Episode 196 – Joe Caruso

---

Automated Transcription

---

Joe Caruso  0:00 

So, two tracks. One is, you do them to know your essence, if your essence is your aggressive and you don’t take no for an answer that could also be your Achilles heel. Almost everybody’s strength is their Achilles heel. If you are overly charming and you can charm the pants off of anybody, you’re probably not going to work as hard as you should, you’re going to fall back on you. So you have to understand the two sides of the coin of that power. The second thing I think you have to identify and I talked about this quite a bit I don’t think I’m writing about it right now in the new books I’ve been writing for so long I’m actually sitting there reviewing smiling on the fireplace. Because it’s cold here in Temecula is you have to know what home is for you.

 

Richard Matthews  1:04  

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, the everyday heroes that let us live the privileged lives we do. Every hero has a story to tell, the doctor saving lives at your local hospital, the war veteran down the street, who risked his life for our freedom 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 was one class of heroes that I think is 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 hero preneurs 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  1:59  

Welcome back to The Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews. And today I have the pleasure of having Joe Caruso on the line. Joe, are you there?

 

Joe Caruso  2:05  

I’m right here. Richard, nice to talk to you.

 

Richard Matthews  2:07  

Awesome to have you here. So we were talking before we got on the interview here. I see you’re up on the lakes up near Lake Erie is that right?

 

Joe Caruso  2:15  

Yeah, Michigan. I live in an island between Michigan and Canada.

 

Richard Matthews  2:19  

So does Lake Erie freeze over this time of year?

 

Joe Caruso  2:23  

Yeah, funny. It’s like it was zero last night. I see water flowing. But I also see a lot of ice floats. So not completely over on this side. Because the city has a current but on the other side towards Canada, there’s a lot of ice shanties.

 

Richard Matthews  2:39  

So is your island landlocked or do you have a bridge?

 

Joe Caruso  2:43  

Two bridges. 

 

Richard Matthews  2:44  

So you can still get back over if you need to when it’s frozen?

 

Joe Caruso  2:46  

Yeah, it’s half a mile.

 

Richard Matthews  2:49  

Okay, that works out. I’m a Southern California Baby. So my blood freezes at about 65 degrees.

 

Joe Caruso  2:57  

Mine does too, why am I here? But I travel, I can’t believe it. I hear you travel all the time? 

 

Richard Matthews  3:04  

Yeah, we travel all the time. We try to get to warm places. But I decided to come to visit my dad this winter and he’s up near Yosemite. I think it’s cold, It’s like 50 degrees.

 

Joe Caruso  3:14  

Where in Southern California are you from, Richard?

 

Richard Matthews  3:17  

I’m from Temecula, which is the southern wine country if you’ve ever been there.

 

Joe Caruso  3:22  

I spoke there once. I believe there was an Indian Casino there. 

 

Richard Matthews  3:26  

Yeah, Pachanga. 

 

Joe Caruso  3:28  

Yes, I remember it was a big convention. I can’t remember who it was for but Temecula never heard of it. That’s how I can remember it.

 

Richard Matthews  3:39  

Never heard of it, but I’ve been there. So what I want to do real quick before we get too far into this is just a brief introduction. So, Joe, he mentioned ahead of time he wanted you all to know he’s big and strong with long flowing hair. 

 

Joe Caruso  3:51  

They can see me perfect. 

 

Richard Matthews  3:53  

They can make you perfect. So the podcast listeners only get that joke, if they watch the YouTube version. But you are a best-selling author in six languages. And you’ve run a multimillion-dollar consulting firm for a long time and you said you’d been studying five hours a day, five days a week since you were 18 years old and were diagnosed with an incurable cancer. You’ve been on PBS had a PBS special and what I want you to start off with here in this interview is why don’t you tell us what it is you’re known for? What is your business? Who do you serve? What do you do for them?

 

Joe Caruso  4:25  

My long falling hair Richard and thank you for that you’re now my favorite host as I go bald for the third time in my life. I’m known as an expert in the mind, I’ve studied and trained under psychoanalytic I’ve never been analyzed. But I’ve had many world famous psychoanalytic friends who have been to the conventions twice a year, three times a year, four times a year, been in study groups, I’ve actually written with them. They’re in journals that are covered by Congress. I mean, the last of 35 books that my friend who just passed away at 95 wrote, lucky enough to be on the cover. But basically, I talked to individuals about a very simple concept. All meaning happens in the mind. Perception is reality, based on how you perceive yourself. So the foundational context of understanding what a Deer is, which here on this little island, can be a pest be cooked to a gardener, very expensive pest. It can be venison to Hunter, or chef, or it can be the most deadly animal known to man because, in the rural roads, Deer kill people driving cars at night. But if you’re a driver, it means one thing. If you’re a gardener, it means another. If you’re an animal lover it’s family. And so everything in the world starts with how you define yourself. That is the foundational context for how you define other things. Why is that important? Because life is about this sequence, meaning, behavior, outcome, how you define you will behave to, if you think that person’s an animal or a jerk, or benevolent or kind, or however you define them. You’ll behave to that. Even if you say they’re a jerk, and I don’t like them, I’m not going to show it. You already have 70,000 images, whether they’re sharp enough to pick up on it, that’s different, that you’ve already shown it. So I don’t change people’s behavior. I don’t have a hey, do this and this will happen recipe. I cook, I have world famous chef friends I’ve cooked with next to and I’m very lucky and they always critique my knife skills. No, it’s always fun to have fun. And I still don’t use recipes. And chefs when they share things, they share recipes with the public through the book.

 

Joe Caruso  7:46  

But you don’t need to share the recipe with another chef. If he says, oh, okay, here’s what I got in my mouth. Here’s what I think. Tell me about the technique. And then the chef will share the technique and pass the ingredients, or some timing on the ingredients like and this last. But a chef doesn’t share a recipe with another chef. It’s just that you don’t need to have enough chops. So I work with people that already have the chops. They’re successful, they’re driven, they’re ambitious. They know how to make money. They just don’t know how to get to where they want to from where they are. And the best definition of a problem I’ve ever read is, a problem is the distance between where you are or what is in what should be in your mind. And the distance between that can only be traversed. If you first look at where your mind might be in the way. One last thing I’ll share. This is in my book coming up, called Quintessential Leadership not out here. People could become members, it’s free, I try to get as much as I can. It’s free to find CarusoLeadership.com and find out when it’s coming out. I don’t know what the PR company’s plans are to release it. But once we decide on a problem, we’ve already determined all the solutions to that problem, potential solutions that our mind can’t consider. Just by the way we defined that problem. Which again, is based on the way we define ourselves. So I help people get out of their own way. Explore what else this could mean. What else could they do? Find the shortest, fastest, easiest, quickest way to get to that holy symbol.

 

Richard Matthews  10:10  

So how do you generally go about delivering that for your clients? Is that one on one? Or do you do group coaching? Or is it books from the stage? Like, what is your sort of modus operandi of how you work with people most of the time?

 

Joe Caruso  10:20  

Oh, it’s a good question. I talked with every client once a week for an hour, pre-COVID, I would visit with clients for three, four days, five days a year. I am a traveler like you, so I just tied into my travels. And if they live in a place that I don’t want to visit, I just say, oh, let’s go somewhere together. And they do. So once a week for an hour like right before I was on with you, I was on with the head of national sales for a billion-dollar company. Talking about the keynote she has to deliver for the annual sales meeting next Monday. And how to reframe how to write a keynote, what to say in a keynote, how to construct the keynote, and then offer ideas. The odds, it’s almost written basically, just kind of handed it to them. But sometimes it’s about their spouse or their partners or their lovers or friends or their families or their mothers. A couple of mother things last week, and life, children, I had one client recently who was kidnapped in a foreign country. And we had to extra cater some help, boy, that was touchy it was a cult. So the daughter didn’t want to leave. So there’s no syllabus, whatever’s going on in your life, in your mind, you’re working your mind. That’s what I want to hear. My first question is what you’ll see on the website, how was your mind today? Most people don’t think about their minds. They figure their minds are there every day. Just like a healthy person thinks their body is every day. I’ve worked with professional golfers, they hate that term. Professional golf players who know that what’s the old stupid saying 50% of the game is 90% mental and so I get on the cart with them. And I can’t tell them how to hold a club. I don’t even know how to hold the club. But I can help them improve their game by helping them with how their mind approaches the game when they have a battle. The next hole after a battle follows when they have a great hole. And every professional person I’ve ever worked with. I say there are some days. If there’s a dogleg to the right with a bunch of tall trees and you can’t see the hole a dogleg would be, you could see the green, and then it makes a prop turn to the right. So the pin is hidden in its past those trees. Some days they know they have the physical acuity, my muscle coordination, and so on. They could tap the tree and save a stroke on this hole. Other days they know it’s risky. They’re not sure they have it physically. They assess themselves physically as athletes. Very few people assess their minds but I can’t tell you Richard there are some days you shouldn’t make big decisions. And there are other days you should make bold decisions and other days you should make consistent decisions. On some days you should be focusing on execution and other days you should be focusing on creativity and to know which those days are and how your mind requires someone who knows minds he doesn’t judge he does it in a trusting atmosphere say here’s what’s going on.

 

Richard Matthews  10:56  

So since you help people sort of judge and work with their own minds and how they perceive the world and act accordingly. What I want to find out is, how did you get into that line of work, we talked on this show. Every good comic book hero has an origin story. It’s the thing that made them into the hero they are today. And I want to hear that story, were you born a hero or were you a bit by a radioactive spider that made you want to get into working with people’s minds or did you start in a job and eventually move over to starting your own consulting career?

 

Joe Caruso  14:56  

My origin story is unique. Some people say somewhat unique and pretty unique or kinda unique. Unique is unique. I’m one of the first people ever cured from meta testing, testicular cancer in the history of the world. So I was told at 18 years old, I was going to die, and there was nothing they could do. And in fact, if I went into the experimental chemo surgical protocol, they would kill me probably for cancer. But I went into it, hoping my focus was, that’s how they find cures, guys like me, it’s a rare male disease in young men. For every guy like me, that doesn’t go into it just says, screw it I’m dead, screw everybody. You’re putting off the cure, I’m the ideal lab rat. I didn’t think I’d be cured. I believed them. The one who actually planned my funeral was my parents. And then SON OF A BITCH I lived. But the promise I made in the middle of that was why leave if you’re gonna die. I’ve always started studying philosophy when I was a young man. Why live if you’re going to die, what difference does it make? You can’t deny that. It doesn’t matter. You can’t build a skill set. I’m 18 years old, if with cancer, I could do art and cross over the reins in gymnastics. I afford scholarships to college, gone, just like that gone. So now, how do I contextualize who I’m supposed to be in the short time that I have, which is gonna be very short? Testicular cancer, very fast. Not like slow cancer, prostate, or something. And I decided to study five hours a day, five days a week to learn about what I was going to miss. I don’t have a lifetime to learn and a lifetime to do some lessons. So I started reading the greatest minds ever written about the subject from psychology and psychoanalysis. I started with Will Durant’s philosophy. And he wrote a book called The Story of Philosophy, where he tracks all the great philosophers in the lines of thinking from Aristotle up through it goes beyond Bacon. I know for sure. Because I want to see who we are. Why are we here? What do we do? What are we supposed to do? And I love to study and I love school. I love books. So it was perfect for me plus, I couldn’t do anything else. The chemo broke me down to a point where I sometimes just took my head off the pillow. I had to sign a document that said, we can kill you. Is that okay? I just signed, yes. 

 

Richard Matthews  15:39  

That’s terrifying.

 

Joe Caruso  18:20  

I just saw it as part of the process. And the terrifying part was already done when they said you’re dead, we can’t help you, sorry. But you can help us. So one of the first people ever cured I’ve spoken to 10,000 oncology nurses in Las Vegas, Nevada. They told that story. And they laughed when I told this story because it’s curable today based on guys like me that went into that program. And they giggled through the story. It’s the only audience that we’re able to hear the story because they’re so happy and I realized at the end of the speech, by the way, this is an aside. I’m assuming your listeners can handle them aside once in a while. 

 

Richard Matthews  19:03  

Absolutely. 

 

Joe Caruso  19:04  

Okay. I was speaking in Hershey, Pennsylvania once folks if you have to do it once, it is plenty, and I was talking to a technology conference for educators and my phone rings the next day I’m trying to get back because there’s gonna be a snowstorm. You people from Temecula don’t understand. Those can stop you in your tracks. And I’m trying to escape the snowstorm.

 

Richard Matthews  19:32  

We avoid snow at all costs.

 

Joe Caruso  19:36  

My cell phone rings. I’m at the airport we’re waiting to get on this plane trying to get back home before the storm comes in. And I’ve always encouraged audiences to leave their cell phone on, they always tell you when you’re an audience back before COVID Turn yourself on, leave it on. If I say something stupid, record it. If I say something great. Share it. And it’s my job not to say something stupid. So the phone rings, it’s a lady calling. She goes, I run an International Congress for chemotherapy nurses, somebody was listening to you yesterday at a technology conference for educators, statewide. And they said you have to hire this guy for your keynote. She says, but I heard you’re expensive. I said, my marketing plan is working perfectly. And she laughed. And she said, but you talked about your oncology nurse Genie. Now, this video is available on the website, too. When I talk about Genie, actually it’s at that conference, if I remember, I’ll go to my website. But if I remember, that’s the video. And she said, So will you speak? And I said, Can you pay my fee? I don’t let clients determine my fee. Otherwise, I’d be broke. I determine my fee, and then I earn it. And then I guarantee it, and if I don’t deliver, I can be fired any minute of any day by any client and have this own client for 20 years, one hour a day on the phone. And she asks one more question. I said, what? She says, well, we want you to be the opening keynote. But can you get your nurse Genie to be there? And this is like 15 years after the whole event, which took two years. And I said I’ll give you your contact information. But I will speak for Genie. So she’s on the front row. We had dinner the night before and it was really fun. My wife Carol knows Genie. And she’s a sweetheart. So she’s there and she’s in the front row. And this is her people. I mean, these are her people. This is her conference on closing the speech talking about how she helped save my life. And I realized I didn’t have an ending to my speech. Now you want to talk in front of 10,000 people at the end of your speech, realize you don’t have an appropriate ending. So I paused. And I said, ladies and gentlemen, Genie. It’s so crazy. Everybody stood up. She came up, give me a big hug. Got her applause.

 

Joe Caruso  22:46  

I was talking about them, I wasn’t talking about me. That’s why they were laughing. And I was celebrating one of them. Life’s not about you, life is about what you do with it for the people. And then the value comes after that. So we signed autographs, the longest I’ve ever sought and signed autographs. They waited in line for two and a half hours. And my book The Power of Losing Control has come out and Genie so they’re with us. And she goes I’ve never seen anything like this. So I said, I don’t mean it, it was just so real. Carol was standing next to me and Genie was standing next to me and everybody looked at Genie and then asked, so did you marry Genie? I said this is my wife, Carol, this is our friend. So they can capture their own story in the story that I had told. It’s whether you’re marketing a product or a service, people have to find themselves in your story. If your marketing or your approach to your employees, or your approach to your audience, leaves them out of your marketing message. You missed it. It got to be about that. But you still tell an authentic story. If it’s not authentic, it’s got to sound authentic and God bless anybody who wants to sound authentic. Don’t call me. I’m not interested.

 

Richard Matthews  24:29  

So at 18, you were diagnosed with incurable cancer? 

 

Joe Caruso  24:35  

Yes.

 

Richard Matthews  24:35  

But they cured you. How long did that take? 

 

Joe Caruso  24:39  

Two years. Most of the time I was pretty sick. There were times I was puking about.

 

Richard Matthews  24:50  

The first person to be cured of incurable cancer. How long from there?

 

Joe Caruso  24:54  

Of that one.

 

Richard Matthews  24:56  

Of that one? Did you get another one?

 

Joe Caruso  24:58  

No, what I mean, there have been many incurable cancers that are curable today. 

 

Richard Matthews  25:04  

Yeah.

 

Joe Caruso  25:05  

 That was the first of that. Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  25:07  

So how long from there before you started your consulting practice that you run today?

 

Joe Caruso  25:14  

You ask good questions. I hate you. I like softball questions. I know that’s part of the process. So I’m gonna assume you have smart listeners, and they’re engaged. So they never told me I was cured, because they weren’t legally, medically allowed to say that with any sense of responsibility. What they said was, we can’t do anything else for you, your chemo has a half life of 200 years, you’ve taken the limit of any human being who lived through. Everybody on my floor at the University of Michigan, I spoke, died from the chemo. And like I said, I was in good shape, that probably helped a lot. So I said, well, I suppose I come back every week? And they said, we can’t do anything for you, we’re cancer specialists. So what if I get a cold, they say, go see a doctor. I haven’t seen a regular doctor in two years. I come to you guys for everything. There’s nothing else we could do. But am I cured? No. It took another couple of years to figure out that I should focus on my future. And so I developed a mission statement, which in those days was called a mission statement. So we’re 1978 7980 at this point. And I said, why live? I determined it was to develop my skills. I believe we’re all unique. I believe that when Richard Matthews leaves this world, they will not be a Richard Matthews replacement, even if his own toddler son will be a different human being. Who has legacies, teachings, and influence of Richard Matthews in his mind contextually, but has to express himself individually and find out which path he’s supposed to go down and cut his way through the path and explore. So I said to develop myself to the best of my abilities. And I added this because of all the people that were there for me when I had cancer, watching me throw up, and lose my hair. And it was down to a little over 100 pounds. The worst point, I said, was to help other people, and it became a mission statement. So I kept my stupid promise. I didn’t know I had to keep it for as long as I’ve lived, but I’ve kept it. I study five hours a day, five days a week, sometimes more. I bring my mind to different people every day in a unique manner to help them and talk about them in the context of them. I don’t say you know what you got to do here. I don’t say you know what I did, it would work for you, and listen. And I bring my experience to them, the way I brought my story to those chemo nurses. They found themselves in the story. A good writer helps you find yourself in the story. You can read the old man in the sea and never have fished for a Marlin that size. But if it’s a good writer like Hemingway, your hands are bleeding from a lion. You can feel it. You can see after you catch the fish the shark comes up on the side and takes a bite out. And you could feel the disappointment that you almost lost your life for this record size. Mythologically sized fish there is no fish that size in reality. Do you believe it and read the book? And you could feel the heartbreak of that. And then you can get a storm or not find your way home collapse because that’s the hero’s journey, written by Joseph Campbell, actually, but it’s one of those as Kurt Vonnegut says one of the seven storyline arcs. This is another thing I encourage people, have more authority dammit. Don’t just read a fricking self-help book and then teach it to somebody else but have moral authority to truly understand what you know. The question, examine, turn it inside out, understand it, study it. The other day, I wrote this cup of Joe’s, those are free. So a daily cup of Joe comes out and it’s just a pithy little sentence but it stimulates your mind in the morning. Like coffee stimulates your neurological system in the morning. And members, get them free. It just comes in the Email, no bombardment, no ads. Here, learn to cherish the chase as much as you treasure the trophy. See, not too simple, something to think about. A good way to start my day thinking about thinking. I always think about thinking. And I also have a word of the week. And the Word of the Week. I remember because I write it like three or four weeks ahead and by the way, they’re harder to write the book. Because the spacing is harder. I was thinking I’ve been working with the term with my clients for years called conflation. I think first either coined or used in popular Zeitgeist by Freud says that’s a good word, conflation means, let’s say you’re traveling, let’s say you thought you were in Connecticut, but you were in Rhode Island. But you’ve been to so many places, yes, you’ve done this, then you’ve been in so many places that I can see it was a beautiful grin on your face, that just for a second as it was. And then you turn to your spouse or your lover, your partner, your kids. And then they go, no. That’s conflation. You conflated two cities. It’s caused by a combination of confusion and re remembrance. I remember reading about it in a book written by Freud called the pathology of everyday life written in 1898. And so as I’m sitting in my computer in the office, and I’ve got a dozen bookshelves in my home, but I have one in my office, you can see behind me, but I gotta put my finger exactly on the hundreds of books that I own. That book didn’t take me two seconds. I love to say this would be a better story opened exactly to that page off. And it was the first time I’d read about conflation and I haven’t read that book for 25 years. So I realized in the last 10 years or so one of my strengths is I have a great mind. I’ve never taken a note when I talk to a client, but I can tell them what we talked about 10 years ago. So what are your strengths? What are your core strengths? And then how do you want to direct them based on your purpose in life? And then how do you mind if you’re an entrepreneur, which you already seem to be? How do you understand that in a way that they can monetize it? But get the hell out of your own way by understanding your mind further than I believe in mentorship? So that’s the longest answer ever given to a great question. But I figured the question needed, require that level of diligence and introspection.

 

Richard Matthews  25:32  

So obviously, you’ve been doing this for a long time now. And you said, you’ve developed some of your own skills, and your mind is one of them. I want to talk a little bit more about your superpowers. We talk on this show, every hero has a superpower, whether that’s their fancy flying suit made by their genius intellect, or super strength or the ability to call down thunder from the sky. In the real world, heroes have what I call a zone of genius, which is either a skill or a set of skills that were born with or developed over the course of time, that allow you to help your people slay their villains and come out on top and their journeys. And the way I like to frame this for people is if you look at all the skills that you’ve developed, there’s probably a common thread that ties all of those skills together. And that common thread is really where your superpower is. So with that sort of framing what do you think your superpower is that you’re either born with or you’ve developed over your career?

 

Joe Caruso  34:59  

Now you talked to a guy that if you gave me a long cape and tights, first of all, I would be itching and I would turn on a cape. But I’ll go with it.

 

Richard Matthews  35:10  

We could just go with incredibles, No Capes. You don’t want to get sucked into a jet.

 

Joe Caruso  35:16  

Let’s go on two tracks. Good question. And I can see why your listeners like you because you’re asking the questions to help them. You’re demonstrating what I teach in my philosophy in our respective. So thank you. And you’re not doing it for me. I thank you because I appreciate it the same way I’d say thank you for a nice meal. 

 

Richard Matthews  35:42  

You’re welcome. 

 

Joe Caruso  35:45  

So, two tracks. One is, yeah, you do have to know your essence. And if your essence is your aggressive, you don’t take no for an answer that can also be your Achilles heel. That gets people off. Almost everybody’s strength is their Achilles heel. If you are overly charming and you can charm the pants off of anybody, you’re probably not going to work as hard as you should, you’re going to fall back on you. So you have to understand the two sides, the Janus, the two sides of the coin of that power. The second thing I think you have to identify and I talked about this quite a bit. I don’t think I’m writing about it right now in the new book. But I’ve been writing for so long. I’m not sure what’s in it, I’ll review it tomorrow from the fireplace because it’s cold here Temecula. You have to know what home is for you. Home for you is making sure you’re there for your kids being able to work while you travel full time. Feeling like you’re influencing others in a positive way and getting edified, living by an example that others look at if they’re not impressed by it at least they’ll go, hmm, that’s interesting. Without those things, you would not be who you are. So home for me, I’ve got to read. Right now I’m studying the autobiography of Garritan, the German philosopher. I’m also studying the advantages of Erasmus. I got an exciting life. I mean, who doesn’t want to talk to me? But that’s my time, that’s what I need to do. I need to cook. I love to cook for my wife and for myself. I love to have evenings. I need to have time alone and meditate. And then I concentrate every morning before I get out of bed. If it takes an hour, it’s the most important thing I’m going to do, I’ll do it. I love to travel, COVID has been a bitch on my psyche. Because I love to travel so much. And travel was sexy. I’m a phone that is 2 million miles away. You do it by motorcoach. And I do it by airplane and put on my jacket I’ve never flown without a jacket and I sit in first class because after two million miles in the same company’s tube that you sit in they owe us something and so I always upgrade and lucky enough that if a client flies me out they know that’s my lifestyle, for client asked me to dinner we’re not going to Chipotle, they know and people will treat you the way.

 

Richard Matthews  39:11  

Chipotle is my favorite restaurant though.

 

Joe Caruso  39:14  

Well, I’m glad you survived their issues. I was surprised when I was in New York On New Year’s eve. Once I saw people in line in Chipotle and they just got hit with another intestinal problem. That’s hard. It didn’t take up the chain. I thought it would. Because I get hit twice in the racial group. But the food’s good, tasty. But you have to know what home is and music is home. I have to listen to music. I want to cook while I listen to music. I listen to everything from Opera to how I want to be a millionaire so bad Bruno Mars just trying to just quickly jump. I mean, it’s an old song, but I’m just trying to jive.

 

Richard Matthews  40:05  

So how do you think knowing what your home impacts your ability to deliver your value to your clients?

 

Joe Caruso  40:12  

When you become bigger and bigger and bigger in life more and more important your role changes every day, which you have to know your role at any point in time. An employer, a role model. You just went from an entrepreneur to one of the fastest growing companies to one of the best companies to work for to ringing the bell on Wall Street, which one of my clients just did tripling in the last two years, things change and your roles change and you can get busy doing, but you have to stay a strategist, you have to keep a perspective in life. Even a pointillistic painter there’s a word for your audience.

 

Richard Matthews  41:08  

My wife does pointillism on her cake decorating. So I know what that is.

 

Joe Caruso  41:11  

I know you do, cera, or the pure, abstract painter. My wife’s a painter, she just finished a commission yesterday. You have to step back from the painting and look at it. Meditation and contemplation in a home allow you to then bring your best self to the moment. Bring all you are and all you do. It’ll be all you need. Burrow in you.

 

Richard Matthews  41:48  

We talked about that concept on this show a lot. I call it giving yourself permission to play. And the reason I call it permission to play is because particularly in the entrepreneur space we tend to have this mentality that what we should do is work until we earn our reward. And then we don’t ever really have our reward defined or have success defined, so we never get there. So we just work ourselves to death. And I try to tell people that what you should do instead is you should pay yourself first essentially, put your health and your wellness and your rest and recreation as the prerequisite to showing up and doing good work.

 

Joe Caruso  42:35  

Yes, never live to work. Work should edify your life in your own meaning. You’re right about the money and that is a very, very honorable thing to teach others. Look, I’ve always seen a candle as having money to burn. And I love candles. But it’s frankly money to burn you buy a candle and you burn it. I had a friend, I love plants. What’s a garden? We’ve got huge grounds and 10 gardens and 100 places to sit. It’s Michigan. Don’t be so impressed, land here is cheap. And she has a perennial garden. And I invited my barber friend over who’s quite a practical man. And he said his wife’s going oh my god, this is great. Isn’t this great? She’s a great school teacher. Lovely. We lost a great teacher and tutor and he said, hey, Joe, why don’t you just roll up to $10 bills and put them in the dirt, let them decay. And I said it’s more like 20 and these are prettier. But that’s a difference, you can get so practical about doing it in your life. In my new book, I wrote about being healthy psychically as being a doer doing it with a promise of achievement but not to the loss of oneself. Now, do I lose my life in the life of my client every hour? No, I subjugate my life. But I bring my superhero powers and put them first. They are the subject of the discussion. I don’t know if that answered your question because I fell asleep half an hour ago.

 

Richard Matthews  44:44  

I want to talk then about the flip side of the superpower. So we talked a little bit about superpower being the mind and your ability to know what home is and bring yourself fully to the work that you do. The flip side of that, of course, is the fatal flaw. Just like every Superman has his kryptonite or Wonder Woman can’t remove your bracelets of victory without going mad. You probably have that flaw or something that you struggled with. Some of the things I struggled with in my career, I struggled with perfectionism for a long time, I didn’t actually want to ship products because I felt like I can always tweak it and make it a little bit better. I also struggled with lack of self-care, which brought myself out and not having good boundaries with my clients, and particularly not having good boundaries with time and working myself to death. I think more important than what the flaw is, how have you worked to overcome it so you can continue to grow and continue to bring yourself fully to the clients that you help.

 

Joe Caruso  45:30  

Good question. By the way, I do those two things about you, because that’s my job is to observe. I’ve told clients, I’m lazy. And they say, you are lazy, you never rest. So I sleep, I sleep. But I know I’m lazy. I want the fastest, easiest, cheapest way to get it done. Whatever it is. And if I have to cross the room to do something, I want to say okay, is that worth even getting out of the chair to go do? I mean, I would really think that. So then, I have a conversation, all my clients are friends because they have to be, they have the level of trust and candor and subject matter that we discuss. And they said, you mean lazy sit on the couch and watch reality shows? I said, sometimes. Like lazy, take a nap? I said, probably taken six naps and 22 years in this house. They say, how can you say you’re lazy? I said because I know its propensity. I know, it’s a proclivity, I have to guard against my proclivities of the Achilles heel. And so I’m really pretty smart. And I know that I’m not bragging, this guy has a great mind. And I need to know that so I can use it properly. And it’s just like, if you’re charming, you actually don’t know how to use it. Because people can be susceptible to charm. So because I know I have a tendency and want to go, why does it matter? Why write a book if you don’t know if anybody’s gonna read it? Which I have. I also know I can strike out. And I think some of the greatest cheers are homerun hitters in the history of baseball. I don’t like sports analogies, but everybody will get this. Except for your listeners in England. They have to kick it around first. Thanks for working with me on that.

 

Richard Matthews  48:00  

Good. I’ve been watching Ted Lasso, which is a soccer TV Show.

 

Joe Caruso  48:04  

I heard about this. 

 

Richard Matthews  48:05  

It’s Phenomenal. 

 

Joe Caruso  48:07  

I just sat Elvis Costello in concert. I went to see a friend in California, we drove to LA to see and she goes, that’s the star of Ted Lasso. What’s a TED Lasso my TV’s in a closet, I pull it out, it’s kind of a thing. My wife watches it. I haven’t turned the TV on in seven years because I’m lazy. I don’t want to get addicted to that. So I think what we do is we stay over on guard. The baseball analogy is you’re a better hitter. If you know you could strike out and you guard against it. And if you think you can’t, then you will. Optimists will say why would you even consider that you could? Because the guy that’s pitching against you is as talented or more talented than you are getting the ball.

 

Richard Matthews  49:01  

I like the idea of laziness being a fatal flaw you guard against cuz I have something similar. My wife and I tease about this all the time, but our kids are insanely well behaved. It’s almost kind of ridiculous how well behaved they are. Because I feel like we haven’t done enough work to enjoy that.

 

Joe Caruso  49:25  

It’s nice to hear. I’m out all the time dealing with other people’s children.

 

Richard Matthews  49:30  

Yeah, no, my kids are excellent. But people ask us all the time, like why do you have your kids so behaved? I’m like, well, because I’m lazy. And they’re far easier to deal with, out and about. We afford them and we travel. Like, life is simpler if we put the effort in upfront to help them be well behaved citizens than if they’re not if they’re Hellions, then that’s a lot more work and so people are like why do you put in all the effort that you put into their behavior? And I was like, well, because I’m lazy. I think I like the work better when they’re well behaved. But that’s just an example.

 

Joe Caruso  50:14  

Yeah, you’re not stoic for the sake of stoicism, and you can tell I study history a lot. People got stoicism. You’re stoic because if you’re disciplined, everything’s easier. I don’t have to go find my socks in the morning, I have a sack to wear. People use the word anal. They don’t realize it’s flirty and anal retentive, which has nothing to do with somebody being neatly organized. No, people come over for dinner. Well, if I know we’re gonna have it, I know how long it will take to cook it. And that’s going to be the intensive part. And then some people are gonna want to help in the kitchen. So give them a job to do and set up a station for them. And then don’t make the appetizer too complicated. If the main meals are complicated, make meals that are not complicated so you can focus on the appetizer. That’s lazy.

 

Richard Matthews  51:18  

Yeah, I think the same thing because I cook as well. Because I’m far lazier than my wife is, I spend a lot more time, to use a cooking term,  Amish Flaws than she does. I’ll spend an hour getting everything ready to go. So that when I cook, it’s all simple and easy.

 

Joe Caruso  51:38  

Like a cooking show. And the Amish Flaws, for listeners that don’t cook, it’s basically read the menu if you’re using a menu. Get some, I like paper plates and paper prep bowls because you can throw them out and then cut up your onion. Take the red pepper, get the ginger, or whatever else you’re going to use. portion it all out. I use coca. And that’s what chefs do. Now, the best chefs that I have, they’ve got somebody that does that for them. But trust me, it’s done. 

 

Richard Matthews  52:19  

Yeah, I’ve been teaching my son to do it for me, it takes longer when he does it, but…

 

Joe Caruso  52:24  

Send them over. I’d love to meet him. He could stay here.

 

Richard Matthews  52:27  

Yeah, he’s getting to become a pretty good little chef and he can take a recipe thing and do all of his own stuff. And he’s got knife skills now. They’re a little frightening to watch him do but he actually does have some knife skills.

 

Joe Caruso  52:38  

He gotta hold it in the fingers of the knuckles.

 

Richard Matthews  52:42  

Yeah, and how to hold the knife and all that kind of stuff. Again, that just goes back to that it’s a lazy thing. It’s easier to take care of a kid who knows how to use a knife than a kid who doesn’t and is going to be dangerous with them.

 

Joe Caruso  52:56  

Nope, some of your listeners could be thinking it’s a control thing. It’s not a control thing. 

 

Richard Matthews  53:06  

It’s a freedom thing. 

 

Joe Caruso  53:06  

It’s a freedom thing. Now there’s a place for people that have no freedom. Remember, that song? I am just not adapting it for this for the segue psychoanalytic Journal recently. Maybe a year ago maybe. But written by Kris Kristofferson called me and Bobby McGee, he was a Rhodes Scholar, people don’t know that. In the line in the song, which is I think for the 70s pieces. Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. There are people that have total freedom. And they’re people like us who achieve, can afford, structure their life. People that don’t have freedom, get up in the morning, go to work, be told what to do when they take a break. And then the farthest away from those who don’t have freedom prisoners. 

 

Richard Matthews  54:08  

Yeah. 

 

Joe Caruso  54:11  

They’ve got nothing left to lose, but they aren’t free. So Kris Kristofferson’s words aren’t entirely true. But if you have a mind and you can structure and you could plan, if you could say, oh, this weekend is going to happen to me or I’m I going to happen to it. You could do that. And I know a woman wrote about this in my first book, power losing control. She goes to Christmas parties, everybody would wear their Christmas, other than Michigan Christmas sweaters. Everybody would show up and the appetizers were perfect. She probably planned this thing starting in November, right after Thanksgiving. And then they gather around the piano and somebody would play and they all be handed sheets of songs-Christmas songs. Some people don’t like to communicate and express themselves through songs. Now, historically, in many cultures, it is a tradition. But some people don’t like that. But she insisted that everybody sing, even the ones that didn’t like it, or the party wasn’t perfect. That’s a control freak, that’s not honoring the audience. I want my wife to be able to have a free weekend, do whatever she’d like to do. And then at the time that she likes to have dinner, have it ready. Well, that requires I’m going to plan on going to the market, buying her food, thinking about my day, and how much time it would take to prepare it. That’s not a control freak, it’s planning.

 

Richard Matthews  55:56  

Absolutely. So I want to move on, shift gears a little bit and talk about your common enemy. Every superhero has an arch-nemesis, it’s the thing that they have to fight against in their world. So in the world of business it takes a lot of forms, but we put it in the context of your clients, the people that you’re helping on a regular basis, and it’s a mindset, or it’s a flaw that you constantly have to battle against, so to speak. So you can actually help your people get the result that they came to you for. And if you could The moment someone gets on the phone with you for the first time, wave a magic wand, bop them on the head, and not have to fight that common enemy. What do you think your common enemy is with the work that you do?

 

Joe Caruso  56:39  

My biggest enemy is myself. My clients aren’t enemies. I don’t work for PCSOs, NBC can beat it up. I don’t work for people that aren’t intelligent. And I don’t work for people that aren’t ambitious. I don’t want people to not understand that famous question that Freud asked one of his clients, where do you find yourself in this problem door? Without that introspection, we’re going nowhere. Don’t pay up a book, I’m not a bandage dispensary. I don’t know how to apply a tourniquet, I can’t do surgery, I can only help them with their minds. My common enemy is probably my ego. That’s my biggest enemy is oh, Joe look important you are, oh, Joe, look how much fun you’re having. Whoops, I just thought of myself. People say I’m going to speak to a large group. What should I do? I get so nervous. So stop thinking about yourself. Think about them. When I speak to 10,000 people or more. I get in the room. After the sound check and the lights check and mark the stage. And here’s where you stand and all the rest. I go to the back of the room. And I sit in four or five different seats, in the middle of the road back of the room. And you start to realize that nobody can see you either. They’re looking at this big jumbotron screen, I don’t know if they call them that anymore, that’s the old days and that’s who you are. So while I like to move on stage keeps the tomato rotten tomatoes from hitting me. When you speak in front of a camera like that with a big screen like that you can’t, then the audience just gets dizzy. So when you’re thinking about them, you’re not thinking about yourself. And I think everybody’s ego is the common enemy. Donnie talked about when he can reduce his ego to zero, what’s impossible? But he worked very hard at it. It’s an admirable goal. My father used to say shoot for the stars, if you miss, you may just land on the moon, or no, shoot for the moon, if you miss, it may just land on a star. Your goal doesn’t have to be achievable. It has to be a doer doing with a promise of completion and achievement. But if I think at one time, I had an assistant, then a client called and she sighed. I waited until I let her handle the business because everybody comes to me through my assistant. I don’t take calls I don’t know. And she sighed as she hung up the phone, that would be the back end of a yawn. Because clients are never problems. We’re the problem. If clients don’t have problems, we don’t have a job. If you assume that position, there will be problems and then you will have a job. That’s the process. So I don’t know if that’s what you’re asking me about. But I’ve never seen anybody else as an enemy. I’ve never seen anybody else’s something that’s even harder to deal with. 

 

Richard Matthews  1:00:00  

So I was thinking more of an enemy that your clients have in their own head that they have to overcome, you have to help them overcome.

 

Joe Caruso  1:00:07  

The way they define their problem in themselves. You know, new CEOs, people that are really aspirational, they get a good product or a good service, they’re in the market at the right time. All the stars are aligned, you have to learn a very simple lesson, you’re not going to make yourself rich. Other people are going to make you rich, you have to make them want to make you rich. Because they respect you and want to work for you and believe in what we’re doing. And believe in the result of what we’re doing. And find meaning in it. That’s your new job. You already came up with the idea you’re done with that. Quit trying to be the smartest guy in the room, we got it. Well, that’s a way of thinking. And so the mind is always the baby step. Now, the trick is, if you said what’s the challenge about how to deal with the biggest enemy when you’re dealing with someone like me would be candid, be open, be honest, listen, understand what trust is. Create that trusting relationship. I never tell somebody what they should do. I say, how can we think of this differently in a way that puts you in a more powerful position? Because I’m sensing that you’re feeling challenged. I’m feeling you’re feeling fear, you’re feeling victimization. An enemy, I think insinuates that you could be a victim. This person can hurt me. I never feel that. Even if I know they can have had a gun to my head, in West Africa for god’s sake, in a regime. I’ve had a gun in my head three times in my life. They treat a person like an enemy. My fear could not win the moment, I used my god damn brain. When your fear is leading the moment, you’re usually not using your brain. I have a gun that came down in an airport, a gunman opened fire. I don’t know why. She calls up. She’s incredibly stressed under a chair, the airport chair shaking, and hardly talks. We’ve got 20 people there. It was a convention. She’s the CEO. I saw it on TV. I knew it was happening. I forgot they were there. So my phone rings. I’m dealing with a major issue with the hotel, trying to pack and move. And I hear what’s happened. And they had a blackout so they couldn’t see it on TV. They don’t know. I know more about what’s going on. So long gunman. He’s still in luggage. They’ve got him surrounded. You guys are at the gate, but you all are separated. And everybody’s panicked. And I said Get your shit together. You have a job to do this bigger than you right now. You’ve got 20 people you’re responsible for. They need you right now. First of all, you only duck if you don’t cover that chair is not covered. It’s just duck. And I know this because I’ve worked with navy seals on both coasts. Secondly, put your text together in a group text with the people that are there. After you find cover. Tell everybody that you want them to check in X intervals in time to become the lead connector. Beautiful Eagle just flew to appreciate them. I said thirdly, ask everybody about other batteries. So eventually we got everybody back onto a bus. I called the assistant, I said, get a bus there. Get a hotel suite and get rooms for everybody or shitload of pizza and sodas or wine or whatever you got, get it all in that room. They’re coming. So the CEOs back once they’re on the bus, she calls me back and I said, okay, ask anyone on the bus if they have blood sugar issues. If anyone does ask anyone on the bus, if they have a snack, we could get to that person. Now you can’t think that clearly. If you’re thinking about how scared you are about what an enemy can do to you

 

Joe Caruso  1:05:01  

I had the benefit of being objective. Having warriors for clients, I’ve been in many changing commands in the Navy. But I wasn’t under fire. And the minute, I think I’m under fire, fuck, I’m going to go duck under an airport chair and not know what the hell to do or what I’m supposed to do for other people. And that’s why my enemy is my ego, and not being in charge. But making sure my amygdala, which is the part of the stem of the brain that feels fear, overtakes my right frontal cerebral cortex, which is where I can process logical information in language. Once this one takes over, this one is a victim to it. And it was, well, that’s control. No, that’s responsibility.

 

Richard Matthews  1:05:57  

So let’s talk about the flip side of that then. So if the common enemy for you is ego, and learning how to have that under control, and that kind of stuff, the flip side of that is, of course, your driving force. So if your common enemy something you fight against your driving force is what you fight for. Just like Batman fights to save Gotham or Spider Man fights to save New York or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. 

 

Joe Caruso  1:06:23  

It’s a good combination.

 

Richard Matthews  1:06:24  

It’s a comic book show, so you know,

 

Joe Caruso  1:06:28  

It’s iconic, it’s legitimate. It’s absolutely fine.

 

Richard Matthews  1:06:30  

So what is it that you fight for?

 

Joe Caruso  1:06:36  

Living my life to the best of my ability to help other people. Now, how I fight the ego. When I was in my most dire moment, cancer, I was in chemo, I was in maintenance, I met University Hospital, and we needed to go back in and get a shot. Knowing that this is the best time to feel as soon as I get that other shot. I’m going to go down for three weeks and puke, get constipation that puts me on my knees, and all of the side effects that come with it. Some people might recognize any of that. So as a kid, I can hear a bunch of nurses giggling and laughing sorry, my phone is on and off. And I can’t see around the corner. But all I want to do is I’ve got my puke bowl. I’m just feeling sorry for myself. And I do pretty good. But after you know a year and a half, I come laid out, so down and I’m angry. And I don’t like the fact that these nurses are laughing and they pull a redhead young man on a gurney up to wait in the hallway like the rest of us to go to his chemo. And I’m pissed at the nurses for giggling, and I’m pissed at him for being charming because that’s what I used to be and I’m not my best insult. It’s all anger projection. And I looked down. I could tell he was under a sheet but I could tell he lost one leg already. Now I’m sitting there fully able bodied. And then remember what my father told me, Mickey. I write about him in the book. He says no matter how bad off you think you are. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Because there’s somebody worse off. And he followed that with the reverse. And no matter how good you think you are. Don’t get cocky. Because you’re going to try to call him if somebody’s going to be able to dance circles. And this is an important lesson that I wrote in one of my books. We don’t pride ourselves on a lesson in life. We humble ourselves to our lessons. Humility is the path. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. So I stay with ego as my answer. And that’s how I deal with it.

 

Richard Matthews  1:09:43  

And now a quick word from our show sponsor. Hey, there fellow podcaster. Having a weekly audio and video show on all the major online networks that builds your brand creates fame and drives sales for your business 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 heck 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. Empowered 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 pushbuttonpodcasts.com/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 pushbuttonpodcasts.com/hero. See you there. Now, back to the Hero Show

 

Richard Matthews  1:11:14  

So then I want to talk about your guiding principles. One of the things that make heroes heroic is that they live by code. For instance, Batman never kills his enemies he only ever puts him in Arkham Asylum. And so as we wrap up the interview. I want to talk about the top one, maybe two principles that you use regularly in your life, maybe a principle you wish you knew when you first started out.

 

Joe Caruso  1:11:35  

I’m thinking well, one principle is I have always thought that if I have a funeral, which I don’t know if I want a funeral out of the odds. I’m not sure if there’s a funeral which I won’t be able to decide, Richard. I won’t dictate it. I’m not a control freak. But if there’s a funeral, I’m torn between whether or not I want no parking spaces within five miles. Because there are so many people in there or that I don’t want anyone there. Because life is for the living. They can’t help me anymore. But I do know that if I’m laying in the coffin, there are going to be people if there’s a funeral when people show up. Some people gonna say, he was never as good as I thought he could be. This has been a message for you. And others will say I can’t believe all he wasn’t only accomplished. It’s impressive. 

 

Joe Caruso  1:13:03  

I’ll leave you with this. There was a girl in high school named Denise and she was a typical cheerleader in a Midwest school with blond hair, beautiful blue eyes and she was very pretty. I’ve always been attracted to more dark complected and brown eyes, but she was just so perfectly straight A’s colet, I mean, she was just an iconic 16 year old. She was probably 17 and I’m a freshman. Now, I ended up the president of my class, we had 682 people in my class, the different eras. So this is a big school. I end up in a math class with Denise and I asked one of my older friends who were in her class to just let her know that I kind of liked her and he said well, I gotta be honest with you, he was my neighbor we played ball together and so on and he said I’m gonna be honest with you, she doesn’t like you, she knows who you are, she just doesn’t like you. So the life of me says, what the hell can’t she like I’m not mean, I’m nice, I create jokes, I couldn’t imagine.

 

Joe Caruso  1:14:29  

Well, it could have been a status thing. I’m just a poor, lower-class kid. Band geek with braces and a brush cut. Pretty sure that my answer was wrong. So I came home and I was really down and my father was down. I’m one of four boys, but he knew I was down so into my bedroom. My dad came in and he said, hey, Joe what’s going on? And I said, here’s this girl named Denise. And she’s just the best. And I was told today by Danny, she didn’t like me. My Dad was always very kind and very helpful. And always have the right words at the right time, which is one of the things I try to always teach in my guiding principles. tell the right story to the right person at the right time for the right reason in the right way. I know that was fast, but they can rewind. And so this in his kindest words, Joe get over it, not everyone in life is going to like you, the sooner you realize that the better off you’ll be. So there are a couple of guiding principles to your question.

 

Richard Matthews  1:15:47  

I like that. Not everyone’s gonna like you. It’s true. Doesn’t really matter what you’re doing, either. And it goes the other way, too. You run into people, you’re like, I just, I don’t like them. And I don’t know why.

 

Joe Caruso  1:16:00  

I explained that in my Power Losing Control book how that happens? I can also say that, thank you for introducing me to your audience. I’m not sure if there’s 1000s, or hundreds of 1000s or 10, or two Taiwanese kids, and seeing, I don’t care, you asked me good questions, I opened my kimono and gave you my best answers, which is in line with how I bring myself to everybody be fully emphatically in the moment with the other is a third guiding principle. And I think we achieved that. Now, the question is., let’s say there are 10,000 listeners, I’m going to get a little high on that number. But we’re gonna go with that because it feels good. And there are 10,000 different versions of media out there. They still don’t know me. And they’re foundational contexts to process whether on a good guy or bad guy and asshole or control freak, or a guy just had a hell of a life and made the best out of it. When it was taken from him once, it doesn’t matter, to me, I did my best I could for you, to be honest, and fully empathically at the moment with you. And those 10,000 impressions of me, I’m smart enough to realize they’re based one at a time on a person and how they see themselves first, I’ve only viewed them in the context of them, I cannot control them, which is what the power of losing control is about. Don’t worry about taking control.

 

Richard Matthews  1:17:45  

I remember reading some thoughts from Orson Scott Card who’s a science fiction author. And he was talking about how authors only ever write half the story. A completed book is only half the story, the book is finished in the reader’s mind.

 

Joe Caruso  1:18:01  

And I would say the author, although he does the heavy lifting or she writes less than half of the story because once you’re into the story, it starts to write itself. And your job is to subjugate yourself to where the story is taking you if you’re a good writer. So I would argue the deaths over estimation on the ratio. But I agree with the principle 100%. 

 

Richard Matthews  1:18:29  

Yeah, and it’s the same kind of thing the way that people know you, they know what they have perceived from this interview, which it’s only partial.

 

Joe Caruso  1:18:42  

It’s just honest, it’s an honest exchange. And there’s no posing, you were posing, I was posing we played with each other. I disclose very, very private things. Some of the things I’ve told you, I’m not sure my wife’s ever heard. But it doesn’t make any difference if they serve the purpose and that’s what I was supposed to do. But it’s not that it was a secret. It just never came off. And this is what you do you want people to reflect. And then you want to offer people like me as a resource and people like you as a resource. So they can say, I wonder if that person can help me. Well, I was very clear. You want me to help you, here’s who you have to be. And then I’ll help. I already have my charities. I already have my charity work. I’m part of my charity work. But if they think that would help, they can look into the Book, they can look into the free cup and they can go on the website, CarusoLeadership.com or they can contact my office. It’s not that hard to do, and have a conversation with me. But just to qualify and I’ll leave you with this, one other guiding principle. No one gets to treat me worse than I treat them, I’ll help anybody I can help. I can’t help everybody and I can’t do it for free. Or I can’t feed my wife and I can’t travel.

 

Richard Matthews  1:20:12  

Absolutely. Well, I think that’s a good place to wrap our interview. I finish all my interviews with a simple challenge I called the heroes challenge. We do this to help find access to stories that might not otherwise get on my own. Because not everyone is out doing these podcasts like you and I do. 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 and why do you think they should come to share their story on our show? First person that comes to mind for you.

 

Joe Caruso  1:20:36  

Nikhil Hagerty. Hagerty Insurance, Traverse City, Michigan. Steve Chercheur.

 

Richard Matthews  1:20:46  

And why do you think they should come to share their stories here? 

 

Joe Caruso  1:20:49  

He runs a very large organization including the big sky in Montana. There are just too many.

 

Richard Matthews  1:21:05  

We’re just looking for one cool story that we can invite on and see if we can get some similar stories. So we’ll reach out later and see if we can get an introduction to Steve and see if we can come on the show. But in comic books, there’s always the crowd of people at the end who are cheering and clapping for the acts of heroism, so our analogous to that is where can people find you? Where can they light up the bat signal so to speak and say, hey, Joe, I’d love to get your help. I’d love to read your cup of Joe in the morning or love to pick up your books. And secondly, who are the people who should reach out and do that?

 

Joe Caruso  1:21:34  

The people I mentioned earlier, can afford me to have ambition and are intelligent and willing to be introspective. Secondly, in communities to answer the former question Team@CarusoLeadership.com. And make sure they mentioned you and then they mentioned this podcast. And then my assistant will say oh, okay, so that blind call. And they’ve vetted themselves. And then she’ll set up a meeting with me. And we’ll talk and figure out if the chemistry is there. We’ll figure out if they like me, and like themselves when they’re with me, which is far more important, talking about that. And I’ll see if I think I can help them because if I don’t think I can help them.  We’re not able to move forward, It’s my job. I don’t want to string them along.

 

Richard Matthews  1:22:41  

Absolutely. So it’s Team@Caruso.com. 

 

Joe Caruso  1:22:44  

Yes.

 

Richard Matthews  1:22:44  

And thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story with us today. Really appreciate your time. Any final words of wisdom for my audience before I hit this stop record button? 

 

Joe Caruso  1:22:55  

Yeah, keep listening to Richard’s podcast. It’s pretty good. He’s a smart guy.

 

Richard Matthews  1:23:00  

Thank you, Joe. 

 

Joe Caruso  1:23:01  

Alright.