Episode 126 – Michael Brian

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Michael Brian 0:00
As soon as I realized that the mountains are just stepping stones, everything changed.

So when you get to the top of a mountain, you realize there’s another one. And then another one. And then another one. It’s so easy to chase it. I mean, I’m guilty of it. I do it now. I change stuff that I know is going to be something else. The amount of times I’ve wanted to quit — to stop and I wanted to not bother. I mean, if I stop tomorrow, like nothing would — you know, things would be different. Or my life would be easier, it would be so much easier. But that isn’t the point. I don’t do it for an easy life. Because at the end of the day, an easier life is a boring life.

Introduction 0:51
Heroes are an inspiring group of people. Every one of them from the larger-than-life comic book heroes you see on the big silver screen, to the everyday heroes that let us live the privileged lives we do. Every hero has a story to tell. From the doctor saving lives in your local hospital. To the war veteran down the street who risked his life for our freedoms. To the police officers and the firefighters who risked their safety to ensure ours. Every hero is special and every story worth telling. But there is one class of heroes that I think it’s often ignored. The entrepreneur, the creator, the producer, the ones who look at the problems in this world and think to themselves, “You know what? I can fix that. I can help people. I can make a difference.” And they go out and do exactly that by creating a new product or introducing a new service. Some go on to change the world, others make a world of difference to their customers. Welcome to The HERO Show. Join us as we pull back the masks on the world’s finest heropreneurs and learn the secrets to their powers, their success, and their influence. So you can use those secrets to attract more sales, make more money and experience more freedom in your business. I’m your host, Richard Matthews, and we are on in 3… 2… 1…

Richard Matthews 1:46
And welcome back to the hero show. My name is Richard Matthews. And today, I am live on the line with Mike Bryan. Mike are you there?

Michael Brian 1:53
I am Yes.

Richard Matthews 1:56
Awesome. Thanks for being here. And for those of you been following along with our podcast, my wife, family, and I are still stuck for our COVID crisis. We did finally get an out date to actually start moving and traveling and Mike, you said you were coming in from Spain? Is that right?

Michael Brian 2:10
Yeah. lockdowns are getting intense here. They seem to be testing how far they can open up. And then the cases shut up again. So we’re going back into lockdown. So over here, it’s not looking good.

Richard Matthews 2:30
Yeah, we’re we’re sort of dealing with the same thing on this side of the pond. We can travel a little bit inside of Florida. But we can’t really go outside of Florida without quarantine and other things. So that’s what we’re doing, which is kind of difficult for a family that travels full time like we do.

We’ve been stuck for six months. But let me go ahead and go through your introduction real quick for our listeners who may not know who you are. So Michael Brian is a speaker, podcaster, author, and entrepreneur that hasn’t let having cystic fibrosis and diabetes hold him back from achieving his dreams. Having got to the other side of zero self worth having a host of insecurities, losing friends, family giving him a sense of morality, motivation, loss of purpose. He gives a fresh perspective on self improvement. Even on TV, spoke on stage, he hosts the top-rated self improvement podcast the Ask Mike show, where he’s interviewed influencers and celebrities. Now he helps other entrepreneurs and changemakers do the same. And it’s written a book “Talking You Through the Whole Process. So Mike, with that brief introduction, why don’t you start off by telling us a little bit about your business now. Right? Who do you serve? What do you do for them? You know, basically, how do you make money?

Michael Brian 3:38
Well, one of the one of the biggest things that I found is a lot of people that want to go beyond just themselves. So they want to find something and help people in a way that’s not just about them. So there’s an element of impact involved, there’s an element of wanting to make their mark. And what I found is that’s scary for a lot of people. That’s scary for people that the kind of I don’t want to say stuck, but they are comfortable, they are used to the way things have always been but they feel that pull of wanting to go bigger, or wanting to do more. And I help give them the confidence and the self esteem and the tools and tricks that I used. And I help them make their mark as well. That’s kind of how I do it. I take my experience along with what I’ve learned over the years. And I help people do what I’m able to do.

Richard Matthews 4:41
Awesome. And you do that through like coaching and stage speaking and stuff like that.

Michael Brian 4:45
Yeah, I mean, there’s lots of different ways based on what they need. So there’s a few people that would just need the information. Some need the processes and they can go ahead and do it on their own. But there are people that need the extra accountability or hand-holding? And that’s what the coaching is for.

Richard Matthews 5:06
Nice, nice. So how long have you been doing that for now?

Michael Brian 5:10
A started for — going back a few years now. Because if we’re talking just the way I do things now then it is probably about three or four years. I’ve been coaching for over 10 years. I used to be a tennis coach and a personal trainer on a mission of helping people in bigger and bigger ways. I was about maybe 18 or 19 when I was doing really well health and fitness wise. There are people out there that are struggling with it. And that feels like such a bigger task, I suppose. Or a bigger challenge than tennis. So in my mind, I thought I could maybe do both — I could tennis coach and be a personal trainer. How cool would that be? So it’s been a long journey of helping people, that’s for sure.

Richard Matthews 6:02
Yeah, that sounds pretty cool. So let’s talk a little bit about how you got into this whole coaching gig, right? We, we say on this show, every year good comic book hero has an origin story. It’s the thing that made them into the hero they are today, right? You know, we want to hear that story. Were you born hero? Were you bit by a radioactive spider that made you want to get into coaching? Or did you start a job and eventually moved to becoming an entrepreneur? So basically, I want to know how you got from where you were to doing this work for other people?

Michael Brian 6:32
Well, when I was around 15, or 16, I started playing tennis. That was the first sport I ever really played. And as soon as I started playing, I knew I was never gonna turn professional. But I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I know that at 15, or 16, you’re not really supposed to. But I didn’t have anything. I didn’t really — the only thing I was really good at was sports. I wasn’t particularly academic, I wasn’t particularly smart, I was kind of in middle of the road. So there was not a lot of like, I want to be an accountant or I want to be this or I want to be that. I didn’t have that pull. But sport was what I enjoyed. I originally started for my health, but then it progressed a lot further into — I’m the same if not better than people without my conditions. I want to be able to do something with this. So I did sport throughout a lot of the education system that I was on. I got to a point where my coaches started to ask me, if I fancied trying my hand being a coach. I just said, “Yeah.” because I thought it was my only option, I didn’t really have much else. So it was like, well, I’ll give it a go. So I did what I needed to do qualifications wise, I started out volunteering at my local tennis club. And the thing that made me want to stay doing it, the thing that made me want to keep helping people keep going… And then as I’ve grown as a person, how I’ve helped people as changed. But it’s still the same sort of feeling that I got. When you see the kids that you help… the smiles on their faces when you help them get better. And they start to love the game again, even though you know, some parents can push kids into competing and it makes them hate it. But when they get better at the sport, and they see that the whites in their eyes, and they love it so much. That’s what convinced me. That’s what made me think I want to do that. So there’s a bit of a selfish-selfless thing going on whereby I feel great when I help others feel great. And that has been my guiding light ever since. I’ve never really faulted all that much. And it’s just allowed me to feel satisfied, feel fulfilled and feel like I’m living in a way that makes the most sense to me.

Richard Matthews 9:07
Makes a lot of sense. And so I know in your bio, it mentioned that you suffer from cystic fibrosis as well. So how does that tie into this whole story of being a coach? Like I personally, I don’t even know what cystic fibrosis is, other than it’s probably not good?

Michael Brian 9:23
Well, the condition affects my lungs and my digestive system mostly. So if you can imagine, sports was one of the ways that the doctors and consultants told my parents that was a form of treatment. So if I kept active, my lungs would keep sort of mobile and breathing, if you will. And that would give me the best chance of fighting off infections and letting the illness takeover. So originally it started out as a form of treatment for CF – cystic fibrosis. And that’s partly what all I really knew, because it was all I did. If it wasn’t like running around the school fields and playing football, or whatever it was. I was in school, or I was eating, or I was doing my treatments, and I was going back to bed. And there was no, but there wasn’t an awful lot of social life, because of the treatments and things I had to be home at a certain time. I had to eat a certain way. So it didn’t really benefit me to do the extra curricular stuff. Sport was my outlet. Sport was my thing. So that’s how it started. And then as I’ve got more of a handle on the conditions, I was able to broaden everything and trying to do something with it. There’s only so much that you’re given in life, if you will. And

Richard Matthews 10:54
Interesting. So the sport that you chose was or that you got into it was actually a result of having this condition.

Michael Brian 11:03
Yeah, it was my brother who initially started playing first. So it’s not sort of … it wasn’t on a whim, so to speak. He started playing. And I thought I would try it. You know, I wasn’t trying to become a coach or a player at the time until I realized that I had this thing of… if I’m going to try something, and I’m going to realize that I can do it, I instantly want to be good. So I’ve got this sense of — there’s no point in just trying it and dipping my toe in doing something knowing that you’re terrible. It doesn’t sit well with me. So I got like lessons and I played all the time, and I spent my hours on a tennis court that most people wouldn’t put in. And that’s what allowed me to do those things. it was the same when I used to play basketball. I would do the 6am runs in the dark. So that I was fitting off, or just able to cope with the demands on the basketball court. It wasn’t a case of I had to sacrifice anything. It was I want to be good at this thing. And I’ll do what it takes. It was a focused sort of, I just don’t like being bad at things. I may as well do something else.

Richard Matthews 12:21
So how did you make the transition from being a tennis coach into being a self improvement coach?

Michael Brian 12:30
This came about.. Initially, the bridging was actually personal training. So I started off as a personal trainer, I started running my own classes. Then I went into personal training in a local sort of gym. It was just a local commercial gym. And those of you that are unaware, personal trainers can feel like therapists to their clients. Sometimes I’d be training them, other clients will be like stressed out from work saying, “I can’t eat properly and we’ve got the time.” And if you start telling people how to eat, you start taking away that barriers to eating healthfully. So rather than telling people to eat healthier. Well, maybe you should plan your way home, so that you go to a healthy restaurant instead of an unhealthy one. Or you start giving them that sort of advice rather than eat healthier, because you realize over the years of doing it is if you do moving off of the barriers, they’ll do what you ask them to do. If they’re stressed out, giving someone a diet plan is not going to help. If anything, it will stress them out more. You know, I used to tell them to do things like around work and things of that nature. And I realized that I was making it worse for them. So the diet had to shift to make up for the fact that they weren’t exercising twice as much. When I first started, I had no idea. I was actually not factoring in the lifestyle of the clients initially. And the job plays a massive part. I was at fault I was in the wrong. You know, as a personal trainer, you’ve got the maximum level of convenience. Alright, so I used to play tennis I used to coach tennis, I was in the gym, like teaching classes and training like twice a day. And then I had the flexibility to eat when I wanted and eat what I wanted. And it was like I had no sense of, I guess, relation to my clients. I couldn’t relate to them at all. When I started to learn more about them, I realized that they’re not making decisions from the right place. They’re not factoring in their lifestyle around where they want to go, you know, the whole do what you can with what you have all over again. And I realized that I had to learn a lot about my clients to be able to advise them in the right way. You don’t want to go to a doctor who has no idea what your lifestyle is like. So when I started to take it that seriously, I realized that mindset plays a huge part. Lifestyle design played a huge part. And I found that I had Tony Robbins books from like 10 years prior that I’d never read. And I had like all the books, I was being recommended by people to start reading, I already had the books. I just hadn’t read them, you buy them with the best intentions, right? And then just gathering dust in the so called library just a shelf in your bedroom, right? With the books that you never intend on reading. That was me when I first started, I had the books, I had the Tony Robbins books, I had the “Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway” books, I had the “How To Rewire Your Brain” books, but I hadn’t read them. So around Personal Training, I would also read up on like how we operate as people. Brain science and mindset and all this personal development stuff, because I realized that people can work out fine. But if it makes their life worse, because they’ll be stressed out, they can’t sleep. And it was like I actually told someone, “You’ve got to factor in your entire family when you’re trying to fit in exercising.” And initially that didn’t even cross my mind when I first started. Imagine how easy it would be for like a woman to have a conversation with their family about wanting to take their fitness and health more seriously, that was a game changer for her. And she was doing so much better afterwards, in the gym all the time. Everything was better and all I did was say, “Look, you’ve got to involve your family. It won’t work if you don’t.”

Richard Matthews 16:50
So if I’m understanding you correctly, the transition happened because you made that realization that “Hey, there’s more to just being fit and healthy than just doing the work.” You actually have life, mindset, and the way that you think about all these things are important. That sort of made that transition from just being a personal trainer into a sort of a life coach.

Michael Brian 17:09
Exactly. Because when you do your personal training qualifications, they don’t teach you any of that. They don’t teach you like personalization at that level, yeah, you personalize your programs based on the results that your clients want. And there’s a bit of factor in there like the lifestyle of the client. If you don’t go deep enough then you’re not able to make the long term transformations that they wanted. The whole thing where you can lose a lot of weight in a short term period. But then what about two years from now? What about one year from now? When it all goes back on again, because your life changes and you don’t know how to handle it? So I realized that there was a lot more to it, I realized that it’s not just on the surface level it is at the deeper level as well. And then when it was around when social media started to take over, I’ll be spending more time on our phones than not on our phones. So when I I realized that I took — initially I took the health coaching and the fitness coaching. That was my first stab at the the online business world, it was taking the personal training, and the health coaching, if you will, that was my first sort of online business.

Richard Matthews 18:30
That’s cool. Well, what I want to talk about next then is your superpowers. Right? So every iconic hero has a superpower, right? Whether that’s a fancy flying suit made by a genius intellect or the ability to call down Thunder from the sky. In the real world, heroes have what I call a zone of genius, right? It’s a skill or set of skills that you were born with, or have developed over time that energize all of your other skills. Right? So this superpower sort of runs its way through all of your skills, and what sets you apart. It’s what allows you to help your clients slay their villains in their life, right and come out on top of their own journeys. So with that framing, what do you think your superpower is in your business?

Michael Brian 19:08
I think my introvert nature, and wanting to help people from an early age has given me the ability to listen a lot before I decide when to speak and what to say. Now a lot of people will probably say that, but I think that so many people are used to just talking at people rather than trying to understand people before trying to talk to them and treat them as a human. So I would say that is the main superpower that I have.

Richard Matthews 19:42
So the the ability to listen and understand like … Actually, we call it hearing between the lines so to speak, with the things that they’re not saying.

Michael Brian 19:56
Yeah.

Richard Matthews 19:57
Yeah, that’s a it’s a good skill. So how do you think that has impacted your ability to actually get your clients better results?

Michael Brian 20:06
I think that very often, it makes every step in the right direction. So once you figure it — if you imagine playing basketball and every step was towards the basket, you wouldn’t need to take as many steps. But if you go around in circles, or you go around the outsides, you’ve then got to try and figure out how to actually get to the basket. So by doing it, the steps are harder, the steps are more meaningful, but there’s less of them. And very often people get results a lot quicker by doing that, rather than trying to just go for speed, and you realize that you go and run in circles. So that’s one of the main ways that has helped me.

Richard Matthews 20:50
That’s really awesome. So I’m talking about the flip side then, right? So if your superpower is the deep listening, then the flip side of your superpower is the fatal flaw. So every Superman has his kryptonite. And you know, every Wonder Woman can’t remove her bracelets of victory without going mad. You probably have a flaw that’s held you back in your business — something you struggled with. For me, it was a couple of things: perfectionism that kept me from shipping product. I would hold me back from actually getting things out because I would… I always had more things I could tweak to make it better. And I would never ship or sell. There is lack of self care, which for me, led to letting my clients walk all over me. But you know, I think more important than what the flaw is, how have you worked to rectify it in your business so that you can continue to grow? And hopefully, by sharing it, our listeners will learn a little bit from your experience?

Michael Brian 21:45
Well, the first one — I may have definitely got more than one. But the first one is because I spent so long being creative. It was sports, it was coaching, it was creating, I’m not very technically minded. So I haven’t break projects down into like workable, you know, things of that nature. Like, I’d rather be creative. I’m like an ideas and creative person. Someone goes, okay, that means you’ve got to do this, you got to do that, you want to do this, and my brain just goes off. So that’s one of mine, it’s I’m not very good when it comes to like being technical. And being like, these are the steps to take. It is very difficult. I just want to do this up here. Sometimes I forget that in order to do that. There’s a lot of working parts and a lot of things that go into it, that tends to be where, where I tend to struggle. So it takes me a while to do it. Or I hire someone that is more technically minded to do it for me, or to at least do some of it for me. So that’s the first one. The second one is very often it can take longer than people think, for me to actually give the advice. So if I was to just turn around and go, Oh, we need this, this and this. They go ahead and do it and make progress and then falter and go back. That’s still on me. So I’ve got this sense of responsibility of making sure that I do things in the right way. So when I tried to give advice, and I try to advise people in the right way, the fact that it’s the right way, is important. So sometimes I can spend too long, trying to understand and trying to figure out the moving parts and try to figure out how to factor everything into someone’s day, before I actually tell them what I think is best. And that can make things a bit more drawn out than it should be. How I counteract that, or how I tend to work is, over the years, it’s just gotten easier. Over the years, I’ve started to make notes, I’ve started to notice more patterns. And that’s naturally sped things up. When I first started, I had to find those patterns. Whereas now I acknowledge the patterns, I find them. And then rather than have this big spiderweb of options, there’s only so many that work for certain types of people. So it just takes experience there’s nothing secret about that apart from you make notes and then notice commonalities with the people that you work with. That tends to be how I tend cope with that.

Richard Matthews 24:45
Yeah, that’s interesting because I had a similar similar problem. I’ll be, you know, in different space. It was because of the breadth of what I was doing in my business for our clients. There’s like all these various different things that could go down. And it’s very customized. And it wasn’t until I like actually sat down and wrote out my system, like every little thing and started working on branding, like, “Hey, this is specifically what we do for this step. And what we do for this step and what we do for these steps.” And like, you know, all the different pieces in between, then when someone would come to me, I could like sit down in front of my whole system with them. It was like a map. And we could be like, Hey, here’s where you are on this journey. And here’s what it looks like in the front. And here’s what it looks like, in the past, you know, did you hit all these steps to get here, and if they missed one, we could fill them in. And it was like, once I finally had a system down, then it shrunk that time to actually make good recommendations to people.

Michael Brian 25:45
Yeah, it’s funny how a combination of being more specialized and understanding that when you do that, and recognizing patterns that people have gone through — it naturally speeds up by itself. You cannot have — you can still be listening, understanding, and wanting to know kind of person like I am. But then you match that with the fact that you’re laying it on a system, there’s only so many things that work, you know. If you’ve got a structure, you can veer it away a little bit.

Richard Matthews 26:21
Yeah.

Michael Brian 26:22
… you end up like all over the place. So I think just by being more specific, and understanding that you only work with certain types of people, I work with mostly introverts, because that’s what I am generally. So when that happens, you know — okay, well these are the things that work for me. These are the things that work for the people. Everyone wants the same result. So naturally, it’s going to be more of a pyramid shape, rather than like a web. And that just makes everyone’s life easier. And the people you work with get results a lot faster. So they kind of —

Richard Matthews 26:58
Yeah, I call that the, the crocodile infested river, right? Like, it’s, it’s you, you know, the path that you’ve been across, right, I’ve helped I’ve been across this path, I’ve helped other people across this path. So like, when they come up to the edge, and you’re standing there with your, your boat, and you’re like, hey, I’ve been across this river before, right? I’m an introvert, like you I you know, have cystic fibrosis, like you whatever the thing is, right? Like, I understand this journey that you have to take, because I’ve been there myself, I’ve been across to the promised land I’ve helped other people get across. So you can more easily help them get across that, that river as well.

Michael Brian 27:35
Yeah, it’s almost like it’s, it’s the beaten path, you know, you’ve beaten the path down, and it’s easier for the people to, to go across. And I think that for some people as well, like having a was when I was a, when I was a personal trainer many years ago. They were very, very taken back when they realized I had the conditions. So obviously, when you’ve got health conditions, and you’re seen as lesser, if you will, I did everything to be like anybody else. They you name it, all of it was in secret, I take my meds like in the in the toilets right out of the way. So no one really knew what I was doing. I did everything to be seen as if I was somebody that didn’t have the conditions, which meant the when I because the book is about how I started to speak on stage and host my podcast and do all the things that old Mike would never have even attempted that you’ve no idea how quiet I was, thanks to bullying and people pleasing. And, you know, being told to sit down whenever I tried to do things that I really wanted to do, you know, stay in your place almost. Eventually, when people started to find out my personal training clients were sat there thinking, My excuses on it should be don’t matter. I’m complaining. So Mike about these little insignificant things. And sometimes Mike can barely get out of bed in the morning. And I’m here saying Oh, my ex is doing my editing, oh, boohoo, he started to correct their own excuses. And starts to give themselves a bit of a not not a beating. But we started to give themselves a telling off whenever they will come to me with their excuses for why they couldn’t get results. So naturally, they got results a lot faster. Like these these excuses stop mattering, you know. So they were like,

Richard Matthews 29:29
yeah, they started taking ownership of it.

Michael Brian 29:31
Yeah, it’s like ownership of it. There’s a lot of self accountability that comes with realizing that someone’s better than you they started off with less. So with that everyone’s like, started becoming self accountable, which some people it takes that to be some people don’t have that. Some people don’t have the ability to be accountable to themselves. So when I sort of took the burden of that, if that makes sense. I mean, I was someone that was never really Leader, if you will, I was never seen as someone that people would follow people would listen to. I was in the shadows until like, the end of my teenage years. So no one really knew who I was didn’t have many friends couldn’t socialize all that much. Just because I had other stuff to do. I don’t the stuff to worry about, rather than whether my friends liked me or not, you know, it was a bit insignificant compared to what I had to go through on a daily basis. So it was really strange for people to go, your story’s amazing. I’ve got no more excuses. Now. Like my brains just just watching you just watching you do you, and you do the things that you’re doing is enough for me to shut my own excuses up. So because a lot of people follow me from the personal training days, still now, still now, am I going back years. So I go, I’m speaking on stage, or I’m doing this and I’m doing that I still get messages from people that I used to have, as personal training clients be like, Oh, my God, that’s amazing. You’ve come so far, in such an amount of time, it’s amazing to see you do this, this and this. It’s so intimate. And as long as I’m still stuck there, I will go in. But I’m not really doing anything. Like it doesn’t feel. It doesn’t feel huge to me. But the other people, it’s crazy. It’s phenomenal. It’s inspirational. So it it’s a funny, it’s a funny situation to be in. When Yeah, when it happens, it’s one of the

Richard Matthews 31:41
it’s one of the things that, uh, the things that come easy to you don’t come easy to other people, right? And that’s where you, you discover your the value you can bring to the world. Because anything that you’re looking at it going, Hey, it wasn’t that hard, or it’s not that special. And the rest of the world is looking at going I can’t do that. That’s that’s where that’s where the magic is.

Michael Brian 32:00
Yeah, I mean, if if you buy a copy of the book, when it comes out, then you will know that it wasn’t you will know just how difficult it was. There’s a full chapter on my sort of initial speaking journey. And it’s, it’s, it’s when I when I went out to write it, I went back there mentally to write it all it was it was horrible. Like the, the amount of work that went into it mentally considering, like, you know, I was singled out when I was like five years old, for a CF fundraiser. But I had to go from not many people knowing that I had the condition. So the whole school knowing that I had the conditions to organize a fundraiser. And the teachers were like, well, the kids will want to know, like, why we’re having this fundraiser, you know. And I was the only one in the school that had the conditions. That’s just the way it was. So eventually, I hated being in front of people. So everything from my little presentations in like college or university would scare me. I didn’t like any of it. There was nothing about speaking in front of people that I enjoyed. Then when people started telling me that, you know, it’ll be amazing. If you share this on stage, it would be so good. My brain was like, well, maybe you could, I managed to convince myself that I could do it. But it wasn’t based on how I thought of myself. It’s based on how other people perceive me, which is one of the is one of the reasons why people do what they do is how other people see them. So in the back of my mind, I thought maybe I’ll give it a go. And the whole story is horrible having to convince myself to get up off the chair when my name was called out. And how heavy my legs were walk upstairs. And the fact that I don’t even remember what I spoke about. Just because I was shaking, I could feel like my heart was like in my head. My hands were all tight and sweaty, and I couldn’t think properly my brain was just like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god the whole time. And it was what I was thinking what I was saying were different the whole time. I was resolved to read off the slides might read off the slides. And my brain was like, Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t walk up the stairs while I’m walking up the stairs. I’m going Don’t do it. Don’t Don’t, don’t go up the stairs. Don’t do it turn around. You can still turn around and voice that went. You can’t turn around. You’re halfway up the stairs. People are waiting for you to go on. And I share all that because there are people out there that just want to feel like they are going through something other people do. Because you see people don’t like the rock page, and it puts people off, I’ve never done it before. You know, they see people that are at the peak of their career, if you will peak of their growth as a human. And it puts people off from starting. And people never start. And then people regret it because they thought they could never get to where they’re comparing themselves to. And a part of why I’m writing the book is that there’s people out there, that are introverts like me, that are struggling like me, that are unsure about whether this is normal, you know, people that tried to meditate, and they go, this is horrible, I can’t even think straight, and they think that they’re not doing it, right. That’s the kind of thing is that, if you’re struggling, if you’re trying to convince yourself that starting this thing is a good idea, and you’ve got to convince yourself, you’ve got to justify, you’ve got to write out the pros and cons, you’ve got to drag yourself out of bed, because you’ve got no other option, because you’ve got this thing that pulls you that you just can’t explain. And yet when you try to do it, it still scares you, even though you want to do it at the same time. And you live it in that light contradiction of you want to do it. But you don’t want to do it. But you do. But it scares you to do it. So you don’t want to do it. But deep down, you still want to do it. living that way is some people don’t even realize what that’s like people don’t realize that what it can take for someone that is a warrior. That Yeah, so it

Richard Matthews 36:34
sounds like that’s that’s your your common enemy. Right that you’re you’re constantly worrying about yourself, but also helping other people struggle and fight with, with that, that sort of mentality.

Michael Brian 36:45
Yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard to live this way is how’s it because it’s not it’s not a theory book. It’s not a five steps to change your life. It’s learning from some moments living it but learning it, like you’re walking the journey with me. That’s the idea behind the book. So you learn about what runs through my mind, you learn about what like, where I sort of feel the most anxious before I do it. We also learn the differences between the first time I do something and the second time. Cuz Yeah, based on my own experience, the first time I ever did something was the worst. I was absolutely horrific, even from like driving tests, which I don’t cover in the book, but driving tests to speaking on stage to my first interview to the first time you do it is horrible what it is to me. But the second time is very, very different. And I share that difference. I share how very often it can feel different, but the outcome is the same. Because even though I was absolutely Well, I was operating a million miles a second, on my first time on stage, it was horrible. I must have burned like 500 calories just the whole night. And I was on fire the whole time. Time. It was very different. I didn’t feel the same way. But people didn’t think I was nervous first time round. Because it was recorded. And I put the YouTube they did the brave thing of putting the YouTube video up online. didn’t watch it back couldn’t face it. I really couldn’t face watching my my own talk again. But they were like, I don’t I don’t understand why I thought you were nervous. I mean, I couldn’t tell the talk was really good. And I’m there like, You got to be kidding. You have got there’s no way you can’t tell I’m nervous. I know we can’t talk. So that’s what convinced me to do it again. And the outcome was probably similar. But it felt very, very different. And that is something that people will need to learn, people need to know that people need to know the once you get over the first time, the second time can be very different. The second time you do something can be so much better, just because of how it feels. And then you start to wonder, because I was wondering whether or not this speaking thing could be anything that I could do was if it was so bad, and so horrific first time round, it would take so much to get up on stage a second time. Same thing with light starting my podcast, it was oh my god, how am I going to get guests it has to be perfect. You’re sort of perfectionism thing that kicked in. I feel like I’ve got every instinctual story going on every single one I’ve been able to overcome. Because at the end of the day when you’re when you’re pushed to be in the situations whereby you have to practice what you preach. But I was a self proclaimed mindset coach, right? I read all the books, I did everything. I practiced some of it myself, you know, because I felt like I needed to Right to sort of earn my stripes if you will. But the situations that you’re put in that force you to practice what you preach in a whole new way. That’s what made me realize the power of how you think the power of out to you. And sometimes there’s nothing like it like, I thought I was doing okay. Like mentally, because I wasn’t challenging myself either. It’s so easy to to be amazing until life hits you in the face. Right. So when you’re Ashfall, when you’re in those situations, is when you’ve got to learn the tips. That’s when you need to know the skills and, and the practices and the breathing routines and the box breathing when you walk up the stairs, because it’s the only way to control your breathing before you step onstage. It’s the things that you tell yourself, before you turn the mic on. Before this interview, I had to have an element of a routine, just to give myself a sense of control. Because I don’t know what questions you’re going to ask. So that is something that you don’t learn if you never actually put yourself in those situations.

Richard Matthews 41:14
So in light of sort of that whole story, how do you think that informs what we call your your driving force, right? So the flip side of your common enemy, right? So the thing it’s the thing that you fight for? Right? So like Spider Man fights to save New York or Batman fights save Gotham, or Google likes to index and categorize all the information? What is it that you fight for? Right? Is it is it informed by that whole? The whole process of learning how to get past the first time, right and get good at something?

Michael Brian 41:44
I think one of the things that I’m fighting for is for fulfillments and challenge. So as soon as someone told me that happiness is related to progress, and happiness is related to being fulfilled, and the power of overcoming a struggle is bigger than anything, you know, people don’t value you struggling off. So I fight for showing people that that you can be fulfilled

Richard Matthews 42:16
I like that, that the value of struggle because there’s there’s so much there’s so much to that, right like that. We think for some reason, that the thing that we’re that we all want is the end of the journey, right? We want to get to retirement, we want to get to the best speaker thing, we want to get to be the top of our game, whatever the thing is, or, you know, we want to buy the cool barbecue or whatever the you know, the physical thing is, it’s always we think it’s the end game. And when you get there, you realize the end game isn’t what you wanted. What you wanted was the journey, like you wanted the struggle. And for whatever reason, human beings, we we live for the struggle, we live for the journey, the adventure, so to speak.

Michael Brian 42:58
As soon as I realized that the mountains are just stepping stones, everything changed. So when you get to the top of a mountain, you realize there’s another one, and then another one. And then another one, it’s so easy to to chase it. I mean, I’m guilty of it, I do it. Now I change stuff that I know there’s going to be something else. The amount of times I’ve wanted to quit and I wanted stop, and I wanted to not bother. I mean, if I stop tomorrow, like nothing would, you know, things would be different, but my life would be easier. It will be so much easier. But that. But that isn’t the point. I don’t do it for an easy life. Because at the end of the day, an easy life is a boring life. And I say that knowing that everyone has their own struggles, no matter what position you are, everyone has something they’re dealing with. And everyone has a battle that we’re not going to win. I have several, I’m not going to win mine. And yeah, as soon as you realize that as soon as you’re not really gonna win this thing, because even if you tick off things, and even if you cross off your bucket list, and let’s see, you’ve got your top 10 bucket list, and you do all 10 we can find the 11th one, you’ll find the 12th one, because eventually you just get bored and then you think of something else. And then you’ll think of something

Richard Matthews 44:32
at the end of the day we all we all get to go to the grave. We all lose the battle eventually.

Michael Brian 44:37
Yeah, I mean, I think that the trick is how you feel between those things. So before I moved abroad, right so I currently live in not in the country that I was born in right so I moved abroad, nice place. Obviously not now with lockdown and everything but it’s a weird situation right now. But when I moved abroad, it took everything from Need to come out here, given the I don’t fly that much I had to fly on my own, which was horrible. So the way of putting it as a first time flying on my own is going to be a one way flight. Good luck with that, Mike. Yeah, you’ll enjoy that surely you will not but it. It was something that was what I really, really, really wanted to do. And there’s so much that you can take off, there’s so much that you can strive to achieve. But you you’ve got to be okay in between those things. Because if you’re, if you’re doing things for the wrong reasons, then it’s different. It’s a different feeling. So now, my holidays are not to escape anywhere my holidays, are not to go to a just straight to a beach, because I live on an island that has loads of beaches. So now why go on holiday for a different reason. Same thing with this, like, if you’re doing things for the the box to be ticked, if you’re doing things for the high achieving something, that’s okay, I’ve got nothing wrong with that, if that is what you want to do. You know, there are people out there that that that’s what they do, that’s fine. But if you’re unhappy between those things, and that’s the only time when you feel good, then there needs to be something else that needs to be something else is making you feel good about things.

Richard Matthews 46:36
You have to have to change change your definitions a bit. Because the What do you call it the waiting until you have a certain bit part of your life happen or wait until you get a certain thing in your life to be happy is a sure way to not be happy most of the time?

Michael Brian 46:57
Do you both have the amount of people that I know are achieving things for the achievement. But they still feel amazing in between and leave the amazing life between so there’s nothing wrong in doing both. But if the own, we’re talking like people that get the dopamine high, and that’s all they live for. That’s a very different way I found to do it. I’ve had moments where the only thing I was actually getting out of bed for was to take my medicines and do my treatments and then go to the gym and then come back home. And then that was my day. It was wait for eating was pretty much what I was doing. It wasn’t it wasn’t it surviving. Yeah, it was just surviving. I just get to the end of the day, just get to the end of the day. So it was so difficult to to break that cycle because I’m sure you’re probably aware or someone listening might be aware. That becomes a very, very easy thing to get used to.

Richard Matthews 48:00
Yeah. Yeah, it does, bro show we’ll be right back. Hey there fellow podcaster. Having a weekly audio and video show on all the major online networks that builds your brand creates fame and drive sales for your business. It doesn’t have to be hard. I know it feels that way. Because you’ve tried managing your show internally and realize how resource intensive it can be. You felt the pain of pouring eight to 10 hours of work into just getting one hour of content published and promoted all over the place. You see the drain on your resources, but you do it anyways. Because you know how powerful it is hack, you’ve probably even tried some of those automated solutions and ended up with stuff that makes your brand look cheesy and cheap. That’s not helping grow your business. Don’t give up though, the struggle ends now introducing push button podcasts a done for you service that will help you get your show out every single week without you lifting a finger. After you’ve pushed that stop record button. We handle everything else uploading, editing, transcribing, writing, research graphics, publication and promotion, all done by real humans who know understand and care about your brand, almost as much as you do. And powered by our own proprietary technology, our team will let you get back to doing what you love. While we handle the rest. Check us out at push button podcast com Forward slash hero for 10% off the lifetime of your service with us and see the power of having an audio and video podcast growing and driving micro celebrity status and business in your niche without you having to lift more than a finger to push that stop record button. Again, that’s push button podcast.com forward slash hero. See you there. Now, back to the heroes show. So I want to talk a little bit about your guiding principles. Right. So one of the things that we say makes heroes heroic is that they live by a code. For instance, Batman never kills his enemies, he always brings them to Arkham Asylum. So as we sort of wrap up the interview, I’m gonna talk about top one or two principles that you use regularly in your life, maybe a principle you wish you knew when you first started out on this journey that you use all the time. Now that keeps that keeps you going

Michael Brian 49:59
One of the main things that I do drama, I sometimes fail at it, but I do try. And it’s to give more than I take, that’ll be number one. The only way I balanced that out, is to give in a way that I feel good about, because it’s very easy for me to fall back into my old self, which is people pleasing. So when I say give more than I take is, okay, if you want my advice for free, then you can go to my podcast or read my book, when there’s an offer, or whatever the case is, there’s, there’s an element of if I just gave all the time, then I wouldn’t be able to look after myself properly, it’s impossible. So I had to decide how I wanted to give on the podcast is one of them. The content that I create is another one, just social media, of like videos and posts. And it’s, it’s allowed me to give people access to it, when people try to ask me for help in a way that I’m not overly comfortable with. If it’s the start of that equal of sci fi, I can quite easily be on calls with people every single day, and chatting to people every single day. And I can do that. And I can feel great about that because I am a people pleaser. I spent all of my teenagers do so. And the worst thing was actually got positive feedback from it, which meant that I wanted to keep going and get that positive return off it which is dangerous. So being able to control how I give, as allowed me to feel good about the people pleaser, side of me, so that I just want to add that in. So give more than I take when it has to be in a way that I’m happy with.

Richard Matthews 51:58
So that’ll be the first Yeah, and it has to it has to be a sustainable, right, you have to actually continue to, to feed yourself and grow your business and things like that. And I remember I was in a place in early in my entrepreneur career, I did the same thing. I where I was like, I was charging for things based on what I thought a good hourly rate was, which for me was like, you know, if I make $8 an hour, doing this stuff that’s going to return hundreds of thousands of dollars to this business over the course of weeks. You know, that it was I was not I was not learning how to value myself. And there wasn’t a there wasn’t an even like, give take, right? I was just doing the all of the give. And it’s not sustainable. Right? It’s, it’s, you know, eventually I ended up having to close my business down because of it and take an entirely different tack. So it’s a it’s an important skill to learn to learn how to do the whole, the whole give and take and how it fits in.

Michael Brian 52:53
Yeah, it is something I had to learn the hard way. Because I I burned out, you know, I was chasing something because it was when I was in high school in the UK, which is sort of is like 12 to 16 something like that years old, I do extra homework to please the teachers. And I would do like the extra bits and pieces to help out. And I would do the extra curricular stuff. And I would I got like awards for like helping out and stuff like that and anyone to do it again. Because the alternative was potentially being bullied by people because I was small on my health conditions or the way I looked. So when you go from like negative to positive as I want more of that thing over there. So I spent a lot of years doing that. And it didn’t really help. Because once I left, I once that wasn’t around anymore. I was like now what? What the heck am I gonna do with the rest of my life? It was funny because at that point, you’re also given choices you can choose. So what once you leave high school in the UK, you got college and university or college in the US, I think is University. So at that point, you can choose what you want to study and choose what you want to do. And that was a stage in my life where I didn’t have a whole lot of experience of making my own decisions. So that that was where I had to go through a whole growth stage just to be able to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life at that point. It wasn’t easy. It was difficult. But yeah, that’s what can happen when you spend all of your time doing things for the people. But when I’m when I balance that out with Okay, it’s only going to be these two or three things. Everything else has to be a no or a rarity. I rarely do a lot of like free one to one stuff. It’s a rarity now Because I’ve got so much going on and the podcast is doing so well, if someone wants any help with something, the podcast will probably do that. If they want any extra for you. Yeah, and it goes, it works so well. Because without it, I, I started the show, for that reason, and I just thought, this is gonna do me so much good. This is gonna take the pressure off so well, that I’ll be able to focus my energy on other things. And it has, it’s been amazing. But yeah, that that’s been a big difference, you know, give more than it takes but do it in a way that feels right, that’s gonna be one of the the main things for me. And a second one. second one’s probably based on a quote that I heard on a podcast, I think it was. It was Peter DMR. Diamandis, I always butcher his last name. But he wrote the book bold, I think, which was about like, you know, how, how technology is changing over the years, and what the world’s gonna be like, and on all those things, it really sort of captivated my imagination. But basically, it was if you want to be a billionaire, help a billion people on the reason why that stuck out is because it links almost directly to the give more than I take. So if I can give to a billion people, I’ve got a very good chance of being a billionaire. And it factors in the whole, I need money to live, which I didn’t realize at the time, you know, when you’re like 14 to 16, and you’re helping out when you’re doing your thing you volunteer and you love helping people, and then someone goes, you need a job as well. And I go, I can’t do both, you know, why can’t I do both? That that stuck out for me, because very often, we don’t realize that a lot of businesses, or nearly all businesses, solve problems, that’s all they do. And you might create other problems. You know, I don’t want to speak to that. But businesses are in the business of solving problems for people in creating solutions for things that we might not even know existed, you know, like, Netflix, solve something we didn’t really think was a problem in the movie world, you know, film world. And we were fine doing one way. But this is so much better. So sometimes it’s not about solving a problem, it’s about creating the best solution, what is the best solution to this thing, and they’re helping millions and potentially billions of people. And that is something that, that I would love to do something that I think would be a very, very, very good legacy for me, you know, and that the book is a big pilot.

Richard Matthews 57:54
I like that thought too basically solving problems, right? Because we, we talk all the time, that the purpose of what we do, right, you solve problems for someone. And every time you solve a problem for someone, you always create a higher level problem, right. And my favorite example of that is, you know, if, if you win the lottery, before you won the lottery, you might have had money problems, but after you won the lottery, you had money management problems, right? high level problem. So no matter what, no matter what your business does, if you understand that idea, that, hey, what we’re doing is I’m going to help you solve this problem. And by solving this problem, you’re going to be at a new spot, and this new spot has a whole new set of problems. Yeah. Right. And that’s, you know, to your point of, you know, getting to the top a mountain, there’s always another mountain to climb, right, that’s a that’s, that’s what you know, the business is, and if you under sort of, you sort of understand how that’s going to work in your business, like I’m gonna help you get to be, you know, healthy and fit and full of life. Once you get to that point. Now you’re like, Okay, so what do you do with your life now? Right. And so you have to be prepared from a coaching standpoint, or from a business standpoint, like, do I offer solutions for those problems? Or do I have directions, I can push people, you sort of have to know what that journey looks like?

Michael Brian 59:11
Yeah, it was interesting how many people raise their standards, once they started to look better and feel better, they valued themselves more, and everything else had to meet that if that makes sense. So, like, they look better, they dressed better because they felt like they were worth dressing better.

Richard Matthews 59:33
Initially dress better you get better job opportunities or better interviews in your business and like you know, it just impacts everything.

Michael Brian 59:41
Some of the some of the comments I used to get were, oh my God, I’ve increased my salary by X amount because I look better and feel better and the company realizes that I’m a better fit for this role is weird how. It’s a weird situation where the world actually starts to look better. When you feel better. I went out when I went through phases of hating myself one of the business to go away wanting the world to go away, to a certain extent, just leave me alone and my phone rang and I tell it to go away and leave me alone. And it works. When you do that, and you shut yourself off, and you just detached from the world, it does a very, very good job of making you feel a bit better. Because you don’t have to deal with any of the problem, any of the problems, but it stops everything else, it actually decreases your ability to solve the problem. So you turn the problem off. But then you have like less energy, you don’t feel so good, you stop looking after yourself, we don’t do any of the things that bui lds you up so that you can then attack the problem again. So things like career things, looking after yourself, they allow you to solve those problems as well, which is something I had to learn, you know, and there’s so much the soul was that I’ve had, I mean, I’m a very sort of, I don’t know, I mean, in my head quite a bit I internalized quite a bit. I’m a bit of a thinker. So there’s a lot that goes into, like being a better human than just going through the motions and thinking everything’s gonna be okay. And if you want to self and challenge yourself, you’ve got to meet the expectations of the situation. But you can’t pretend everything be okay. When it’s not, you’ve got things to do. It’s like, it was Brendon Burchard. That said, You can’t tell a fish to be more fish. If the aim is to climb a tree, you’ve got to be more than the bad if you’re going to climb a tree. So this whole thing of like being the best version of yourself and doing all those things, well, sometimes you’ve got to do something new. Sometimes you’ve got to change things up. Sometimes you’ve got to think about what you can add to who you are to be able to attack those problems, because you’re never gonna do it sometimes just by being yourself.

Richard Matthews 1:02:17
kind of make yourself a better version of yourself.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:19
Always.

Richard Matthews 1:02:21
Yeah, well, I think that’s a good point to, to wrap our interview, I do have one simple challenge I do at the end of all of our interviews, it’s something I call the hero’s challenge. And it’s a selfish thing I do basically to get myself access to stories where might not otherwise find. So the question is simple. Do you have someone in your life or in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they first names are fine, first person that comes to your mind? And why do you think they should come share their story on our show?

Michael Brian 1:02:50
Well, her name is Jane. And the reason why I wanna I would love to have her on the show, is because she’s overcome a lot of expectations as well. She’s overcome a lot of self doubt. And yeah, just the way that she was going to end up if she didn’t change, things would be very, very different from where she is now. So there’s so much that goes into it. There’s Yeah, I mean, it’s mostly her story. But now she travels the world when the world gets back to normal. She beat she’s, I get that. Well, and yeah, she does amazing things now. And she would never have done that had she stayed the course. Because she left education without anything, without any direction, nowhere to go, no sort of prospects. She was a high school dropout, essentially. And yet, she’s doing amazing things now so that we sort of rags to riches like boredom. Yeah, there’s a lot of in the room, she can share for sure.

Richard Matthews 1:04:04
Well, we will reach out after it, see if we can get introduction to Jane. But last part of the interview in comic books, there’s always the crowd of people who are standing along the edges cheering on the hero for their acts of heroism. So what I want to know here at the end of the show is where can people find you if they want to go through your coaching or read your book or maybe listen to your podcast? Where can they light up the bat signal so to speak, and say, Hey, Mike, I’d really like to get your help to, to have some personal growth. I think more importantly, who are the right types of people to reach out?

Michael Brian 1:04:34
Well, the best way of reach out to me while learning more about me is to get your hands on the book. So the book comes out mid November. So if you’re listening to this and it’s close to around the 19th of November, then you can join the waiting list for the book. So it comes out then, but if you want access to it, you want access to all the goodies and competitions that go along with it.

That’s how you get access to it.

Richard Matthews 1:05:02
So join the way Oh, where should they go to get on the waiting list?

Michael Brian 1:05:07
Then I think it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s a shortened link. It’s a weird sort of link bar sending it.

Richard Matthews 1:05:14
Well, I’ll, I’ll get it from you. And we’ll put it in the show notes.

Michael Brian 1:05:18
Yeah, yeah. So it’s a bit. It’s a weird, I’m never I’m gonna butcher the pronunciation and I always do. I’m hopeless and stuff like that. But yeah, so that he they were the first thing. So join the waiting list for the book. Second thing. podcast is the Ask Mike show is completely free. And I interview people, I answer questions so people can submit questions, and I give my best answers on things like self improvement and business. And the next best, the next best place to find me would be on social media. And I’m at the Michael Brian on Facebook, Instagram, on Twitter.

Richard Matthews 1:05:51
Awesome. Well, thank you very much for coming on the show Mike, really appreciate it. As a before we hit this stop record button, you have any final words of wisdom for our audience.

Michael Brian 1:06:02
I think there’s something to be said for the more challenges that you’ve overcome. The growth isn’t just the result at the end. There’s a lot more to it. There’s a lot more changes in yourself and how you perceive the world just by overcoming challenges. You don’t have to suffer. You don’t have to struggle like I have just a little bit of a push something a little bit different. a different experience can be enough to change how you see the world. And the best way of doing that is to overcome hardship and struggles.

Richard Matthews 1:06:39
We agree. So again, thank you very much for coming on the show.

Michael Brian 1:06:43
My pleasure. Thanks for having me on.