Kent Svenson:
Welcome to the trusted leader show. I’m Kent Svenson producer of the trusted leader show. And for this week’s episode, we thought we’d take a look back at a previous episode where David sat down with internationally acclaimed speaker, mentor, trainer, and coach Paul Martinelli in the episode, David and Paul discuss how to unlock your personal transformation. So sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

David Horsager:
What does it take to, to, to transform as a person? You know, we, we, at least I see a lot of people that in fact, I used to ask audiences when we would do at our executive trusted events. How many of you want to change a habit? How many everybody wants to change a habit? I’d say now, how many have ever changed a difficult habit, a a, a habit from, from smoking to losing 25 pounds or more to, you know, some, a significant like 6%, almost nobody actually has changed a habit. How, how can people actually do it? How can they actually change from, from this? Whether it’s a habit or a you know, way they’ve always been a mind shift, but how do they actually change people go to conferences all the time. They go to all kinds of things. They hear a podcast. Like I wanna cha yes, that’s gonna be me, you know? And then January 2nd comes, right?

Paul Martinelli:
yeah, I laugh cuz January second’s my birthday. And I always say, it’s the worst birthday, because you know, on that day, you know, everybody quit smoking, quit drinking, quit eating, quit, doing all the kinds of stuff. But January 3rd would be a great birthday cuz that’s when they start again. Right, right.

David Horsager:
Exactly.

Paul Martinelli:
On my birthday, nobody’s eating the cake. Nobody wants to go to the dinner. Nobody wants to cheers.

David Horsager:
By the way, I gotta jump in there because my birthday is January 1st.

Paul Martinelli:
Oh, get out there. You I’m

David Horsager:
A new year. I’m a new year’s baby. So, oh, there we go. 1, 2, 1, 2. We’re the one, two punch today,

Paul Martinelli:
Right? We were both good for the taxes of the, of, of, of our parents. you know,

David Horsager:
, although my dad said he lost so much money in farming that year. I did, he didn’t need the tax benefit. So

Paul Martinelli:
that’s right. You know here here’s, here’s what I’ve, here’s what I kind of realize and, and believe and know for myself and other people. When we think of what a habit is, I think that’s that’s important is, is, you know, habit people say, well, habit is a behavior. And habit is, is a, is not a behavior. It’s an expression of a belief. It’s an expression of a composite made of three things. Our self identity, our self image, right? The image that we hold of ourselves and believe other people seeing us, it’s our, self-esteem our personal self regard, how I value me and how I believe other people value me the composite of that forms a, a self identity or self-belief. And we never outperform our own self-belief. It was the worker Dr. Maxwell malts, the book, psycho cybernetics. And so a habit is just an expression of, of an internal belief.

Paul Martinelli:
And I have always found that the starting point of transformation, personal transformation has to be that the person must see themselves complete and whole in relation to that, which they wanna change. If the starting point is, is that I’m broken or I need fixed or in somehow I’m inadequate or, or I’m incomplete or something new needs to be added to me. In other words, if I don’t see myself as fully resourced before I begin, the likelihood of me being able to change is very slim to none. Because what I will do is I will look at external conditions and circumstances and try to change from the outside end. And it doesn’t work. Transformation is an inside game. It’s a you and you deal, it starts with you a and so I think the starting belief is really critical things don’t end well, they start badly, right?

Paul Martinelli:
And so if the starting belief is that I’m fully resourced, that it would be impossible for me to be sourced with the awareness of this idea to change without being fully resourced from that same source that I got the idea to change it, it, it would be impossible for us to be able to have that idea and not be able to manifest it in our lives. So we are fully resourced. It’s about being able to get congruency and alignment with who we are, who we see ourselves as you know, who am I, you know, you know who we are and whose we are. And then the beliefs that would support the, the expression of the behavior for that habit, belief drives behavior, period. End of story. If you’re gonna make a sustained period of time,

David Horsager:
It’s so true. We, you know, I think Brene brown made it more famous. You gotta belong first than you believe. Then you behave, you, the belief comes first, but even I remember, you know, basic psychology thoughts lead to desires, lead to actions. It always starts over here. Thoughts. It always starts think about as a, as a, as a man think it, or as a woman think as, so are they, you know, that what, you know, we’ve got to change our thinking to change our behaviors first. So how do, how do we do that?

Paul Martinelli:
Yeah, I think, I think there’s several, there’s several great ways. One is get around good people, right. You know, get, you know I had an opportunity to do the last interview with Charlie tremendous Jones. And of course he shared his, you know, his, his favorite and most famous quote of, you know, you, you, your life is the sum total of the composite of the people. You, you spend time with the books, you read the seminars you attend. And so, you know,

David Horsager:
Being, I will never forget when he, you know, his hug and kiss, right.

Paul Martinelli:
Biggest guy in the world.

David Horsager:
You’ll never forget that. I mean, he, everybody you’re tremendous and a hug and kiss that is unforgettable.

Paul Martinelli:
Yeah. Yeah. It it’s a shame that so many, so many people who are now kind of entering in personal growth and human potential movement missed him. Right. So, you know, the, the many, many, many will miss Zig. But Charlie tremendous Jones was, was a literal giant, but he was a giant in, in, in, in this idea. But I think, you know, being part of this community, right. Being part of the, you know, trusted leader community so who, who, who you’re around with, I think also you know, you know, O observational thinking, you know, wa watching what other people do really, really become a student of, of, of human potential. And because success does leave clues.

David Horsager:
So how would I do that? How would I do that? Read a book. Well, how would I, how would I observe?

Paul Martinelli:
Yeah. I think, I think, you know, proximity is power. So I think you do whatever you can do to get as much proximity. If, if the starting point of your proximity is, is a book to get the book, you know I have traveled, I’ve traveled all over the world to be able to find, you know, a, a speaker. And I, I, I I’d go anywhere if I could hear a speaker. If, if that speaker had something that I wanted, if that, if that speaker had results that I wanted, I would go I, you, you volunteer, you put yourself in proximity. Most of the people that we would wanna, you know, be around have charities that they are very close to. So we can, we, we, we may not be able to get in the front door of working with their business, but if we were to work in the back door, by going into a charity that they love or cause that they love and, and making a substantial impact there, that would lead to an introduction.

Paul Martinelli:
You know, that’s how I, I got to meet rich DeVos, you know, founder of family. I mean, you talk about, you know, a, a giant and a really success. I mean, if you wanna model someone, I mean, he, he was a great one and you know, so, so be being able, being able to, you know, create that proximity. So if it starts with the book, it’s, it’s a book. If it’s watching their biography, then that’s what you do. You do whatever you can do, you, you, you, you have to be in the relentless pursuit of, of, of getting proximity.

David Horsager:
So, you know, there’s a couple questions I have here because you have created a community empowered living community where people get around great people and you encourage just tell us a glimpse about what that’s like and how that community, I think people are craving community. And if they, you know, get the right community, they become better because of it. Right? Yeah. So give us a glimpse of your, why you started that. And now, you know, 1.8 million people are a part of it or more probably today, but, you know the, the impact of that community and why even start it in the first place.

Paul Martinelli:
Yeah. The, the, the community’s grown at a 2.3 million people, and it is a, it is a community of tribes. So it is, there are the, the, the, the page, the community started as a Facebook page years and years and years ago even before there were ads on Facebook, when you could really grow a page, you know, now it’s now it’s difficult in social media to really grow a platform. And so that was one of the advantages of, you know, of, of, of the community was it was an early adopter. It, it, you know, seeing, seeing this idea of community in tribes before Seth God wrote the book tribes. Right. and before the concept was there

David Horsager:
Why, well, so first, why did you do it? Why did you create that community and then, and what now are people getting at? What, why are people still coming and it’s growing immensely

Paul Martinelli:
For me? I think the reason I, I, I started it was because community was so powerful to me when I was in the guardian angels. It was so powerful for me when I was in the dojo and the community within just my, my karate association. It was really, and so when I looked back at my life, when was, when, when was Paul at his best, and it wasn’t when I was alone, right. It was when I was with other people. And, and it was also when I was lifting other people up, you know, I, I always say, you know, I’m a really good number two. So I was number two to Curtis swell. I was number two to Bob Proctor. I was number two to, to John Maxwell. Right. I’m a really good, I was number two with Les brown. I’m a really good number, two of helping other people, you know, get their agenda express and helping, you know, helping other people, I think is, you know, what, most of us, you know, most of the people who, who are, you know, probably in your audience would identify themselves as an agent of change, right?

Paul Martinelli:
Somebody wants to make a difference maker in, in the lives of other people. They’re not doing that for themselves. They’re doing it. Cuz it’s some level, they really believe in this idea of being of service to other people. And so I realized that I had, you know, I, I had, I had a bigger platform than most people have and I wanted to give that platform and, and give people who otherwise would never get a shot, a shot. And so that’s why I started it.

David Horsager:
And what’s, what’s there to keep people, I mean, it keeps growing, what, what do, how do they connect? Like you have, you see lots of people trying to build social communities and whatever, but it doesn’t last there somehow this one, like people, there’s a generous feeling, there’s a connection. There’s a give like what are just a couple of things that are happening there that just keep building community and impact.

Paul Martinelli:
I think you you’ve gotta model what you want seeing. Right. And so, you know one of my, one of my life principles is tithing. I, I live my life by it. I talk about it, I teach on it. I, you know, I unabashedly, I don’t hide from it. I don’t hide that. I’m a person of faith, but I don’t, I don’t beat people up about it. But I model that and you know, we’ve been able to really create a big impact when you’ve got that many people, if everybody, you know, the old, you know, if everybody gave five bucks, we could do something here, you know? And so I was on a, I was on a trip a leadership development program in para way with John Maxwell ran across two young kids. They were 23 years old and they were 3d printing hands for, for, for kids like hand, like arms for kids. And they, they could print an, a functional arm for a hundred in about two days. So a kid would come in they’d measures. And two days later, kids running around with, with a hand, I’m thinking for a hundred bucks. Right. So, you know, I took $50,000 donated it, but then did a match with the community and said, you know, I’ll match the first $50,000. And I, I, I don’t know. I think we raised close to $200,000. Think of, think of the, just think of the change. Just, you know, it’s a hand, right? Yeah.

Paul Martinelli:
Wow. Spend, spend, spend the next five hours with your right dominant hand in your pocket and see how, how the day goes for you. Right. And then imagine pulling it out that’s freedom. Right. Yeah. And so I think because we model that in the community and and we don’t have lots of rules in the community and you know, you don’t have to, you don’t have to sneakily promote yourself. If you’ve got something you wanna promote, you schedule a time and we give you the platform for 15 minutes, you know, sell whatever you want. And, and we don’t, we, you know, we don’t do affiliates. We’re not an affiliate for any of them. So as long look, as long as it’s something that would add value to people, you know, is an alignment with, you know, our, our values, you know, is an Integris and we know that you’re gonna deliver on it. We give you the slot.

David Horsager:
Tell me about this. You know, I know you’re known for kind of a, a high level mastermind group or, and way that you help people transform over the course of a year. And I, I’m just interested in how people change. You know, that’s all we’re about is trying to create more trust in the world. More higher trust leaders, higher trust cultures, higher trust global governments. We’re trying to, you know be world changers for good, but you have a way you do it. You take leaders through a process. What does that look like? As much as you can share in a moment or two?

Paul Martinelli:
Sure. It, it, it is a year long program cuz transformation, isn’t an event. It, you know, you know, that’s, it’s a process. It it’s all really about, if you think about it from the filter of trust, it’s about learning to trust yourself that I truly believe that, you know, the answer is really within us that, that, you know, if we seek, ask and knock and look at the kingdom within us, it’s all there for us. And so it, it starts with a two day retreat at my home with about 15 people. And then each person is assigned a coach where they’re, they’re coached two times, two times a month for a whole year, a group meeting once a month and then a one on one with me. And it’s about understanding our, our potential code, our model, each one of us has a unique model about how we create a navigate life to create achievement and success.

Paul Martinelli:
That’s based on a learned model. All learning models are based on our awareness, our belief and our understanding and application of the principles within the model. And so we we’ve kind of taken what Carl Young said, where he said, until you make the unconscious conscious, it directs your light and you call it fate. We’ve kind of taken that approach where we guide people through a, an interactive process where they can look back at their life, tweezer out those times where they’ve been successful and then identify, you know, what was their model? What was, what was their motivation? Were they moving towards or away from something? Were they being a decider or a convincer? Were they, when they look at distinctions of sorting, were they looking for similarities, differences, or exclusions? How do they, how do they, what is that thinking process? And once they realize that they actually do have a, have a thinking process, and if they can tweezer that out, they can see, well, hold it, this code works. When I apply this, it works. And then it’s about, well then why are you playing small? Then let’s if, if, if you knew it would work, then, then let’s, let’s dream bigger.

David Horsager:
What I love about this is you’re doing it in community. So just back to, you know, the guardian angels to, to everything in, in life, like we, we say it often, you know, if you’re doing leadership alone, you’re doing it wrong. I mean, we, we need to be together. We need to be we’re and, and better things happen. Doesn’t mean we don’t need individual coaching or help or whatever. Our, our coaching community, I’m so proud of it around the world. These, these coaches make each other, the certified, trusted coaches. They make each other better. They make their leaders better. But a big part of that is because of togetherness, right? Because we can sharpen each other

Paul Martinelli:
And, you know, look, I think I’ve built the largest coaching certification program in the world. Fair to say. I, I think your coaches are probably the most resourced coaches that, that you’re gonna find in terms of if a, if a, if a coach needs to be fully equipped and resourced, right. From soup to nuts, right? From soup from beginning to end, I, I, I had an opportunity to really look at your program. And as I told you, I mean, blown away by, by far there isn’t another program that has a richness of resources that, that are that, that are, I, I don’t wanna say evidence, let’s call it evidence based. I don’t wanna say science based, but let’s say evidence based. Right. And I think that’s, that’s what, that’s, what establishes the trust, right. Is that, you know, trust and verified and your, your program has all of that.

David Horsager:
Thank you. Well, yeah, we’re passionate about it. That’s for sure. And that’s partly because of that, not just evidence, but doing the ongoing research. I remember, you know, now I don’t have to convince people so much, but 20 years ago when I started that grad work, it was like, oh, trust just a soft skill. Doesn’t really affect the bottom line. That grad work is what tipped it for people that saw the oven. And it actually tipped my heart and mind to see the impact of trust. Tell, tell me how, how does, you know, a big word for you is empowerment, big word for us is trust. They go together. How do you see it?

Paul Martinelli:
Yeah, absolutely I, yeah. I, I, I don’t really know that you could ever live an empowered life without trusting yourself and without, without people trusting you at the end of the day, you know if everything is sales, right, you, you talk about salesperson, they’ll say everything is sales. If they talk to a leader, they’ll say everything is leadership, but it all boils down to trust. Doesn’t it? I

David Horsager:
Mean, absolutely. And to empowerment or, or, you know, I think that trusting yourself, you know, we believe and know that the the, the truth of love your neighbors yourself, right? Which kind of this thing of, well, if you, you know, people that don’t love themselves at all, they have a hard time loving others. Well, you bet. And that’s the same with trust. If you don’t trust yourself at all, you have a hard time building it in teams and others. You know, it’s like, I may, I, I don’t share this very often, but I made this commitment when I was losing the 50 pounds and five months about, I don’t know, 10 years ago. I said to my team, if I don’t give you, if, if I don’t make it to there, you know, to this, my high school, wait by May 1st, I’ll give you 2,500 bucks, you know, each, and, and, and of course I knew that my biggest problem wasn’t paying the check, the biggest problem is I said it and committed to it.

David Horsager:
And if I don’t get there, I’m gonna stop trusting myself as much because I made a commitment and didn’t keep it right. So anyway we, we want to be leaders that empower others that, that do trust themselves. And we wanna be leaders that empower others so they can build trust in their teams and communities and everything, everything else. I think something interesting you as a leader and you’ve led multimillion dollar, several multimillion dollar organizations. What about you? What about what habits we, we find that, you know, at least high trust leaders they’re leading themselves, you know, I think Socrates say you don’t lead yourself while it’s hard to lead others or know yourself. Right. He said, know yourself. So if we know ourself, we, we build trust with ourselves. We we’re able to lead others. Well, what kind of routines or habits do you have to lead yourself? Well, you’re certainly leading a whole lot of others. What do you do? Is there routines or daily things that you do to lead yourself? Well,

Paul Martinelli:
Yeah. Well, thank you. I, I, I think there’s probably some big rocks there. Right. I, I, I, I, I make a commitment to myself to work out every single day 30 minutes a day, you know, serious sweat. Right. and

David Horsager:
What do you do? I gonna, I want to come back to other routines, but what do you do? Because everybody says, I believe in work, workout, I believe in exercise, but oh, I just don’t have time this way. I don’t really, you know, what do you do? How do you make that happen?

Paul Martinelli:
I have in my, in my, in my home, I have an escalator stair machine, like a stair master machine, but you know, it only goes up

David Horsager:
. Yep. Yep.

Paul Martinelli:
So I’m on level, level 12 to 15 every day for 30 minutes a day.

David Horsager:
You, I like going down. I like you going down

Paul Martinelli:
and you burn, you, you burn 500 calories and 30 minutes is most effective exercise you can do. And what the, the reason I choose that exercise is, you know, pre COVID I I’m on the road, probably 180 days a year. So in hotels, you know, everybody, everybody’s at the gym, nobody’s in the stairwell, especially in America, nobody’s in the stairwell. And so I could, I could easily get safe, clean, quiet, you know, temperature controlled. It’s always cold in the stairwell and up and down and up and down and up and down. And I’m, and you’re, I’m done in 30 minutes and you get the best workout of your life.

David Horsager:
This is amazing to me because I’m just reading the book by JJ Virgin, she’s a celebrity fitness coach and done all these things. She said exactly the same thing to me this week. Stairstep stairsteps stairsteps. So this this is fascinating.

Paul Martinelli:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I made a similar CLE. I, I lost 65 pounds five years ago and have kept it off. But it’s a daily commitment, right. The compounding effect of consistency. So, so there’s that I’m coached, I’m, I’m, I’ve had the same coach for 10 years and I’m coached every single month. So I’ve got somebody who, and I don’t ever bring, like, you know, an agenda to my, to the session. The agenda is one thing. One thing only challenge my thinking challenge, my thinking. So I just, I just, I just wanna, I, you know, because I, you know, I don’t have, I don’t have like, probably much like you, you know, if you’re the boss, if you’re the leader, you know, you, you don’t have people that necessarily really challenge your thinking or stretch your thinking. So I pay somebody to do that. I pay them well, and, and they’ve been with me for 10 years, so they know my BS. Right. They know my belief system, you know, they know my belief, they know where our limitations are. So there’s that yeah, I, I, I mentioned tithing as a practice you know, visualizing, praying talking to myself you know, daily

David Horsager:
Tell me about prayer. You’re a man of faith. Tell me about prayer for you.

Paul Martinelli:
Yeah. So prayer for me is it is anywhere and everywhere when I get, when I, when I get time alone and, and I, and I get time alone every single day. So in between, you know, calls, you know, I, I usually have a 10 minute window. That is a fantastic time. And really for me, prayer, I always viewed prayer as the sacred communication between the finite mind of man and the infant, mind of God. And so it is, it is a communication. Sometimes I’m talking and asking and sometimes I’m listening. And it’s usually best when I listen . And so I, I, I’ve learned to pray in questions, you know, you know, what, what, what do I need to know now, what am I missing? What would make me a better person? How can I serve at a higher level?

Paul Martinelli:
You know, where, where, where, where I going wrong in, in, in, in like in a moral code, not just like, Hey, help me with this. Like, where am I going wrong? What am I, what am I blind to? So I, I have a, a lesson I teach in a process I use called authentic journaling. So it’s just my own model. I came up with where I, where instead of journaling I’m, I’m transcribing what I’m thinking. So I start with a, with a big question, and then I just write any thought that comes in my mind. Sometimes the thought is, you know, don’t forget to do the laundry. Don’t forget to, you know, get gas in the car. And I write until those jumping monkeys kind of get outta my, so I quiet that part of my mind down, and then, you know, God steps in, right. And you know, when you make space, I always say, you can’t make it happen, but you can make it welcome. Right. And so writing is that, is that space for me,

Kent Svenson:
That’s it for this week’s episode, be sure to check out trusted leader, show.com for all the show notes, links and information from anything mentioned in today’s episode. And if you haven’t already, we’d greatly appreciate a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcast, as this is a great way to help support the show and help others to discover it. But in the meantime, that’s it for this week’s episode. Thank you so much for listening until next time stay trusted.