right here in front of my desk. And he said, I look at it every day. And he said, the second part of it mostly. If you don't make a decision, it doesn't matter what action you take.

Jaclyn Strominger 22:13

So not making a decision is actually making a decision.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

It is. It's deciding not to decide.

Jaclyn Strominger 22:20

Not to decide. Right. You decided not to decide, right? Yeah, I took that. So so this is a may sound like a kind of an odd question, but I, you know, I'm I I keep thinking you've done so many great things and you've worked with so many amazing people, right? You know, Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, like all these great people. And and you being a speaker, you know, Jim Rohn was a speaker, Tony Robbins became a speaker. So I'm curious from your, you know, as you've continued on, you know, working with these great people, first of all, it's a two-part question, which is like, you know, first of all, what is it like to work with, you know, it's like working with these amazing people. But at the same time, you know, some people might say, you know, you know, you're working with Jim. What what made you decide that you could go out and be a speaker and like Tony Robbins be a speaker? Because people might say, oh, but they're already doing it. They're already a speaker. Why should I do it? You know what I mean? Like, like what made you decide I'm gonna do it?

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Actually, I I don't think I really decided it.

Jaclyn Strominger 23:26

You are you are you were speaker note.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

You know,

Jim Rohn, public speaking, and building confidence

SPEAKER_00 23:30

when I heard Jim Rohn the first time in that direct sales company, he he was presenting this three-hour event. And I took 23 pages of notes. I lived in Oklahoma City. I'd never I'd never heard anything even remotely close to that. Nobody, I never heard a speaker speak or do anything. There weren't that many out there at that point. And and then I found out he was going to be in uh Little Rock the next weekend. So I drove to Little Rock and went to his event, took 23 pages of notes. And I found out he was gonna be in Kansas City the next weekend. So I went to Kansas City and took 23 pages of notes. And I did this five different times, Dallas and then Denver was the furthest I had to go. And when I went to Denver, he says, I came in the room and he said, Where do you live anyway? And so anyway, we we headed off, we became friends, and then that company closed up a few years later. And Jim and I got back together and I formed a business and and I started promoting him. I had deep inside, I thought about wouldn't it be nice if I could be a speaker? But yet I I thought he pretty much had the corner on all good material. What would I have to say? Why would anybody even listen to me? So I didn't have the confidence, or even when I got up and spoke the first time, when I introduced Jim Rohn in front of a thousand people, I literally went blind. I mean, I walked up on the stage, and all I could see were fuzzy images of people. And my voice sounded like it was coming from outside of me instead of from inside out. I think it's called terror. And when I got off the stage, I said, never again will I ever feel that way. And then somebody talked me into doing a presentation for them. And I thought, okay, well, I've never done anything other than that intro that one time. And and so I planned for this. I wrote down stuff and planned, I must have 20 pages of notes for a 20-minute talk. And I thought, I'm gonna go to this place and I'll have a nice podium there, and I can stand behind it and hang on to it and take my notes if I needed to and just go through them. Yeah, well, there's no podium, it's an office room, and there's about 40 realtors in this office all spread out in the worst circumstances you could be in. I felt like I was up there with no clothes on, carrying 20 pages of paper. And I couldn't look at it. I couldn't like, you know, I mean, it was like weird. And but I talked and I don't remember what I said, I have no idea. But they clapped and I and I and I I left and left my friend there that booked me, which I was considered to be my ex-friend at that point. And I went outside and I stood by the car waiting on him, and I thought, never again, never again am I gonna put myself in a position like that. And then I stood there for a few minutes more and I thought, well, you got one of two choices, Jim. Never do it again, which occurred to me, or do it often until you get better at. And I chose uh the latter, obviously, and yeah, mainly because we were doing so much business that Jim, Jim couldn't keep up with all of what we were doing, too. So it just kind of we had started doing workshops and various things, and so it kind of forced me into speaking. And so every time I presented an event, I've presented over 4,000 of them. When I finished, I always ask myself, how did I do it? How could I have done it better? And sometimes you find things you could have done better, sometimes you don't. Right. That was perfect. So anyway, you you learn from your mistakes and you learn from your successes as well.

Jaclyn Strominger 27:23

Well, that's a key thing. And and and listeners, that's also a really key point. You have to learn from the mistakes, and you have to learn from what you do right. You know, can continue to improve upon what you do right. And I always like to say measure, monitor, and adjust. MMA, measure, monitor, adjust, measure, monitor, and adjust. You're you have to constantly be doing it. And and if and I, you know, it's it's not necessarily, you know, there's the win and then there's the learning. Not necessarily win and fail or win and lose. It's win and learning.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Yeah, you know, I it's interesting. I was presenting a about a two-hour talk way back when I first started. I'd probably been maybe speaking, I've probably spoken maybe 20 times, 30 times, something like that. So I'm presenting to this group of a couple hundred people. And I thought I did a pretty good job. And this woman walked up to me and she said, You know, I really enjoyed your talk tonight. You had a lot of great points. She said, I was really distracted by the number of times you said okay. And I said, Well, I don't I don't think I said it that much, did I? And she reached in her purse and pulls out a cassette tape. And she said, Well, I took the liberty of recording your talk, and I was going to go listen to it again. But she said, I think you'd benefit from listening to it if you wanted. Here it is. So she gives it to me. I put it in my jacket pocket. The next day I put it on my desk, and it laid there on my desk for a month at least, maybe longer. I'd see it every day. And I one day I was cleaning off some stuff off some business cards I didn't need anymore, different things. And I picked up this cassette tape, and I was on the way to throw it to the trash. I mean, my arm was like, here I go. I was gonna throw it in the trash. And I thought, you know, that woman was nice enough to give that to me. I should probably at least listen to a little bit of it. It only took me about five minutes to realize in five minutes I said okay, probably 30 times at the end of pretty much every sentence. And that's a need for approval, of course. And you hear people, you hear people doing that okay or right. I did this and this and this, or this is the way to do it, right? This is the way it right. And I was doing okay, okay. I was saying I was looking for approval all the way. So it's not it's not wrong to say okay sometimes or right sometimes, but if you do it at the end of every sentence, it's really distracting. I've heard people presenting that way and going, no, no, I learned the hard way.

Jaclyn Strominger 30:04

But that's it's true. It's such a pleasure to have somebody share that with you, though. And I think that's also something that you know, when we talk about success, maybe she was not the person that you would have automatically said, Oh, I want you to be one of my advisors. But if you can surround yourself with people who would do something like that woman did for you, that can give you the, hey, Jim, that was great. Could I make a recommendation? Or, Jim, that was awful. Jacqueline, that was horrific. Why did you do that? Right. You know, but be those trusted advisors. But key is to be the advisor that and know that when they're giving you that, they're giving it to you because they they they want you to do better.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

Well, you you know, I learned a couple of things. One, looking back on it, I learned from that, and I learned from a lot of other circumstances too, that that everybody is a student and everybody's a teacher, or at least they should be. Some people look at themselves as teachers, but not a student. That you know things I don't know, I know things you don't know. We get together and collaborate, we're gonna, we're both gonna become better. So that's kind of the reason for doing what we're doing right here.

unknown 31:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

And then the other thing I've learned, and it didn't take me long to figure this one out, is if you're becoming a speaker or somebody viewing here and wanting to become a speaker, the two needs that we have as human beings when you walk on stage, and all speakers have to some degree, and probably if they're brand new, to a great degree. And I've seen I've seen very seasoned speakers still doing it. The need for approval and the need to be in control. When you walk on the stage, you want the approval of your audience and you want to be able to control your audience. The problem with that is if you need control, you're out of control. If you need approval, you don't get it. If you let go of your need for approval, then you're yourself. You're not trying to do things to get approval from the audience, and they will approve of you. If you let go of your need to control the audience, you're in control. And and those two needs govern and kind of over over well, all of the negativity that we experience in our life culminate into those two needs. And I said, Do you I I I put it out to groups sometimes. I said, throw me out something that that doesn't that that's not working in your life, that's not one of those two needs. And there's one woman, she goes, I know something. I said, What? She said, I've got a really messy office. And she said, Every time I go in there, I see it's really messy. I said, Oh. I said, uh, so why is it messy? She said, I'm really, really busy. I said, I said, so are you busy or being productive or just being busy? She said, No, I'm I'm really, I'm really busy. I'm really busy. I'm uh you really busy or do you want other people to think you're busy? So when you have a messy office, it looks like you're really busy. And I said, is that a need for approval or control? And she thought about it for a minute. She goes, I'll be damned. She said it's a need for approval. It is. She said, I can't wait to get back home. I'm I'm cleaning my office. So, you know, we do things and we don't even realize it. We're trying to gain acceptance from others. I mean, one of the greatest needs that we have as humans is the need to feel accepted, wanted, loved, cared for, part of something. And but sometimes we go overboard and we become clingy, and and our need for acceptance becomes so radical that we end up as a victim in an abusive relationship. And that happens a lot. That happens a lot. Yeah, and part of that's the upbringing, part of that's what you got when you went through as a child from zero to six.

Childhood beliefs and relationship experiences

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Creates, well, we all create a core belief that we have about ourselves at six years old. Life and about ourselves at six years old that we don't know we have, and we still have it today. We just keep building on it. We don't recognize it because we didn't know what it was then. And as we go through life, it changes faces. It becomes depression and anxiety and and anger and you know, all of these things that we don't even know why we feel that way. We just do. And it's because of what happened in the first six years of your life that you decided this is what life is about. So when you hit a ceiling and can't get past a certain income, it's because of your upbringing. It's because of that first six years and that belief that you have. Maybe it's a self-esteem thing, a self-worth thing. So you see people around you making a ton of money in the same business, and you're not. And you just keep bumping it. You're working harder than they are, but they're they're making more. And you're wondering why. It's because your thermostat is set for that. And you're not going to go past it unless you can unless you can break free and look inside yourself. It's like I've helped hundreds of women out of abusive relationships and dozens of men. It's different for men than women. Most men are verbally abused versus physical. And a lot of women are both physical and or verbal. And they think that the person controlling them is in control, but it's not. That's it's it's a total opposite. The person getting abused is the one in control, but they don't see it because they're in the middle of it. And once they see it, it's that fast to get out of it. You don't have to pack up and leave, they will pack up and leave, almost guaranteed, with no effort.

Jaclyn Strominger 36:09

Right. Yeah, no, it's interesting, actually. You know, the there are there are so many people that I know that are in those relationships. And I actually have a friend of mine who, you know, her daughter just her daughter's fiance just was arrested for finally for abuse. And it's and it was, you know, they have two kids, and you know, it was the wake-up, it was a wake-up call, like being arrested, and she's now moving out, you know, because well, and also selling everything because he's in jail and she's moving where her parents are. But it's you know, not to hopefully get that bad, but you can see it's it's a it's a you know, people you have a choice to be in a relationship with somebody who is like that. You just have to see if they're if you're in that relationship and it's not good for you, you have a choice to get out of it or not.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

You know, they feel what what happens though is you feel trapped in it because you maybe you don't have the money to get out or to leave or to go someplace else or something is holding you back. But you you definitely do have a choice. Uh I had one woman came into my two-day event. I've event called a power of letting go. And I was standing near the registration table when she came in, and I noticed that she had bruises on both wrists. She had a bruise on her neck that was covered up a little bit with makeup. She had a busted lip and a black eye. And she had makeup on, but you could see through all of it. And and she just she looked like she'd been beaten up. I mean, and I saw that, and I didn't say anything, of course. And and so she, you know, comes into the the event, we we start the event, and over over the first half of the or half of the first day, she shared with with the group that she was in an abusive relationship. And she said, When I left this morning, and she'd been in seven of them. This was number seven, and she said, When I left this morning, my boyfriend said, If you try to ever try to leave me, I will kill you. And she said, and he meant it. And she said, I don't know what to do. And so I worked with her about 15 or 20 minutes and got to the core issue of her need for approval based upon childhood upbringing, and helped her to work through that and let go of that need for approval. And then it took a little took a bit and a lot of tears and stuff, but she came around and and and saw it all for what it was, and saw that she's in control. And then she right when the the session was over the first day, she said, So what do I do now? She said, I've let go of my need for approval. I don't need him anymore. I said, just go home. Just go home like you would normally go home. Just accept, don't carry that with you. That mean she came in the next morning and she didn't even wait for me to say anything or anybody to say anything. He just came right up in front and she said, I've got a share, I've got a share. I mean, I hadn't even barely, I just I didn't even have, I didn't, I don't think I said a word or two. And she comes up and I said, Okay, okay. She said, You told me just to go home last night? And she said, I did. I walked in the front door, she said, I didn't notice whether his car was there or in the garage or what. And she said, I walked in the front door expecting him to be sitting in his recliner and say, Hey, bring me another beer. So he wasn't there. So she said, I figured he's probably in the kitchen getting his own beer. So I go in there, he's not there. She said, I go into the bedroom thinking he's probably passed out on the bed. He's not there. She said, I'm staying here in the bedroom, and she said, suddenly the whole place felt different. She said, the energy was different. I just noticed it. She said, I went to the closet and opened the doors, all of his stuff is gone. And he had, and then she said, I turned around, and there was a little note on the dresser that says, I will never be back. So that morning, I'm gonna kill you. That evening, he's already gone. And he never came back.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

She's she's now in a long-term relationship, unabusive, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Yay.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

So and I've seen quite a few of them like that. They just go away because you if we can get behind the fact that we're energetically connected, even when we're not together, right? We all are. We're part of the whole. And people feel that.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Oh, it's it actually.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

You know, across town or across the country or whatever. But they do.

Jaclyn Strominger 41:01

Yeah, they do.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Yeah.

Jaclyn Strominger 41:03

You know, it's it's that you know, I I I feel like it was one of the first lessons I learned in sales, which was before you make a phone call, smile. Right. Right. Because it puts an energy in you and you're smiling. And you know, they the if you've never done it, smile before you get out of a phone call and do me a favor, use your phone because people like to hear other people's voices, but smile, and the other person can feel it. They can actually feel the the smile, like like they're looking at you, and it comes across in part of the energy that you are delivering. And it it's and and it's it's out there, like how you show up and how you are with that energy, you know.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

The guy that sat with me for two hours, the mentor I called him, we never saw him again. He asked me, he said, He said, Well, tell me what

Better sales questions and genuine connection

SPEAKER_00 41:58

you do when you go out and talk to people 10 a day. What do you do? And I told him, No, I just go out and talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. He said, Okay. He said, How do you know if you have a good prospect? I said, I guess if they buy from you. He said, No, how do you know if they're even a possible prospect to buy from? I said, I don't know. He said, That's obvious that you don't know. And he said, It's not out there flapping your jaws like you've been doing for a year. He said, You have to arrive at three destinations. One, do they have a pain or a problem? If they don't, you don't have a prospect. Two, do they want to solve it? Because some people have a pain they don't want to solve it. And three, can you solve it? He said, That's I he said, that's it. If they if all three of those are in alignment, you've got a prospect. I said, Well, how would I know if they got a pain or a problem? He said, Ask questions and listen. Stop talking, ask questions and listen. And I said, Well, what kind of questions? He said, It doesn't matter. I said, Why doesn't it matter? I'm trying to find out something about them. He said, just be inquisitive, but he said, be sincere. And I said, Well, how how do I meet a stranger and and and do that? How do I get in a conversation with a stranger? He said, Well, how about smile and say hello? I said, That's it. He said, Well, that'll start one, maybe. But what if you said, what if you smile and you say, Hi, how are you today? What do you think they're gonna say back? I'm fine, how are you? Because they're gonna they feel obligated to repeat what you asked them, not just say, I'm fine, and that's it. They'll say, I'm fine, how are you? I'm great. You come in this store often? Yeah, come in here about once a week. Do you know where the milk aisle is or whatever? You get in a conversation with somebody, and pretty soon you're you're in a conversation. I'll guarantee you, if you just ask questions and listen, they will tell you they're pain. People will tell you their pain. Because if if they feel like you're trying to sell them something, they're not. But if you're sincerely listening to that person to discover what you can do to help them. And my wife is always she's always asking me, Do you always try to help people when you meet new people? And I said, that's just the habit. So we're out to dinner one night, and we're sitting, we're waiting for our table, and we're sitting, we're about 30 minutes early, we're sitting at the wine bar, and and we ordered a bottle of wine and a couple glasses. And so we're sitting there, and this other couple comes up and sits at the corner, right adjacent to us, kind of half facing us almost. And and she she said, So how do you meet strangers anyway? How do you start a conversation? Because she's kind of shy in that way. I mean, she's not a shy person, but yet to do that, just walk up. And I said, Um, you know, just you just start it in some way. And she said, Okay, Smarty, start a conversation with that couple. So I just turned around and first thing I saw was they had ordered a bottle of wine. And I said, Oh, what kind of wine are you drinking? And he turned the label around and I said, Oh, I've never tried that. Is it good? And he said, Oh, it's excellent. He said, What are you drinking? I turned my label around and he said, I've never had that either. So I told the bartender, I said, Would you bring us two glasses so I can give them a sample of my wine? And so I did. And he he goes, Bring two more so I can give them a sample. So we ended up having dinner with that couple that night. You know, they've been to our home multiple times. So you know, it's it's easy if you're sincere and you just ask questions and you know, it doesn't matter the question. When you can talk about the family one moment and business the next moment, it doesn't matter. Uh people will eventually share their pain with you.

Jaclyn Strominger 45:58

Right. I love that. And and listeners, this is such a huge point. You know, making those deep connections, making connections with people is so important because we're so we're so on social or we're so glued. But when you actually have a conversation with somebody, we need that connection. We're we are people that need connection. We need to be connected with people. So smile to the person at, you know, at the grocery store, or if you're at a networking event, you know, I tend to walk up to the people that are standing by themselves because I don't want them to be by themselves. I want to say, hey, how are you? How are you doing? Make them feel comfortable. You know, be that person that makes somebody else feel good.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

I love networking events. And I I go I go not to do business, I go to help people. And I always do business. I always come out with business just because I don't go there to do business. Same way, yeah, you know, online even you you can do the same thing in a group, you know, just try to help as many people as you can.

Jaclyn Strominger 47:02

Well, that's and you know, that's the point that, you know, I think it's also really important, you know, to have that, you know, success and unstoppable success is not about going out there with the idea of to sell somebody or to offer, offer, offer. It is, you know, you hear it all the time, serve and help others. How can you help somebody else? And, you know, I've listeners, you probably have heard this from me all the time. It's just basically if we know that we're out there to build in, as I call it, relationship capital, you are actually out there. Think about the person that you're meeting and what can you do to maybe make their life a little bit better? Who can you connect them with? You know, and my kids, I you know, I've shared this story before, and I'll share it because I think it's actually it just makes me smile all the time. You know, my we moved to Reno, Nevada. We knew I knew absolutely zero people. And so I'm I just wanted to meet people and I wanted to connect because I didn't know anybody. You know, I'm I'm in my house. I'm like, I don't know anybody. So I go to the grocery store, my kids are with me. And there's I'm and I never really looked at the number of eggs that were, I just would walk into a group, like back east. I would just, you know, there's like three different kinds of eggs: large, medium, small, brown, white, whatever. I'd grab something, walk into Whole Foods here in Reno, and I'm looking, and it's like this massive, like big thing of all these eggs. And there's a lady sitting next to me, and I go, Okay, I've never seen this many varieties. What do you pick? What's your choice? You know, because you know, and you know, we started a conversation, you know, and then you know, I don't know, like I mean, I'm I think she probably became a friend or somebody that I would see before, but my kids just would watch me. And then fast forward, standing at the deli counter one day, my daughter goes to the lady standing with the car. She's like, So, what are you getting today? And I'm like, And she starts talking to the lady. And I'm like, I'm not even I'm you know, and I'm like, Yes, this is how and you know, and and there are smiles, right? Like you could see, and like you, you know, if you can make somebody's day a little bit better.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

I was one of my friends many years ago. He was single, and uh and and it he dated a lot. He was always dating beautiful women, and he was a nice looking guy. And I said, where do you where do you meet your your friends, the the girls you date? I said, you go to bars, you go to happy hours and stuff. He said, No, mostly supermarket. I said, In a supermarket? He said, Yeah, they're in there shopping. He said, first thing I look see if they got a ring on their finger. If they if they do, you know, I don't I don't talk to them. I might say hi or something, but I'm not gonna try to date them. He said, but if they don't have a ring on their finger, he said, I'm assuming that they're not married and maybe they don't have a boyfriend or maybe they do. And and and he he says, I'll I'll just you know walk up to them and say, Do you know which I'll is you know the the mint pile or whatever, and get some conversation. And he said, find a dating right out of the grocery store. That's where I get all my dates.

SPEAKER_02 50:15

Okay, so people in the grocery store.

SPEAKER_00 50:18

Yeah, I said, so you're in there shopping, right? He said, Yeah, kind of.

Jaclyn Strominger 50:22

Yeah, it's a different kind of shopping, but hey, it's a shopping. We are shopping.

SPEAKER_00 50:27

But he was good at he was good at meeting people. I mean, we go out someplace and just you know, to have a beer or something together. And and he, I mean, he he was like a magnet to meet people, you know, just very cool. But yeah, that's actually really good.

Jaclyn Strominger 50:40

Well, Jim, I could talk to you for hours as how can people get more of your greatness? Because I think you know, it's you're you've got you're very calm about everything, and there's such a great presence with you that you have so much to offer. So how can people connect?

SPEAKER_00 50:53

Yeah, I'll give you a way to connect, and I want to leave them with something too that I think will will really uh really affect their life. But my uh well, you go to my website, jimbritt.com, and you can you can also email me if you'd like for information at jimbritt at jimbritt.com. And then I have a new school platform, which is a kind of a membership thing that's gonna have a lot of great stuff. I just put it up, so that's in the growth stages right now. But that's the Richcode Club.com. The Richcoe Club.com, and it's all free. And if you want to know how to let go, go to power of lettinggo.com, get a couple of free sessions right there. Just download the free sessions. Uh power of lettinggo.com. So this tip or a concept I'm gonna leave with you. This was this happened to me about 35 years ago when everything changed in my life from being a personal development slash motivational speaker to taking my work to a deeper level. This wasn't the only thing that happened, but it was one of the things. The one of the the first thing was part of what I shared a while ago is how what happens in our first six years of life and that core belief that we have. And how do you get past that? One, you have to discover the core belief, and secondly, you have to figure out what a belief is made of and how to get rid of it. And all beliefs are false. All beliefs. Until you decide it's true, then it's only true for you. It doesn't mean it's true. You've decided it's true. So if you're struggling at something, it doesn't mean that everybody struggles with that. So the next thing that happened though, a few days, a few days later, was I was on a on a phone call with a friend of mine, and we we kind of see eye to eye on a lot of things, and we'd read some of the same books and and converse and come up with ideas. And he called me that day and we talked for two hours about one page in a book. At the end of it, he said, Hey Jim, he said, before we hang up here, he said, what do you think the word resourceful means? I said, Yeah, I don't know. I said, using your imagination or being more productive. I don't know, I never thought about it. Why? He said, Oh, it's just an interesting word. And I said, I guess so. That was it. Hung up. And I thought that was the end of it. But I'm driving home about two hours later from the office, and it kept ringing my head. Resourceful, resourceful. And I couldn't quit thinking about it. Of course, this was a 35 years ago. We didn't have internet, we didn't have Google, we didn't have any of that AI or anything. So I went as soon as I got home, I went to the dictionary and looked it up. And resourceful is defined as once again full of source. Once again full of source. And I thought, hmm, that's an interesting word. I said, depending on what you think source is. So I looked up source. And it that is defined as where all things originate. Not some things, all things. I thought, wow, that could be powerful depending on what you think source is. And I went to the dictionary or went to the bookstore the next morning to pick up some books I'd ordered. And I said, Do you have an origin of words? A book with you know, origin of words in a study. Yeah, they did. So I'm looking through it and I couldn't find the word source. And I said, Do you have a a different dictionary other than Webster? And yes, yeah, I think we do. And so I looked through that. Same definition. For some reason, I couldn't accept that. Um I knew there was something more. And so this went on about a year and a half, and every time I had a chance to look up something or you know, try to figure it out, I I I did. And I was in uh UK in a little town called Chester, and beautiful little village, I guess, and doing a two-day event. And we had a break, and so I had about two hours, and I went out for a walk. Beautiful day, and walking along, and I see this old building, and on the back door there's a little sign that says antique books. Oh, I love old books, you know, written in the 1800s and stuff. But and I thought, I bet they have older books here than we do in the US, so I gotta go in there. So I walk in the back door. And first book I see is a dictionary about eight inches thick. And all tattered around the edges and stuff. And I never looked at the publication dates, I wish I had a. And it had a sign that said, do not open. It looked like the pages are kind of brown, right? Might be brittle or something. And I looked at stood there at least five minutes looking at this dictionary and going, I've got to open this thing. I thought, well, if I open it and pair it, then I have to buy it. It didn't have a price tag on it. I said, I'm wondering what they're gonna charge me for it, stuff like that. And then I decided, okay, I'm gonna do it anyway. And then I said, well, the science probably is for people in the UK anyway, it's probably not for me. So I'm gonna open this book.

Jaclyn Strominger 56:09

Not for the Americans.

SPEAKER_00 56:12

So I opened it up and I carefully went to the S's and I looked up the word source, and it had different ways of using the word and all of that, and and the same definition I saw pop out where all things originate. And then suddenly one popped out that I hadn't seen before. Source defined as love. And I went, wow, once again full of love. That's resourceful is once again full of love. And I closed the book and I walked out the back door. And I just I was kind of in a daze trying to figure out how would you use that in your life? And I'm walking down the street and it hit me. I thought, well, you know, when we decide we're gonna do something, have something, create something, accomplish something, and decide firmly we're gonna have it, we fall in love with it. And that's what creates a passion to keep you moving until you complete it. Then I walked along about another five minutes. I was all excited about it. I'm gonna I'm gonna take this in and share it with people, you know, that you've got to fall in love with what you want. And then something else hit me. I thought, wait a minute. If all things originate in love, where does fear come from? I thought that's a flaw in the whole thing. So I was kind of disappointed, walked along a little further, then it hit me again. I'm going, oh, I get it. We fall in love with fear. We create it out of love. We just we decide what we're gonna have in our lives, what we're gonna do, what we're gonna accomplish. And then, based upon our programming in that first six years and subsequent years after that, that we built on that, we make up fears that's gonna keep us from it. Just like me walking that night to my room after I decided I was gonna write the book, and all of a sudden, as I'm going in the elevator, it's like you can't write. You you don't even you don't even know how to spell properly. You don't know the difference between a preposition and an adverb. How can you put this together? I still don't know the difference. So if you're if you're thinking you can't write because of that, it's that's wrong.

SPEAKER_02 58:42

Right, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:44

So I just went, wow. We actually create the fear to keep us from getting what we want. It's not the fear coming from us from the outside, it's not it's not that at all. It's coming from inside, and it's our ability to create so we can create whatever we want. Anything is possible, even living under your fear, the umbrella of the fear that you created. Think about that.

Jaclyn Strominger 59:12

It is that's very powerful.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

It is, and so that's kind of the way I live my life now. It's hard to get me upset, it's hard to get me off track, it's hard to get me. Well, people just yesterday I was on a little little gathering of a few executives and stuff, and one of the questions was how do you how do you get yourself going in the morning?

SPEAKER_02 59:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

I said, get out of bed. I'm ready. Because one person said, Well, I I do this meditation. And next when I well, I listen to these audios and I work out and I put this on, and then and you know, everybody had a way to get themselves in the mood of going to work. And I'm I'm going like, I'm probably even laying in bed for 30 minutes before I even get up. I'm going, I gotta get up, I gotta get going, I gotta get up. So but when you learn the power behind letting go of the things that's holding you back, letting go of the fear and keeping moving forward, when you realize the power of that, that's where everything is. Because it's like do you want to be happy? You don't pursue happiness, you let go of the things that make you unhappy because happiness is your natural state.

unknown 1:00:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:27

You know, and we find it occasionally when we go on vacations and weekends and holidays, we find a little touch of that happiness that we think. But if you want more of it, let go of the things that cause your unhappiness.

Jaclyn Strominger 1:00:42

I I love that. And I could say lots of things about it, but listeners, this is such wisdom. You have to connect with Jim. He it's anyway. So you heard how we were going to get there. You're gonna go to his website, you're going to grab, I'll put all that in the show notes. But do me the favor, listeners, I want you to share this episode with everybody that you know because they need to hear this message. So share this message, make sure that you're subscribing. And if you can, do me the next favor is be a supporter of the show because when you support the show, it's a small monthly investment. But when you support the show, you get extra behind the scenes takes, notes, extra information from our guests listeners. You will be you'll be loving all the information. So you want to sign up for that because I share some great things when you become a supporter of the show. Thank you, Jim, for being an amazing guest. I can talk to you all day. Listeners, thank you for being great listeners. And this is the Unstoppable Success podcast, where we help you leap to your greatest success.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

Thank you, everybody.

Jaclyn Strominger 1:01:58

You've been listening to the Unstoppable Sixth Data podcast with Jacqueline Trometer. Subscribe, share, and keep building your unstoppable life.