When John Davis was 22 years old, he was told by doctors they were not sure if he’d ever walk again. John had picked up a heavy box of clay and broke his spine in two. He collapsed and was paralyzed. He was told for a fact he’d never have a physical career. However, John did not let that day take his dreams away. In fact, he went on to live the life of an action hero. He’s been a professional fight director and a stunt man for stage and screen. He’s an artistic director of three regional theme parks, a sword-fighting comedian, a motivational speaker, an author, and a coach. He’s also taken his inspirational message to 16 countries around the world, including the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan, on 6 USO tours.
How was John able to overcome his diagnosis and not let his circumstance define him? His mindset. John decided that day that he was in charge of his own experience, that despite what happened to him, he decided what was possible for him, not what others told him. Despite all the fears thrown his way, he rooted himself in the fact that we only live one present moment, and that is where all our power lies.
In this super powerful episode, we deep dive into the importance of having the right mindset, regardless of what you want to accomplish or what you are going through. We also talk about how to dissipate fear, what you need to understand about how the subconscious mind works, and how to maximize the present moment to achieve anything in your life.
I could have talked to John all day. This one is good, I promise! For a special free gift John is giving our audience, his 5F Workbook, click on this link and check him out at www.corporateactionhero.com.
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WHAT YOU WILL DISCOVER
John’s 5F system to overcome adversity
The words John took out of his vocabulary to get out of bed after breaking his spine
How to break free from the exponential cycle of negativity
Why you need to focus on the small successes to get to the big goals
FEATURED ON THE SHOW
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Jennifer:
Hello, hello. Welcome to the Happy Productive Podcast. I’m Jennifer Dawn, a business coach and founder of the Best Planner Ever. If you’re ready to start winning big and business in life, whoo, you’re in the right place. Happy Productive Podcast is your go to resource for learning how to bring awareness, some mental toughness, discipline, and some clarity, all these really, good things into your daily productivity so that you can knock your goals right out of the park and start succeeding on a whole new level.
Today, I am so excited because we’re going to be speaking with John Davis, who has lived the life of an action hero. You guys are not going to believe all the things that he’s done. He’s been a professional fight director and a stunt man for stage and screen. He’s an artistic director of three regional theme parks, a sword fighting comedian, a motivational speaker, an author and a coach. And after September 11th, he brought his inspirational message to 16, yes, 16 countries around the world, including the frontlines of both Iraq and Afghanistan on six USO tours. So welcome, John, we’re so excited to have you with us today.
John:
Well, I am thrilled to be here, really happy to be adding your podcast to my list of achievements.
Jennifer:
Yes, absolutely. Okay, I have to hear about professional fight director, you got to tell me a little bit about that. What does a professional fight director do?
John:
Well, imagine if you go and you saw a play or a film, and you saw a fight scene of any kind. Now a fight director is someone who not only choreographs the fight, but directs the entire scene that the fight is in. So the emotional content up to the fight, and out of the fight is all part of the fight director’s job. And so I would go in there and literally direct the scenes. Like for instance, if you saw Romeo and Juliet, I would, start with the entrance from Tybalt to Mercutio and then I would take it all the way through to Romeo killing Tybalt. And all of that would be my job.
Jennifer:
Wow, that is so fascinating. My husband always loves the fight scenes. And I’m always like, you know, okay, how much longer are we going to be fighting here, people?
John:
See that tells me the fights weren’t very good, because the fights, the whole fights are designed to propel the storyline. And if you’re not invested in what they’re doing, then the movement wasn’t congruent with the story. And that is a waste of time.
Jennifer:
Oh, that makes so much sense. Alright, so what’s your favorite fight scene in a movie?
John:
You know, the number one question I get asked is exactly that. Everyone expects me to say Princess Bride. It’s not a Princess Bride fight for me. Because Princess Bride is an amazing fight. And it’s an incredible fantasy fight. I love the references to the historical fight manuals that they said all the way through it. But when I choose actual fights that I like, my favorite was the ending fight in the movie called Rob Roy, with Liam Neeson and Tim Roth.
The reason was because I’m sort of a historical sword nerd. And so we had, we had one guy who was fighting with a transitional rapier, and one guy who’s using with a basket hilt broadsword, and they both were using the correct styles. And in the end, it was the brute force of the broadsword that ended up killing the other one, but the storyline was so well done all the way through that you got to see some really amazing stuff.
Jennifer:
Oh, that’s so cool. I love that. And from there, you went to being a sword fighting comedian. Okay, tell me what happened there? I have to hear this story.
John:
Well, let me back up just a little bit. Because when I was a kid, I always had a stick in my hand and was running in the woods and playing Robin Hood. I was the kid who always wanted to have a sword in his hand his entire life. And by the time I was in my late teens, I decided I wanted to be a stunt director and a fight director and a stunt man. I ended up meeting two of the top five directors in the country, who liked me and thought I had talent in that area, and started giving me their training. There was something that happened right after that, that that kind of derailed me for a little while. And we could talk about that a little while.
But what eventually happened is I wanted to create a sword fighting comedy show called hack and slash which got first, went to Renaissance festivals all over the country, and then eventually got picked up by the USO. We went all the way out to the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan and all over the world performing and then eventually went doing corporate events with that as well. And that show was really wonderful. And for those of you who don’t know what Renaissance Festival is, it basically means for many years, I was wearing tights and living in the woods. So that’s what comedy sword fighting is. But there was some pivotal moments in there that changed my life entirely.
Jennifer:
Well, tell us about one of those.
John:
Okay, I’ll tell you the biggie. Let’s get right into it. At 22 years old, I was well on the way to being a stunt man in the media, being a fight director, well on the way to get my black belt in Taekwondo. A buddy of mine said, hey, come on out to my house, and help me unload my van. So okay. Which yeah, I then began to question our friendship, because when I got out to his house his van was filled with 80 pound boxes of clay. He was a professional potter. At this point, I was strong. I was rock hard, masculine bodied, I had long Fabio hair, I had all this stuff, right. I saw this box, this van full of clay is just another workout in my mind.
I climbed up in that van and I picked up that first box, and I turned to set it outside of the van and my spine broke in two. I collapsed and was paralyzed. Doctors told me, they took me to the hospital and the doctor said, John, you have a condition called Spina bifida occulta. And I said gesundheit. No idea what that meant. Basically, what that meant was three of my vertebrae right at my pelvis never formed properly at birth. With the extra 80 pounds of weight that day, and the twisting action, I actually broke my spine in half.
The doctor said to me that day, we’re not sure if you ever going to walk again. And even if you do, we know for a fact that you will never do a physical career, your back can’t do it. So basically, he took my dreams away that day. And I went to some pretty dark places in the next week or so. But then a friend of mine came in and did when you look at it from the outside, it looks like a really cruel joke. But he gave me a book called The Tao of Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee.
So here’s the martial artists who was just told he would never do martial arts, again, being given a martial arts book by the greatest martial artists that ever lived. So totally, what looks like a bad situation. But that book is a book about his philosophy of martial arts. And it starts talking about there’s a couple things in there that really struck me.
One of them was staying very present. And having mental flexibility, being very flexible, no matter what’s happening in your life. So that day, I started focusing on my present moment, and not focusing on the belief that others are trying to give me. I started changing my belief system around what I was going to achieve. I decided that I was going to be a stunt man and a fight director and do all the things that I set my mind to.
And that day I started flexing my upper back muscles, but above my injury. And I just slowly over the next couple of weeks started lowering going further and further down my back. About 20 days in I flexed my hips. And the doctors like that’s below the injury, right. And then by a month, I was sitting up on the edge of the bed, a month and a half, I was able to walk down the hallways. And six months, I would say I was probably back to a normal physicality.
A year and a half, I gave myself a gift. I climbed up on top of a three story tower. I jumped off into a fall pad. I went on to do over 4000 live Comedy sword fighting stunt shows all over the world, as I said including the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan. I worked in Hollywood, I’ve climbed Mount Sinai and Machu Picchu. I swam in the blue lagoons of Iceland. I’ve done more things, you know. I did 16 countries with the USO and now I’ve been to 30 countries. And I have done more things than most people do in in their lifetime. And it’s all because of the fact that I know I can. I create the momentum from my own choice, by leveraging my present moment and remaining flexible.
Jennifer:
This is amazing. And so obviously, I’ve never snapped my spine in two so I don’t know what that experience feels like. But I’m imagining like you’re in the hospital, right? You’re in the hospital and you’re paralyzed, you can’t move. But you make this decision. So take me to that moment where you make the decision where you just decide, I’m not going to accept the fate that these doctors have said. This is my fate, and you decide you’re going to do something different, which goes against all medical advice. Just take me to that moment. Where did that come from?
John:
Well, when I read that book, the leveraging the present moment was very interesting. But the mental flexibility part of it was even more interesting to me because it’s like, it really told me that I was in charge of my own experience. You know, I am the creator of my experience. Now as I dug deeper into it later on. Now I have a system I call the Five Fs, which is all about hacking that fight or flight response, getting past all that because everything I was going through was being thrown at me was fear.
Throwing their fears at me and my own fears as well. And so I had to get out of that mindset of creation. You know, we only live one present moment. We have thought, word, and deed, and they can only be done here. And now, because yesterday, tomorrow, you guys are yesterday, your subconscious mind is just filled with present moment memories and the belief that comes with them. Your future is just a place where you set goals for your next present moment.
And so what you do here and now is what creates your experience. So I could sit here and take the belief of creation that the doctor was giving me and telling me that I’ll never do it. Or I could take my own belief and become the creator of my experience. What I did that day was, after reading that book, I was like, well, who says, who says so? I had to come to the realization that I’m the one who said so, right. I’m the one who creates my experience.
And by choosing that, then as I delve further into the spiritual aspects of it. Buddha says, what you think you become. Gandhi says, you must be the change you want to see in the world. Krishna said, you are the culmination of your thoughts. Jesus said, what you have been asking in God’s name is granted. But Moses said, God’s name was I am, not I will be or I was, right. So whatever I’m putting after I am, is what I’m creating. What the doctor is telling me was what he thought I should say, after I am, and what I put after I am was something different.
So once I did that, I just started creating, in that present moment, that outcome. What happens is, most people who are trying to go for a big goal or be productive in their life, they sit in this moment, they look at a giant goal they’ve set, and they think they have to get to it. That’s not the way the brain works. The brain works very differently. It’s like you do small present moment actions here successfully, and it comes to you and surrounds your experience.
I had to realize that what I did here and brought my experience to me. I’ve been in movies. I’ve witnessed Brad Pitt being smacked with a bottle over his head. I’ve done really cool things in my life. You know, I’ve worked with the guys who did the choreography for Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Highlander, you know, I’ve done all these amazing things, but I never would have done any of it. If I hadn’t taken control of my own creation.
Jennifer:
I love this so much. I asked this for people who might be listening who have made a decision in their lives that I’m not going to accept, you know, a diagnosis of the reality somebody has given them, maybe something their parents told them, and they’ve decided I’m not going to accept this. They’re trying to make that change. They’re trying to create their own reality.
And along the way, like in the beginning, those first few days, those first few weeks, you probably couldn’t feel your lower half like you didn’t have evidence right to support the decision. So when you’re in it, and you don’t have the evidence yet, how did you keep the faith? How did you keep your mindset strong? How did you keep going before you had the evidence that will eventually line up? But we know it doesn’t line up that day. It doesn’t line up even the next day.
John:
Well, faith is basically trust. And trust is developed by results over time. So you’ve got to stack your present moments to build that trust. But the first thing you have to do before you can get to the faith aspect, is you have to tackle your fear. When you look at fear, it is an interesting thing. Because when you look at fear, fear is just an emotional reaction to some future event that may or may not happen with you focused on a negative outcome to knock it down even further. It’s just negatively focused on certainty, right. But the interesting thing about that is if it’s focused on a future, that means it’s not in your present moment, it’s rooted somewhere else.
It’s you choosing to focus on a negative outcome. Now, we all have a natural fear response that we go through when we get into that place of fear. The first thing that happens is we don’t feel like we can breathe, we get all tense and tight. But the reason that happens is not what people think, it’s not that they can’t breathe. It’s that their body is actually storing air, so they can run further and faster. It’s a primal response based on the fight or flight response. I can prove it to you. Do you watch National Geographic shows on TV?
Jennifer:
Occasionally. I’m not much of a TV watcher, but I do watch National Geographic, yes.
John:
Okay. So you’ll know that almost every National Geographic show has a doomed Gazelle in it. That doomed Gazelle is out there eating grass in the fields and then the lion hits the field. The first thing that the Gazelle does is gasp. If you’re a parent and you’ve ever seen your kid almost get hurt, you have gone. You have done this. It is a natural primal reaction. The interesting thing is that the reason we do that is so that we can run further and faster. It’s a primal response.
Actors on Broadway or in the film are literally trained, that if they forget their lines, they’re trained to exhale, relax all their muscles, and all their lines rush right back to their head. And the reason it works is because it shuts off the survival mode and turns the cognitive thinking brain back on. So in my situation I had to overcome my fear before I could come to faith. Now here’s the next part of it. So what I’ve just done is I’ve led you into my Five Fs in a way. The first one is fearlessness.
Jennifer:
Yes. I’m guessing of the Five F’s, one of them is not you’re f’d.
John:
That’s the sixth F, but we don’t talk about that one. Not in mixed company, not in mixed company.
Jennifer:
The first one of the Five positive Fs.
John:
Yes, is fearlessness. And literally fear is just literally a matter of exhaling. And realizing it’s not in your present moment. First of all, label it because when you’re in fear, it’s hard to steer it and move it. The second you say, oh, it’s just fear. Now it’s outside and external. So when I was on the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan, I was talking to soldiers, I said, you go into these situations where you may get shot at or blown up. How do you do that? They said the same thing. They exhaled first. They let their fears out. But then they also said to me something interesting. They said, it helps that we have an objective to focus on. So the second of my Five Fs is focus. Now, the interesting thing is focus is an interesting animal. Do you know negative people?
Jennifer:
Yes.
John:
Okay. Have you ever noticed they always have something to be negative about?
Jennifer:
Always. And that’s where their focus is, right.
John:
Right. They focus on negative; the subconscious mind has two jobs. One of them is to store those memories that I said and create that subconscious belief. The other one is to show you what you’re focusing on to help you achieve it. So say, for instance, I love jeeps. So when I drive down the road, I see every Jeep on the road, and in driveways. I see every one because my conscious mind thinks Jeep, right?
It’s the same thing with this, if you focus negatively, your subconscious mind is going to think negatively. And then what happens is because you are now thinking negatively, your subconscious mind is showing you negatively, your thought wording negatively in your present moment, which is stacking one of those negative moments in your past in your subconscious mind, creating an exponential cycle of negativity.
The only way you break that cycle is to consciously choose to stay positive, and create a successful positive moment then you stack that into your subconscious mind. The more of those you stack back there, the better the cycle becomes and you start going positive. You got to really seriously focus in that direction. So we got fearlessly and focus. Now we get to the one that we started this part of the conversation on, faith.
Jennifer:
Faith.
John:
Because once you fearlessly focus, you will start to see the results because your subconscious mind will show it to you. I’m going to focus positively. I’m going to start to see positive things. Now your faith is building. And you have to have that faith. Because if you don’t have faith, you won’t take the next of the Five Fs, which is follow through, you won’t take an action if you don’t believe in it. So you have to like, then sometimes even leap past faith a little bit to take the action, to help you build the positive. You have to throw yourself out of balance.
If you’re not taking an action, the first question I would ask you is what is the fear? What’s stopping you from moving? And you go back to the right, you say, okay, you relaxed and you breathe, and you move forward. So you got fearlessly focus with faith and follow through. And the last one, the one that I started this conversation on early on, and that’s flexibility.
Jennifer:
Ah, love that one.
John:
Yes, something is always going to come up that’s going to seem contrary to what you’re trying to achieve. Always, always happens, right? But here’s the cool part. What I just said to you about the subconscious mind is proven science, right? But here’s the interesting part. When you focus on a goal, and something comes up, that seems contrary, you get to make new choices. And if you make a new choice that’s negative, then you’re stopped. But if you think about something coming up, that seems contrary, as my subconscious mind is showing me this so I can achieve my goal. Now it’s something you just need to address. And you either need to incorporate it into what you’re doing, dismiss it entirely, or literally eradicate it basically.
It’s one of those things that says, okay, my subconscious mind says, fix this to get that. Stay focused on the final goal, but remember, you got to stay flexible. Bruce Lee used to talk about be like water, you come to an obstacle in the river, you flow around it or over it, over time through it. But you have to stay like water and you have to keep moving forward. So you have to fearlessly focus with faith and follow through with flexibility. Those are the way you hack the fight or flight response. And those are also the way that you change your subconscious belief that’s behind you and alter your outcome.
Your present moment creation is dependent on you staying right here, right now. Now, one of the things I heard you say, and it’s a red flag word for me. You said it like four times and it was not about you. You were explaining a scenario. You said what about the people who are trying to do this and trying to do that and try. Well, one of my teachers I learned from him, from the movies he was a guy named Yoda.
Jennifer:
I was going to say you’re going to whip out Yoda, aren’t you? Don’t try, do.
John:
There is no try. I don’t believe in affirmations; I believe in declarations. I believe it, I believe the word affirm itself means I’m sharing something that’s not solid. So that’s a bad belief, the word try. Now I said earlier that what you think, you become. But I also said, whatever you say, after I am. I had to take certain words out of my vocabulary to get out of that bed and move on.
The words I took out were wanting, needing, hoping, and trying. I took them all out of my vocabulary, because none of them are present moment creative. I had to make sure my present moment was constant, consciously creative. I would say I am becoming a stunt man. I am flexing my upper back muscles. Today, I am going to flex my hip muscles. You know, I had to go through the whole I am process staying very, very present. And the more I stayed present, the more that outcome came. And like I said, I’ve done amazing things in my life.
I became a college professor at Oberlin, teaching stage combat, teaching physical things, right. The doctors told me I’d never have a physical career. I did more physical things than most people will do in their lifetime, in 10 years. You can do anything in your life. It’s just a matter of staying very focused. If you want to be productive, specifically in productivity, your present moment is the key to getting anything done.
A lot of people talk about multitasking. I’m not a big believer in multitasking. I believe, yes, you have a list of things that are on your on your agenda, but you tackle them one at a time. You go and then you do them well, and you move on. On the old TV show Mash. Hawkeye says said something to Charles Emerson, Winchester and Charles Mattoon. Winchester says, I do one thing, I do it very well and I move on. Do one thing, do it very well, and move on.
Jennifer:
Yes. I’m with you. The whole multitasking thing sometimes. Sometimes we get pulled into a little bit, when you’re cooking dinner and the kids are coming at you and everybody else is coming at you. The emails are flying in and we do end up having to do that. But I’m such a huge fan of just focus. Focus on one thing. We talk about our A tasks and even in my planner, I don’t have a lot of lines for to do’s. Get really clear on what your most important things are, focus on those, and see them through to completion. It lines up with everything that you said today too.
The whole point of an A task is pick the thing that puts you out of your comfort zone a little bit, that does maybe scare you a little bit. But you know, in your heart, it’s going to get you to where you want to be. Just take that step today. Instead of if you had said, oh, I’m going to heal my spine, and I’m going to have it done today. You know, it would have been like, yeah, not going to happen, right? You had to take a little step every day. I love how you eliminated try from your vocabulary. It was just do, I’m doing this. A step every single day, every single day and you brought in the faith.
John:
A lot of times when I’m when I’m coaching someone through a process, I’ll tell them to buy a digital voice recorder. Those small ones you can buy Best Buy, they’re like 20 hours they’ll record. Click it on, throw it in your top pocket, and go about your day. At the end of the day, go back and listen to all the things you said about your present moment. What most people find out is they think they’re too fat. They think they are too lonely. They think all these negative things. They say things about themselves that they would never allow someone to say about their friend.
Nietzsche talks about the concept if you want a good relationship, you have to foster the friendship. Well, if you want to foster the friendship, you need to foster your own friendship first, with self. You know, you need to be good to yourself. So the reality of it is that you really need to get into the mindset of today I’m achieving something great, but I’m doing it one small step at a time. When someone tells you that your back will never heal, you may never walk again, and even if you do, you’ll never have a physical career then a year and a half later, you had jumped off a tower into a fall pad. You know, that’s, that’s doing something.
But the only thing that’s really interesting about that, from an outside of me perspective and into the world perspective, is that year and a half is a short amount of time. We don’t have to worry about how long it’s going to take, you need to get to the end. That’s just the fear, it’s going to take too long. You know, most people sit in this moment, they look at that thing, and they think I got to get to that. But as I said, it’s coming to you. Here’s the biggest thing that I run into with people is they have a present moment belief that struggle equals growth. And I say why are you focusing on struggle? Focus on the growth.
Jennifer:
Where focus goes energy flows.
John:
And your present moment says I am struggling. And you know, whatever you’re asking in God’s name is granted. It was I am and you blah, blah, blah, I read the whole thing. It’s I am, not I will be, not I was. Right here, right now. And you know, it’s funny in in the Judaic religions, you know, the word Amen. Most people don’t know what it means, but it means, so be it. Not so will it be or so it was, it means right here, right now it’s done. Right here right now it’s done. So that’s the way you create your experience right here, right now it’s done.
And, you know, talking about multitasking. For a while there when I was doing all my work and stunt working and all that stuff. I was also buying and flipping houses a lot. Let’s make some extra money. So I took a course with a really successful real estate investor. Her name was Robin. One of the things one of her teachers said was, first of all, don’t lift a hammer. That’s not your job, your job is to find the next house.
He also said, if you have four houses, that you’re doing at once. You’re doing them all at once. You know, all of the money from those four houses don’t come until the end. But if you have four houses and you kick one off, this one’s profitable. Now, this one’s profitable, next, and so you have money all the way through the process. It’s the same sort of thing in your life.
You know, you can have the small successes, and that does several things for you. It pays you in your faith. It pays you in your positivity. It rewards you for doing the things you’re doing all the way through the process. So you need to make sure that you know you’re being productive, but you’re also rewarding yourself for doing those things.
Jennifer:
Yeah, I love this so much, John, I’m just blown away. This is such great stuff. It’s so perfectly in alignment with everything that we teach. We talk a lot about win the day. You have a big goal and it can be overwhelming when you try to do so much at once. But if you just take it one day at a time and just win today, that’s your goal is win today. Those days start to add up and then eventually you’re going to start to see momentum and from momentum comes results. You’ll get to where you want to be, and of your Five Fs, the flexible, I think that’s so important.
So often I see, I’m clear on where I want to go, what I want to do. Then because it doesn’t fall out the way that I’ve said it should fall out, then you get so flustered because it didn’t fall out the way you decided it was supposed to fall out. So I love that flexibility of this is where I’m going, I’m not going to try, I’m going to do, I’m going to get to this place, being flexible along the way. Information, resources, challenges, all these things will present themselves that help you get there.
If you’re not in a mindset to receive it in the right way you miss it. You miss the lesson, you miss the growth, you miss that good stuff. I firmly believe the universe is always trying to line up to help us get to where we want to get to but we have to be a willing component in that. If we’re fighting it, resisting it, afraid to take a step, you’re probably not going to get what you’re after if you know you’re not following some of these other things like flexibility, fearlessness and follow through. I love the Five Fs.
John:
Well, you know, what’s interesting is the concept of ask, believe, receive, and the universe gives it to you, right? You know, the thing is, number one, you have to realize you’re the one asking. And the way you ask is by believing. It’s not about actually saying, can I have this please? It’s about you’re asking is believing. I am believing this so that’s how I’m asking. I’m going to get it right. That’s really the key.
Robin Williams had two quotes that I love. In every movie he ever did, he always made sure somewhere in the movie, he said carpe diem. Seize the day. The other quote of his that I love is somebody asked him one time, if he would do a Mork and Mindy reunion show. His response was, you never look back if you want to move forward, or you will just run into a tree.
Jennifer:
Oh, that’s a good response.
John:
So yeah, if you’re looking back at the things that have happened in the past, you’re not creating momentum forward. You’ve got to, you’ve got to be consciously moving forward. And you said earlier about getting out of your comfort zone, no great success has ever been realized in your present moment without change, without you going into something different, and moving in a different direction.
Another thing is that when you achieve that final goal, you need to immediately set a new one.
When you look at water in nature, going downhill, that water flowing, it’s full of oxygen and life is coming downhill, take that same water, put it in a puddle, it becomes poisonous and stagnant. The fact is, stagnancy is death, right? Choose a new goal, keep putting yourself in a direction. You know, the word action means to create motion, start momentum or to do something.
The word hero is someone who achieves extraordinary results in service of others. And I will tell you what, if you want to see real momentum, put yourself in service of others and go out there, and really feel that change. You’ll always be setting new goals and moving towards new things and feeling really ridiculously young. I turn 57 in two days, and I feel like I’m about 22.
Jennifer:
That’s so nice. Yeah, I love what you just said about being in service to others. You know, earlier in my career, when I had my software companies, I was always focused on the money. As a business coach now and you know, you’re a coach, you work with a lot of business owners. A lot of focus on the money, money, money. And I’m not saying, I love money, I’m not saying not to focus on it.
But in my own businesses, when I shifted my focus to service; how can I help more people? How can I help my clients dreams come true? The money was like the byproduct of everything. I don’t even have to focus on the money anymore because I know that when I’m in service, I have a full heart, and I’m doing everything I can to serve others, that money just flows. That just happens.
John:
You know, I speak all over the world, I speak to big Fortune 500 companies. I always ask my audience a very simple question. And the question is, what’s most important to you? I have never once heard someone say, money or my job. They always say family first. They always say family first. So if that’s what’s important, be of service to your family by saying, okay, I am doing this amazing job and doing this, bringing in this mood, incredible income as I’m serving my family.
Yeah, that’s a great way of changing the direction that you want to go. It’s really important that you have a purpose. If you don’t have a purpose, what’s your drive? If your drive is to serve your family the best you can, oh my gosh, you can go as far as you want to go.
Jennifer:
Right. Exactly. I agree completely. When I grew up, I didn’t have a lot of my family there. It’s very dysfunctional. And so as I’ve grown up, my kids and my husband now we have a very close relationship, but I really have extended that to my business clients. I really feel like they’re an extension of my family. When I’m taking care of my clients, when I’m taking care of my kids, when I’m taking care of my husband, that same love is just sort of magnified.
Of course, I’m careful about who I bring into that circle, because I really want the right people in there. But it really does change your emotional state, it puts you in a different place. For me, it taps into that drive, it taps into that passion when your heart and your mind and your energy and all those things are lined up and focused on the right thing. You can make miracles happen.
John:
If you truly want to be of service, you can guide someone else for the process, that’s really one of the things I do when I go and I speak to companies. Sometimes I have 1000s of people in my audience. But I’ll walk out in the audience and I’ll find the most timid person I can find. I bring them on stage in front of those 1000s of people. Right now that that seems like a very cruel thing to do to somebody. But they’re about to have a life changing experience because I guide them through my Five Fs process. What happens is, in under five minutes, get this now, under five minutes, they learned to crack a bullwhip and hit targets out of my hand with it.
Jennifer:
What!
John:
Yep, yep. And the way it’s done is I as a leader understand my five step process. I lead them through their fears. And I negate their fear first thing when they hit the stage. I know they’re big fear. I know because I’m an empathetic leader. Their biggest fear is being in front of this audience. First of all, I make her feel comfortable with me. I say, thank you so much for coming up here. It’s really, really great of you to help me out. So I put her in service to me, you’re helping me out. Then I turned to the audience to say, isn’t she a rock star? And so they instantly give her love, which is her biggest fear of not having their love.
So now I’ve negated the fear. Then I start talking to her about fishing. I don’t want to talk about bullwhips because bullwhips have a have a thought process; pain, danger, that sixth F that we talked about earlier. You don’t talk about that. I don’t want her thinking that way. I talked about fishing. I haven’t even shown her the bullwhip yet. We’re talking about fishing. I said, have you ever cast a fishing rod? And whether they say yes or no, I say I’m going to teach you the best way to cast a fishing rod today. So let me get your fishing rod.
I pull out a whip. The audience laughs, I pull out a whip. I turned to her and I say we’re just using it as a fishing rod. It’s her experience not mine. Right? I need to keep her in a calm state. Then I have half of the audience do the fish face. It looks like this. So they’re doing the fish face. Now she’s laughing at her friends and people in the audience and she’s having a good time. I’ve kept her positive. Positive mode.
Then I say all I want you to do is choose which fish you want to catch and cast your fishing rod. She does and the whip cracks because it’s the motion. So I said great. That’s awesome. Perfect. You did it. You got it. Do it again. Catch another fish, crack, crack, crack, like four or five times. Then I say, now you need to start aiming for smaller fish and I pulled out a target. The target is a pretzel rod. So it’s about nine inches long or so and pretzels. And I hold it out there. And the first thing I know now as a leader, empathetically. I know she’s afraid of hitting me, right? So I turned to her and I say, look at me. Did you hear the crack? And she says yeah. So you heard it crack several times, right? So you already know how to make it crack.
Now, if you’re watching this on video as well, this hand gesture is something we all do naturally; somebody says, gosh, you are so good or you look so beautiful today to go, oh, stop. Well, in hypnosis, they call this a wipe. What we are all trained to think of, let it go. But what I say to her is, you already know I said, did you hear it crack, I get her to acknowledge that she did it. And then I say, you already know how to make a crack.
I wiped away and I put the thought in her head that I wanted her to think. So now what I’ve done is I’ve shifted her mindset from learning a skill to knowledge of a skill, just shortened her learning curve. Now I say, here’s something else. I promise you won’t hurt me. I went right at her fear. Yeah, took it out of the equation. Sometimes when you’re leading somebody to something stressful, you got to lie to them. You have to realize it’s their circumstances, their situation. It’s their experience.
If you’re a leader, then you’re leading them. You’re not dragging them. You’re not a dragger. I have to meet her where she is. So once I say I promise you’re not going to hurt me. Just look right where you want to hit and cast your fishing rod. They go Kapow and they knock the target right out of my hand every time.
It literally proves a couple of things. It proves that anybody can do anything if they get out of their own way. It also proves to her that her timidity that she had of being timid is because fears. She just went on stage and 1000s of people just told her she was an action hero. Because she’s just a Rock star, right? And so she has a real life changing experience. Everybody in the audience who knows her as a timid person goes, oh, my God, I can’t believe the things she did.
So it’s a huge experience. And that, to me, that’s the best thing, being of service to that many people at once. I think that anybody, anybody can achieve anything in their life. As long as they manage their fear, leverage the present moment and remain flexible.
Jennifer:
Yeah. Oh, I love that so much. John, I could talk to you all day. This is all so fascinating. I want to end by recapping on things you just said. Anybody can do anything if they just get out of their own way. That really sums it up so perfectly. So many great takeaways today. Thank you so much for being here. Can you share where people can find you if they want more of your amazing brilliance and wisdom? They want to learn how to crack a full whip. Where can they find you?
John:
Well, let me before I give you my website, let me give you one more thing. I want to give the audience a gift today. And it’s my Five Fs workbook. It’s a free gift, and when I say free, I mean free. It means you go there, you download the book, you won’t even have to give me an email address. I’m not collecting your names. It’s about giving, service today, not taking from you. Go there, get the book. I guess since you’re on my website anyway, look around and check it out. See, if you find things you like.
I have a daily vlog in there, I put out daily motivation. If you don’t want to do it on my website, you can find me on YouTube, Corporate Action Hero. But every day I put out a small piece of motivation to keep us moving. Other than that, you can find me on corporateactionhero.com. On there, you’ll find LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. All the links are there. But corporateactionhero.com is where you can find me. If you want the gift, you have to actually go to corporateactionhero.com/gift, because you won’t find it on my website. It’s a secret just for you people.
Jennifer:
Oh, I love it. I love it. We’ll put that in the show notes you guys. So when you go to bestplannerever.com, I think it’s under blog actually, we do a blog for each of our podcasts. We’ll definitely put the link in there for corporateactionhero.com/gift to get the free gift. You don’t even have to put in your email address which is so awesome. Absolutely love the Five Fs so much so you guys, a great valuable download to go and grab.
Wonderful John. Thank you so much for being here with us today. So many truth bombs, like one right after another after another. So many great things. I always love hearing these things. You know, even so we hear it, we quote know it or whatever but mindset and just always hearing things over and over and over. I’m always so grateful. It’s such a gift. And you said so many things today that me personally, I’m just so grateful to hear. So thank you. Thank you so much for being here with us today.
John:
Well, thank you. It’s been an absolute pleasure. And for your audience, just remember today’s choices are tomorrow’s outcomes.
Jennifer:
Absolutely. I love that. What a great way to end. Alright, you guys. I hope you got as much from today’s episode as I did. Thank you so much for listening. Now get out there and go have a Happy Productive day.