Okay. All right. She's got the new speak Spanish by chance.
Un poquito.
Oh, look at that. What a good accent too. Yeah. Right. And
yeah. And you didn't say un chico, which is, which is
right, too. All right. Good stuff. So how the heck did you
get into this?
High performance and speaking,
high performance and speaking specifically with schools.
Like what really the the genesis of it all is, of course, you
know, childhood trauma and believing that I was never good
enough or there was something wrong with me. And so I had to
perform and achieve for attention and recognition and
love. And that put me on that path and that pattern in life
of performing and you know, seeking attention and all that
kind of stuff. And then really what got me into it though, a
few years ago was that like I crashed and burned and lost
everything, which we can go into more detail if you want.
All right, welcome in to vision pros live with Jackson Callum.
Your show host will be doing interviews for visionary
entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic
visions out there.
Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome into vision pros live.
Today's a special special day, mainly because I've got James
pile here. And we're gonna be talking about the kids and the
future of education and schools and really the now of education
and what we need to be doing to help. But I'm also super jazzed
today because it's my birthday. So I got to be excited about
that. And without further ado, I'm going to dive into some of
these sponsors. So cold click right here. Cold click is what
we use for LinkedIn automation. Art Hoffman, fantastic leader,
great at teaching how to go about getting those systems in
place, and making sure that you maximize your opportunity with
your market. I love it because it helps make sure they make
sure that we don't break any of the rules that the algorithms
need us to follow in order to make sure we maximize the amount
of great people that we're touching base with. That's
really what it's all about. It's about capturing enough of an
audience to find the people who are in a great position to start
a relationship with you in the here and now not everybody is
and that's okay. We will cultivate those relationships
over time. But the more people we can connect with usually the
more amount of good we can do by joining forces with said people.
So that also leads to tap mental I can't point on my screen for
that one right now. But tap mental.io is run by Dave Goodall.
He actually met us on the podcast and decided to become a
client and I've been super impressed with him. He bridges a
gap between psychology with systems for business owners and
he does it super, super well but impressed with his case studies.
I've been impressed with what he's been able to do for me in
the same regard, as well as, you know, as you just get to know
his stories of how deep his background runs for expertise.
If you're looking for a business consultant, somebody to help
you within like a 90 day period and and do so in a systematic
fashion, he's got his six phases to help entrepreneurs unlock
again, the psychological barriers that often get in the
way of driving results and creating reliable teams. So I
highly recommend checking out what Dave's up to. And that's
also going to lead into a great conversation with James Pyle.
And I get so excited to talk about the kids that I also don't
want to forget about the water project and the kids that not
only are they pulled away from their education, they're pulled
away from their education often because they have to go find
clean drinking water for their family. And in most cases, it's
not sanitary drinking water, they just have to go get
something to survive. So, you know, imagine your children
having to do that, having to go three, four miles to find water,
bring it back for the community, rather than receiving their
daily education that nurtures them and allows them to create
an even better life for themselves. Well, the water
project allows you to pick communities and then donate
whether you have a dollar or you have $100,000 to give away to
help with it, you empower people with a basic resource that is
needed for them to survive. And then hopefully be able to thrive
on top of that it is such an empowering feeling to be able to
get the email that says you've made this project happen for
this community. And to know that you've contributed to it and
get to see the results of that community go from, you know, the
the what you could imagine would be despair and desperation of
not having access to water like that on a daily basis to then
having it almost freely available. It's a really cool
feeling to have been involved in that. So make sure to get
involved, whether it's the water project or helping out with
any other any other form of volunteerism that you can go
ahead and drop the link in the comments as well. If you have
something that you would rather see us focus on or control
or contribute to, there's a lot of great causes in the world.
I'm all about driving awareness for those. And so without
further ado, I'm going to bring on James Pyle. He's on a
mission to equip, empower and encourage 10,000 top school
speakers that could be you that could be me. And over the next
three years, he's going to be training us how to inspire and
encourage youth and educators to know their true identity,
leverage diversity for acceleration and be the person
that they are created to be. And you know, there's a lot of
people who talk about how difficult things can be right
now, but I like that James is focused on making sure that we
make time to talk about the opportunities at hand. We're
taking education by storm. I'm using his words now and
committed to informing the next generation and those who
influence them most on the realities of life and how to
best navigate their journey. And he's just received a 2.2
million dollar rather just launched a 2.2 million dollar
scholarship campaign this fall to help aspiring speakers get
everything that they need to succeed speaking in schools. So
without further ado, James, thank you for joining me on
Vision Pros Live, my friend and I can't wait to unpack this
vision of yours. Oh, howdy everybody. Man, thanks for
having me. Happy birthday. Everybody give a big round of
applause. Celebrate woohoo. Another lap around the sun into
many, many, many more for this wonderful man, Jackson. So
bless you, brother. Oh, thank you, James. Man, I appreciate
that. So as we dive in, I got we gotta find out for these
listeners. So other than what I explained myself, what should
what should they be expecting on the show and and why should
people be listening to you about this subject? Well,
nobody should listen to me about anything. In fact, don't
listen at all. No, just kidding. The reason why is
because so many people in this world. In fact, really, I
believe everybody we're all attacked in our identity and so
much of the world is lacking self-awareness, which we call
step zero. And so why people should listen to this episode
is is that if you're sick and tired of living a mediocre
life, if you're sick and tired of average, if if you've got a
bone in your body that's like upset about the way things are
happening in the world and you find yourself thinking about
it or talking about it, this episode in particular is very
important because we're gonna be talking about a lot of very
very rich ideas, wisdom, content and frameworks for
people to be able to take action. You know for for myself,
I'm a person who's compelled to act and so because of that, I'm
tired of people talking about how messed up things are and
that's why we're on the path we're on because we're
committed to actually doing something about it or at least
going at it with everything in us till the day we die. I love
it and so when you talk about getting these leaders on stage,
you know, who do you consider a leader and what types of people
are able to go to these speaking engagements and
participate? Yeah. So that's the coolest thing about this is
that you never know where people are gonna come from and
and what's really gonna qualify them other than usually it just
is one of those facts of life. Usually, it's a it's a tragic
experience and in fact, it's usually you know significant
tragedy, suffering, pain, hardship, all these types of
things that most people run from that's that's actually the
place where we find that seed has been planted in a person's
life for them to actually be able to do like it talked about
at the top of the web page there and that is to shine
brighter and you know, it's just an amazing amazing opportunity
that we all have here to be able to be alive right now in
this time and I think most people at least you know that
I'm aware of think that things are kinda jacked up and guess
what? That's why we are here right now is we're the ones
that have been sent here to be alive and to fix this stuff. So
rather than just complaining about being upset about it,
we're committed to actually taking the action to help
rebuild this country and train people to take responsibility
for their lives. I love that man. You're your question
there. Sorry about that. What qualifies somebody and and how
we identify people who would be great for speaking is
literally you've had a calling on your heart your whole life.
It's not something that you stumbled into today or you heard
about in this podcast. You're like, oh wow, speaking in
school sounds interesting. No, you've had a fire in your soul
your entire life and you know it's part of your purpose and
you're calling and you actually know that it takes getting
mentored by people who have the systems of success for you to
actually achieve success in something and so what we look
for especially in people that we deal with is is people with
a servant heart people that are actually about the purpose of
helping inspire and encourage youth and educators and parents
and knowing that like the income and pay is part of that,
but that they're not out for the money. So, that's really
what identifies people in our programs. I love that and I love
that you led with trauma as well as a reality. You know,
most great motivational speakers speak from the depths
of the traumas that they had to overcome and so if you are in
that position, it's like if you've gone through trauma and
you're still dealing with it and you're not comfortable
talking about it, we're not talking about you. We're talking
about people who have have a desire to share how to overcome
that trauma with others and so you you know who you are if
you're in that boat. So, James, what's your vision for those
that you serve in 30 seconds? Yeah, my vision is to elevate
self-awareness so that people can know who they truly are
because when we know who we are, we know why we're here and
what to do and I'm very very driven to empower others with
that knowledge of self-awareness so they can
actually fulfill their potential and when we get to the
end of our lives and we meet the creator, we could actually
see that hey, we ticked all those boxes we were supposed
to take in our life and then heaven is really heaven. So,
yes. Okay. Awesome. I love that. So, let's dive into your
vision. What is your personal vision look like? Yeah. So, my
personal vision is to continue to be a role model for others
and finding the cure to their pain and giving it away to the
world. Instead of looking for role models, we must become the
role model and build the person we admire most so that we can
be that role model for us and for others. Yeah. Well said.
Okay. So, it sounds a lot like becoming your best self. You
know, it's it's a big part of that process and I I like that
you call self-awareness step zero. That's interesting.
Where did that come from? That came from losing everything in
my life actually due to drug and alcohol addiction. Living
like a complete goofball and pursuing you know, every carnal
pursuit there is pretty much and then I realized like, you
know, so many people are so excited to do like, you know,
personal growth, self-development or a program
for anything and I realized after losing everything six
years ago that until we have self-awareness, we can't even
begin any program. So, we call this step zero is actually a
friend of mine and I came up with it because it's the step
you have to have in place as the foundation before any step
of any program will actually work. So, it's that
foundational building block that most people skip over and
never talk about but without it, nothing else can exist and the
way I always share with people is is you know, it's like GPS,
right? You gotta put in an endpoint and then it gives you
your directions based on where you are. If you don't put in
where you're at and you don't put in where you're going,
you're certainly not gonna end up where you wanna be. Dude,
you nailed it. That's really interesting. I hadn't thought
about it that way but calibrating that beginning
point, you know, is is critical because your path would be
totally, you know, even if you were off by a total of twenty
yards, right? Now, you're trying to travel through
buildings for instance, instead of on the proper street and
it's it becomes impossible or damaging. You know, if you were
to be to be able to do that physically, imagine the damage,
the stress, the chaos, the the laws that you would break. Well,
there's no difference in terms of how we navigate our personal
lives as well. We've gotta be able to self-calibrate. I love
that. I've never heard that. I'm borrowing that from here on
out and I will. Yeah, there's nothing new under the sun as
you know. So, anything that's come through me is I got from
somewhere somehow. You got it, man. Well, you talked about
some of the some of the traumas, some of the struggles
that you had. Let's talk about your worst business experience
ever. Have you crossed that? You crossed one of those that
qualifies as that. Yeah, totally. So, six years ago, I
was in a pattern in my life where I was heavily addicted to
prescription pills and because of that, I was behaving in ways
that I was not proud of myself in and that fueled the
addictions. I literally could not even stand looking at
myself in the mirror and so I was using it as an escape
mechanism and I had a company we were building at the time we
were doing real estate investing. We had flipped I
think about eighty-seven houses in eighteen months and we were
literally on track to surpass ten mil our second year and I
lost everything. I literally pretty much gave my company away
like I went along with this plan of the people around me who
were maneuvering on me and I gave my business away pretty
much and I almost actually ended my life like the day that
it all came crashing down. I just I literally I was like you
know not to go too much into that or to trigger others but I
know a lot of people deal with this stuff especially nowadays
and what happened was I was I was literally standing in my
bathroom mirror with my forty-five automatic like loaded
ready to go and just the thought kept hitting me of like
man I just messed up everything in my life. How do I not mess up
at this right and I couldn't do it though. I couldn't do it
because in that moment my conscience has been one of the
strongest things in me my entire life and in that moment I
just my my higher conscience was like dude how could you end
you really it was just because I was so embarrassed. I thought
that was the only way out but he was like dude you don't even
know you how could you ever like you or love you because
you've never known you and that's so that's that Genesis
of that step zero self awareness of coming into
understanding of actually our self awareness which then will
lead to self like which then can build self love. What led
you to have that thought or where did that thought come
from that you didn't know you how did you realize that? I
mean it was literally just like I I pretty much had like the
craziest like clarity self awareness revelation if you
will like in the moment of I couldn't I couldn't go forward
with you know ending myself because I just knew that wasn't
right and like literally the next day I think I woke up and
as sad and jacked up as I was I realized that I had been
ripping people off and scamming people my whole life. I called
it sales and business and making money but I had pulled
schemes my whole life and now all the schemes I had pulled
had been pressed down and served back to me in one
serving and man I did not like the taste of that medicine and
I was so flooded with feelings of like not only did I never
wanna feel like this ever again, I realized that man I
never wanna be the source of causing other people to feel
like this ever again and so that was when basically the you
know the Lord called me to my purpose of helping others in
self awareness and also I was like a sales dog my whole life
and built several sales based organizations early in my
career and he was like you have to sell without telling a
single falsehood or a single lie and I was like wow dude
that's tough like you know not even like hey there's three
left when there's seven or whatever you know what I mean
and that's really just it put me in this pattern in this
process where when I lost everything I went back to step
zero self awareness and I actually identified with
Christian faith my Christian faith and the Bible as my source
of truth and so what I did was I did something kind of weird
to most people but interesting to some I pulled my whole life
under review and I looked at everything I did and why I did
it and where that programming came from and I started I made
the Bible the one universal truth in my life that I use this
a measuring stick for everything so like for instance
like I still I changed my watch to a 24 hour clock because I
had a 12 hour clock my whole life and I was like where did I
learn this you know like whatever I did a one way when I
was younger I did the opposite way and I began really having
this awareness of where my programming was coming from I
stopped listening to all music all tv all streaming all videos
I took like a 30 day basically sabbatical and pulled myself out
of you know social environments everything and I really got you
know curious on myself and and discovering who I am and why
I'm here and yeah I mean quite frankly I just I knew since I
was a kid I had a massive calling and a massive mantle on
my life and it's kind of funny because like when I was younger
and and having gone through what I did as a kid I always would
like I always had this thought in my head of like I would see
the stories of people who were like you know Suzanne Summers
who had wet the bed until she was like a teenager because
she had trauma or people like this and I was like I know I'm
going to be a big influence in this world because like I have
the makings of like that you know really jacked up beginning
to then start you know what I mean I got this in spades I
didn't come with the silver platter and the perfect family
in childhood I got all the pedigree to you know right build
myself into something you learn the stats you know you learn
you're told you know for the sake of like helping your own
future family you're taught things like oh man if this
happens or you you know if your kids are a product of X Y or Z
their chances of success are like zero and you're like
that's me you're talking about like like come on man and so
you you just you have to realize like whoa I I've got to
make my own stats my own odds you know I gotta make my own
luck and walk to the sound of the beat of my own drum things
like that become your mantra so I appreciate you sharing that
I'll I'll boldly follow suit you know in a in a just trying
to self or be self-aware myself on this I think I I struggled
with the idea of basic line you know I I didn't have to face
that reality as strongly as you did but that meant I you know
with with my circumstances in life I was a manipulator and
so I would manipulate the truth you know leaving certain
things out you know making sure that the story hit a certain
way you know and and there's a there's a there's a
resourcefulness to that for good as well knowing how to
story tell but you can also leverage that same power for
extreme and you know whether whether it's a blatant lie or
it's an omission or a misdirect if you're if you're
doing so you know without the intent of doing good I don't
wanna say for the intent to do harm even it's often just times
you know neglecting the good that should be done then that's
wrong right that that's something that's not going to
help your soul. It's not going to help you find any success.
It's gonna lead you down a path that that leads you into a pit
of darkness and despair so I appreciate you sharing that
openly because I think a lot of human beings and life you know
need to be aware that there are leaders out there who
understand where they're coming from and that you know we're
not we're not all perfect. Maybe there's some perfect people
out there but I'm not one of them so it's it's helpful to
know that I've got leaders. There was one and they killed
him so you know. Oh yeah exactly. Well said. Absolutely
and speaking speaking of the greatest sacrifice of mankind
and and our our world you know that that led to salvation
itself. What's your best experience in business? What's
springboard? Oh man yeah honestly is what we're up to
now. It's it's the experience of being able to serve and
steward others in the highest capacity through helping them
thrive in their purpose and experience and the realization
of their dreams. You know a lot of a lot of people who have a
dream of speaking is something that's very massive in their
heart and their spirit for their whole life and I was very
fortunate early on or you know whatever not fortunate. I don't
know how everyone look at it but I worked really hard and so
I had a lot of early success in my life because of the you know
some of the the damage and stuff that had occurred and being
able to see others and see them win and being able to be the
man like behind the the curtain if you will whereas earlier in
my life I was always in the limelight. I was always you know
still in the show. I was out there gregarious loud just very
very boisterous but to see other people experience that and
it's so cool because like when I speak that's awesome when
somebody else gets to have the feelings of their dreams coming
true and all that energy and excitement not only do they feel
that I get to feel it too so more people win like that and
like we just actually did an event a couple weeks ago down in
San Antonio with with one of our current communities. Oh
really yeah, that's crazy. So we were at the Lila B Cockrell
Theater actually so these these students in our current one of
our current communities for their very first school speech
ever spoke at this massive three story theater. Now, there's
only a thousand youngsters in the front bottom row, but to
have that stage to go on and the reason I'm sharing this is
one of the gentlemen who's who's in that community. He's
not a he's not an English first language guy. He's from
Honduras. He speaks Spanish and after the talk, he was all
worried about like if he was gonna be able to make sense or
connect with the youngsters, he was literally autographing
bananas and like pairs of sneakers like the kids like took
their shoes off and we're like here sign our shoes and like and
I got a video of him in the the Uber limo when we were headed
back to the hotel after where he's just like ecstatic and so
it's like that's where I get my fulfillment and my best
experiences. I'm very fortunate. I actually get to
have the best experience of my life every single day when I
conquer myself with my daily non-negotiable programming
routine. You know, it's something that I get to
experience the biggest win of my entire life every single day
when I never miss. So yeah, those are my best experiences
and daily non-negotiable routine. You say that it
programming. Yeah. Yeah. Programming routine which takes
the daily morning routine to a whole new level. So, that's fun.
We're gonna be talking about that in just a minute. So,
one one question. I'm gonna put you on the spot for this. So,
because I should have asked this up front but since you're
eighteen, how many schools have you spoken in yourself?
I really don't know. I could tell you it's definitely
hundreds of stages. There was a there was a season in my life
where I was actually I was actually speaking like four or
five days a week at college universities in various
capacities. In everything from like a small classroom of like
fifteen, twenty kids to like the massive auditoriums with
you know, fifteen hundred, two thousand students in them. So,
the question is that like, was that like a recruiting thing
for sales or was that more of a motivational speech? Like,
what are the, what's the context on these? Yeah. So, so
for that, it was, it was actually a kind of a combination
of that. It was for a non-profit that offered these
like volunteer travel opportunities for students and
so basically like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we would be
making announcements in the classes. It was actually kinda
crazy the way they had this guerrilla marketing set up and
then Thursday all day long, every hour on the hour, we'd be
doing like an hour long scripted presentation. So, you
know, in terms of like high schools and middle schools,
like I would say at this point, several dozen, you know, but
colleges definitely in the hundreds and then stages of
various capacities and stuff, you know, I mean, I think a lot
of people have like stage is like, you know, big huge
production and set up. I mean, this is a stage, right? A
podcast is a stage. Absolutely. Every day in line at
Starbucks is a stage and you mentioned something earlier
and that poked out at me and it's like how we do anything is
how we do everything. You know, so many people, so many of us
in life, we're so dual minded and so we we try to say we
wanna be one way but we behave in a totally opposite way.
Right? And when we're committed to something, we'll find a way
to serve everywhere we go. Interesting. That is and I wanna
dive into this daily non-negotiable program routine a
little bit. So, do you mind sharing about that? Is it
relevant to the audience? It sounds pretty relevant to me.
Again, yeah, yeah. Most people love love to learn about this
stuff and hear about it. So, one of the interesting things
of of my experience in life and like natural, if you will,
modus operandi, work styles, all that stuff is I always thought
I had a consistency issue, right? And it wasn't until
after I crashed and burned and lost everything and went
through the process of through my faith, you know, recovering
from drugs and alcohol and all that kinds of stuff. I realized
I never had an addiction problem. I had a self-control
and a discipline problem because of lack of my identity.
And so, actually, this non-negotiable program routine
is something I learned from one of my mentors almost two
years ago and he's a guy who did ten years in California
prison for violent crimes and basically during that time, he
woke up at 2 45 AM every single day when he was in prison and
basically without going too often to the rabbit trail of it
all in California, the prisons are segregated by race. That's
how they keep the populations separate. And so, basically,
this program routine came from in the prison, you're given
respect and credibility based on your consistency of never
missing. So, where I was going with this is I thought in my
life, I had a consistency issue. I didn't have a
consistency issue. I was consistently being an idiot and
a loser. There was no consistency issue there. It was
an awareness and a focus issue, right? And so, what this daily
non-negotiable programming routine is, is that just
imagine, you know, for you, for me, for the listeners, just
imagine what your life would be like if you never took another
back step ever again, especially for men, right? So many people
spend three, four, five days a week trying to make progress
and then two days a week throwing it all away. And our
words are the most powerful possession or thing that humans
possess is the power of our word. And so, when we begin
keeping our word to self, how we do anything is how we do
everything. We keep our word to others. However, most people
have never kept their word to themselves. And so, they built a
life attracting others that don't keep their word to them
either. It's also interesting thing about self-awareness and
obliviousness. The opposite of that is that it's usually those
people that are like commenting about how they're seeing it in
everybody else. And what this is, is it's going all in on your
commitment to never miss again and to do practices every day
that cause you to face elective adversity so that you build a
callus in your mind much like you would on your hands to be
resilient and disciplined because life is full of adversity
and tragic tragedies. And so, what this programming is, is that
it actually builds the habits and the mindsets to know that I
put myself in, let's say, uncomfortable, undesirable
situation stuff I hate doing every single day throughout the
day. So then when life hands it to me, it doesn't take me out
anymore like it did in the past. So things like, you know, I
think today is almost like 650 days in a row of doing what I
call cold shower power or some form of ice bath for at least
two minutes every single day for the last almost two years now.
I do, you know, 111 burpees minimum every day. I do, you
know, a really, really early wake up time, basically
engineering these things in my life that are really difficult
on purpose. So I'm ready for them. And like even for instance,
like I really didn't sleep much two nights ago, and I might
have got two or three hours of sleep last night. I don't know.
And I was like, good, I'm stoked for this podcast today because
I want to empty myself out and have nothing to give and then
be able to show up and shine even brighter. Because the only
way that we can actually make gains and strength and progress
in life is by going beyond the limit. That's how we find out
where the limit is. And so that daily non-negotiable
programming is, it's just committing to going all in on
yourself. And the way that I encourage people to get started
is, is follow the Atomic Habits two minute rule. Pick something
like what I did where it started with me was, is that it
started with the two minute cold shower every day. For those
of you that aren't familiar, there's a book called Atomic
Habits. And the author talks about in the book, a two minute
rule. And what it talks about is, is that when you want to
build a new habit, you basically put it on your calendar that
you're going to do it for two minutes a day for like, let's
say 90 days. And so let's say you want to learn to play piano.
So rather than saying like, you're going to do like three
hours a week and it's this big, huge mental obstacle that you
never start on. You just have the target of two minutes a day.
Now, when you get to two minutes, you could do more than
that, but your goal is, is just two minutes. So you build that
positive psychology and that positive neurofeedback loop where
you're actually doing what you say you're doing. And you know,
you're working on your goal and you know, you accomplish your
goal because it's only two minutes. So I always suggest
that people find something that you can do to begin like that.
I have a little method I use. I tell people, you know, do a two
minute cold shower, do three rounds of Wim Hof breathing, and
then do like a gratitude journal, right? And, and here's
what's interesting too. A lot of people, they're like, you know,
I'm grateful for the sunshine and my family and you know,
that's all good. The real gratitude though is, it's in our
results. The way that we actually express the highest
form of gratitude to the creator and everyone else is in our
results. It's not even in our actions, right? Because if
you're somebody who takes the actions and doesn't get the
results, you're sending a terrible message to people
around you that if they put in the effort, they won't be
successful. So say that last part again, James. Yeah. What
I even say you said that the real gratitude is in our
results. And then you said we're sending a negative message.
When what happens? Yeah. So if you're the kind of person,
like, let's say we've all seen these people, like, you know,
you somebody's been going to the gym for years. They go to
the gym for years. They half ass their workout. They're
eating donuts on the way there. They're having a Starbucks,
8,000 calorie sugar syrup during the workout and after,
and they're not actually getting fitter. It sends, it
causes cognitive dissonance in other people's lives. And what
cognitive dissonance is, is it's the opposite of conscious
congruence. When you hear something and you see it and you're
like, Whoa, this doesn't match up. Right? I know for myself,
my whole life, I've just had this thing in me that like, if I
see somebody talking about something, and I can instantly
tell that you don't do that thing, especially at the level
you're talking about it, I can't even hear what you're saying.
Right. And that's, you know, the guy that's the mentor with
the non-negotiable stuff, he says that too. He's like, why
are you even talking? He's like, let me ask you something,
buddy. If I do what you say, am I going to end up like you?
Because I don't want to be anything like you. Right. So
many people want to share advice in this kinds of stuff. And so
that's why the greatest expression of gratitude is in
results because we lead by example. Right. Like again, you
know, you're, you were from a similar era and stuff like
Michael Jordan, he's got the seven rings, you know, Phil
Jackson, he's got all the rings, however many it is, six,
seven, 10, 20, I don't even know anymore, but it's basically
when they, they show that result, you don't need to do any
talking results for themselves. Yep. They, they do. And, uh, you
know what? It's interesting. There's, there's so many great
things unpack and all that you just shared. Um, but I'm going
to do my best to go back through some of them, um, because
I took some notes. I was like, and I don't always take notes
with guests, some guests, man, they, they hit it. And I'm like,
sweet. I want to write that down for me for later. Um, somebody
who's listening as well. I hope you're doing the same thing.
I hope you're taking the opportunity to figure out how
does this align with your vision? Um, you know, where does
this fall? Um, in relation to the, your own tools in terms of
driving self-awareness. Um, so if there's something I could
comment in real quickly in there too, Jackson. So part of
the journey of self-awareness was this process of Holy
Spirit convicted me with this, this riddle. How do you explain
to people the game they're losing? They don't even know
they're playing. You're like, what, what does that mean? How
do you explain to people the game they're losing that they
don't even know they're playing? See one of the, one of
the interesting things about self-awareness is, is that if I
tell you an observation about you, that's let's say
negative, even though nothing is positive or negative, just
meaning that's attached to it. But, but let's say it's
interpreted as negative feedback. You're instantly
defensive, right? I could be your best friend. No brothers. I
could have known you for 30 years and I will be like, bro,
and it's defensive, right? Now, go ahead. So here's what's
interesting. I'm going to challenge that for our audience
because we are talking about visionary vision pros, um,
people who appreciate, know how to put context around such
advice. Um, and so there's different types of people and
yes, in general, uh, yes, people will get defensive, um,
and, and that reality. However, what I've seen with most
visionary entrepreneurs, the ones who are truly visionary,
the ones who have gotten to that level of self-awareness
where they say, wow, this is an awesome opportunity for me to
learn. And it doesn't matter if the person who's teaching is
somebody who lives under a bridge or is somebody like
yourself, uh, that's a, that's a coach of many years, but
their, their ability to listen, process, assess, decide what to
do with it is very dependent on where the recipient, uh, where
they are as a recipient of information, what their filter
process looks like. But in general, I agree with you.
However, I just want to make sure the audience understands
that, you know, if, if you're at that stage, um, what James is
saying is, you know, is, um, is relevant for those that you're
often trying to influence. Um, you know, you come at some, you,
you give somebody some critical feedback that's not ready for
it or not conditioned with, with healthy coaching, they're
likely to get upset at you about it, even though you might
be more receptive to such feedback. Is that fair to say,
James? Totally. And that's, you're talking about there. So,
uh, perception is a confession of internal character, right?
And so where I was going with that is, is like, let's say like
a stranger comes up to you and they're like, Hey, you saw him
at the coffee shop. Hey, Jackson, that's a really nice
shirt you're wearing. You're like, Oh yeah, preach it, buddy.
Like you got gospel truth. Have been, you tell me all about
it. Now on the flip side, you could have somebody who you've
known for decades who could tell you something that they
actually know about you. That could be helpful, but it could
cause a defensive response. Right. And I agree with everything,
everything you're saying in there and where, where I wanted
to help shine some light here is, is that the process of
self-awareness comes through self-assessment and self-discovery.
There's nothing that anybody else could know more about you
than you know about you. Right. Right. And for other people,
your listeners who really want to get after the elective
adversity, who really are hungry to understand self-awareness
and know themselves, water only fasting a seven day water only
fast will be the greatest self-awareness experience of
your life. You will learn everything you need to know about
yourself and life by removing everything for seven days, other
than water. I like that. I like that you talked about knowing
your identity, um, as well as one of those, uh, trigger
points for, um, becoming consistent with being your best
self. And I think it's important to also draw awareness of what
that identity is. Um, I'll do that from my own angle because
I am worried about people who, who focus on finding their
identity through self. Um, and what I mean by that is there's,
there's another key power that goes hand in hand with
overcoming addictions, overcoming vices and moving yourself
forward. And that's understanding that you belong, right. Having
a community when you belong in your communities, for instance,
um, that is a, that is a mechanism to help you understand
the value that you are and not feel the need to escape the
reality of your life. However, what James uncovered and knowing
his identity by coming to have a relationship with God, and I'm
speaking for him, you can shoot any of this down, my friend, but
from what I understand, you're a believer, you know, you're a son
of God now, which means you belong with God and how much more
powerful can your centeredness get than when you've come to
realize that that you belong with the, the, the all time
greatest creator there is. And, and he sees you as a son. Um, is
that fair to say, yeah, there's probably the greatest relief of
my entire existence is like, Oh, I just have to turn up. I just
have to turn up every day and everything else is sorted for me.
You know what I mean? Yep. Absolutely. I totally get it.
There's a big one, um, in my late twenties, um, when I finally
accepted that reality and came to realize that that was true.
Um, it, it liberated me from so much pain, doubt, confusion,
inconsistency. Um, it was like, well, that's awesome. Um, there's
nobody, you can ever take that away from me. I can have my
citizenship taken from me. Um, I can have my freedoms taken from
me. I can have my relationships taken from me and from my
earthly standpoint, but nobody can ever get in the way of my
relationship with God. Um, and so there's, there's extreme
power and being able to recognize that, um, you mentioned
the real gratitude isn't a results. I just loved that. I
had the, I had to keep it highlighted and, and talk about
it because, um, I think that to layer on top of that, you then
said later, the greatest expression of gratitude is in our
results. And I love that phrase even further because, you know,
sometimes we're all children, we're all trying to learn to
express gratitude with more meaning. So my child, you know,
who's learning to say thank you because we teach her to say
thank you, um, you know, versus my 12 year old, um, who has more
capacity to actually like express gratitude sincerely,
although it takes great effort. Um, you know, it's, it, she's no
different than me learning to do the exact same. And so when
you, when you put that forward, I was like, wow, this is an
amazing invitation to assess when I am saying thank you out
loud. Um, and I'm trying to express gratitude. It's so
important for myself as well, not just those externally, but
like, like you said, with the workouts, you really got me
there, man. I'm a skinny fat guy. Um, so, you know, you really
hit it. I was like, oh, like I am self-sabotaging my own
workout experiences and my own interpretation of the value of
working out or health by being grateful for the opportunity to
work out, but basically doing nothing with it. Um, I think
that's going to help me tremendously. So I just want to
thank you for that. Awesome. Um, as, and I'll let you know,
I'll follow up with the results of the, the matters that you
can hear, but let's dive into one more power lesson. Um, you
can, you can spread, so feel free, uh, to go in any, any
direction you want with this. What powerful lesson can other
visionaries learn from your experience? James, what else
you got? You've already given like 20, but yeah, I mean,
honestly, it's, it's, I'm an endless supply because of the
energy that flows through me. It's not from me, right? Um,
you know, it's really, it was something that, that you had
mentioned earlier and I just had it and it tried to jump away.
So we're going to see if, if Holy spirit really wants to
bring it back right now. Um, the, the most important thing
though, that I could share with people, excuse me, a power
lesson is, uh, it was when you had interjected and you were
talking about people and their identity and, um, Oh, check it
out. So, so mastery high performance is a game of
subtraction. You know, most people, and even myself, a lot
of my life, I was looking for the next thing to add. What's
the morning routine thing or what's the nutrition or what's
the supplement, right? And high performance is a game of
subtraction. Mastery is a game of subtraction. It's not
looking at what am I doing? It's looking at what's left to
be done. Right. And so like you had mentioned there, a lot of
visionaries, a lot of your, your listeners, people that
tune into this show and in your audience and others, we're
focused on that. So we're aware of the fact that when other
people tell us something about ourselves, it's a confession
of their internal character, but it's being said to us to
notify ourselves. Right. And so when we know that it's that
game of subtraction, um, we're able to actually identify that,
that log in our eye before we tell our friend, the spec and
theirs, that was part of my self awareness journey as well
as learning that I had this call inside me because of my
trauma. I always wanted to help people. And so then I found
myself like trying to help everybody and like, you know,
over help them when they didn't want it. And then they never
matched up to my expectations. So then it was always divisive.
The fact, the matter is actually just got this awareness
literally probably within the last year of whenever I'm
seeing something in somebody else. So, so Holy Spirit
actually taught me this and they taught me that the ego, if
you will, way to use the ego in our favor. So when we spot
something as somebody else, like if, if I said, Hey Jackson,
if I knew you and I was like, Hey, your, you know, time
management skills need an upgrade or you need to be better
at communicating or whatever. The fact that I'm noticing it
in yourself in the past, I would be external focused being
like, Oh, you need to get better at this or you're jacked
up at this. What I've realized now is, is that when I see that
in you or something in anybody, I've actually turned that
conversation inward and I'm like, okay, James, what is it
inside of you that's calling out for help right now that you
need to put your energy into removing the log from your own
eye in this area. So then you can lead by example, the
greatest form of influence and communication for others,
leading by example with your results. Right. So rather than
being focused in a great example for visionaries is like
if people in your company, you feel like they need to work
harder or they need to get better at communicating or what
have you, rather than me going to my business partners or my
employees or contractors and being like, you know, you guys
suck at communicating, you know, can we get better at this?
What I do is I literally, I just start going around the
office and I'm like, Hey guys, I'm on this new mission. Like
I'm really getting better at communicating and I want to
improve my communication skills. So please help me like
with my awareness. I'm like, if you see me having an
opportunity to get better at communicating, please bring
that to my attention so I can grow and get better at it. Well
then what happens then what happens is I'm talking about it
so much. I've penetrated other people's internal dialogue and
they're like, man, James is really on this communication
improvement thing. I kind of think I could probably get
better at communicating too. Right. And that's that inception
model where then now it's a pull motivation because they
thought of it. It's their idea versus being told, Hey, you're
terrible or you suck at this or you need to be better. So XYZ
right. So that's really powerful. That's really powerful
because one of the things that is, is so common in the world
is, is people are telling others what to do. There's no
invitation. There's a pressure. And, and you know, again,
Christ being the greatest teacher of all time, uh, only led
with invitations ever. Um, and he was inviting people to do
what he himself was doing and did. Um, so the ability to, to
move past commanding people or pressuring people to do things
and move into inviting, but also making sure that you've got
check your invitation versus your own personal willingness to
make improvements that adds yet a more pure foundation for
sedimentation. So I appreciate that, man. I want to, I want to
give you a little bit of time to talk about this. We're a
little bit over, but it's worth it. Um, the $2.2 million
scholarship campaign. What is that? How does that work? Yeah.
So I'll just briefly mention that. And if people want to get
more information, obviously they can hit the website and get
all those details. Um, really quick though, just on that last
point you were making, uh, a true master, a true guide, a
high level coach, they're not going to tell you, and this is
what I was hearing you saying about Jesus. They don't tell you
what to think. They show you where to look. Right. And so
that's that awareness of when we're really working with a
master of something or a high level guide or coach, they're
not going to tell you what to think. And that's like Jesus,
he didn't tell you what to think. He just shared where you
could look for it all. If you're ready. Yep. Right. Right.
And even if you're not right, it'll still show you, but yeah.
So the scholarship campaign, basically what it is, is we
realized there's a big need for youth and educators and parents
to get a unified voice, unified, uh, conversation and
language amongst themselves. And so what we did is we actually
launched this campaign where, um, typically our programs are,
um, they're not cheap. And the reason is it's a professional
certification. You know, it's the kind of thing where you're
going to get way more value than you would from like a
traditional education, but it's kind of more like a trade
school in the sense of like, yeah, there's a certain cost to
it monetarily and time wise. But when you learn these skillsets
is going to pay you massively for the rest of your life. But
so what we realized is, is that, you know, people are
struggling, they have the big dream on their heart, but
they're not able to actually enact on it. So we actually
started a scholarship program to be able to, for people who
qualify, sponsor them to come into the program at a reduced,
um, tuition. And what happens is, is for every student that
enrolls in the program, we actually have pledged a matching
$25,000 scholarship to an educator or a young person, a
youth to be able to come into the community as well. And our
goal here is, is that we're building to our knowledge, the
world's first and only community of speakers, motivational
speakers, paired with educators, paired with the actual youth,
the students in the schools. So we can actually create
programs and experiences that are going to be lasting and be
helpful. And it's stuff that people are interested in doing
because it was people from every, if you will, sector, um,
or influence realm going in on it. So just basically our call
to be able to serve the marketplace, serve the youth of
this country, serve the parents that are looking up to them. And
just one final thought, if I could share here, you know, um,
you were talking about your kids earlier and you're well
aware of this. Children oftentimes do not do what
they're told, but what they do do is they emulate the
behavior that they see. Right. And I think a lot of times I see
parents who are so interested in trying to tell their children
how to be, whereas like you're aware of, and a lot of, you
know, more where people are know this, that the best thing we
can do is just show people, show them that, Hey, we make
mistakes, we mess up too. And when we do, these are the
consequences that we have to pay when we do that. So I just
want to encourage people to, if you've got an inkling in you
that, that you could be better about something, listen to your
conscience. It will never lie to you. It was always speaking
truth to you. Listen to your conscience. It is calling you up
in your identity, not out on your behavior. And that's how
we define accountability. I like that a lot up in your
identity, not out on your behavior. Beautifully said,
James. So vision pros. We appreciate having you, having
you with us and listening in today. James, thanks for being
our guest. And if you want to follow or get in touch with
James, I'm sure any of the mainstream social media
platforms are great. You can also drop any questions,
comments in the comments, and we'll be happy to forward them
to James. Make sure he's aware of it. And we look forward to
seeing you on the next episode. Everybody have a fantastic
rest of your day. You know, I will, and we'll see you on the
next one. Bye. Thank you for being here today. I'm really
happy that you tuned into vision pros live. I'm looking
forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes
continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more
fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite
people to participate in the show and thank you for giving
us your time and attention.