FYE 36 | Success Mindset

 

The key to success starts with believing in yourself and what you can do. It’s all about learning how to be awesome by changing your mindset. Erik Swanson is an acclaimed keynote speaker, author, success coach, and President/CEO of Habitude Warrior International. Erik joins host Michelle Seiler Tucker to teach you how to embody your awesomeness and get one step closer to achieving your success! He also talks a bit about an exciting new project with the first volume of his books series, The 13 Steps To Riches. Tune in for inspiring messages and lessons on mindset from Mr. Awesome himself!

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How To Be Awesome: The Mindset To Success With Erik Swanson

I’m excited to have my very good friend, Erik “Awesome” Swanson on the show. Erik Swanson and I have a lot of things in common, but one of the biggest things is Brian Tracy. Brian Tracy is Erik Swanson’s mentor. He also wrote a glowing testimonial for my book, Exit Rich. Let’s talk a little bit about Erik. He has many credentials. His bio was long, so I had to shorten it to a couple of paragraphs. Erik is an award-winning International Keynote Speaker, ten times Number One National Bestselling Author in five different categories of success. Erik is in great demand all around the world, speaking on stages to more than a million people per year. That’s almost as big as Tony Robbins, maybe bigger. He’s also been invited to speak at Harvard University and he’s a member of the TED Talk Family with his latest TED Talk speech called A Dose of Awesome. Erik, welcome to the show.

FYE 36 | Success Mindset

Success Mindset: At the very least, build yourself up. And then everything will flow around you in a great positive way.

 

Thank you so much, Michelle. It’s great to see you. I love you and all that you’re doing.

Thank you. Tell our audience a little bit more about Awesome Swanson. How did you get that title?

I appreciate it. Thank you very much for bringing me on the show. It’s great to be with your awesome audience. I got started many years ago with Brian Tracy. He was my very first mentor. I ended up working with him. I came from a waiter’s background, so I waited tables. I was a server for years. In my first 25 years, I was a server, and I’m still a server if you know what I mean. I went from serving to serving. Brian taught me the value of building ourselves as a business and helping people on this journey of success. I was in. I didn’t even know Brian Tracy at first. I had to ask people, “Who is this guy Dick Tracy? I don’t know who Dick Tracy is.” They’re like, “No, it’s Brian Tracy.” I asked a very respectable gentleman named Buddy Schilling, who was one of my mentors in my early years.

Buddy is a huge mogul in real estate over in Austin, Texas. He owns tons of real estate and has lots of agents and so forth. He would come in every Thursday to have his whiskey with one ice cube. I remember this now. He would come in and he’s like, “What’s going on, Erik?” He would always request for me because he wanted to be positive and he wanted to be left alone at the same time. I would always wait on him. I said, “This week, some gentlemen came in, Dick Tracy or something and his manager. They asked me if I like to travel and make money, and if I want to train. It sounds like one of those weird things, right?” He goes, “Do you mean Brian Tracy?” I said, “Maybe?”

I showed him the business card. He’s like, “Drop what you’re doing, take the menus, and go over to the gentlemen over there. Wear a mistletoe on the back of your belt.” You’ll get it soon. It’s one of those jokes that you’ll get it afterwards. “Walk over to your manager in the restaurant and say, ‘It’s been great but I’ve got to go. I’ve got to work on amazing awesomeness, and that’s myself,” and I walked out. I gave him a two-week notice of course.

On January 5th, 1998, I started with Brian Tracy. That’s my first start and then the nickname Mr. Awesome came around because Brian kept on calling it. Les Brown saw me coming off stage one time when I was speaking at an event in Scottsdale. It might have been at Sharon’s Event. I’m not sure if you were there but Les looks at me and he goes, “You’re Mr. Awesome.” I’m like, “Thank you,” so it stuck. That’s me.

You should be your own best amazing cheerleader.

You left the restaurant waiting tables to go mentor with Brian Tracy. He was your mentor. Were you working for him or are you in a program?

No, I was working for him directly.

He used to come to your restaurant. You used to wait on him. He saw something in you and he was like, “I need him to work for me.” Is that how that happened?

One of his managers was there, then he came to the restaurant. It’s called Mezzaluna in Austin, Texas. If you guys are from Texas, you know what I’m talking about. I was waiting on all these individuals and one of the individuals was the manager of Brian Tracy. Brian had, at that point, had about 3 or 4 entities that would promote and help build the Brian Tracy brand. This was one of those brands. Brian was at the helm. They saw potential in me.

It was the manager, not Brian Tracy.

Brian was there as well but the manager was the one who was recruiting me on. I say this not for my purpose but for the purpose of the audience. They saw something in me, meaning do what I call the 30 List. Write down 30 reasons why some people should see some things in you. You should be your own best amazing cheerleader. I get up in the morning, I yawn and I high-five myself. I’m not even kidding. You got a high five yourself. Brian Tracy told me this. He used to see the play, Cyrano de Bergerac. There’s a line in there. I don’t know the line but it was like, “At least, please yourself. At least, talk to yourself in a great way. At the very least, build yourself up and everything will flow around you in a great positive way.”

They saw something in me there, which is great. I can look at it and go, “They saw something in me. I should have seen something in me as well.” Anyway, to bring it full circle, I ended up getting recruited onto the Brian Tracy team that was called Brian Tracy International Program. I became a senior trainer within a year and then I worked for him for about seven more years, so eight years total. I told him one time, I said, “Brian, there are three things that are going to happen.” He’s like, “What’s that?” I go, “I promise you three things. One, you’re going to be sharing stages with me sometime. Number two, I’m going to be making at least $1 million a year because of your mentorship right off the bat. Going from waiting tables to working with you. Number three, I’m going to be driving a Porsche 911 or a Maserati.”

I hit all of those within a year and a half to two years of working with him. About two years later, I ended up sharing the stage with him. If we have the Olympics on now, it’s like passing the baton. I’ve got a whole story on this. I won’t bore you with it but he basically passed the baton. What’s the baton? It’s a microphone. He literally looked at me and there were 2,000 people in this room. It was at the Javits Center in New York City, and I was brand new at this whole thing. I had my confidence but I was still nervous. We were losing the crowd because they came to see Brian. Brian turns to me as he’s coming down the steps. They had steps going straight down for some reason, not to the side of the stage.

We’re high up on the stage and I came up. He looks at me down at the bottom of the stairs. He comes down the stairs, three steps, he squares me off, he turns me around literally by my shoulders. He’s 6’2” and I’m 6’2” as well, and he grabs his back, clip and hands me the microphone. He looks at me and goes, “Start talking now.” Those are the three things he said to me. He says, “Don’t even put on the clip, just start talking,” and he puts it into my mouth and I started talking. Brian Tracy introduced me.

How did it go?

It was awesome. I did a 45-minute training on how to remember people’s names and how to build confidence in others, so you build confidence in yourself as well.

What do you think that they saw in you that you didn’t see in yourself?

I did see it in myself. A lot of people don’t see it in themselves. I saw it in myself. I think a lot of us need reminders.

What was that one thing they saw in you and said, “This guy could be good, I’m going to get him away from waiting tables?”

FYE 36 | Success Mindset

Success Mindset: Say, “This too shall be awesome”, because then it trains your mindset to let you know that this will be awesome if you allow it to.

 

I’ll give you the root amazing cause of these effects. The cause is changing lives. That’s the one thing they saw in me because of these three things. When you said, “What’s the one thing?” I was going to say there are probably three things. The three things of traits that I believe that I have is one, I smile through adversity.

I don’t think I have ever seen you not smiling.

You and I have been to countless events that we share stages at. You’ve been on my stage, Habitude Warrior. There are 33 speakers, and there are 300 to 400 people in the audience. Things go on and I’m running this whole thing, and I got to keep a smile. Long story short, one of the traits that I believe I have is I’ll smile through adversity. Do you know how the saying, “This too shall pass?” I don’t say that anymore. I say, “This too shall be awesome,” because then it trains your mindset to let you know that this will be awesome if you allow it to, then you have to dig deeper and say, “What are the 2 or 3 things that I can do to make it awesome?” It’s like Exiting Rich.

How many people are exiting and dying with their song inside them still like Wayne used to tell us? You teach people how to take these principles of success and the things that you have to do. It’s like a checklist. I have my own checklist. That checklist shows up. I say PEA, so you have to PEA every day. That stands for you got to be Positive, Energetic and Awesome. My traits were that I would always show up and conquer whatever it was. That’s number one. The second trait was I correlated everything I did in business exactly like I would do when I’m going out there on a date. By the way, I’m still single. Just letting you know. I chose to be single.

Here’s the deal. You think about what’s the purpose of a date. Some people will get this wrong. A lot of people will. The purpose for me to go on a date is to get a second date. The same thing that Brian Tracy asked me, “What’s the purpose of a client?” A client is to get them to meet a new client, another client and a referral client. I do the same thing with dating. When I go out on a date, I want to make sure that that person, that young lady will say, “I had such a great time. I feel good.” Subconsciously, they’re going to feel this here and here. At night or the next morning, they’re going to say, “I want more of that. What was that? Last night, I went to dinner, I had a good time, I laughed and I talked about my favorite person in the world,” themselves. That’s the way I do it. Number one, my trait was I would show up and look adversity in the eyes and say, “I got this.” Number two, make it fun when you show up. Number three is never quit.

They saw those three traits in you when they came to the restaurant when you waited on them?

Since you asked this question, which I love the question, I’ve never been asked this before. You know I do these probably 3 or 4 summits and podcasts every week. You and I are very similar in this. I’ve never been asked a question like what you just said. Now, I’ve got this answer. The answer is what they saw in me was the end result. The end result was, I would help countless individuals, including them in their business, Brian Tracy’s business, as well as myself. That’s what leverage is all about, but also the world. That’s the real result of what I do.

NDSO: No drama, serve others.

How quick did they make that assessment? How many times did they visit the restaurant?

The manager was there twice. I met Brian once. I met him on December 12th, 1998. It’s like a date that you remember. They flew me to Denver, Colorado. I met him there. There were 3,000 people on stage and I met him once there. They were supposed to send me through the training but they saw so much training in me already. They’re like, “We’re putting you in the wolves now. Let’s go.” They threw me to Seattle. It was my first event. I would go there and I would do all the training in advance. I was the advanced trainer for Brian Tracy.

Where would Erik Swanson end up if Brian Tracy never stepped foot in that restaurant and you didn’t wait on him?

The same place. Without a doubt. It’s not Brian. It’s me allowing myself to take that opportunity.

You don’t think if he didn’t walk in, you wouldn’t meet him, and he recruited you, do you think you would’ve stayed in the same place?

It would have been a different timeline. Maybe a month here, two months here, a year here or a year there.

The same place that you wouldn’t have been waiting tables.

Yes, I would be in the same place I’m in now, ten times number one bestselling author, etc. I would be in the same place. It would have been a different road to get there. How do you get to San Jose?

That’s an amazing story. I always look at my waiters too and say, “I should recruit this person.”

It’s great to look at servers, waiters or people in the serving industry because I got hired to wait tables in the first place because it was all about your personality. Why do you go to the restaurant? You’re going there to eat some great food. Maybe you’re going there to be left alone. Most of the time or 80% of the time, you’re there for the ambiance to experience it. It’s the experience. Not only the food but also the experience of the restaurant. I capitalized on that right away.

I would walk up to every table. I’d go up and I’d count them. Let’s say you, Taylor and your whole family are there. I would count them. I wouldn’t say a word and they would see me counting. I would go like, “1, 2, 3, 6 tequila shots coming right up.” They would laugh, then 1 out of 5 tables would say, “Do that. Get six, go ahead. It’s on us.” My check would go up higher. I will get a $50 tip right there because of the tequila.

Erik, what do you feel are your core competencies? What makes you so unique? What do you do better than everybody else?

It’s a tough answer to a tough question because I don’t believe that I’m that unique from everyone else. That’s the reason why it’s a tough question. All of us have it in us. We’re just not finding it. There’s a book years ago, I read called the Passion Test. I believe we all need to look at what our passions, core competencies and attributes are. That’s where I use the 30 List. Thirty reasons why someone should work with you or surround themselves with you.

Why 30? That seems quite extensive.

I’ll tell you why 30 because it’s easy to do 5 to 10. You can write down on a blank piece of paper 5 to 10 reasons why someone should work with you. You can name five attributes that you bring to the table when I call you up, which I’ve done. How many times have I done this? I text you and I say, “Michelle, I want to introduce you to somebody? Are you cool with that?” You’re like, “Of course,” and I connect the dots. What are the five reasons why I should introduce you to that individual? First, you need to figure out who that individual is. I said, “It’s someone from Shark Tank.” You’d go, “We’ll let them know these five things very quick,” and you got those. The next 5, 10 or 20 are going to be a little tougher. Where do you get those? I’m not asking for 60 or 90. That’s literally getting a book and writing a book about yourself. Don’t do that.

Have a 30 List and the first 5 to 10 are a bit easy but then work with those other ones. How do you find those other ones? Here’s the key. You ask your existing clients, past clients, friends or family, be careful with friends and family because some of our friends and family don’t even know what the heck we do. Ask those people you trust and say, “Could you give me 2 or 3 things that you believe I’m great at? I’m compiling a cheerleader list for myself.” It’s fantastic. I’m going to ask you. What are three things you love? I’m on your show right here. You reached out and put me on your show. Why is that? What are the three things that you believe in Erik Swanson, Mr. Awesome? Why do you trust the fact that I would do such a great job with you?

I think first and foremost is your energy. You’re contagious.

I’m contagious, not going to say that in a pandemic.

Energy contagious. You got amazing energy and you’re always so positive. You’re great at networking. You always know how to connect the dots and who to introduce who to. I think those are the reasons. We’re all contagious.

I remember we shared some moments with Frank. It’s who you surround yourself with. I have a saying that this is what I live by. NDSO, which stands for No Drama, Serve Others. It’s all about serving others.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if everybody adopted that philosophy? We have a lot less fights.

It’s easy to do.

Let’s talk about your daily habits because you’re all about habits. Tell me about your daily habits other than giving yourself a high five.

I’ll give you a few of them really quick. Do you like the frog in the room? Do you know why there’s a frog in the room?

Why is there a frog in the room?

It’s because Brian Tracy, being the mentor that he is and an amazing gentleman, wrote a book called Eat That Frog. It’s always a constant reminder to eat that frog. That means do the hardest things first. The rest will go down easier.

That’s what I’ve always said and taught my team. Do the biggest and hardest things first, then everything else is a piece of cake.

That’s true. I’ll give you an example. If you see some of my books like Sales Habitude. It’s all about habits and attitude for salespeople. That took me about a year and a half to two years to write. The next one was Social Millions, which took me less than a year to write, then Crush and Dominate, which took me about three months to write it. It gets easier, doesn’t it? It’s amazing how the concepts flow and you’re in this flow state. Quick habits that I do every day. One is I write.

Do you write every day? At what time? Do you have a set time?

A little bit of every day, 30 minutes.

Do you have a set time that you get up and write or is it whenever you can get to it?

I do it in the morning, but I will extend it to about a 2:00 to 3:00 time period because it’s nice, serene and quiet during that time for me. That’s number one. Anyway, I’d write every day.

Are you writing every day for a new book or something else? What are you writing every day for?

I’m writing every day to include in my future books but not for a specific book. I learned this from Brian Tracy. Brian, don’t get mad at me for saying this. If you go to any bookstore, anywhere and get a Brian Tracy book, which I highly recommend you do if you don’t have one yet, what happens is you’ll open up focal point, maximum achievement, or accelerated learning techniques. I have a whole stack of Brian’s books in front of me over here in this library. I have the Sharon Lechter library right here in front of me.

Where’s the Seiler Tucker library?

I’ve got your books scattered everywhere. Brian Tracy has this unique way of writing concepts. What he does is he logs them in certain folders on his computer. He has a team that writes the books with him or helps him write the books, not write it for him and the topic. Let’s say, this book is on time management. He’ll pull anything that has to do with time management and those strategies he’s written over the year. He’ll edit that book, and there’s another book. If you read a lot of his books, you’ll see similarities in the concepts but it all gears towards that genre for that book. It’s cool. I write every day. I also do what I call the what-the-heck calls. Three of them and it looks like this.

You pick up your phone, either your iPhone or your other silly phone that everyone else uses. What you do is you do the what-the-heck call. I’ll look through my speed dial and I’ll say, “What the heck, I’ll call Michelle,” and say, “Michelle, what’s going on?” You know that. You get random texts from me every now and then. That’s the what-the-heck calls. I’ll say, “I was thinking about you.” I did this with Larry Wilcox, Jon from CHiPS. I connected the dots with him and somebody else in regard to this water purification company that they are now maybe partnering up with.

It’s cool stuff. The what-the-heck calls get you in front of it. It’s almost like what Brian and Tony used to talk about, which is called TOMA. TOMA stands for Top Of Mind Awareness. The what-the-heck calls simply get me to the top of the list on their mindset to say, “I’m going to this event. Erik would be perfect for this. Let me ask him what his speaker fee is.” It’s an easy thing to do, but the what-the-heck calls are fantastic to do.

How many of those do you do?

FYE 36 | Success Mindset

Success Mindset: It’s not just the attitude of the owner or the CEO or the founder or the team leader. It’s really the culture that you’re developing through the team.

 

Three a day and they seem to work. I’ll tell you what happens. I’m positive you’re exactly the same way. I’ve heard this countless times. Do you know the EF Hutton line years ago? “When Erik Swanson calls, people answer and I’m serious.” I’ve heard that so many times. Our dear friend, Frank Shankwitz, used to say this all the time. He’s like, “I’ve got to drop it. Erik is calling. What’s going on?” He always answers because he knows I got something cool to talk about.

He used to say it when I call him too. He says, “Michelle, you don’t call me very often, but when you do, I know it’s going to be important.”

What the what-the-heck calls do for you is it allows the receiver to not just think that it’s a specific timeline.

It can be text, too. It doesn’t have to be phone calls.

It can be a voice text. It’s great.

Do you have your top 5, 10 or 15 new connections you want to make every single month? Do you do a list like that?

I call it The elephant list. I write about it in the book, Crush and Dominate: 13 Strategies to Piss Off Your Competitors. I read it about there and what I do is I write down a list. It’s literally what’s called an elephant list. I write down ten names that I want to connect with over the next six months. It’s six degrees of separation. It’s a true degree of separation. I put Oprah on the list one time, and I met and shared the stage with Stedman Graham. I’m like, “I’ve got one degree of separation now. I’m getting closer.”

Have you met her? I met Stedman Graham too. I spoke on stage with him.

Stedman is a dear friend.

I haven’t met Oprah yet. Have you?

I have not yet but we will. Let’s put it in the universe. I’ll tell you what, once I get the call from Oprah, I’ll do the what-the-heck call and call you at the same time, so you’ll be on the phone with us. The list is called the elephant list. I literally write down on a piece of paper ten names I want to surround myself with over the next six months that are influential people that I don’t know yet. I did that with Joe Dispenza. I’ve heard tons of great things about him and now I’m sharing a stage with him. It works in the universe.

What percentage of success do you have on that ten? If you have the top ten, do you connect with 5 or 3 of them, on average?

80% to 90%.

That’s pretty good.

I think this concept from Brian Tracy because I’m a very good learner. Many years ago, I took this concept from Brian. Let’s say here’s a list of goals and he’ll say, “Write down ten goals that you want to accomplish over the next twelve months. Take it and put it somewhere. Put it in inside a book or something and put it back wherever.” About 2 or 3 years later, when you’re moving to another place or you’re doing some redecorating, you’ll look at that and you’ll start check-marking all of them.

It’s like the vision board.

It’s a mental goal list. Eight to ten of these I will accomplish. It’s the same thing with Brian. I took that concept and I put it towards meeting people, what I call the elephant list. Here’s the secret though. You put it on the front of the page, then at the back of this, what you do is you put what I call the donkey list. This is the cool part. On the front, you have the elephant list of who you want to meet. These are the people I’m interviewing, but who do you want to meet over the next six months, and then on the back, you put ten people that you should not be surrounding yourself with that are taking up so much of your time.

Do the hardest things first, the rest will go down easy.

Don’t you have anybody on the back of your list?

This isn’t the real list. I have a list. This is only an example I was using for you. You have that donkey list who are the people that’s taking up so much of your time. How many people want to pick your brain? One of my websites is PickTheBrain.com. They go to it and they see an invoice for me. Stop allowing yourself to get rid of your presence. I heard one time from one of the master members of my mastermind. She says, “Your presence should be a premium.” I love that.

Be careful of surrounding yourself with these people. They’re not bottom feeders, but they’re people who want to bring you down. My answer to them is, “I wish I could hang out with you but I’m busy. I have an appointment.” People ask me, “What if you don’t have an appointment?” My answer is, “You always have an appointment. Who’s your appointment with? Yourself.” It’s easy.

What you’re saying is it’s 10% skills and 90% attitude. How do you think attitude contributes to success for entrepreneurs and business owners? In my opinion, It’s everything. I always say, “You’ll never grow the business beyond what you can grow the owner.”

I’ll take it one step further. It’s not only the attitude of the owner, CEO, founder or team leader. It’s the culture that you’re developing through the team. I’ve learned that the hard way. I’ll publicly say it right now. No names, of course. It’s amazing how sometimes a positive industry can sometimes or a lot of times be negative out there. There is some cutthroat information from people out there. What I do is surround myself with the right people who are there to serve. On one of my vehicles, I literally have this as one of my license plates, No Drama, Serve Others because it’s all about that. It’s all a reminder. I was in somewhat of a rat race of my own.

I want to share something also. I noticed over here you’ll see the red velvet ropes. I have this in my peripheral mindset in my view. I also have things in front of me in my view that make a big difference in your life. I do videos, podcasts, interviews and summits. I’ll share an example. I have something in front of me. It’s me. It’s a flyer that my team passes out while I’m on stage. It’s simply all my books or part of my books or whatever. You have this in front of you. I learned this from a great friend of mine, Marie Diamond from The Secret. She talks about Feng Shui and which direction you’re facing. The real trick or technique is to make sure you’re facing yourself to give yourself accolades of awesomeness. You’ve got to pump yourself up.

A lot of us have teams, yet we’re alone a lot of the time. You’ve got to pump yourself up in certain ways. Getting back to what I was saying before, which is attitude. Attitudes play a huge part. A lot of us work with people who have attitude. I was in a rat race of my own because I placed myself, I put myself, and I designed this probably by accident that I was the racehorse, meaning I worked with Brian. Brian was a racehorse, then I moved up to that racehorse position in my company, and then everyone around me, what they were doing is they were promoting me in all the different places in the cities, in the US, internationally as well, in Canada and so forth. If I didn’t show up, they didn’t make money.

I was in a certain position where I was doing myself harm rather than helping the situation. We had a pandemic. The pandemic revamped a lot of our culture. My culture changed right away. I said, “No more negativity,” because they weren’t interested in me. They were interested in their pocketbook and that was it. They knew they had a Maserati and a Ferrari in their hands, and that’s fine. I’m happy that I made them millions of dollars. At this point, I’m going to surround myself with the team members that are growing for the right reasons. Still making big money but they will learn what I’m doing so they can emulate that as well. I’m not the only racehorse because if the racehorse is sick or has a bad ankle one day. What happens? Production goes down.

That’s what we always talk about on Exit Rich. It’s how to build the business to run without you. When you have a business, the problem in the business is you. I’m sure you’re looking at that going forward saying, “How do I build this empire like Tony Robbins had to do an ESOP to sell to his employees?” T. Harv Eker, a millionaire mindset started Peak Potentials. What is Erik Swanson doing so he can exit rich when he’s ready?

I’ve already done it. That’s a good point. My day now consists of 90 minutes a week or every week being on these guys. My team does all the rest of the stuff. We have over 100 mastermind members now. Everything is in the works and it’s amazing.

What are you doing the rest of your time?

I literally have shorts on.

You can be like David Corbin and say, “I’m not wearing any.”

This is a San Diego suit. You wear your watch and shirt, and you’re good to go. Bless these people’s hearts like our buddy Bill Walsh. You and I know Bill Walsh very well. He’s a great buddy of mine. Do you know what his schedule is? It’s crazy. He’s in two cities every day. Not one but two.

He’s even got a family.

He’s got kids and family and so forth. What I do is as soon as we’re done, I’m off to play with my dog, go down to the beach, and hang out. Do a little bit of writing and help the team. My goal these days is to help the team grow so that they become the number one bestselling authors and award-winning speakers, and they can grow the business. The masterminds are amazing because now we have global speakers and we have Habitude Warrior. I’d like to invite you to be on our Global Speaker’s Mastermind. I’d love to interview you. We have about a year and a half. You’re going to hate me, but I kid you not. April 2022 is our next availability, so if you’d like that spot, let me know.

Let’s get all of our audience to email Erik and petition to get me to speak sooner than April 2022. Sign me up for April. I think it’s a good way for entrepreneurs, business owners to step outside their comfort zone and start their own mastermind within their organization, industry and community. Would you agree?

FYE 36 | Success Mindset

The 13 Steps to Riches – Habitude Warrior Volume 1: DESIRE with Denis Waitley

Absolutely. In fact, to your audience, if they want to, go to DecideToBeAwesome.com and seek this out. What we’re doing is we have something called Coach-To-Coach Global. It’s a program where we teach the entrepreneur or the person that says, “I’m sick of the rat race. I’m sick of driving everywhere and going there to see them. I want them to come to see me. I want to be here an hour a week or an hour and a half.” I have a new theory. It’s called the 90-Minute Theory. What I’m doing now is everything. Anything and everything should be 90 minutes or less. Anything that I do, 90 minutes or less. If I’m going to dinner or a bike ride, 90 minutes or less.

Why 90 minutes or less?

It’s a great sweet spot for me.

For a day, 90 minutes or less?

Yes, that’s good, so you’ve got to get another one. I’m covered because if the date goes well and it goes into a different room, 90 minutes is still fine. How long are weddings? 90 minutes. How long are funeral services? 90 minutes roughly. Your speech should not be more than 90 minutes. How long is this show? Probably an hour, but if you have a Q&A at the end. That’s what we do for our masterminds, it’s 90 minutes. It’s a very good sweet spot. I’m getting back to your question. I was mentioning that we have something called Coach-To-Coach Global. Masterminds are the way to go. It’s awesome.

Anybody can do it.

You pick your niche and figure out what you want to focus on and what you want to share with the audience. You don’t have to be all crazy like I am. You can be awesome in your own way, whatever that is. I was talking to my friend, Laura, and she keeps on asking me like, “How are you doing? What’s going on?” She always checks in on everybody on Bill, on you, on Sharon, on me. She wants to see what’s going on in the playing field of what we do. I keep on telling her, I said, “Everything is awesome. What are you talking about?” She’s like, “How do you feel this is happening?” The last question she asked me was, “Do you feel like you’re going to get out? Are you sick of pandemic and being in the Zoom land?” I said, “No, all I want to do is Zoom, Zoom.com.” I swear I have that.

I have 217 URLs directed to three websites. My point is this, I told her straight out, I said, “Do I want to get out there and do events like our Habitude Warrior Conferences?” Three-day conference, 33 speakers. You are on it. You’re an alumnus. Yes, I want to do this. They’re fun. They’re great. Do I have to? Absolutely not. I don’t have to do anything else anymore. All I have to do is build other people’s businesses by helping them through the content that I’ve already learned for many years. That means Coach-To-Coach Global, teach them that way or have them join our masterminds.

What is your secret sauce in building businesses? I know mine. What is yours?

Mine is just being there, being present and literally diving deep with that individual, but also finding out what their end result is. Find out what your team player’s goal strategy is. What’s their end result? What’s the reward that you can set up for them? I bought a bunch of these guys. I don’t even know what these are. I don’t know how to use them, but they’re the new Apple headset, and it’s this brand-new cool thing. I don’t even know how to use it but I got those so that I could do some contests for the team so that they get excited about stuff. It’s all about getting the elevation of attitude up.

Awesome Swanson, any last-minute thoughts for our audience?

Go to Decide To Be Awesome and join our mastermind.

What does Awesome Swanson want on his tombstone?

I don’t want to. I’d rather live.

Yes, but when you do, what do you want to be known for? What do you want people to remember you for?

It’s going to be tough. It’s going to be a long tombstone.

We don’t have that much time.

It’s going to be a long tombstone. That’s all I’m saying.

It’s going to be a 6’2″ tombstone.

Obviously, that way but the tombstone is going to go up to heaven. There’s a reason why it’s going to say, “Erik Swanson mentored,” and it will be all these people that I mentored through their lives. That’s what I want. I want them all to come over and high-five the tombstone. That’s a good idea, Michelle. I’m going to have an imprint of my hand. It’ll be in the cement of the tombstone. You can come up and high-five my tombstone. Do you know how many people do not have that? The world. Nobody has that. That’s hilarious.

I realized that somebody might go out and get it.

Don’t do it or don’t get buried near me.

Any last-minute thoughts? Any words of wisdom or golden nuggets?

Be you. Decided to be awesome. Go there. Join our tribe.

Tell everybody about your latest book, 13 Steps to Riches.

It is based on the Think and Grow Rich principles. I called my friend Don Green, who’s the President of Napoleon Hill Foundation. I said, “I’ve got this great idea.” He’s like, “Do it. It’s a great idea.” I came up with the principle of 13 Steps to Riches which is literally what’s written in Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. What I did is it’s a full-fledged book of amazingness. I have 33 authors in there and thirteen celebrity authors in a thirteen-book series. This is volume one with Dr. Dennis Waitley. He wrote his chapter in this particular book with the other 33 of us. The next books that are coming out are every two months. We have another book. You have all these different individuals that are cool, New York Times Bestselling friends of mine who are awesome.

Stop allowing yourself to get rid of your own presence.

This is a thirteen-book project or marketing strategy if you think about it. It’s marketing for who? It’s for all of the authors that are in here. We come out with this book every two months. This came out July 15th, 2021. The next one is on September 15th, 2021. The next one is on November 15th, 2021 and so on for two years. I’m doing the same concept with 13 Steps, but it’s going to be based on David and Goliath. We are excited about that and we sell this app. It’s pay-to-play to be in it for the 33 authors. Of course, the celebrities don’t but it’s sold out in eight days for this one.

Thank you, Awesome Swanson, for being on the show. Thanks to all of our Exit Rich Show followers. Make sure you subscribe and share. Share with your friends and with everybody else that wants to be awesome. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Erik, for being awesome.

It’s my pleasure. Thank you very much, Michelle. Thanks for spending the time and keep on being awesome.

Thank you.

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About Erik Swanson

FYE 36 | Success MindsetAs an award-winning International Keynote Speaker, 10 Time #1 National Best- Selling Author in 5 different categories of success, Erik “Mr Awesome” Swanson is in great demand around the world! Speaking on average to more than one million people per year, and honored to be invited to speak to Business and Entrepreneurial school of Harvard University as well as joining the Ted Talk Family with his latest Tedx speech called “A Dose of Awesome.”

You can easily find Erik sharing stages with some of the most talented and famous speakers of the world, such as Brian Tracy, Nasa’s Performance Coach Dr. Denis Waitley, from the book & movie ‘The Secret,’ Bob Proctor, Jack Canfield, John Assaraf, Millionaire Maker Loral Langemeier, Co-Author of ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’, Outwitting the Devil, Three Feet from Gold, and Exit Rich, Sharon Lechter, Legendary Motivator Les Brown, among many others!

Mr. Swanson has created and developed the super popular Habitude Warrior Conference which has a 2-year waiting list and includes 33 top named speakers, all in a ‘Ted Talk’ style event that has quickly climbed as one of the top 10 events not to miss in the United States! Erik’s motto is clear: “NDSO!” No Drama – Serve Others! He has also created his Habitude Warrior Special Edition Book Series called 13 Steps to Riches which includes 13 powerhouse, famous celebrity authors as well as 33 up-and-coming bestselling authors and leaders. @HabitudeWarrior

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