Ben Baker: How Cycling, Theater, & Construction Framed My Life for Success | Episode 53

EPISODE OVERVIEW: 

So what happens when you take a young man and introduce him to competitive cycling, theater, and construction all before high school graduation? Then, as he’s developing as a man and transitioning into adulthood, infuse him with world travel, technology, and Marketing?

Ladies and Gentlemen, get ready to hear (on the podcast) and see (on YouTube) what happens first-hand so you can grow yourself via this weeks episode of the Remarkable People Podcast, the Ben Baker story!

GUEST BIO: 

As the founder of Your Brand Marketing, Ben helps clients understand what makes them special, unique and engaging. For the past 25 years, he has been helping companies communicate internally and externally and develop the next generation of leaders. Through his work, brands tell engaging and meaningful brand stories that elevate and engage employees and compel customers to take action.

Ben is a international keynote speaker, two times author, published in a variety of magazines and host of the YourLIVINGBrand.live podcast.

FEATURED QUOTE(S): 

• “Believe you can do anything, but know you’re not going to do it on your own.”– Ben Baker (Philippians 4:13)

EPISODE PROUDLY SPONSORED BY: 

• Pam Heinold, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate – Pensacola, FL | Phone 850.232.2332
• Military Murder Podcast, Mama Margot Productions 💪😃

SHOW NOTES, LINKS, CONTACT INFO, SPECIAL OFFERS, & RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Contact Ben:

• https://www.yourbrandmarketing.com
• www.podcasthostforhire.com
• https://www.amazon.com/author/benbakerspeaks
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yourbrandmarketing 

Special Offer(s):

• For everyone who connects with Ben via LinkedIn and mentions the Remarkable People Podcast, Ben will give them a FREE pdf copy of either “Powerful Personal Brands” or “Leading Beyond a Crisis“.  Enjoy! 

HOW TO SUPPORT THE REMARKABLE PEOPLE PODCAST:

1. Subscribe, Rate, and Revi

Transcript

hello friends. I'm David Pasqualone and welcome to this week's remarkable episode of the Remarkable People Podcast, the Ben Baker story. This week, you are going to hear about cycling construction, theater, team leadership, and all sorts of great life. And professional skills, which is all part of our life. Everything comes together with Ben.

He does a phenomenal job of guiding us through a process and he also is an expert [00:01:00] at podcasting and teaching you to podcast. So if after listened to the episode, it sounds like something you want to be part of hangout for a special offer at the end, from Ben, and you'll have a great opportunity to learn how to podcast.

From him directly. Okay. So hang on tight, grab a pen and paper to take notes unless you're driving and then wait, go back and relisten, and then enjoy this episode of the podcast. Before we do, though, God has blessed us with a remarkable sponsor. So you could be listening to this episode. So let's listen to this week sponsor and then get to the Ben Baker story.

Thanks again for listening. And I'll see you in just a minute.

 Hello today we have two special sponsors and our first sponsors someone you got to meet just a couple of weeks ago, mama Margo, a military murder, check out her podcast, [00:02:00] promo. And then after this episode of the Ben Baker story, Go back and binge on military murder. Cause self-development, and self-help is what I do with 90% of my time.

But every once in a while, I just want some entertainment or something to intrigue the brain mama Margot and military murder can do it. So check out her promo, check out this episode of the remarkable people podcast. And the goal is some military murder stories. Listen up.

 Hi, true crime fans. My name is Margo and I am the host of military murder. A podcast that pulls back the curtain on cases that are finally getting the media attention they deserve. In 2020, we were all rocked by the disappearance of Vanessa. Again, a soldier out of Fort hood, Texas. Well, military murder is about cases, just like this murders that occur around the world at the hands of soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen.

And sometimes even veterans military murder has [00:03:00] discussed family Annihilator is serial killers and people so evil. They have made it on America's most wanted list, but most of them you've never even heard of. New episodes of military murder are available every Monday, wherever you listen to podcast. And with over 60 episodes in the library, you will have plenty of content to binge.

Now, go on subscribe and listen to military murder.

Part 5 RPP Pam Heinold Promo: [00:03:25] Ladies, this week's episode is brought to us by better homes and gardens real estate, Pensacola, Florida, Pam Heinold. Pam has been with us since the show began. She has been a great supporter of not just the remarkable pupil podcast. But our community and more than anything, representing Christ in a way that glorifies him and loves on people.

But this is what we're doing right now. We want to help [00:04:00] Pam grow. And in this economy, things are going well. And in Pensacola, Florida inventory is no demand is high. But prices are still below what I think market value should be. So if you're looking to buy a home, absolutely talk to Pam, she can help you find the right home, vacation, home, rental, home, or investment property.

However, If you live in Pensacola last I checked, we had just in the Pensacola area a couple thousand listeners, which is wonderful. We see each other, please say hi, but if you're in the Penn school area now might be the right time to talk to Pam to sell your home because you might have a piece of property you've been sitting on as the perfect time to sell all the values high and build a piece of property and start from scratch.

[00:05:00] So. Talk to Pam. Check out the show notes. Her website is Pam heinold.com. That's P a N H E I N O L d.com. So check out Pam Heinen's website, give her a call. If you're looking to buy, sell, or trade property, you know, do a tax exchange. And then right now, Let's listen to the next episode, the Ben Baker story.

Thanks. And we'll see you again at the end for a special offer chat.

Part 6 RPP Ben Baker Interview Videocast: [00:05:34] Hey, Ben, how are you today? I am doing great, Dave. It is so good that we're doing this. We've been, we've been talking about this for a while now, and I am so excited that we're actually getting on the mic and having this conversation. Yeah, me too. And for our listeners, just so you know, Ben has been a patient wonderful friend.

We were supposed to have this conversation back in early mid December [00:06:00] and because of technical issues and scheduling, I had to reschedule. Then when we came back, I moved into the travel trailer campers. We can take the podcast in the road and we had no internet. So we had to reschedule again. And now we're in February when we're recording this.

So you may not hear us till March or April, but Ben is a remarkable friend, and you're going to learn all about him today. So thank you, Ben, for your patience and for the listeners, you had no idea you were being patient, but you are, and it's, it's not a problem. I mean, I've been podcasting for four years now.

I've got over 250 episodes. I have seen it all. You know, I've seen bikes blow up in the middle of conversations, you know, internet go down. It is amazing what we rely on technology, you know? Well, we absolutely rely on technology. It fails us. So you know what? You just gotta be patient. You sit there and say, okay, Something happened, how do we fix it?

And that's tends to be my philosophy on life. That's all. And we're going to get into that philosophy. [00:07:00] I'm sure today. So Ben, as our listeners know, who've been with us for this year but for our new listeners. And just to give you a recap, how the show goes is we're going to start off literally in your childhood, what formed Ben Baker.

And then we're going to move into any kind of like obstacles or challenges or things that you felt significant. And then you're going to share with us the practical steps of how you overcame those issues. To bring you to where you are today. So the good, the bad, the ugly, everything in between. Right. And let's go for it.

Yeah. And then towards the end of the show, we'll talk about where are you today? Where are you going? And how can we, as the audience help you get there for you being so kind to help us grow. So with that said, well, let's get started. Ben, tell us your story. Where were you born? Raised in bread. I was born in Minneapolis about 1969.

I was, I was born in Minneapolis. My father's originally from sorry from Chicago. My mom's from Winnipeg and they settled [00:08:00] in in Minneapolis. And about 1974, my let's see my aunt at the time. And her husband got sold their company in Winnipeg and moved out to Vancouver and my mum wanted to be near her sister.

And at that time, you know, the Canadian dollar is worth more than the us dollar. So instead of going to Seattle, which we normally would have gone, we ended up in Vancouver as well. So since 1974, January early February, I forget what it was. I've always had a box in Vancouver. There's always been a box of my stuff sitting in Vancouver somewhere.

And so my, my schooling my education, my university education, my friends, you know, it all has revolved around Vancouver. Now I've lived in Seattle. I've lived in LA, I've lived in Toronto. I spent a summer living in New York city. I lived in Israel for three years. But you know [00:09:00] that Cooper's always been home.

And it's been an amazing city. It's it's, you know, watching it grow up, watching it go from being a million people to almost 3 million people. Since the time I got here, there's been enormous changes and great things that have come out of it. So, you know, it's a city I love it's, it's expensive. It's crazy.

But it's a great place to grow up. That's fantastic. Now, when you were growing up, did you have brothers, sisters? Did you have other family nearby? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have a brother he's a couple of years younger than I am. I also have four cousins. My, you know, I, there's a, there's an aunt and an uncle.

My, my uncles still lives in Winnipeg and his kids. I mean, his kids now are probably in their mid to late sixties. You know, my, my, my other cousins who live in Vancouver, well, some of them live here in Vancouver are, you know, everywhere from, Oh God, 63 down to 51. [00:10:00] So, you know, so there was always, there was always cousins around you know, we saw them fairly regularly.

My cousin and I are, you know, my, my youngest cousin and I are, are what, we're three and a half months apart. So we, we pretty much grew up together, but you know, his friends were different from my friends and, you know, he went to different schools. We lived on different parts of the city. So, you know, as friendly as we were, as much as we did stuff together as a family, it wasn't like we were close.

It wasn't like we were separated at the hip at the hip, you know? So it's, it's one of those things that family has always been there for me. You know, I've always been around family. I've always had family around, but am I overly close to my family? No, not really, but you know, that's okay too. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

And there's all different types of families and relationships in different areas of the country and world literally dictate a lot of times how your family upbringing is. I just try to get a sense for our listenership of [00:11:00] what your background is to see how it shaped you over the years. So as you're growing up through childhood, is there anything significant or remarkable, like remarkable in a sense of worth discussing that ties into who you are today as a man?

I mean, probably the biggest things that made me, who I am today are probably three things. One was working for my father's construction company. Two was that I raced bicycles and three was, you know, the vast amount of time I spent in the theater industry. So those are probably the three biggest things that made me who I am.

My father had a construction company, he did re commercial renovation. So yeah. He has a small company that did big things. You know, they, they worked on three, five, $10 million projects on a regular basis. It was a lot of, you know, taking buildings and gutting them and turning them into something else or taking different departments and trashing them and coming up with something else.

So he was always sitting there going, okay, how do we fix this? [00:12:00] You know, what's the problem and how do we solve it? And growing up, you know, from the time I was probably 11 and 12, he had me on the job site, sweeping up the job site, going to get things working as a first aid attendant, you know, driving around the city.

When I finally turned 16 and picking stuff up to, you know, to digging ditches and hauling drywall. And the deal was with him is he paid me the same as everybody else on the, on the site. But I had to do the same work and I didn't work for him. I worked for the on-site format. And if I got fired, I got fired.

That's it? That's the end of the story. You know, if I wasn't doing my job, if I wasn't doing exactly what needs to be done, if I was lipping back, you know, if I was slacking off and I got fired, that was it. That was the end of the conversation. And that was the expectations growing up, you know, you do it right.

You take care of your customer, you do the job, right. And you focus on what's important. And I think that those are the things that really put me in a good [00:13:00] stead, you know, the cycling, I grew up racing bicycles, and I would probably do, you know, three, 350 miles a week. On a bicycle. And I had a really good friend and, and, and a whole racing group that I was part of.

And one of them was actually a British Commonwealth champion from days gone by that we learned from, and we learned a lot. We learned about teamwork. We learned about how to, how to rely upon each other about tactics, about, you know, how to think as a group and how to sit there and say, okay, it's sometimes it's better to sacrifice yourself to, to make sure that somebody else succeeds.

And I think that that was probably some of the biggest things that I learned in. Secondly, because I was a lead out guy. I was, I was the guy at the big strong box at the front of the chain that would sit there and fight through the wind and allow. You know, the, the, the S the younger, stronger guys to go there and, and, you know, spring to the finish, I was the lead out guy.

[00:14:00] Whenever I was in criterions, whether I was on long road races, I was the guy that helped other people win. It was never, my, it was never my game to win. And I love that place. I love the fact that I was the one with elbows out. No charging somebody out and then watching, watching, you know, with 75 or a hundred yards down the road, somebody blasting past me and actually, you know, going on and winning.

And I knew that I helped them do that. Pause on that too, before you go on, because not everybody knows about cycling, I know enough to comment, but you can probably take us much deeper. What, what Ben's talking about. If you're not familiar with professional cycling or, you know, the competitive side. Sure.

Don't don't, don't never put me as a professional. I was never that good in the sport of cycling. Let me rephrase it that way. But they put the person who's big and strong in the front because the front takes the wind and the wind is resistance and the wind wears you out. And even though it seems silly, like, well, it's called [00:15:00] drifting or draft after draft called drafting.

Explain that. So basically what you're learning is life lessons through your hobby of cycling then, because that. Like you said it was one of the lessons that God used in your life to teach you in other areas. But what could our audience learned from this, especially those who aren't familiar with cycles.

I think what you, what you're learning is is that you win and die as a team is probably the biggest lesson and the communication that goes along with it. And the fact that you'll it's before the race starts, you get together as a team and you talk about what are the tactics you're going to do, you know?

And then during the race, you execute them and you adapt as other people create their tactics and you sit there and say, okay, how do we be able to foil their particular, you know tactics moving forward and how do we win as a team together? And how do we, you know, put our best strengths forward. And after the race it's debrief.

So it's, you know, it's get ready for the race, have the race then DB [00:16:00] read from the race. Cause it's never that we did things perfectly, you know, in life. There's no such thing as perfect. And we all need to sit there and say, what went well, what didn't go well, how do we celebrate both? How do we learn from both?

How do we get better from both? And I think that that was probably one of the biggest lessons that I learned through the cycling. And then the fact that you made a great comment, like you powered through miles and miles of taking the beating of the wind and the elements, but someone came up and won the race at the end, the last few yards, but you did it as a team.

So talk about that emotional maturity and not being jealous because when we work as a team, even our bodies, when everything works in harmony, we feel great. But when we have one area that starts struggling or going too hard, we have issues. So how does that tie into your life and all of our lives? I, I think we all need to realize we have roles.

Some people are [00:17:00] great. Number twos, you know, it's true. Some people are great. Number twos. There's, there's some phenomenal people out there that have been, you know, amazing backup people. You know, I have a friend of ours, she's an executive assistant for one of the most powerful people in the area. And she is the power behind the power.

You know, very few people know who she is. Very few people will know how much power she really does, how much influence she has, but she is the person that makes sure that the CEO of the company, you know, is able to do what he does. And we all need to sit there and say, what are the roles that are going to allow us to shine?

What are the particular skills that we have. That you know, that allow us to shine and allow the team to succeed. And I think that that's really what I learned about leadership. That's where I learned about team building. That's where I learned about communication is that we all have a role to fill. And some of us, you know, what, take the, take the sprint to the finish line and get to put our hands in the air and get to [00:18:00] have the one that had the cameras on us and the pictures take it.

And there's some of us that got them there. And it's when the people that sit there and blast past you and go and get that gold and actually go finished across the finish line first, come back and say, Ben, thank you. That's what makes it worthwhile. It's the, it's the people who sit there and say, you know what?

I sat in the middle of the pack. The entire time I expended 35 or 40% of the energy. And then I blasted it out and I won. Well, that was all on me. I was smart. I was in the back of the pack and I did that. Well, that's not true. They realize that their role. Within the, the thing is too, is to conserve energy, to be smart, to be tacticians, to watch what everybody else is doing to communicate tactics of other teams and to be able to be there in the end to make sure that the team wins.

Cause in the end, the team wins. It's the colors on the team that wins. And we win as a team where we lose as a team. [00:19:00] Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I mean, I, there's very few, I mean, very few times in life where we actually are on our own and win or lose on our own. And those are very few isolated times, but I mean, you can think of any sport, NASCAR, basketball politics, nobody gets to that place of victory without a team supporting them.

So that's really great. You're bringing this out to us. Well, and even the Dre triathletes that are as a single person sport, they all have coaches. Oh, absolutely. All the people that support them. There's, you know, there's people that make sure that they're, they're up and they're fed and they're taken care of and, and things go on.

So they have time to train, you know, so it's, you're right. None of us succeeds on our own. None of us are where we are in life, unless we're able to stand on the shoulders of someone. So saying that let's take a little sidebar here for the listeners development. What do you think are some [00:20:00] steps to fostering team building?

You know what I think that the first thing that foster team building is is that no one person is better than anybody else. You know, there's that the team succeeds and dies based on the collective smarts collective Strait that connect the collective wit. Of the team and whether this is business, whether this is sport, whether this is whatever, you know, we all succeed when we realize that, you know what the team succeeds, because it is a team we're stronger together than we are apart.

You know, it's one plus one equals three, and it's, it's understanding that math and understanding that we need to be able to focus. And truthfully that takes leadership, you know, a good leader, fosters team environment, a good leader sits. There. It goes. It's not about me. It's about we it's about us. It's about succeeding as a team, whether it's a basketball coach, whether it's a CEO of a [00:21:00] major corporation, whether it's a political leader or whatever, the great ones realize that when the team succeeds, they succeed.

But just because they succeed doesn't mean the team succeeds. So it's a matter of going together and going okay. How do we bring everybody along? How do we inspire people? How do we get? So they understand the mission, the vision, the values, where we are going, why we're going there, what we need to all do together to, in order to make it and why the individual effort works.

I mean, look at Dennis Rodman, Dennis Rodman was on a team of incredible superstars when he was with the bulls with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippin and stuff like that. His role was to be the best rebounder in the league. And he was, he was an incredible rebounder. Okay. He didn't get the glory that Jordan did.

He didn't get the glory that Pippa did, but he was the guy that made sure when that ball came off the back board, it was in [00:22:00] his hands and not as competitor's hands. And, you know, because of the skills of Dennis Rodman, he was able to make, you know, the, the bulls a dynasty for so many years. Yes. And likewise in professional football in America, I think Tom Brady, Tom, Tom, Brady, people think he's a great quarterback in years, but man, he's a leader.

That's what he congeals the team. And he gives them that, Oh man, like you can just see the passion I weed I'm from Boston. So I'm a little bias, but we'd watch games. And when he walked in the field, you can look in his eyes and the level of passion in his eyes, you could tell how that game was going to end, but he can walk out and inspire that team to victory.

And that's how he can go to Tampa Bay. That was a mediocre team and bring them to a super bowl one year. And that's exactly what you're talking about. Just that leadership and that team building. Did you hear about the texts that he sent [00:23:00] out? The group text that he sent out the night before the game? No, I, we, it says we will win.

I believe that it was the three words we will win it. And he sent that out to his entire team. I mean, who else was going to get Gronk to come out of retirement? Who was retired? He was done. He was finished. He hung up the cleats. You know, he came back for Brady. Yeah. Cause he came back because he knew that if he was beside great Brady, there was a chance there was going to be another ring.

And if there wasn't, if he didn't believe in that, if he didn't believe in that the team was going to be able to do this and that Brady was going to be able to lead that team to that victory. Why would he ever come out of retirement? Yeah, exactly. And if you looked at Gronk from when he left the Patriots, just a few months later, I swear it looks like you lost 50 pounds because he had, he had no intention of coming back and then he came back and they killed it.

So [00:24:00] what do you think, what is special. That Tom Brady does that we can observe and learn from and apply to our lives. I think like any great leader, he leads by example. He is, I, I call it leading from the middle, you know, you're, you're not way out in front. You're not behind you're pushing buttons. You're there in the trenches.

You're the person that can give somebody that gentle push when they need it. You're somebody who can reach your hand back and pull somebody back up when they need it. But most of the time, your toe to toe shoulder, to shoulder with the team in order that they can see you do it. And he is one of the first people, the practice, and one of the last people to leave.

And when you're leading by example, when you're sitting there going, I'm not just saying this, I'm doing it, I'm not going to do anything that I don't expect you to do. That's a great leader. Yep. I agree. I agree completely. So don't do anything that you don't expect me to do. Let's say that correctly. Yeah, [00:25:00] no, I agree.

Completely. I teach my kids. I've told them this they're teenagers now, but I said, whenever you're running anything, I said, I don't care if it's a little operation or a massive company, whenever I'm in a meeting, I seriously will ask people what's we have 30 tasks. What's the worst one. What's the one nobody wants to do.

And I take that task because then everybody else knows that's a cleaning. That toilet is a crappiest thing on the list. So everything else I shouldn't complain about. So that's how I kind of always try to handle things by being there and doing it. And I think that's exactly what you're talking about.

And, and Brady does. And you do, and it brings results. It brings positive results. Okay. So now we talked about your growing up. We talked about. The cycling. And then what was the third thing you said it was good. Everything was, was being in the theater business. And, you know, I grew up in professional theater as a lighting tech, as a building tech, [00:26:00] as somebody that sat there and was in the wings, making things happen.

And for me, that's where I love to be. You know, I love to be the person that out of, out of nothing created the illusion of a set, you know, building the lighting. So therefore it made it, you know, give the appearance of whatever it needed to be, to be able to, you know, make sure that the sound is there.

Make sure that the set looks and provides the illusion that, that allows people to, to dispend their disbelief and go with the flow with whatever it is with the musical, with the play, with whatever. And to me that was magical. And for me it was, it was more the fact that you were building something out of nothing.

And realizing that with a little ingenuity, a little creativity, some vision and hard work, you can sit there and created a brand new reality. You know, I have a [00:27:00] saying that I like to use, it says the glass is half full or half empty it's refillable. And I think that that comes out of that. This is that refillable glass is that wherever we are in life, we have the opportunity to make something new.

And that's that to me was the magic of theater. That was the magic of theater. Is that with a little creativity and a little ingenuity, you could make magic happen. Yeah. And that's interesting, again, the way you would let people follow you on the bike and the way you let an actor have that front stage, which are making sure they look fantastic.

That's kind of how God designed you and made you, have you always been that way. Have you always had that, that just team approach and that I get satisfaction with seeing the mission completed? Or where did that come from? I think so. I mean, you know, when we're all young, we all need to seek the spotlight.

I I'm sure. You know, there were many times it was all about me [00:28:00] and, you know, in my youth and sitting there going, okay, how can, how can I be the best and how can I make sure people look at me? But I grew out of that very quickly. You know? I mean, I, I don't remember those days. I'm sure those days existed.

I'm sure that there was times where, you know, I looked at it, but I came from, you know, an upbringing. That told me that, you know, it's, it's important for you to believe in yourself. It's important for you to know your own value. It's important for you to believe that you can do anything, but it's also important to realize that you're not going to get there on your own and that, you know, true goals are achieved because people work together and it's not just because your own accomplishments that you succeed, that you succeed because everybody succeeds together.

And, you know, from the time I remember, you know, it's always been the person that's been there to help other people and [00:29:00] enable everybody to succeed. Whether it was in university was study groups or whatever, to be able to sit there and say, okay, how can we, how can we divide this task to make it easier for everybody?

Nice. So. At what ages were you involved in? The cycling and in the theater. And when did you transition out? Okay. I probably left the theater business when I left high school. I realized I did not want to be a theater major. It was just not, you know, I, I looked at it and wed as much as I love the theater business, unless I was willing to move to New York and go to Julliard and it really, you know, get to a point where I was going to be a top end person.

Yeah. Oh man. That's all or nothing. And I think that, that was what I came to. The realization that this has been a fun hobby, you know, I've made some [00:30:00] money at doing this. I've done a lot of things. I've enjoyed what I've done, but Vancouver is not the city to do this. And unless I was willing to go to New York and as good as I was, I had no idea if I was good or not.

You know, I had no idea with when you're, you know, when you're a big fish in a small pond, it's really easy to get a big head about things. But when you go to somewhere like New York, where everybody is great, you know, I mean, you look at the people in the chorus line, they're phenomenal. They have great know great pipes, amazing dancers.

What, so what does it take to get to that next level? And the same thing as in the tech business, you know, whether it's working in the movie business, whether it's working in the life theater, it just, wasn't where I wanted to go. I just didn't see the upside, the cycling. I probably did, you know, serious cycling through about my second or third year university.

I had a pretty bad [00:31:00] cycling accident. And I, I can't remember if I broke a collarbone or was, I think it was a collarbone I broke and it just, and I severed a bike. Like I, I literally shared a bike in half. And I went okay, enough is enough is enough and realized that I was, you know, this is something that was always going to be a hobby for me, but actually getting into cycling is getting serious about it.

You know, it was at that point where I've always been good at things I've never been great at them. You know, when it comes to sports, when it comes to being a sport, I'm good at something I'm, I'm a good middle of the road player. I was always a good middle of the road, hockey player. I was never a great hockey player, you know, cycling.

I was never, I was never great at cycling. I was good at cycling and you get to a point where you start watching other people getting way better at it than you are, and you're staying the same. It doesn't matter how hard you work or how much effort you put in it. You're not going to get any better than [00:32:00] you are and they're getting, and they're getting faster and smarter and you know, and more aggressive.

And then you get to a point where you go, okay, this is a fun hobby, but that's what it is. Okay. Let's talk about two. I have two questions for you regarding this topic. Yeah. That one is how did you come to the point of accepting that? Because that's very hard. There's a lot of people who are passionate, like they love an activity or sport and they want to be the best.

It's just not the plan God has for them. But that's the first question. How did you just come to accept that and have peace with it? And then the second question is going to be this, you know, you may tie them together. I remember watching people. Who had so much talent and they put in soul little effort and they've thrived.

And then you had other people who worked eight hours when everybody else was working [00:33:00] half an hour. And yeah, they did make progressive steps and they made improvements and they were hard work and they could become the best, but it wasn't natural. So my first question was, how did you come to accept it?

And then the second question is how do you know the difference when to keep working hard and not quit? And when it's not your place, does that make sense? Yeah, it does. It absolutely makes sense. I mean, wow. What was my acceptance? My acceptance was the fact that I just realized that this has been a hobby.

It's always going to be a hobby. It's something that I enjoy, but it's not something I'm. Ultra passionate about, I'm never going to make money at this. I'm never going to be a number one player. There's always going to be people that are way better than I am at it. And that's okay. You know, it's like me playing golf.

I am far happier as an 18 handicap [00:34:00] than I ever was at a seven or eight. When I was at seven or eight handicap, you can taste it. You can taste that scratch handicap has you're playing with really good players and you can see the fact that there's those little things and you know, and you and you get there.

And what I was playing 70, 80, 90 rounds of golf a year, I was up in the seven, eight, nine handicap range. Well, then I got married. Then I had kids that, you know, then a life came up and I, if I'm lucky, I played 10, 15 rounds of golf these days. If I, if I could play at an 18 handicap today, AI, I'm not getting paid for the game.

And B I'm not practicing enough to be a seven or eight handicap anymore. You know, I'm not doing it enough to be able to do it. And the same thing was happening to me with the cycling. I wasn't, because I was, you know, growing up and had a full-time job and other responsibilities and other passions were coming up.

I wasn't putting in the hours [00:35:00] that it was taken for me to do it because I didn't want to put in the hours. You know, there was other things that were taking my priorities. And through that, it was saying it's okay, this will always be a passion, but it's not going to be the passion. And I think that my world is better served when I have multiple passions that I enjoy.

And I can take them and leave them as I go, you know you know, playing volleyball through university was a passion. Golf has always been a passion. Squash has always been a passion, you know sailing was a passion for years. There's things I haven't done in years, but I still enjoy doing them. If you, if you ever put me back out on a boat again, and we got into, into a race, I'd love doing it, but I'm not doing it all the time.

And I think that that's really where my life is. I'm not one of those people that said, Oh my God, I'm just going to play basketball. That's it, I'm in a cycle. I'm gonna play [00:36:00] basketball or do whatever. That's one thing. And I'm just going to be as good as it can. And my life is over. If I can't do it, my life has never been over because I can't do something because I always believe that if this, if there a store closes, another window will open.

And I think that, you know, That's a hard thing for a lot of people to do a lot of people, you know, growing up in Canada, hockey players, kids from the age of three, had this, I'm going to go to the NHL. I look in their eye and their parents. And to have this look in their eye, that their kids are going to be the greatest thing, you know, the next Gretzky or, or whoever.

And 99% of those kids never will be 99% of the kids that started Pee-wee hockey you'll by the time 18 probably ever laced up the skates in a couple of years and that's reality. And so what we need to do is we need to realize that our passions change and our [00:37:00] loves change and our needs change and our wants and our desires change.

And we have to be able to go with that and, you know, There are people in this world that are driven. There are people in this world that you're right, that are the pro athletes that make a hundred million dollars a year that do other things that are singularly focused, really driven. But I would argue to say that most people are not those people.

Yeah, no, I think that's well said so to our audience, who's listening, even rewind this and play back what Ben just said. I mean, we need to have that self-reflection that introspection and that honesty. Can we love it as a hobby. Yes. But is this what we're made to do for a career? Maybe not. And you know, I was laughing.

I don't know if this is showing me on camera and off camera when we get to the final recording. But I was cracking up when you were talking about golf, not because of you, but because golf, I always say golf takes three things. It takes that [00:38:00] drive that determination, that focus. Right. And then it takes time and money.

And when you ask, if you're going to be a good husband and father, you don't have either of those usually, or you can have money, but not time. So that was cracking up. If anybody saw me laughing, that's why. All right. So Ben, you're, you're going through you're at university. What did you end up studying for your degree in university?

When you decided theater wasn't the road. My degree has always been in political science, international relations. And I actually ended up doing a minor in international terrorism. I ended up going to the Hebrew university of Jerusalem for a year in what was it? 89 90 and studying, studying with a professor.

I got really lucky. I got, I got absolutely lucky. I got recruited out of my major, major university. They were, you know, they were looking for people on campus. I happened to know people that knew people and the opportunity came across and I, and I jumped at it. I have no idea what it costs my parents.

I know, [00:39:00] you know, I know what I spent, but I have no idea what my parents ponied up to to make this thing happen. But it was an incredible opportunity. And, you know, I probably learned far more that one year where I lived abroad that I did in the other three and a half or four years that I went to university.

Yeah, that's quite common. So once you got that degree and I don't want to, we're going chronologically here. Did we skip anything of what your childhood, your teenage years, your college years, is there anything significant that shaped you in that can help shape our listeners that we skipped to this point?

No, it just might be just the love of, you know, the computers. Cause that's where I ended up. I ran the mainframe at the university of Victoria. I started the first Macintosh lab at the university of Victoria. So it taught people how to use Macintosh was in 1987. So yeah, we three D three years after, after the, you know, the the Mac actually came out.

So it was, it was a lot [00:40:00] of fun and, you know, realizing that that is truly where, you know, where I love this is just sitting there going and looking at technology and that, you know, there was no. Love to be in a computer science program. You know, I was given an opportunity to go and have a lot degree. I decided not to do a lot of gray but you know, I've always sat there and love the computers because it's understanding what, you know, what can they do?

You know, what can we do with them? It's not, it's not the technology itself. What does the technology enable us to do? And I think that that's, that's, what's always fascinated me about computers. That's awesome. And yeah. And back then, isn't it crazy. We had another guest, Jeff Galvin and he was like 14 years old teaching at MIT.

Cause back then confused. We're so new. Yeah. Nobody else knew how to do it. So he was gold. Yeah. And you're teaching and you're, you know, a student it's just [00:41:00] great. And to see how things progressed like this, I always look at the cell phone, the smartphone, and it's like, you have more power in your hand.

Then all the United States government had in the eighties, you know what I mean? It's just, the technology is mindblowing power here than what the got us up to the moon. Yes. Yeah. I mean, by far, maybe a hundred times more power in your smartphone than what they actually use to get us to the moon and back, and that'll read us a story on the way that's all right.

So, okay. So now we're through your college years, you graduate, you had that. What was Israel like? And before we go on, because Israel is always, I love Israel. I never got to go, but it intrigues me. What was it like there and what coming from Canadian and American background to go over to Jerusalem? What was that like?

It, it was an incredible experience. I mean, I was part of what was known as the one-year program, which was North American kids that came and went to the university. So you [00:42:00] lived on campus, you went through what was known as an old pond, which was a six or eight week. Language training. So you could speak Hebrew.

Your courses were in English, but they want you to be able to speak Hebrew. I was lucky I went to a Jewish elementary school, so my Hebrew was at least at a decent part. By the time I got to Israel and what I did is instead of bunking with the w with an American or Canadian, I got an Argentinian roommate.

And the reason I did that was because he didn't speak English. I didn't speak Spanish. So we spoke in Hebrew. So both of our Hebrew got so much better because we couldn't speak to each other in a common language. So that, that became, that became a language thing. So both of our Hebrew just accelerated to the point where we both became fluent at the end of the year, based on the fact that we, you know, we, we had this common goal of being able to talk to each other intelligently and, you know, his English was horrific.

My Spanish was  [00:43:00] at best. Yeah. So that Hebrew became the language of the apartment. And, you know, it w it was an, it was an amazing experience. I mean, I got to spend three weeks in Egypt. I I've, you know, I've been on the, you know, I've been in Giza, I've been in King Tut's tomb. I've been to Ross Muhammad. I've been diving in the red sea.

You know, I've, I've done, I've been to the wailing wall more times than you care to imagine. I probably went to the wailing wall every Friday night for, you know, 30, 30, 40 times. Know, there is, there's an enormous amount of experiences that I got to see the entire country, you know I ended up, when I moved back, I moved back in, in 1993, 90 to 95.

I ended up having an Israeli girlfriend who taught me all over the country, you know, so I got to see an enormous amount of the country. It got to do some incredible things and meet some incredible people. You know, [00:44:00] both, both Americans, Canadians, and also from around the world. And it was just being immersed into a different culture, you know?

I mean, it was, you know, yes, I'm Jewish. Yes. I was, you know, I was born and raised Jewish, but to actually live in Israel, it's, it's a very different experience and it's, it's just, you can't explain it other than being there that it's, it's, it's very alive, I think is the very, the best way of saying it is people there live, you know, they, they don't live with regrets.

They just do. And they, and they figure it out afterwards. I mean, that's probably why the Israeli defense force is as good as what they do is because they don't take times, you know, figuring out and ringing their hands about strategy. They, they figure it out as they're doing it. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, as us, for me, I may never have the privilege to go to Israel.

And a lot of our listeners may not have to go, but what Ben said is so brilliant, he took a situation that was very difficult and made it harder. [00:45:00] Short-term loss for long-term gain. He was creative and said, Hey, I don't know what your roommate's name was, but me and Joe, we don't speak the same language.

Let's just learn one together. And I'm sure it was frustrating at times, but I'm sure it was also a lot of fun and you got more accomplished. So if you're listening, you know, what do they say about the lease path? Resist, resist hardest. Yeah. Yeah. That's what most people take, but that's what most people are losers in the sense of like, not your losers, but you know what I mean?

Most people don't achieve anything significant in life. Cause they take that least path of resistance. But the people who grow, you know, you don't get bigger and muscly by not lifting heavy weight, you lift weight. Ben got smarter by lifting heavy mental weight. So that's great that you guys did that. So what, so what happened after that trip?

You'd go to college. The one thing that I, you know, that ended up putting [00:46:00] me a year behind was the fact that when I came back, when I went there, I had a bunch of classes. Pre-approved when I got to Israel and T typical Israeli bureaucracy fashioned, the courses that I had pre-approved they decided they weren't going to teach them that year.

They didn't, they just said, okay, for whatever reason though, those courses aren't and I'm like, okay, fine. I'll take new classes. I'll worry about it. When I get back, it'll be fine. You know, they'll, they'll approve these classes. No problem. They didn't approve any of them. They said, well, you didn't get them pre-approved before you came in.

Nope. We're not going to do this. So I lost an entire year of school. Wouldn't wouldn't trade it for the world, but I, you know, it's so that, that four or five year degree ended up being a, feel five five-year degree and that's okay. You know, so I ended up finishing up my degree, you know, had some really good friends and things.

And in 93, I think it was late 92, early 93. I finished my university degree and some friends of mine living in Israel. So come back and I said, why not? I [00:47:00] got, I got nothing better to do. I got dope deal, no job, no experience on it. Anything why not? And so I went and slept on somebody's couch for a month.

You know, found, found a job, you know, found an apartment you know, and made a phenomenal couple of years. I ended up getting an apartment in what I jokingly called, you know, pre 1967 Jordan. It was, it's an area called  French Hill, which is on the East side of the Hebrew university. And it looks out over, over the desert over the, over the desert towards Jordan and you're looking out over the dead sea.

And so it was, we had this absolutely phenomenal apartment with this great big deck that looked out over the dead sea. It was, it was incredible. No, but you were, you were in an area where, you know, you were, you know, you're dealing with having to drive drive anywhere in order to do the thing. And I had, I had a great roommate.

I had one, one British roommate, one [00:48:00] Israeli roommate. And it was, it was, we had a, we had a lot of fun. I mean, there was, there's the three of us. I mean, we did a lot of fun things together and we learned a lot together. We had really had a good time and I don't want to, I don't, I, I want to hear, but I mean, I don't want to monopolize your time or the listeners' time, but I do have to ask what was it like being in the dead sea hard.

It's a lot of fun because literally you are floating. I mean, I'm 250 pounds. Okay. I'm six foot two, I'm 250 pounds. And I floated like a Bob, you know, somewhere there's pictures of me reading a newspaper on my back and I'm floating and it's, it's a blast, you know? And it's just because the salt is so dense.

That th th that you become ultra buoyant. Now, I wouldn't want to taste it. You don't want to get a mouth full of this cause you'll, you'll sit there and you'll you'll gag, but the, the the dead sea is an incredible experience. First of all, I mean, you're [00:49:00] hundreds of feet below sea level. I think it's the lowest place on earth.

If I remember correctly, it is, it is either the lowest place or one of the lowest places on earth. And second of all, it's just, it's incredible because you know, the, you know, the ability to just be able to sit there and float and just, you know, it's just fun. It's just silly. It's just, it's just one of those silly things that you just, you do once in your life and you just sit there and laugh about it.

Yeah, I've heard other people say that and I just, I want to go, that's like one of the places I just love to go and hopefully I'll bet go soon. COVID will clean up and build a travel again. So. All right. So then where do you go from here? Okay. So I came back, I came back from Israel. I mean, th th the Israel story is, is the fact that, you know, after two years I'd been working in the computer industry I was selling what I was doing was I was working as a technician in the computer industry, and I was going from ministry to ministry, changing out hard drives from windows [00:50:00] 95, sorry, from windows 3.1 to windows 95, getting the computers all set up.

And, and, and the Novell guys were coming in behind me. And, you know, it was a lot of fun, but at the end of two years, my contract was up. I had just broken up with my girlfriend. One of my roommates was getting married, and one of my roommates was was going back to England and I'm sitting there going, okay, what am I going to do now?

And I got a phone call from somebody I know who's and they said, what are you doing? I said, well, why? They said, well, we've got a position for you back here in Vancouver. When can you come back to Canada? He threw a number at me that was probably four or five times what I was making in Israel and was willing to pay for my plane ticket.

And 30 days later I found myself back in Canada. And what I was, what I was doing is is that you obviously know best buy. Yes, sir. Yeah. Okay. So best buy [00:51:00] there's the Canadian equivalent. There's a company called future shop and funnily enough, best buy ended up buying future shop. After I left and they were a hundred store chain, 75 stores in Canada and 25 stores in the U S I was on the distribution side, selling a hundred million dollars worth of computer equipment.

For resale to future shop on, on a yearly basis. So I had a team of 30 people. I was traveling around North America. I was in the air 200 days a year solving problems and, and, and putting together marketing programs. So it was, it was, it was a lot of fun, but during that time, my wife and I got married, we got married.

And what was it late? You know, was it December 96? We got married in December 96 and we looked at each other and we had this divorce waiting to happen. And they were nice enough to, to buy me out. And it got me out of the computer business, had got me out of traveling and got me into marketing. And, and you know what?

It was one of those [00:52:00] you fall, you fall into situations and this, this was a great, it was a great situation to fall into and talk about that journey of recognizing. This isn't long-term sustainable, you know, like you have to have your priorities, right? Because some people thrive off the hunt and then they lose sight of their family.

So what was it, how did you guys work through that communication and come to an agreement and then transition out? I think I just realized that this wasn't sustainable. It just really wasn't sustainable. It was either I was getting a divorce, you know, and we were married for less than a year at this point in time, or, you know, I was going to be a part of the family and this job had to go and it wasn't, it wasn't even a thought process, you know, there's, there's no job and no money that was worth it at that point in time.

And the fact that, you know, I was literally getting up in the morning and calling down to the concierge, finding out what city I was in. You know, I was, I [00:53:00] was that kind of road warrior. It was, it was George Clooney. It was up in the air. And if, if anybody who's ever lived that as a young single guy, it's a lot of fun.

Yeah, you got a great big expense account. You're a big dog on campus. All the airlines love you. The hotels love you. The car companies love you. You know, you're, you're an important guy, but you know what it wears real thin, real quick. It's you know, that lifestyle living out of a suitcase either. You love it or you don't.

And I know guys that 30 years later still love it. And in God love him there through three wives, you know, and they never done their kids, but they love the love, the lifestyle. And, you know, it's, it's deciding that one thing has to give and you have to decide what's important to you. Now, there are people that have made their, you know, their marriages and their kids in there.

And in that travel last, I don't know any of them, but they're, they're out there, you know, but it certainly wasn't going to be me. Yeah. It's [00:54:00] definitely the minority, sadly, because it's tough. I mean, when you're up. I mean, you're married to the business sometimes and you abandoned your family. So it's good that you saw that before it happened and transitioned out.

So let's do a little recap. Your first life lesson was working for your dad. Then you learn lights left since from cycling. Then you learn life lessons from theater, and then you're over in Israel and then you get this great job opportunity back in Vancouver, and then you're transitioning from there.

Whereas Ben now Ben got into the, you know, into the marketing business. I was luckily enough to, to get dropped into a company that I was there for, Oh God, 10 years until I started my own company. That was a print management firm. And what they had me do is is here is a system. Here's a desk, here's a chair, here's a phone.

Here's some [00:55:00] business cards go out there and do your own thing. Figure out what you do. Go find the business that works for you. Go do the things that you want to do. And since I had this high tech background and I had friends of mine that were in the direct mail business, they basically took me under their wing.

And they said, man, here's, you know, we want you to sell for us. You can sell, you could work for this other company, but we want you to, you'll be able to sell our, you know, our, our services. So, you know, I was able to sell print and direct mail and all those types of things. And for 10 years, really what I did is, you know, I was out there helping companies, mostly in the casino business and the grocery business, do client acquisition and figure out how to use variable, direct mail and how to use data and, and lists in order to build their brand and, and able to engage their customers.

And we were extremely successful. I mean, I had clients that I was getting 40, 45% response rate on direct mail where the average is [00:56:00] five. And it's all based on data and understanding, you know, what, what do the clients really want? You know, what was, what was important to them? What were, do they value? What, you know, why did they find this company valuable to them?

What deal, what motivated them? What got them in the door? What got them talking to other people? And it was, it was a lot of fun to do. You know, and that was really me until, Oh God, 2000. We were talking here probably 2007, 2008. Cause I started your brand market in 2008. So I did this for about 10 years.

And during that time I got involved in promotional marketing you know, mostly in the absolutely custom range. It was the stuff where you sitting there going, okay, You have a client that sits there and goes, we want something that's absolutely unique to us, to our brand that tells our story. That's valuable to our customers and to nobody else.

[00:57:00] And we would help them with the 3d molds and getting things produced offshore and, and all the activations that go with them. So there was a lot of fun in that kind of stuff, and that led to trade show development. And you know, so when social media came in, I got involved in social media, but it's always been about how do you help people communicate in sexual way that they're not being perceived as a commodity and they're rather a brand work.

Love it.

And that's an important question because everybody wants to feel loved and special. So when someone feels like just a piece of meat, it's hard to connect, right? Now a 45% return on direct mail is insane. If anybody's done direct mail, like you been said 5% and I'm thinking in today's market, that's even generous.

I mean, one to 2% is considered standard in this area and 5% is considered a good campaign. So how were you knocking it out of the park at [00:58:00] 45? I first walked into this casino. I signed the nondisclosure and I went behind the closed doors and I sat down at their, at their, at their computers. And I started tapping through their database and start to drool.

And these guys are going, what they got. You have no idea what you have here. Do you know what, you know, how long have you guys had players cards for your, for all, everybody in the casino, but five years now you've had players card data on these people for five years. Yeah. So you have a five-year history.

Of some people have, when they came in, what they played, how long they played, how much they won, how much they lost, how often they came in, who they came in with when their anniversary is when their birthday is et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And the answer was, yes. I said, the [00:59:00] first thing we're doing is we're creating a birthday card program.

They said what I said, what we're going to do is we're going to invite people down for their birthday, depending on how much money that they spend, they're going to get it. Especially when the Canadian dollar is worth 60 cents to the U S dollar. If you spend a dollar Canadian, we'll give you a dollar us.

So if you, if you were a big spender, if you spend a hundred dollars Canadian, you got a hundred dollars. U S if you were a medium player, you got 50 for 50. So we've matched the ad based on what your average spend was. So these guys were getting $20 for free for every 50 that they spent. Well, not only did we invite them down, but we invited all the people that they normally play down with.

And we also gave everybody who came down free cake. And if you came down on your birthday, you got it. Or during your birthday, my, if you got a free lunch, so not only are we having them to come down, we're [01:00:00] getting them to come down with their posse and they're all getting cake he's going to get, or she is getting free lunch.

And you know, not everybody's playing blackjack. Some people are playing the slot machine. Some people are playing your roulette. Some people are playing this and the money is just coming in left right. And center because all of a sudden, you're not only just getting this person to come in for their birthday, they're coming in with their posse.

So this lasted, I think we lasted this project for about four or five years. And, you know, month after month, year after year, this thing just making money after money after money. And it was, it was one of the most incredible things I've ever done. And it was all based on understanding. Why do people come in your, or, you know, what motivates them?

You know, what, what makes your brand special? Because this was an out of the way casino. This was a for somebody living [01:01:00] in Canada and driving the States, forget the border, which could be 20 minutes. It could be an hour. It could be an, the evidence, another from their house to the casino. It could be another 45 minutes.

So it could be somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour, hour, half drive for people to come down to this casino and stuff. We were setting 50,000 of these things a month. We were getting about 20,020 2000 people coming in. Yeah. Every single month with their friends. Yeah, that is insane. Return on investment.

So I'm sure they're very happy with you. We did. All right. I mean, the challenge, the challenge was at the very end and I'll tell this story and then I'll let you go. Is that unfortunately the director of marketing got caught with his finger in the cookie jar and we got called in and everybody that he had hired got called in the same day and we all [01:02:00] got let go the same day.

And they said it has nothing to do with you. We know you weren't on the take, but unfortunately we have to let everybody go. That's a tough break. They just wanted to get a clean sweep and start over from a PR point of view from a legal point of view. I totally got it. I totally understood, you know, it killed me.

You know, it killed me, but what were you going to do? There's nothing you could do about it. It was, it was because somebody else got greedy because they had their finger in the cookie jar because they were taking bribes. They you know, they ruined it for everybody. And at that particular time, there was no argument that I could make that was going to change their mind.

Yeah. And then America and Canada bribing is illegal and some countries are listening. It's not illegal. It's just part of everyday life. But I'm actually shocked. They were taking bribes in the casino. Cause there's usually other forces [01:03:00] besides the government and in play and it's kinda risky. So yeah, that's the risky.

So where'd you go after that? What's the next step journey? I had a really good run working, you know, within this company and you'll at the end of 10 years, it was getting to a point where it was evident that the guy that owned the company was getting ready to retire. And when it was going to happen, how it was going to happen, you know, under what terms it was going to happen.

I had no idea and he had no desire to sell the business to me and that's fine, but I figured it was time to go out on my own. And so January, 2008, I walked into his office and said, you know what? It's been a great 10 years. I thank you for everything, but I'm out. And, and, you know, right in the, you know, the teeth of the recession, if I don't know now what I know, and then I might've held on, but you know, I just, I walked in the door and I emailed all my clients and said, [01:04:00] look, same, you know, same great service brand new name and 80 to 90% of my clients followed me out the door.

And they were very loyal to me and they took care of me and I took care of them. And for the next couple of years, as the economy went South. Yeah, we, we, we did some neat things together to say, okay, the budgets are half of what they were before. Great. What can we do with the money that we have? And it wasn't whining.

It wasn't complaining. It was like, Oh, well you always use to spend that kind of money. Come on. You can find the money somewhere. They didn't have it. So all I could do was help them survive and help them market and communicate with the budget that they had. And because I did that, I built some really good loyalty to some of my clients.

And some of those people are still with me today, you know, 15 years later, 14 years later you know, they're, they're still with me. They, and then talk about [01:05:00] where are you at today? Like, what are you doing? I see behind you, what's your story, your brand marketing. Let's talk about that. Well, your brand marketing was always the concept of deal over the years, the business morphed.

Into understanding that until we understand the brand and we, till we can understand who you are, what you are, what you're doing, there's nothing we can do to market you. And I really, over the years focused on how do we get companies to understand their true value and who they're valuable to. And over the years, that has morphed, not only to branding companies externally, but branding them internally as well.

Because if your employees don't understand the story, if they don't understand where you came from, where you are, what makes you important, who you're important to, how they matter and what the vision is moving forward. They're not going to walk on coals for you. They're not going to walk on those hot coals.

And my [01:06:00] job is to help companies, you know, get to their employees to that point where they want to walk on hot coals. And so that's where really what the focus is. And it's led to a lot of leadership development, a lot of internal communication, a lot of brand development, a lot of brand storytelling. But the big thing that we do is podcasting and I've been podcasting for years.

My podcast, the, your living brand.live show has been on for four years during COVID I created a podcast that ended up turning into a book. You know, my second book is called leading beyond a crisis, a conversation about what's next. The first book is powerful, personal brands, a hands-on guide to understanding yours.

But what we do is we help companies understand how to podcast successfully and help them build the strategy because 60% of podcasts, they never make it past 10 episodes. And the reason is they don't understand the process of creating a podcast. [01:07:00] Why are they doing the podcast to begin with? Who is it for?

What are you trying to tell these people and why should they care? And it's, it's really as a process. And that's really where a lot of our focus is today is helping our clients tell their own story effectively. And podcasting is a huge media, how we do it. And is there an industry or type of company or organization that you see the most success?

Yeah, we've worked mostly with B2B companies, usually mid to large sized companies. So probably starting in the $50 million Mark and it's companies that are going through change. No, usually companies that are going through some type of change, mergers, acquisitions you know, large growth within the company.

You know, grandparents transitioned the company to grandchildren, lots of different things where there's flux in the company. There is reason to communicate effectively. And that's where a [01:08:00] podcast can really be helpful because especially if you're dealing with companies with multiple locations across different States, dents different countries, even different floors it allows people to know what the left hand is, you know, talking to the right hand.

Cause there are so many companies that are so siloed. People have no idea what the other divisions or the other offices are doing and therefore stuff gets duplicated that never should. Yeah, I've heard so many horror stories where there's large companies bidding on the same contract. And one side didn't know what the other side was doing.

They exactly bidding against each other two different divisions, both bidding for the same contract and not, not a clue that either one was doing it. I mean, this is going back years ago. I used to do a lot of work for for health authorities and smoking cessation, alcohol awareness and drug addiction.

And I, you know, this is a 20,000 member health [01:09:00] authority, and I went to four different offices or three different offices in that day. And all of a sudden I'm in the third office and I go, I've heard this conversation before these two different, you know, things that all, they're all trying to do a very similar thing and they have a limited budget.

I said said, do you know so-and-so and do you know so-and-so? No, I don't know why, but hang on a second. Do you have a way to conference call? It said, okay. So I got both of the groups I talked to earlier that day on a conference call introduced all these groups together, and we were able to create a program that was extremely significant because all of a sudden we have the budget of three different departments to make it happen.

So it's amazing what happens when organizations have a central repository of information and they can listen to each other and understand what's going on. You'll even throughout the company. Yeah. And you've mentioned this several times throughout the podcast is finding a solution, right? Not [01:10:00] attacking a problem, but finding a solution.

Describe how it doesn't matter if it's your personal life on a physical scale, or if it's a fortune 100 company, describe that solution process. Like how can someone learn? Yeah. Yeah. You know, the first thing you need to realize that there is no one solution to any problem. There are probably multiple solutions.

And depending on who you are, what your experience is, what your upbringing, what, which, you know, what brought you to this point in time, you'll probably gravitate to one solution rather than the other, but that doesn't mean that your solution is the only solution or it's the best solution or the most elegant solution.

The best solutions are usually found when people talk to one another, you know, when people sit there and say, okay, this is where we are. This is where we want to be. How do we get there? How do we get there? How do we bridge this? [01:11:00] And be able to bring people into a room that are probably smarter than you are in very specific areas and say, okay, how do we affect this?

How do we bring the collective mind to bear. To be able to solve this problem. And that's where the real skill is. That's what a real true leader does. A real true leader realizes that their, their job is not to be the smartest person in the room. Their job is not to know everything. Their job is not to solve every problem.

Their job is to enable and empower others, to be able to work together, to be able to find the most elegant solution possible that is going to do the most good for the most people. And that's what a good leader does is to be able to bring all these forces to bear, to be able to make things happen. And I think that that's what true leadership does.

And that's what problem solving does is to sit there and say, okay, we could go under this. We could go over this. We could go around it to the left. We could go [01:12:00] right into the right. We can go through it, which is the best way. What's going to have the least damage, which is the one that's going to be the most elegant.

And what's the one's going to allow us to solve our problems. Most effectively. It may not be the easiest solution, but what's the one that's going to allow us to reach our goal more effectively. Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of people struggle in leadership at one of the worst corporate decisions you can make is taking like the top sales person at the top producer and making them a manager or a leader, because that usually is the wrong skillset.

Right. But a lot of people who get put in leadership positions, they struggle with allowing others to do things and to delegate. How do you, what advice do you have for those people listening now where it's like, they feel like it's their responsibility. How do we have them experience the paradigm shift for understanding that yes, you're in the leadership role.

[01:13:00] But you're not to do at all. How would you speak to them? I mean, entire course on how to do this, but you got three seconds, man. Yeah. Okay. So that's perfect. Yeah, we can do that. The trick is, is to enable people to understand, first of all, the Peter principle, I think is probably the, the best place to begin because most people I say, okay, who can define the Peter principle and most people have no idea.

What I'm talking about. The Peter principle is we usually promote people to their highest level of incompetence. It's exactly what you're saying about the sales person, becoming the sales manager. It's a different skillset just because you're a good tactician, just because you're really good at doing a job doesn't mean that you have the skillset to motivate coach, to inspire teach other people how to do that same job and get the best out of them.

You are far better to look at the person who is the consensus builder [01:14:00] within the team and make them the leader. You know, the people that allow for good leadership that become great leaders are the ones that sit there going. It's not about me. It's about we, it's the people that sit there and say, it's about the corner office.

It's about the, the pay bump. It's about the title. You know, those are not leaders. Those people are not leaders. Those are people that are, you know, that are power brokers. And there's a big difference between being a leader and a power broker. And you see it, you know, from all the way from mid-level managers, all the way up to the C-suite and everything in between the trick is to get a group of people together and teach people from the beginning.

It says, look, you hired great people. Allow them to be great. No, your job is not to be the smartest person in the room. There are lots of things in this world that you're absolutely dumb at. In fact, you're dumb at more things than your smart at most [01:15:00] people are. I certainly and I think, I think that we need to get people out of the head, that they need to know everything.

They need to be all knowing they have to be all wise and they have to make all the decisions out there. And it's teaching people that, you know, the best way to start this process is when people come to your office, make the solution that they have to walk in the door with two solutions. If you have a problem, walk into my office with two solutions, let's talk about them.

I may take one. I may take the other, I may take a hybrid of both. I may take neither, but at least you're enabling people to think for themselves. At least you're allowing people the opportunity to sit there and say, you know what? I've got a problem. Here are two different ways we can fix it. What do you think.

And you're empowering your people. And that's what you need to do as a leader is to wake up every morning and say, how do I make my team better? Both individually and collectively, [01:16:00] how do I give the people that are part of my team, the tools that they need to succeed. And when you can drill that into a leader's head, they stopped being all about themselves and they start being about the team.

And that's when the magic happens. Right? Exactly. Yeah. Wow. So you've, we've covered a lot of ground today and we've come, we're approaching where's Ben today. And where are you going? Is there anything we missed in your story up to this point to make sure that the listener gets everything they need to move forward in their lives?

I don't think so. I mean, there, there are, you know, always nooks and crannies. There's always, you know, holes that you've fallen down that you've found a way out of, but the overarching person that I am is someone that sits there and goes, how do you help other people be the best that they can be? And that's how do you help people communicate [01:17:00] more effectively?

How do you get them to listen, to understand and value other people? And that's what my life has really been about. So, you know, if people take that away, they've really figured out the first 51 years of my life. Awesome. So now where's the rest of your life going? Where are you headed? Ben? You know what, for me, what really excites me at least for the next five to 10 years until the technology changes again is podcasting.

It's enabling people to tell their story effectively. And it's, it's looking as in, it's not just podcasts, it's, it's enabling that, you know, that story to be told and letting people understand that it's not just the mission, vision value statement, you know, that are written on the wall that nobody remembers and nobody lives, but a true brand story that incorporates those.

But that could be internalized recalled and retold. And podcasting is a wonderful way of doing that because what it is, it's a motive. [01:18:00] When, when people are listening to this podcast, they'll listen to the stories and they'll recall certain things based on the stories and how it, how it measures up in their lives.

People say, Oh yeah, right. Yeah. I, I, I I was, I was a cyclist in my youth or I played golf in my youth, or I understand that because of basketball or, you know, there's things that they can gravitate to and say, okay, I can relate to this. I may not know exactly what they've done, but I can, I can relate it to this.

And therefore I can make it part of my life. Podcasting allows companies to do that. It allows you to have an emotional connection with your audience in a way that allows them to believe in you, trust you and want to be loyal to you. And you're not going to be everything to everybody, and you're not going to have a million listeners, and you're not going to be that person that, you know, that is on the, on the cereal box.

There's very, very few of those. What you're going to be is you're going to be important to a group of people that find you valuable. And that's what [01:19:00] people need to realize. And that's really where I want to go and teach people and help them and mentor them and coach them and even do it for them, how to, how to be a, how to be a great podcast or, and there's a lot of business owners right now listening, and they don't even understand fully the impact of podcasting to them.

It's just a recreational event. Talk about the power of it. Cause like, you know, there's some leaders who do a great job of their company, but for instance, they don't understand investing in the growth, like continuing education or their people. They're afraid if they invest in their people, the people will leave.

So with podcasting, like you said, you don't need a million listeners that math doesn't add up in a lot of people's mind explain the power and the beauty of podcasting and what a return on investment. It can bring most companies, you know, there's lots of different ways to look at return on investment or podcasting.

You know, there are [01:20:00] people I know, and myself included that have a lot of guests that either become influencers of their brand. Or are people that are, could be potential clients. I mean, that's, that's a great way to get ROI for your, to get insights on, on a potential client. You sit down and you interview them.

You find out all about them on a podcast. And then a couple of weeks later, you start that and have a real conversation about how to do business together. That's great ROI. You know, it builds trust, heal 70% or 80% of the people that, that look at your social media posts or listen to your podcasts. I think don't engage with you.

They're listing, they're stocking, they're checking you out. They're figuring you out. They're seeing do you add value to them? You know, by the time they actually get into your sales funnel, they're probably 65 to 70% way through the funnel already. They've already been there. What podcasting does is it gives ongoing, consistent content to people that care about you that are [01:21:00] interested in what you're interested in talking about and gives them reason to sit there and say, Oh, Wait a second.

Okay. That makes sense. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Oh, wait a second. Okay. Maybe I should give them a call and it's thought long tail marketing. The beautiful thing about a podcast is it's not just a podcast. You take the transcription of the podcast. It becomes a, it becomes a post. It becomes an article. It becomes a white paper.

You take that same podcast and it can become, you know, Instagram posts and LinkedIn, Facebook tweets, whatever. You can sit there and create an images with means there's so many different things that you can take that podcast and it can become. And becomes your entire marketing content for an entire year.

It's all taking that information and using it as a content machine. And the great thing about it is say you've got 500 employees. You provide them with pieces of content that are on brand that are on message that tell the [01:22:00] story, you give it to them and they put it on their social media platforms. So not only have you put it on your corporate social media, but your employee is turn around and they share it on theirs.

And guess what? If you've got 500 employees and they each have a thousand people, that's 500,000 still potential views. That's enormous way bigger than your social media, your corporate social media get lever B. So it's a matter of enabling your people, giving them tools and empowering them to help you tell your story for you and a podcast.

If done correctly. Does that, and it provides you with great insights. It provides you with, you know, valuable listeners, people that share your material. There is, there are so many different things that a podcast can do for you that, you know, it's just, it's mine. Yeah. I mean, I'm a big supporter of podcasts.

Like I said, I have the remarkable people podcast that you're on today as a [01:23:00] ministry, we have the podcasting made easy class and we're in, I think we're in over 30 countries now all across the U S I love podcasting, whether you're a hobbyist or for professional growth. And like you said, I've had nothing but great experiences made friends, made business connections, you know, got to see people's stories that, you know, their lives have been impacted positively.

So if you're listening to this episode and you're a business owner, you know, talk to Ben, talk to me and we'll, we'll, we're gonna point you in the right direction. If this podcast is the right fit for you. Okay. Now what's your next goal, Ben, you know, the Bible says where there's no vision, the people perish, but happy is the man, you know, what's your next goal?

Where are you headed? The next thing I'm hoping to get back on stage. I truly am. I truly miss it. I miss being on stage, you know March, 2020, I had speaking gigs in Australia, in Europe, in the Caribbean, across the United States. And they were all wiped out and [01:24:00] in less than three days, you know, it was all gone in three days.

And you know, that's reality. That's that had nothing to do with me that had nothing to do with my clients that had nothing to do with, I was in the situation to COVID and I hope that one day to be able to get back on stage and be able to have those wonderful relationships because to me, you know, as much fun as it is.

For you and I to sit here, you know, over zoom and have a conversation and do that, that live one-on-one of shaking people's hands of giving people's hugs and of signing copies of my book and talking to people and finding out their wants needs, desires, and the aspirations that, you know, having those questions come in from the audience and watching people's eyes light up and walk out going, wow, that was really cool.

I love that. And you know what, it's a magical experience and being part of the conference and teaching and learning [01:25:00] live. I truly, absolutely miss it. And I can't wait to be able to do it again. And it will probably be 2022, you know, late 20, 22 or before or after, before that happens again. But you know what.

Time marches on. So you, all you can do is just, is just be patient and keep doing what you're doing and building your, your business. And when it's time to go back on stage, you know, in front of those nice large audiences and, and, and be able to have that experience again, I welcome it. Yeah. And there, there is, there's a energy and a life to being on stage.

And some people love it. Some people are afraid of public speaking, but if God's built you for that role, you do thrive in it. And there's a difference between watching a video and being there, and there's pros and cons to both. So I'm vibing with you, man. I know exactly what you're talking about. Even just like you said, podcasting, we recorded a session yesterday.

We had five, six guys [01:26:00] around a bonfire last night, and one of my friends is one of the most just he's got. Some of the most interesting stories I've ever heard in my life. And they're true. So I'm like, dude, you to tell them the aircraft carrier story and we pull out the camera, mic them up and we're going to make a fireside chat podcast out of it.

But that personal connection, just being there, it's so much more powerful at least emotionally. So I'm glad you mentioned that so well, how can we help you bang? How can we help Ben? We're like, we know you want to get back on stage, but in the interim, where can we as a listener, thank you for how you've helped us today and shared so much knowledge and how can we help you get to your next goal?

The best thing is to do is if everybody is sitting there looking at, they want to start a corporate podcast, they have no idea where to start. They don't have the talent, they don't have the experience. And they're just looking to sit there and say, how do I fix this? How do I, how do I get involved in this process?

You know, [01:27:00] have them get in touch with me the best way to do that is through podcast host for hire. Dot com that's podcast host for hire.com and you know, there's all the information is there and we can, we can help you strategically. We can help you with the, with the actual production, the post-production, we can even voice the podcast for you.

If you don't have somebody that can host it right away and be able to train somebody within your company to take over, it's a matter of going, what do you need? What's what's going to make you shine. What's going to enable you to succeed. And that's, that's where I am right now. And those are the people I want to help.

Awesome. And we'll put a link to your podcast, to your books. We'll put that on the show notes. So if you're listening write down what Ben said. If you're watching the video on YouTube, you know, it's in the background on the draw on this, the backdrop, but over there, but we'll also put in the show notes or [01:28:00] check out those show notes notes.

Ben, before we go, is there anything else we missed in your story or any final words for our audience? Yeah. My final words to everybody are we need to communicate more effectively. We need to care about people. We need to be more human and humane, you know, just because somebody disagrees with you doesn't make them wrong.

It means that they have a different opinion. It means that they have a different experience. It means that they came from a different place and learn things in a different way. And the more curious we can be about other humans, we don't have to agree with them. But at least understand why they believe what they believe, the more effective coma conversations we can have and the better off we're all going to be.

So that's the one thing I leave everybody with, please be curious about each other care about April, you know, sit there and learn about each other. And just because, you know, they don't believe what you believe and you don't, you don't believe what they believe. That's [01:29:00] okay. You'll because that's what makes us better is, is be able to move beyond that and be able to find common ground.

I think that is well said, and I think that's tremendously important of all time, but especially in our day and age, people are going crazy. I believe personally, there's one race, the human race, and people have lost their minds. Yeah. There's different regions and nations and cultures, but man, we're all one.

So we got to start living like it. Right. I agree. Yeah. So Ben, you are a remarkable mind. I thank God you were here today. It was a pleasure being here and again to our listeners. If you want to reach out to Ben, check out the show notes, check out his podcast website, and if you need anything Ben in the future, please let us know.

And then to our listeners, like I said, reach out to me, reach out to Ben. If you have any questions, if you want to continue the conversation. And if you're a large organization looking to maybe explore, having a podcast to build your brand, communicate [01:30:00] your message. Talk to Ben. Ben, thank you, my friend for being here.

Hey Dave, that time went so quick. Thanks for being such an amazing host and I appreciate you having me on the show. Oh, it's a pleasure. And thank you for being so patient that it actually happened. So I'm David . Our remarkable guest today is Ben Baker and we wish you only the best, like our slogan says don't just listen to Ben's great knowledge.

But do it, repeat it so you can have a great life. We love you and we'll see you next week. Ciao. .