Voice & Victory | Rene Rodriguez | Straight Outta The Lair Podcast Ep. 84 - Straight Outta The Lair with Flex Lewis

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What is your lane?
What I'm doing is proven bystay out of those lanes, and I
stay in mine.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Straight out the lead .
Join today by somebody who'sbecome a friend, part of the
farm, renowned as a speakercoach in the industry, World's
best by many Renee Rodriguez.
We are going to talk about whyyou are here on Straight Out the
Lead and also get into thedetails of how you and I

(00:35):
connected.
You are now my coach and we'vebeen working now together.
For how long we've been workingtogether now?

Speaker 1 (00:42):
For some months.
Right, it feels like years, butit's been months.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, I put a stress on a lot of people,
unfortunately, yeah you had ahair when we first met too.
That's the stress I broughtinto your life.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
That's as far as I'm going to go back.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
yes, no but we have certainly connected and hit it
off, thanks to.
You've got to pop this off fromthe top of the show.
The muscle Keaton.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Him and I.
Obviously we've got a fantasticrelationship and I've seen this
guy my gosh just hit thehighest of highs now with all
his speaking and how he'stransformed in this world too.
But it's all down to you,somebody that he regards as his
backbone and getting to thelevel as he's out right now.
And when I was at Keaton'shouse and seeing his

(01:23):
transformation, he kept onmentioning this name, this
person, and then I had theintroduction and Keaton was like
flex, this is going to be yourcoach.
You need to work with oneanother and, as I said, we hit
it off with a bang.
And here we are today and it'san honor to have you here.
You've flown all the way fromMinnesota to have a couple of

(01:43):
days with myself locked in.
The door Whiteboard there isbeing smashed with all new
information.
So for me to you, thank you somuch.
I know we're going to get intothe details.
It's great to have you on theshow.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
It's an honor to be here, my friend it truly is and
go back to Keaton Keaton wasalready an incredible, powerful
human and an amazing speaker andbeing able to get him some some
of the different techniques andgetting him to tap into who he
was and a lot of ways, justreminding him of what I already
knew he believed.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
So that and I think that's what a lot of this is
about, and the same thing thatwe're doing with you.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
I'm looking forward to it as an honor and being here
at the layer is really cool.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, you were definitely not only being
transforming others, but you'vehad a major transformation
yourself and I want to talkabout that later on in the show.
But you and I have been reallygetting into the depth of
Keynote speaking and it's such afascinating and scary world.
It reminds me so much ofbodybuilding.

(02:40):
I know I've mentioned this onthe show a few times, but it's
the closest thing to being up onthat bodybuilding stage for me,
because in preparation again,if you've not done the unseen,
you're going to look like anabsolute fool up on stage, right
, just like bodybuilding.
So it's all about and I can Icliche this now reps and sets
and I've been to now three ofyour masterminds.

(03:00):
I've been again a student, I'vealso spoken and for anybody who
hasn't attended one of yourmastermind, who is interested in
getting into speaking, whatwould this mastermind entail?
Because I can say from myperspective and I will, but you
set these masterminds up after30 years of being in this world

(03:25):
and you perfected this craft andI want to get into, obviously,
them details as well.
But a mastermind for a student,what does that entail?
If somebody's watching this,they're once again into public
speaking, keynote speaking.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
I think that we have our mastermind, which would be
our one and a half day eventwhere we're bringing together
some of the, I think, some ofthe coolest minds, you being one
of them Clinton Sparks to NeilFord and LaShawn Merritt,
three-time gold medalists andamazing people to come together
to really share ideas.
But amplify is the course thatwe went through.
That you went through to reallyhone in on the skill set.
And what you said is true, likespeaking, why I think you

(04:00):
relate so well to it and whyit's like bodybuilding is a
bodybuilding.
You're going on stage andSpeedos for some, in an entire
audience, millions of people, inyour case to judge you and you
will be exposed if you didn'teat right, if you cheated, if
you didn't do the right things,physically and aesthetically,
keynote speaking is the samething, except you'll be exposed

(04:21):
for your ideas, for yourthoughts, for your beliefs, for
your identity, for who you are.
It's a reason why it's sofeared because you are being put
on a stage for people to judgewhether your idea makes sense,
whether your delivery isengaging, whether you're boring
whether you're somebody that hassomething that's thought

(04:41):
provoking or it's cliche.
It's such a crowded space thatit's harder than people think,
but yet it's also moreattainable than people realize.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yeah, and for the audience that are listening,
it's not just big stages, right?
A lot of the people that werethere were in various different
genres of business real estate,banking, mortgages.
They're all trying to hone intheir craft to speak better in
front of small crowds to biggercrowds.
Some people have their owncoaching groups, but they're all

(05:14):
hired you to perfect that craft.
And what I've learned bysitting back as a student from
day one to day three so manydramatic improvements even on
myself, because when I'm sittingthere and listening and seeing
you change people's verbiage,posture and there's so much,

(05:34):
like you said, that goes intothis, the confidence that grows
from everybody.
Also, you create an environmentthat, regardless of who is in
that room Olympia, mr Olympia,is to Olympic medallist, to
somebody that is maybe the bestreal estate agent in the
Southeast, whatever it would beTo a 17 year old, to a 17 year

(05:56):
old there's you drop all theegos.
You have such a skill thatagain, obviously people have
spoken about this, probably evenyou and I meet them, but you
have this skill to make surethat there's a safe room and I
didn't know what I was walkinginto on my first amplify, but
soon enough I felt very comfy inthat room where I didn't have

(06:21):
to try to be somebody, I couldjust be myself and be a student.
And of course, yes, I obviouslyspoke and told my story.
But even while I was telling mystory, and after the fact then
the whole class, then none ofthe sense grades you.
But how can you improve thatstory?
As long as you've dropped ourego and you're willing to

(06:44):
receive that critical change,that's the only way you grow and
you've created that safe spaceand an environment where people
truly want to see the best ofone another.
And I've already made friendsfrom the first that I've now got
to see in the second, the thirdand now I have opportunities to
speak on other stages.
And again, it's just how youhave this gift to see the best

(07:08):
version of people, whether it'ssomebody who's petrified,
generally just speaking, orsomebody who's spoken on over a
hundred stages.
Just to cite a side story, oneof the gentlemen I mentioned
just now was spoken on over ahundred stories, over a hundred
stages.
Even he was having these ahamoments and it was incredible
for me because, again, I'vespoken on multiple stages.

(07:30):
So, no, I'm moving into newchapters which, again, I want to
talk about, but was this a giftyou've always had?

Speaker 1 (07:39):
No, it's one.
Thank you for everything you'resaying.
That means a lot and it's.
I think I'm good at it because Iwas never good at it and it was
something that was very hardfor me to do A lot of social
anxiety, insecurity, not beingsomebody that knew how to use
words.
As a kid, I didn't know how totalk back, so I was always
fighting and so, learning how toactually communicate an idea

(08:03):
and not being somebody that wasthe talented one, you had to
learn what were the things thatthe charismatic kids, the ones
that people listened to, whatwas it that they did differently
?
And I would just watch and yourealize that there's a pattern
to it and then you realizethere's a science to it.
So, when my backdrop orbackground in behavioral
neuroscience was really focusedon how do I create and
understand the process of change?

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Because all we're talking about is change right.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Changing of behavior, change how you speak, change
how you sound, how youcommunicate, the sequence and
everything.
But the biggest piece wasrealizing that it's speaking is
one outlet of what we actuallytalk about, because really, what
we're talking about is notspeaking, it's influence, and
influence happens silently, ithappens when you speak, it
happens when you walk, ithappens how you dress, it
happens to the sequence of howyou say things, and a lot of

(08:48):
people focus on gettingcomfortable on stage, and what I
tell them is that your comforton stage has nothing to do with
your effectiveness on stage,because we know a lot of people
that are very comfortable beingvery boring on stage, or very
comfortable being veryegotistical on stage, and so the
comfort isn't the goal.
I know people that areextremely uncomfortable, moving
me to tears, moving me to lifechange, and they're trembling

(09:12):
and all of the quote, unquotethings that they shouldn't be
doing.
They're doing, but yet I'mbeing affected, and so what we
want is to get people to realizethat your goal is influence,
and that applies one on one, andso a stage, to me, isn't just a
stage.
We're on a stage right now.
There's no real stage, butthere's people watching when you
walk from your car to the frontdoor of a potential client.

(09:33):
They might be watching you.
That's a stage.
And so there's a stage everyphone call, face-to-face
interaction.
Those are all stages.
And when you realize that you'rebeing watched and observed,
whether you like it or not, it'shappening unconsciously,
implicitly, explicitly.
People are watching and they'remaking judgments.
That's what the human system isdesigned, and so we look at

(09:53):
okay, how do we set the chesspieces up in play to best suit
what we're trying to accomplish?
And so a lot of people will saythat's manipulation.
Okay, let's talk about that fora minute.
It's a big difference betweeninfluence and manipulation.
Manipulation is very specific.
From what I've, in my research,found Very specific definition.
One of them is that it's theuse of persuasion and influence

(10:17):
to an extreme, so that anextreme use of it second at the
expense of someone else.
So there's a zero-sum game Iwin, you lose.
And third, it's doneunderhandedly.
You don't know what's happening.
Influence to me is done, wherewe both win.
We're driving towards somethingthat is a solution that I
believe will serve you, versusone that will hurt you and can

(10:40):
be done explicitly.
I can tell you that I want topersuade you in this I would
like.
I'm very passionate about this.
I believe very heavily in this.
So I'm telling you I believe insomething, and so the
differences and people that saythat it's unethical.
Every human, since we were born, is designed to want to
influence the world around them.
Children learn puppy-dog eyesbecause they know it's very

(11:03):
influential.
Women are highly influentialwhen they want to be.
Men can be highly influential,and so we realize that influence
has such a deeper impact on ourlife, and so the best way to
understand it probably is tothink of the opposite.
So imagine walking into a roomand no one noticing Telling a
joke, no one laughing.
Sharing an idea, no one caring.

(11:24):
Selling a product and no onebuying.
Casting a vision, no onefollowing.
How would you feel?
Not great, it would be horrible, right.
Some people would say invisible, lonely.
I think the word I use isinsignificant.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
That I have no impact .
So I am insignificant.
I can speak, nothing happens.
I don't speak, nothing happens.
And so my participation in thisactivity.
If I felt that way in a meeting, I'd be why am I?
I asked myself, why am I inthis meeting?
If I felt that way in arelationship, probably asked
myself why am I in thisrelationship?
If I felt that way at work, I'dbe like why do I work here?

(12:00):
Sadly, too many people walkaround feeling that way in life
and they start asking why am Ieven here?
But that question of why am Ihere begs the question of what's
my purpose.
Let's bring influence back.
You walk in a room, peoplenotice.
You tell the joke, people laugh.
You share an idea, people loveit.
Sell a product people arebuying.

(12:21):
You cast a vision and you watchpeople mobilize and take action
.
How are you feeling now?
Oh, top of the world.
Top of the world, right, and Ithink that's a great way of
saying it, because I think thathaving influence is one of the
greatest of human experiences.
Not having it is one of theworst.
And so when we look at it fromthat perspective, we're looking
at influence being that markthat we make on the world.

(12:43):
It's where we know our purposesbecause we go okay, I'm in a
meeting and I have, and I feelsignificant, I know why I'm here
.
I'm here to move this to there.
If I'm in a relationship and Ifeel valuable and visible and
significant, I know why I'm here.
If I feel that way at work, Iknow why I work here.
If I walk around going, hey, Ican influence this world around
me, I know why I'm here.

(13:04):
And so to influence and purposeare so closely connected in my
opinion.
And so when you're getting on astage, if you wanna take the
stage, the work begins waybefore the content.
The work begins with what youand I did out there saying who
is Flex, what is the ethos ofyou, what is that thing that you
do so effortlessly in that whenyou're outside of that ethos,

(13:27):
it just feels awkward, it feelsuncomfortable, and so many
people right now are findingthemselves in that position.
For social media, they're tryingto follow a trend.
What if that trend has nothingto do with what you're skilled
at?
And it's like for me beingoutside of what I'm good at.
It's like me saying I'm gonnado a class in the menstrual
cycle.
I mean, why would you do that?
You shouldn't be doing that.
Or how to grow hair I wouldn'tdo that.

(13:48):
I wouldn't do one.
On how to grow abs, I'd do it.
I'd take your class.
It's finding that thing thatyou do effortlessly and really
honing in on that, and then allof a sudden, you build content
around it.
You're extremely authenticbecause it's congruent with who
you are and what you're saying.
And so now, all of a sudden,you're more comfortable in that
stage environment and you knowthat lane that you're in For

(14:09):
somebody who's watching this andsaying, man, that's me and
they're recognizing it throughthis podcast.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
What would be the first steps?

Speaker 1 (14:18):
In terms of finding your influence and really
Finding your congruency to yourbrand, to your person.
So I take a very differentapproach to it, and so when I
use the word ethos, it comesfrom Aristotle.
2000 years ago he was the firstperson to talk about
argumentative thought andpersuasion, and he created what
he calls his rhetorical triangle, the three-legged stool.
It's ethos, pathos and logos,so don't get too caught up in

(14:40):
the name.
It's actually in my book too,so like if you want to look at
it, you can Google it.
I'll provide you, your influence.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
And so ethos is your credibility, it's your character
, it's who you are.
So we've been talking aboutethos Like for me it's
neuroscience, and I spoke 239days last year, so I have an
ethos and a credibility inspeaking.
I'm not a speaker that used tospeak, I'm speaking all the time
and so what I'm doing is proven, and so I don't have ethos
around growing hair.
I don't have ethos on themenstrual cycle, so I stay out

(15:07):
of those lanes and I stay inmine.
So one is figuring out what isyour lane?
What is that thing that youknow, that you do well?
And some people say I'm brandnew and I don't have anything.
We all have a lane, and thatlane, even if you're new, might
be that you hustle.
It might be that you bring afresh perspective.
It might be that you'reresourceful.
What is that thing that you doreally well?
You might be a fast learner,you might be somebody that just

(15:30):
outworks everybody.
I will do what you say when yousay, with no questions asked.
Those are all ethos things.
So figuring out what it is, butnow how you find it, I take a
different approach.
I ask the question of whatmakes you unique, and you and I
went through this in the course.
You guys done it, yeah, and soone of those pieces, let's go,
let's play it.
You want to?

Speaker 2 (15:48):
do it right now.
Let's go.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
So give me, if the first word, and if you're
listening to this, you can dothis exercise and you can do
this multiple times.
What's?
Give me one word that makes youunique Relentlessness,
Relentlessness.
Ok, so now we take this word.
And what's really fascinating,when people answer that question
of what makes you unique, youcan infer all sorts of things.
One is you're proud of that,aren't you Absolutely so.
If you're proud of that, I canalso say would you say that's

(16:09):
one of your core values?

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Core values In terms of my day to day.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
One of your core values are things you hold dear
to you, that you are relentless,absolutely.
I feel I am relentless ineverything I do, right, and so
then we go OK, we just tracethat back.
We go.
One, he's proud of it.
Two, it's something thatrepresents you and it's one of
your values.
When I get to the values now,we bring the neuroscience in.
This is where it gets fun.
We know that our core values,our values of who we are

(16:36):
actually a biological processthat's formulated between the
ages of 9 and 13.
So if you go relentless that'snot something that you said last
week I decided I'd becomerelentless.
So you've been that waybasically your whole life,
haven't you?

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
And so we go OK.
If that core value wasformulated in that really
critical time period.
I have two really criticalquestions.
I want to know who's around andwhat happened.
So let's start with that.
And now that'll trigger one oftwo types of stories Either a
lighthouse story, what we call alighthouse Somebody was the
beacon of light forrelentlessness, and you wanted
to be just like them and you sawthem.

(17:12):
They were the guide, they werethe perfect example.
They were a lighthouse.
What most of us have areFoghorns, the opposite, somebody
who wasn't relentless.
And so we saw what life waslike not being relentless.
We saw the pain of it.
Maybe we needed somerelentlessness from them and
they didn't show it, and so wesuffered.
And it's fascinating about theFoghorn is that when we have

(17:33):
those in our lives, most of usactually say, wow, I had
darkness in this area of my life.
I need to become the light andwe become what we never had.
And so for you, who was it?
Ages 9 to 13?

Speaker 2 (17:45):
And were they a?

Speaker 1 (17:46):
lighthouse or a Foghorn.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, oh, you're asking me right now.
Yeah, we done that.
First of all, we've done thisin class, just for every year
Did we go with relentlessness?
We went with driven loyalty.
My goodness, I haven't got mynotes in my book, but I don't
think we did relentlessness.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
That's why I think it's fun.
Let's keep it yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
Relentless there was.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
Who's the first person?
And here's the best part isthat it doesn't have to be the
exact or the one yes, anything.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
And also just to Foghorn, is necessarily a bad
thing.
Not at all.
It again.
It's somebody that just was atthe lighthouse or a Foghorn in
that part of your life.
And my father was relentless.
He was again turn up at work,sick.
He would be walking to workrain or shine Again.
Never missed a training session, even if he worked 12 hour

(18:33):
shifts.
He was always there at my game,put the coach's hat on.
He would go without sleep justto make sure that he ticked the
box of work, brought bread tothe table and then you obviously
was there as a dad, but as akid and this is where we went
into this you don't reallyappreciate that much.
You see, our dad is there.
You know he worked, but now, asI'm older and I understand as a

(18:54):
father myself that wordrelentless is my father.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
I love that.
And so now look at that.
What's happening is he wasthere for you.
You're observing this.
Your brain is going okay,there's a narrative here.
There's a story.
Dads always show up.
They don't miss games.
They work hard, they don't makeexcuses.
Even if he's sick, he stillgoes in.
That's how the brain processesall that.
It turns it into a story.

(19:19):
So our brain processesinformation through narrative.
It turns that narrative into away that you construct and view
the world.
Another way of saying that isthe way you perceive the world.
Another way of saying that ishow you construct reality.
And so you now are saying Iwatched this.
He was a lighthouse for me.
It's a core value, and a corevalue becomes a filter by which

(19:39):
you make decisions.
And so now we go okay, as youapproach something and it
becomes difficult, your corevalue kicks in, happens in this
part of the brain called thelimbic system that has 35,000
times more neurons, so it is themost powerful.
When I say quantity of neuronsmoving towards something happens
in the limbic system.

(20:00):
If you don't believe me, okay,try to talk somebody out of
their church.
Doesn't work.
Have a political conversationwith somebody who doesn't
believe what you believe.
Talk to somebody who's anAndroid user, get them to use
Apple.
It's all limbic right.
It's all in that same part ofthe brain that our values are
there, and so when you cantrigger into that, you go okay,
I'm relentless, this was there.
Look at how that's followed youthrough this whole career of

(20:24):
becoming rugby player, decidingto come to a country that you
didn't know anyone, and thenbecame one of the greatest, if
not the greatest, bodybuilder ofall time.
And so now you're in thistransition and you're saying,
when we first I'm a bodybuilder,you're so much more than that.
You have the epitome of achampion, the mindset of a

(20:44):
champion, and what I?
One of the things that I wastold you was like I look at it
like a football huddle.
There's certain things thatmost people don't get access to.
There's 11 players on thatfield per team.
What would I give to be able tojust sit there in the huddle
and listen to Tom Brady talk tohis team?
Not many people get that.
That's what people want fromyou.
And so when you talk aboutrelentlessness, it's a whole

(21:08):
different animal than whensomeone else does who hasn't
been Mr Olympia sevenconsecutive times.
And when you talk about unseenwork like.
One of my favorite things yousaid was put your damn phone
down and let's see what youreally do that nobody sees.
We can all pose for a picture.
We can pretend to read a book.
How many reps and sets did youactually do?
How far did you actually withno one watching?

(21:31):
There's that relentless naturethat you come from, and when
they hear that from you, all ofa sudden, now that is part of
your ethos.
You can talk about that all daylong and it is effortless for
you.
It is, and it's so much morebelievable because we see it, so
it's congruent, which is whatour audience is always looking
for.
Unconsciously, they're sayingis this congruent, meaning I'm

(21:54):
watching you like?
For me, part of what mytransformation was is that I was
way overweight and being 307pounds, 45% body fat, talking
about change in leadership whereI clearly can't even manage
myself, I was losing ethoscredibility and so I had to look
at now, even my content wasgood.
I got a pass, but that pass wasrunning out, and so when we

(22:20):
talk about if you're listeningto this, he can talk about
relentlessness because it comesin.
Imagine him starting with hisfather going back to.
I remember watching my fatherand that story becomes
interesting and we get a chanceto know who you are and then
transitioning.
Any business community, anybusiness leader, would love to
talk to you about that, becausethey want relentlessness for
their teams.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
Yeah, it's just learning how to tell your story
that connects with the audience.
And what you've been able to doworking with me is, again, I've
lived these stories from my owneyes, right, so many stories
where I've been brushed off.
I may have said something toyou like tell me that story,
tell me that, and then it'sbecome something.

(22:57):
But because again it's in meand I've lived it and it may be
what I feel like or not,something that may not be much,
it is.
It's a massive part of my DNA.
It's a massive part of ahoodler I've gone through and
what I've started doing, and forall the viewers at home
listening to this, I've got anotes that I've started

(23:18):
compiling in my phone and everytime I have a moment when I was
like, oh yeah, I put that notein my phone and then I start
deriving a story from that.
And what I've been able to dosince working with Renee is
really tap into a lot of thesesuppressed memories, a lot of
these things that I may haveburied deep, put in the

(23:39):
Pandora's box, and I've beenable to now start thinking about
wow, that would make an impact,that would be able to be spoken
about in a room and maybechange a perception of something
Again.
Another reason why I wanted toget into keynote speaking was I

(24:00):
know I have a great story, Iknow I have a journey, but that
was a chapter and now I'm ontonewer chapters.
And for the, let's be honest,for the last 20 years, my whole
life has been all encompassingone goal, one dream, one chase
to be the best in the world.

(24:20):
And now, humbly, I have tostart pretty much from the
beginning.
I'm not at the beginninganymore because I've been
working with you.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
You're not at the beginning.
Even without me, you'll begreat.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
I'm not without you, so you can't know what I mean,
but nonetheless, I've had totruly go back to the classroom.
I've had to but that's who youare.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, always been a student.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
And I, just like you said, I regard myself as a
student of the game inbodybuilding, always learning.
You train with multipledifferent people around the
world, even if they're 20 years.
You're junior, you're stilllearning, and I've been able to
progress in my careertremendously by having an open
mind, not knowing I know it all,even with titles, and, unto

(25:05):
seven, I've always allowedmyself to be a coachable person.
Obviously, I've had the samecoach since I was 19 years old,
neil Hill, and I work reallywell in that system.
So when I wanted to get intothis new world and become a good
speaker, to become a greatspeaker, you've got to have, in
my eyes, the best coach, and Inow realize why you're regarded

(25:30):
as one of the world's best isbecause, truly, you've been able
to see the best version of meand really bring that out.
And we've got a long way to gobecause, again, even the best in
the world have still got a longway to go.
It's the beauty of life, butI've been able to see and listen
and even envision myself onthese stages.
And as I said in bodybuilding,if you don't believe you can

(25:53):
achieve something, then you'renot going to achieve it at all.
I truly believe that I will bespeaking on big stages very soon
, but again I've got to put thework in.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
One of my good friends, seth Madison.
He says the breakout rooms leadto the ballrooms and it's such
an important mentality to havethat it's people.
Somebody was saying I went toan event.
There's probably 3,000 peoplethere and they're like thank you
so much for speaking here.
I said thank me, I said thankyou, I go.
You know how silly I look onthat stage without you guys in

(26:24):
the audience?
And it's.
And then he goes.
Oh, that's a good point.
I said this is teamwork, man.
I go, you're giving me theopportunity I need to bring
value and if one of us don'tdoesn't do that part, it just
doesn't work.
And so there's a beauty inunderstanding that relationship
with the audience and thatyou're on that stage to serve
because they have choice ofattention and we can put anybody

(26:47):
on that stage.
We can put anybody.
We, especially in today's wherewe have options of information
everywhere in social media weekwith a thumb scroll, we can just
do this.
And so being going up therefrom a place of okay.
I am.
This is a privilege, and I amhere to express everything that
I've learned.
And if I don't put the work in,like our buddy LaShawn Merritt

(27:08):
says, you will get exposed, andso there's a beautiful
connection there when you cankeep that humility, but also
power, with that andunderstanding your role.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
There's a story that I seen a couple of months ago
that you sent me, of a ReneeRodriguez in a meeting, a
business meeting, and he wasstammering and stuttering
through this meeting.
And it's very hard for me tosee that guy and be like, wow,
you know, that was you.

(27:41):
You truly have worked so hardto get to this point.
But again, you started offknowing that you had a gift.
You just had to home the craft.
And can you take us back tothat video you showed me?
I know it was a couple of yearsago, but nonetheless yeah, we
will, but it was a version ofyou that has truly put so many

(28:04):
reps and sets in.
A lot of people may be watchingthis is yeah, but just to sorry.
More context yeah, but hespeaks so well.
I don't have that gift, but nowdid you know you truly work so
hard to home this into somethingthat has become a teaching
lesson for the world.
Can you talk us back about themthat time?

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah.
So I had massive still doactually social anxiety, like I
don't like groups and I don'tit's funny because people say,
but you speak in public.
I said, yeah, go, but the stageis a very lonely place.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
And.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
I get to control what's going on.
So there's it's.
I get to talk about what I'mgood at, and so there's a lot of
safety in that.
It's ironic, but it's way it is.
But, yeah, a lot of massiveinsecurity, didn't?
I was a mumbler, so it was veryhard to understand me.
And that video was my firstspeaker training where I was
getting coached and I was onstage and hair, and it was a lot

(29:03):
of ums and Oz and questioning,staring at the floor, not
knowing where I was going,massive stress.
It was the way most of us are onthat, and to me, my
relentlessness started way backin realizing that I wasn't the
smartest, but what I had waswork ethic.

(29:24):
I knew that I could controlthat.
I couldn't control all theother things, but I can control
how hard I worked and if I gotup a little bit earlier, I went
a little bit harder, I studied alittle bit longer, and a part
of it, too, is probably not evenhaving a father, and so I would
always be coachable from myfriends parents, because I was,
I wanted someone to teach.
Even if I knew what they weretalking about, I pretend like I

(29:46):
didn't.
So I could have thatrelationship and even to this
day, there's times where youknow, even though I might think
I know, like what if I don't?
And there's like a there's areally beautiful interaction
that can happen with that.
But yeah, it was part of it wasI was forced to do that we had.
I was following my mother'sfootsteps.
She had been a consultant, shewas an amazing speaker still one

(30:08):
of the greatest speakers I'veever seen and she, after 9-11,
lost a million dollar contract.
I was working at the company.
I was just a sales coordinatorand we had to fire 20 people.
I actually at the time sorry, Ihad just become CEO and wasn't
a speaker and was not.
It was too young, tooinexperienced, even though I'd
been following for five years,everything she'd been saying and

(30:30):
writing notes and everythingDidn't have any belief in this
was possible.
It was also told by everybodyin the company nobody can do
this but your mother.
There's nobody that can do this.
Renee, I've got 40 yearsexperience.
Your mother's special she can't.
She just nobody can do this.
So in my head I'm thinking,okay, nobody can do this, the
pressure, but yeah, but I would.
They didn't even want mespeaking.
But now we fired everybody.

(30:50):
So it was me and my mother, abookkeeper and one other person.
And so I'm like, okay, I knowhow to sell because I was
selling was my background and Isold cookware door to door in
college.
So I'm going to go sell her.
And because of the loss of thebusiness she has, she had four
strokes.
It was like it was the stressthat was her baby.
My mother was a former nun.

(31:10):
To give you an idea, a littlebackdrop she was somebody who's
about global peace and communitybut was very gifted in creating
change, and so this beautifulcompany she'd created was gone.
Now Stress came in.
She had four strokes, her ideasweren't the same, she wasn't as
sharp as she used to be.
So I would have to introduceher to the group.
I would go, put a group togetherand then she would talk about

(31:33):
things that didn't make sense tothem, because she'd assumed
that they knew about the brainand all that stuff.
And so I'm like, okay, I'll dothe intro and I'll cover this
first for 10 minutes or fiveminutes I think the first one
was five minutes and then shewould speak, and then she talked
about new things.
I'm like, oh, I'll incorporatethat in the intro.
And now it's nine minutes andthen she talked about new things
and it was 15 minutes 20 andI'm doing 45 minute intros and

(31:53):
people are like why don't youjust keep going?
And it was one of those thingswhere it just started.
I had to learn.
And then I went and got trainedon storytelling and what
influence really was the guy?
My coach was trained by DavePemberton, who is the person who
taught Tony Robbins, and so inthat realm of some of the great

(32:16):
sort of the OG speakers, we wereall there's a way that we all
spoke and I can tell them, likethe Les Browns and Zig Ziglers
and Tom Hopkins and Wayne Dyerthere's there's this whole era
of the original NightingaleConant speakers and there was
always a methodology to it, andso I got a chance to learn that.
And then I took my behavioralneuroscience background and

(32:39):
combine that with a salesbackground and working in change
management and it starteddevolving into this process of
me figuring it out for myselffirst and then being asked, okay
, can you show me how you dothat?
And then evolving into it.
How long that process take.
That video was 2005.

(33:00):
2005.
I started in 19,.
I started this whole.
1994 is when I really startedand in selling cookware and
being in personal developmentand learning about all the
brainworks and putting it intopractice.
And then but I wasn't reallyspeaking until 2004 or five, and

(33:25):
then my big, first big stagewas 2007.
That was me, Jeffrey Gittimer,Ben Stein member from Ferris
Bueller's Day Off and Luke Holtz, and I came out of that number
one rated speaker there.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
Wow, when did you feel like okay, this is my world
.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
How would you define my world?

Speaker 2 (33:46):
Meaning bodybuilding was my world when I first
stepped on stage.
And sorry to give you moreclarity, but when I first
stepped on stage I was like, wow, I've got the bodybuilding bug.
Obviously, had it not been forNeil Hill chasing me down
straight away after the show andsaying, hey, you need to do the
British nationals who knowswhat happened, but we all know

(34:07):
the story Was it a definingmoment for you where you had
that?
This is my world?

Speaker 1 (34:13):
17 years old I was.
My mom asked me to come watchher speak.
And it was that she was doing acreativity and business
workshop.
She was.
There's three keynote speakers,it's probably about 500 people
in there.
And I remember going there, gowith my mom I don't even know
what she does and this guy'sfirst guy goes on stage.
His name is Bill Shepard and hewas charismatic.

(34:35):
He was funny, he was smart, Iloved what he was talking about
and it was like and I was like,oh my God, I said I nudge my mom
, I'm like that's what I want todo.
I want to do what this guy'sdoing, whatever he's done, he
was funny, he was so articulate,he was so confident.
People were listening.
It was.
He had everything that I didn'thave.
He knew how to captureattention.
People liked that.
It was just literallyeverything that I didn't know

(34:56):
how to do and that I didn't.
I couldn't, I had no influence.
I was a jock.
So I played basketball but Iwas quiet and insecure.
And this guy had everything.
And she looked at me she goes,really, she goes.
Well, I'm up next.
I'm like oh man, you're goingto follow this guy.
My mom, you're going to getdestroyed.
Like I was, like I wasembarrassed, I didn't want to be
there.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
At this point you didn't know.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
your mom spoke at the magnitude she had no idea, no
clue, and it was a break.
I go out and get like a soda orsomething like that.
I come back and I came in 30seconds and I hear her singing
and I'm like, oh my God, she puton a guitar.
How embarrassing is this?
And she's got 500 businessexecutives singing along with

(35:40):
her.
Now, my mother was a nun on theborder of Haiti, harassed by
the Ku Klux Klan, the KGB, andshe used to use music as a way
to bring people together and shebrought her to the boardroom
and they're singing and I'mlooking around going.
They're buying into this shit.
And then I'm like they're lovingthis.
And then she sits down and theystart talking and she starts.

(36:01):
I get emotional because she wasso good and she was so clear
and it was like almost magic.
And I'm watching this and I'm17.
And I just like I start gettingteary, I crying, not visibly.
I'm like this is my mom.
An hour earlier I figured outthat's what I wanted to do and I

(36:22):
have the best person as my mom.
And it was in that moment I'mlike I know I have to go this
path somehow and you followedher around everywhere.
I wrote down everything shesaid.
We talked about everything shesaid five years.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
And you developed your own style through your
background, incorporate yourschool in to the world of,
obviously, keynote speaking andyour mom obviously during that
time you had so many greatspeaking, as you mentioned, but
she had such a unique style Verywhat separately did her from
the rest of the park.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
One of it was based on things that actually worked.
So a lot of keynote speakersare great actors, they're
performance experts and theynail that speech.
And it's so compelling, it'sbelievable, it's emotional, it's
inspiring, it just it'sfulfilling.
But the whole statement is thatit wears off.
A couple hours later, if notthe next day, you go back to

(37:18):
normal.
So there's no real change.
Mother was lived in fivecountries before the age of 25,
germany before the, cuba beforeand after the Cuban revolution,
germany after the Holocaust,panama during the Panama-Kinau
crisis, the border of Haiti as anun, with a real warfare in
Vegas during the A-bomb testing.
And so her life before 25 wasvery affected by change, the

(37:39):
promise of it and the reality ofit.
The promise was revolution.
The reality was a lot of peopledied.
Looking at leveled cities inGermany after the war and saying
so, she was driven by all thesequestions like how can we
create change that lasts Trulylasts, not this stuff that comes
and it goes.
Secondly, how do you do itwithout creating dead bodies?

(38:00):
Right, the proverbial dead body, because people aren't dying in
corporate America, but peoplecan feel like they've been
trampled over.
The change happens Like theyweren't even considered people
losing jobs, moving around, andthat's why change was such a
difficult and still continues tobe such a difficult thing.
There was all these questionsthat drove her, and she had a
track record of success forcreating change where nobody

(38:21):
could.
And so when a keynote speakercan come in for an hour, put on
a fantastic show and leave andnot be held accountable to the
result, when you're a consultantand you're given a group of
people that have to transform.
You're held accountable to thebeginning and to the end and the
result, and so there's a verydifferent world, and when you
can combine those two pieces,which is what I started off

(38:44):
doing that work before I was akeynote speaker, so I was 10
years plus into creating changein real business.
It wasn't theoretical.
Nobody paid for theory.
This group was hostile, theyweren't getting along.
They're losing $6 million amonth.
We changed that.
Unions weren't getting along.

(39:04):
We could change that in 24hours and it was true, it was
proven.
And then you bring those ideasto stage and then you have a
neuroscience twist and mybackground is really focused on
the applied science.
I love the research, but I wasalways too like what does that
have to?
How do I use that to sell more?
How do I use that in goodcommunication?

(39:24):
What does that mean to this?
And I would ask these questionsthat were applied, application
driven.
And so when you bring that tothe stage, before it was cool,
because now it's cool About 30years ago, like the brain, human
emotion wasn't even talkedabout.
My dissertation in college wason human emotion.
It was so hard to find anyresearch because we knew so
little.
And now it's everything.

(39:45):
Probably too much now.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Hold another conversation Along with aliens.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
I'll go there, but no , but I spent most of my time
getting grown men, typically, tounderstand how to deal with
human emotion, how to bring itto the workplace.
Now it's almost opposite.
We're trying to say, okay, justa little bit too much, let's
back it off a little bit.
But yeah, it's a crazy longjourney.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Can you talk about what kind of things you've done
back then to bring the bestversion out to some of these
guys?

Speaker 1 (40:16):
So the first thing, when you're talking about group
change, what you amplify as anindividual journey but we had a
lot of what we started with washow do you take groups to do
that?
The first thing is what youmentioned in the intro is how do
I create safe space?
So what does that mean?
What we're creating technicallyis what we call psychological
safety.
And so go back to the primitiveparts of our brain that's

(40:37):
designed to keep us alive.
Number one task of the brainsurvive.
Second is make sense of theworld.
So if I can't make sense of theworld, if I don't feel safe
because I don't even care aboutsense logic, I care about my
survival.
So when you get in an argumentwith somebody, there's a part of
your brain that takes over,that throws logic out the window
, and so it's the same thingthat keeps us alive, protects us

(40:57):
.
So then you look at whattriggers that part of the brain.
That part of the brain is veryprimitive and ancient and it's
triggered by lions, tigers,bears, sharks, threats, somebody
fighting you, the fear of yourlife, and so that that's
governed by the autonomicnervous system your breathing,
your heart rate, your digestion,so, if anything is any of those
things that keep you alive orthreatened.

(41:18):
There's a whole chain link ofevents that happens to trigger
you, to put you in a fight,flight or freeze mode.
All of that happens, some up toseven seconds, before you're
consciously aware of it.
It's the reason, like we werehaving this conversation, but if
somebody were to throw a ballat me I would flinch and try to
move Because there's part of mybrain that's watching all of

(41:39):
this stuff.
As you and I are having thisconversation.
It's pretty wild when you thinkabout how many parts of the
brain are functioningunconsciously and, thank God,
right, because it keeps us alive.
And so now, what triggers a lotof that fight, flight, freeze
mode or the general adaptationsyndrome is stress.
So the brain doesn't know whata shark is.
The brain knows that the sharkis really stressful.

(42:00):
A lot of cortisol to the levelof maybe, say, one to 10, 10
because death.
So the brain says that's alevel 10 stress.
Move away from that, fight foryour life, fight for your life
or stand still.
And so we go.
Okay, so stress is the component.
What are the things causestress?
What?
Public speaking?
Now, you're not going to die,but you perceive it as a level

(42:22):
10 stress, so you respond as ifyou're going to die.
And criticism If you don't.
If you feel like you're in ameeting and people are
criticizing what you're saying,they don't care what you're
doing, your brain won't be fullyactive.
You'll be in that protectivemode.
Creativity goes out the window,so does innovation.
And so, as leaders, we said okay, the first step is we got to

(42:43):
create safety, structure, order,predictability, create safety
in the relationship.
Back in the day, leaders andstill to this day, but it was
less now leaders were commandand control do as I say, because
you work here.
It doesn't work anymore thatway.
Leaders have had to evolve tosay hold on a second.
I need to inspire you now.
Before it was you work here, Ipay your bills, do what I say
Doesn't work like that anymore.
And so any learning environment.

(43:04):
The first thing is psychologicalsafety.
If you're a salespersonlistening to this, sales
resistance is they don't feelsafe.
I have money, you want my money.
You're going to persuade me andtrick me into giving it to you.
If you can create safety, guardcomes down.
We have a conversation andideas are allowed in, and so we
had to create safety.
Now, how do you do that in ahostile work environment with

(43:26):
unions and cake, 80% AfricanAmerican black paper mill, but
the union is 100% white KKK,that's where we cut our teeth.
And so I had to create safetywithin 24 hours actually eight
hours, one day to the next, andusually within the first two to
three hours and how do you getpeople to actually get along?

(43:48):
And when you createpsychological safety, racial
issues go away, politicalchallenges go away and people
have human conversations andhuman interactions, and so we
had to create that kind ofenvironment.
So when I created amplify, weknew the first thing if I'm
going to be that hard on you andthat intense, I have to earn
that by creating rapport andsafety first.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
How long do they take you to put this?
Put all your learnings fromeverything you had from your mom
, your background, in yourassignments to create this.
Create my amplify.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
My first one was 2011 .
And it's changing every time.
We do it Last year, we're doingthree to five a month and
selling them out at $6,000 perperson.
And so it's.
You learn so much and hearingthousands of stories and
thousands and watching peopletell the story, you realize what

(44:41):
works and what doesn't work.
You realize its role inbranding, you realize its work
on social media, you realize howit affects relationships and
children and how they grow up.
The impact is so much furtherthan business which you know me
well and you know me alreadythat my purpose goes far beyond
business.
It's helping somebody trulyunderstand why they're here and

(45:02):
then helping leaders truly tapinto their full potential of
influence and leadership.
And so it's.
I feel like, when you say howlong it takes, I still feel like
I'm still learning, man.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Yeah, even at last mastermind that we've done.
There's a new topic that's comeup social media Again.
That's the evolution, rightsince when you've started,
whereas a lot of people knowthat a thought had on social
media, even with yourself, therewas not a component of social
media in the learning, but nowyou realize that this is
something we cannot ignore evenmore.

(45:34):
We've done a whole, probablylike a half a day on social
media, along with chat, GBT,intricate, intricate, getting
into my life.
What I realized.
Obviously I have my socialmedia presence, but we all had
if I can speak about the actualevent so many walks of life, so

(45:57):
many people of high success, allin our room, egos left at the
door, all there to learn.
We all had to choose our bucketwhere we wanted to excel more
at, and I guess you even thoughtyourself like social media was
something that I think it wasthe most requested thing.

(46:18):
How do I speak in front of acamera?
How do I, on that course, trulygive so many people empowerment
?
And you heard it first of all.
Yeah, I don't know what to say.
I don't think I've got a story,I don't, and you just break it
down.
It's telling me about.
This goes back to the foghornlighthouse and then people start

(46:40):
.
You see these light bulbs goingoff, whether it's with that
person you're having theconversation, but everybody in
the room is like oh man, I'mtaking this note down.
Social media now is our kind ofroller indexes, oh, yellow
pages, it's our.
It's to coin our friend Amir,it's business media.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Right.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
It's our face to the world, how we want to be seen,
perceived, but again withoutlosing your ethos.
And what everybody in that roomrealized that day me looking
around was everybody has theethos.
You just don't know how to putit together, but we all did that
day, even me, who've been onsocial media and got all these

(47:22):
followers.
I'm still trying to find myversion, and that's what we done
actually a couple of hours agoon my whiteboard is trying to
discover who am I, who is flexLewis, what do I stand for, what
do I represent and what is myethos.
And social media is truly takenoff 10 for where now
everybody's got their phone intheir hands to your point Every

(47:45):
scrolling.
But what makes people stop onyour page?
That makes you stand out fromthe rest of the pack.
And it's incredible what welearned that day.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
Again, can you just break down that last year, Well,
I think the thing and you saidso many good things there and
shout out to Amir where he saidthere's ways to look at social
media Let me back up even myrelationship with it.
I hated social media and partsof me still does.
Right, there's a lot of thingsthat just it was hard.
I was 12 years into trying tocreate videos and putting stuff

(48:18):
out there and nobody would watch.
I couldn't get past a couple ofthousand followers, 20, 30, a
hundred views and it was likebut this content is great in my
own head and my clients wouldsay really, you're going to kill
it Like nobody watches.
Maybe any better production.
So I go and spend $10,000 on avideo 48 likes, okay, $20,000.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
This is the video and nobody would watch it.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
And I finally gave up and I go social media is not
for me.
And I got on this sort of highhorse and I was like social
media is for fast food content.
It's simple sugar for the brain.
It's a cliche, and I go true,change requires you to actually
pay attention for longer than aminute, and so I had to sort of
I hated it.
And somebody said to me theysaid, renee, it's because you're

(49:01):
doing it wrong.
And I'm like what do you mean?
I said you have to understandthat you're teaching people how
to speak to captive audiences.
What do you mean?
I said they can't scroll in alive audience.
Right, I can't scroll you.
I'm sitting in a chair,physically, you're there.
The only thing I do is stand upand leave.
But I work here, so I have tolisten to you, so you can start
with story you can build.
If somebody goes to watch amovie, maybe a two hour movie,

(49:24):
they're not going to give youthe end right away.
They're going to lead you tothat.
You didn't know that Rocky wasgoing to win the championship
until the final scene and thatwhole story was built.
And so there's a methodology.
It's the hero's journey, therise and fall of the hero, and
so I tried taking that sameapproach for social media
Doesn't?

Speaker 2 (49:43):
work.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
Imagine starting up.
Hi, I remember when I was a kid, when my father scroll, yeah,
and you had to realize that,that we are very selfish
consumers of content, and I usedto get mad at people for being
selfish consumers as I wasscrolling, being selfish.
Every time we scroll, we'resaying that was dumb, nothing

(50:04):
for me, nope, that didn't catchmy attention, nothing.
None of us go into social mediaand say what is this person
with poor video and a horriblestory telling skills trying to
say, I mean, look past all thatand really give them a chance.
No, I have another option.
I can just hit do this swipething and something new appears.
And so what?
We had to realize what?
You had a three second auditionfor attention.
So how do I capture attention?

(50:25):
Now, this whole concept of thehook is not new.
People are saying, oh, this isnew.
It's not new.
This is headline writing thatnewspaper articles have been
doing since the beginning ofprint.
And we say how do you stop thescroll?
Back then they had to stop thestroll as people stroll by the
magazine articles or thenewspaper stands.
What made them stop and go?
Oh, wait a minute, what's that?
We've always been in thisprocess of trying to capture

(50:48):
attention.
It's just new ways, and so theone thing that we also had to do
was saying, okay, these are alot of these people are very
successful business people andin the didn't you find it
fascinating, too when we said,okay, we had people put
themselves in buckets.
Are you here for growingbusiness performance, meaning
more revenue, or you want tolearn social media?
The people that were very goodat business revenue were very

(51:10):
poor in social media, and thepeople that were growing and the
people that were great insocial media needed help and
growing revenue.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
It's like ying to yang.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
And what's funny is that you watch these people that
are like they're makingmillions.
I need to figure out socialmedia.
I'm like you, really don't, butif you did, you'd be
exponential and a lot of thepeople that are great on social
are starving behind the scenes,renting most of their lives and
or they might get a bunch ofviews, but they don't understand
the business side of it, and somerging those together is a

(51:41):
really fascinating piece, wherethose that were good at business
were starving and we're likewe're chopping at the bit to
help those in social media andthose that are social media were
wanting to help those.
It was a beautiful mix, but nowwe go okay, let's work with
somebody that doesn't know howto and where their place is on
social.
What that means is they don'tknow their ethos, and so what

(52:02):
ends up?
People, they watch what worksfor other people and they try to
copy that, and it can feel veryuncomfortable.
It can feel very out of place,like I don't do dance videos,
and so for me, I'm like.
I'm like good dance, yeah,we'll see so hot in the hips.
Yeah, I can dance, but I waswatching these things that work
for others.
I'm like I'm not going to do adance video, I'm not going to do

(52:22):
these stupid humor things.
It's just not me.
I'm funny, but I mean I'm notfunny.
I liked laughing and joking,but that's just not.
It's not my ethos and it wouldfeel very awkward for me to do
that.
And so for me, I had to figureout how do I become myself and
do that and so many peoplefollow a trend.
But I looked at it from saying,okay, hold on a second Instagram

(52:44):
and TikTok.
They want people to watchvideos.
It helps their platform.
So what they're looking for issaying, hey, can you just be
yourself and then we'll go findthe people for you, instead of
you're trying to be all theseother people that other people
are following and it's just notgood at it.
So we're not going to putanything in front of you.
But if you're really good atbeing yourself, we'll find
people.
Look at the people that thatever watched.
If you get caught in adoom-scrolling and you've

(53:05):
watched somebody doing their job, there's a camera over this guy
that works at a diner and he'sjust making eggs and hash browns
and he's so fast at how he'sdoing it and it's just what he
does and he's good and I canjust sit and watch.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
I'm like man, how does he do?

Speaker 1 (53:19):
that this is a thing.
I watched this guy make friedrice.
It is at the same time, buthe's so good at it and it's just
what he does.
He's not trying to give lessons, he's not trying to do dance,
he's just making his craft friedrice and I love it.
It's.
If you just put out there whatyou're good at, the algorithm
will find people for you.
But what most of us don't knowis what is our ethos?

(53:41):
What are we good at?
What is my lane that I want tooccupy?
So it begins with that.
It's what we did with you, evenjust again, that next level of
it.
When I built my brand, I had togo out and find a copywriter to
help me figure out my ethos.
What did I believe?
What was my thing?
It's when you figure that out,that what makes a unique
question, and you work itbackwards to the lighthouse.
That's one really fast way offiguring out what you do.
And now we did it with one word.

(54:03):
What if you did it with five?
And then you go okay, you gotrelentless.
You got a lot of analysis,focus, discipline, right.
What was the other ones?
We had driven and fun andjovial, some really cool things,
all of topics that you couldeasily speak to, all topics that
you could write a blog post on.
We could throw it.
We did it earlier.
I wanted to prove it to you.
I said let's just have aconversation.

(54:23):
You're prep guy, you prepareeverything.
Now notes from your pastpodcast you had that thick of
notes in cards I go, we're notgoing to prep anything because
your last 40 years have beenyour prep, within your ethos.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
And, by the way, that's what you told me about
this podcast too.
You're ready.
You were like, nope, we'regoing to go on, we're going to
talk as friends, we have a lotof stuff going on.
So this is all reps and sets,being comfortable in the
uncomfortable, and, to yourpoint, I'm always prepped, I've
always gone notes, I'm alwaysshuffling through my cards, and
this is unique and I don't feelthe stress that I normally do in

(54:57):
another show.
Granted, I have phenomenalspeaking guests that is doing
the show for me, but nonetheless, yeah, it's a.
I think I've taken a little bitof anxiety off the table by not
having to overly prepare.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
Think about what you've done.
Your job was perfection Everymuscle group, every striation,
how much conditioning, what fatwas there.
And then strip all the clothesand we're going to analyze this
on a group of professionaljudges that it can see
everything and we're going toput you against the best in the
world.
So your job was to be perfectfor that short window of time a

(55:32):
few hours a day of time.
But now, in social media and inpublic speaking, it isn't about
perfection, because nobodyconnects to perfect.
Your job wasn't to connect withthe, wasn't to be connect, to
connect with the audience.
Your job was to look perfect.
But what I think made youspecial was who you were
off-stage you, anybody who knowsyou, anybody who knows your

(55:54):
flex.
You can't go anywhere withoutpeople knowing you and you stop
and you give 100% of yourattention to that person and
you've done that your entirecareer and that's why you still
are loved by so many.
That is what I think makes youunique.
But you look at, but you stillapproach, speaking from that.
I need to be perfect.
And now it's saying, okay, holdon.

(56:15):
I'm saying what if I was?
What if it's not about perfect?
What if?
Perfect now means authentic,full of errors, blemishes,
mistakes.
That's a totally differentworld for you.
That's a whole different worldfor me.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
And you're truly trying to I'm sorry, trying.
You're telling me to embracethis.
It's okay not to be perfect,and when we go back to that
story of you starting off and tosee where you're at right now
and all the hundreds of stagesyou speak at every single year,
it truly is something that Iknow need to embrace daily, and

(56:55):
not just on the speaking stage,not just on the podcast, just
being who I am off camera, whenthe camera is not on me, because
something happens and there's alot of viewers who probably
will relate to this as soon asthe camera comes on.
I have to.
You know how many times do wefix our shirt?

Speaker 1 (57:11):
You've had him raise the camera so it looks skinnier,
it's.
There's all these things thatare going on, and but here's the
thing, all the things that I'msaying are way easier said than
done, yeah, and so I want to.
I want to honor those that feelthat fear, Because, think about
it you were saying, hey, justbe yourself.
You know what we're saying Beyourself.
And they're going what if theydon't like me?

(57:32):
That's scary.
Well, I want to be likable.
We all want to be likable.
I want to be impressive on theshow.
Who wouldn't be?
Who wouldn't want to be good?
You don't want to go on apodcast and bomb.
And so there's this naturalbuilt in pressure to impress
your audience.
And so part of the disciplinein the training is to let go of
the need to impress and focus onexpressing what you believe and

(57:57):
who you are.
And you start it's scary, butif you go, okay, so then I.
So, then let's dive deeper intothis.
Absolutely yeah.
So then, how do I get toexpress?
Well, one is, I've got tochange my relationship and my
frame of reference and how Iview this.
My job on stage isn't toimpress.
My job on stage is to serve.

(58:17):
So okay, that's differentmentality, there's a different
mindset to that one.
So if I'm there to serve, then,and then to the realization
that I've been asked to do this,so they must have seen value
somewhere.
And so then I have to learn tonot listen to that little voice.
So I learned a long time.
When that voice lies to me itlied to me my whole life Damn it

(58:39):
.
And if I know that it lies, I'mlike hey, I know you're going
to tell me I don't.
And even today I'm like what doI know?
Every day that's like impostersyndrome always creeps up.
Everybody has it.
So you're not special forhaving, I'm not special for
having.
It just happens.
It's part of the humancondition to question and it's
an integrity.
Am I qualified to do this?
How many people don't have thatlittle radar and just give

(59:00):
advice and directions in cities?
They've never been.
What's that?
My favorite meme that says Lord, give me the courage of the 25
year old life coach.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
So much confidence.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
So much I believe it.
Somebody says, hey, I'mconfident, I can do a heart
surgery on you.
I don't care how confident youare, Renee, You're not touching
me unless you've been trainedand have experience.
So point being it's beingyourself isn't as easy as it
sounds, but it's the worthwhilejourney to get on and like even

(59:31):
today, you're like Roderick.
We were like going through andwe did our first thing with no
prep.
And hey, step one, you did fivereels and you wouldn't allow
them to post them.
I looked at all these great.
Are they what they can be?
They can be so much better, butthis is great.
Get it out there because youcan't bypass the learning curve

(59:52):
and it's really well done.
And the more reps and sets, themore comfortable you'll get.
So it's one of those thingsthat what people the unseen is,
all the mistakes, all thecriticism.
By the way, I'm also arecovering perfectionist,
Recovery recovery I'm stillthere.
It's so stupid.
And Gary Vee says somethingthat.
I hate it when I hated it whenhe said it and I fought it, but

(01:00:13):
it makes sense, it goes.
Perfection is another way ofsaying you're just scared and
insecure.
All right, you got me there,and what's interesting, though,
is that the fear and theinsecurity also can become a
really strong driver to push towork hard.
I work hard because I don'twant to sound stupid.
I listen and I study because Iwant to be able to answer this
question, so there's a beauty inthat as well.

(01:00:33):
When it controls us is when itgoes on hand.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
A lot of people suffer with anxiety, myself
included, is probably beingprobably one of my biggest
battles.
Doubt, and more so, getsovershadowed by anxiety, many
times Over-thinking, even inthis case.
Now, what we just spoke about.
What kind of strategies couldyou give the viewers to overcome

(01:01:00):
anxiety, just in general life,because we're not just.
I want to cover like a vastbase you're of.
Obviously we've talked aboutstage and stuff, but across the
board, what strategies?

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
The first thing that helped me is understanding that
stress is physical, that anxietyis physical.
Now, once I know that it'sphysical, it's tangible, because
before stress can feel thatthis, I don't know, this
intangible thing that comes overme and I don't want to control
it, stress is physical.
There's a biological,physiological and neurological

(01:01:33):
process that takes place, thatit creates it.
And let's just break it downreally simply.
There are two nervous systems,part of the autonomic nervous
system central nervous systemcalled the parasympathetic and
the sympathetic.
They're antagonistic, whichmeans they cannot be functioning
at the same time.
It's either sympathetic or it'sparasympathetic.
They're one or the other Lightson, lights off.

(01:01:56):
So sympathetic is theexcitatory response, it's the
stress response.
You want that.
When you're running fromsomething, the
fight-flight-freeze responsehappens in that sympathetic
nervous system.
The other is theparasympathetic nervous system,
the relaxed response.
Where we want to get to forthis, we want to get to a
parasympathetic place.
You're comfortable.

(01:02:16):
What we're looking at creatingin here for your guests is the
most comfortable relaxed place.
So they come in and they justthemselves.
You can sit in the chair andthey're like that's a
sympathetic nervous response.
So then you go okay.
If my goal when I feel stressedand go okay, this is a
sympathetic nervous systemresponse.
How do I triggerparasympathetic?

(01:02:37):
You can't go oh, trigger it.
It doesn't work that way.
You have to do parasympatheticthings.
One of them is breathing andthink about every professional
athlete that we know, everyactor, every elite performer,
every Navy SEAL.
The number one conversation Ihave when I get to work with
them, train with them, learnwith whatever it is breathing,

(01:02:58):
it's biology Austin Eckler, oneof the greatest running backs in
the NFL right now.
What do you think we talk about?
He's a bit of a people, fasterand stronger than me.
I perform under pressure betterthan they do.
Because he manages his biology,the stress doesn't go overboard
and take over, and so breathingis that secret weapon of the
high performer, the elite.
Sadly, it's the punchline ofthe under performer.

(01:03:21):
What I mean by that is you eversee somebody make a joke about
breathing and meditation andmindfulness?
I said at the moment they makea joke about that.
I know they've never faced3,000 eyeballs looking at them
expecting them to entertain them.
They've never faced a gamewinning shot.
They've never been on a stagewhere everyone's going show us
what you got.
But you look at Kobe Bryant,lebron Jordan basketball is

(01:03:43):
obviously one thing Everyfighter that we know.
They're not there hypingthemselves up, they're there
relaxed.
Lashon Merritt one of thefastest men on the planet, three
gold medalists he's breathing.
You look at Usain Bolt beforehe's running, he's just relaxed.
That's all very parasympathetic.
And so there's this place wherewe go okay, how do you align
your brain to work and to getinto that flow?

(01:04:05):
It is all biology and it is alltriggered for the thing we can
control, which is breathing.

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
So breathing is something that you should really
start investing into,absolutely, absolutely.
And there's so much now,especially with the internet
right, that you can gather somuch information from, but what
kind of breathing techniqueswould you give or would you
advise somebody that just hasterrible anxiety that's truly
taken over their life?

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
For sure.
And what?
If you want, I can put a linkin the bio.
There's a guided relaxationprocess called the progressive
relaxation that we use and it'sa way I'll guide you.
It's a four and a half minutesand you basically tense and
tighten different parts of yourbody.
The powerful thing aboutprogressive relaxation is that

(01:04:52):
it teaches you the mind-bodyconnection, meaning I feel
stress, oh, I feel it in myshoulders, or I feel it in my
jaw, I feel it in my fists, orit's in my butt, cheeks or just
clenched, whatever it is.
You start building thatconnection and then you can
tense it up even further andthen consciously let it go and
you realize that you canactually control it.
You do that three times and youcan choose just one body part

(01:05:12):
relax and you enter that state.
So we'll put that in the shownotes.
The other is there's differentlevels to it.
Navy SEALs are famous formaking box breathing very famous
.
Four seconds in, hold fourseconds.
Four seconds out, hold fourseconds.
They do that as they're in themiddle of a battle and that
keeps their brain in system two,which would be the

(01:05:33):
parasympathetic, while theirenemies are in system one and
panic.
They don't function the same,they don't do that they train
under stress and they do that.
Box breathing takes some timeand practice.
My favorite way to start isdiaphragmatic breathing, a very
simple Mayo Clinic method ofthree seconds in, four seconds
out.
There you go Four, four rightand you practice that and you

(01:05:59):
really have to time that.
The key is to get more secondsbreathing out than you breathe
in.
If you breathe in, if youbreathe out too fast, if you
breathe in, let's say you gofour in, three out, that's
hyperventilation.
So you want to make sure thatyour breath out is longer.
You hold the oxygen longer.
So three and four out, whichyou graduate like.
My favorite for breathing isbig, deep breath in and then

(01:06:23):
seven to eight seconds out.
Andrew Huberman talks a lotabout two quick breaths into the
nose One deep breath in throughthe nose and then another one
at the end and then out.
That's one of the quickest waysto get parasympathetic.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Which we done in the last mastermind.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
And if you do that, you go.
You feel this coolnessimmediately go through your body
.
So practice that.
But the thing is, try them outand learn what works best for
you.
I can't do that two seconds.
I'm about to go on stage.
I can't go.
You look stupid.

(01:07:00):
But I can breathe in deeply andslowly exhale as I'm talking to
somebody.
I can do it on stage, I can doit as I'm being introduced, and
so breathing is that thing thatreally helps.
And here's the thing it's thelast thing you want to do.
When you're highly stressed,your body is running in that
direction and you're trying tosay let's go this direction.
And so it takes practice, ittakes discipline, and don't wait

(01:07:24):
to your stress to startpracticing.
Practice now.
When you're relaxed, get intothat place, remind yourself that
you can do this, look for thequick wins and remember that the
anxiety isn't reality, eventhough it's so compelling in the
moment it's so compelling thisis going to last forever.
No, it won't.
Things come and things go, andcan you make it through that

(01:07:46):
moment?
Can you be through in thosemoments where it feels like it's
forever and it's pervasive?
It's not, it's temporary, andyou begin the mindset narrative
to say, okay, hold on a second,I can control more of this than
I realized, and, yes, it's goingto be hard, and then make sure
that someone around you can bethere to remind you.
Hey, let's breathe and be opento it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
Yes, there's a couple of questions for your Renee,
please.

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
Yeah, so I've got, I've got a modern question and.
I've got an ancient question.
Love it, you prefer.
You surprise me.
Okay, all right.
So you talked about congruenceand being consistent and aligned
, and in today's day and age,we're dealing with more and more
people that don't trust themedia, don't trust politicians.
We just don't trust faces ofauthority, even though they've

(01:08:32):
made their living off of beingcongruent.
And so how do you reach a reallevel of congruence when even
the most congruent among us areno longer trusted by society?

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
It's a phenomenal question.
So I think, if I'm, if I'mhearing you, how do I build
trust in it?
In a distrusting world?
How do?
Is that kind of what you'resaying right?
Especially with the media, wassupposed to be our trusted
source.
And then I look at the channelby which we're communicating.
Somebody wants to ask me so,Renee, why aren't you more vocal
around politics and maybe evenracist or just issues?
And I say what?

(01:09:04):
That whole medium isimmediately a very distrusted
medium and it's not a verybonding one For me.
Choosing the right avenue ofcommunication.
I'll give you an example.
So, george Floyd, when thathappened, 15 minutes from where,
I live.
And everybody said Renee, whyaren't you more vocal?
You're Rodriguez, you should betalking about the community.
And I said what do you mean?
How do you know I'm not vocal?
I haven't seen you post onsocial media.

(01:09:25):
I said when was the last timeyou read something that was
opposing to what you believed?
And you go.
Wow, I never thought about itthat way.
Social media is a very divisiveprocess.
Most people get on there, theyrant and they scream and all it
does is it calls people whoalready believe what you believe
to come to your rescue and itpushes away people that don't
believe what you believe, and soyou did nothing.
It takes no skill to do that.

(01:09:45):
I go, I have been vocal, butI've been doing it one on one.
I have been going to powerfulexecutives, people that are
leaders, people with budgets,people that have influence, and
I've been one on oneconversations, and I can't tell
you probably 80 someconversations.
I had that week Very emotionalweek for me and people saying

(01:10:05):
Renee, I want to help but Idon't know how, and when I try,
people just bite my head off.
These are white men, by the way, and one of the things I said
was very controversial Duringthat time, one of the most
important voices was white men.
They were like what are youtalking about?
I said they have influence,they can hire people, they have
budgets.
I go aren't you looking forallies in this moment?
And I can't tell you how manypeople, when a white man with

(01:10:29):
power would say, hey, what do wedo?
It's because of you guys.
And it's like, oh, and thenthey go.
Maybe I should just be quiet andlisten and I'm like you realize
you just bit the head off ofthe person that could probably
help you in this moment, notsaying the only one.
But how about let's take adifferent approach?
Why would you put them in afight-flight-freeze mode?
Why would you trigger that outof them?
And I get it where you're angryand I get it.

(01:10:49):
All that stuff's happening, butto me, maybe a one-on-one
conversation might be the bestone.
And there was a group of myfriends that wanted to get
together and have a discussionand put on social media and they
wanted me to lead it and I waslike, no, no, thanks, and they
were upset.
I'm like here's the thing that,to me, isn't the most effective
methodology, based on what hesaid, which is it's a very
distrusted means, and so I hadto look at what are the trusted

(01:11:13):
and distrusted means and makesure that I'm not guilty by
association of that.
Did I answer that question?

Speaker 3 (01:11:18):
Yeah, yeah, I think you did.
It's a hard problem too.
I agree A very hard one.
Yeah, great question.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
Tias, what was the other one?

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
The other one's more on the ancient side of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
Tias loves this.

Speaker 3 (01:11:30):
On multiple occasions , you guys have brought up the
Aristotelian triad, or therhetorical triangle, or whatever
you want to call it.
We've talked about, if my Greekis correct, ethos, which is
ethics, pathos, which is emotion, logos, which is logic, and, to
a smaller extent, kairos, whichis, I believe, timing.
And the fifth one what?

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
was the fifth one, telos.
What is telos?
Greek literal word for end, thepurpose, kairos.
Kairos would be the timelinessof the era.

Speaker 2 (01:11:58):
Have you read his book?

Speaker 3 (01:12:00):
Tias, I have not read his book, I just studied Greek.
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (01:12:03):
I'm surprised you knew kairos.
Nobody knows kairos.
Listen, this guy is superimpressive.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
Yeah, tias needs to have a camera and be more
present.
I'm very lucky that I've gothim to be on the mic.

Speaker 3 (01:12:15):
If you guys saw what I look like.
I'm like a burn victim.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
You don't want me on the camera.
Oh my gosh, what's he talking?

Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
about.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
So my question, the question the best looking guy in
the room?

Speaker 3 (01:12:24):
Thank you.
That's why we can't put acamera on me.
I don't want to put you out ofshame.
So my question regarding thatis Aristotle argued that those,
the primary three, are the onesthat motivate an audience, that
create a compelling argument.
However, he also argued thatthey don't work equally for each

(01:12:44):
audience Agreed, and so myquestion is based off of the
different cultures, thedifferent demographics you might
be in front of, how do youdynamically change your
presentation between beingethical, emotional, logical for
a dynamically changing audience?

Speaker 2 (01:12:59):
Store my question.
Tias, Sorry about that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
We're going to have him write all these questions.
These are great.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
Yeah, that was my question.

Speaker 1 (01:13:04):
by the way, the reflex Tias, 100%.
Right Back then, aristotlethought his favorite was Logos,
logic, and he felt that was themost compelling.
And you go back to, even goback to, even when cameras went
around what did they say?
video killed what the radio star?
Yeah, what that means is thatnow we took a visual approach to

(01:13:26):
things.
It moved before.
We just listened to the talent,to the voice Millie Vanilly,
right, look at that piece inShakakang.
And since these singers werejust incredibly talented, then
video comes out, we go, oh, butBritney Spears is so much better
looking at the time.
And so then now the visualaesthetic started to take over.
And so, back in the day, thisethos, pathos, logos, this

(01:13:48):
rhetorical triangle was in awritten form.
And so there was how do youcreate an argument?
And today we call the businesscase right.
And so logic was there.
But now ask ourselves, in thetime we're at, how much does
logic play into our decisions?
And look at social media, whereso much emphasis is put on the
ethos people buy the rent, thefake cars, and they bought all
these things.
So they perceived to the visualethos.

(01:14:10):
If they can afford those cars,they must be smart.
And they're drawing intoaspirational appeal, which is
appeals to the insecure, like,for example, six minute abs.
Would you ever buy six minuteabs?

Speaker 2 (01:14:23):
By seven, by not six.
No, it's not going to.
No, it's not going to play.

Speaker 1 (01:14:26):
Because it doesn't work that way.
But if I have an insecurityabout my ability to put the work
in, I'm like, oh wait, hold ona second.
I can do six minutes.
So aspirational appeal appealsto the insecure about doing the
actual work.
30 days to financial freedomyou can't do it financially free
in 30 days.
It's a little bit longer thanthat and a lot more to it.
And so, to answer his question,you go okay.

(01:14:47):
So you look at ethos,credibility, your ethic, all of
those things.
So many cool things about theword ethos when you get into the
word, and then pathos is theemotional appeal.
So let's work all three for aminute.
Doctor has ethos, right.
Doctor says, hey, flex, you'regetting fat and you need to lose
weight.
You'd probably say, okay, doc,I'll start next week, because

(01:15:10):
they didn't have any pathos.
Pathos is the emotional appealwhich usually drives behavior.
So there wasn't there.
Doctors have a lot of ethos,but not much pathos.
So then we go okay.
So now what's logos would bethe logical appeal.
Think of how many logicalthings we know.
$2 trillion budget inhealthcare.
80% of that budget is made upby five behavioral issues that

(01:15:31):
we all know Eating, drinking,smoking, not enough exercise and
too much stress.
Yet still, we do it.
We don't have a logical problem, we know it.
We don't.
We have a behavioral issue andusually that's around pathos.
And so, to answer the question,if I'm dealing with a group of
engineers probably going to haveto up my logic on this one and

(01:15:54):
maybe not be as storytelling butif I'm training, because I work
with a lot of engineers, I'mtalking about MIT level, harvard
, yale, some of the bestengineers in the world.
They're way too heavy on logicand they're losing their
audience, which is why they'reboring and no one's listening to
them.
You have some of the mostbrilliant minds in the world,
but an idea that goes on deafears because they just get too

(01:16:15):
technical, and so we have to uptheir pathos, which is probably
uncomfortable for them.
And so then you look at a groupthat is overly passionate and
they lack the logos.
We have to work on that pieceof it.
Or if I'm, let's say, I'm doingwith a group of kids, I'm
probably going to be focused onsome of the others, and so part

(01:16:36):
of the process that we teach isfirst, who's your audience?

Speaker 3 (01:16:40):
What if you don't know?
What if you walk into the roomand you have to change
dynamically?
Is that possible?

Speaker 1 (01:16:45):
Yes, one of the things for that and I love these
questions the first step inthis is listening, pay attention
.
So people say how did youprepare for this?
I'm like, well, a lot of timesI get, renee, what are you going
to talk about today or tomorrowmorning?
I'm like I'm not sure.
Yet you didn't prepare.
I'm like no, no, no, no, notsure.
It's because I need to listen tothe audience first.
If I haven't been told who theyare and 80% of my work is who's

(01:17:06):
my audience?
What's going on?
And I asked the CEO, I want toask, I want to interview people,
I want to know in depth.
And if I don't, then I need tolisten first before I speak,
because I might.
I don't know who's, what'sgoing on, what's happening,
whose role is what?
What's happening?
And if I just start doing that,I'm just shooting into a dark
room.
I'd much rather listen, figureout what's going on before I do

(01:17:27):
that.
Abraham Lincoln had a greatquote.
He said if I had eight hours tochop down a tree, I spent six
sharpening my axe.
That's beautiful Court.
So to me it's listening andfiguring that out first, asking
a ton of questions and justlistening.
Some of the best persuasive wayto be is actually just to listen
.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
Tyus, we will be talking after the podcast,
because my next question youjust asked him.
No, I'm the one that's likesitting here like the sidekick
to you on this podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:17:53):
I didn't pass the bottom Me.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
You just slid in and I had adapted into different
audiences which you justanswered I take full blame.
And then he's and he gives youthe oh, these are great
questions, tyus, I looked atyour notes first.

Speaker 3 (01:18:05):
You shouldn't write them down and leave them on the
table.

Speaker 2 (01:18:07):
I couldn't have cards to them, fortunately, but but
yeah.
I know, I know, but, but youspeak.
How many stages you speak atlast year?

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):
I looked at days.
Days was 239.
Oh my God, but a lot of thosedays were sometimes not a lot
Several many of those days werefive and six events.

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
So adapting to different audiences could be
back to back.
Oh yeah, Could be week to week.

Speaker 1 (01:18:34):
Yeah, day to day.

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):
Day to day Out of the row.

Speaker 1 (01:18:37):
Sometimes I'm talking to a group of salespeople that
I might be the next hour I'mtalking to a group of engineers,
and then I might be talking toa women's group, and then I
might be talking to you know,three CEOs, or a room full of
600 CEOs.
Totally different For a lot ofpeople.

Speaker 3 (01:18:53):
The message sorry to just cut in.
It's my show now, let's do it.
If, for a lot of people thatare really successful, they say
the same message over and overagain and they've just figured
out the great way tocompartmentalize that, does that
mean that you have the samemessage with a bunch of
different ways of presentingthat message?
Or are you creating differentspeeches for every single
audience?

(01:19:13):
So what?

Speaker 1 (01:19:14):
I think you're referring to is there's a lot of
.
Some of the best speakers inthe world have a product.
It's like a movie, right, andtheir speech is the same every
time you hear it and it'sperfect.
The good ones, it's great.
Ed Mylady you watch his talk.
He's got the same cadence.
It's down on his knees, talksabout his dad and you and I
don't care how many times youwatch it, it is just as
compelling.

(01:19:34):
If you watch your favoritemovie, you're listening to your
favorite song.

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):
Oh, but he is.

Speaker 1 (01:19:38):
Yeah, and what's great, you know what to expect.
It's predictable, it's a brandright, and so that's the keynote
sort of perspective.
Here's my keynote.
And if you're at his level, youcan buy that for several
hundred thousand dollars.
And people buy it all the timebecause they know what they're
getting.
And so for the rest of us wemight have to adapt a little bit
more and say, okay, I don't geta chance and just say here's

(01:20:01):
what I got, come find me becauseI don't have a bestselling
podcast or number one sellingaudio.
There's a lot of when you're atthat level.
But for the rest of us we gotto go, okay, who's my audience
and how do I tailor this messageto meet them?
And so for me it's saying, okay, I might have some of the
similar stories which would beacting as the frame, but I might
have a different tie down orlesson or moral at the end of

(01:20:22):
that fits the audience.
And so if I'm talking to agroup of students, it's going to
be a very different moral orlesson to the reason.
I share that with you is fillin the blank If I'm talking to a
group of executives.
And so if I'm talking aboutleadership to a group of
executives, a Vistage or a YPO.
It's a very differentconversation than it is if I'm
talking to a group of sales inthe same mortgage and real
estate, which is verytransactional, thinking how do I

(01:20:45):
get the next deal?
Ceos are thinking culture andfuture planning and bench
strength and what's happening ininnovation.
Talk to somebody who'stransactional, not thinking
about bench strength.
You're not thinking aboutwhat's happening in innovation.
They go how do I close thething?
How do I get the next prospect?
I need more leads, verydifferent outcomes needed.

Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
And that's what we're working on with myself right
now looking at the audience andhaving different plans of I
don't know if this is the rightterm, but plans of attack to
speak to the audience.
It's incredible that there's somany stories that you're
pulling out that now I'mresonating with yeah okay, I can

(01:21:25):
have a tie down this way, etc.
Again, I don't want to get intotoo much detail because we have
a dinner to make, by the way,we have to shoot off to it.
But before we kind of land thisplan, so much has changed in
the 30 years that you've been inthis world and there's new

(01:21:45):
speakers that are coming outthat have their style.
And let me ask you, what do youthink about the new style of
public speakers, keynotespeakers now?

Speaker 1 (01:21:57):
I think you're going where I think you're going.

Speaker 2 (01:21:59):
You don't have any names.

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
No, what I'd say is this there's different styles
out there and I respect somebodywho gets results, and there's a
lot of great speakers that I'vea very different style than I
do much louder, and but I'vealso watched those same speakers
that have a different stylethan me change people's lives

(01:22:21):
and I've watched people stopdrinking and do things that are
just incredible and I think weneed.
The beauty of this environmentis that we all have different
tastes and we all have differentthings when what?
My caution would be thatthere's a lot of aspirational
appeal happening right now,people appealing to the insecure
, the quick win, the big moneyand those things.

(01:22:43):
And so if you're, if that's theapproach, then I have a
fundamental ethical, basicchallenge with it, which is
nothing of high value in thisworld comes quick, nothing.
And you didn't build thosebiceps quickly.
Now you can take a synth alland throw it in there, but then

(01:23:03):
you look like a freaking alien.
It's not, it doesn't.
There's really no shortcut tothe truly valuable, and when
someone tells you that there is,there's a, I just say, caution
now what I will tell you.
I'm not saying that people can'tgive you a hack or cut off a
couple years of learning,absolutely.
When somebody says, hey, I canspeed the process.

(01:23:25):
That's the beauty of a coach,the beauty of having a mentor.
I just hired a new mentoryesterday, my first meeting with
him.
Today we're going to dinnerwith him, dave Meltzer, and he's
a friend.
But man, this guy has so muchknowledge that I'm like I can
speed my learning by being astudent again.
It's.
But I also know, if I don't actand work hard for the next five

(01:23:45):
years on what he's saying to me, it's not going to be worth it.
When I hired my social mediaperson, I had a couple thousand
followers.
I had to restart my Instagramand I told him I'm not going to
judge you for three years.
He's three years.
He goes.
Everybody wants somethingovernight.
I'm like I.
That's not how it works.
I'm two years into that andwhat do you want?

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
tiktok right, a million right million on tiktok.

Speaker 1 (01:24:05):
We did that in the first nine months and our new
instagram account because we hadI had before I knew what was
going on I had an agency thatbought followers and so I think
we were at 27,000.
I think they bought 15 of itwas at first.
We wanted to get to past 10because we wanted the swipe up
feature and I didn't care about.
I'm like, yeah, do whatever.
It was like three grand orsomething like that, and then

(01:24:27):
learning that's not a good thingto do.
And so people are like, whatare you gonna do?
You got 27,000.
I'm like I go I'm speaking to awall.
Nobody's there, right?
Yeah, you see a number, butthat's not real.
And I go, I don't have any egoon this and what actually I had
to fight my ego on it.
To be honest, it was like, okay,I have to do this and I go.
But you know what?
What?
If I didn't have any ego, Iwould just start over.

(01:24:49):
And I went to the guy, mo, andI said you know what, either
we're gonna have a great storyto tell that we started over and
it worked, or we're gonnarealize that my content is
bullshit.
And either way, I'm gonna growthat's it.
So let's start over.
People thought I was crazy.
We skyrocketed 200 over 200,000followers in six months you
know you're not trying to 212.

Speaker 2 (01:25:09):
212, that's a good number yeah, hey, go 212.
Yeah, we're gonna get moreframe after this show, which I
want to mention.
One more question and thenwe're gonna promote everything
that you've got out there,because you have.
You bring so much value.
Even on your Instagram there'sjust so much free titbits that

(01:25:30):
I've got all my friends thatthat are in so many different
genres now to follow you.
You can see all these blueticks now I'm starting to follow
you and they're all messagingme.
And hey, is there a mastermindcoming to Vegas?
I was like oh, we're gonna do itnow at the time I was like we
might put something together.
But everybody who's followedyou, regardless what they're in,
whether they're an athlete orwhether they want to get into

(01:25:51):
the public speaking, or whetherthey're somebody that's in the
workplace all can take so muchknowledge from your Instagram
and and put it into the day today.
Obviously, you've got your bookamplify, your mastermind
amplify.
You've got amp con.
You've got so many differentthings out there.
This is the platform that Iwant to leave you with before

(01:26:12):
one last question, before theend of the plane.
But please tell the viewerswhere can they find you, what's
coming up, what you're excitedabout, and the floor is yours.

Speaker 1 (01:26:23):
Thank you one.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate that I the wholegoal with Instagram and TikTok
was to make it micro learning,and I wanted people to go there
and say I can just binge, watchand learn everything that he
says.
And I wanted to give everythingout there.
And I mean, I suppose if youwere to piece it all together,
you'd have all my coursework,which is cool, but and if
somebody was smart enough to dothat, I'd probably hire him.
I said okay, let's just do thistogether somebody's doing that

(01:26:45):
right now, right I?
hope they are man.
It's a.
It's an abundant world man.
But to learn with Renee isRenee are you an?
E1e learn learen, and that's onmy Instagram and TikTok and my
YouTube and saying it'sbasically everything.
I think now, it's what mywebsite is meet.
Renee not me at.
By the way, met Renee, I don'tknow where you get with me at.
That's your only fans pageexactly, but that's funny.

(01:27:10):
I said that joke one time andone of my clients sent me an
email.
He goes I bought me at Renee,so you can just not forward it.
I'm like, dude, that's so cool,thank you yeah, yeah so either
way, you can find me there.
But, yeah, we have our bookamplifier your influence.
We're number two wall streetjournal bestseller.
Usa today bestseller top 20books business books for 2022,
which it really was.

(01:27:30):
It was really cool.
It was a surreal experience tosee that the ideas were liked,
so you put your stuff out there.
Yeah, and people like it, so itmeans a lot.
Of course, we have our amplifycourse.
All the stuff's on the websitemeet Renee dot com, but the
two-day course that we wentthrough, so our mastermind is
different than amplify pleaseexplain this, please so amplify
is the one where you're learninghow to be on stage.

(01:27:51):
You're learning how to createyour ethos and your storytelling
and the neuroscience, andthat's that one we do right now.
We're doing it once a month,sometimes twice a month, and you
can find that on on the website.
Just click on amplify put thelinks below and the mastermind
is more of an exclusive group.
Those are people that aretypically running a business,
maybe a high level executive,top sales professional.

(01:28:14):
It's a bigger investment onpurpose because we want to make
it a very exclusive group, butwe meet three times a year
koonage rooms yeah, it's reallyour next one.
We have ben newman.
If you don't know ben newman,go follow him.
He's such a phenomenal.
He's the number one mentaltoughness coach in the world.
But he's gonna come in.
He's gonna be 40 of us 30 to 40of us in a room and he got ben
for the day.
It's just, it's so cool.

(01:28:35):
The best friend is theanti-facil and at my life, so
just tell you who.
Yeah, clinton sparks, our boywas there last time and but yeah
, so that's our mastermind and,of course, keynotes and
everything.
But you're gonna be.
I've got a couple clients, bythe way, that I think I can
bring you with and I thinkyou're gonna be.
We're gonna do some stage timetogether oh, beautiful about
that.

Speaker 2 (01:28:52):
Yeah, I'm.
I'm honored that I've alreadyhad a lot of stage time with
yourself ready, crafting this,this story of mine, together,
and give him the opportunity,obviously you were the gift man.
I'm gonna say you are, so we'lljust mutually agree.
Um, otherwise gonna go back andforth.
But you truly seen something inme when we first met, long

(01:29:15):
before we had in-depthconversation.
Obviously there's so much shiton me out there too, but you and
I met, just to give that story,at Keaton's event limitless we
met at the gym at the that wasthe event, weekend and limitless
which actually mark yourcalendars April 27 incredible
event.

(01:29:35):
Shout out to my boy, keatonagain somebody who is doubted.
Yeah, I probably put one of thebest events on that I've been
to all your own.
Never seen a more stacked stagesteve oakey, david gorgans, ed
my lat, andy frazella, gary vthe list goes on all on that
same stage and that's what I metyou, yeah, not at the event,

(01:29:57):
but in the gym at that morning,and myself and Renee obviously I
hear the name we got a trainand, yeah, we just hit it off
and then at the event, then wepicked up where we left off.
But, needless to say, from thatmoment on and with, obviously,
the dialogue that's gone backand forth, you've truly seen

(01:30:17):
something in me reallyencouraged me to just fucking go
for it.
Stop over thinking frax I don'tknow how many times you've told
me so many these.
Renee is full of nuggets.
Right, you'll say something,and because it's so relatable
and uses so many bodybuildanalogies, I'm like fucker, I

(01:30:38):
can't even fight you on thisthis is okay, yeah, but what
about flax?
you're telling me a story,you're telling me an analogy and
I'm like I'm not going to winthis, am I?
I'm not going to win this, so Iwould just want to say thank
you so much for everything thatyou've done, doing and soon to
become.

(01:30:58):
I truly have the best coachbehind me.
I had the best coach inbodybuilding and now I feel like
, as long as I commit myselfwhich I am to this process, turn
up at all the amplifiers, the,the masterminds and everything
that you've got of value,including an Instagram, and put
it into my head and stop overthinking there's levels to this

(01:31:21):
game and I'm going to level uptremendously and it's it's truly
an honor and you are theeasiest client to work with.

Speaker 1 (01:31:31):
And that's the when I , when Keaton told me he goes,
you're going to meet flax,you're going to love him,
everybody loves him, and Keatonis the mastermind behind that,
that whole piece.
So we love him.
But for you, brother, you, youhave done an iconic feat in this
and now it's shifting that to anew application and I would say
the message to anybodylistening you don't have to be a

(01:31:53):
flex lewis to be able to havemassive input and impact.
The stories that are mostimpactful that you tell are how
you learn how to do a handstand.
I mean, being on stage is greatthat we love that but then it's
the lesson of just just almostcutting your arm off and being
held on by a just a centimeterless less and then learning how
to do a handstand and walk, andthat story to me when you were

(01:32:16):
talking about you would fall.
But you caught a half a secondand you like, and all you could
think about was what would asecond, three quarters of a
second feel like?
And you chase that threequarters, then you got it.
What would a full second feellike?
You chase it for weeks and whatwould a second half, what would
two seconds and that one secondof time.
That's what we talk about onerep at a time.
One rep.
I think there's another booktitle there's another one though

(01:32:37):
you said it earlier oh unseen,the unseen, and that might even
be better.
Oh man, I don't know but one ofthose.
I think maybe that's your firstbook and your second book
talking about the unseen work,the one rep at a time, powerful
stuff since you pump, pop thatchat.

Speaker 2 (01:32:51):
Yeah, I mean.
Well, tell the audience, andI'm working on my book right now
.
Right, yes, you are surprised,but last parting question before
you and I have to hit the road.
Who is your mount rushmore ofspeakers?

Speaker 1 (01:33:05):
oh, wow, okay, hold on, all right, all right, all
right.
You have to put Tony Robbins onthere.
You got to, you got to respect.
Then I'm going to put BenjaminZander.
He was the conductor for theBoston Hill Philharmonic, I

(01:33:25):
think one of the greatestspeakers.
Let's see what I would put upthere, and I'm not going to say
current.
I want to think all time, allthe time, yeah, from a speech
perspective, you got to haveMartin Luther King.
What a compelling story.
250,000 people showed up not tosee him speak.

(01:33:49):
They showed up because theybelieved what he was talking
about and they showed up forthemselves.
That is not to see you, butyour dream is also my dream.
And when he died, that dreamcontinued.
That's the ultimate.
It wasn't about him, and that'sreally cool.
And then who would I give mylast one?

(01:34:11):
My mother, beautiful, yeah,amazing.
That's the coolest questionI've been asking a long time.
And no disrespect to the eds,any other iconic speakers out
there.
They're going to go down onthat same list.
I'm just going back to peoplethat previous to that, oh, what
a beautiful way to end the show.

Speaker 2 (01:34:32):
Your mother is obviously living through you and
touching the future speakersaround stage, including myself,
so for her to be on your mouth,rushmore, and for us to be
chasing our first big stages, Ijust think that's the best way
to end this show.
My friend, I'm truly honored tohave you.
Yeah, I hope everybody at homehas taken everything from this

(01:34:56):
podcast and will be implementedinto their lives and you will
see a lot more with myself andRenee on many different stages
in many different states, andI'm excited to showcase what
I've learned from this great manand put it into you guys, the
audience.
So from me, renee, we are out.

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Voice & Victory | Rene Rodriguez | Straight Outta The Lair Podcast Ep. 84

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Voice & Victory | Rene Rodriguez | Straight Outta The Lair Podcast Ep. 84