Game Changer 5 [24:32]
Alright, let’s do this. We’re going live in 5, 4, 3. There’s the status quo and then there are the game changers. They write books and make films about game changers, people who put a dent in the universe. Are you one of them? This series explains everything you need to know to be a game changer and how to win at the game of business and life. Today’s episode is made possible by Think Next, Act Now, a movement that trains and mentors tomorrow’s entrepreneur today. And now, here are your hosts, Bill Wooditch and Todd Schnick.
Todd: Alright, welcome back to the show about how to become a game changer. Understanding that business and life is a game and you have to play it well and play to win. Alright, welcome to episode 5 where we’re going to discuss owning the present. And I’m joined today by my friend and colleague, Bill Wooditch. Good morning my friend, great to be with you.
Bill: It’s great to be here Todd, thank you for having me on the show.
Todd: Oh it is my pleasure. This is going to be an important conversation. This is one of those things that when I learned how to do this, it really changed everything for me. And I’m anxious to learn in the context of becoming a game changer. Before we do that though, what does it actually mean to be a game changer? And why do we even have to have a series about this?
Bill: A game changer is a person that influences a result and the intended result and they generate that result by being ready, prepared, being engaged in the game of life. A game changer is a person that changes the game because it’s a game worth playing and they know how to play it well. They’re the person, and because they’re there at the point of contact, things are different, they change the outcome.
Todd: Alright, what do you mean by owning the present?
Bill: You have to own and embrace the present, Todd. That’s all we have. Now you can think about that intellectually and think you’re right, that’s all I have; I have the present. But what some people do is stay anchored, anchored in the past. They stay anchored in the past and see they ruin the present because they still have a foot back in the past. And all those conditions of the past are playing themselves forward in the present as their reality, so they’re not actually engaged in the present. And what’s happening there is they’re foreclosing any possibility of the future because they’re staying anchored in the past, ruining the present which is becoming a part and parcel of the past and they’re not able to move in to the future because the future is something that’s not real. But they’re making – right now, they’re making the past, which is gone, real. And what happens there is like a date. I have to break things down to analogies like this. If you ever been across a table from a date, you won’t let the past go, you know how painful this is. So you’re going to pay for the sins, all the transgressions, all the skeletons are coming out of that closet in the past. You had nothing to do with it but you’re ruining the present dinner because all those skeletons from her or his past are coming forward and playing themselves out, you’re pretty much buying them dinner at the table because it’s now a party for eight, it’s not a party of two anymore.
So if you don’t do that, you’re obviously foreclosing any potential to have of enjoyment in the present. And think about it, that’s all we have. At any moment you can walk out and get hit by a bus, you could drop dead right here and what have we done? We believed in something that’s already gone that we can’t change and we’re living for something in front of us that we might never get to. All we got is right now.
Todd: The way I was able to define, understand this idea of owning the present was if you are anchored in the future, then you’re operating from a context of fear. Because you’re afraid probably knowing how we all operate. You’re afraid because you’re thinking about what’s going to happen. If you’re operating from the context of the past, then you’re probably living with this whole idea engrossed in regret because you’re sorry about something that happened. The only way to do this is to be focusing on what’s happening right now. Am I right on that?
Bill: It’s the only way you could influence. And I’m very, very judicious in the use of the term influence over control because I think we control our attitude but that’s about it. So I think we can influence our lives by being anchored in the present. And actually understanding, being aware of that ‘what am I doing? Am I living in the past?’ We are going to have to learn. You have to learn from the lessons of the past and history or you condemn to repeat them, right? So we’re going to have to learn from those lessons but we don’t have to carry them forward and become living color today to penalize others with those. We have to learn so I think that the future is one of those things that we always say we get to it someday, someday or we’re going to get to this later, later, later and it keeps kicking the can down the road, down the road, down the road and we never get there. And we fail to take those moves as a game changer, we fail to make those decisive moves right now in the present with clarity of mind, with a directed purpose. We fail to take them because we’re either afraid of what happened to us in the past or possibly we’re anticipating something to break for us in the future. Make your breaks now, make your breaks in the present, make those things happen; overcome those conditions and say you did. That’s the key. I get a great feeling of flush of happiness when I think about the conditions I overcame. I don’t make them a [04:53] that to me was a fire in the fuel.
Todd: Yup. Oh one of my favourite Wooditch-isms is his idea of owing the present influences the future. So how does that actually work?
Bill: Well, if you stay in present and the future and thinking about this and you’re meeting with people on their terms and you’re making, as a game changer, you’re influencing the results of things, you’re actually taking care of your future because you’re building a future from the efforts in the present. You can’t build a future in the future, you got to build a future from the present. So you build your future by working right now in the present. And I think that is how you become a better learner, that’s how you become a better thinker and there’s you doer and a better doer in life.
Todd: Well, episode 2 of this series we talked about how to define what winning this game of life is and determining what your destination is and how can we actually define what we mean by what we achieve and become a game changer. I mean, you have to know that so that you can more effectively own the present. Am I on the right track with that?
Bill: Well, I’m a reductionist so I’m going to break everything down to its essential element and then I’m going to say ‘what is it that I have to do to get to this point? What do I have to give up, renounce? What do I have to learn and apply?’ So that’s what I’d do. So the most important thing to me and I think for every listener, you have to look inside and you have to find what is most important to you. And for me it was one word – freedom. So I worked everything back up for freedom. I gave up money, I took less money off the table; hired people who are very good at what they do to manage the company, to lead the company; I did that. I gave up stock. So I gave up a lot of stuff that wasn’t as important as the most important thing to me and that was freedom. So I worked everything back from that and I did it in the present so in my future as it would unfold, it was going to be part of what I had planned for right now in the present.
Todd: Alright, so thinking about this again, so there’s nothing you can do about what’s happened, nothing you can do about the past. Frankly, there’s really nothing you can, you can’t let yourself get afraid by what might or might not happen in the future. I mean, the only thing you can do now in the present is action, yeah?
Bill: First of all there’s not a damn thing you can do about the past now. We can, again, intellectually understand that but we have to have the emotional fortitude to be able to [06:58 overlaps]
Todd: Therein lies the rub.
Bill: Because it gives us an out card. You know, we talked about becoming the CEO of your life in this series and we talked about losing the excuses. The past can give us an excuse, ‘well, I couldn’t help it, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t my fault’. Okay, we understand that, we do understand that. But let’s accept it, let’s take the hit and let’s move forward.
Todd: Alright, so fear is all over this. I mean, fear is prevalent virtually every element of our lives, it certainly is in this idea. But if you’re engaged in fear and that’s guiding how you operate, how you think, how you interact with others; it’s certainly not owning the present when you’re just guided with fear.
Bill: We could use fear to give us some edge. It can cut our hamstrings in life and we can stay mired in fear or it can give us edge, give a little uncertainty to keep moving forward; a little bit more step, a little bit more urgency. You know, we’re all cloaked in fear it’s just a matter of degree. It’s a matter of how resilient are we and how do we move through those fields of fear and face our fear. I tried to make it as easy as I could for people when I talk about fear. I try to build programs or what I can do to make it as easy as there is, try to find a secret method; there’s not, there’s not. You can look and I’ve read it over 78 books on fear and went to different various big classroom studies; you have to face your fear, you have to face it, you can’t run from it. And you can’t pull out something that’s inside of you, a fear, and beat it up and conquer it; it doesn’t happen. You can’t pull out something inside of you and beat it up. So you have to be able to face and overcome your fear and I think it can be an edge. I think we can get an edge when we understand that, as we talked about in a previous segment, what we fear, the bigger that fear, we’re probably getting closer to what we really want.
Todd: When I informed my company, I called it intrepid because I wanted people to be fearless. And I’ve realized, you can’t be fearless. And the difference between most people and a game changer is that they embrace that fear, they recognize ‘hey, there’s nothing I can do’. Fear is going to be there. You either use it as a crutch and as something that paralyzes you or use it as an opportunity to move forward. Always forward, right?
Bill: Let me offer a game changer definition. Adrenaline is a by-product of fear. I just always confused adrenaline for being a game player and giving the high from the game as fear. So I really didn’t define fear. When I was going forward doing all these different things, it was just adrenaline rush for me it was like, ‘oh this is great, man.’ This is a heightened level of energy in me. I didn’t associate that as fear. Once we start to define something, it gives it a whole different level of reality. So we sit there and say, ‘oh my god, I fear this’. Well, then you know what, you will and it becomes this big Macy’s Day [09:32] balloon going down the street in your life and all it does is cast shadows over your present. Get rid of that stuff, man, it’s just a balloon. So I look at it as adrenaline rush, as energy, it’s zooming me forward, pulling me through the stuff, man, I love that stuff.
Todd: Alright, Bill and I will return after this short break. We’ll be right back.
[09:52-10:49 Advertisement]Todd: Alright, Todd Schnitt back with Bill Wooditch. Talking about owning the present. So Bill, I’ve heard you talk about confidence. What does that have to do with owning your present?
Bill: I think confidence is crucial in owning the present. I think confidence is playing the game or playing as if. You know a lot of confidence comes from trial and success. But I think that some of it has to come from vision. Come visualizing an outcome and actually acting as if we’ve already achieved that outcome. You know we talked previously about people smelling 3 things: fear, desperation and greed. And they also feed, they feed off of confidence. Now, I’m not a faux confidence where you’re trying to make something up and overcompensate it, but a confidence that comes from being happy, being good with who you are and believing in what you have to offer and who you are. I think that’s key.
Todd: We mentioned vision. I mean, I think that’s critical to owning the present, right? Because without a vision, you don’t know how to own your present, you don’t know what actions to take. We talk about actions being so critical to owning the present. But if you don’t have a vision to strive for or goal to achieve, then you’re floundering, you don’t have any ability to own your present.
Bill: I would set a destination in the horizon and then I would look to the present to take the steps needed at that time to get to where I had to be in that horizon. And I would keep moving the horizon as I kept my steps moving forward.so I stayed present and aware, awareness is the key, Todd. You have to be aware of what’s happening now. What is really happening now and how do I address it? How do I move thorough this? How do I make this work for me? How do I make these circumstances work for me? How do I get over this obstacle, do I go through it, do I go around it? But keep moving toward that horizon. You know, everything’s not going to be a straight line. That might be the shortest distance but it’s not always going to be that way in life. Sometimes you have to take a little detours. How are you going to keep by keeping your eye on that horizon; keep your eye on the horizon.
Todd: That awareness of what is happening now, most of us really stink at that. How do we sharpen that skill?
Bill: The one think I’ve learned is to be more aware, it is a skill set. It’s actually stopping and asking the question, ‘wait a minute, what’s happening here? Let’s take a conversation.’ Someone comes up to you and they’re having a conversation, you know, we’re always going to be subject to perception. So our perception is you’ve heard becomes a reality. And so perception comes from the back of our brain. It comes up in millions and millions of pictures and it picks the one closest aligned to where we are right now. So we’re seeing something from our perception and that perspective becomes the [13:17] basis of action because it defines our reality.
Step back, be aware of what’s really happening. Are we perceiving this accurately or as accurately as possible? Maybe we should get others’ opinions on what is happening here just to be able to better form our own. And I think that’s given me a better enabler in life to look at the blind spots and say, ‘what am I missing here?’ That’s awareness.
Todd: It’s awareness, some would call it mindfulness, some would call it being in the moment and that’s just being paying attention to what’s going on around you for a couple of reasons. One, to kind of know if you’re on the right track towards that future; also, frankly, just to enjoy freaking life. If you’re sitting there and you’re mired in regret about the past and you’re full of fear about the future, what you’re not doing is paying attention to what’s happening right now. And that’s a miserable existence. That’s why so many people are unhappy and stressed, right?
Bill: Ask yourself a question, what is the purpose of existence? What is the purpose of my job? You know, it’s to enjoy life, to create lifestyle options and to actually enjoy and live life. That’s the purpose of the exercise. To me, the purpose of the exercise is to live life. I used to vet these books on the meaning of life, what’s the meaning of life. You know what I found out? Is to live life. [14:24] get out there and live your life. That is paying attention. You mentioned something very important, paying attention, because you know what happens today? There is myriad distractions. They exist in our iPhones, they exist into some of our vapid conversations, they exist in reality television; they just exist as distractions from the pain of living everyday life. And pain is the consequence of living life.
Todd: Well, you and I got together last night as we record this. We had a lovely dinner at an amazing facility here in Chicago where we’re recording this. If we had spent that dinner talking about regrets of our past and talking about how afraid we are, it would be a completely unmemorable event. That was what we did. We talked about mutual interests and enjoyed and appreciated the food and the wine that we were consuming at that moment. And will be a memorable meal that we’ll long remember. I mean, when you get so strapped in to the past and the fear of the future, there’s no way you can enjoy what’s going on right now. Alright, stay with me. We’d still be going through the wine just to [15:21 overlaps] Do you ask yourself this question too, am I the person that I would like to hang out with?
Bill: I ask that question once a while, see if my mind falls awareness. Do you really want to hang out with someone who’s mired with regret that all they’re bring in is their worst case stories to you and every day you got to deal with those kinds of fears and deal with their losses in life? You don’t want to hang out with those kinds of people. Someone once said, I think it was Jim Brown, what were the average of the five people that we hang out with the most? And I really do believe that in life. People who want to learn are on the quest to learn, people that want to improve, people that have a positive attitude, hang out with those people. You will get better and make them better; you will. You hang out with the other people who always look for the problems, you’re always going to find the problem; you’re going to find your life black and bleak. You know what, choose the other route, choose the route.
Todd: One of the things that’s been interesting about this series Bill is uncovering the signs on where there’s good things happening and bad things happening. And when you hang out with people who you dread because ‘all he talks about is his past or he’s always afraid of the future’ Boom. That’s a sign, you say ‘okay, I need to change something here.’ And then the flipside of that is ‘if this is how people think about me, well then, I know where I’m operating.’ But I think it goes back to what we’ve always been saying.
Bill: The thing that I love about talking with you is if we had a tape recorder last night, we would have some raw material to work with. But you mentioned something that just triggered something in me, you mentioned signs. I used to date this girl and I used to tell her this, I said, ‘you got to stop looking in your rear view mirror in life.’ I said, ‘I want you to picture driving your car. You picture driving the car, you’re always looking at that rear view mirror. You’re looking at every pot hole that you’ve already hi. And while you’re looking at the pot holes you already hit, you’re missing the ones up in front of you that you’re going to hit. And then oh by the way, there’s a cliff over there and the guard rails down and you’re going to go right over that cliff because you keep looking in the back and you can’t do a damn thing about what you’ve already hit.’ I loved it, I think she actually got it. Yeah, well, for a moment or two anyway.
Todd: Well, that’s a good thing. Belief is important on all this, right? I mean, I think belief in yourself, belief in that vision; you can’t own he present if you don’t have belief.
Bill: I think that if I was going to point to one weapon that’s made a big difference maker for me in my game changing arsenal, it is self-belief. Self-belief and I think self-belief has to come from substance. I always say that style might get you in the room but substance keeps you there. But I think that substance comes from learning, it comes from the application of what you learn. It comes from self-belief and being a value. And let’s not be too harsh on ourselves. If we always look in the past and we’re using self-incrimination and we’re blaming ourselves for certain things, let’s forgive ourselves for some things. If we’re able to do that, we build a better value for ourselves and we become more valuable to ourselves and I think that’s important.
Todd: You know, I’ve heard you say in the context of owning the present that you have to make it personal and authentic and when I hear that, what I think of is you have to be in that moment, you have to appreciate where you are at that moment, appreciate who you’re talking to at that moment, listen to them actually. Because without that, then you’re fake, right? It’s a fascinating thing to think about in terms of authenticity here on the present, but I don’t think you’re present if you’re not authentic.
Bill: Now, I think it came from The Godfather when they said it’s not personal, it’s just business. But I think it’s always personal. It is personal. If you’re going to play the game, right, you got to be a game changer, that’s got to be personal. You’re going to get cut. You see, people don’t want to be vulnerable. So they don’t want to be vulnerable, they don’t want to be exposed. They think it’s just a separate department, it’s just business. No, it’s personal. If you’re a game changer it’s personal.
To be authentic means you find out who you are and you are okay with that, great with that and be you at the table. Don’t try to be the guy from Wall Street, The Wolf of Wall Street, because you’re probably going to be confused for the lamb on Main Street. So you have to you, you can’t be some caricature, some parody. Because if you try to be anyone else other than you, that’s what you’ll end up be.
Todd: Well you have to be okay with who you are at that moment because there’s nothing you can do about it because your life you did live and you’re at that moment. But that’s where you can be aware and say, ‘alright, well I can refine my vision where I want to go and now because I’m aware of that and I can take action to begin to move that way.’ Right?
Bill: Think of the gift you have. Every day you can get up out of bed and you can change that alter station in your life simply by watching us is a motivational, this is from some book. This is what I actually know because I lived it so I’m only talking about myself. But you can actually change from that mind-set, it becomes the action, the action influences the result. You can date every day you have a chance to change something in your life. Something, some small thing; whether it’s some small part of your diet you’re tweaking. Just change things that can make you better because you always want to be better tomorrow than you were today.
Todd: Well, when you said in a previous episode that you have the power.
Bill: You have the power.
Todd: And the beauty of owning the present is that’s when you utilize that power, right?
Bill: It’s the only time you can. You can’t use the power in the past.
Todd: That’s gone.
Bill: Right.
Todd: And owning the present enables you to influence the future, which is how you use your power for the future, right?
Bill: Underline that because that is beautiful. You can play that one back again, that was good, yes.
Todd: Alright, closing up the conversation on owning the present is it goes back to a common theme that we’ve been talking about, it still needs to be continued daily learning, right? And doing that in the present is a good time to learn, right?
Bill: You know, I think it goes to speak to a curious mind. And I think the curious mind is one that’s always under development. And a curious mind is one that’s always moving forward because it’s finding a way. It’s finding, seeking a way to create something, some approach, being authentic and learning what it is you have to learn to move forward. Not just because its part and parcel of success in life, is because there’s just fun and there’s joy in the expression of knowledge. I know I personally feel better when I read a good book or I listen to a good speaker and I take something from it. I always feel better for the experience.
Todd: Well we talked about in the episode about becoming the CEO of your life the importance of saying ‘I don’t know’ and you have to be in the moment, in the present; you have to be aware of what is happening in front of you to be able to say ‘oh you know, I don’t know that’. Because if you’re focused on the past or you’re worried about the future, well then you’re not aware of what you don’t know right now and then you can’t take any meaningful action to do something about it.
Bill: I’ve made some horrendous decisions and I’ve become empowered and people actually would – he could see that everybody that was tensed would all go out of the room, the air would sometimes go out of the room. And I would say, you know I really blanked that up.
Todd: You just owned it.
Bill: I blanked that up or I don’t know. It’s the most liberating for me because the stress of having to be right, right now and right all the time, to grow the ego façade of being invincible and being the individual in charge of the success of the enterprise, is such a, it’s under siege all the time, you’re always and army under siege. Yeah, you can never break out from that mentality unless you choose to breakout from that mentality and change the way you think.
Well someone who’s operating as the CEO of their life and a game changer does own it when they blank something up. Instead of wallowing in it, they say ‘alright, what do we do about this? How do we take action? How do we move always forward and begin to figure it out and get around that? That’s what a game changer does.
Let’s talk about mistakes for a minute because we’ve gone back and forth and talked about risks and you got to be able to take risks and make some mistakes. To a degree, you have to learn from your mistakes. At a certain point, if you don’t learn from mistakes then you’re probably not in the right place, you probably have to go and find another vocation at some point because you have to be able to learn and adapt, and you have to be able to apply from the mistakes you make. That’s the key to mistakes because otherwise is, the people say that this experience in the lessons of history. Well, you know it’s just an experience if you don’t learn from it and take a lesson.
Todd: You know, Bill, I want to add this. This wasn’t necessarily in our agenda to talk about but I want to talk about how I own the present and one the things that I do have to do every day is meditate. And that is an important thing that I’ve done to help me figure some of these things out. And it’s how I become aware because I allow myself to give me self some quiet me time or I can actually think of when you talk about creative thinking. That’s how I have to do that and to me a meditation has changed everything for me in terms of how I own the present. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Bill: I think it’s one of the strongest things you can do in a number of areas. And one of them that’s recently been found is will power, is growing will power which is one of the keys to sticking through whatever it is that you’re doing in the present, making it become your future. Meditation is the key, mindfulness meditation to be able to get your last sleep and then meditate to be able to grow will power. And will power’s a fascinating subject. We’re all born with unlimited amount, they vary but it’s limited but we can grow it and meditation is one of the key ways to grow it. It’s great, it’s great.
Todd: Well, with regards to will power I will not mention the 14-karat cake we had last night. Alright, well, all the time we have for today, Bill. Before I let you go, how can people contact you should they have any questions on how to become a game changer.
Bill: Billwooditch.com. W-O-O-D-I-T-C-H. Billwooditch.com
Todd: Alright, tune in next week for the final episode of this series where we’re going to discuss this whole idea of understanding that this is business and life is a game and we have to play it well and play to win. So in behalf of my colleague Bill Wooditch, I am Todd Schnick. We’ll see you next week on Be A Game Changer. So until then, remember always forward.