In this pinnacle episode, David Bush, Owner of Extraordinary Results Coaching, shares how he consulted hundreds of business owners, leading them toward remarkable success and helping them live extraordinary lives.
You will discover:
– What it actually means to live an extraordinary life
– The 6 steps to achieving an extraordinary life
– The true source of motivation
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast and I am here with yet another high demand coach. It is the one the only David Bush. Now, David inspires entrepreneurial leaders to design and live extraordinary lives. His passion for developing exceptional leaders and high performance teams translates into a powerful high energy message that empowers individuals to live their dreams and change the world. With a unique blend of humor, insightful storytelling and take home success strategies. David will guide us on an inspiring ride as he challenges us to get out of our comfort caves and become extraordinary Cliff climbers in everything we do what, David, welcome to the show, I had a ton of fun researching for this episode. There were so many things across your website and the resources that you made available. I even told you as we were getting ready, I don’t know how to fit it all in. So we’re gonna do our best to get this in. But one just fantastic job with what you’ve put together. I’m really excited to dive into it. But before we get there, just what what got you to this point? What ultimately led you to make the leap into helping entrepreneurial leaders this way?
David Bush
Yeah, thanks so much guy. I’m really looking forward to this conversation. I’ve been looking forward for months, and it was hard to get on your calendar, man, you’re a hard podcast to get into. So I’m excited about the opportunity you’ve given me today. And I hope the words that I shared today, I kind of hope to be a reporter, not necessarily a sage on a stage or wisdom guy behind a webcam, I really want to just be the guy that has reported the facts of what it’s like to pursue an extraordinary life and just be warm of encouragement, maybe bring some hope, bring some ideas, bring some strategies, maybe some great reminders, Patrick Lencioni, from the great five dysfunctions of a team of five dysfunctions of teams, he has this great quote, he says, We need to be reminded more than we need to be taught. So I’m 51. And I need to be reminded more than I need another new strategy. So I want to bring some great reminders and some aha moments to people today. But you know, I started off as a as a young kid, being a son of an entrepreneur, and just always listened to things like my dad would listen to Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, all kinds of different things. So you know, I was going to school, every time I got in the car, you know, my dad was just always a guy that really loved to be encouraged and motivated and educated. And he really taught us my brother night to become everything that we could become. So we’ve always been big dreamers. And I always had a desire to be a Jim Rohn or Zig Ziglar. But I didn’t know if I wanted to do that if I wanted to be a motivational speaker or a coach, whatever else. And then I, I heard the phrase becoming a people farmer, I help people grow. And that’s really where I kind of get excited about the idea of growing entrepreneurial leaders into extraordinary leaders taking ordinary people to extraordinary and so I started that journey about 25 years ago, haven’t stopped. They haven’t told me I was free to leave yet. And so I’m continuing the journey, but super excited to share some of that with everybody today.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic. So, so talk to us a little bit, you’ve got a book out on the topic, but a lot of the work that you do is around living in extraordinary, extraordinary life. What does that actually mean?
David Bush
Yeah, great question. You know, I think that people would easily define extraordinary as going above and beyond which usual, regular and customary. That’s what the definition is in the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary. But there’s also a second definition, which I think a lot of people would also use for the definition, which is exceptional to a very marked extent. And when I talk to people about becoming an extraordinary entrepreneur, living an extraordinary life, becoming an extraordinary leader generates extraordinary results. Oftentimes, they connect it with that exceptional definition. They don’t connect it with just the idea of going above and beyond which usual regular and customer. And that’s what I really want to talk about today. Because, you know, it’s this idea of habit stacking, or, you know, just compounding over time, small improvements to your intelligence, your education, your your wisdom, your habits, and when you can start to compound that over time. You know, compounding interest is the eighth wonder of the world. The ninth wonder of the world must be the idea of compounding efforts going above and beyond what’s usual regular and customary and the development of habits. And I’ve really been excited about this concept around you know, it usually takes a conversation, not information that leads to transformation. You know, it starts with conversation, and then some information and then some education you get some answers to some questions. It’s not just the the delivery of information but then It’s the application of the education. You know, they say knowledge is power, but it’s not really knowledge is power, it’s applied knowledge is power. And if we can take some very basic principles to help people to go above and beyond what’s usual, regular and customary, whatever happened last week, just take a snapshot of last week, last month, the last trailing 12 months, in looking at the in the year ahead of time or the week ahead of time, could you go above and beyond which usual, regular and customary? Could you do all you could do nothing more, nothing less. And oftentimes, that leads to exceptional outcomes and exceptional results that blow people away of what they’re they’re capable of?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I have found that endeavors of this nature are are better than we think the results are better than we think. But the journey is often harder than we think as well. Would you agree with that? Do you find that to be true as well? And if so, what would you say to someone who’s along the journey right now?
David Bush
Yeah, you know, oftentimes, when I speak in front of audiences, I asked the question, how many people in this room want to live an extraordinary life? And you’d see, like 90% of the people like, there’s always going to be the 10%, that won’t raise their hand for anything. But usually, it’s everybody that’s willing to contribute or to be involved will raise their hand and say, I’d like to live an extraordinary life. And I’d say how many people want to live a failing life? No hands go up. But what’s the difference? Well, why don’t people live an extraordinary life? Why don’t people build extraordinary businesses, it’s oftentimes because they’ve never clarified what that even looks like for them. So you know, Scott, you do some extraordinary work and everything that you do, scaling businesses, and leading leaders and coaching leaders, I’m pretty confident you have a clear goal of what you’re trying to accomplish, because you’ve defined what extraordinary means to you. And a lot of people just have never taken the time, like, they’ll plan a vacation or they’ll go, they’ll spend 1000s of dollars, go to Disney World. And they’ll have a whole plan of what they’re going to do where they’re going to stay. You’re asking them about their business, what’s their business plan look like? What’s their vision for their life? What’s their life plan look like? They don’t have an extraordinary life plan. And that just, I don’t know, for some reason, that was the big quote from Jim Rohn, that I’ve just, it’s my life quote. And the quote is, if you fail to create your own plan, chances are Scott, you’re going to end up in somebody else’s plan. And guess what they got planned for you. Not an extraordinary life, not an extraordinary outcome. Most people are not sitting around going, what can I plan for Scott now there’s some people that will have a plan for Scott and, and that’s something that you may just decide to go right into, because it’s a good thing for you. Or you may just be doing your parents plan, or you may be doing your spouse’s plan or your kids plan and you’re running all over the place, and you’re not doing your own extraordinary plan. Because nobody has ever sat down and showed you how to plan to succeed or plan to live an extraordinary life or to build an extraordinary business. And so that’s a real passion of mine is helping people to plan and design almost like an architect. I know you do. Scale architects, you have this business where you can architect a successful business. Breaking that down in the same way for a person’s life is really what I get excited about.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. And it brings up an interesting point, because a lot of my clients do have a plan from a business perspective. But still a surprising number of them do not have a plan from a life perspective. And they can get away with that for years. Because, you know, they can look so successful from the outside, right and even be successful by some standards, even their own. But what happens if they, if they don’t do this work, especially if they don’t do it on time is when they achieve whatever they thought was the success that they wanted? They tend to come face to face with the wall that is, Who am I like, who am I really? What am I in this for really. And so even for an entrepreneur who in many ways is doing something extraordinary, right? For a successful entrepreneur, like a lot of the folks who listen to this podcast, there’s still something missing in that. So what would you say are the steps or the kind of key anchors to living an extraordinary life?
David Bush
Yeah, I kind of go through the six step model. That’s been very helpful for me. And I’ll just go through it quickly because I know we’re on a short amount of time, but these six steps will end up helping people to really craft a good start. And oftentimes, they need somebody that’s had some experience in crafting a life plan or crafting an extraordinary life plan to put the final touches on it. Because just like if I was going to ask you today, Scott, you know, would you like to build your dream House, what would your dream house look like? You could probably sketch it out with some basic ideas of how many bedrooms and where that where the lot would be let what what would be around it, if you’d have a pool, three car garage, that kind of stuff, you can do a pretty good job of sketching it out. But you probably need an architect before you’re gonna go up and and build it right. And so the same thing goes with what it is that we do. So the first step is that you clarify, clarify what it is, that would really do it for you. Like, if you couldn’t be what you wanted to be do what you wanted to do have what you wanted to ask God, what would you be doing have in your life? Just don’t, don’t be limited. Just write it out. And we’ll talk about, you know, budgets, and we’ll talk about commitment. And you know, how challenging it can be based upon the conversation that follows. But let’s just start, what would really do it for you? And I don’t know, Scott, is there anything that comes to mind? That would be like a big life, desire, Dream Vision, whatever word you want to use? What’s something that you’d absolutely love to be do or have in the future? That you’re not today? That would absolutely be extraordinary?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I would love to this something that has been a key anchor for the business, actually, from the very beginning, from before the beginning, and that is to restore the nobility of work. I think work is actually a beautiful thing that’s gotten a very bad name. And so so much of what we do here is around creating places that that create that environment for people to step into.
David Bush
Yeah, so that and what that phrase just stated, has purpose and meaning to it. But what it may not have is clarity as to how would you quantify or how would you determine if you would achieve that or not? What would be the desired outcome of the achievement that you would like to have. And so it could be something as simple as that I would like to educate a million people. Or I’d like to be able to educate 10 million people, and to bring this message and the message is x. And I want to do that, before I die. That’s a very clear, descriptive vision that you’ve now clarified. Now, again, you can change it along the way, because this is your plan. It’s not my plan. But just getting clear on the idea of, I want to deliver this message to 10 million people before I die. And you could actually come back and quantify how many followers how many videos watched, I mean, you could actually come back and build some metrics to see whether or not that your vision or mission is being accomplished. So it starts with clarifying. And that’s just one area. We try to get people to just think abundantly and just think, okay, what are all the things physical, mental, relational, vocational, financial, like just describe your desired outcome? And once they get that level of focus, you know, it’s almost like Henry David Thoreau said, Have you built your castles in the sky? castles? He didn’t say, Have you built your fantasies in the sky? He said, Have you built your castles, which councils are very district? Good, now that you have a castle is up above, now build the foundations underneath them? And the foundations are the how do I get to build that particular castle. So it starts off with clarifying, then it goes to prioritizing, right. And I don’t know where that particular dream rests with all the other things that are important to you. But oftentimes, what happens is, is that people kind of have a buffet of dreams and aspirations and a calling and other things that we help them to really get clarity on. And then we move it to a form of priority. And when you can prioritize, you can delete some things that you’re like, You know what I’d like to do that, not something that I’m going to be regretful of if I die, and I’m like, it’s going to be something that would be fun to do. But it’s not something that I would feel regret, if I didn’t do in prioritizing. It just now puts things into focus, so that you can have clear direction, because if you have too many dreams, you know, a house divided will not stand, you got to be able to have a focus of what is my highest value priorities, so that I can organize my life around what matters most. The next step is to create a plan. So it’s to take that Castle in the Sky and to build out an action plan. So what would be a milestone so just in your example, if you could break down a goal or a short term, a short term goal, that would be something that could be very specific in the next 3-6-9-12-24 months? What would be something that we could focus on that would be attached to that idea of reaffirming work is not a four letter word. Yeah, that’d be a book you would like what’s something that’s real concretely?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. So there’s a couple of things that would do it. I think in the numbers a million, by the way, didn’t share it over there. But it’s a million and it’s particular to impact organizations that have a million employees and workers in them. So to be on track for that we’d like to be at 200 by the end of next year.
David Bush
Fantastic. So now you can just you can just break it down into milestones just like you would with business and metrics that you would do on quarterly goals or annual goals, you’re just taking your life goals, and you’re beginning to break that down. And now you have a plan. And then the fourth step is to implement. So the thing that we oftentimes find is, is that there’s way too much low leverage activity, or a bunch of extra time that’s been wasted in inside of entrepreneurs calendars. So we really like to look at the calendar and make sure that the calendar matches the desired outcome. And if I could go in there and look at your calendar, because I know that you’re a an architect, I could find Evidence That Demands a Verdict that Scott’s on track. And it wouldn’t take long, right? We just have to look at the calendar and say, How many appointments, how many conversations, how many presentations, all the stuff that would lead to connecting with those million people, we could break it down and say, Yes, we’re on track or no, we’re not. In with conversation. This is where the coaching piece really adds value. Because now you can have somebody that’s now looking at what you accomplished and go, Oh, we’re off track. And this happens all the time. When you’re building large buildings, there’s problems, there’s challenges, and, and so you just got to make sure that you’ve, you’re implementing the action plan. And then the fifth area is the area of breakthrough. And you know, this for coaching so many different people is that oftentimes there’s breakdowns, you know, there’s emotional breakdowns, there’s disappointment, discouragement, depression, sometimes you leave, you lose a key employee and or you lose a spouse, you have somebody gets sick. How do you continue the journey, you got to break through, you got to be willing to overcome those adversities and setbacks with a growth mindset. And so we coach people around the breakthrough. And then the last piece is measuring, right? We measure the outcomes. And if you’re making reasonable progress over a measurable period of time, then we celebrate, if you’re not making progress, and we ask the question, what happened? What do we want to have happen? What’s missing? And what’s next. And then we start the cycle all over again. And sometimes we have to re clarify, or reprioritize because the way that we were approaching it just didn’t work. And that’s why I like to say that this whole idea of living an extraordinary life is a process. It’s not an event, you don’t just do it one day and go, Okay, I got a life plan. It’s a constant refining of your plan. And reevaluation is this Abril value to me, is this something I want to do, but once you’ve got that plan, Scott, you accelerate your progress, and you start seeing things happening, that you’ve never seen happen at the rate that they’re happening, because you’ve got focus, clarity, direction, balance. And, again, a lot of people don’t want to take the time to create a plan, because they’ve never really learned how to do it in a simple way. Or they’ve created plans before and they failed. And they’ve blamed the plan of like, well, I’ve done that before I set goals every year I would have, and they just throw the baby out with the bathwater. And that’s unfortunate.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, it’s so true. I cannot agree more. You just see this. We actually had a gentleman on not too long ago, Terence Chatmon who talked about doing this for your family, as well. But the ability to the ability to take that vision, that idea and actually synthesize it down to something you can write down and plan out is such a valuable activity. And you’re right, I see very few people who are accelerating without it, right. And whatever area of life, I couldn’t agree more. Now, there’s a question I like to ask all my guests. And it is this what is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
David Bush
That self motivation comes from within, not from the outside. I think that many people think I just need to get motivated. You don’t need to get motivated by something external, you can actually create motivation. And there’s five simple things that you can do to create motivation. And I’ll just give them to you quickly. The very first thing is, is that there’s you can you could watch movies, you can watch videos, you can I mean, you’ve got a tremendous amount of videos and content, Scott, you can get on there and watch and be motivated by the visual aspect. You can listen, you can listen to podcasts, you can listen to books, you can read books, you can read blogs, you can read social media, you can journal, your own thoughts, your own words can become self motivating. And then the last piece is you can end up talking to people and many people are waiting for some inspired environment or some inspired event. But that’s not necessarily what leads to motivation. Denis Waitley said it great when he said motivation is a contraction between the word motive when you have an idea that’s exciting to you or something that is meaningful to you. And action. And when you take motive in action and you combine them, that’s where you get motivation. And I just think that so many people are feeling unmotivated, and that they think that they have to be motivated to do something and they don’t they just need to take Action on their motive, and do some of those five things we talked about. And then what happens is, is that they start getting into momentum, motivation increases, positivity increases. But it all starts with action.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. David this is so good and so helpful and practical and powerful as well. I know there’s folks listening to this, and from your first couple of sentences out of the gate you had, they just like it’s the right message for the right time. They, they, they they feel the need for a plan and they’re ready to take action on it. Where can they find more out about you in the work that you do?
David Bush
Now, the best place is just to go to the website. And it’s theextraordinarylife.com, theextraordinary life.com and it has access to everything, it’s got access to the planner there, which is an eight and a half by 11 planner that helps you to design your life and then it’s got access to the book. It’s only a short read 100 pages, but I list out six commitments that I have found to be evident and most extraordinary leaders that people can emulate and we can compress time using the experience of others and become faster, better acceleration towards the goals that we have. Just by looking at what other people have done so you want to take a look at that. And then I don’t know from a show notes perspective, we’ll make sure that we get get him some resources in the show notes to make it real simple for them.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. Well, David, one thank you for being on the show. It’s just an honor and privilege having you here I want a second to anyone listening. The book and the planner are phenomenal it’s not you know trivial stuff he really did a fantastic job with them. If anything about this episode resonated with you go there now if you’re driving wait until you get wherever you’re going, but get the link from the show notes head on over there and you will not be disappointed, a phenomenal resources. And for those of you who are watching listen, you know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did. And I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact David Bush
David inspires entrepreneurial leaders to design and live extraordinary lives. His passion for developing exceptional leaders and high-performance teams translates into a powerful, high-energy message that empowers individuals to live their dreams and change their world. With a unique blend of humor, insightful storytelling, and take-home success strategies, David guides leaders on an inspiring ride, and he challenges them to get out of their COMFORT CAVES and become extraordinary CLIFF CLIMBERS in everything they do.
Want to learn more about David Bush’s work at Extraordinary Results Coaching? Check out his website at https://theextraordinarylife.com/
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