Speaking is not everyone’s cup of tea. Many entrepreneurs and professionals find themselves struggling with this, especially when selling. Helping improve your speaking skills, Michelle Seiler Tucker is joined by world-renowned professional speaker, trainer, author, entrepreneur, and business strategist, James Dentley, to share some of his wisdom, tips, and tricks on becoming a better speaker. How can you become a better speaker when selling from the stage? Why are our voices and storytelling important to speaking? What are the biggest mistakes business owners make? Why are partnerships great? James answers these questions and more. Plus, he also shares his thoughts about the current political climate.
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How To Become A Better Speaker On Stage With James Dentley
I’m here with my very good friend James Dentley. James, welcome to the show. You had quite the entrepreneurial past and you have done many things that it’s hard to list them all. One thing that struck out to me is you’re empowering women and everything else.
I’ve been training speakers for many years and I’ve been teaching people how to start their own home-based business. It’s interesting because in teaching people how to start a business, I’ve stood in front of audiences of 20,000, 25,000 to over a million people. We’ve got about 83 people who’ve become millionaires because of that information, plugging it in and taking action towards it. It sounds impressive on one hand but on the other hand, it’s a very small percentage. When we teach people what to do, it’s amazing that most people still don’t go out and do it. When I began to train speakers, I wanted to make sure that they had a platform to speak on when they left.
When I would speak on those large stages, Michelle, and you may know this because you’re out there and speaking on these massive stages, people know you. I won’t name these organizations but I would speak there and make $425,000 in an hour. Somebody else would make $250,000 or $500,000 but there was only one woman that I ever saw in all the years on that circuit that was making big money, no minority women whatsoever, but there wasn’t an opportunity for women.
When I was building my speaker camp and training people, and they paid me good money to do it, I did the best I could to help them become successful. I wanted to create a platform that would take it further so they can be in control of their destiny. I teach them how to do their own events as well so they can control it because the message was so powerful and necessary. That’s how it began with Limitless was to create a platform for the people that became parts of our family so they can win, succeed and share empowerment information throughout the world.
That’s wonderful. Who was that female speaker?
Her name was Sherika. She used to be with Tony Robbins. She would take off her shoes, be in bare feet, and she would slay it. Before I got out there selling from a platform, I’d watched this woman making about $90,000 and it was a room of about 120 people. I said, “How do you do that?” She was so good with her content, but the important thing was what she delivered on the back end made a difference for the people that I met. Their lives were transformed because of that interaction. That’s why it’s important.
You’ve train lots of people, not just women on how to help their speaking career. What are your three biggest tips on how to be a better speaker especially if you’re selling from the stage? As you said, selling $425,000 an hour. That sounds good numbers to me.
First of all, what I teach is the psychology of the communication. How to use your voice like a soundtrack to a movie. That way, you can speak into the actual nervous system, into the listening of another person that’s right in front of you. If you understand that and understand personality types, and then you can paint. The main thing is you understand that psychology but then you have to be fully self-expressed and very honest, vulnerable and very you. Don’t be afraid to be yourself. A lot of people have a lot of fear or nervousness.
When a person is nervous, that’s because they’re thinking about themselves. What am I going to say? How am I going to look like? Am I going to miss a word? No, it’s never about you. It’s always about them. The main thing I would say is that for speakers, when we’re on the stage, we are the director and the audience is the star. We’re not the star of the show, we’re the director. Our job is to help the audience get their Oscar.
That’s easy to remember. I’ve spoken on many stages, you and I have shared stages together and I always get nervous. Now I’m going to keep telling myself, it’s not about me, it’s about the audience. What’s number two?
That’s the first part. The second part is when you understand how to use your voice. The second thing I would say is using your voice and owning the power of telling your story, whether it be the story of your company or your personal story, and how do you combine the two? In speaking, it’s not just becoming a professional speaker, you have to speak in a board room, when you want to get financial assistance, or in relationships. How do you use your voice and how do you tell your story? That’s the key. The magic is there because you want to get good at taking a person on a journey within themselves that they can never go on by themselves.
The third thing is that when you come into selling from the stage, you want to make sure you build out a program that has a maintenance plan. The great thing about that is people are going to spend good money to work with you and you’re going to get to know them. You’re building a community and people that will be entrenched in your life. What happens after they go home? Most people can slingshot right back into the norm because human beings do conform. What you want to do is create a maintenance plan or the next step for them to go in and make them a part of it. Remember that they’re not your competition. Rising tide afloat all boats. You do some magical things when you help empower other people. Always make sure that the question you have every single day is, how can we make the lives better of the people that we’re serving?
When you fill your imagination, you can monetize your skillset.
The first time I ever heard you speak, I’m like, “Is that Les Brown?” You’ve also worked with small businesses, not just speakers so you’re diversified. You’ve also worked with small businesses to help them build their business.
Small, medium and large businesses as well in my career. I went to Les Brown in 1994 or 1995 to find out how to tell a story. He started off being my mentor and we’d go back and forth. He calls me his coach because even the industry has shifted. It is a shifting industry. There’s a big difference between becoming a great speaker and running a business behind it. That’s one of the things I was able to bring. We’ve been brothers for many years. We sounded alike because we were silly together. I know if he was on your show, you had fun.
He’s a hoop, that’s for sure. What do you feel is the biggest mistake that you see business owners make? The business landscape has changed dramatically where it used to be that startups were at great risks for 1 to 5 years. Now, it’s not startups that are at risk anymore. As business owners have been in business for over ten years, 70% of them are at great risk of going out of business. That’s out of 27.6 million businesses. That’s before COVID and these businesses are dropping like flies. Based upon all your experience and your diversified background, what do you think are some of the biggest issues?
Number one, most businesses are running on old software. We live in an age of innovation. Every generation, children are speaking different in their language. Nobody is talking to them and asking them what do they want and what needs to happen. They’re trying to drive westward because something is working. You get good at it. You get bigger and big boats turn slow. I look at companies like McDonald’s for example, massive company, but when Dave started Wendy’s, he began to brand himself before, and then McDonald’s came back with Ronald McDonald. How do you create that brand? How do you look at what’s next? How do you stay ahead of the curve, set the trend, or be a great part of it to ride that wave by creating a tremendous amount of value? A lot of companies sometimes forget that. I can find so many people that get anchored in wanting to be right instead of wanting to be successful. It’s two different worlds.
I love that, wanting to be right instead of wanting to be successful. I agree with you about the software. The business owners who have been in this business ten years or longer have become so complacent and they stop asking their clients, what do you need? What do you want? How can I make it easier for you to do business with us? It’s all about their own agenda and not about the client’s agenda. They stopped innovating and marketing. I got a perfect example. I got a dance studio that my daughter goes to dance at and Hurricane Zeta wiped out the power.
She sends an email at 4:00 on a Monday saying that the studio is closed. My nanny had left early to get her to dance on time. I texted the owner and I said, “Can you text us the day you close so we’re not leaving early instead of sending emails? We get hundreds of emails. By the way, checking your private Facebook group.” She says, “It’s not an option to do that.” I said, “It’s an option to inconvenient your customers. I get it. It’s an option to inconvenient your clients. My IT guy can set up for you in two minutes.” She said, “We can set it up. We know how to do it. We’re just not doing it this year.” That stuff and that attitude right there is what causes people to go out of business. Would you agree?
Absolutely, but you have to realize that we can form as human beings. When they first invented the automobile, everybody had horses and they were riding it. They had to save money to own a horse. If you have horses you were somebody. That somebody wants to buy 10,000 horses because there weren’t roads. There weren’t service stations to fuel these cars. In the reality of looking at your mind, based on what your side is, you can see this happening anytime soon if it ever can work. They bought all these horses because most people suffer from a poverty of imagination. You combine that with a weakness of attention, where a person is not paying attention to what’s happening around them because sometimes, we get stuck in our world. The great thing about companies that understand why it’s important to bring people like yourself and myself is because we can help you see something you can’t see. We all have blind spots and you can’t see the label if your inside of the jar.
The business owners have to be receptive to it. That business owner obviously isn’t. Some business owners think they’re too big for the riches and think, “I’m going to be in business no matter what.” If you keep providing bad service, you’re going to be out of business rather quickly.
Those things happen. That’s like the frog in the pot. It happened slow. You cook up and the next thing you know, you’re done, you’re a soup. When it hits the fan, they want to change fast but it doesn’t work that way. The key thing is to keep inspiring people to think of a world that has not yet been created. Robert F. Kennedy said, “Some see the world as it is and ask why, others see the world as this could become and say why not?”
We’re in the why not cloud. There are many great business owners out there trying to do the right thing, trying to provide the right customer or client service, trying to take care of their clients, trying to make life easier for their clients and for themselves, but they’re still struggling. What tips do you have for business owners in nowadays age with COVID and everything else that’s happening? At Louisiana, we have a double whammy. We have COVID and then we have the hurricanes.
It’s true. Sometimes a hurricane washes the disease right out of the way. It’s about being able to pivot. I go back to the poverty of imagination. I remember Target and Walmart stores. We used to go there to buy back-to-school clothes and house goods. They said, “Why don’t we go ahead and compete with Toys “R” Us?” They got a toy department and they can buy their pricing a lot lower because it was so massive and, “How come we can’t compete a little bit with Home Depot. We don’t need lumber but the smaller things you need for your house, we can supply that.” They then went against OfficeMax and Office Depot. They wipe Circuit City off the face of the planet so Best Buy.
There’s always a way to create because money goes where it is invited, and it stays where it’s welcome.
They had the pharmacy where you have to sit there. They know how they use the music because the music gets you want to buy. Everything is set. They knew how to stimulate your nervous system and play in your subconscious to get you to enjoy the experience. If you’re hungry, there are Subway sandwich shops, some of them have Starbucks and McDonald’s. If you want a bakery, you need to get a cake or fresh bread, you have it there. Every weekend, my mom would take all of us to the grocery store, seven stops.
We had to go to the grocery store on Saturday. They figured it out. They figured it out and along came a guy who was selling all these books, the greatest book salesman in the world, Amazon. When they built it up, they realized that they were great at fulfillment. You know these stories. They were great at selling books but then they were better at fulfillment. They got the AWS and they spread it out. Now they can market everything and everybody is trying to catch up. What they understood at the end of the day, if you can service a customer and give them great value, great prices better than anyone else can do, then you go in.
You had said what I’ve been saying for years, whoever makes it easiest to do business with that company are the ones who are winning. It flabbergasts me. I was shocked by so many companies that make it hard to do business with them. You’re pleading with them, “Let me give you a check. Let me do business with you.” It’s so difficult. What I loved about Amazon’s story is like the Apple and McDonald’s story Amazon asked, what business are we in? which is the book business. All businesses should be asking themselves, what business are we in? What business should we be in?
That one little question and the answer to that question is going to catapult your business to the next level. That’s what Steve Jobs did when he came back to Apple. He said, “What business are we in?” They’re like, “Where in the computer business?” He said, “We don’t want to be in a computer business. We want to be in a communications business. No matter where we are, we have one of these. We can talk to each other around the world.” That’s what happened to McDonald’s too. Do you remember the McDonald’s story? The real McDonald’s by Ray Kroc.
The McDonald’s brothers tried to franchise it twice and couldn’t make it work.
Ray Kroc came in and he was in the bank trying to borrow money because he was over-leveraged. He put out a lien against his house. He was trying to borrow money because he wasn’t making any money. The bank said, “We’re not going to lend you any more money. You’re over-leverage.” He walked outside of the bank upset. Do you remember the guy that followed him out afterwards and asked him, “What business are you in?” Ray Kroc said, “We’re in the restaurant business.”
He said, “That’s not the business you’re in. What business are you in? You need to be in the real estate business because if you’re in the real estate business, then you have assets. You can borrow money against your assets plus you can lease the real estate to the franchisees. If the franchisees are not compliant, because back in those days, they were not compliant. You can terminate their franchise agreement and get another franchisee in there.” To this day, because of that one question that this gentleman asked, McDonald’s is the largest real estate holding company in the world. That’s what Amazon did. They ask that question, fulfillment.
They partnered with a great partner with Coca-Cola who’s the number one soda brand in the world.
Coca-Cola’s brand alone is worth $83 billion. That’s without cashflow inventory assets or anything. You and I always speak the same language because they’re not in the book business, they’re in the fulfillment business. They did what every company should be doing. Make it easier to do business with them.
They partnered up with everyone who had a product out there. They want to move. The best products, they brought them. The main thing was they didn’t have to get everything. You get anything from Amazon. They don’t have to own everything. The next thing is great partnerships and most people are afraid to partner.
A great partnership is huge. You said something very important. I don’t know if you realize how important it was. You don’t have to own everything. I talked to a company that’s crushing it. They’ve been in business for two years and they’re going to do $13 million in 2021. They have two independent contractors and two owners, and they don’t own anything.
I find this so easy nowadays. A lot of people think there’s so much scarcity but everything you need to succeed, everything has ever been created from the beginning of time has always been here. It didn’t reappear. We just didn’t see it or know what to do with it. That’s why I always talk about the poverty of imagination. When you fill that imagination up, you can monetize your skillset. I know people who are hoarders who have millions of dollars of crap in their house because their crap is somebody else’s glory. They got to get it out to the market like Craigslist and put it in the backyard. There’s always a way to create because money goes where it is invited and it stays where it’s welcome.
I say it too that there’s money all around us. Even during COVID, there are opportunities everywhere and like the Great Depression, there were more millionaires founded out at the Great Depression than ever before. The same is going to hold true with COVID. There are many business owners starting technology companies, educational align, etc., that are doing well. You got to open up your mind and you got to be transformational, not transactional.
You look at what Uber is doing and you look at companies like that. They’re innovating as we were preparing for driverless cars. In the meantime, they can move you around and all of a sudden, a person is going to take their vehicle and they have to own no cars. A multi-billion dollar company and they own no cars. They say they got more taxis in the world with no cars, and then they take the same cars and bring you food. COVID happens, nobody can come in, “Let’s bring it to you.” Some companies took a long time to make that shift.
It’s because people get stuck, they freeze and they panic. When you panic, you’re not doing anything and you need to do the opposite. You need to take massive action. What other chips do you have? What other golden nuggets do you have for us, Dr. Dentley?
I mentioned this, great partnership is a great joint venture. That’s the key. I remember Shell years ago. I walked into Kinko’s and I saw a Federal Express. That was the first time it hit me. Five years later, I would go through the drive-through restaurant, I would go to KFC, and there would be Pizza Hut in the KFC. Why are you doing pizza? You don’t get KFC if they get pizza. They saw something that was bigger about the strategy. If you go to McDonald’s, there’s going to be a Burger King and somebody else close to them.
They’ve already done all their homework. They already know what’s there. It’s a smart business. When you have that power of the joint venture, then you could do some phenomenal things. The second thing is that it’s better to have a small piece of something big than a big piece of something small. A lot of times as entrepreneurs, we want to own everything and we need to hold onto it because we’re afraid someone is going to take it from us. Think about it. What percentage of Microsoft does Bill Gates own?
I don’t even know anymore, probably very small.
A hundred five percent.
I was going to say 10%.
He makes billions of dollars. If you drop $200 bills on the ground, it costs him more money to stop and pick it up. We’re all people. Everyone can do it but sometimes, we have to get out of our environment. We have to seek excellence. We have to seek service, and we have to provide service. Service has to be the cornerstone and we have to invest in lifelong learning. There are some people who have been around forever and they’re brilliant, but they forget some of the things that they know that brought them there. I believe when you’re teaching, you’re learning again. Once taught, twice learn. Always evolve and surround yourself with other people who are doing it, just like we were at the VOA when we were down there. Les Brown always says, “You’re never too old to learn and you’re never too young to teach. You can learn something from everyone.”
If I remember correctly, Les Brown told me he reads 12 to 15 a month. That’s great advice too. One of the biggest issues is that business owners don’t hire their weaknesses. Entrepreneurs think that they need to do everything. That’s the biggest thing an entrepreneur needs to do is hire their weaknesses, focus on their strengths, hire people that are smarter than you. Align yourself with somebody who’s already been down the road you want to travel, which will shorten your path immensely.
A lot of times, it’s about continuously finding and keeping clarity. When you get into a mode of finding your clarity, you calm down. When you calm down, you can see things differently. You’re not in a rush. You’re not under stress. It’s like sitting on a hill on a beautiful day watching everything coming in slow motion. That’s why even Katrina happened or any disaster happens, the animals always know when to get out of there because everything in the universe speaks and it requires quiet times. We’re focusing with intention and calling at what we want, those answers will be revealed to us but it gets noisy.
We’ve got to calm down sometime and let it come to us. You ask yourself even better questions. How can I serve people? How can I serve humanity? How can I serve the planet, children, whatever it is? How can I serve at even a higher level? You ask that question and I promise to think good things and things improve if you keep asking the question because 95% of our life is driven by the subconscious. We don’t spend time feeding it and letting it to tap in.
Where the focus goes, energy flows. Every time I hear you on stage or I see you, or even when we hung out in Florida, I’m like, “Tell us about the dolphins, the whales and the personalities.”
Communication is something big for me and learning how to become a better communicator. I’ll say this. First of all, we’re having a women’s event that you’re speaking on December 11th, 12th and 13th, 2020. I believe the number one language we need to focus on in the world is gender. We have to learn to listen better. My wife still reminds me of that every week.
I remind my husband of that every week.
A lot of times, when you meet people, you’re interacting. Sometimes, people may rub you the wrong way or vice versa. Sometimes you communicate with them and it’s like they don’t hear you, or they get offended by it. That’s because we’re all anchored in our personalities. That’s where it begins. There’s a shape to our paradigms and the way we perceive our whole life growing up. I called them the dolphin, the shark, the urchin and the whale. This comes from personality plus. We all have all the personalities, but we anchor usually in 1, 2 or 3 of them.
You have to be competent, but you have to care about the average person.
The more personalities you score close numbers to when you take it to your profile, the more you’re able to communicate to a variety of people. The shark is extremely money motivated. They’re extremely competitive. They like to win. They’re aggressive people. They’ll go through a brick wall. That’s a leader on the football team. That’s you’re shark. They like shark dressers, sexy, powerful cars, jewelry, Rolex watches. That would be a shark. They wear $5,000 Lust rims. They are the people that you want on your team when you want to win, but they sometimes can come off a little abrasive. They give you the feeling they don’t care about anything except winning or about money. We know people like that.
There are the dolphins. The dolphins love to have fun. The dolphins are the life of the party. When they walk in, the party begins. You can’t wait for them to come. However, they’re going to be late and they’re not going to be as organized. A dolphin would have 3 to 6 junk drawers in their home. Nothing would be organized but they are a tremendous amount of fun. They’re very innovative, imaginative, and they see it get done. They like colors. They have a different color like blue in their hair. They got earings. They have jewelry around the wrist, that’s your dolphin. They love colors. They don’t like boring things. They like to travel and things that are moving. Dolphins and sharks move fast in the water. They make decisions quickly. If dolphins see a ball or something they want to play with, they go. If sharks see something they want to eat, it’s over, they’re going.
You have your urchin. Urchin is very conservative. A lot of your engineers would be urchin. If you see a person with a dress shirt on, they have a pocket and they have a pen in that pocket, urchin. Shark is not going to mess their shirt up. There’s the Montblanc, which is a very expensive pen. You’re not going to see that. That’s going to be your urchin. They’re going to dress in grays, browns and blues, sometimes, all at the same time. A dolphin would never do that. I can’t see Michelle in gray, blue and brown at the same time. I’m not good at that. They’re very analytical people. They need information. They don’t like hype.
The dolphin likes fun. If you give a dolphin a lecture, their booty would go to sleep. Your urchins would be all in. That’s what they want to hear. They don’t want to hear the fun stuff. They want to hear organization. Everything has its place. They’re going to be very organized people, but they come off a little anal, but they hate for things to start late. They like things to start great. They’re very punctual people.
We then have the whale. The whale is a nurturer, very soft-spoken and they were earth tones. A whale can sit on grandmother’s couch and blend into the fabric. They want to feel it there. They like to help, serve and support people. Your social workers, they’re going to be anchored in the whale. They’re your nonprofit people that want to give, serve and make a difference. They’re not that interested in money. They want to know, “Are we helping people?” If you notice, when I talked about the whale, my voice softened. We talk about soundtrack because that’s very important. Sometimes, a whale can take advantage of a little bit because they are soft-spoken.
The shark and the whale are complete opposites, but they can get along and do business together. They could even be married. My grandfather was a shark. My grandmother was a whale, “He didn’t mean it. He loves you.” Whales softened the sharks’ teeth. It takes those teeth of follow them down. They need each other. They balance each other out. They bring humanity back, “Maybe I won’t eat her this time.” If you look at the urchin and the dolphin, they’re complete opposites. It’s like the odd couple, Felix and Oscar. One is sloppy and one is in need. One is late and one is on time. They argue all the time but they would be the best of friends because the dolphin kept the urchin busy.
It gave them purpose to save my life. We know he’s going to be the one who’s going to mess it all up, I get to be right all the time. As human beings, everything we do, we get something from it, but we don’t do it because significance is the number one thing that people seek in our lives. They give that significance because they could tie it in. The dolphin has the urchin that it knows he’s going to catch him so he can take risks, or he can mess with him a little bit when he feels a little inadequate.
One of my brokers is a dolphin. I’m always cleaning up the mess.
Sometimes, you find people who call scores and everything but most of the time, you’re going to find someone that’s high up here and communicating with somebody. The shark is up here. This person’s shark is down there. They’re a little bit in conflict so they have to learn to speak each other’s language so they can get along and work it out.
When you get good at mastering the art of selves, that’s when you should mirror their level and then bring them to your level, and that’s mastery.
It’s important to be able to speak into their listening. If you know what you are, the key is to be able to engage and communicate in what you are not. You can’t ask them to change overnight and ask them to do it. It’s not even fair. I have to understand and respect that part. When I walk into someone’s office and I see some people have everything to the left is a mess, that’s their dolphin. I can look at some pictures, look around how what’s in the office, and what they’re wearing. If I can’t tell, I can ask them a few questions about what do they like, what did they do, and ask them about their life.
They’re going to let you know who they are. If I’m talking to an urchin and I’m a dolphin or I’m a dolphin-shark, I have to learn how to adjust and speak the urchin’s language or they’re going to tune me out. They don’t care about the fun and end result, show me the process of how this works. It was great, we’re going to make all this money. It was great when I have all this fun. What’s the process and how do we get there?
We talked to a $30 million to $40 million company, it’s got a great business. The same thing, it’s like, “Michelle, put it all in writing. If this happens, that happens.” I’m like, “I’ll create a flow chart for you.” What am I, Dr. Dentley?
You’re balanced. Your nonprofit work is your whale. You have colors. I see your shark and your dolphin. I see the red all behind you. That’s your dolphin but it’s also a part of your shark. You’re one of those dolphins who would love to have fun but you can eat them up alive. You are a dolphin with teeth. To be in your field, you have to have the urchin. You’re more balanced in those. If I was to say out of all of them, the whale is the least one because the shark has to be there to perform. We do a profile. You’re going to be surprisingly balanced. I am a dolphin-shark but here’s the thing. You can have a lot of dolphin but when there’s a state of emergency and control has to be taken, your shark is going to come out and you’re going to solve it.
You’re telling me in Florida, I was a shark-dolphin. I can’t be in my industry without being a shark, but you got to be a chameleon. As you said, you got to learn to speak to those audiences.
I’m a dolphin-shark but when I have to take control, the shark comes out and elevates.
As you were talking about that, I was going through my mind everybody on my team.
I’ll send you a profile and give them the profile.
Can you share that link with our audience? We can show that in our posts.
I don’t have it in the link. It’s going to go out on a link at our women’s event, but I’ll send it to you directly. I’ll send you an email and then you can set it up and send it out to everybody.
You’ve done so many things, as I said at the beginning of the show. When I heard you speak, I’m like, “I didn’t know that he did that.” You were bringing back the Sizzler days when you work at Sizzler.
I like Sizzler but I manage stake and out.
I’ve always thought is very difficult to move into direct marketing. Is that direct marketing?
Direct marketing, network marketing, modular marketing.
I’ve always thought that that’s a tough industry to manage your down line and all that stuff but you’ve been extremely successful in that. Are you still playing in that role?
I have 150,000 people on our team. Our residual is $1.8 million a year.
I thought you’re was going to say a month.
The cool thing is that it allows us to serve it on nonprofit but also to build the other companies that we have without worrying because we don’t have the challenge with having the capital situation if we can hold it up. The thing I love about it is that we get the chance to work with people. You know that our speakers are extremely successful and it was seven figures a month or a week sometimes. They’re part of our team. They like to play, they want to do more, they want to help. We take it, do more nonprofit or take it and invested in different things together.
You cannot see the picture if you’re in the frame.
What was James Dentley like as a little boy?
I have three sisters and my mom. My mom went to the grocery toward the day and then in office at night. First of all, I was very active. I ran my battleship into my sister’s Barbie Playhouse when I was five. She gave it to me when I was 30. I was a mess. My oldest sister, I would hit her and run and she would chase me. I would close the door and it was like Roadrunner in the door, we hit her in the head. Every time, she falls on the floor. I had such a ball. I had one suit for Easter and I will put my Easter suit on to take the garbage out every day. I hated taking the garbage out and I wanted to make an entry. It’s so mundane to take the garbage. Sometimes, I wouldn’t even take it out. I throw it on the other side of the porch and I would get in big trouble for that. I put on a suit and I had to dress up to make it interesting for me. My mom took me to see Peter Pan when I was a kid. I never forgot it. I always lived my life on what’s possible, what’s next and what can we create.
Your sister did finally forgive you.
Yes, they wouldn’t take a sneeze. I was a martial artist for thirteen years. I taught, I competed and I was an athlete as well. I started managing businesses, restaurants right out of high school.
Back to the communication, the dolphins, whales, urchins and sharks. Let’s talk about the political climate and what’s going on in our country. Is Trump a shark? What is Biden? Why do you think it ended up this way? What are your thoughts on it? I’m curious to get your thoughts.
The key of it is a lack of communication. I watch these campaigns. I’ve been watching politics for a few decades. I see people only go to the states that they’re interested in trying to win. They don’t go everywhere and then they get into an office, and they don’t go to the state unless they have to go. All the time, it’s a photo op. They there, they are staying but they aren’t engaging. I will tell you that honestly, I’ve put myself in a state of mind that no matter who wins the election, we still have work to do. We still have to come together because I don’t have a problem with any person and what they believe in because they’re entitled to do it.
I need to listen to them. When I was out there with you in Florida and we were upstairs and these friends that came with you, I was sitting there with two other people and we had a great conversation because I was able to ask them some questions and listen to them. I appreciate that even though we might have chosen different candidates, he was a great guy. I live where all of my neighbors are Republican Trump and I’ve voted Republican before. I happened to like Mr. Biden because of the empathy. I have a soft spot for people I believe he care. You have to be competent but you have to care about the average person. It’s not about what you believe in. Can you have the empathy and the heart to care about everyone and meet them where they are, and to respect them where they are?
Trump cares. You do not think Trump cares?
I don’t know but I’ve been watching Joe Biden way before Barack Obama. For me, when he had the accident with his children. I know when people met him, he stopped and talked to them. I know people who know Trump. He was the head of ACN, the nonprofit. I don’t have anything against Trump. I get it. I would hope that we can let the madness stop and come together without an outside force attacking the country. All of us come together anyway. We’re like siblings that are fighting about something that we shouldn’t fight about.
What communication style was demonstrated throughout this entire campaign and which communication style that people respond to anything.
Look at Jim Jones. This is not about Trump, take that off the table. This is about leadership. Jim Jones took out 913 people to go to another country on a boat and drink poison Kool-Aid. For some, but he had helped so he got people enrolled. There was another gentleman who was in California and he got sixteen wealthy people to get on a white robe with purple and black gym shoes and drink poison pudding and drink vodka to kill themselves because they wanted to catch the Hale-Bopp Comet that was going to come to earth once every thousand years and take people to another place and euphoria. At first, they went and got a telescope to prove that the comet was not coming.
They saw it, yet they didn’t even believe their eyes. They focus on what was said. In our paradigm, based on where we grew up like if you grew up in India, 70% of us would be Hindu. That’s all you would know. First of all, the way we think comes from somewhere, those paradigms are set very early and it become cultural. The cool thing is that everybody is different in their DNA, fingerprint and all these things. Somehow, we start becoming very tribal instead of being very individual. At the end of the day, even if you’re going to be tribal, let’s track a peace treaty, let’s respect one another, and find out what is it that you want. What is important to you? Let’s appreciate and find a common ground that we can agree upon and certain things that you may not be able to budge on. I get it and understand that, and perhaps you can walk away saying, “He was a nice guy.” Even though we don’t believe him, we can still hang out and still be friends. I don’t think we need to be against each other in that.
That’s the sad thing. This election and last election broke up many families, friendships and even marriages, believe it or not. It’s ridiculous. We shouldn’t let politics break up our families.
A storm will be purged away for a brighter future. Sometimes a storm can come through and it seems very destructive, but when it’s all gone, you get a chance to rebuild, to restore, to make a new, and you learn a lot of things from that. I believe that everything works out for the good. I’m a very optimistic person because I choose that because that makes my life very simple and happy every single day. It’s all good and everything would be fine no matter who will win as president.
We got to come together as a nation.
That’s the deal and let’s go with it.
You need to respect it. What’s next for you, Dr. Dentley?
We are not just launching a streaming TV network, we’re launching a platform for hope and inspiration. I’m so excited because when we were together at the VOA, there was a gentleman that showed a movie. Were you there for this movie?
Yes, I was.
We’re in Florida and he lives down the street from me.
Aren’t you glad I invited you to that event?
I totally am. I’m doing a Jeff Hoffman’s with a group of people and we’re having a blast on that one. The two together are incredible. With this streaming network, we decided that our brand is going to be giving hope, inspiration, make it fun, positive programming. We will have something that no matter what you believe and no matter who you are, you’ll be able to be represented. We’re going to take average people who want to tell their story, put them on television, and make them the star of the show. We’re going to have super viewers that may have a piece of ownership of that. They’re going to win prizes and things like that through our little commercials and trivia. We want to give and create a fun place where people can enjoy some great programming that’s not boring, that touches the children and every genre. They know when they go there, there’s not going to be a horror film there.
When is that going to be released? Where’s it going to be at?
We start launching JD3 TV the weekend you’re speaking, December 11th, 12th, and 13th, 2020 would be our soft launch. We’re building out our studio. We started filming a lot and we’re going to have the cannabis comedy show that I’m the executive producer. We got a lot of people. We’re blocking and teaching people how to be in front of the camera. At the end of January 2021, we’ll pre-launch. I have another event coming up in April 2021 and that’s going to be the grand launch, but it will be open at the end of 2020. This would be going to be up and it’d be already running.
Where’s it going to be aired?
In the midst of calamity, there’s always going to be great opportunities.
It’s going to be on a JD3.tv as well as you’ll be able to see our work on Roku, Amazon Fire, Ice. We’re getting calls every day from people that want us to put out content going on there.
What keeps you motivated, centered and grounded?
I had this incredible life that is not always been easy. I’ve been through cancer, sarcoidosis and on prednisone forever.
I used to be on prednisone so I can relate to you.
Eight years and I was up at 374 pounds at one point.
I was on it as a teenager for asthma.
I started those as my lungs were excessively large. For a non-smoker, it’s quite disturbing. For me, it’s my wife and my family. Every day I wake up, I fall in love with my wife. Every day is like the first day. We wake up and we wave at each other and we say “hi” like this. It’s so fun. My sisters, my children, I’m so happy and thankful that we have good people in our family. That’s one thing I attribute to my mom and her family. Her dad was born on the same day my dad was born. Her dad was 86. My dad passed away at 83. Family, great friends, spending time with you, and people that we know together. We have a great time together, we learn a lot from each other, and we get a chance to play.
Thank you so much for helping us support Exit Rich. What do you think is one of the biggest mistakes that business owners make? Obviously, not hiring me or what else.
Honestly, you hit the nail on the head. You have to invest into becoming better. Sometimes, things slip away from us. It’s like a child that’s growing up. The kid can see their feet grow. The next thing you know, you see a kid, you see him again and he’s bigger. It’s the same thing that happens with challenges in your business. You have to stay on top of it and you need something from the outside to refresh it every now and again, and also the innovation of it. To invest in people like yourself, they can come in and look at your business, see something that you’re not able to see, and then you can make decisions intelligently on something that’s factual.
I always say it’s hard to read the label from the inside of the bottle. You need an outsider’s perspective to read the danger zones, the warning signs, and keep you out of the danger zone.
You cannot see the picture if you’re in the frame.
You can’t see the forest and the trees when you’re in fog or is fogging. You and I can go on all day long. Do you have any last-minute tips for our audience?
We always said 2020 was a year of clarity. We had these great clichés and it was. It wasn’t what we expected. In the midst of calamity, there’s always going to be great opportunities. We know that there has always been a state of emergency. If something was to happen, most people weren’t ready and most companies weren’t ready, but it put us in a situation that we have to evolve. We have to go back to the origins of creation, how the entire country was built in the first place. What can we create? There are things inside of you that can make this world better, it can bring services, products, opportunities and jobs to people. You’re sitting on it thinking that you don’t matter. I would say that you do matter.
Van Gogh said, “I dreamed of my painting and then I painted my dream.” What are you dreaming about? Are you paying attention to your dreams, hopes, aspirations? What are you doing about them? I would call as much, this is my saying, “Follow your dreams wherever they may leave and never get distracted by less worthy needs. Remember to shelter them and nourish them and help them to grow. Let your heart hold them down deep where dreams go. You follow your dreams. You pursue them with haste. Remember and never forget that in your life, the only one you get is so precious and it’s too fleeting to waste. Be faithful and be loyal and all your days through. As dreams you follow, I promise they’ll keep coming true.”
I love you, James. Thank you to all of our audiences. You can go to ExitRich.com and SeilerTucker.com and get more information on Dr. James Dentley. Thank you so much for all of your words of wisdom.
Thank you for having me. Bye, Michelle. Bye, everybody.
Important Links:
- James Dentley – LinkedIn
- JD3.tv
- ExitRich.com
- SeilerTucker.com
About James Dentley
James Dentley is an entrepreneur, best-selling author of The 5 Frequencies of High performance, philanthropist and one of the nation’s top Life and Business Strategist. As one of the world’s most renowned motivational speakers, James Dentley is a dynamic personality and highly sought after resource in business and professional circles for Fortune 500 CEOs, small business owners, non-profit and community leaders from all sectors of society looking to expand opportunity. He is also an annual 7 figure earner in the MLM industry and has trained over 5000,000 people and 80 have become millionaires.
James Dentley hosts and speaks at events all over the world! In 2008 he founded which is now the #1 speakers and communication program ‘Inspired2Speak: Action Camp, helping aspiring and established speakers to create a global impact and create the success they desire!’ His passion is to empower entrepreneurs and business owners to create massive success and to achieve their dreams. James passion for coaching and mentoring speakers has transformed “good speakers to great speakers and great speakers to legendary. speakers and communicators.’ He has spent over two decades working with start-ups to major global brands to help them increase sales, productivity, and overall success. He is an innovator with a remarkable ability to determine and build success plans to help business owners seize immediate market opportunities. For everyone that owns a business or would like to capitalize their entrepreneurial dream, his message will enlighten them with knowledge and action principles to turn that passion into success!
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