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Cynthia Kersey’s Unstoppable Giving Challenge
Millionaire Mentors ProgramWhat Will YOUR $1,000,000 Idea Be?
Mentor: Stewart Emory
Twelve world-famous millionaires share their private secrets for generating $1,000,000 ideas...without accepting a single dollar in return...and show you, step by step, how you can create one, too…All while saving over 4,000 children’s lives!
James Cameron
Bob Proctor
Jack Healey
Rev. Michael Beckwith
Mark Victor Hansen
Wyland
Robert Kiyosaki
Bill Harris
Dave Bach
Dr. Ken Blanchard
Stewart Emory
Lynne Twist
www.unstoppablegivingchallenge.com
© 2008 Unstoppable Foundation.
G I V I N G
THE MILLION DOLLAR IDEA:
HOW TO DEVELOP A MILLION DOLLAR IDEA
TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE
AND CHANGE THE WORLD
Cynthia Kersey interviewing Stewart Emery – Mentor #6
MS. KERSEY: Hello. My name is Cynthia Kersey and I'd like to welcome you The
Million Dollar Idea: How to develop a Million Dollar Idea to Change Your Life and
Change the World. And I'm excited that over the next few weeks, I'm going to be able to
bring to you 12 interviews of world famous millionaires, philanthropists and business
leaders who will show you their strategies for not only generating ideas that can make
you millions of dollars, but then how you bring them forward in to the world
And, of course, the intention behind this course is to raise money to build a minimum of
40 schools in Africa, so I'm so grateful for every expert and mentor involved in this
course. They are doing so as their way to give back and really support this important
initiative, which is sponsored by the Unstoppable Foundation, and I'm deeply grateful to
you, the listener, for your support, your contribution and really being a part of this
exciting course.
So today I'm very excited to introduce to you our next million dollar mentor and he really
is an extraordinary human being. I'm so happy he agreed to be a part of this. Stewart
Emery is the co-author of the international best seller, Success Built to Last and Do You
Matter? How Great Design Will Make People Love Your Company. He has a lifetime of
experience as an entrepreneur, an executive coach and leader and is considered to be one
of the fathers of the Human Potential Movement. Stewart serves as Visiting Professor at
the J.F. Kennedy University School of Management, and for over 12 years, he has led
thousands of employees and hundreds of managers around the world through Vision -
Values - Strategy, leadership initiatives based on the research from the international best
sellers Built to Last, Good to Great and Success Built to Last. Great books. This body of
work is developed from the most comprehensive research project ever undertaken into
what makes a company great. How companies become great companies and the traits of
enduringly successful leaders who build great companies. He is the author of two other
best selling books; and Stewart has led workshops seminars and delivered keynotes all
over the world, and it has truly touched the lives of millions of people, and today he is
going to touch our lives by really bringing his wisdom and insight into how the listener,
how you can develop an idea that is so big and so inspiring and it makes a difference in
your life and the lives of other people. So without further ado, welcome Stewart to our
call today.
MR. EMERY: Well, welcome and it is wonderful to see everybody on the internet or
however they are going to access this content and, you know, we used to say in the old
days. I won't say how old the old days are, but in the days when television was just
getting started that radio was television for people with imagination, and I grew up
listening to radio series as a kid. I think that I've got listeners to bring their imagination
to the party today.
MS. KERSEY: Absolutely, because you know that is where big ideas start.
MR. EMERY: Absolutely.
MS. KERSEY: So when you hear about this course, The Million Dollar Idea Course,
How to Generate a Million Dollar Idea To Change Your Life and Change the World, how
would you assist someone if you were consulting a big corporation or entrepreneur?
What process would you take someone through to help them identify and then develop
and deliver a big mega idea?
MR. EMERY: Well, we have to do a virtual PowerPoint, but we have a lot of research
that says virtual PowerPoints are even better than real Power Points because real
PowerPoints are deadly. It is called death by PowerPoint in corporate circles and for
good reason.
MS. KERSEY: That is so true.
MR. EMERY: So the first place. we have to start is to become really clear on something
we are passionate about and if you don't get that bit right, you can forget about everything
else. When Jim wrote Good to Great, he discovered the core circle. There was a three
circle model, and where the circles start to overlap as they are driven together, it kind of
gets the success, so both in Jim's book, Good to Great, and our book, Success Built to
Last, we found that the top circle, if you imagine the circles are arranged as an equal
triangle with the base at the bottom, then the top circle is what we are deeply passionate
about. What deeply matters to us.
So I will tell you a story. I was at a university where we are helping them reinvent what
they stand for as a university, and it is the biggest liberal arts college in the country,
actually, and they are wonderful, wonderful people, and on campus they have projects for
the kids in the business school, and one of the projects they had started a coffee shop
because there was no Starbucks or no pizza on the campus, so they started a coffee shop.
So I'm back there and I'm, like, I'm really, really into high-end coffee. I mean, I'm a
coffee geek, as they are called, and I'm always chasing the elusive God shot. In espresso
we call them God shots because you pull a shot, you smell it, you take a taste and you go,
oh, God. That is called a God shot, so I walked into the coffee shop. I'm all excited.
There is this gentleman who looks like he is not from here behind the counter. I asked
him where he is from. He says he is from Ethiopia. He speaks impeccable English. I
said, that is great. That is one of the great coffee producing regions. He said, it is? I'm
saying, did I hear that? Say again. He said, is it? I said, oh, absolutely. I said, they have
wonderful, wonderful coffee. I said, why? I'm surprised you don't know that, and he said,
well, actually, I'm not into coffee. And I said, so you don't know the coffee because? He
said, I am not into coffee because I did this shop as a project, you know, I did the
business plan. It looked like a good business idea and so, you know, I'm just doing the
coffee shop. So I said, make me a cup of coffee anyhow. I don't have to tell you that it
was awful, and I told the story. I did a keynote to, like, 2,000 people in the auditorium,
and I said -- I told the story there and I said, you're told, I know, that if you are going to
go out into the world to start your life, then you have to do something that you love, but
I'm not sure that you know why that's true. I think perhaps you think that it's true because
it is a nice thing to do something that you love, but the reality of it is, in the modern
world, if you don't do what you love, you'll lose to somebody else who is doing what you
are doing who actually loves it.
MS. KERSEY: It gives you really a competitive advantage. You know, not only because
you are going to have more joy and meaning, but if you are not, somebody else is going
to do it better because they are bringing that love and passion to it.
MR. EMERY: Yes, and it is not really a competitive advantage. I will go as far to say
it's a competitive imperative. My favorite story about it is my friend and colleague, Bob
Thompson, was hosting a symposium up in Washington State and Bill Gates was on the
panel; and Warren Buffet was on the panel. So these are two chaps that have done quite
nicely. They've had their share of million dollar ideas, and so Warren Buffet goes in and
says, well, you are about to go out in the world and graduate from college, and so it is
really important for you to do what you love. I absolutely dance to work every day. I
just have so much fun, and a graduate student puts his hand up and said, well, with all
due respect, Mr. Buffet, that's easy for you to talk about, but we are going to go off and
I've got a family to support and I've got to make money and I've got responsibilities and,
you know, I'll just have to do what I have to do and then one day, I'm really hopeful that
I'll find what I love to do; and then do that. He said, I hear people say that. They come
up and say, you know, Warren, I don't actually like the job I have all that well. In fact, I
don't like it very much at all, but I'm going to do it for five years or ten years or 20 years
and then I'll find what I want to do, and Warren looked at the student and said, you know
something? To me that makes about as much sense as saving up sex for old age, and I
just think that is what says it.
So that is the first thing people got to do. They've got to find an area of their passion, and
I tell you, it is very hard to get ideas funded, but even when it was easy. At Stanford
there was a lab and we would put people through this thing called a Rebel Lab started by
a noble prize writer. It was the sociology department of the business school, and we
would bring people in and we would put them through an interview process, and if we
weren't clear that they were deeply passionate about the idea that they were requesting
funding for, if it was not something that deeply mattered to them into which they were
going to invest great meaning and energy, they wouldn't get funded, and we were just
overwhelmed by people coming who, you know, death by PowerPoint and all these
business plans. One guy wanted to start a social network. That's a good idea. Social
networks have been million dollar ideas. He wanted to start one for parents and families.
So during the conversation we just casually asked him, well, by the way, when did you
last call your mother and what did you talk about? Turns out he called his mother on
Mother's Day and Christmas and her birthday, all obligatory. Guess what? We didn't
fund him, and people look aghast at that, but that is the reality, so that is the first thing
that you've got to do.
MS. KERSEY: Right. Exactly.
MR. EMERY: That's a long answer to a short question.
MS. KERSEY: Well, it is important. And I find that a part of my work is really assisting
people on finding what does give their life meaning and what are they passionate about.
How would you assist people in finding that?
MR. EMERY: Well, we usually walk them through a questionnaire. It is a little difficult
to do that over the phone, but there are some clues (and we talk about it in more depth in
the book Success Built to Last), but essentially we ask people to go back to when they
were quite small to a time when they would perhaps daydream extravagantly and think
about, well, one of these days when I grow up I am going to, or they look at passions or
curiosities that they may have had that may have got kind of put in the basement because
they didn't get parental support for it or cultural support for it and to start to reexamine
those. We say it is those silent screams that live in the dungeon of our soul: ideas that
are being suppressed down there for whatever reasons. Start to look at those. And then
start to notice what we are curious about or start to look at something we might actually
do for free. Even if somebody was paying us, we like it so much, we'll do it anyway or
start to notice something that we do that when we start doing it, time just starts to vanish
as a concept, and I do that as something personally. I'm a passionately curious person,
and I've followed a series of passions and done multiple things in my lifetime, and that's
what really worked for me.
MS. KERSEY: What are you most passionate about now?
MR. EMERY: I think what I'm most passionate about now, and so I have to say this. I
don't know whether you saw City Slickers. Did you see that movie?
MS. KERSEY: I did, yes.
MR. EMERY: So remember when Curly is talking to Billy Crystal and he said, well,
what is the secret of life and Curly holds up one finger and says, one thing. It is one
thing. You've got to find what the one thing is. And as we interviewed the world's most
successful people, you know, we interviewed people like Gates and Buffet and Jobs and
Michael Dell, and Sir Richard Branson, and we also interviewed great humanitarians like
Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu and Muhammad Unis who subsequently won the
Peace Prize for microfinance, so we talked to these people and we found it wasn't just one
thing.
They had what Michael Angelo described to us as a portfolio of passions, and it was the
intersection of those passions. Mostly what I'm passionate about is working with people
who either have found or who are committed to finding what they love to do, and then
coaching them to become world class at it because that's the next part of the magic. You
know, if you say you want the million dollar idea, you've got to get good at whatever the
idea is because -- I have a dear friend, just did a great book called Concept to Consumer,
Turning Ideas into Money, and Phil Baker was at Apple where I met him in the first
place, but he did the production engineering, turning the sketches and ideas of the design
people into a finished product of Polaroid for the FX 70, you know, a legendary product;
and he did prototypes. It became things like the Mac Book and I Mac. Phil is a
wonderful guy, and in his book Turning Ideas into Money from Concept to Consumer, he
points out, the idea is only 10 percent of the idea - only 10 percent. I find that's difficult
for people to grasp because they really think that if they just have the idea, then they'll
make a million dollars, but, one, it's got to be a good idea, two, they've got to be
passionate about it and then after that 90 percent of it is what we call execution. Will you
get good enough at it fast enough to be able to bring this to market before somebody else
does it.
MS. KERSEY: How would you recommend people do that? Let's say they come up
with an idea of, you know, a new video game or whatever, so they have this idea. They
are passionate about it. They love video games. What would you recommend would be a
really solid way for them to get good at it really quickly?
MR. EMERY: People -- so let's just back up a little bit. So let's say we have somebody
who is passionate about something. They also need to do an inventory of what they are
really good at.
MS. KERSEY: Right.
MR. EMERY: I'm going to say that the most important trait you can develop really in
life is the ability to get good at things. Even if you haven't found what you are passionate
about yet, put effort into getting really good at whatever is in front of you at the moment
because, ultimately, that's the most important skill. We did a wonderful interview with
Sally Field and we were talking to her about leadership, and at one point she kind of got
exasperated and she said, you know, who wakes up in the morning and says, let's see,
will I go to class today or go out and lead? That is a non thing. She said, the only thing
you have control over is to get really, really good at something you love to do, and if you
do that and you go through all of the work, the gazillion setbacks you got to go through to
get really, really good at what you love, then people come to you and say, will you lead
us? And that's the story of the people we've talked to who have been very successful.
So we go back to, you found what you are passionate about. Now, look at the things that
you are really good at and look at the things that you need to be done really well to take
this idea and turn it into a successful reality at the marketplace, and then you'll have to go
out and network with people, recruit, as we say, Success Built to Last and Team to your
Dream of world class people who are good at the things that have to be done that you are
not able to do yourself to get you inside the marketplace.
MS. KERSEY: Absolutely. So let's say, for example, a person is a creator, right, so let's
just use the idea of a video game. They've come up with this whole new format for a
video game and they are creative, but there are so many other skill sets that are critical to
bringing an idea, to executing that idea, so do you have some ideas of places where
people could find world class types of people on their team? Where would you
recommend that people go to network?
MR. EMERY: Well, you go to places where people congregate who are really good at
doing the kinds of things you'll need done well, so that's why they have a Google search
engine.
MS. KERSEY: Love that. How did we live without it? I want to know.
MR. EMERY: But this is true. I mean, you want to get something made in China, you'll
do a Google search, you'll find a place to go and you'll put in a submission and barely
before you get off the send button, there'll be responses coming back.
MS. KERSEY: That's so true.
MR. EMERY: If somebody wants to do a technical product, a physical product, then I'd
say go out and get a copy of Phil Baker's book From Concept to Consumer, Turning
Ideas into Money because there is a lot of practical -- that's a practical "how to" book.
MS. KERSEY: Sounds like a great book. What's it called?
MR. EMERY: From Concept to Consumer: Turning Ideas into Money. It is a great
book. And the other thing that happens to people, once they've made a commitment to be
really good at something they love, you kind of attract other people who are good at
doing what they love to you. You start a network and there really is a network, and I
found that to be so true.
MS. KERSEY: And, Stewart, don't you find there are so many resources in this day and
age? For example, if you want to become a speaker, Mark Victor Hansen has a whole
mega speakers and other people have all these resources - National Speaker Association.
If you want to become an expert -- when I wrote my first book, I hadn't written a book
before, but there were so many resources that I signed up for and joined and literally
probably learned more about publishing and writing a book than most people would
learn, you know, in an entire lifetime because I was really committed to it.
MR. EMERY: Correct, and the resources are out there, and the book Concept to
Consumer he's got resources in there for people who have an invention that becomes a
physical product, and then if you want to write, then there is lots of resources there. I
think it is very important for people to get a decent coach, too. I always marvel in the
work we do with corporations, we all watch a senior executive kind of reluctant to take
on a performance coach in the business arena because I guess on some level, I think that
is an admission of shortcoming. But it wouldn't occur to them not to have a golf pro to
try to improve their golf game. That just doesn't make any sense, does it? I get a golf pro
if I want to get better at golf. Why wouldn't I get a great coach if I want to get better at
whatever.
So whatever it is people want to do, you can find people who are -- resources. I mean,
what we specialize in, is helping somebody become world class at something and there is
a whole way you go about doing that. And here is the thing of it. It is counterintuitive,
but talent is highly overrated as a prerequisite for greatness. I mean, you look at the
research that we have now and what I love about the social sciences, we actually have
decent research, and so we're finding that you can literally become world class at
anything you love to do, whether or not you or anybody else thinks you have natural
talent for it. In fact, we are beginning to find out natural talent may not actually exist
MS. KERSEY: So you think it is all developed?
MR. EMERY: It is all developed. The book just came out. My copy was shipped today
from Amazon called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell who wrote the Tipping Point. He
has got a chapter in there about the myth of talent. We are doing a book around some of
that research. It's a different kind of book within the book of Whatever you are, be a
good one. Once, again, it looks at the research and says, talent is mythical. There's
probably no such thing as vocationally preordained talent that you arrive here with. You
are not a born anything, and within certain limits you can become pretty much whatever
you want to be. There are some physical limits, of course.
MS. KERSEY: You know there is research, you know, as a baby we come in with this
genius capability and by the time we are 2 years old I think it drops off, what, 80 percent
or 60 percent. What you are saying is essentially, and this is actually great news, that
whatever you're passionate about and you are willing to learn and grow and get some
coaching, that you can move into being a world class expert at it.
MR. EMERY: Yes, and, you know, it is a little bit harder as you get older and still
doable, so you can be 70 or 80 even and get really good at something, and I think this is
very, very exciting news and people that are younger than that there is absolutely no
reason. I think it is good news it's not about whether you have talent for it. Don't get
stuck with that.
MS. KERSEY: So what is your research finding? So talent is mythical. Really it is
overrated. What have you found are the key qualities that really help people become
world class?
MR. EMERY: So we go back to you got to love it. Whether you are talking to four star
generals, steely-eyed CEO's like Larry Bossidy who wrote a warm fuzzy book called
Execution, and when we were talking to Larry, he was writing Allied Signal at the time.
He said, well, you know something? I don't balk at the love word. He said, if you are
working for me and you don't love what you do, I'll replace you with somebody who does
love it because only if you love it will you be creative and put in the effort and put in the
focus and put in the concentration.
So you've got to love it because that is the only thing that gets you through the difficult
times, and we can't tell you why somebody loves one thing and somebody else doesn't.
You know, we don't know the why of that. We only know there is a what about it, but
everybody can find something that they love if they are willing to indulge their curiosity,
then there is a process of getting good at it. So I'll give you the bullet pointed version of
that. It takes roughly 10,000 hours of what we call deliberate practice within a ten-year-
period and you can get world class. Now, in an instant gratification society, that may be
a horrifying prospect. You know, 10,000 hours? You're kidding me, right?
MS. KERSEY: Ten years when they wanted it yesterday.
MR. EMERY: It is a thousand years a year. Do the math. I've forgotten how many
hours a week that is, but it is 20 hours a week, I think. What's 50 times 20 is a thousand,
yes. Twenty hours a week. But that is not just all there is to it because you can go out
and you say, well, I'm going to get really world class at golf. I want to be the next Tiger
Wood and so I'm going to hit, you know, X buckets of balls a day, and so we noticed that
people go out and put in the hours and they get better for a while, but then they'll plateau
and won't get any better, so you say why? Well, we find out that the practice has to be
what we call deliberate practice. In other words, if you go out and hit a bucket of balls,
you know, it may be entertaining, but you gotta go out and hit a bucket of balls and say,
well, the first bucket of balls, I am going to get X number of balls 20 yards from the hole
and you keep going until you do that. You say, okay. Well, I'm going to hit a bucket of
balls until I get X percent of them ten yards from the hole, then you keep hitting balls
until you do that, and one of the reasons golf is such a great game is you get instant
feedback every time you swing the club, and so people know whether they are getting
better or not.
MS. KERSEY: So I'm hearing that they are bringing real intention with each swing.
MR. EMERY: Yes, real intention to get better at it and real metrics that they are actually
getting better at it. Of course, you will have days where it seems like for every step
forward you took a step backwards because the learning curve is not a straight line
upwards, you know, you'll go up and you'll peek and then you'll fall back and then you'll
get through that and come up and peek and that's why you've got a lot of peek, otherwise,
you can't cope with the valleys. You just can't cope with the valleys, then, of course, the
other thing you need is what we call the right mind style. My wife knew Robin Leach
very well who did Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, so as a gag to my publisher, I said,
well, I think I might do a book called Mind Styles of the Rich and Famous.
MS. KERSEY: That sounds like a great book.
MR. EMERY: I might do it, too.
MS. KERSEY: That's a great idea.
MR. EMERY: Actually, one of the things I do these days is I run an imprint for PS, the
world's largest publisher, they do Penguin and Financial Times and the Economist and
Predictor, a whole bunch of labels; so I might do it. But Steve Jobs told us, successful
people think different and what's -- in this work that a lot of us have done, you know,
people get to talk a lot about responsibility and accountability, and the truth of the matter
is, you get to these really successful people, you don't even bother to have that
conversation. They are so far beyond that. I mean, it never occurred to them that it
wasn't up to them. It never occurred to them that they weren't ever accountable. It never
occurred to them that they didn't have to be responsible. It is just the water they swim in.
So, whereas, in a lot of these seminars, there is a lot of time devoted to this. The truth of
the matter is, that the really successful people are way past that.
MS. KERSEY: I hear that and a lot of people listening to this call, you know, they are
working towards that, right, or they want a new idea, so do you see that those qualities,
can they be learned just like all the other qualities to be a world class person? To really
step into that consciousness of deliberateness intentionality, responsibility if it wasn't a
part of who they were to begin with?
MR. EMERY: Yes, I think people can certainly do this, and it starts with awareness of
just people noticing their own way of thinking. You know, it is the people who have got
to notice whether they tend to feel when things don't go well that they are looking for
somebody else to blame or they are looking to say somebody did it to them. They have
to notice whether they do, in fact, get trapped and thrown into that victim mentality and
just be honest about that, you know, not them beat themselves up, but, you know, there is
a lot of reinforcement for that idea because it is not just being a victim of bad things, but
a lot of people, when something good happens, they feel it has happened to them. We
live in a world where we are told if we consume the right stuff, we'll be happy. Listen to
the old love songs. Have you listened to those wonderful songs from the '20s and the
'30s? Great songs, but, oh, I tell you. Songs like "You Made Me Love You." Whatever.
MS. KERSEY: I didn't want to do it.
MR. EMERY: "It Had To Be You." No, it didn't. It could have been any dumb
unfortunate. You listen to all of this stuff, "You do something to me," all of this
sometimes quite innocence reinforcement in the cultural system that says that our
experience is caused by external circumstances and external events, external realities.
MS. KERSEY: Absolutely.
MR. EMERY: And it is so easy to get trapped there, and you want to say, well, are there
alternatives? Notice I did that.
MS. KERSEY: Yes. Go ahead.
MR. EMERY: No. No.
MS. KERSEY: It is like in Martin Seligman's book Learn Optimism, I think that is a
fantastic book and it is just a lot of what a coach with my team. Just really learning how
to reinterpret the events instead of this happened to me, understanding that we, you know,
we are creating our experience by how we interpret it. It is liberating.
MR. EMERY: Yes, and it is great resource for people if they get Kersey's book -- if you
look at Sallywin's book and do the attributional star questionnaire and just see what your
optimism is. It is possible to recalibrate that. It is absolutely possible. I mean, literally if
we are willing to discipline our mind, we actually can change the way our brain is wired.
That is what happens when you put in that deliberate practice. You are actually
rearranging the neuro-connections of the brain to be good at something. We were talking
to a guy who flies with the Blue Angels under the heading of being a good one, and he
was telling us, if I don't fly for two days, I start to lose muscle memory and I fly with less
precision.
MS. KERSEY: Then he must have flown for how many years?
MR. EMERY: Yes, years. And it is a race against time because you've got to put in the
hours to get good at it, then at a certain age, you just aren't good enough to do it anymore.
MS. KERSEY: Lovely.
MR. EMERY: Well, I mean, there is world class then, there is the best in the world. To
fly the Blue Angels you've got to be the best in the world, so when I say become world
class, I mean, you know, there's the 80/20 rule. By then there is the top 2 percent and the
top 2 percent are world class at anything. Twenty percent of people are competent.
Eighty percent of people are not very good at all, unfortunately. So if you get in that 2
percent you get to .01 percent who are the best, but here is the thing that is so exciting to
me. At least it turns me on and I know you'll be excited, too, Cynthia. That once
somebody makes the commitment, they say, you know, this is what I care about. This is
what I'm passionate about and I'm committing to get world class at it, and I'm going to
find a coach, and I'm going to go and find the resources that I need to shape my mind,
then the moment you make the commitment, your life changes, so you might think, well,
I'm not going to be world class for ten years. Maybe. Maybe not, but the moment you
make the commitment, your experience of being alive has transformed because you'll be
drawn to different people. Different people will be drawn to you. The conversations are
different.
MS. KERSEY: And that is a different bar, too. To be world class or to be the best at,
when you make that commitment, you know, it is kind of like am I committed to selling a
million books or 10,000 books. The goal determines really what we are going to do,
right? If you are going to sell a million, you've got to do things differently than if you
want to just get published.
MR. EMERY: Correct. This is where self honesty comes in. There's an old saying. Of
course we've all heard it. If the thing is worth doing, it is worth doing properly. It is
worth doing well, but I think you can also make an argument if the thing is worth doing,
it's worth doing it badly. In other words, you know, some people love doing something
so much, that they'll do it and just have fun at it or with the passage of time they'll have
less fun. One of the best coaches in the world of the inner game of golf is a fellow named
Shoemaker and we went off to see Mr. Shoemaker and just loved him. He wrote a book
called Exceptional Golf, and he was demonstrating what he did, and my wife had just
taken up golf, so she listened and he walked her through -- Fred walked her through the
very things that you have to do that he coaches people and talked about the inner game
and the mind game of golf, and he said, you know, you've got to go out. You've got to
really enjoy it. You've got to love it. You've got to let yourself be touched by nature and
the beauty of it and not just obsessed all the time. So she went out. The next game of
golf she played, her sixth or seventh game, she hits a hole in one. The guy has been
playing golf for 50 years on the golf course. He's beside himself. He has never hit a hole
in one, so she calls up Fred Shoemaker and says, oh, Fred, you're the best. I'm telling
everybody to buy your book, Extraordinary Golfer. It's right. I've just got to enjoy it.
I've got to have the pleasure of it, so on and so forth, and he said, no, that is not all there
is to it. You've got to keep measuring your improvement. He says, if you just have fun
and you keep doing it, soon you won't have fun. If you only focus on the score, it will
become a burden and you won't have fun. You've got to do both. You've got to keep the
passion and the love for it alive and you've got to keep the improvement alive and they
both feed off each other.
MS. KERSEY: Fascinating.
MR. EMERY: That is a fascinating thing. The thing we've also got to get to is what
about the money thing, so when we just talk about getting really good at something, then
it's you've got to love it, you need the right mind style, which is, at the very least, to really
have gotten the thing about accountability and responsibility, and the thing that Martin
Sullivan calls attributional style sorted out and made a commitment to discipline yourself
around that and then you've got to discipline yourself what thoughts will bring me closer
to the goal, what thoughts will get in the way of me getting to the goal, so that is all part
of developing that mind, disciplining your mind and changing the brain as it were, and
then, of course, there's the action you've got to take. You've got to take action that moves
you closer to the goal, moves you closer to that thing that has meaning for you - that
thing that matters to you.
When we look at very, very successful people, they live with integrity to meaning.
They're clear about their passion. They're clear about investing meaning in it. They say
meaning is a sacred resource. Not something that's given something from an outside
source, but something that they invest their own internal resource of meaning in it, so if
I'm going to do Habitat to Humanity, I'm investing meaning in that. If I am going to be a
world class chef, I'm investing meaning in that, and so on and so forth. It's got to matter
to me. So they live with integrity to meaning. Now, when it comes to money, you only
make money if what you are passionate about and what you are getting world class at, is
something that society values greatly and then you will make a lot of money. So in Good
to Great, Jim's three circles were what are we deeply passionate about? What can we
become the best in the world at? And, three, of all of those things, which of them will
drive our economic engine.
MS. KERSEY: Bill Gates talked about that. If you want to become a multi-millionaire,
you just have to deliver value to more people.
MR. EMERY: Correct.
MS. KERSEY: So, essentially, I think that's what you are saying. How can you convert
what you are passionate about and what you are really good at into delivering value for a
lot of people.
MR. EMERY: Yes. To a lot of the people like Bill Gates and the Steve Jobs, it's easy to
have 20/20 vision and hindsight, but when we had really deep and honest direct
conversations with a bunch of billionaires, that they ended up billionaires was a surprise
to them, for the most part.
MS. KERSEY: So I think that is a really important point for the people on this call. It is
not so much we call it a million dollar idea kind of demonstrating that it is a big idea, but
the key thing is to find an idea that you are deeply passionate about and are really willing
to bring this deliberate practice for, you know, who knows how many years because
you’ll be loving it.
MR. EMERY: Well, let's take -- a great example would be Steve Jobs. In our new book,
Do You Matter?, and that is a great question we encourage everybody to ask themselves.
We ask CEO's to answer that question when we coach them. Ask yourself, do you
matter. If you asked a group of people, does my company matter, what would the answer
be? This came at a class at Stanford where Robert Bruner, who built Apple's legendary
internal industrial design lab, was teaching design at an engineering class at Stanford and
he borrowed somebody's Motorola Razor phone and pulled out his iPhone, and, he said,
okay, you are college students. You love to play God. One of these companies has to
disappear instantly. Okay. So let's say we start with Motorola. If Motorola disappeared
right now or by tomorrow morning, how many of you would lose a lot of sleep over that?
How many would feel some sense of loss? The only person who said he would was the
person whose Razor it was, and then Robert said, well, okay. So if Apple disappeared by
tomorrow morning, how many of you would feel some sense of loss? Everybody put their
hand up.
He said the answer is, Apple matters and Motorola doesn't anymore. The question is,
why? Why? We start the book with Michael Dell's quote. He was asked when Steve
Jobs went back to Apple for the second time, what advice he had given him. He said,
well, I'd tell him to sell the company and get the money back from the shareholders. It is
over. Fast forward in the last quarter, Apple earned more than Microsoft and Michael
Dells is knocking on doors in Dubai looking for dollars. Whoops. What happened? And
you look at the story of Jobs. He was an adopted child. He went to college in Oregon.
He didn't like it. He thought his parents couldn't afford it. He told the dean he would
drop out. The dean said, well, why don't you visit classes? You never know. You might
find something you actually like. He walked into a class on calligraphy and he was so in
love with the beautiful design of the letters when they were done in beautiful calligraphy,
that he fell in love with topography design. He still dropped out of college. He started to
wonder how technology could make this beautiful thing available to more people and
become a tool. He ran into Steve Wozniak who invented this thing he called a personal
computer. They maxed out their credit cards, went to one of these electronic shows.
Apple was born.
MS. KERSEY: I didn't realize it was driven by his love of calligraphy. That is
fascinating.
MR. EMERY: No. Most people don't know that story, so it was this collision of passion.
A passion he didn't know he had until he wandered into this classroom. Now, somewhere
along the line there must have been a seed of it there, but he wasn't looking from
classroom to classroom to classroom for how to become a billionaire.
MS. KERSEY: Right. Well, and, again, that is why I think it is a very important
conversation that you were saying earlier is really noticing what is it that you love. Who
would have thought that his job of calligraphy would have helped found Apple computer.
MR. EMERY: Yes. Now, if you look at what drives them today, the research we did in
Do You Matter is that in order to matter, you have to provide people with an experience
they value highly. So this is a little different take on the Gates idea and it is why
Microsoft is getting hammered by Apple. The experience of using a Windows based
computer is painful compared to using a Mac. I used Windows machines for years. I
built them like Michael Dell. It never occurred to me to turn it into a billion dollar
business, though. I wasn't that passionate about it, but I use an Apple today. And the
abiding thing at Apple is how do we use design to provide people with an extraordinary
experience of their digital world and that produces different outcomes, so Gates is
correct. If you want to make a lot of money you have to create a lot of value, but how do
you measure value? What is it that people value? What is it that people actually want
out of life?
I'm a great fan of Joseph Campbell. When he was being interviewed by Bill Moyer and
Campbell was 83 at the time and he was asked by Moyer, well, don't you think people
mostly are looking for meaning? And he said, no, Bill, I don't think so. So I think what
people are looking for is an extraordinary experience of being alive. Now, meaning is
part of that, but at the end of day it is an extraordinary experience of being alive and so
you are saying how do I create people and value for people through providing them or
being a resource or fulfilling for them having an extraordinary experience of being alive,
MS. KERSEY: That's a very good question.
MR. EMERY: And if you are really good at that, yeah, you'll probably end up with a
million dollar idea. The other thing we find out about all these successful people, before
they became truly successful, they transited to realizing that anything that matters, can't
be done alone and, two, that they have to be about something that was bigger than
themselves. They have to be about something that was bigger than themselves. We
heard this over and over again.
MS. KERSEY: I wanted to go back to what you just said because I think it is so
powerful. It is like what gives people an experience of really being alive and how would
you apply that? Whether you are a coach or you're teaching people to dance or you are a
trainer. You know, when you look at people who bring that passion to their work, it is a
whole different experience, and when you bring that, you have a line of people waiting to
work with you.
MR. EMERY: Correct.
MS. KERSEY: This is a whole different experience.
MR. EMERY: Yes. So I go to that, you know, coffee shop at the school in Minnesota
run by an Ethiopian man who was trying to get his MBA, but had no passion for coffee.
So I say you have no business running a coffee shop. A couple months later I'm in
Kwang Jo in China doing a course called Successful for Chinese entrepreneurs and my
translator sees that I'm going through coffee withdrawals. He takes me to the local
Starbucks. And I think, why is she doing this? Coffee at Starbucks I don't think is all
that good in the states. How could it be good here, and I walked out and there was a
young Chinese guy who was really into it. And the machines they retired from America
to get super automatics so anybody can press coffee buttons, they had here in China one
of the original Starbucks Italian made glorious Mama Zoka traditional expresso
machines. This young man was pulling God shots of espresso and doing the latte art.
That is one of the best cup of cappuccinos I've ever had. I said, where did you learn to do
latte art? He said, You Tube, You Tube, You Tube, so he was watching the World
Barista contests on You Tube teaching himself how to do this, and so he'll end up -- who
knows where he will go, but he might open his own chain of coffee stores. He is into it
and he's alive. So we come back to that full circle, don't we?
Where you say, okay, what do I have to do for the million dollar idea. Well, I'd better
find something that I like to do. I'd better find something that I love to do because you
can have a great idea, but if it is not in an arena that is something you love to do, well,
you won't get there. Now, some people say we love to make money. Yeah, I understand,
but people who love to make money end up actually not being served by it that well. So
they don't end up with the experience that they thought they were going to have as a
result of getting the money. I mean, I came from very humble beginnings. My parents
were poor and I thought, well, there's no problems in life that solving being poor won't
solve. And after I got to be a superstar in my field in Australia, I woke up one day and
realized I had enough stuff to start my own world, but it hadn't actually given me the
experience that I was hungry for. So that's when I started reading people like Christian
Murphy and, you know, eastern philosophy and also, you know, American philosophy
like Napoleon Hill and Dell Carnegie, and I came to the United States in 1971. I taught
for a couple of weeks and I'm still here. I remembered clearly standing in the corner of
Haight-Ashbury thinking, wow, it is a different world.
There is this show called Life On Mars about this guy who gets hit by a car and wakes up
back in the early '70s, and I loved that show because it was like coming from Australia to
Haight-Ashbury in 1971. It was kind of like a life on Mars experience. I was on another
planet. It was interesting because I had done well in Australia; and I'd do it again. But
would I get just as lucky the first time. That is that responsibility thing. Take the blame
for the bad stuff, but I won't own the good stuff, and I started here. I didn't know
anybody and within a few years I was a millionaire again, but it was following my
curiosity - Following my passion. As Joseph Campbell would say, following my bliss.
Now, I've always been committed at getting really good at the things I cared about and I
don't know why. It is just how I was, then I would develop getting really good at them
and measure that I was making progress, so I somehow kind of knew that intuitively. But
I think growing up I knew people that were world class at things, so somewhere along the
line, it rubbed off. So I had coaches that I didn't know were coaches. Mentors who I
didn't recognize at the time were mentors. So I think the coaching and mentoring is
really important because it shapes the conversation you have with yourself. It shapes the
conversation you have with other people and it draws you out and keeps you in tract just
like you get a golf pro if you want to become really good at golf.
MS. KERSEY: Definitely. It allows, you know, for me when I've had coaches, I
remember when I first started speaking, I hired Bill Go and I paid $4,000 for one day.
And I thought, how could I get $4,000 of value in one day, but my mentors recommended
that I do it, and what I really got from that, Stewart, he looked at my videos and he
listened to me speak and, basically, was just really acknowledging me, and I walked
away from that all-day session with more confidence; and then I think what kind of a
price tag would I put to be able to walk away with more confidence? And I thought, you
know, that is one thing that we can get from a mentor. They can see in us things that we
sometimes can't even see in ourselves at that point.
MR. EMERY: Oh, yes. I think that is true about great mentors, great coaches, great
managers is that they see qualities in us.
MS. KERSEY: Right.
MR. EMERY: That we don't see in ourselves. I think the job of a coach or a great
manager is to turn talent into performance, so we can define talent that is not something
you are born with. But as any recurring pattern of thinking and feeling and behaving that
can be put to productive use and then what the great coach or the great manager does is
say they really manage in the process of your deliberate practice. They set goals for you
that are just beyond what you think you can do and they let you know that you are
actually making progress, and I have another quality. We found that really successful
people and really great leaders and really great managers, practice what we call
appreciative inquiry. In other words, they don't focus on what isn't working. They focus
on what is working and how to get better at that and do that more reliably and more
repeatedly and that leverages your strengths that you're developing, and oftentimes the
things that aren't working just fall by the wayside because there is not room for them in
the world that is focusing on the things you do well and getting better at those things.
MS. KERSEY: That is powerful. I'd like to review some of the wisdom that you have
brought to this call as far as for anyone who wants to develop a big mega idea. First off,
you've got to become clear on something you are passionate about. Be willing to get
good at it. You mentioned the book from Concepts to Consumer Turning Ideas into
Money. Great, great recommendation and I love the what you said, Stewart, is that the
idea is only 10 percent of the success formula. Ninety percent is about execution, so you
mentioned, doing inventory. Look at what you are really good at. Who can help you with
the things that you are not that good at or don't really enjoy doing, so you network. You
recruit a team of people. And remember that talent is overrated, so if you feel that you
love something, but you are not that good at it, what you are telling us, Stewart, is that it
can be developed through deliberate practice.
MR. EMERY: Correct. You absolutely can develop it, and the other key thing, also, is
when you recruit other people to do things you are not naturally good at or don't intend to
put in the time to become really good at it, there is no shame in that. In the modern
world, you know, the important trait is obviously, one: get good at the things you love,
but, two: pick other people who are good at the things they love that you need to have
done for your dream to come to reality.
MS. KERSEY: That is really important. I think, so many people that I know who are
entrepreneurs or maybe they are starting a new business don't even have an assistant,
right? And I've heard the saying, if you don't have an assistant, you are one, and there is
certain things that we really have to delegate.
MR. EMERY: Correct.
MS. KERSEY: Who wants to be good at certain things? Like, my assistant is brilliant at
what she does and allows me to be free to do the things that are creative and that I love to
do and I could never be as good as her on that.
MR. EMERY: Correct. You are absolutely correct. That is so important.
MS. KERSEY: Then you talked about why the right mindset is so important - the
learned optimism. Making a commitment that this is something that you want is really
important. And then finally, taking action. Getting into action, and what would you
recommend as far as the methodology of people. They've got their idea. They are
building a team, you know, what would be the next step that you would recommend for
people?
MR. EMERY: Well, what our next step is always asking the right questions, so when
you look at any possible range of actions that you could take, you ask yourself, which of
these possible actions has the highest likelihood of moving me closer to the goal. Now,
along the way you have certain events, so most people say, you know, the big
breakthroughs came in unexpected ways. But it is this idea that you earn your locks, so
by always asking yourself, is the thing I'm about to do moving towards my goal or not. If
you keep asking that question, it kind of keeps you honest and then great things will
happen.
MS. KERSEY: Exactly. The same thing with my coaching program we talk about what
is the highest and best use of my time. What is that one thing and it is like what you said.
As you are in action, certain things will fall away. Certain things will come forward and,
you know, as you are moving, you get more confidence. You get more direction and you
create that momentum, which is so important to bringing forward a big idea.
MR. EMERY: There is a balance between going down a straight line and then the ability
to look left and right and notice things that you could have passed by that when you look
at them a little longer, you realize could give you a true break through because you never
get where you are to where you want to be in a straight line at the end of the day.
Sometimes it turns out that where you end up isn't where you set out to get to, but that's a
good thing.
MS. KERSEY: That is so true, and we've all heard the saying, but I think it is so true. It
is who we become in the process.
MR. EMERY: Absolutely.
MS. KERSEY: That is the gift because then you bring that mindset, that consciousness
to whatever project. Like you said, you became a multimillionaire more than once.
You've got that attitude and mindset and knowledge that, you know, you could go
anywhere and start all over and in a very short period of time be very successful.
MR. EMERY: That was one of the great things about the original America was
populated by people who were from somewhere else who just wanted to come
somewhere where there was a level playing field to create something and weren't
restricted by the old class structures of Europe. This is still a great land to do things in.
MS. KERSEY: Yes, it is and I think in our economic times right now, I think this
message is so important. Really bringing passion back into your life, not being so
concerned about how am I going to make money, but how do I really make meaning?
How do I deliver service? How do I live my passion? And when you do that, you're on
fire; you are magnetized.
MR. EMERY: You are magnetized. Just different things happen, and so I can't think of
a better time in the recent history of this country than right now in the months and the
years ahead to really focus on, okay, what do I love to do and how do I get to be really,
really good at it? Because it is so hard to describe the thoughts are opened unexpectedly
often that you didn't even know existed. They won't open for you unless you are
committed to being good at something that you love. If people don't get anything out of
listening to this, other than this idea, I'd be feel that we had done good working with
people because, you know, I just watch my own life. That people say I'm good at
something. Passionate about something and they call me up and say, well, would you
like to do this? Would you like to do that? Would you lead us in this endeavor and it
keeps me up. It keeps me alive. Keeps me excited and I've been delighted.
MS. KERSEY: Well, we are delighted by you and just what you've brought to this call
and who you are and the information, Stewart, has really been profound and I'm really in
deep appreciation, and I love -- Do You Matter, was that your latest book
MR. EMERY: Yes, the latest book is Do You Matter?. How Great Design Will Make
People Love Your Company, and it sounds like it is a corporate book, but it isn't because
really it is a book about how do you design great experiences, and if you think about what
experience do I want to design for people, then having come up with that, then how do I
create and design a company and processes and products and services that provide that
experience that I want to provide to the people. I mean, the I Phone came about because
Jobs and company was sitting around in a meeting and somebody's cell phone went off
just like mine did for which I apologize, again. It was an I Phone, of course. A phone
went off and the person said, God, I hate my phone, and Jobs looked around the table and
said, how many people feel that way about their phone? People put their hands up. He
said, well, why don't we design a phone that we would all love and that other people
would love because we have the resources. So their goal was to design a phone that
everybody would love. They would love the experience of using it
MS. KERSEY: That is pretty Cool.
MR. EMERY: You know, it is just amazing, so we keep coming back. What is
something I love? How do I provide value to people and the value I am providing to
people is an experience that is richer for them than if I didn't do this.
MS. KERSEY: That is awesome. That is awesome, and the question, do you matter? I
just want to say to everyone listening, you know, you matter and the world needs your
ideas, your uniqueness, the passion that you have, the world needs it. And I so
appreciate, Stewart, your willingness to share with our listeners today your wisdom and
your great insight, and to everyone listening today, you do matter and I appreciate your
participation in this and, again, I encourage you to continue to share this with other
people.
As you hear Stewart sharing this valuable information, other people need to hear this and
when they join, when they are a part of the Unstoppable Giving Challenge, the money
goes directly to building schools in Africa, and what we are saying to our Africa brothers
and sisters is that you matter and we care. and so I just encourage you all, again, share
this with your friends, tell everybody to go to UnstoppableGivingChallenge.com and sign
up and to become a school builder. And we are excited to hear about your million dollar
ideas that not only change your life, but change the world, so thank you,
Stewart. I appreciate your participation and thank you to everyone listening to this call,
and I look forward to our next course and our next interview. Until then, be unstoppable.
God bless you. Thank you
MR. EMERY: It is a pleasure. Thank you.
MS. KERSEY: Thanks, Stewart
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