Conquering Life's Challenges: Expert Tips from JM Ryerson

I've never changed one person's belief ever that came to my very clearly about four years ago four or five years ago where I was like I've never changed anyone's belief however I have helped people upgrade their beliefs I've maybe shown them something different but they have to walk through that door they have to choose to do that upgrade there's nothing I can do as a coach if you're like nope nope okay cool but once I realized the upgrade and the change and the fact that people don't like the word change yeah I'm not going to do that I'm just going to help you upgrade just like you upgrade your cell phone every year just like you love getting upgraded on a airplane from coach to First Class like people love upgrading they don't like change [Music] welcome to Super entrepreneurs podcast I'm your host Shahid durani today we have with us JM Ryerson GM founded and sold three businesses and is now helping leadership teams do the same he is a leadership and performance coach International speaker host of the let's go win podcast you definitely want to check it out a best-selling author of the books let's go win Champions daily Playbook and upgrade Jam has been building companies and leading sales teams for over 20 years Welcome to our show Jam thanks for having me brother good to be back good to see you again man yes man it's so nice to see you as well I saw one of your social media and your dad saying it cracked me up that's awesome man I love that that feeling that you must have of Happiness to be able to dance like that it brings back amazing memories because my mom and my brother and I would all dance in the basement every single not every night but majority of nights we had free to Michael Jackson and so whenever I know that whenever I hear music it just brings you back to an amazing time oh that's wonderful your mother she's still around she is she is she's still dancing man 17. oh nice it's actually 72 I think she is now yeah congratulations for that that's great that we have her around my mothers are a blessing so it's great that she's still around no doubt about it so can you share the three businesses that you sold can you share some sort of a common bread of success that you achieve from all three yeah so I it was in the financial service world and that was if you were to ask me any Financial Service questions you're going to get the wrong answer I don't know anything about it quite honestly even though I did it for almost 20 years and I say that tongue-in-cheek because do I know enough to be dangerous yes but what I knew Shahid what I was good at was building teams I was good at leadership and getting everybody on the same page and so the Common Thread amongst the three companies at least for my vantage point were we were able to get everybody on the same page in a really simple manner I call it the one sheet where from the very top to the brand new guy coming through the door everybody knows what our culture is how we behave you know how we're expected to show up what our goals are and that sounds really basic but 99 of companies that I have met with they don't have that no and so it's just a matter of getting everybody together and say what are we trying to do simple every meeting I whenever you say hey let's go have a meeting people roll their eyes but the truth is meetings don't have to be bad you just need a Cadence you need a system that you can use so that it's not a waste of time so that people are getting something out of it so I think what we did a really nice job of is getting everybody on the same page simplifying it and then there's one last piece and that's encourage praise and recognize I talk about it frequently it's free to every business owner and yet the dividends and the return on your investment is incalculable so literally just saying hey Shahid I see you I appreciate you brother you're doing a great job simple as that it makes people yeah and it makes them feel like you know what I do matters and they care about me and it's the it's free to every single executive and yet is so often overlooked and it's just not used so those are the kind of the basics that we use that's great in our program we call it leave everyone with the impression of increase meaning genuine if you find something good basically you should be looking for good in people when you find something good let them know and that just motivates on the next level people just feel good hearing that if you're not honest and genuine people can pick up on that vibration so if you're genuine about it it means a lot to that individual especially their quality of work that they perform yeah it definitely does and here's the other thing that people don't realize As Leaders when you inevitably you're going to have tough conversations with people if you work with them long enough people are going to make mistakes you're gonna they're not performing if you have built this in where you have said hey I appreciate you I see you you're doing a great job when you have to have the reverse conversation it makes it so much easier because they know that you care they know that you're not coming to them and just there's a relationship from a place of ego yeah and so you're able to say look we need to have a tough conversation right now but I want you to know it's not a reflection of you as a person it's of your performance right now or whatever the situation is but because you've built that trust with them now they can accept what you have to say now they hear what you have to say and it makes a whole transaction so much easier yeah so Jim can you share some tips on how to create that one pager for everyone to be aligned with yeah so the first thing to answer is and this sounds basic but what are we looking to accomplish excuse me it is the most basic question and it's the most important question what are we actually looking to do because often new organizations or even companies that are growing they're going at this chaotic pace and there's people doing stuff but it's not all aligned and so then you have redundancy and you have too much oversight and you have micromanaging all things that employees don't like so the first question to ask is what are we looking to accomplish the second question I would say is what are your cultural values and I would get it down to three if I can make a suggestion to any company there's a lot of science behind threes I've seen often I'll walk in and I was just working with a company and they had seven values and so I did a quick test I said let's ask your employees how many can remember these values no one did they couldn't remember all of them they could remember parts of them and that's because once you get past three you have diminishing returns where we don't remembers human beings three is the magic number so get your culture values down to three and repeat it often every single meeting in my companies we repeat what our values are the last piece or maybe the not the last but certainly the third piece would be how do we behave how am I expected to show up today is it competitive is it fun is it family whatever your environment is don't let it happen haphazardly be very clear on this is how I expect you to behave today and then lastly your goals what are your 90-day goals what are your year goals because if you can go into a company and they not every employee can't answer what are we trying to do what are the goals that we're trying to accomplish how do you expect that it to get there people want to know that their work is for a greater cause it's not just fixing this widget or sending these emails I'm doing this because these are our goals and when people can get behind that like a great team like uh I don't know a football team that they all know they're going to the Super Bowl okay cool that's the goal what's my role in it how am I supposed to show up and behave what are our cultural values when you can answer those questions everything becomes really easy yeah definitely it brings so much more clarity to their basic overall operation and the day-to-day work that individuals do yeah it doesn't leave anything to chance right often if you the how we behave is a really easy one because if you don't tell somebody hey I want you to be joyous or whatever the thing is that you have like for my company we are all about courage and fun are two of ours and so if somebody doesn't show up courageously it's easy to have that conversation do you see in this moment where you didn't show up with courage oh yeah I can do you see how we're trying to have a good time while we're building this and you're really being the wet blanket here yeah I can and what it does is it allows the wrong people to get off the bus it shows them that you know what this isn't where I want to be and instead of just earning a paycheck I'm gonna get off the bus and everybody's gonna be happier definitely hopefully that helps a business owner that does not have it and you're right there's a lot of room for clarity in businesses there's so many things are looked upon especially the foundational work no doubt and it's the one page why I call it the one sheet is because when I walk into a company I know when my work has started to really I'm starting to stick is when you'll see the one sheets up and everyone's cubicle or office and they're seeing it and what you'll find my my history with these companies is I've doubled Revenue every company I've gone to within the first year it's just my track record and the one of the companies we tripled but the point is double is really my expectation but what's funny is we're gonna do it by simplifying everything we're not going to do it by adding more stuff look there's only so much time in a day Claire there's only so much you can get done so let's simplify it so whatever you are working on you're going to be great at it and everyone's happy then too it's it leads to a higher employee morale for sure they're happy you're at your retention of employees is better there's a lot of great things that come to it that takes me to the next question because you transitioned from owning a business into performance coaching what do you find as the most important lessons that you can bring over into the coaching world of helping businesses yeah so I figured out that the companies that everybody always asks what's your Niche I was talking to somebody yesterday and they're like hey I want to refer you over but what's your industry and I said I do leadership in building teams there's not an industry specific for me it's just not but there is a specific mindset that has to exist otherwise it won't work I've learned this with my coaching if you or the company if they want to get better we're going to work out great we are we have a growth mindset the company wants to get better if that's not a that does not exist I had an executive team that they really liked the way they were and they thought oh hey let's hire somebody but it was not a good fit I could tell within the first 30 days and I had to sit down I said look guys I want to be here if you guys want to get better but if you want to keep things the way it is and you just want me to cheerlead for you that's not my job I love working with people that want to get better so the common thread for me is and I have a monster that I say every day and every day and every way I'm getting better and better and that's really my mindset that I take to my personal life and I take to my professional life and so if somebody's listening they're like yeah our company wants to get better we want to double in Revenue cool I might be your guy but if you're like no we like it the way we are don't come in and don't make any what I call upgrades right and that's why I wrote the third book if you don't want to upgrade no problem I'm not your guy and I don't want to I don't wanna even go down that road because if it's not in alignment it's just not gonna work yeah there's no point in hiring a professional if you're not looking for an upgrade like they're bringing you in for an upgrade no they are but I know this will be shocking Shahid but some Executives have egos and some of those egos they don't like change man that's why the word upgrade is my favorite word to use but they're I've encountered where the ego is saying look we're we made a mistake by bringing in we like it the way it is because you're asking us to upgrade we're comfortable here man we're doing great yeah cool high five to you man and that's the cool thing is it's never it even when I left and said you know what let's just be clear this isn't going to work let's it wasn't bad everybody's yeah agreed we like it the way we are and you're not a great fit and I was like cool man but what's been interesting recently she had is I've been working with companies instead of just doing like the retention and them putting me on a retainer and all that stuff I'm really been looking for the companies that I believe in and doing the small equity in the company and that because now I have a real vested interest even more so than just whatever yeah it's been a fun Journey because somebody had asked me okay tell me why your companies work so well the truth is I put my heart and soul into everything versus trading time for money and now I'm there and I'm but I'm not fully part of the team and so that's been a fun journey to again not have the majority share but actually minority share yeah but even when you have that ownership your best is different yeah yeah yeah and back to your point like you can't help anyone that doesn't want to be helped so if there's a strong ego there or if they know it all or if they're not really open responsive to new ideas how are you going to help them it's just a dead end yeah and I've learned that over 20 years I have never changed and I'll use the word change very clearly I've never changed one person's belief ever I that came to my very clearly about four years or four or five years ago where I was like I've never changed anyone's belief however I have helped people upgrade their beliefs I've and maybe shown them something different but they have to walk through that door they have to choose to do that upgrade there's nothing I can do as a coach if you're like nope nope okay cool but once I realized the upgrade and the change and the fact that people don't like the word change I'm not going to do that that's true it's going to help you upgrade just like you upgrade your cell phone every year just like you upgrade you love getting upgraded on a airplane from coach to First Class like people love upgrading they don't like change it's so funny that people are uncomfortable with the word changed when we are in a constant evolution of change in our lives everywhere you look in business technology anything is there's always a change and if you're not jumping on that change wagon guess what's gonna happen Left Behind man unfortunately certain things are connected to past experiences but the change has to be their decision a thousand percent make sense one thousand percent so what inspired you to start your amazing podcasts let's go win what is that key message what is that value that you're trying to bring the world by launching that podcast meaning when you're inspired what was the idea behind it why did you actually go and launch podcasts and that's a good question man I actually launched it in what would have been my third company at the time that's the first podcast I had was for a Financial Service Group and I fell in love with this forum I fell in love with asking people questions the reason I started let's go win I actually started in the name of the podcast was Transcendent life because transcend is one of my favorite words the whole reason yeah me too man it's special but yeah not a lot of people understand the word is what my marketing firm is like I know it's important to you but it doesn't make sense yeah but the whole reason let's go when the company was created was to inspire people to live their best lives and the reason that started is because I wrote the first book for my two sons I have 17 and 13 year old sons that I wanted them to live their best life and so once I started doing the podcast I figured out that oh my gosh I love this form I knew that I wanted to inspire others to live their best lives I wanted to tell the story The Good the Bad the Ugly and that's why you were a guest on the show and we got to dive into the really good stuff and then what were the challenges so that you can tell a story that's more than just let me give you the Highlight Reel of how great everything is that's not life yeah especially like a platform to tell it as it is 100 tell the story tell somebody how you got your butt kicked and you didn't want to get back up and you wanted to quit but this is why I persevered or I failed miserably at I I loved these stories I know it sounds terrible to say I love them but the truth is I do because every time they yeah that's right brother they got back up they wanted to get better they chose the path to overcome and so it's just I don't know why man I just this is my favorite form I love it it's something I'm passionate about they are so important JM when I initially started it I was very nervous I was very uncomfortable for me meeting some of these gentlemen and ladies and talking about this stuff but the more I started becoming comfortable with me the inner world the more easier it got and then slowly I started falling in love with me and then I just started falling in love with whatever I was doing and then this podcast was saying wow this came from somewhere because I just got a platform to share that love and meet people and help them grow and get the message out like you're saying so it has a different level of excitement in your life when you podcast it just a lot of people are worried about doing specific systems when they do their podcast and you know how others are doing it and do it that way kind of thing but I find that it's great to have some ideas from elsewhere right but from your heart when you're doing it there's no other option but to fall in love with it if that makes sense does make sense and actually what you're talking about I think is so applicable to Everyday Life look yeah we have a way about us a way that's natural that's authentic right and the way I do my show similar to you I'm gonna have a conversation I'm not going to be the best marketing platform out there I think this is why Joe Rogan's and why he's the number one podcaster in the world he sits for two and a half hours and he has a conversation with someone it's not scripted in any way shape or form he goes down all kinds of tangents from rabbit holes and what people understand is look or at least early I will say his show was extremely just it was pure and authentic and he was just having a conversation people want to see that they don't want to give a Fluff they don't want to be sold something and so that's what I think is so beautiful and it's funny you say if you got nervous because I'll have guests come on they're like oh man I'm so nervous I'm like you're nervous to have a conversation with you and me because no one's watching right now yeah you know what I mean and yes it does go out and then people will judge it or like it or whatever they do yeah just be you man that's it one thing I learned is that people are going to judge regardless you know what people are right now like if they're watching or listening to this there's a tremendous amount of judgment going on so people are going to judge regardless no matter what but when you're just yourself and not worry about that component and just dare to add value genuine value that you transcend all that I was just having this conversation with a client on Friday this very conversation the truth is it's none of your business what anybody else thinks yeah and the moment that you sit there and say what are they thinking about me that's actually really egotistical way to look at it because you're only thinking about you yeah and when I said that I said stop being selfish and he goes whoa yeah I was like look brother you're not a selfish guy you're not an egotistical guy so stop worrying about what people are thinking about you because you're only thinking about yourself and he goes oh oh my God I can't believe I've never thought of it that it was yeah brother this is it's none of your business what anybody thinks of you and I promise you people are gonna like you they're gonna hate you and all in between and there's nothing you can do about it other than to be your best self yes so so true even when you said that to the gentleman it's an idea that came into the conscious mind where you either could accept it or reject it so it sounds like he accepted it but it goes a lot further to actually implement it in your life because the issue is our environment has a tremendous amount of effect on us what we do I was interviewing boss wrote in I don't know if you know the UFC champion he's always with Kevin James so he was saying he invented a breathing device and he said that up to age eight we breathe normal six to eight we breathe perfectly normal natural as soon as the environment of girls or the opposite sex or if you're in school environment you start seeing your belly sticking out because that's where you're supposed to breathe from unconsciously you move it to your chest and then you spend your life breathing wrong and that's how strong the environment has an effect on us so that idea that I implemented in him is an idea but when you're in action day-to-day stuff is it's hard to have that part of you because it's not programming to you it's not part of your subconscious you have to become that idea and there's so many infinite ideas so each of them has to be given the time to become it then you're able to manage it but hopefully that idea is going to stick with it yeah it was he the guy in the movie with Kevin James yeah he's always their best friends they're always in all movies yeah they're always two yes I know who you're talking about now I didn't when you said the name that's fascinating that because I'm all about breath work I will 100 yeah there's a free test you can do it's called breathing iq.com okay I'll check it out for sure because I'm obsessed with this idea in fact there's a great book called Breath by James Nestor but one of the things you said and it's interesting he said about eight years old I think you said where yeah starting to judge and so now you're starting to compromise and I talk about this often that's that mask that we start to put on so your authentic self is breathing correctly you're not thinking about it life is goodness yes and then we start to want to fit in and that's where so many challenges happen what I talk about is the masks get heavy brother if we keep putting on a mask take that stuff off be free yeah be free be free free is the best way to live you don't realize how beautiful life truly is until you become free and free is not the traditional way of Freedom it's the freedom within when it doesn't really bother what others think of you you're doing the best you can you feel really good about yourself within the ego loses his grip you start evolving into this trueness that you're supposed to be and when you interact with people the relationships we make our next level yeah and even the way you're talking about podcasting you said something profound he said when I really started to love myself and accept myself I think was I'm paraphrasing but that's when it became easy that's when podcasting yeah because it does you're right it starts with us to just say I'm again I say I talk about mantras and one of the things that we have to do is rewire our subconscious mind because the world has been telling us everything we're not for years from addition though and one of the things I've taught my kids they've said the same Mantra every single day of their life and even when they couldn't speak I said it for them because I wanted them to know that they are these amazing human beings I wanted them to know all these attributes it didn't matter what the world tells you you need to rewire your subconscious yeah that's wonderful can you share what you feel your innermost superpowers that got you to this point in life I would say grit is probably the Simplicity and grit I don't know how to quit it's somebody asked me why were you successful and I said I'm successful is all relative but okay based on your inquiries because I don't know how to quit I just keep going I don't know where that came from it's just always been there that I just I may not be the most talented but I'm willing to put in the work so I would say that and then just simplifying I'm a simple kid from Montana that I like things simple because I think the world's already too complex so that would be my other superpower thank you for sharing that it resonates because in simplicity it brings joy in life what you do on a day-to-day basis how you deal with your family what you do ongoing and if that is fun easy going not stressful and simple fun what's gonna happen you're going to have a great journey we don't need to take life so serious I certainly don't want to it's every one of my companies I've been an executive on fun is a part of our cultural values good yeah because brother we don't have that much time on this globe no man we gotta enjoy it while we're here yeah no that's great Jim appreciate you coming on the show today for the second time I know the first time we had some technical issues I'm really grateful that you actually came back because I enjoy speaking to you I see the things that you're doing are definitely on a level of improving millions of lives and not just in the corporate world in a business world but anybody that you're helping in a business obviously they have a family they obviously have relationships they have friends so there's good stuff it travels it's a good job Jim and hopefully you continue for many years and definitely keep in touch brother my pleasure thank you for having me back anytime I get to spend with you is a blessing so I appreciate you brother thank you Jim audience thank you once again for joining us for another episode with JM take a look at his podcast is pretty amazing I actually had some comments from somebody from your audience Jam they were saying that they love the conversation that me and you had on that interview and he was saying they absolutely love your show I met with them so you're saying that he really loves your show so I just wanted to share that with you but yes people really do admire the work that he's doing and the energy that he puts into the work that he's doing [Music] super super