Graham Cochrane: The Scarcity vs. Abundance Mindset

Hey everyone, welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. Now today's conversation is with Graham Cochran, who's the author of How to Get Paid for What You Know, and is a business coach to over 3,500 premium customers worldwide. We started this conversation by digging into his entrepreneurial background when he was laid off in 2009 and had to go on food stamps to feed his new wife and child. Brutal. This experience definitely humbled him, but basically forced him to become an entrepreneur. And so from there, we dug into that entrepreneurial mindset and also stuff like living with intention, the importance of your why and core values, and the scarcity versus the abundant mindset, and a whole bunch more.

He even shared a few of his psychological sales models that work to help people in almost any sales situation. It was a really interesting conversation that I actually learned a lot from, and I hope you do too. Let's make it happen. What's happening, make it happen, family? Big shout out to our partners today, Gong, Vidyard, and Chili Piper. Gong's data is more than valuable. It's cornerstone in any organization looking to collect the data that's going to tell them where they can improve and where they need to spend their time making changes. Vidyard makes it easy for people to use videos anywhere. No matter whether you're sending videos in email or on social media, posting them somewhere, or sending them in a DM, Vidyard has got you covered.

Our friends at Chili Piper are so much fun to be around. They make it easy for people to get on your calendar. And every sales rep has got to have this function locked in. It's one of the most important things we can do as a seller. How can I get you on my calendar easily? Chili Piper can make that happen for you. Be sure that you're checking out all these great tools. And now let's pass it over to John to find out who's joining him today. See you soon, everybody. Graham Cochran, welcome to the podcast, my friend. How are you doing? I'm doing good, John. Now that we figured out the audio side of things and it was my fault, not yours. Yeah, we were trying to get that all set up. And I'm like, man, am I going crazy here?

I thought I had this right. But we got it, man. Kids are the darn it, dude, it's some of the fun things, right? Screw up all our systems. Touching my stuff. I'm like, wait a second. That's not where it's supposed to be. But we're good now. I'm good. I'm glad to be here, John. Excited to have a conversation, man. Yeah, me too. And I was looking at, you know, I appreciate your team reaching out to me because, you know, I hadn't been introduced to you before this. And as I started digging into some of your content, I really appreciate your approach, your mindset and everything else. So I've been looking forward to this conversation ever since we set this up. So, but let's start here with the audience and giving the audience a little bit of background on you because you do have that.

There's a few inflection points in your life that I want to dig into. And then we're going to talk for everybody listening. We're going to talk about this, the scarcity mindset versus the abundant mindset and also some side hustles and things that people might be thinking about these days. But Graham, why don't you give us a little story here about where you're coming from and how you got to where you are right now? Yeah, man. I had a winding journey. I mean, it took a global recession to kind of get me into entrepreneurship. I was a musician by trade and that's all I was going to do was like make it big or fail completely in music, right? So I was willing to try. What kind of musician, by the way?

What kind of musician? So I was a singer, songwriter, like guitar, rock and roll, that kind of stuff. So I mean, I grew up in the 90s grunge scenes like Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and all that stuff. So I was like, you know, the end of that era where you still would try to get a record deal and make music videos. It was the early 2000s. Things were starting to change. So I was trying to do that. And along the way, I went to school because my parents said, go to college. We pay for you to go to college. You're going to have to get a degree. After that, you can do whatever you want. I said, okay, fine. And I figured out that you could go to college for audio engineering, which is basically hanging out in a recording studio all day.

So I said, okay, that seems like a compromise. I'll hang out in a studio. I'll learn more about the gear and that stuff is fun to me. But I'm going to be working on the side, like writing, putting together an album, you know, and trying to shop this thing around. And long story short, there was no one was really calling. There was a couple of development deals where they basically won't pay you like work for free, make records for free. And then if it blows up, then we'll pay you. And I was engaged to be married really young and met my wife when we were in college. And so I was like, I actually need a job job. So if you can't pay me, I can't actually... I couldn't put my dream out there and like us not make any money at all.

So I had to sort of abandon that. And then I floated for a few years. And I mean, I tried everything. I worked at a jewelry store. I worked at a software company. I tried to sell radio advertising. Talk about sales. I should have... I wish I had your podcast back then because I would have... I was miserable at selling radio ad spots. But maybe that's the medium as well. But I just tried a bunch of random things until in 2009, I found myself in a new state with a new baby, a new mortgage, and a new-ish job. And then I lost that job because this company ran out of money, basically. I mean, you know, remember, it was a crazy time. And so it was like, okay, no job. But now I've got more responsibility than ever.

I'm 26. What do I do? And this was the beginning of the change for me because I had a little bit of a freelance recording background. So it's like a service-based business. I would mix and produce music for bands. But it was always on the side. And I thought, okay, here's God's opportunity. Why don't you go all in on it? And so I did something random at the time that really changed my life, which is I started a blog and I started a YouTube channel. And there was no influencers back then. This was not that kind of thing. It was like, I just wanted my name to show up in a Google search or a YouTube search and sort of show what I was doing with clients, hoping people would hire me. And it just began this process of me discovering a content-based business, becoming an educator.

And I've now since launched two education companies. It's just completely changed. Doing something I never thought I would do, but it's been a wild ride. I love it, man. I want to dive into, you mentioned the word opportunity. Right. I've always said that if I have, you know, if I've been blessed with anything, it's that I have an opportunistic lens in the sense that when something happens, I look, I'm like, okay, well, that sucks. But how can I, how can I figure this out? For you? It sounds like if you look at, if you backtrack on your college, right? It sounds like your parents wanted you to go. You didn't necessarily want to, but you looked at it as an opportunity because you said, Ooh, well, I could do this and, you know, I could do this and that.

And there was a little compromise there. And then, you know, through your job career. And then there was that when you got fired, it was like, Hey, that, you know, here's an opportunity. You said, God kind of showed it to you. Have you always had that opportunistic, um, lens or that, that forward thinking lens even, even growing up or has that something you've been developed? Yeah, I think it's been both. So I would say I was born very optimistic and naturally like this, I'm, I'm going to do great things like as a kid, like I always imagined myself doing great things and being in front of people on, and I thought it was going to be as a rock star. Now it's as like a content creator and author speaker, things like that.

But I always imagined things in an opportunistic, optimistic way. I think it was also hampered a little bit because in 2009, 2010, when all that was shifting, I mean, we were broke. I was on food stamps for 18 months and I felt the pressure. I was 26, baby, mortgage, on government assistance. I was really like humbled in, in like an embarrassing way. Like I was very embarrassed that we had to ask for help. Um, and so that made me very fearful, um, of like, dude, how can I do that? How can I provide? So I, I struggled with some fear and like, I'm not good enough there, but then I just had so much pressure to have to make money that I couldn't dwell on it. And I just had to figure things out and I was unemployed.

So I had lots of time. And so I just tried lots of things. And then it kind of came back in terms of me realizing, oh, there's even, there's even more ways to make a living, make a difference, find work you love, connect with cool people. Like I had no idea what was possible. And I think that rebirthed the optimism in me of like, and I'm still every year. It's like, it's like becoming a student all over again. The people I meet, the things I'm like, oh, you can do that. You can, it's just never ending. And that's what guys like you, I mean, we love to learn and you have your podcast having guests on stimulating, like, wow, I never thought about that or what that person is doing. So it has, it was always there to answer your question.

But I think becoming, being forced to become an entrepreneur during a recession made me more opportunistic. As I saw, there are so much more out there that I haven't even considered. And that's exciting. And I like staying in that lane. If I can, I slip sometimes because we're all human, but that's where I like to live. Yes. Love that. And what's your perspective now that you looking back, you said you were embarrassed to ask for help, you know, and I think a lot of us at some point in our lives feel embarrassed to ask for help with whatever we're dealing with, whether that's alcoholism or our job or our relationship. But what I've learned over the years is, you know, asking for help is actually one of the strongest things that you can do.

So how, walk me through your, your thought process on asking for help and, and the power of it versus the fear of it. Yeah. Yeah. My personality is very introverted and very like lone wolf kind of like, I'll just figure it out. Um, I don't, I don't know where that came from. Yeah. I mean, I'm in counseling. Maybe my counselor would say childhood stuff, you know, with my parents, but, but it's probably the way I, I, like, I'm happy to work by myself and, and have a small team or no team and, and just, I'll figure it out. But that's like my downside too, because I'm learning later in life, like what I see people who are so successful and I'm realizing they figured out the power of other people and network and, and having as many friends that are really as much smarter than you are as possible.

And I'm good at reading books. So that's like, that's like my way is like, okay, well I'll read the books. Cause that's like having mentors for like 20 bucks, like brilliant people for their $20 book. But I, I really struggled to, to ask people for help and, and surround myself with other people. I'll like, I'll just figure it out on my own. But I have, when it go back, going back to the food stamps thing, that was like, that was like the best thing that ever happened to me in that I, I didn't realize how prideful I was middle-class, you know, educated, you know, white family, uh, college degree, no college debt. I mean, I'm realizing how grateful, like, and blessed I was like my parents and my grandfather, you know, world war two vets saved up money so I could go to college, like no debt.

So I was starting from zero and I, I didn't, I didn't even know the pride I had of like, I, I as a 26 year old college educated person should not have to ask the government for help. And I think there's some good in there of like, I want to, I think the government wants you to eventually like figure it out on your own. I wasn't trying to just take from the government, but I, I didn't even want to admit that I needed their help. And that broke me. And it was good for me to realize, bro, everybody needs help. Like needing help is not the problem. You're just going through a hard season, take the help that you can get. And then it's not just the financial help. To your point, it's like, I, I was just this weekend in Phoenix in a room with people that are way smarter than me, way more successful than me and think bigger than me.

And it was so like, I was so insecure going into this room, but, but you come out of that room feeling like you were breathing different oxygen. And you're like, Oh my gosh, I, I now know other people that I can go ask big questions for. And I know they're going to help me and I'm not going to be afraid to ask. And I, that's the shortcut is other people. But my, some people, I think your personality, they don't have a problem with that. And they're going to win because they're going to ask, they're going to go right up to the Warren Buffett and be like, Hey, teach me how to invest money. Okay. I'm the guy that's going to wait and watch and read their book. I'm going to figure it out on my own.

And so, man, I, I'm hoping I'm getting better at that, but it has been a journey of realizing if, if I'm honest with myself, I'm not self-made, right? I don't even like that phrase as a Christian. So my faith background, I would say, well, like everything I have, God gave me as a gift. And then if I look back on the timeline of things, every time something good happened in my business, there was probably a connection or relationship that made it happen. Even if it wasn't from that exact moment, but from two years prior, and that takes a little bit of humility for me to say, but I would think that's probably more accurate than I just figured it out. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's, I remember, and I, you know, not to talk politics, but I remember when Obama stood up and said, you know, if you're a billionaire or whatever it is, you didn't get there on your own.

Like you had people who paved this roads for you, who, you know what I mean? Even, you know, took out the trash for your house, like those types of things. And so many people were up in arms about it and about, oh, you know, I'm self-made. No, you're not like, you're not. And, and to be humble enough to realize that I think is an important trait in a lot of people. And, you know, this, this asking for help. I think there's a lot of people right now who are embarrassed that they got laid off. They're embarrassed that they got fired and they don't know what to do. And they're going to try to quote unquote, figure it out. And, and I think this is going to lead to the rest of our conversation about scarcity mindset, you know, limiting mindset, but, you know, quick, even a simple example here internally, you know, I hired this woman, Nikki Ivy, and, you know, it's very successful.

And she's now, you know, she's a trainer and she has to sell her own training now for the team. And I tell her, I go, Nikki, I guarantee you, you are, you are a giving person. You are a giving person. I know you, um, I guarantee you, there are people in your life that want to help you. I encourage you to write those people down and, and figure out all the people that you've given so much to without zero, with zero expectations of anything in return and call them up because I promise you, not only is it going to help you, but it's going to help them because nothing feels better than when you can actually help somebody who has been helping you your entire career. Is that something that you see as well?

Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, reciprocity is a real thing because I, I believe that we're wired to be givers, right? I think we are wired to be givers. The, the problem is, is we're also wired by our environment to be like, you know, hold on to what you got and protect yourself. And I think we're always at war with those two mindsets. Um, and so both feel comfortable to us in a weird way, right? We both feel familiar and it just depends on what, what? How you're feeling that day. If you're not intentional, you'll swing one way or the other based off of the way the tide takes you. So I a hundred percent believe that you, your life will go so much better if you choose to put more into the world than you take out of it.

Um, because as you give, you're doing a couple of things. Givers are magnetic, right? People think about the people in your life who like you would just do anything for, to your point. There's, why would you do anything for that person? There's some history of them probably just that you're attracted to them because of something. They've either always been there for you. They always answer the phone. They'll help you move. They've, they've given something to you financially or a resource. They, they give you their time. They listen in conversation really well. They give you encouraging words. Like they breathe life into you. There's something they probably gave you and that's creating some magnetism to you.

So I tell brands, I tell people like you want to be magnetic and have people like drawn to everything you're doing, give, give, give the people like that in theory, but we're afraid to give because we can maybe operate out of, you know, a scarcity mindset or a fixed mindset is one way to look at like, there's a fixed amount of resources or my time. I have a fixed amount of time. That's why we hate to give up our time or our money. But if you, if you, if you flipped and believe that, you know, you can create more resources, there's infinite resources, uh, that time actually, depending on how you view time, you know, Newtonian times, you want to get really weird is like fixed. It's like minutes and hours, but then you've got Einstein, the way he views the time is sort of relative.

Like, you know how, when time feels like it speeds up or it slows down, like, wow, it felt like that weekend was super long or that weekend flew by the way we experience time can change. And so if you could look at it that way and say, time isn't really even that fixed. Like I can give up more of my time and I can experience plenty of it later. If you're willing to view things from, uh, there's plenty. So I'm willing to give first in the world. I think you're going to create so many pathways to people who are like, wow, John is just super generous. When I think of John, I think of his generosity of words, or he's always connecting me with somebody, or he literally paid for something when I needed it, or he came over to my house when I needed it.

I would do anything for John. And it's sort of low level subconscious, but it's like locked in. And that's how you, going back to what we were just talking about, that's how you build a network of people that you can ask for help when you really need it. Or even before you ask it, they want to help you because you've created that deep connection. Whereas there's the people that maybe have created something powerful for themselves, but they're isolated. Nobody likes them. And, and they're powerful, but lonely, and they're not going to get help when they really need it, when all their resources disappear. And those are your choices. It's like, which one do you want to be? So how do you balance that for your, let's talk about the entrepreneurs that you work with, right?

Because you're, you know, I'm sure you're Gary V, you know, know him just as much as I do, right? And I love Gary V, I'm a big fan. But one of the things that I always, that I struggle with a little bit with Gary is, he's like, look at me, I give all, I give everything away for free. I've always given it away for free. And I'm like, yeah, but Gary, like, we all don't have a dad who had a wine business. And I'm not saying he was given anything, but he had a salary and he was able to give away advice and he was extremely creative in doing it. And then he started VaynerMedia and then, you know, so he's got this backing. So he has the luxury of giving away. And I see, and I talked to a lot of people reality wise to say, yeah, that's all well and good giveaway.

You know, you should never, all these online experts and are trying to sell their packages and their training services. And they're just, you know, just give your stuff away and people will come to you. And I'm like, uh, yeah, but. So I guess what's the balance when getting started here of, of getting, giving away everything and helping everybody while still paying the bills? Like how, how do you balance that? And that, and the gets, like you have to take something, um, so that you can pay your bills. You, you can get off of food stamps here. So is it everything you've done up until that point? And then you start at, so you give when you're stable, when you're, um, secure or, you know, and, and have the ability to, and then when you don't, you start asking, or I guess what's your balance there?

Yeah. I mean, it's a fair question. So I don't have the same story as Gary for sure. And I think there's a, what he and I do, you could say is a little different, even though there's a lot of overlap, but I, in a way agree in that. Let's just take a scenario, a hypothetical person. And it also has been my experience. Like literally I started like with nothing and no connections, like didn't even know what I was doing, the thing that allowed me to grow. And the thing that I would say a total beginner online, or someone who's like, I want to quit my job, or I want to start this online thing. I might go all in on my own like thing is nobody knows who you are. So like basic business, right? You need a source of leads.

You need people to know who you are. And so you can either buy those leads through ads of some kind. Um, you can get referrals from some other person that could funnel you leads or organically when people are searching on Google or YouTube for something around your niche, you could show up in content. Cause that's what shows up when you Google things, websites, videos, like podcasts, that's content that's showing up. Those are your three options for getting discovered online. Uh, and you could say social media as well, but it's not as powerful as like a search engine, but it's similar. So you need leads. I didn't know anything about ads. I didn't have any money for ads anyway, and I had nothing to sell at first either.

So I just started the organic content route. I started teaching what I knew, which back then was music recording, putting out YouTube videos. I wrote two blog posts a week and one YouTube video week. So I created three pieces of content each week, uh, every week for like four and a half years straight to get started teaching everything I knew. Um, what that did was build me an audience because people started to find it. They started to follow it. They started to share like, Hey, there's this guy on YouTube who's like sharing all the secrets that music producers aren't sharing. They're sharing them by the way, in 2023, because they realized they're running out of income in the music industry and now they're making courses.

But back then they weren't teaching any of this stuff. And I was like the whistleblower, I guess. I didn't realize you couldn't teach this stuff. It's like this unsaid rule. Like we don't share the secrets, but I was just, just, Hey, this is what I've learned in audio school. This is what I'm doing with my clients. This is what works. And so I gave, gave, gave, and that's what built me an audience. That's what helped me to build an email list. So that when I had something to sell my very first online course, I taught a piece of software that we all use in the music industry. That was like a three, four hour training. And I was like, well, I'm not going to give this away for free because it's so long.

It's so in depth. Let me see if I could sell this. The people that had consumed hours of my free content bought my, my paid thing like that because they'd already test driven me. They'd already test driven my material and they already trusted me. And even if there was some overlap in that course, because I get this question a lot, well, Graham, how do you give away stuff for free and sell it? Like, isn't, there's always going to be overlap, but the medium's different. The experience is different proximity. When people are buying your thing, now they're a customer, right? They're going to get more service from me. It's, it, it, it feels like scary to be giving it away, but it's, it's the giving it away that builds the audience, builds the trust that allows me, in my opinion, to sell on the backend.

And I feel like I sell way more than if I had just withheld and given teaser content. So I'm taking a risk, but I would rather risk giving too much away than giving too little away. And I've never been disappointed in 13 years of doing this. Yeah. You and I have very similar paths. I remember when I got into sales training, um, I, I always like when I first got in, in like 2007 or 2008 or something like that, um, you had a better shot at seeing God than, than actually. And I mean, physically seeing him, um, then, then actually, uh, uh, a trainer giving away their slide deck or giving away their, their information. Right. I mean, you do a training, we would do a training. And then the client would inevitably ask, Hey, can we get the slide deck?

And our company was like, basically we would get fired if we gave away the slide deck because that was our IP. And I remember just being like, that doesn't make a ton of sense to me. I'm like, that is very limiting to me. So what I started doing is I started, instead of giving away the slide deck and the entire content, I started just taking nuggets and tips and pieces out of it and giving it away in blogs and posts and whatever it was, even on a conversation with a client, I would give away, Hey, have you tried this? Have you seen that whatever here, here's a link to something. And it was counterintuitive to what ended up being my business partner after that first company went belly up. Cause he was like, uh, what are you doing?

Cause I did my online course and I started giving it away and people, and he was like, what are you doing? He's like, you know, you're, you're, you're diminishing the chances. Like they could, they could get it for free. Why do they need you? I'm like, because if they're buying, if, if you think my content is what is the differentiator here, then, then good luck fighting that fight. And you talk a lot about this as like feature function, that type of stuff versus the story. I think you have the chef mindset, right? Whereas the waiter comes out and says, oh, the, the, you know, pork chop is this big and it's this, and it gets on risotto. And the chef comes out and says, oh, well, this is right.

So that for me was, I'm going to give this stuff away. I'm going to tell these stories. And my business partner was like, no, no, no, no. They have to pay for it. And that's, that's what fundamentally broke us apart because of that, that mindset. I said, look, I, I just don't agree. And, and he went his way, like kind of the McKenzie route and, and he's probably making a great living doing it. And, but I went out and I said, boom. And it's weird if you look at both of us, like he has no social presence, none. And I'm sure he's doing fine. I haven't followed up with him, but mine has ballooned because of that exact thing is, is giving this stuff away. But it has been a balance because I've been having to grind and pay the bills along the way.

Yeah. Oh, that's a great story because the distinction is, and it probably just stems from what you think you're selling, right? Like in, in this world that we're in now, where you can create a personal brand by sharing what you know, like, this is why I wrote this book because I was like, this, this is the next 30 to 40 years, right? It's like, as, is sharing what you know and getting paid for it. The, the asset isn't your course. The asset isn't your program or your community. It's your audience. Like the, whoever has an audience wins. And because if you have an audience, then you can monetize that audience in any way you're interested in, you know, you could write a book, you could do a live event, you could sell affiliate products, you could sell your own products, you could run ads.

It doesn't really matter. And there's going to continue to be more ways to monetize. But the monetization model, it means nothing without an audience that like, likes you, trusts you, talks about you for free and is your own marketing vehicle. And what's the best and fastest way to build an audience? It's not to really buy them with an ad because they're, they're only, but so interested. They might think you're clever. They might've learned about your stuff, but they don't have a relationship with you. Organic content. It's slow. It's not sexy. It's not a formula. And it takes time. But if you're, if you're able and willing, even on the side to slowly build an audience by giving away good stuff, you are unstoppable.

Like, because you could take away all your IP, all your products, you could, you're just, they still, they want you, they're drawn to you. And then, okay, well, I'll go, I'm going to go speak or I'm going to go do this, or I'm going to just go hang out at Disneyland. Come meet me here and we'll do something like, like they'll follow you and then you can begin to monetize from there. And so that's what I'm in the business of doing is audience building like a deep audience, not a huge audience. I mean, I've got two different sizes. One's much bigger on the music side than my personal brand, but it's the engagement. The depth is so powerful. And that's why Kevin Kelly's whole thousand true fan concept really holds up in today's market, which is if you have a thousand people who truly love what you're doing and believe in you, and they'll, they'll buy a hundred dollars of a product from you every year, you make a hundred thousand dollars by just having a tiny piece of the internet because they like you.

And that's what we're trying to do. You talk about intentional. You, you'd mentioned that previously, like if you're not intentional, can you unpack that a little bit as far as your, your, what do you mean by being intentional, like with your career and with your content and those types of things, as opposed to just, you know, there's part of it that's like organic, like, and, and the reason I asked this question is because I've always, I've always, I've always said, I'm not necessarily a hardcore goal setter in the sense that put a stake in the ground and I am intentionally going for that and I'm going to make it happen. Right. But I'm more of an evolutionist in the sense that I, I, I have a direction I want to go.

I have, I have kind of a theory of what I want to see is from a future, but I tend to ebb and flow. So with that context, talk about intent for yourself, your career versus just kind of continuously moving forward. Hmm. Yeah. I like that distinction, evolutionist. What I like, what I know that works and you've probably experienced this is like the, the thing that nobody wants to be told that is the secret is like discipline. Um, and, and it's like the same with like fitness goals, like, well, it's be disciplined with what you eat or, you know, oh crap. So discipline and consistency. But so I think to your point, maybe I like having a vision. Like if you're going to build a business, you have, you have to have a direction, right?

Like you have to know who am I serving? It can't just be you willy nilly posting videos. Like you can try that. And that's where it doesn't really work. And you can see YouTubers or online business owners when they went from nothing's really working to it really working is when they got focused on, here's the people I'm going to serve men between 25 and 35 who want to lose weight or whatever it is. So you need to have some vision of who you're serving and what you're helping them accomplish beyond that, you can figure out everything else. But what I see is the discipline to, okay, how do I move this business forward? So like what I teach people and like, well, how do you make money talking about teach learning French or walking dogs?

Like, how does it really work? There is a model, right? And it's, it's pretty simple. And I've, we've talked about content. Um, part of that then is like getting them onto your email list off of the content platform and then having a digital product on that email list, a course or a membership, you can sell them and then automating the whole thing. Um, that's like the, the, the, the model right there, but there's a way to do that systematically through, okay, I'm committing to these things. I'm going to be disciplined about, like I was posting once or twice or three times a week, this type of content, this type of person I'm disciplined about. I'm going to launch my course this year. I'm disciplined about, um, I'm going to connect and collaborate with these other people in my space who are similar size or bigger size.

I'm disciplined about, I'm going to go learn from that person. Those are almost maybe process goals, maybe then versus end goals. But if you know the things, that's why having mentorship is helpful in whatever you're trying to learn. If you know, like someone comes to you and is like, John, how do I sell more? How do I sell like in this company or my own business more? And you're like, well, these are the things that lead to more sales. Do these things. Okay, great. Then if I'm disciplined to do those things every day and every week, I know I will reach somewhere really successful. I've gotten okay with letting go of what the end goal is. Like I can't really control exactly what my revenue is going to be.

I could have a dream. I could have a target, but it's really about what am I doing every week? And that's what I'm really passionate about is helping people not waste their time on the things that actually won't get them there. Because there's a lot of people saying you should be posting TikTok videos or doing X, Y, and Z. And that may or may not help you. Most of the time, probably not help you. But I'm really passionate about here are the three or four or five things you should probably be doing. And then just do those because you want to work hard and people are working their butts off posting and doing, but it's not all working. So it's really about the discipline to do the right things over time.

It's the same with fitness. It's the same with your marriage or your relationships. Like you can have vision of a goal, but really it's about what do you do every week in your relationship that's going to lead to a healthier marriage or with your kids? Like, so that's to your point. I'm willing to let it evolve, but I do think you have to have a vision for what you need to be doing every day and week. What's up, everybody? I know you're enjoying this conversation. John does a great job with genuine curiosity on these episodes and our guests consistently bring the heat. We want to take a moment here and let you know that you've got an opportunity, an opportunity to become better than you were yesterday.

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That URL one more time is joinjbsales.com. Let's get back to the show with JB and our guest for this week. There's smart goals and there's dumb goals, right? I used to be a very smart goal oriented, specific, measurable, tangible, realistic, and timely. But then I got introduced to the concept of dumb goals, which are like, like massive, you know what I mean? Like, like, like rip off the covers of your limiting mindset, which is where I want to go to this conversation and say, it's like, I forget what like destiny and, and, you know, whatever it stands for, but it's basically like, think big and make huge goals. And so I think that's, and with that, like, before we transition there, I wanted to understand from you, where does kind of your why, if you will, if we talk Simon Sinek here for a minute, where does that fit into the equation for you?

And when did you, and I assume you, you know, and understand your own why, but when did it, um, and if, if not, let me know, but when, if you do, when did that come into focus for you? Yeah. So it's, it evolved, right? My first why was just, I need to make money, you know, it's broke. I need to make money. And, and, and then when it started to work, I really was passionate about those people I was serving back then, which was the musicians, because I was helping the person version of me 10 years ago that didn't understand this dark art of audio recording. And everyone on the internet saying you have to have thousands and thousands of dollars of equipment and you don't, and the industry was changing.

And so I, I was passionate about helping those people. And my why has evolved now because as that business blew up and I got a little bit of press about it, like people were super interested in this random guy making money in the music audio recording space. Like, how do you do that? And so when I started to answer those questions and I was coaching random people for free, because they would just email me and I was like, oh sure, I'll help you understand how this business works. I realized this is so cool. Like these people don't care about music. They don't care about me, but they have something that they're good at, that they know about, and they need a way to monetize it online and automate at least a good portion of it so they can be freed up and they don't know how to connect those dots.

Even though there's all these other gurus out there, there's something about it that there's, they're missing. And so I could help them. And so on the work side of things, my why is to help people live the life they want to live, live freely because like I'm a family man. So I've got two kids. I've got a wife. I don't want to make money. I want to live my life. It takes money, but I want to be able to live my life, take my kids to school like I did before this call, like exercise, like I do every day, like be able to go wash the car. Like when do you have time to take the car to the car? Like basic stuff. I want to be able to travel. I want to be able to get enough sleep at night and have dinner with my family every evening.

So I'm realizing that's what I'm passionate about is people being able to own a business that serves their life and not the other way around. So I, I, that's why I even like successful people who are killing it in business, but they're stressed out. Like I love helping them too, not just beginners. It's the same thing. I want that. That's my why in terms of the work I do. And then one step past that, the why would like, I want to make as much money as I possibly can because my wife and I just love giving it away. I mean, a huge heartbeat of us is like, we committed to giving half of everything we make away to charity. And so there's, and that doesn't even feel like enough because there's, there's so much need in the world.

And I feel like as entrepreneurs and, or if we are a crazy successful business and salesperson, we have a superpower that the average person doesn't have. We don't have a cap on our income. And, and that's, that's wonderful. So part of that, you know, with great power comes great responsibility to quote Spider-Man. Like, and I feel like it's not even a responsibility. It's like a joy to be able to like, wow, I know what it's like to be capped out at $30,000 a year. And now I'm not. And so I can live a great life and have so much overflow that I can give it to not only people that are struggling in my community or friends, but we can give it to organizations who are doing great work in the world, but they don't have the superpower of making money.

Their power is fundraising, which is asking people like us for money. And so we need to work together. And so that's an unending reason for business growth is just giving it away and making a difference in the world. Do it, doing the thing you love to do. I'm not good at a lot of the charitable work they're doing, but I'm good at making money. So it's like, this is a win-win for everybody. So that's what drives me and my wife. And that won't really, I think, ever stop. I love that. And I think that's what I'm encouraging a lot of people to do right now, especially if they've been laid off or if they've been fired, is to kind of recenter on that why, recenter on those core values. And ask yourself, there's this beautiful scene.

You ever seen, I think it's called Up in the Air or something like that with George Clooney where he travels all over. And there's this beautiful scene where he does the, he fires a guy and it's the guy who does the State Farm commercials now. And he's all mad and he's like, can I ask you when, you know, what did you want to, you know, be when you were a kid? And he was like, oh, chef or whatever. He's like, and what, what was the dollar amount that they offered you to give up on your dreams? Wow. And he says, $32,000 a year. And he goes, I've been looking at guys, I've been staring at guys like you. Their entire lives who gave up on their dreams to get a job, to pay a bill and, and wake up in the morning and drone through their lives.

And he looks at them and says, this is an opportunity for you to go back and be that kid that wanted to do something special and didn't give up on their dreams. And I, my hope is, is that right now is an opportunity for people to reset. So, so with the limited, but, but there is a limiting mindset and a lot of people, myself included, of what we can and can't do. So how do you help, right? You, you talk about, you know, scarcity versus abundant mindset. And I talk about limiting mindset. Like, oh, I couldn't do that. I could never be on video. I could never make a million dollars. But there's a mental shift here of, you know, I think Elon Musk or, or, or Steve Jobs said at one time where when you make the switch from, for instance, very simple example, saving $10,000 to how can I make $10,000?

When you make that mental shift, it's, it's a powerful thing, right? Because a lot of people, the scarcity mindset says, oh, how can I save $10,000? But I always look at that and I say, if you're trying to save $10,000, I almost guarantee all the stuff that you're taking away to save that money are all the things you like. So it's actually this compounding negative interest here because, you know, oh yeah, I won't go to Starbucks or I won't go to, for me, Dunkin' Donuts every morning. Like I like Dunkin' Donuts. I like going to Dunks and getting my coffee in the morning. You know what I mean? There's just, I don't want to make my coffee at home. It doesn't, for some reason, it doesn't taste the same.

You know what I mean? I like going out to nice dinners with my wife. Well, I'm going to hold those things back. So saving $10,000 sounds miserable to me versus let me figure out how to make $10,000. So how do you, with your coaching and your entrepreneurs that you work with, how do you help them break that limiting mindset or that, that scarcity mindset? Yeah, I mean, I love that example. I mean, one thing that I've, I loved that Robert Kiyosaki talked about right in his classic rich dad, poor dad is how his real dad would say like, we can't afford that to your point. And then his buddy's dad, he called him his rich dad, who's an entrepreneur, would always ask, how could I afford that? So, so it turned a statement because a lot of times limiting or fixed mindset is statement oriented.

That's not possible. I could never do that. That's only for those types of people. This is, this is a bad situation that I got laid off. Like it's like a statement of fact, whereas people who I think experience great things in their life, they don't make statements as much as they ask questions. So it might be a, instead of, I can't afford that. How could I afford that house? Or how could I afford to live in that city that I want to live in? Or how could I afford for my wife to be able to come home and take care of the kids? Or how could I afford to be a chef? And since that's my dream, uh, or, you know, when people say it's not possible, like just, just flip it and say, how could it be possible?

It doesn't matter if you don't know the answer. It's, it's something in the way our brain is designed is that when it's given a statement, it shuts down. When it's given a question, it, it is forced to try to connect the dots and answer the question. Like it wants to find a way. Um, and, and so I think people have a hard time believing that, but if you practice asking more questions and what if it could be possible or how could it be possible, don't worry if you don't have the answers. It just starts a process in your brain and it's like anything, you get better at it. You start to create this curiosity that will lead you to, well, maybe I should read a book about it, or maybe I could talk to somebody or who do I know?

I'll give you an example. I wanted to write a book for years, but I don't actually think I was actually articulating that out loud. It's more of like a, I imagine myself one day writing books that impact people like the books have impacted me that I love. And then one day I'm talking to my wife and it's early 2020. And I don't even know if COVID had hit yet, but I just remember it was before COVID. It was February, Valentine's day, 2020. I remember, I can remember their restaurant. And she, cause she said, I said something about a book. She's like, when are you going to write a book? You keep talking about it. You just got to do it in one of those classic moments. And I was like, really, do I keep talking about it?

I thought this was a new idea. She's like, babe, you've been talking about this for years. And I was like in denial of it. And I was like, well, I think I'm just scared because I don't know anything about writing a book. I don't know the world, whether I should go self-published or published. And I just start, I start to talk myself out of it because I don't want to fail at things. I mean, classic human. And if I'm going to do it, I want it to be successful. So I was shutting myself down and I caught myself and I said, okay, what's the first thing I could do? I don't know anything about a book. Who do I know that's talked about writing a book? And the first person that came to mind at the time was Michael Hyatt.

And he had a course. I remember him talking about a course called like Get Published or something. I was like, well, I could go by his course and I could watch it. And I didn't get all the way through it. And I interviewed Michael on the podcast. I remember telling him about this. I'm like, sorry, I didn't even get all the way through your course. But it started me in the right process of asking some good questions about should I go traditional publishing or self-publishing? I didn't know. And then I was like, okay, do I know a single author who's done anything significant that I could just ask? And I have a buddy named Jordan Rayner, who's written a few Wall Street Journal bestselling books.

I was like, well, I could call him and say, hey, what do you... So I just started the process. I knew nothing. And one thing led to another. I got some ideas. I got some coaching on how to make a proposal, how to get an agent, shopping around to publishers. I got 38 no's, but I got two yeses and I got to pick a publisher. And then the book's out. I mean, it happened, right? But it happened by starting to say, well, who do I know? Or what do I know? Or who could I talk to? Or what would be a place to start? And if you think too far down the field, you'll get overwhelmed. That's called the extreme reach barrier. You go to the extreme like, well, I don't know what the cover should be of my book.

And you shut it down. You're way too far down the road. But if you could say, what would be the next logical step? Or who could I ask about the next step? I think that starts to your point, begin to get away from the fixed mindset and get into a very big or abundance mindset. I love the dumb goal concept because it's the classic book, The Magic of Thinking Big. Sometimes when you think about the crazy thing, the dream you really want, don't try to figure out and reverse engineer the dream at first. Just stay in the questions. Stay in the curiosity side of things, which is uncomfortable if you're a very type A person like me that wants to break it down. But if you can stay there long enough, you get to a place where your brain is willing to look for answers and people will come to mind.

A book will come to mind. When you're reading something, you'll pay attention in a different way because your brain is operating from a place of curiosity as opposed to a place of this is fixed and this is what it is. And let your brain and your mind do what it's designed to do. And let your reticular activation system start to pick up, which is that thing that when you talk about a thing like a product or a person, you start to notice that thing or product or person everywhere. Your brain shuts out 97% of the information it receives just so it can function. So when you start to ask questions, it's like reopening the rest of your brain to maybe let something in that's right there in front of you.

But you don't see it because it by definition can't look at it all or you will blow up in your head. So there's so much possibility if you just live in the land of questions. And I hope that helps some people. For some of us, it's like, but give me the answer. Just wait a little bit longer. I promise you will start to see answers. And then you can use your type A personality and go crush it when you get those answers. I love it. I actually just looked it up while you were talking. This is the acronym DUM is dream driven. So D, uplifting, measurable, and behavior driven. Ooh. Now that's next level because that's like asking the question, not what do I want to do, but who do I want to be? Yeah.

That's right. It gets you thinking in a totally different level. Because smart, I would look at this as, you know, smart goal setting. I'm not saying it's bad because I've been a big believer of smart goal setting. To your point, you boil things down today. What do I want to do tomorrow, this week? What do I want to do? You know, if I want to make a million dollars, I do need to back into what do I need to do to get to a million dollars in my activities. But that is to a certain degree, a little bit of a limiting mindset because it doesn't stretch you because when you talk realistic, that inherently is limiting. Like, well, what's realistic? I mean, do you think Elon Musk is setting smart goals?

You know what I mean? Like that motherfucker, that dude's going to Mars for crying out loud. I mean, yeah, he's crazy right now with what he's doing, but he is going to Mars. If he is, he is the exact opposite of a smart goal setter, but dream driven. I mean, I love that. The dream, uplifting, measurable, and behavior driven. Like that to me is something that is something to hold on to. I'm going to get some dumb goals up in here. You're helping me out. Awesome, man. Well, look, we're coming up on time here, but I know you do a ton, you got a ton of stuff out there, a ton of free content. You got your course and everything else. What are some areas that actually, you know what, before we get, we got another minute.

I want to ask one, one, one question. Out of all the work you've done for, with other people, what's the one story that sticks out to you that you're most proud of as far as the difference that you have made? And it doesn't necessarily have to be somebody making a million dollars or building their business. It could be a very personal, like, is there, is there one story of all the people that you've worked with that really stands out to you that, that, that really makes you just light up and, and, and, and, you know, your why is, is this? Yeah. Can I give you two real quick ones? Please. Yeah. Two of my students, uh, one guy's name is Lane and, uh, he found me about three years ago. He was a pastor of a church and he had, he'd written a book, uh, on how pastors could preach better sermons and he was trying to like break into writing.

And so he was selling his book on Amazon. And when he came to me, he was selling a few copies here and there, making between one and $3,000 a month, depending on how hard he pushed his book on, on social. And he was like, this isn't sustainable. Like I've been doing this for about a year or two. Like it's not growing. I need, I need to figure out something else, maybe online courses, maybe something. And that's when he found me. So I've been able to watch his journey and what he started to slowly do, which was, okay, take the information he knew and put it in a video course and build out content, start showing up and teaching for free. He was just pushing his book. That's all he was doing. And so I was like, why don't you take what you know in the book and start showing up online for free on YouTube and, and just teach it, become an authority online.

There's this person that's just so helpful that becomes known for helping pastors preach better sermons. He started to implement everything. About a year into that, he was making enough money that he was almost replacing like half to 60% of his salary. And he decided to make the leap to go full time because he was doing this as his side hustle. He'd wake up an hour earlier every morning, go to bed an hour later to write his blog posts and work on his course. And he was like, I think we've saved up some money. I'm willing to quit the job, go all in because he believed it was possible. So that was his first inflection point is when he quit his job. And I remember he posted in our community. I was so excited for him.

Then he made a hundred thousand dollars his next year after going all in. Then he hired his wife. She quit her job so she could work for the business. Then he left Nashville, Tennessee and bought a house in the panhandle of Florida on the, on the beach or near the beach. Cause that's where he always vacation. He's like, what if I could live where I vacation? What if I could just live in Florida? And so the idea that even started to think about that was amazing. So they bought their house in Florida just a few months ago. And now he works from home with his wife, his four kids in Florida at the beach where they love. And he just emailed me yesterday. Last year, he finished the year at $150,000 and it maybe takes him 20 to 30 hours a week to run.

And he thinks he's on pace for 300K this year. And he's just like, I, I'm living my dream. I'm living my dream. So to see that journey is incredible. And then the other one is this gal named Iko who lives in Hawaii. And she is natively from Japan and her business, get this. She doesn't teach English. She teaches English pronunciation to native Japanese speakers. So think like she helps like Japanese business people who are doing business in the States. Like, can you help me with my accent, tighten up my English accent. And she helps like actresses, celebrities who are coming from Japan to America and Hollywood. It's very cool what she does. High-end coaching. When she found me, she was making again, between $1,000 and $9,000 a month.

And it was sporadic and it wasn't sustainable. And what I love is that this past August, she's now doing 20 to 30K a month consistently, which is amazing. And she's been such a fearful person her whole life, but she's so willing to grow. And one thing I was proud of her was in August, she took the whole month off. She left, her and her husband left Hawaii to go to Japan to be with her family. She hadn't seen them for like four years, like pre-COVID. And the whole family got together and they found out that her dad has cancer. And they didn't know he had like told the whole family while they were there. And she got to be there for the month of August in Japan, away from work, to get that news, which was sad, but to rally around her family because she had the freedom.

And then when she went back to Hawaii, she just told me last month, she's decided her and her husband are going to move to Japan for two years. And she's just going to run her business from there so they can be closer to her dad in this stage of his life. And she said, Graham, if it weren't for you helping me and just really, it's really her, I didn't do much, but changing her mindset about how to run her business, she wouldn't be able to just pick up and move and be with her family and have the confidence to do something she's really world-class at. And that's the stuff that I'm like, yes, that's what life is all about, bro. Family, living the life that you really want to live and doing work that you find meaningful.

And it's like game over if that's happened. And if you can get one person on that path, man, that's why I tell people all the time, like, you don't think you have something to offer, but your journey does, period. Period. Everybody has something to offer. And that's what I'm excited about helping people do is, but they need someone to help pull it out sometimes. And I'm there too. We all get stuck. Like, this isn't unique. It's not about being unique. It's about being valuable in the marketplace and all of us can be valuable. Love it. Awesome, Graham. Well, again, where, with all the stuff that you're working on right now, where do you want to point people? You know, as far as LinkedIn or whatever, what's the best way to get in touch with you and learn more about you?

Yeah, if you like hanging out on Instagram, that's where I post the most, at the Graham Cochran. And then, like I said, I do have a book called How to Get Paid for What You Know, but I give away the first two chapters for free because I think it tells you if you like that business model or not. So, they're absolutely free if you go to grahamcochran.com slash chapters, read the first two chapters on the knowledge economy and then the value circle. And that'll explain my entire business model on a napkin. And you'll either like love it and be like, this is awesome. Or you'd be like, yeah, it's not for me. And for those of you listening, we'll put these in the show notes. But just in case you're not, it's Graham, G-R-A-H-A-M and Cochran, C-O-C-H-R-A-N-E.

Go check them out. Learn more. See if you can figure out how to turn that side hustle into that freedom builder that you're looking for and break that limiting mindset of you and get into that abundance. So, Graham, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Yeah, my pleasure, John. It was fun. Absolutely. And thank you, everybody, for listening as always. And as I always say at the end of my podcast, go out there and make somebody smile today. Because no matter how bad your day went or how bad you think it's going, you go out there and make somebody smile today, you know you had a good day. And the world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all for listening. And I'll see you on the other side.

Thank you so much for your time today and listening to the podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. With your support and our incredible guests, we're one of the top sales podcasts in the industry. With over a million downloads. And I can't thank you enough. To keep the momentum going, if you could go to your favorite podcast platform and leave us a five-star review, I would greatly appreciate it. In return, I will answer any question that you have on Instagram. Hit me up there at John M as in Michael Barrows with a video question or a DM and I will get right back to you, I promise. And last but not least, if you're looking for training, I'm adjusting my training approach this year.

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