Episode 1316: Interview with Nicky Billou about Being a Champion Without Giving Up Your Faith

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining us on episode 1,316 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:08] Nicky Billou: I'm Nikki Billou. 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 recognize that God wants you to win is key.

[00:00:23] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

[00:00:39] There's only two reasons. People under charge. They're under charge cause they really aren't worth it. They don't have the skill cell or they have the skillset, but they don't believe their work. If the first is the case, let's upgrade your skillset. If the second is the case, we've gotta upgrade your belief cuz when you undercharge or hurt your client more than you hurt yourself, you don't make the money.

[00:00:59] You should make no [00:01:00] question, but you hurt your client.

[00:01:02] Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. 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 treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:34] In today's podcast episode, I interview Nicki Belu. I asked Nicki to share his journey from immigrant to successful Arthur and Coach. I also ask Nicki to share with you how moving out of your comfort zone can lead you to your success. And I ask Nicki to share the biggest mistakes we make as Christian business owners and what we can do about it.

[00:01:54] One reason I like to bring you great interviews, like the one you're gonna hear today is because of the power [00:02:00] 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 time to sit down and read, and that's why today's podcast is brought to you by Audible.

[00:02:15] 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.

[00:02:42] Nick Blue is the number one international best-selling author of the book Finish Line Thinking How to Think and Win Like a Champion. The Thought Leaders journal a fable of life and the power of connecting how to activate profitable relationships by serving your network. He's an in-demand and highly [00:03:00] inspirational speaker to corporate audiences.

[00:03:02] He's also an advisor and confidant to some of the most successful and dynamic entrepreneurs in Canada. He is the founder of the eCircle Academy, where he runs a year-long mastermind and educational program, working with coaches, consultants, corporate traders, clinic owners, realtors, mortgage brokers, and other service-based entrepreneurs, positioning them as authorities in their niche.

[00:03:25] He is the creator of the Thought Leader, heart Leader designation As the host of the number one podcast in the world on thought leadership, the Thought Leader Revolution, Nikki has interviewed over 300 of the world's top thought leaders. He's also a Christian immigrant to Canada coming from the Middle East.

[00:03:42] Welcome to

[00:03:42] Nicky Billou: the show, Nikki. Hey brother. Thanks so much for having me on the show, Scott. I'm blessed and grateful to be here.

[00:03:49] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. We're glad to have you here as well. I shared a little bit in the intro intros never contain everything that we have in our life. [00:04:00] Could you talk a little bit more about your journey and how became from where you were and then as an immigrant, and then coming now and being an Arthur, being a coach being someone that helps other people.

[00:04:13] What was that journey like?

[00:04:15] Nicky Billou: Thanks for the question. So I'm actually, as you said, an immigrant originally from the Middle East. I'm a Christian from Iran, and when I was 11 years old, my world got turned upside down because the Islamic Revolution took place in Iran. And my late father, God rest his soul, he could see the writing on the wall.

[00:04:31] This wasn't gonna be a great place to raise his Christian family. And so Dad made a plan, executed it got us out of Iran. And eventually settle us where I now live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Now, at the time I was mad. I was 11, man. I didn't wanna leave my home. I didn't wanna leave my friends. But in retrospect, my father changed the trajectory of our family's legacy.

[00:04:56] He took us from tyranny to freedom, and I'd become a [00:05:00] champion for freedom because of what my father did. I believe in freedom and free expression and free enterprise. Inside every human breast beats the living heart of freedom. And right now we got dark forces in the world that are trying to take some of our freedoms away.

[00:05:14] And that's why I stand for freedom more than ever. And those people that say, oh my God, America's so so awful, so oppressive, so racist. So it's are you kidding me? Go to Iran try saying that stuff over there. They're gonna hang you by the toes until you die. And then they're gonna drop you in a deep, dark hole and they're gonna give your family a bill for killing you.

[00:05:36] That's how it works. Okay, so you are lucky that you get to live in the greatest country on the face of the earth. The most tolerant, the most free. We're all lucky. Is it perfect? No, but it's the best There is the best there ever was, and we have got to understand that. Now, my father, he was a champion for freedom.

[00:05:53] He was an entrepreneur. My dad, if he knew you, you were looking for work. Scott. He makes some [00:06:00] calls and get you a job. If he knew you, Scott, and you were trying to start a business, He would help you get that business off the ground. If he knew you, you were looking for money because you didn't quite have enough to buy a car, a house, an apartment, he would top you up.

[00:06:13] So you could buy that car, that house, that apartment. Yes sir, he would. Now, who does that? The Lake Great Napoleon balloon for one. Why would he do such a thing? Because he was a devout Christian and he believed he'd been blessed by God Almighty, and it was his role as a Christian. To share those blessings with others.

[00:06:35] But he also did it because he could, he was successful. Every single day and I thank God for my father, for making me a Christian. And I got my Bible here with me and every day I read inside of my Bible. And I think it's important for a person to have a foundation of faith, a foundation of belief.

[00:06:55] That's where it all starts, as far as I'm concerned. But my dad would tell [00:07:00] me, son, It was not about money. This life of ours, this business that I run, it's not about money, it's about people. I go, dad, what are you talking about? People? He said no, son. You businesses, you solve problems for people, and then you earn the right to make a profit.

[00:07:15] Oh, the purpose of business where the Venn diagram comes in. Is you solve acute problems for amazing people and you get to earn an awesome profit. That is it. That is what it is all about. My father taught me that, and he taught me, don't put the attention on you how much money you're looking for. W what this is gonna do for you.

[00:07:37] No. Put the attention on them. This is someone's father, someone's son, someone's brother, someone's husband. This is someone's wife, someone's daughter, someone's sister. Someone's mother. They're a hero to somebody. They've got hopes, dreams, and aspirations. They've also been disappointed by life.

[00:07:57] Maybe they've even been disappointed by someone like you who made [00:08:00] them big promises and delivered them. Nothing. Nothing. Scott, it is your job. To help turn their faith and humanity around. My father told me that, and I believe that, and I'm talking to somebody listening to this. What's the first thing you gotta do?

[00:08:15] Make it about them, not about you. Serve God. Give all the glory to God. Make it about them, not about you. Secondly, second thing you've got to do is you've got to find a way to not sound like everybody else. You've got to stand out. You gotta be a thought leader and not an expert. What's the difference between the two?

[00:08:33] An expert, someone who knows something, A thought leader, someone who's known for knowing something. Experts are a dime a dozen thought leaders are rare and valuable, and experts, like a cover band, a thought leader plays original music. You must be a thought leader. Someone asked you what you do. You can't tell I'm a coach, I'm a consultant, I'm a mentor.

[00:08:53] No. You gotta say, I help. Part base [00:09:00] Christian entrepreneurs add one to two zeros to their annual income while working 10 to 20 hours less per week. And given all the glory to God and making the difference they were born to make. Now that is way more powerful. I'm gonna tell you a story.

[00:09:16] I had a client, she was a good Christian woman, and she was a doctor of natural medicine. And her father was her hero. She was daddy's girl and he was dying of brain cancer and he passed on six months later. She wanted to honor him by building a business he would be proud of cuz he was a successful entrepreneur.

[00:09:39] So she came to us and she said, I need help. And I said, okay, great. Let's talk. Who do you help? I can help anybody with a health problem. I'm like, Nope, that's not gonna work. So we helped her look at something. It's got. And I'm gonna tell you something, you are gonna love this because what we helped her do was we helped her [00:10:00] come up with her ideal client.

[00:10:03] Who are the clients you've gotten the best results for? Who are the clients you've enjoyed working with the most? Who are the clients who have paid you the best and were the easiest to transact with? That is your ideal client. And it turned out for her, it was professional woman, 45 to 60. These are women with great jobs, great marriages, great businesses.

[00:10:22] But they felt like life and beauty had passed them by, and they hated it. They didn't think they were ever gonna be beautiful. They were when they were younger. And her message to them was no. You're going to get older, but you don't have to age. We're gonna reverse the aging process for you. And her program was called Get your Sexy Back.

[00:10:50] In a year. She doubled her income in two years. She doubled her income again in three years. She doubled her income again. She went from six figures a year to a six figure a month run rate. [00:11:00] My friend, that is the power of being a thought leader and not an expert.

[00:11:05] Scott Maderer: Yeah we actually I help one of the things I do is I'm the head mentor for a group called Coach Connections, where we help other people that are getting started in the coaching business.

[00:11:17] And honestly, some of exactly what you're talking about is what we try to explain to them that if you walk up to people and you say, I'm a financial coach, they come back three days later and they go, so how's the insurance business? Or how's it, how what stock should I buy? And it's no, that's not what you do.

[00:11:34] And it's but that's what they heard. And you've gotta actually be able to say it in a way that connects with people. And that same language that you're talking about. I help. What do I, who do I actually help? What's the particular emotion or problem or transformation or change that they really are after?

[00:11:53] And dialing in on that and I saw the same thing in my business. I used to say I helped everybody and [00:12:00] I wasn't helping anybody. And then as I began to dial it in, what do you know? All of a sudden it was a lot easier. To find those folks and to actually make a difference in their life. And I'm sure you've seen the same thing in your business as well.

[00:12:13] Yeah. I wanna back up a little bit though, and talk a little bit more about the faith part of the journey. You referenced your faith several times. You referenced coming over and now being blessed to be a Christian there in, in Toronto, and how that messaging from your father of serve others from his faith, how that's influenced you.

[00:12:36] How do you see your faith journey influencing where you are today?

[00:12:43] Nicky Billou: My friend I think that I'm seeking to live my life in such a way that I give the glory to God and I get to help others. [00:13:00] That's what I see as my job. It's not about me. Yes, I need to put a roof over my head and my family's heads.

[00:13:09] I need to feed them, and I need to do all those things. Those are obviously important, but really it's not about, look at me, look at how great I am. It's about, Lord how can I be of service? And there's a story I'll tell you that demonstrate this brilliantly well. So five years ago I was introduced to a woman who had been the country director for Canada for one of the world's largest personal development firms.

[00:13:43] She was incredible and, but she thought she needed some help. So she brought a fellow on to help her run the company and like Steve Jobs back in the day with John Scully in Apple and at first just like Steven John. They got a long [00:14:00] company, grew. It was great. But after a period of time it became painfully obvious that the two of their visions were divergent.

[00:14:14] So they had a fight. The board sided with him and kicked her out. How do you get kicked out of a company? You started? It's crazy. When it happens, have

[00:14:25] Scott Maderer: a board.

[00:14:26] Nicky Billou: A board. Good. That's the answer. Have a board, right? Yeah. So she was lost, she was bereft. She didn't know what to do. It took her 18 months before she was introduced to us and she was a good woman.

[00:14:39] We could tell. We poured into her we loved on her and we helped her see that she was met for more. And this was gonna be a new place for her to move forward. So we, we had her take a step back. We had to go through a similar exercise as to the one I showed you before. Got clear on an ideal [00:15:00] client. She got clear on what she wanted to do to help people.

[00:15:03] We helped her learn to value herself. So she charged appropriately cuz like a lot of Christians, she undercharge not anybody on this podcast, I'm sure. But, it was. Anyway, she had she took off like a rocket. Her first month she made a $10,000 profit, or a second month she made 12,000, or a third month she made 18,000.

[00:15:29] By her fourth month, she made $62,200. Crazy. Amazing. Incredible. And here's what happened. She lives in Ottawa. I live in Toronto. Five hour drive. My oldest son plays soccer and he had a tournament in Ottawa. So I I called her [00:16:00] up and I said, Hey, we're coming to Ottawa for this tournament. How would you like to bring your son was the same age as my son and watch. She said, I'd love that. So they came over, they watched a game. We had lunch together. My, my son's team won the tournament, which was great. I took off, I went home.

[00:16:18] A few weeks later, we had one of our quarterly branded thought leader immersion workshops. This is where we teach coaches, and I hate that term, how to become thought leaders. And we'd gone to the section of the event where, I shared with people how they could continue to work with us. And the way I do that is I don't make a big pitch.

[00:16:43] I ask our people to share what they got out of our help. It's works like a chart, it's great when someone else is saying, you need to be a part of this, right? Not me. It's great. [00:17:00] So I said, who liked to share? And before I could say a thing, Pick somebody she bounds on stage and almost knocks me on my keister.

[00:17:10] Whoa. I would, I could. Okay, great. She turns around her back's to me and she's looking over at the audience. There's about 20, 25 people in the room. And there were about eight of 'em that were new people. And I see her shoulder go like this, and I'm like, what's going on? Sniffles. I'm like, is she crying in my head, right?

[00:17:35] This is all in my head. Is she crying? Why is she crying? What did I do? What did I do wrong? Come on. Why is she crying? Are you kidding me? And when I maintain a placid exterior and my beautiful lady, my better half comes on stage, hands are a tissue, walks, and she's thanks her. And then she turns to me and she's still sniffling.

[00:17:59] [00:18:00] She's still sobbing, crying. She says, Nikki, you didn't know this, but when you and your little son came to visit me and my little son sat in the back seat and said, mommy, mommy, who are we gonna go meet? And I said to him, oh sweetheart, we're gonna go meet Nick Belu and his son. And she said, all of a sudden my sweet little boy became very quiet, looked at me and said, oh mommy, are we gonna get to meet the man who saved our family?

[00:18:26] Scott. I'm old school. I'm masculine. I don't cry in public. I just, I cried in public, of course, shamelessly. And she's sobbing. She's telling me, when I first came to see you, I didn't tell you this, but the bank was about to foreclose on our home. Eh, cuz we haven't paid our mortgage. And my husband and I were [00:19:00] fighting every day in front of our kids, like cats and dogs.

[00:19:03] They were scared we were gonna break up. I was scared we were gonna break up all over money. You literally helped us save our family. And that was the day that I understood that got outta purpose for me. And my purpose was to serve people out of suffering, serve people who were not in a good place and help 'em get out of it.

[00:19:24] And I ask, God, please send me someone else like her to be of service to. That's what I

[00:19:34] Scott Maderer: did. And that's what your business is today, right? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So what do you think and you mentioned earlier, as an aside and you just touched on it with that story too, you know that a, as Christians and as Christian business owners, Y I think we set ourselves up sometimes with some traps, what are some of the things that you see when you're working with [00:20:00] those faithful business owners, but they're struggling. They're hurting. What are some of the biggest things that are holding them back?

[00:20:11] Nicky Billou: Number one is they don't believe they're worth it, they got imposter syndrome. They're afraid to charge what they're worth if they only knew is a story that goes through so many of their heads.

[00:20:31] They only knew what, that you're a good person and a Christian. But no, that's not the story they're telling themselves. If they only knew that I'm not really as good as I make myself out to be and oh my God, blah, blah, blah, come on, really? And they undercharge. There's only two reasons. People undercharge.

[00:20:51] They undercharge cuz they really aren't worth it, cuz they don't have the skillset set or they have the skillset, but they don't believe they're worth it. If the first is the case, let's upgrade [00:21:00] your skillset. If the second is the case, we gotta upgrade your belief. Cuz when you undercharge, you hurt your client more than you hurt yourself.

[00:21:07] You hurt yourself, you don't make the money. You should make no question, but you hurt your client cuz. They don't show up ready to do what needs to be done in order to get the result they're looking for. That's expectancy bias theory. The more you pay for something, the more you expect it to be. Now, Scott, let's say you were a relationship coach for men, and I was a prospect for you, and you said, Nikki, I can help you save your marriage.

[00:21:35] I've got the program for you. Within six months, your wife will be more in love with you than she ever was. And you'll be just like, newly whats again? And I'm like, Scott, sign me up. This is great. What's the investment? And you go, Nikki, it's 50 bucks. I'm gonna go, what? 50 bucks are you are.

[00:21:56] Are you kidding me? Like it's a joke. I won't trust you. Now if [00:22:00] you said it was $50,000, I might not like that price. I might think it's high, but I'd go, okay, yeah, this guy knows what he's doing. So it's very important to teach people how to value themselves properly. I had a client, New York City, Manhattan, he had an acupuncture clinic and he was good at what he did.

[00:22:23] He had a high level clients and he made six figures, but it wasn't enough. He said, man, the money comes in, it goes out right away. I need to make seven figures. I said, okay, let's. Do a review of your business. So we did, you know what the problem was, my brother, the problem was he undercharged, everything else was right.

[00:22:42] So I said, you gotta raise your prices. He says, what? 10%? Nope. 20%. Nope. 30% no. 20 fold. 20 fold. Are you crazy? No, I'm not. Here's why he couldn't bring himself to do it, but he seven folded his [00:23:00] prices. Within four months, he 20 folded his clientele. Because the people felt, okay, this guy's charging properly, I can bring referrals to him.

[00:23:11] And he went from $150,000 to 1.2 million in four months just from doing this one thing, valuing what he had to offer appropriately. And too many Christians don't do that at all.

[00:23:31] Scott Maderer: So what keeps us trapped in that comfort zone area? What kept you just mentioned him you told him to 20 x and he's Nope, nope.

[00:23:43] Can't do that. He did seven x, which is probably still outside of his comfort zone, but what holds us back from making those changes? Even if we do start to believe that we need to

[00:23:56] Nicky Billou: imposter syndrome. Imposter [00:24:00] syndrome. I'm not good enough. That's it. That's pretty much it. Or this is what Christians say, which I love.

[00:24:08] This is a good one. God wouldn't want me to charge so much. Yeah, that's not true. Stop putting on the god's your own fears.

[00:24:20] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. So I've got a couple of questions that I like to ask all of my guests, but before we go there, is there anything else about the work you do or the books that you've got out that you'd like to share with the listener?

[00:24:38] Nicky Billou: Look, I could share a million things with the listener but I'll say this to you. If you wanna be successful, you gotta have four qualities. The first is decisiveness. You need to be decisive. You need to make a decision that you are going to take your success, your business to the next level. The second is commitment.

[00:24:58] You can't be a tire kicker and [00:25:00] say, Hey, I'm gonna try this for a week, a month, a day, a year, and it's not gonna work. You gotta be in it to win it. You gotta be coachable. You gotta be coachable. You need to coach Robin Charma says, if you wanna double your income in any given year, triple your investment in personal and professional development.

[00:25:16] Scott, if you spent 10,000 on personal professional development last year, you need to spend 30,000 this year. That's really what it takes. And then finally, you gotta be resourceful. Doesn't matter what level of resources you have, what matters is how bad do you want change, how bad do you want change.

[00:25:35] If you want change bad enough, you will do what you need to do. You'll come up with the money, the time, the energy to get it done. And if you don't, you won't. You'll be lying to yourself and everybody around you.

[00:25:46] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. My brand is inspired stewardship and I run things through that lens of stewardship.

[00:25:53] And yet that's one of those words that like leadership, like a lot of other words that everybody uses it, but not [00:26:00] everybody means the same thing when they say it. I like to ask, and let me ask you, what does the word stewardship mean to you, and what does the impact of that word had on your life?

[00:26:12] Nicky Billou: I can't say that I've thought about it in the same way that you have, so the second half is easy to answer. So I don't know. But to me, what stewardship means to me is that you're in charge of something on a temporary basis. You're at Steward, and at some point you're gonna pass it on to the next generation.

[00:26:34] And to me, that's what stewardship is. And I suppose in one set, what stewardship's impact on my life is I believe we're living in a time, for example, where men, manhood and masculinity are under attack. And it's my job to be a steward for young men. So the concepts of men, manhood and masculinity survive to the next generation.[00:27:00]

[00:27:01] Scott Maderer: So this is my favorite question that I like to ask everybody. Imagine for a minute that I could invent this magic machine. And with the power of that machine, I was able to transport you from where you are today into the future, maybe 150 or 200 years. And through the power of this machine, you were able to look back and see your whole life and see all of the connections, all of the ripples, all of the impacts you've left behind.

[00:27:24] What impact do you hope you've left on the world?

[00:27:29] Nicky Billou: Make men masculine again and be in the vanguard of helping make sure that freedom survives past this generation and raise two strong masculine sons and help everybody I come across who's in business as an entrepreneur, be more successful and leave a powerful legacy for my family going forward.

[00:27:56] Scott Maderer: So what's on the roadmap?

[00:27:57] What's next for you as you [00:28:00] continue on this journey?

[00:28:03] Nicky Billou: Brother, I have a new book out, the Great Patriot BICO book with Wayne Allen Root, and right now I'm in the process of promoting the heck out of this book. That's a bit of what's next. We've got an event coming up in a month actually three weeks in Toronto.

[00:28:22] So I'm all about making sure that event goes off without a hitch. And today I've got another interview at four. I got another meeting at five. I got a another call at six and I got another. Presentation I'm doing at six 30, so it's C of block brother. That's literally what's next for me.

[00:28:53] Scott Maderer: As you as you suck down water in between interviews so that you can save [00:29:00] your voice a little bit just to make it through the whole day. Yes, sir. Yeah, I understand. I've had those days where I've had 12 Zoom meetings in one day, or 12 different meetings in one day.

[00:29:12] I get it. So you can find out more about Nicki, his books and some of the learning that he does and some of these sessions that he's talking about over at his website. It's at eCircle academy.com. That's the letter eCircle academy.com. Of course, I'll have a link to that over in the show notes as well.

[00:29:31] Nicki, anything else you'd like to share with the listener?

[00:29:37] Nicky Billou: We're in a recession right now. A lot of people are scared, but I'm here to tell you the greatest fortunes are made in turbulent times. So get excited cuz this is a time where you can make your life the best it's ever been, and you can make your business the best it's ever been.

[00:29:54] Awesome.[00:30:00]

[00:30:01] 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 enjoyed this episode, Please. Please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes.

[00:30:28] Rate all one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave 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 feed.

[00:30:44] Until

[00:30:45] Scott Maderer: next time, invest your time. Your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.[00:31:00]