00:00:00 Welcome to tonight's Saturday Night special with Jeff Brown from the Read To Lead podcast here on the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Jeff Brown from the Read To Lead podcast, challenging you to reach true success in business and in life through consistent and intentional reading. One way to be inspired to success is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer. For me, one of the big shifts over the years has been just the idea that I could create something that people, that comes out of my brain,
00:00:41 Jeff's brain, that people would pay for, that people would find valuable. I came, I had an upbringing and just the community. I was part of and where I live, it's like just the generation too, you know, I grew up expecting to always work for somebody else. 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.
00:01:14 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. In tonight's Saturday night special, Jeff and I talked with you about mindset in intentionality. Jeff also shares what masterminds are and why you may actually want to start one. And Jeff and I also talk about intentional reading and the power this Kenbrell ring and lots more. No one area that a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity. Getting not just More things done,
00:02:01 but actually getting the right things done can be really, really tough. I've got a course called Productivity for your passion that's designed to help you do this. And then hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity not just to be getting more done but actually getting the right things done. What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and Taylor the productivity system to your personality, because the truth is, a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type.
00:02:42 But if you have a different approach to things. They just don't work. But there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for anyone, and we help you do that in productivity for your passion. Check it out over on inspiredstewardship.com/launch. Jeff is an award-winning radio producer and personality and former nationally syndicated morning show host, following a 26-year career in radio. Jeff went boss free in 2013 and soon after launch the Read to lead podcast. It's gone on to become a four-time best business podcast nominee,
00:03:25 and has featured Jeff's interviews with some of today's best business and nonfiction. Arthur's including Alan Alda, which is actually probably the single favorite episode of yours that I've ever listened to. Seth Godin, John C Maxwell, A. Liz Wiseman, Dr. Henry Cloud, Gary V, Simon Sinek and so on and so on and so on. Well, over 200 MB or some of the best folks out there. Jeff, Welcome to the show. Well, thank you, Scott. I am delighted to be here.
00:03:55 Thanks for inviting me. Absolutely. So as we just went through this list, I mean, obviously you've had an honor of interviewing just a great number of great guests and some of the best authors out there over the years. Can you share some of the top two or three things that maybe they've shared with you over the years? Then really changed how you saw things, How you saw the world? Yeah, kind of counties down, maybe Casey Casen or Dick Clark style. So we'll start with number three and work our way down.
00:04:29 It's the number one. All right. With number three for me will be just the importance of understanding scheduling What's important. What gets scheduled gets done, I think is Michael Hyatt, like, likes to say, I used to allowing my week to ebb and flow and would have certain appointments and meetings and things like this scheduled. But, you know, the rest of the week, kind of I reacted to it in large part, and I've learned the importance of not doing that of being super focused about putting everything on the calendar and scheduling everything that's important in setting aside time even for a rest and relaxtion or downtime or you know,
00:05:10 catching up on Netflix. No reason to Feel bad about those things as long as those are the things you intended to do because they're on your schedule. And so I schedule everything Number two on, and I almost hinted at it a moment ago, but it's really being intentional about everything that you do. It kind of goes along with the scheduling thing, but I am super intentional with life, with how I approach life with how I planned for life. I know you appreciate this, too.
00:05:40 Being a student of many of the same mentors. As I am. And so to me, it's very important to live. Knowing that you have a lot more control over your life and circumstances, then then you think you do. It's really how you respond to them as much as anything. And I think doing so intentionally goes a long way. And number one for me has been mindset, and guarding what gets in, um, what I allow in how I view myself how I view the world.
00:06:12 Really rethinking, old paradigms affirmations. visualizing goals. You know, saying things, for example, like, I want I want to do well at public speaking. And so one of things I like to tell myself every morning is part of my morning routine is I'm amazing public speaker and just, you know, trained my brain to think that way. Ah, and I think it's not a fake it till you make it kind of a thing.
00:06:51 I think it's sort of leaning into the person you want to be. And I think a lot of that has to do with, you know, the stories that we're telling ourselves, And you know this as well as I that, a lot of us speak to ourselves those voices in our heads that we allow in, say things to us that we would never put up with, Were they coming from another human being. Yeah, yeah, but somehow because it's a voice in her head,
00:07:19 we allow that. And so, uh, I have through the books I've read the people I've met the people that I surround myself with, people like you that I spent time with are people who I know are going to, encourage me, challenge me, and hold me accountable. And those are all things that I that I need and want in my life, and I make sure that but those are a big part of it. So number three, being really intentional about what I put on my calendar,
00:07:48 and it's really about scheduling everything. Number two is just intentionality with life in general, and number one is just mindset. It's interesting, because just last week, one of the episodes that that I had come out on inspired stewardship was about limiting beliefs, that how we create these beliefs and that one of the steps to deconstructing limiting beliefs is to challenge the underlying reality of the belief. You know, oftentimes we've had it so hard wired into ourselves that we just it's just true,
00:08:20 you know? I mean, it's the truth and yeah, maybe not now. And you need to constantly challenge that,
00:08:27 and so you're kind of talking about some of the same things there with mindset, about how we can allow ourselves to program our lives in a way that you know it again.
00:08:37 If somebody from outside us was saying that we considered abusive, but we'll do it ourselves all day long.
00:08:43 Hey, right. Totally, Totally. So how? I mean when you think about that and mindset kind of diving a little deeper in that and unpacking it,
00:08:52 you know, how has your mindset changed from when you kind of started this journey on the Read to Lead podcast and where you are now?
00:09:01 You know, several years later, we just went through a list of accolades. But do you believe them?
00:09:08 Hey, you know, well, I'm still having to, you know, through affirmations and other means.
00:09:14 And it goes back to surrounding yourself with great people. Those things were still necessary for me to not fall into a funk where I start believing those old parent times again.
00:09:26 Otherwise, I think it's easy for a lot of us myself included to fall back into those Yes,
00:09:31 I believe them. But yeah, if I weren't continually working on believing them, I could slip. So I'm very careful,
00:09:40 to always be working on them. For me, one of big shifts over the years has been just the idea that I could create something that people,
00:09:51 you know, that comes from my brain, Jeff's brain that people would pay for, that people would find valuable.
00:09:56 I came I had an upbringing and just the community. I was a part of it, but where I lived,
00:10:03 it's like in just the generation too, you know, I grew up expecting to always work for somebody else.
00:10:10 Ah, and that was sort of my mindset and that working for myself, you know, being my own boss or being boss free,
00:10:17 as you alluded to earlier, just wasn't something that I saw myself ever being able to do. And that was because of the story.
00:10:25 I was believing the limiting beliefs that I had, and it took just really reading intentionally and consistently and open myself up to dozens and dozens of new ideas.
00:10:38 Over a period of about a decade, I was finally able to get past that and realize that I can do this Just as well,
00:10:46 as anybody else can do it, I just have to decide that I'm going to do that and and and stop leaning on those limiting beliefs.
00:10:54 So for me, that's probably the single biggest example of a limiting belief that I have overcome. And again a lot of it has had to do with what I'm taking in what information taking in.
00:11:04 And it's been primarily the books that I read, and that brings us to this. You know, if if you've ever struggled to be a regular reader,
00:11:14 then this may help. Jeff, what would you say to someone who just heard what you said about putting things in your brain and reading?
00:11:23 And they believe it. They believe reading is important, but they've struggled to develop a regular habit of reading.
00:11:30 Yeah, I would say, if you struggle and this is probably a ruffle some feathers. But if you struggle,
00:11:36 it's because you have not yet made the decision that this is important enough. Because if you have, I think this struggle is a little less of a struggle,
00:11:46 Frankly, and I think that starts with something I alluded to earlier think that begins with scheduling time for reading.
00:11:53 So one thing I do is part of my morning routine. That's been a big part of my sort of last five or six years,
00:11:58 and the impact of my business in my personal life is setting aside and a time for a morning routine,
00:12:04 and for me that could be anywhere from 2 to 3 hours long. Everybody can have a morning routine or once a morning routine that that's that long that mine happens to be in that involves getting up.
00:12:11 You know, 553 in the morning is I know you appreciate. But part of that time is dedicated.
00:12:16 Least 30 minutes, if not if not more, is dedicated. At least 30 minutes of it is dedicated to reading a book.
00:12:22 I have other reading that I do during that time, but at least 30 minutes is dedicated to reading Ah,
00:12:27 business or leadership or personal development book. And so that time in my schedule is carved out every single day where every single week day at least and you know it.
00:12:39 Maybe it's not 30 minutes for you. Maybe it's 15 or 20 minutes. Maybe it's a certain number of pages,
00:12:44 but whatever that goal is set a goal for pages or time or what have you and then actually schedule the time.
00:12:52 And I find that when I put that in my calendar, Scott, now it's protected. And now anybody else's request on my time has to work around that stuff that I have set aside time for already.
00:13:04 If we don't do that and somebody else's is needing of our time, then we're more apt to say,
00:13:10 Oh, yeah, I was just gonna read that 30 minutes. I'm sure what I can meet with you at that time.
00:13:13 And then suddenly, in our time we set aside to read in our brain or just in passing goes away.
00:13:19 But if it's on the calendar, it's for me. At least it's a little more riel. Um,