Episode 1061: Invest in Others - Interview with Coach and Author of Speak with Confidence Mike Acker – Part 2

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining us on episode 1060, one of the inspired stewardship

[00:00:05] Mike Acker: podcast. I'm Mike Acker. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to respond well to life is key.

[00:00:21] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.

[00:00:30] It's not actually about you. I love to say this. When you get all wrapped up in yourself, you make a pretty small package. So how can you find ways to get out there? And it probably is going to be something small first from some soccer. I used to do that or go to the nursing home and do some reading or.

[00:00:49] Serve and sign up for serve day in a local organization or church near you. You just find something to do for someone else.

[00:00:57] Scott Maderer: Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the [00:01:00] inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your.

[00:01:10] For your true color in the inspired stewardship podcast, we'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:23] In today's interview with Mike Aker, I asked Mike to share with you some of the seven strategies he shared. On how to conquer fear. Mike also shares a bit about what all six of his books are about. And I asked Mike to share with you his best advice. If you

[00:01:41] Mike Acker: want to pour

[00:01:42] Scott Maderer: into others, one reason, I like to bring you great interviews.

[00:01:46] Like the one you're going to hear today is because of the power in learning from others. Another great way to learn from others is through reading books. But if you're like most people today, you find it hard to find the [00:02:00] time to sit down and read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible.

[00:02:05] Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And instead of reading, you can listen your way to learn from some of the greatest minds out there. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast.

[00:02:33] Mike Acker is an executive and communication coach, a keynote speaker and the Arthur of four books, including the best-selling speak with no fear, which has appeared on numerous book list, even getting designated as the number one book on overcoming fear of speaking on forums.com. Mike passionately coaches, business professors.

[00:02:55] To lead and speak with confidence in presentations, he [00:03:00] entertains and inspires audiences using stories of growing up as the sun to drug smugglers, who later turned missionaries. He retails and relates lessons learned on how to overcome insecurity and exclusion in a cross cultural setting. And he unpacks the path from employee to manager.

[00:03:20] Mike also enjoys rock climbing, wake surfing, skiing church, building Legos with his son and going on dates with his wife. Taylor, Mike believes in the power of prayer, exercise, journaling, and real community to counter the stresses of everyday life. Welcome to the show, Mike.

[00:03:39] Mike Acker: Great to be here, Scott. I'm looking forward to talking with you over the next couple of weeks.

[00:03:43] Scott Maderer: As a coach who works with people in speaking and leadership and other sorts of positions. One of the things that you talk about is strategies to conquer fear. And one of them that you have is called. It's not about us. Can you [00:04:00] talk a little bit about what that is and why that's important to us? And again, it could be important in speaking.

[00:04:05] It could be important in. Even just in our own lives. How does that, what does that really mean for us? Absolutely.

[00:04:14] Mike Acker: So last time I was talking about the strategy UVU, and it's very interesting that these two are almost next to each other and my book speak with no fear. You'll be used all about you becoming more of who you are.

[00:04:26] And we talked even about three words that lead to that. And then it's not about us though, is where you say, okay, I want to learn how to be me. But I'm not going to do it just for me. I'm going to be the best version of myself. So I can be that for others. If you think about a team, you want to be a fantastic basketball player, for example, but you want to be the best basketball player, not just for yourself and not just so you feel comfortable in your own shoes, but you also want to benefit the team.

[00:04:54] Now, when it comes to speaking, you want to beat yourself so that you don't distract from others. [00:05:00] Here's what happened when you tuned into the podcast today? You did not think. I wonder how Scott's doing. I wonder who Scott's going to bring on what, I'm going to download the podcast and listen to the podcast today, just to show my support for Scott.

[00:05:16] And there might be one or two or three people that just.

[00:05:19] And they're like, Hey, I just want to support Scott, but the majority of people are going, I'm going to tune into inspired stewardship for myself. And I hope that the guest today does something dead because I don't want to waste my time learning something stupid or something. Otherwise I'll just turn it off.

[00:05:35] So what does that mean? When we tune into something, whether it's a sermon, a podcast, a book, if we don't feel like it's benefiting us, we will leave. In fact, when we go to college and we go to a class, if we don't feel like it benefits us, we have a hard time checking in and we're more likely to check out if we don't feel like we get something from it, we move to the back of the [00:06:00] class and then we'll try to get something out of it on our own, or we'll just try, we'll take a bad grade.

[00:06:05] So what means that the communicator is not that important in so much as the communication. Is teaching and helping and serving people. I have some clients later on that are meeting today and we always start with some pleasantries and they're all kind people. So they do care about me in that sense, but none of them scheduled the call to give me money.

[00:06:28] None of them scheduled the call to make me feel like I was a good coach. They scheduled the call for themselves. That means that there's a lot less pressure on. Because if they tuned in and I'm thinking, man, this person, what needs to be impressed by me and I need to show them how awesome I am. Then also there's a lot of pressure on me to perform and to perform well, but really.

[00:06:52] It's not about that. So long as they feel like I helped them and it got them to achieve what they need to [00:07:00] achieve. That means I'm successful. So when you get into a room when you're presenting updates or quarterly updates or KPIs or whatever it is that you're presenting new specifications on a technical product, nobody cares about you.

[00:07:17] They only care that what you tell them is going to help them. Remember when you were in eighth grade, ninth grade as while back now, but you'd go into that room. And nowadays schools have learned that ninth graders and eighth graders don't really want to dance as much. But back when I was living in Mexico, I, there was a lot of quinceaneras and still in ninth grade, I would go into the ballroom and there'd be a couple of hundred teenagers.

[00:07:43] And all the girls would be on one side of the room and all the guys would be on one side

[00:07:47] room.

[00:07:48] Mike Acker: And early on, I realized that everybody was thinking about the same thing. What do people think about me? Do they like my suit? They like my dress. Did they like my hair? Do I smell? Okay? Do they like my shoes? [00:08:00] Am I going to look okay when I dance, will people like me?

[00:08:03] If I go over there while she rejected me and see all the pronouns are me and I, and me and I, and early on in my buddy, Ricardo, and I realized that the girls were very nervous, that guys went down. Especially the quinceanera. She had to dance with guys. And so the girls would get very insecure because they would dance with their dad, but the dance with family members.

[00:08:23] And then there was an open time where they got to dance with their friend, guys. And sometimes a friend would not approach to dance for a long time because all the guys were thinking, what will they think about me? Will she want to dance with me? Will I do. And so my friend and I realized that nobody was thinking about us.

[00:08:40] In fact, in any situation, rarely is anybody thinking about you because they're too busy thinking about themselves. So if you, as in this case, a dancer can go out there and just help them and make them feel good. Hey, you look beautiful, let's dance. And then you begin that, that, that trend [00:09:00] of all the rest of people dancing with them.

[00:09:01] Great. Or if you's a presenter you going into. People don't care what I'm thinking, saying people don't care. They just want me to do a good job with the updates. They just want me to present the information I need to, they just want to teach me the sales product or want me to teach them the sales product that I need to, the moment you get out of your mind, that it's about.

[00:09:20] The moment you have less pressure on. So it's a fantastic leadership. It's fantastic communication principle. And I hope that everybody here even embraces that and just says, how am I, what I, how is what I'm doing today about someone else instead of me

[00:09:34] Scott Maderer: It reminds me, and I don't remember the movie, but there's a movie where there's a very selfish.

[00:09:41] Character. And she's talking to her friend and she's basically talking to you all about herself and talking about how this and that and the other, all she's talking about is herself. And finally, she says, let's change the topic and talk about you. What do you think of me?

[00:09:56] That's not talking about, but it is, [00:10:00] we do have that tendency in our own head to think it is about us. We're the center of the spotlight. Like you said usually most people aren't thinking about you, even if you're at the person at the front of the room on the stage, they're still really not thinking about you quite frankly.

[00:10:16] Mike Acker: Absolutely. Absolutely. There, there are some situations like some people will go there just for that person. And those are the super charismatic, like Tony Robbins people, some people tune in and follow a Tony Robins type personality, just because they're wowed by that

[00:10:34] Scott Maderer: charismatic leader. Yeah.

[00:10:36] Mike Acker: But even then, they're hoping that they're going to get something.

[00:10:40] 'cause even if they're just going to I'm just going to support you. I'm gonna give you my money for these events. They're still going. Yeah. But I hope I get something even in the extreme cases where in some cases it is about that person, even then you're still wanting something for you.

[00:10:55] Scott Maderer: And usually even then they are.

[00:10:58] If they continue to [00:11:00] repeat the behavior and go to, and I know people that have gone to 30, 40, 50 Tony Robbins events whatever it is and using him as a great example, they continue to do it because they continue to get value from it. It's not. They're usually not just going, because Tony's there, they're going because they continue to get value from it.

[00:11:22] They get energy from it. They get they come back from that weekend and they're all fired up, and if you talk to them, all they want to talk about is all the stuff that happens at the event. They're getting a value from it. And that makes sense too. Yeah,

[00:11:36] Mike Acker: absolutely.

[00:11:37] Absolutely.

[00:11:39] Scott Maderer: So you have six books out, I think, speak with no fear, right? To speak lead with no fear and grow your soul and then connect through emotional intelligence. And then the one that just came out, speak with competence. Can you, for folks that we talked a little bit about a few of those books last week, but could you give us a one.

[00:11:58] Senate snippet of [00:12:00] what are each of those books about or why someone might want to pick them up what problem does the book solve for them? So this week,

[00:12:07] Mike Acker: right? Absolutely. So speak with no fear, which is in the second edition and has over 600 ratings for the first edition. And it's all over the place.

[00:12:16] Speak with no fear is strategies that you can take, pick and choose which ones help you. So they can overcome that nervousness in the moment and lesson ease, erase some of the fear that. To speak as a simple guide to create a presentation. Maybe you are a best man or maid of honor, or you want to honor an employee, or you just don't know how to create a presentation.

[00:12:39] And so there's very simple guide for you to go ahead and do that. They would know fear is about small shifts that you can take really, to personally change yourself. So you're leading with greater inspiration, clarity, and coffee. So in the same vein of speak with no fear, we go through seven different shifts.

[00:12:58] I co-wrote that with [00:13:00] an incredible executive coach named Steve guts, our grow your soul comes from my time as a pastor and actually wrote it when I was in my twenties. And there's just devotional daily thoughts that people can do. And really I had written it for years and then I left the pastorate and I got to a spot where I said, I don't even want to go to church anymore.

[00:13:20] Yeah, I was just in that spot of my soul. My soul was tired and weary. And so I went back and read the writings that I had written and I was able to just actually encourage myself by listening to my younger self. Sometimes we need the voice of enthusiasm connect through emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the number one indicator of success.

[00:13:41] It's not your technical skills. It's not your education. It's how you can relate with people. It's why people can move up in the world with seemingly having no ability to really do what they do. And it's amazing. If you can connect with people [00:14:00] then you can advance and you can further yourself in so many ways.

[00:14:04] A lot of people have incredible education expertise, a lot of technical skills, a lot of intelligence. They don't actually get that. If they don't have that people skill. So emotion, intelligence is all about that. And both of that book leave no fear and speak with no fear have workbooks that are quite extensive as well, especially the co connected emotional intelligence.

[00:14:24] And then actually I have another book called speak and meet virtually that released in October. And it's about really how to go from zoom, fatigue, and boredom to really be engaged. And talk about four different words to do and then speak with confidence is really my framework for all of this. So if I would say pick one book, I'd say connect or sorry, speak with confidence and not only speaking, but it's going to take you through three areas.

[00:14:49] It's going to help you executive presence and a leader. And in your communication, and it's going to take you through who you are as a speaker, really, who you are as a person, what you say, what you [00:15:00] think, how you process your thoughts for others, and then how you do it. And so altogether 10 books, including my workbooks here as of 2022, and I'm still writing more.

[00:15:11] Scott Maderer: That's awesome. I'm actually in the process of writing my first book as this is coming live so that I started. Late last year. So in that stage of actually trying to get a book out knowing a little bit about how hard it is I acknowledge the magnet. You have so many out there because it's public speaking is tough leading and stuff.

[00:15:36] So it was writing a book. It turns out what do you know. Yep.

[00:15:40] Mike Acker: Absolutely. Absolutely. And for anybody who wants to be an influencer who wants to get their ideas out there, or just, you feel like you have something to share, I encourage you to do it. And so I actually am part of a small publishing group called advantage publishing group.

[00:15:53] And we help people get their ideas out as well.

[00:15:56] Scott Maderer: Yeah, absolutely. Same thing for learning to [00:16:00] communicate and speak. I. I've yet to find a thing that you can do in this world that does not involve communicating with other human beings. I've been looking, but there isn't one that turns out as far as so one of the things that I've seen people struggle with is when maybe they've been working on some of these gifts and you're a coach, I'm a coach.

[00:16:23] People are often called on maybe in a work environment or church environment to, to work with and mentor others. When one of the things that I hear back from people is I'm not ready for that. I can't mentor others. I haven't got enough or I'm not good enough or whatever there's something, some reason why they're unprepared to actually mentor others.

[00:16:46] What advice would you have for folks that feeling that.

[00:16:51] Mike Acker: Yeah, I love that you put this right next to, it's not about you because if you're thinking, what advice do I have? I'm not ready [00:17:00] for that. I can't do that. Then. What pronoun are you using? I and me, and so you're actually thinking, not about them.

[00:17:07] You're thinking about yourself. If you have value that you can give to somebody, then you can do some type of mentoring. What is it that you've done well in what, when you look at your life, what do you appreciate about your life? What do you appreciate about your experiences? What do you appreciate about your education?

[00:17:23] What do you appreciate about the lessons that you've learned and then how can you help others improve in that area that you appreciate? And a great way for you to think about that is what value can you get? So a lot of people don't feel like they're ready to be a parent, but they are 20, either 25 or 30.

[00:17:42] There's some people who are obviously more ready, they have a greater track record, but in the same sense, Yeah. If you are a, at least a decently functioning, humanity, human being, there are some things that you can give. You have some value, you can provide production, you can provide food, you can provide housing, you can provide something.[00:18:00]

[00:18:00] So what is it that you can provide for someone when. Moving back from the United States or back to United States from Mexico. I used to live in Mexico for seven years and I moved back and I got involved in church and I hadn't actually been involved in church for a while. And I got involved in this church.

[00:18:15] And one of the things I really liked about was that there was a constant mutual mentoring and the leader used to say, if you have one thing to share, didn't you can't share it with somebody else to paraphrase him. Now the great thing about this is when I'm mentoring people and I do executive coaching and I do communication coaching.

[00:18:39] And I have these people that come to me that are just extremely good at what they do. Like I have some top athletes and minor celebrities and politicians and business leaders, and it's just, if I thought that it was about me and that I had to have everything. Then no time ever. What I, when I speak to them, cause [00:19:00] I'll.

[00:19:00] Cause in some areas of their life, they are far better than me. They're coming to me in the area that I can provide them. I can ask the right question. So to that question, find out your value. Don't make it about yourself. Don't think that you have to have everything figured out, just bringing those areas that you do now and share those in mentoring and coaching blurs.

[00:19:24] And if you've never done anything, join something like the boys and girls clubs, something, or a church or something, or a school I used to do as a 21 year old go to elementary school and sit in the library and read with a fourth grader who can read. And it was a value I could give. I didn't have everything figured out in life at 21.

[00:19:41] I have a lot to figure out, but I knew how to read and I could show well

[00:19:46] Scott Maderer: and go to the other extreme, go visit a nursing home and read with those folks. Again it's I think sometimes too that I, and again, it is connected to that. It's not about you [00:20:00] mentality because. We think of mentorship as I had to have been there before.

[00:20:07] But there's more to it than that sometimes as well. So I think that's the.

[00:20:11] Mike Acker: I've never run for political office yet. I have politicians, I coach I've never met a multi-billion dollar company. And yet I have several CEOs that I work with in either executive or in leadership communication that are running multi-billion dollar companies.

[00:20:27] When I found that I'm like, oh my gosh, why am I the executive coach? You run this company that is global. And I have several of those. And the huge thing is. I don't have to teach them how to run a company because I've never run that company that size and I never planned to, but I can teach them how to do this or lead with them or ask them the right questions so they can get it out

[00:20:50] Scott Maderer: And I do a lot of business coaching I generally work with small businesses, but what I always tell them is I actually don't need to know.

[00:20:58] I don't need to be an expert in your business. [00:21:00] To be able to coach you about your business. Because as a coach, I'm not supposed to be the expert. I'm the guy I'm helping ask questions and call things out. And yes, I sometimes may have a resource or a tip or something else, but most of it is about helping you get out of your way so that you can do what you need to do.

[00:21:19] And that doesn't, I don't need to know how to run a gym, to be able to talk to a gym owner and help them get out of their own way to run the gym better.

[00:21:26] Mike Acker: Yeah.

[00:21:27] Scott Maderer: So a lot of the folks that are listening, Mike generally feel like they have a calling. They have a direction they have something that God is putting on their heart that they need to live out, but they feel stuck in some way.

[00:21:41] They feel held back from that. Not able to live it out. What would you give them as your top pieces of advice?

[00:21:49] Mike Acker: Yeah, I'd probably give three pieces of advice to the person who feels stuck. First of all, you've got to believe that you can get unstuck because right now there's probably something [00:22:00] going in your mind that says I just can't.

[00:22:01] I just can't. I just can't. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I'll always be. Okay. So going back to what we said on the last episode where we talked about where you are, is not where you have to stay. You have to believe that you can change in order to change. If you believe you can't change, you just won't change.

[00:22:17] So let me just lend you my belief right now and Len you Scott's belief. You can change, you can get unstuck. So that'd be the first thing you have to have this book. Second one is you got to find some kind of community that often what happens is that. Our sins, our weaknesses, our failures, our detriments, all of those happen in isolation.

[00:22:41] And as a result, we then get even more closed in on ourselves and beat ourselves up even more and more. So you need to find that communicate that community. Sometimes it's a paid community. I've gone to pagan. Counseling where you talk to somebody and sometimes people say, oh, it's just so expensive to go to a [00:23:00] counselor or go to a coach.

[00:23:01] And I say, it's more expensive if it's more expensive for you to crash and burn. So get that help get the community beforehand, whether that's even a group of friends and just opening up to them. And maybe you're saying my friends don't understand. So here's a little tip on that. Talk to your friends a little bit about it and give them a snippet.

[00:23:23] And if they're empathize and don't try to solve the issue. And if they then give them some more, I had a friend one time, I opened up with him a little bit about stuff I could see. He was not interested. He was just, he immediately went, oh yeah whatever. And I thought, okay this isn't a friend that I talked to about that.

[00:23:40] Whatever it is that you're stuck in find someone, a community so that you're not doing it alone. Another way to have community podcasts, keep tuning into Scott, get some books, whatever might be serving you. Some of them I've met some of my best mentors. I've never met me.

[00:23:57] Scott Maderer: I've got a list of what I call virtual mentors.

[00:23:59] These are [00:24:00] people that have mentored me through their books, through their podcast and through their speaking. Absolutely. And it's such a huge thing. And then remember the last part is what I've already said actually in this episode is it's not actually about you. I love to say this. When you get all wrapped up in yourself, you make a pretty small package.

[00:24:18] Mike Acker: How can you find ways to get out there? And it probably is going to be something small first coach, some soccer. I used to do that or go to the nursing home or do some reading or serve and sign up for a serve day in a local organization or church near you, but just find something to do for someone else.

[00:24:37] And it's amazing. I love the friends episode where Phoebe learns that. Everything good that we do often makes us feel good too. That's the fundamental thing that there's those selfless act because the joke is there's no selfless act because at the end it makes you feel good, but let's do is you go do something for somebody else and you take that action.

[00:24:58] And the reaction is if [00:25:00] it makes you feel better. So whatever it is, take one of these actions that the step forward, the step out of getting stuck is a step forward, not

[00:25:08] Scott Maderer: backwards. And that becomes a feedback loop too, because. And as you take those small actions, it reinforces the belief that you can change.

[00:25:16] Which then helps you change more, and so it becomes a positive feedback loop as well. As as opposed to the negative feedback loop, which is often where we're stuck, when we're stuck, it's usually because there's a negative feedback loop. You're holding yourself back. Very

[00:25:32] Mike Acker: true.

[00:25:32] Very true.

[00:25:33] Scott Maderer: You can follow them on. Over on Facebook is Mike acker.com. That's all spelled out. M I K E a C K E R D O T C O M. Or find him on LinkedIn is Mike Aker. You could also find out more about him on his website, Mike acker.com. Of course I'll have links to all of this over the show notes as well. Mike, is there anything else that you'd like to share with the listener?[00:26:00]

[00:26:00] Mike Acker: We go back to something I said in the very first. Where you are, is not where you have to say it. Take a moment and write some things about the status quo about your life. Then choose one of those health communication, leadership money. Choose one of those and write down where you want to go. And then backwards track how to get there, where you are, is not where you have to stay.

[00:26:26] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode. Please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate.

[00:26:54] All one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave [00:27:00] a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your. Until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.