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Summary

Most entrepreneurs are guilty of starting multiple projects and never finishing some of them. They excitedly create 30 half-built bridges, all of which are unusable.

What would happen if instead, you had a singular focus and you were fanatical about keeping that focus? This is what high-performing entrepreneurs and athletes do and the results are nothing short of incredible.

Today on #MakingBank, host Josh Felber invites Todd Herman to discuss how he has developed and applied his 90 Day Year system to help athletes and CEOs grow faster than ever. He shares some brilliant insights that you can apply immediately in your business.

Todd Herman is a high-performance coach to professional and Olympic athletes and leadership advisor to two self-made billionaires, Cisco Executives, members of the Spanish Royal Family and high achieving entrepreneurs. He is well-known for The 90 Day Year, his proven, multi-award winning high-performance system.

His professional programs are delivered to over 200,000 professionals annually in 73 countries and has been featured on Sky Business News, The Today Show & Today Show Australia, the NY Times, CBS Radio, Huffington Post, and Business Insider. The Boston Herald has called him a “Training Superstar.”

So, tune-in to hear Josh and Todd talk all-things high-performance mindset and strategy, as well as…

• Why the 80/20 rule is so important for entrepreneurs.
• How entrepreneurs and CEOs sabotage themselves by doing too much at once.
• Why 90-day planning works better than annual planning.
• How you can use some of the techniques high performing CEOs and athletes use in your business.

And more…

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High Performance Strategies for Pro Athletes and Top Entrepreneurs with Guest Todd Herman: MakingBank S2E51

Josh Felber:                          Welcome to Making Bank. I am Josh Felber, where we uncover the mindset and the success strategies of the top 1% so you can amplify your life and your business today.

I’m super excited for today’s guest. If you’ve ever wanted to take control of your life, avoid the pitfalls that destroy most businesses. He has worked and trained high-level Olympians, billionaires, and teams that move them to the next level, and he’s an amazing dad. I want to welcome today’s guest, Todd Herman, to Making Bank. Welcome to the show, man.

Todd Herman:                     Thanks, buddy. That was really good. That was really, really good. I’m gonna take you on the road with me.

Josh Felber:                          The intro man.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          Well, cool, man. I’m excited to meet with you. I’ve followed your work over the years.

Todd Herman:                     Thanks, man.

Josh Felber:                          I’m really just excited to pick your brain, because I mean, you’ve got to work with some amazing people and coach them and … At the highest, elite level, and it’s what makes them tick, what are those fine tuning tweaks that really move that millimeter to drive them to even greater success.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah, yeah.

Josh Felber:                          And so maybe people that have not seen or heard from you and this is their first introduction, give them a quick little brief overview on what you do and how it works.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah. So for 21 years, I’ve owned a sports science and sports research company, peak performance company working with pro Olympic athletes all along the six inches between the ears helping them get to that next stage, or … You know, really I talk to people, even in business with the business people that I work with, I tell people, “I’m not here to add more stuff to you. It’s a subtraction and deletion process.” I think that’s what life is all about, that’s why you go to those wise sage, people who are older than us even, and they go, “If I could have gone back, I would have not worried about this. I would’ve …” And it’s a stripping away, right?

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     And so the same thing goes with peak performance or high performance. It’s getting rid of the stuff that you’re carrying around with you that really doesn’t need to help, or it’s not gonna help you get to that next stage. So I’ve had that business for a really long time. Worked with the Cleveland Browns, which-

Josh Felber:                          Oh, nice.

Todd Herman:                     … doesn’t sound like it’s like-

Josh Felber:                          I mean, Cleveland though.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah, right. Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          Yeah.

Todd Herman:                     So, we had them on such a great path, and then they fired Rob Chudzinski.

Josh Felber:                          Oh, yeah.

Todd Herman:                     We were just … And it’s funny because sometimes some people are afraid of success, and it can be organizationally [inaudible 00:02:41]. Not just people, but culturally, and they sabotage, and they sabotaged what we had set up as really accelerating them to another level. And-

Josh Felber:                          So what, we’re going to use that as the excuse that, that’s why they just can’t-

Todd Herman:                     No. They still, like just ugh. But like, so Real Madrid, lots of guys in the PGA, and NHL is kind of where I started, and Major League baseball. And then I started another consultant, because any time you work with like elite people, you have type A entrepreneurs like yourself and others who are like, “Well I could perform at a high level. You can probably help me, too.”

Josh Felber:                          Yeah.

Todd Herman:                     “Even if I get like 10% of the stuff you talk to them about it’s probably gonna make a big difference.”

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     So I started another coaching and training company with entrepreneurs and executives.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     Took the system that I was using with athletes called 90 day year and bringing it into entrepreneurial space, which is really like a high performance execution system which you can install inside your business to help you stay really lean, keep a lot of focus because the people who win are the ones who focus on one thing.

What I mean by that is, I had a great conversation with Mark Zucker in 2010 at the Cannes international advertising festival. I just won an award and he had just … I voted one of the best speakers of the day there and he’d been voted, he was voted the worst speaker actually, and so I went to the Facebook party because the advertising festival is all about like which invite do you have. It’s amazing. It’s a fun place to [crosstalk 00:04:03] …

Josh Felber:                          That’s interesting, yeah.

Todd Herman:                     So I went to the Facebook party. It’s on the beach in front of the Carlton hotel, which is the famous hotel there. I’m walking by a group of people and he grabs my arm and he said “Hey aren’t you the world’s greatest sales person,” because I just won this award for being the world’s greatest salesperson. I said “Yeah, can you grab me a drink kid.” He laughed, he’s like “You’re funny.” So we grabbed a quick selfie. He’s like “Let’s get a selfie, put it on Facebook.” Then we ended up chatting because he’s like “Listen, can you help me with some speaking stuff because I’m obviously not very good because I just got voted.”

Josh Felber:                          That’s cool.

Todd Herman:                     I was like, “You’re Mark Zuckerberg.”

Josh Felber:                          Yeah, you’re like …

Todd Herman:                     Everyone in that audience wants to know you and be like you so you don’t need to do all the stuff that I have to do in order … get credibility and authority …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … you’ve already got it. But I said, “Here’s one thing you can do. Just ask more rhetorical questions to your audience.”

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     It includes them more. He’s like, “Really that’s all I need to do?” And I’m like “Seriously, that’s all you need to do.”

Anyways, we had a great chat. I said to him, “If you could point to one thing that you’ve done really, really well at Facebook to help you guys get to where you are right now.” It’s a hard question to ask people because is there just one thing? Of course …

Josh Felber:                          Right, it’s always hard to dial in.

Todd Herman:                     But he did. He’s like, “It was our fanatical focus on one goal, get more users.”

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     That’s it and honestly they’ve only just walked away from that … in the month that we’re sitting in right now …

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     … it was 18 months ago that they actually just changed what their number one goal was.

Josh Felber:                          Oh okay.

Todd Herman:                     They had that one goal of get more users for 13 years or 11 years, or 12 years, whatever it was.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     So, that’s what 90 day year helps people …

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     … and even with my athletes it’s like no, what’s that one skill that if we focus on it for the next 90 days, 80% of your practice time, we use an 80, 20 rule.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     80% of your practice time you focus on this one skill, 20% you focus on maintaining your other skills.

Josh Felber:                          Got it.

Todd Herman:                     So that one thing that’s gonna make an order of magnitude impact on your total performance on the field of play. Whereas most people are tying to work on … like a basketball player, they’re trying to work on their free throw, and their dribbling and then their lay up. No, no, no that’s the wrong way to approach it. That’s not what I high performer would do. You can translate that into a business as well.

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     That’s how you can accelerate past competition really, really fast.

Josh Felber:                          Super cool.

Todd Herman:                     I love this stuff, working with ambitious people.

Josh Felber:                          You can tell, yeah.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          Lot of energy and passion and everything for it.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah, it’s good stuff.

Josh Felber:                          So with the whole 90 day year, we’ll talk a little bit entrepreneurship focused …

Todd Herman:                     Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          … is that something that the CEO does or is that something the whole team does? How do you really apply it to make it effective, because we have some people that may just have one or two people on their team.

Todd Herman:                     Yup.

Josh Felber:                          We own one of the largest skincare companies as well, so we have like 25 people in our team on the natural product side of things. So, you know, it’s like how do we take that and make sure everybody’s performing at that higher level and focusing on that one thing?

Todd Herman:                     Sure, yeah so all of us in our organizations you’ve got people who are sitting at the level where you’re thinking about strategy and working on the business and where we’re going and stuff. You get caught up in work and do some like in the business stuff …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … but then you got people who are actually executing in the business, right?

Josh Felber:                          Correct, yeah.

Todd Herman:                     And so because it’s an execution system there’s still an overarching philosophy that needs to sit up at a cultural level of how we operate.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     It’s like this is the way we operate. This is how we do things here.

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     And this is the way that we think. So, how that would work from a top level group of people is like no, we are fanatical about knowing what the focus is for our next 90 days. That comes top down.

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     But there should be a two way communication. Your people that are boots on the street should be actually feeding information up, saying “Hey, just so you know, like this is the thing that’s broken.”

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     Or, “We’re really not communicating the value message of message out to our people because I’m having a tough time closing and it’s because the marketing that’s coming through is bringing in the wrong leads of people, right?”

Josh Felber:                          Mm-hmm (affirmative) okay.

Todd Herman:                     And so you need to have that top down, bottom up communication all the time, but from a top down perspective it’s like no, this is … why are we working on nine projects trying to get nine things done? When we don’t have the available resources. I mean, we all … we could have 16, I’d love to do 16 projects.

Josh Felber:                          Oh yeah.

Todd Herman:                     Because for me, a project means growth … [crosstalk 00:08:12]

Josh Felber:                          Right, I’m with yeah.

Todd Herman:                     We’re doing this to grow, but that is the danger because we’re only paid by what we get delivered and what we build [crosstalk 00:08:21].

Josh Felber:                          Sure, okay.

Todd Herman:                     It’s like the idea of most entrepreneurs and businesses right now have 30 half built bridges in their business …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … and so if you think of your business or your product or service as an island in a sea of other islands that are out there [crosstalk 00:08:37] …

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     … one island could be a new customer base …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … or a marketing channel and so if you’re working on a Facebook strategy and you’re building that bridge to getting it completed so you got something implemented, but you’re also working on an Instagram strategy and a Pinterest one and a YouTube strategy and you’re building these bridges it’s slowing down.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     So if you would just focus on the Facebook one, get that bridge built so now Facebook is working for you, bringing in new leads or new people and then … so then you got that one working for you, and then you go off and you build another platform.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     That’s the real idea behind this is that. And so, what an operator or the CEO needs to be doing is constantly taking a look at are we really operating that way? Because if you’re not you’re bloated and you’re slow.

Josh Felber:                          So question real quick. So say we have 25 people on our team, say one person their whole job is say Instagram. Another one is Facebook and you know, so you have those different key people …

Todd Herman:                     Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          … how do you, I guess then, does each person have their own focus in that one thing so they’re only focused on Instagram, but then they overall maybe you’re a strategy in growing that, you’re a strategy in growing that …

Todd Herman:                     Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          … because our whole mission is X for example …

Todd Herman:                     Is X, get more users.

Josh Felber:                          Got it.

Todd Herman:                     If the project and strategy that you’re working on does not roll up to one focus in the business, which is held by the CEO or whoever might be owning that….

Josh Felber:                          Like our vivid vision or whatever …

Todd Herman:                     … department, yeah.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     So you’ve got, as your business grows, you’ve got … for as much as we don’t like creating a pyramid effect inside of a business because [crosstalk 00:10:10] it is actually ineffective. It’s a very 20th century way of building a business …

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     … it sort of does evolve that way in many ways, but you have these silos of your marketing group or your sales group and your product group and your operations group and stuff. So, whatever the goal is of the business, whatever those department goals are, because they’ll have a goal too…

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … that goal better align with that one.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     And that’s where … high performance is all about alignment.

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     When I talk about, when I first came out in the sports space I talked about developing the triune athlete. The mentally, emotionally, and physically tough athlete. That’s who we’re developing.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     Most people focus on developing the skills of an athlete and they forget about the impact that it could be made on, are you reinforcing it emotionally with someone? And mentally with where they think it, they’re confident and stuff. So, the same thing happens in an organization where it’s developing a complete alignment between all these things. When you have a mentally tough, emotionally tough, a physically tough athlete they’re a really, really hard person to stop.

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     And same thing with an organization. If you have all your goals and projects completely aligned you’re really hard to beat.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     In your marketplace. Harvard Business Review actually did a great article on this about three or four years ago, on any organization who is built this way. Basically using, not 90 day year system, but a system that our system represents [crosstalk 00:11:31] …

Josh Felber:                          Right, okay.

Todd Herman:                     … there’s other ways you could do things. There’s the sprint and scrum way of doing it, which has a bit of a similar effect the way that we focus on things at 90 day a year. Scrum and sprint isn’t as fanatical as we are on high performance and focusing on one thing because they’re just giving you the system of how you might move things down a field.

Josh Felber:                          Right, okay.

Todd Herman:                     HBR was just talking about how if you build basically agile type companies their prediction is if you focused on that within 18 months, especially if you’ve got good product, you’ll own your space.

Josh Felber:                          Mm-hmm (affirmative) okay.

Todd Herman:                     You’ll be the market leader because you’re really hard to beat at a speed perspective.

Josh Felber:                          Sure, got it.

Todd Herman:                     Anyway.

Josh Felber:                          And that makes sense because I know whenever, like big initiative for that is we’re making a huge push into retail this year …

Todd Herman:                     Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          … so we’re trying to align all of our strategies, all of our marketing and everything around that and driving more interest and more volume. So, when we meet with them they’re like “Hey, oh yeah, we know. We’re getting requests and things like that.”

Todd Herman:                     Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          And so it definitely makes sense. From a leader’s perspective then, what, I guess, is the best way then to provide to your team high performance, I guess.

Todd Herman:                     Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Josh Felber:                          I guess the sheer overview of it [crosstalk 00:12:36] …

Todd Herman:                     Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          … like okay how do we get each of our team members and our culture and bring that level of performance up and integrate that.

Todd Herman:                     So, working with athletes everything is about numbers, right?

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     There’s a scoreboard that tells you goals and assists or your at bat percentage and your on base percentage and things like that, so it’s very numbers based and performance based.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     When I started working with people in the corporate space or the entrepreneur space, yeah the scoreboard might be revenue and things, but those are like legging indications. We call the legging indicators …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … or leading indicators of things.

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     And so, I’m always … like on the field of play, if you do these things right you’re going to typically win in sport. So, in business I’m like what is the field of play of business and that means like field of play meaning where does the action happen?

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     The action happens in business in your calendar.

Josh Felber:                          Got it, okay.

Todd Herman:                     That is where, if I looked at your calendar I could quickly figure out how effective your organization is or how effective your performance is. How high performing you are.

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     By simply looking at your calendar. That’s the first place I’d start because I mean, I do mentor and work with people at a high level one on one. I go straight to the calendar because that is your field of play. Why is it your field of play? Because that’s where your activities sit.

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     So everyone thinks about time management. Time management’s a myth. Never even use that term again because you cannot manage time.

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     Time is like gravity. It happens whether you like it or not.

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     What you manage is the quality of the activity that falls inside that box from 1 o’clock to 2 o’clock.

Josh Felber:                          Right, okay.

Todd Herman:                     So when I’m looking at, when I’m working with someone like you, a high performing, like ambitious person is …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … what are the qualities of the activities that you’re working on every single day?

Josh Felber:                          Gotcha.

Todd Herman:                     If they’re really quality that’s gonna feed the growth of your organization.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     And so, with the team members it’s the same thing. How well are they using their calendar? Is there a lot of, what I call, context switching? And context switching happens when if you’ve got a box of time that’s from [crosstalk 00:14:44] 12 o’clock to 12:30 I’d want to see in your calendar, is it scheduled? Does it show up there?

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     Or is it you just floating back and forth between emails … because people get into these rhythms. We all have rhythms and habits. So it’s like check email, go to Facebook, go to CNN …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … like whatever your rhythm is …

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     … in what your role might be, but you have this like ping pong effect that happens. That’s context switching. You’re bouncing around and there’s no real focus there.

Josh Felber:                          Got it.

Todd Herman:                     So for me, now we get things down to the executors in the business …

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     … and I’m gonna go to helping people learn to really run that calender better so they don’t get tapped all the time and interrupted when they’re doing work and things like that.

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     So for me, like as an example, what I do with a CEO is give everyone on their team a calender link where there is every single part of your day. Maybe it’s from 3 o’clock to 3:30.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     Or four o’clock to 4:30. Could be ending the day. Could be 11 o’clock to 11:30 where anyone on the team has a link to your calendar where they can grab 10 minutes of your time to come in and talk to you about maybe an issue or something they want to talk to you about.

Josh Felber:                          Okay sure.

Todd Herman:                     And so, everyone has that and it’s amazing. You’d think that people are like oh well look at him he’s got … no, it’s freeing because psychologically to the team it’s like just knowing that I can hit that calendar link whenever I want …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … and you’re willing to give me that time.

Josh Felber:                          That time, yeah.

Todd Herman:                     Because some people don’t want to come to you because they think they’re gonna bother you and you’re like … what you have to position as is like guys this is your window of time.

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     I will never schedule a meeting at that time. I won’t be talking to someone else on the phone. That 11 to 11:30 is for you guys and so if you need to talk to me about something. You know, you see something that’s a trend that you want to talk to me …

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     … you’ve got an idea for something, you can grab 10 minutes and then that 10 minutes might move into 20 minutes if it’s something that’s really good. Or, it’s gets … that 10 minutes is there to bring the thing to me and then it might be brought to the rest of the team’s attention at a team meeting …

Josh Felber:                          Right, gotcha.

Todd Herman:                     … or leadership meeting.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     But even something like that is really, really valuable. So anyways, rolling it down is like execution happens on the calendar.

Josh Felber:                          Got it, okay. And that makes sense. I know for me, I like block out when am I checking my emails? When is this happening?

Todd Herman:                     Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          Everything throughout the day so I kinda use a block time approach for mine …

Todd Herman:                     Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          … and that was one of the things I’ve been trying to convey to my wife because either people don’t come over or everybody comes over and all of the sudden her day goes from like trying to manage this and she’s got 10 people interrupting every 15 or 20 minutes. I’m like “You have to set a time when they can come over.”

I like the idea of giving them the link. Hey guys here’s the link. This is that, click on it and you’ll be able to book right in.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah, yeah.

Josh Felber:                          Take care of whatever needs to be handled.

Todd Herman:                     100%.

Josh Felber:                          Okay so let’s say from some employees you have and their whole job is packing for example, shipping product out, how do you work with them to make them more efficient in what they’re doing and operating at that higher level? Because you’ll go back and sometimes you’ll see, kinda do your little bit and then they kinda hang out and then do some more, hang out …

Todd Herman:                     Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Josh Felber:                          … we know, okay our goal today is 1,000 packages we want to get out the door.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah, yeah.

Josh Felber:                          But you have those couple people that just kinda lag.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          What is that? Is there some strategies or some processes that you say “Hey, this, if you’re doing this, and this and this and this it’s gonna help make things more efficient.”

Todd Herman:                     Yeah, well so, attention goes to what’s incentivized.

Josh Felber:                          Okay, sure.

Todd Herman:                     So just attention goes to what’s incentivized. So, if you don’t give people incentives to innovate, iterate, systemize, make things better inside, because some people that are especially in roles like that …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … they don’t wanna like systemize something because that means their job is gone possibly, right?

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     And so you don’t get maybe innovative ideas that come from them, but if you find a way to incentivize people for coming up with newer, better, faster ways of completing things or safer ways of doing things as well. Because faster doesn’t necessarily mean better because now you break the safety part of something.

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     It depends on again, like that’s why there’s so much breakage when it comes to why we had the financial meltdown in 2007. It’s because they incentivized people to create toxic debt, right?

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     They got paid for that.

Josh Felber:                          Right, as much as you can get in there.

Todd Herman:                     They didn’t get paid for return of that actual debt. They got paid for selling a bunch of bad mortgages to people, right?

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     So, incentivizing those people is where their attention is. So, now instead of them sitting around, and you know what, if that’s what they’re paid to do is just like boxes and I mean …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … those jobs are gonna be gone soon anyway because I mean, robotics, automation …

Josh Felber:                          All that, yeah.

Todd Herman:                     … and things, it’s just the nature …

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     … if they now know that they’re incentivized and to innovate it just changes their attention and what they might be thinking about.

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     So if their job is to just pack boxes why would you expect them to do anything maybe but that? You’re an achiever.

Josh Felber:                          [crosstalk 00:19:38] push that down.

Todd Herman:                     Not everyone’s like you, right?

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     There’s hunters, there’s gatherers, right? So, yeah that idea of attention goes to what’s incentivized.

Josh Felber:                          But that does make … yeah that makes sense because I mean, especially to opening it up and saying … maybe they know a better way. Or oh man, if I just did this and this I could get like 10 more out the door every hour.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          Kind of a thing.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah 100%.

Josh Felber:                          Cool, awesome. I know we got a little bit of time left, what are your top three things for personal high performance that somebody could take and like boom, start implementing today?

Todd Herman:                     Gary Vanderchuk, who probably a lot of these people know …

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     … friend and he talks about his, you know what he says is his number one super power? He says it a few times but [crosstalk 00:20:22] …

Josh Felber:                          Oh.

Todd Herman:                     … this is like, on the spot.

Josh Felber:                          I know! And I’ve interviewed him too so I’m blanking Gary. I’m sorry! Self-awareness?

Todd Herman:                     Exactly. There you go, well done! Well done! On the spot, on the camera. That’s why you’re listening to him …

Josh Felber:                          Edit the little pause out.

Todd Herman:                     … yeah, but so self awareness is what he feels is his super power. That’s what I feel like is my super power.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     And anyone who’s trying to achieve big things, the more and more you get to know like what you’re really great at …

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     … and what your weaknesses are …

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     … and my weaknesses are my strengths because I get better, smarter people to manage the weaknesses …

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     … or weed the weaknesses, right?

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     So, the three things for high performance is like know what your real core strength is. I’m all about what’s one thing?

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     So if I had to say what’s one thing that I know I am phenomenal at …

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     … I have a tough time with it. I’m dyslexic, so my brain actually thinks in pictures. So even when you’re talking to me it actually takes all your words and creates a visual in my head [crosstalk 00:21:19] …

Josh Felber:                          Visualizes it, yeah.

Todd Herman:                     … and so what that allows me to do is actually I create a lot of models in my head. So I’m really good at like thinking fast because I have …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … Venn diagrams and models in my head that actually allow me to strip down a really broad topic into a very simple form, which gives me kinda … it’s the 20% that gives you 80% of all the results.

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     I’m always thinking about that whole 80, 20 thing, but really I’m … not just because I’m an extrovert, but I love relationships. I love meeting people. I love finding out their story and stuff. So relationships is my strength. So, that is how I build all my businesses.

Josh Felber:                          Gotcha.

Todd Herman:                     I build all my businesses to start with off of what my strength is. If I went into the eCommerce, I’ve never ran an eCommerce business …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … I would build that eCommerce business on the back of strategic alliances, not on a phenomenal marketing model. I would acquire the skills to maybe build a marketing model, but I’m gonna build that business off of great alliances, great JV partnerships and things like that. So, that’s my number one is know what you’re phenomenal at.

Josh Felber:                          Cool.

Todd Herman:                     If I did interviews like this all day long, a lot of people get exhausted at the end of them …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … me, there’s no loss of energy whatsoever. I can do this all day long and I’ll be just as chipper as I was at 10 o’clock in the morning. And same thing with like working with clients. I love it and so that’s one thing is really know what your one thing is and then try to make sure that [inaudible 00:22:36] your calendar is filled up with as much of that as possible.

Josh Felber:                          That focus.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah, if you can get to that 50% threshold … a lot of people talk about 80% of my day is filled with nothing. I’m like you’re full of crap. I work with the highest performers on the planet and they are lucky if they get to 50, 60% …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … so that’s one thing. Another thing is really, really appreciating the value of knowing how to manage those activities.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     I think we kinda talked about, is like really reinforcing that idea. I don’t think we need to give you more ideas. It’s really just that you’re rewarded by the quality of the activity that you do every day.

Josh Felber:                          Got it.

Todd Herman:                     If I fill my day up with talking to the Josh Felber’s …

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     … you’re gonna get to know me better and then when someone says to you, comes to you with a problem you’re like “Oh you should go talk to my friend Todd Herman because that’s exactly what he solves.”

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     Right? And so, that’s the thing, but for me, I’ll give you something that’s actually something I’ve done. Part of my day is I wake up every single morning the first thing I do in business is I write a personal letter to someone.

Josh Felber:                          Okay.

Todd Herman:                     So I’ve written handwritten letters for, this is going into the 21st year.

Josh Felber:                          Wow.

Todd Herman:                     So I’ve written over 4,586 letters. I have a tic sheet [crosstalk 00:23:43] this morning was my 4,586th letter.

Josh Felber:                          Yeah.

Todd Herman:                     It’s just one page and it’s very simple. I have a very simple framework that I do and I have a wax seal and I like wax seal with my wax. I have a stamp that I have …

Josh Felber:                          That’s cool.

Todd Herman:                     … that’s got my insignia on it and stuff. Never ask for anything.

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     It’s just me expressing gratitude for someone for something that they’ve done. So if you’ve written a book and I’ve read your book I’ll always write an author a letter telling them something I appreciated and specifically what’s something I got out of the book?

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     On page 76 when you said blah, blah, blah, blah and I’ll actually put the direct quote into it …

Josh Felber:                          Right in there.

Todd Herman:                     … that created an epiphany for me and I won’t think of that topic the same way so I wanted to say thank you very much because I know that writing a book is one of the most difficult things that you can birth out there. So I just wanted to let you know that it impacted someone. Hope you have a great day …

Josh Felber:                          That’s awesome.

Todd Herman:                     … Todd. Never say “Hey if you’re in New York city sometime come by. I’d like to buy you coffee.”Never, ever, ever. Now, I’ve been responded back by 93% of all the people I’ve ever sent letters to, Daniel Day Lewis, Phillip C. Hoffman, Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan. Like I’ve sent letters to [crosstalk 00:24:44] and what’s amazing is the higher quality people will always respond.

Josh Felber:                          I’ve noticed that, sure.

Todd Herman:                     Right? It’s amazing.

Josh Felber:                          Oh yeah even just like with interviews.

Todd Herman:                     How important that they know relationships are …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … The number one response, what do you think the number one response back would be from people?

Josh Felber:                          Gratitude?

Todd Herman:                     It’s that you have no idea how much I needed to get this letter today.

Josh Felber:                          Wow!

Todd Herman:                     Life’s fucking hard man.

Josh Felber:                          That’s crazy.

Todd Herman:                     Life’s hard, right?

Josh Felber:                          Yeah.

Todd Herman:                     It is. And we don’t all have cherry bomb days.

Josh Felber:                          No.

Todd Herman:                     There’s [crosstalk 00:25:13] …

Josh Felber:                          It’s not the highlight reel on Facebook or Instagram.

Todd Herman:                     It’s not at all. It’s more like just going through the slog of things.

Josh Felber:                          Oh yeah.

Todd Herman:                     So when you get something like that, and I truly mean it when I say it …

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     … writing to people. Yeah it means a lot. That’s one thing I’ve done …

Josh Felber:                          Hey can we stop there? Do you mind sharing that framework real quick before we’re up? Because I think that’s amazing.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah I’ve actually been working on like an epic blog post on my thing for like a year because I’m not a writer at all. It’s the toughest thing. But yeah, so it just starts off with like “Hey Josh, or your name at the top,” and then it’s “Hey Josh, we’ve never had the opportunity to connect or meet before, but I just felt compelled to send you this letter. I just finished reading your book on making bank and I wanted to tell you that what you wrote on page 79 on,” and then direct quote, because there’s nothing sweeter to the sound of anyone’s ears than the sound of their own name …

Josh Felber:                          For sure.

Todd Herman:                     … and the sound of their own words that made an impact on you.

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     So Josh, Jim Rohan was my mentor for 13 years until the day he passed away …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … so he helped me behind the scenes and he said that quote to me once and I never forgot that.

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     And he’s dead right. So, I’ll put the direct quote in there. Basically like I said before, just wanted to let you know how much of an impact that made on my mindset when it comes to that topic …

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     … I won’t think of it the same way, so thank you so much. Hope you’re well and thanks again for putting the effort into writing the book, Todd.

Josh Felber:                          That’s cool.

Todd Herman:                     And it has my email at the very bottom or my address and …

Josh Felber:                          Like on a stationary?

Todd Herman:                     Yeah on stationary. It’s all just tempo, but no “Hey P.S.”

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     I’m not asking … so people talk about gratitude journals …

Josh Felber:                          Right.

Todd Herman:                     … and I think that’s … if you do a gratitude journal or something like that and express gratitude every single day that’s amazing, but I feel that gratitude is this powerful emotion that you can pass on to other people.

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     So I don’t want the gratitude to sit inside of me and I use the letter as my ability to like get it out there onto other people.

Josh Felber:                          Cool.

Todd Herman:                     So that’s just my framework.

Josh Felber:                          That’s awesome.

Todd Herman:                     I mean, if it wasn’t a book that they wrote. If it was they …

Josh Felber:                          A connection.

Todd Herman:                     … they were a connection or there was someone that did something for me I’d appreciate it. Or if it was they were written up in a magazine or a newspaper …

Josh Felber:                          Sure.

Todd Herman:                     … then I’ll cut out the clipping and I’ll put it in and yeah.

Josh Felber:                          That’s awesome.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          I just got my kids, they’re doing their five minute gratitude journal. The kids five minute …

Todd Herman:                     Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          … They love it. They do it every day.

Todd Herman:                     That’s great.

Josh Felber:                          It’s super cool. Let’s let our audience know where they can find out more about you …

Todd Herman:                     Sure.

Josh Felber:                          … get some more information. I know you got a ton of content out there and everything.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah.

Josh Felber:                          If you could let them know.

Todd Herman:                     Yeah if they go to Toddherman.me that’s my home base where you can kinda find out more about what I’ve got and see what we’ve got going on.

Josh Felber:                          Cool, awesome. Guys make sure you rewind. Take tons of notes. Slow this down. Todd dropped some amazing insights today and just to be able to help you transform and move your life to that next level performance, whatever that looks like for you.

So, Todd I just wanna welcome you for being on making bank today, my friend.

Todd Herman:                     Thanks buddy, appreciate it.

Josh Felber:                          And really appreciate your time today.

Todd Herman:                     Absolutely.

Josh Felber:                          I am Josh Felber. You are watching making bank. Get out and be extraordinary.