Accident, Disability Planning, Family Planning, Sickness
RE-WRITE YOUR STORY AND MAKE IT HAPPEN!
Re-write your Story and make it happen, our interview today with Paul Forchione, a Mindset coach that focuses on self help. He has a guide on his website. He was born with cerebral palsy. And I’m so blessed to have you on our show. very honored that you came on to our show to talk more about your journey.
“Cerebral Palsy slows me down, but it ain’t stoppin’ me!”, Unknown
So that other people that are struggling with with family friends themselves. That, you know, there there is a light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. So would you like to start with? Where’s it all started for you, Paul?
Well, first off, Tina, thank you so much for allowing me to be on your show. I’m so excited to be here.
I love live, you know, anything can happen live. So I love that. So thank you very much. So you alluded to me having cerebral palsy. And if your viewers don’t know what cerebral palsy is, it’s lack of oxygen to the brain at labor. And as a result of this lack of oxygen to the brain and labor, it can leave one side of the body paralyzed and affect your speech. Can you no slow up everything. And this is permanent, this does not go away. Well, when I was born, I wasn’t moving the right side of my body very much. And obviously my mom was concerned. So she took me to the doctor’s for testing to see what was going on with me. And after some testing was done that I was tested for having cerebral palsy. And at the time, the doctors thought it was so severe that they thought I would never ever be able to walk and when I got to a certain age, it would be a good idea to get me in a wheelchair because that was going to be my life going forward. Well, thank goodness for great mom. She didn’t go with that diagnosis. She got her their opinions, found a physician that thought they could help me. And that’s all my mom needed. So from then on physical therapy every single day. And with this physician’s help, I was able to walk at age three. I don’t really remember that. But obviously that was a huge feat because these other doctors thought I would never ever be able to walk and I was walking. So right then and there. That was awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Like I said, I remember it. So it affected your right arm and your right leg or both. Yeah, or halfway through my body. Thank goodness never affected my speech. But it affects my right my right side of my body from my arms all the way up to my legs. Yes. No, my right legs, told my right side of my body. Yes. That is correct. So so to walk if you were alright with your left leg, but you just, it wouldn’t coincide with your right side, I guess.
Yeah, I mean, I walked with a little bit of a limp and I hold my right arm a little bit differently. But overall,
I’m pretty pretty mobile. Yeah, awesome. That’s amazing. Um, as I was, as I described, I had a cat who had cerebral palsy and his both back legs wouldn’t work. And so he was like, he was a skater. And he moved his front paw up and he took over and he could get around like crazy. He even almost ran, but he couldn’t go to the washroom very well standing because he’d fall over. But yeah, so I understand. I understand.
Yeah. So like I said, I don’t really remember walking at three. But obviously that was a huge Feat. But I do remember being put into soccer when I was five or six years old. And at the time, I probably could run about 25 to 50 yards. And obviously these other kids can run laps around the soccer field. They’re actually playing soccer. I’m basically staying there and I remember seeing my mom, this is ridiculous. I’m basically standing here these other kids are playing soccer around me and I’m just standing it I don’t want to play soccer anymore. I want to quit. And I’m I remember my mom telling me this. She said if you don’t wanna play Software anymore, that’s fine. But you need to honor your commitments.
So we need to finish out the soccer season. And after soccer season, if you don’t want to play soccer anymore, that’s your prerogative, but we need to finish out the season. So that’s what that happened. I’m 40 years old. I’ve never played soccer since. But I did finish out that soccer season. So I got a big break, when I was about six or seven years old, I got surgery on my right foot to tighten up the tendon in my right foot. And give me a little bit more spring in my step and kind of take away the pain that I was feeling when I was running, and then test this out yet. But I remember switching schools around this the same time, I was probably in first grade, I believe. And I remember my first day of physical education. And we did our stretches. And the teacher said, Okay, guys, now run a lap. And I’m thinking to myself, here we go again, I’m going to run 25 to 50 yards, and I’m going to have to stop and these kids are going to see it. And they’re going to start to tease me because that’s all I could do. But because of my surgery, it was different. I remember going past that point where I normally have to stop. And I remember seeing myself, come on, Paul, you got this. But keep going keep going.
And I finished the lap with these other kids on the outside. But I kept it nice and cool. But on the inside I was like yes, yes, yes. The first time in my life where I just fit in. I didn’t stand out like I normally did. And because of the surgery, things got easier for me, but I would not consider me easy. I switched schools, and middle school junior high. So my 12 or 13 years old. And that’s a tough age period just being you get alone. That’s a tough age, because they already had their cliques. They’ve already been to school together for years and years. They don’t have any they don’t have any time for any new kids. So I was a new kid. Plus I had a disability I walk with a little bit of lip, and I hold my right arm a little bit differently. So it was brutal getting into the school. Very as bullied.
Well, yeah, because kids will pick on every single day and they can pick on anything right for you. They’ll find something to pick on. Oh, yeah.
Absolutely. And I was an easy target. I was an absolute easy target. They were picking on me. And I was raised Catholic. So my mom wanted me to go to Catholic High School. So around the same time, I take an assessment test to see where I was at academically to see where they were going to place me when I got to high school. Well, I must have bombed the test is when I met with the principal and my and my and my mom, the principal says to us, we’re going to put Paul at the lowest level possible. And I don’t expect much from him. He does not seem like he’s college material. Yeah. So I go back to school. The next day, I go back to school I was in the weekend when I took the test and that met with the principal, go back to school Monday, I’m defeated. I’m bullied and teased, you know, now I feel like I’m stupid to on top of this, right? And I’m crying myself to sleep pretty much most nights going, Why me? Why do I have to be different? Why can I just fit in? Why can I just be one of the other kids. I don’t know what really came over me. But I was sick and tired of feeling anger and sad all the time. Because those are my go to emotions. And I knew deep down they were not my go to emotions.
But because of the environment I was in those were the emotions that were coming up most of the time for me, and I was tired of it. So I thought to myself, what can I do distract me from these feelings? What if I set a goal for myself and I could focus in on the goal. And I could kind of ignore the noise that was happening all around my my world. So I thought what could I do? What? What goal Can I set for myself? And at the time, I love baseball. So I said okay, what if I tried to make my varsity high school baseball team? So I said, Okay, let’s go. So I played fall ball, winter ball, spring ball. And if I wasn’t doing that I was throwing a tennis ball against the wall. And I was doing this constantly. I’m students over and over and over again. And the beautiful thing about this, Tina, I know this now, I didn’t know this when I was doing it. But I know this definitely happened now, I changed the energy that I was putting out to these other kids. I had my shoulders back my head up. And as a result of this new energy that I was that was showing to these kids. In turn, they were giving me a different energy back. Instead of bullying and teasing me they start rooting for me. So my my middle school to junior high career was much different from my high school all because of my energy shift all because of I changed the way I perceived myself as a person. And as a result of this hard work and this new energy shift.
I was able to make my varsity baseball team as a junior and a senior. Yeah. Yeah. And I graduated, I graduated high school. And I started to really think about what that principle said to me many, many years earlier about not being college material. Because when I played when I was in high school, I pretty much mailed it in I just did enough to stay eligible to play baseball because I thought to myself, well I’m not college material. Why waste my time studying any harder. It’s wasted time just do enough to get by and graduate. And that’s exactly what I did. But I started to really think about that goal I set for myself, being a varsity baseball player. And I was able to accomplish that when I made that goal in junior high Middle School. I thought it was near impossible. I thought I wasn’t going to do it. But I did. So I thought to myself, What if I set another goal for myself? What if I made a goal to say to myself that I am college material. So I enrolled into a junior college because that was the only place that would accept me at the time. And I got myself a math tutor, I got myself a regular tutor, I went to the map, I did this, I did everything I needed to do to increase that GPA. So I took my 2.0, barely 2.0 all the way to 3.5, where it was out able to transfer to a four year university where I was able to graduate college.
And I so wanted to go back to that principle and say, see, see, you’re wrong. I am college material. But you know, in the end, I should probably think this principle because in my head, I don’t know if I would have had that motivation to really go after and I had her voice playing in my head, when I would have these dark moments like this is too hard. This is too hard. And having her voice saying I’m not college material. I’m not college material. And I just wanted to do it so bad. So I did it. And so she gave me the motivation. So I thank her for giving me that motivation. And it was it was huge, huge in my life. Now I graduate college, I have no life experience whatsoever. I have no idea what the heck I want to do with myself at all. No clue, no clue. I had a family friend who was a CEO of a bank. And he said, Why don’t you become a mortgage loan officer, I’ll hire you. And I’m like, why not? I got nothing else going on my life right now. Let’s try it. Let’s go for it. So I get in. And right off the bat, no one wants to talk to me. Oh,
I’m going back to my days in junior high. I feel what the heck, nobody wants to talk. Yeah, like this is crazy. And I quickly realized the problem, why they didn’t want to talk to me. And the reason why they didn’t want to talk to me is because they knew I knew the CEO. So they knew was the name.
I knew it wasn’t because of my talents. So what they were going to do is they were going to chew me up and spit me out because I had no business being there. So I thought, Okay, well, let’s dig in and prove them wrong. So I had, I had a great attitude. I never complained about the workload, I did whatever needs to be done to get the job done. And from afar, because they didn’t want to talk to me, I was observing what the top loan officers did on a daily basis. And I remember my first day of wanting to go out in the field and get loans for the first time. And the CEO, my family friend stops me goes, What are you doing? And I’m like, I’m gonna go out and get loans. And he has a concerned look on his face and says, No, no, no, no, no, you are definitely not ready yet. We need to get you some more training, which is more training, then we’ll send you out in the field. I’m like, No, no, no, no, no, no, I’ve got this. Let’s go. Let’s go. So he’s like, All right, go. So I want and I fell on my face constantly.
I didn’t know. He was right. I needed way more training. But I just kept going falling on my face. I was getting used by these sites. I had no idea really what I was doing. But slowly but surely, I started to figure out the value I could add to these clients. And once I started to learn that slowly, but surely, I started to get loans, loans, loans, loans, loans. And two years later, I became a top producer in this company. And the people that didn’t want to talk to me when I first got there. And now coming to me asked me questions on how he was able to get so many loans at such a short period of time. It was such a great feeling. And I really, really enjoyed the mortgage interview for many years, but then 2008 2009 hit, the economy just tanked. I would get a job. And the whole company would go belly up, I get another job and the whole company would go belly up. So I was really losing the luster of being in this industry. And I remember one of my last places I was at, they hired this motivational speaker to talk to our sales team to kind of motivate us get us get our sales numbers up. And the guy blew me away. The guy was awesome. So I made a point to talk to him after to tell him how great of a job he did.
And he told me he started as a life coach, my life coach, what Matt heck is that? And he explained it to me and I’m like, you know what, maybe that’s what I want to do. Maybe that’s where I want to go with things right? So on the off time of being in the mortgage industry, I was getting my coaching certificate I started telling people Hey, I want to start to get into this coaching and then people just your me ago okay life coach, go out and save the world. But make sure you get some loans at the same time. But yeah, so this was going on. But then things got really serious, right, I got all my licensing. I got my website up and I was gonna do it on the side to get get to Get going at it. And I remember the legal team coming to me and goes, What? What are you doing?
And I explained what my plan was. And I’m like, this could be a conflict of interest, we’re gonna have to get back to you. I’m like, oh, that does not sound good. And they came back this five page report of what I couldn’t couldn’t say, while I was working at this bank. And I thought to myself, there’s no way I’m going to get any traction in the coaching world, if I follow this to the tee. So I’m going to have to make some changes. So I spent a year changing the way my spending habits paying off my debts knowing full well that if I’m doing this, I’m not going to make money for quite a while. So I changed all that up. And then I quit. And people were like, what in the heck are you doing? You just made president’s club at the at this bank, one of the highest honors and you’re quitting? I go, yep, I’m quitting. They’re like, this life coaching thing. This ain’t gonna last man, this is a flash in the pan, you’ll be back and I’m like, okay, so so I left and and for a while. I wasn’t doing well at coaching at all. I it was, it was very, very hard. And I thought they were right, I’m gonna have to go back.
Then I really had this realization of how am I allowing these people be vulnerable with me if I’m not going to be vulnerable with them? See, Tina, the story told you about having cerebral palsy. I wanted to bury that story. I want to tell anybody that story. Because all through growing up, all I wanted to do is fit in I didn’t want to stand out. I didn’t want I just want to be treated like everybody else. So just even bringing up the cerebral palsy almost put me to tears because I just didn’t want to go there. didn’t want to go there at all. And when I walked with a lip, I made up some stupid story like, oh, softball, injury, something silly. That works. Yeah, exactly. And, but but I thought, you know what, the only way I’m gonna do attraction in this business is if I’m vulnerable, if I share my story and where I’m coming from. So I started doing that. And the amazing thing about that is I remember my first client, my first client comes up to me goes, Paul, I don’t have cerebral palsy. But I have this. And I feel like you can help me, because you’ve been there before. I want your help. And it just built from there from just being vulnerable. And that brings me to today talk with you.
Yeah, it’s not the truth, though. I mean, what did you like about doing the mortgages? What part of that business Did you like?
I’m a people person. So I thought it was so cool. That on a Monday morning, I was driving to place to place not in a cubicle selling, you know, and I thought, Oh, this is this the best. These other people are in a cubicle Monday morning. But no, I’m driving around la trying to get loans, seeing different places. It was amazing. I loved it.
You have the freedom? Yes. Now, did you find people prepared with their crap? did you die? Because my clients? Yeah, cuz then.
No, no, no. I mean, it was. But yeah, a lot of them were not prepared. Yes, I agree with that. Yes.
They don’t know what they’re spending. They don’t know what they have for documents. They don’t know where their last T for slip is for their employment. They don’t know where, what their last income tax assessment was. I mean, I could, the list goes on. I’ve helped so many people. I’ve never sold mortgages, but I have sold real estate and I’ve sold insurance. And I’ve talked this to people all the time people ask me, Well, what do I need to have ready to ask about a mortgage? Like, what do I need to ask, what do I need to have prepared? Oh, I don’t know where that stuff is. So yeah. And so what did you find about 80 90% of people are like that?
Well, it was just really sad. Because part of the record part of the requirement that we required at the banks that I worked at most of them anyway, you had to have at least two two months reserves. So in other words, if you were to lose your job, you’d be able to make your your your mortgage payment, property taxes and insurance for two months while you’re looking for other work. And the sad thing that that I found, when I’ve asked these people that, you know, I need bank statements showing two months of this, and a lot of them said, we don’t have that. And I thought, wow, that’s sad. Because what like we talked about backstage was, you know, that backup plan, if something were to go wrong, what do you do, and if they don’t have two months to pay their mortgage, if something were to go wrong, they’re going to be in a lot of trouble. They’re probably going to have to sell their home.
Well, not only That, Paul, but just think of it if if one of them ended up in the hospital with COVID, unable to talk, and how does how do people if you have no money in in a reserve to be able to pay those bills that need to be paid? So when you come out of the hospital, your world is still there, as you know it. You know, can you imagine if, if somebody is not going to be looking after that stuff?
I yeah, it’s just it’s a scary thought. But unfortunately, they’re, you know, they’re so focused on the right, this moment that they just can’t go there, they can’t go there. They’re just looking right in front of them. And they’re not gonna look any further. And and I find that a common theme with a lot of my clients are great people. They’re great people great, love them great family, people love their family, and do anything for the family. But they’re just not thinking ahead.
Right? No, that’s awesome. And I’m sure you enjoyed that part with working with the people that I love.
I love talking with different people from different backgrounds, you know, we talk about food, talk about sports, whatever, you know, just got to know where they’re coming from. And it was really cool. You get another perspective in life it was right. Now, that’s awesome. how you’ve been able to go from possibly not walking to being one of the top sales people to now switching and coaching? And how do you think that’s affected people that you work in working with? Now? How do you find that? Does it always come out with you with every single client?
I mean, it’s such a passion of yours really. And truly, even though you didn’t want to talk about it, because it had a lot of hurt. Yeah, with it. Um, but now, look at you go. Look at how much you’ve accomplished. So amazing. And to be able to help others, right. Yeah. And I think that Oh, yeah, yeah. And I think that the thing that that I have that’s helped me is, is that empathy factor that they know, I’ve been through the struggle. So when they, when I’m talking, they know where it’s coming from, it’s coming from the soul and the heart like I’ve been there, I’ve gone where you’re where you’re at right now, I know how hard it is. So that empathy factor is huge on when I talk with them. And then when I have to be strong with them, because, you know, sometimes I have to snap them out of it.
You know, they get in this pattern of negativity, and I need to snap them out of it. They know where I’m coming from, they’re coming, that I’m coming from a place of love. Because I’ve been there I’ve been with the negative thought thinking too. And I have done things in my life to help me with that negative thinking when that happens, what I need to do, and I now now give that information to my clients, because it’s daily is something that you never master. It’s something that you have to work on every single day. And it’s so so important. self love, what you tell yourself on a daily basis is extremely important. Because if you’re not right there, how are you going to be able to take care of your family? How are you going to be able to accomplish your goals, because when I’m angry, and I’m sad, I’m not very productive at all. So I’m not well ready to take on my feet, help out my family, or go after the goals I want to go after are given a real goal at my job or start my own business, whatever, whatever it is for that person. I’m not there if I’m always angry or sad.
And that’s true, you can’t think you’re working at a very different functional level. What do you find now with working with people? does it bring up? I mean, you probably work with it every day, of course, this mindset, but I remember going to a baseball camp. And a coach told us once because when you go up to bat, it’s like life. You might be scared of that pitcher, they might have switch pitchers on you. And now I can hear all the kids yelling Oh my god, she’s so good. You know, when my girls were playing, and I say stop worrying about her and start worrying about yourself. Don’t Don’t even think like think the ball is super slow. It’s a beach ball coming at you think that she’s the worst pitcher ever? And and just change your mindset when you go up to bat like you’ve got this. And yeah, it’s funny how I always come back to hitting the ball at that point, because it’s all what’s in your mind.
It’s almost not anything of what you do with the bat. I know it is but you have to of course hit it in the right place and everything but, um, but it’s just so much more with your mindset. And I remember this coach was saying Oh, Hey girls, if you you put 10 dimes in your right pocket in the morning. And that night, you see how many of those coins are switched to your left pocket. And by doing that, every time you have a negative thought, you take one of those times and you move it into your left pocket. And so you become more aware of your negative thoughts and trying to switch them. Because you know how darn hard that is to first recognize that you’re thinking negatively. And secondly, how do you get through that negative thought, and that’s what you’re talking about, is trying to be more positive thoughts. And I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that before. But that was one baseball coach that gave us that tip.
I love that I think that’s a great little exercise to do, and I see what it’s doing. Because it’s all about awareness. That’s what you were saying, right? There’s aware, hey, I have these, these thoughts in my head, you know, well, maybe I shouldn’t have these thoughts in my head, maybe I should change it. But the first thing that has to happen is you need to be aware of these, this negative thinking that you’re thinking about yourself. That’s number one. And once you start to be aware of these thoughts, then you can change that pattern of thinking. And I love what you said about the baseball because you’re so right. You can’t control who they put out as pitcher, you can’t, they could be the best pitcher wherever they could be the worst pitcher, whatever, you can’t control that. But what you can control is your mindset, you can control what you do at the plate.
Well, how you handle yourself. So how I handle myself at the plate was you know what I’m going to do. And if I strike striking, out swinging, and that’s how it’s going to go down. And I can hold my head up high, because I did what I had to do. And you know what? It got me this time. But you know what? The second at bat, it’s going to be a different story. Right? Because now you’ve seen it. So now you can hit it. Right? Absolutely right. Yep, that’s exactly right. You’re right. It’s funny how it everything comes back to sports, isn’t it? Well, for me it does, cuz I love sports. But yeah, I mean, so that’s the analogies that come up when I’m talking with my clients. So I have one client, and she’s awesome, but she doesn’t know sports at all. And I’ll bring it up these analogies to the sport, start with the sports. So it’s kind of fun. We have a kind of a fun little dancer about it.
Yeah, but I find it does. I I’m not really sure why it does. But it does for business it does for your personal life. Everything that I’ve learned over the years, it’s all seem to have come from sports. It’s very strange how that happens. Next, sports. Yep. So you focus on self help. So that Sure. So you’ve been able to either help people with their relationship moving forward because of self help. And you’ve been able to help people with their own business or whatever your whatever you’re finding with clients.
You know, it’s the funniest thing about the whole thing is, they’ll come to me for whatever, you know, their business or relationships or whatever, but down deep, and all starts with that the person inside themselves. And when they start doing that, when they start to evaluate themselves, and start to change the way they think about themselves. All the other stuff comes into play, they start to have better relationships with their family, they start to do better at their work or start a new business they have they have, they have the motivation to do it. Because it all starts within ourselves. And it’s it’s huge. I like to use this analogy. You know, when you’re going on a plane, and the students goes over the safety things, they say, make sure you put on your mask first, before you help anybody else. And that’s the same thing in life. You got to make sure you’re right first before you start to do anything else. Because if you don’t do it that way, you’re going to be going in quicksand, it’s not going to be very productive. So you need to stop what you’re doing and worry about yourself. It’s not being selfish, it’s unnecessary to get to where you need to be Take care of yourself first, and everything else will fall into place. After being a mom.
I think that that’s a hard concept. Because as a mom when you have little kids anyways, you don’t think of yourself first at least I know I didn’t. That was obviously mistaken. part because I think that you can only be as strong as you are for yourself for your relationship. And then for your family. I guess it goes like that. But you don’t want to analyze it like that when you’re in it. You know, you don’t think, Oh, I’m not doing my own stuff for myself today, because you’re, you’re just you put all your efforts as a mom to your kids. And I, I’m not really sure how you can do you have clients like that, where it’s a struggle.
Being a mom, I’m a man, I’m not a mom. But that’s one of the hardest jobs to be as a mom, I bottom line, it is very, very hard. But one thing that I know that that helps, is stop feeling guilty when you take care of yourself, if you can stop just doing that. So stop feeling guilty, things will come into play, and you know what your kids will be in a better spot. If you do it that way. It is truly the case. When you feel good about yourself down deep. Your kids will see it they feed off your energy, especially when you talk about little kids, they feed off that energy so that they know mom’s not right, that affects them too. So it’s super important that moms take care of themselves, get that massage that you’ve been putting off, don’t do it, don’t put it off, get it go on that vacation with your with your with your husband, for the weekend or whatever, do it. Do those things, because it’s gonna make a huge difference in your child’s life.
Yes, I sometimes tell the story as a mom, because I remember my daughter, I think my youngest one was about I want to say 10 or 10, I guess. And I remember one morning and she said Oh mom, my girlfriend, my my friends coming over to play. And I said okay, well, I didn’t realize that having my flannel pajamas still on. not sexy at all. And here she comes in the door with her mom, all dressed to the hilt, black leather jacket, you know, black pants, black leather pants, like, high heels off. And I’m just like, oh my god, I have to go and hide. I can’t see her with my yucky flannel pajamas on and see her out the door. And I just, I just did it anyways, I had no choice, I had nowhere to hide. So at that point, that was kind of a wake up call to me to be honest, to say, Why do I feel so bad? Even in flannel pajamas? What’s wrong with me? You know, like, you don’t have to be all dressed up all the time. You don’t have to, you know, um, but yeah, that was a hard learning curve. For me. And I think a lot of moms probably feel the same. Because I don’t know, if you’ve experienced this, but going to the school and you see it, there is a true quite a few movies about Bad Moms. And they all have to do with school. Because we are we’re always always trying to compare ourselves to others. And I think you have to stop doing that as well.
You can’t compare yourself to anybody else, it’s just impossible to do, you do not know where somebody starting line is. And you do not know where their finishing line is. So stop comparing. Just try to be the best person you can be. And if some if you feel like somebody is ahead of you ask for help and say, Hey, how’d you get to that level? What did you do to get there? And because most of the time they’re gonna be flat, and they’re like, oh, why don’t you think I’m at a high level? Because in their head, they’re like, well, I don’t feel like I’m at that high level. And then but they’ll they’ll be like, Oh, well, I’m going to help you. And they’re going to feel good about helping you. So it’s, it’s so important than to throw that out. That’s it goes back to the self help self esteem. Don’t compare yourself to anybody else. You just just don’t know where they’re, you don’t know where they were their heads out, you don’t know what’s going through their head, they have their struggles that you do not know about. So don’t go there. Right now, the best person you can be and things will come into play.
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s hard to do course as a mom and all the stuff that you have to do but I wish I would have known you way back then. To to make my life easier, that would have been lovely. And so moving forward. Do you get a lot of people with their own businesses because that’s like having their own other family on the side and that’s a that’s a struggle for time management, their own life and working their business.
Yeah. I get a lot, I get a lot of people, a lot of other coaches, that they come to me that they’re starting their business, and they want to know how I was able to do it, how they how they can implement it. So that’s, that’s a huge thing. And a lot of them are running their tail around, you know, because they’re, you know, they’re struggling, they don’t have that many clients. So they want to do everything for their client, and they’re not making any money, and they’re spending eight hours, 80 hours a week, and they’re not making any money. And, and that’s the wrong way to do it. We got to set plan the boundaries, set boundaries, that you know what, at 7pm, that’s when I have dinner with my family. And that’s not negotiable, I have dinner with my family, I don’t care what the client needs at 7pm, I have dinner with my family, whatever that boundary is for that person. But there needs to be set boundaries and set times of work. You know, like some of these people want to get into business because they you know, they want to have spend more time with their family, well, then you know what you need to schedule that into your into your book. So then when a client calls you and says, Hey, I want to schedule a call, or schedule an appointment at 3pm, on a Friday, are you available, you look at your book and say, unfortunately, not I have an appointment. And that appointment, you know, they don’t need to know, but that appointments with their family or whatever, whatever it is, that needs to get linked into it. And when you when you do that you become more efficient in that time period. Because you know, this is the time where I need to work. And I need to make it happen, because this is the time I set forth on it. So that’s a huge difference is is is good time management, setting up a schedule and setting up boundaries.
And that’s super hard within the social marketing world. Because you know how long it takes to do your marketing portion, if you’re doing it yourself and not handing it over to a person to do it for you. Especially for people that are listening that have new businesses. It seems like you’re constantly doing the social media. So you have to take time and block that off as well, I guess because otherwise you’re constantly doing it.
Absolutely. And one of the other things I want to mention about social media, I have clients that like are terrified to do videos, they actually make it 100% perfect. And I tell them stop with the perfect and get it done. Because when I watch videos, you know those idiosyncrasies are what makes me catch my eye when it’s too perfect. I’m like, Yeah, I like things to be authentic. And when there’s a little off, you know, if something goofy happens, and they’re able to laugh it off them as a human being and I think that’s important. So if anything about the social media aspect of it, stop trying to be perfect and just do it and not worry about what other people are thinking about you. Because the right people will connect with you. If you’re authentic yourself. There’s going to be people that are want to connect with you because you’re authentic to yourself. So you’re telling me that all my goof ups, other viewers, because you’re you’re you’re being human, that’s what we want, especially in podcasts, we want to see who you are as a human being. We talked about this earlier about being vulnerable. And I think if you were loot to is you want people to be human. You know, we’re not superheroes, nobody can relate to superheroes, because we’re not. So we want to connect with people. We want to know them. You know, warts and all. And when you see somebody here, here’s somebody warts and all, you’re like, you know what, I can connect with that person because I went through a similar struggle I can relate to that, where the person is going through or if I gaff Oh, I get to you know, I had a presentation where I gasped, so it all connects. So yes, all the all, although all those little goof ups make who you are.
And it’s it’s a beautiful thing.
Oh, thank you. It just reminds me when I do confer up to try to see that Irish accent I I’m going to try and do it in front of the mirror a few times to see if it comes out. Right? You have it in your head and it just doesn’t come out the way you want. But go for it because you can laugh at yourself. That it’s all fun, right? People were like, Oh, you know what, I tried to do an Irish accent and I couldn’t do it too. So your Irish accents better than mine. So it’s the sorts of dialogue.
Um, what do you think that men in the world can do? Do you get a lot of men clients? Are you getting a lot of women clients?
You know, it’s funny, we talked about the 6040 women men thing and it’s, it’s for me, too. I have even though I’m a man 60% of my clients are women. And I think it’s what you’re alluded to is I think women are more accepting of their feelings and are willing to go deep. But you know what, what I’m finding out though, is you know, we bash on the millennial generation a lot for various reasons. One thing I want to give the millennial generation a props on is the man is they are a little bit more in touch with their feelings than other generations of men. And I think that’s a good thing. So some of my millennial clients that I talked to, are very in touch with their, with their, their feelings. And I think that’s a good thing. I think that one thing that the millennial generation, I think is doing a great job of is they’re, they’re highlighting mental health. Other generations I don’t think highlighted as well as the millennial generation has done it. And I think that’s huge. I think that get the elephant out, talk about the elephant in the room, you know, talk about suicide, talk about these issues. Because the more we talk about it, the more we can help each other.
Well, because they’re out there, you can’t, you can’t avoid it now. I mean, there’s suicides, there’s overdoses, there’s childhood issues, I don’t know, where what do you say that you work on the most with people childhood issues, or relationship, or tragic things that have happened to them in their life, you know, it’s all a various different things for different people. But it all comes back to their limited belief inside their head, it’s all starts right there. And that’s what happens to work out there. They come from me for all different things.
But when we, when we tear off the onion, it comes back to to self love. And that that limited belief that we need a break. And once we start breaking that limited belief, then we can really dive into whatever goal is because the funny thing is, when we after we break that limited belief, then all of a sudden, their goal is actually something different, because they come to me with some modest thing that they want to do, because they don’t want to tell me what they really want to do. Because they’re telling me that so they, they tell me this mid level goal that they want to do. But really they want to, they want to climb Mount Everest. And now that I broke that limited belief, now they feel more comfortable. Say, you know what, Paul, that really is not my goal. And I go, okay, what’s really your goal, and it’s something much, much higher. And that, to me is very rewarding, that we peel back that onion, and we’re gonna really go after the things that we really want to go after.
Yes, because you can’t go after it. If you don’t have focus towards it, I guess is really truly
the fact.
What do you feel? Is has it been difficult with any certain type of clients to actually find and dig down deep inside to find out what is the real issue?
Yes, I find that some clients if they had the self sabotage, where like, we feel like we’re going down the right road. And then I talk and then we have another call. And then they’re like, but I, but um, this but I’m that I’m this. And this set, the self doubt talk, like, we talked about this, we’re not that these are all just thoughts, these are not your reality. They’re just things that come in your head, don’t make them reality, your mind doesn’t know what’s reality or not. So if you focus in on what you want to focus on, your mind’s going to go there. I use this example all the time. When you buy a car, and all sudden, you’re driving that car down the road, all sudden, you see that same car that you just bought all over the place. Because your mind’s looking for it. It’s the same thing with the positive and negative mindset, your mind goes with what you’re thinking about. So it’s, it’s all about training our mind focus in on what we truly, truly want, and the positive things that that happen, you know, that could happen in our lives? Absolutely.
And that’s so true. Because if somebody said, Oh, did you hear about that new app out? Or? or whatever it might be? And you say, No, and then all of a sudden you see it everywhere? soon as somebody mentioned.
Yeah. Um, what?
How do you rewrite your own story?
Are you rewrite your story, it all starts with, again, with us. On You know what? giving ourselves grace and knowing that, you know, we’re not perfect people, and we’re going to fail, but be okay to fail and keep moving forward. The reason why I talk about rewriting your story is because from from obviously, as an infant, somebody wanted to take the pen from me and write the story they thought I should be doing, right. And all through my life. I refuse to give up my pen, because I wanted to write the story that I wanted for my life. And that’s what I want for my clients. Take back that pen and start writing the story that they want for their lives, not for their spouse, not for their kids, but for who they want to be. And these you start doing that. All these great things are gonna start happening. Oh, that’s beautiful.
What do you feel that people have beliefs when you’re talking to them that it’s just too high of a goal? Like you need to make steps towards that goal? Or do you find people are limiting? Or do you feel that sometimes people have too high of a goal to reach?
Well, first of all, I’m forever ever to say to anybody that they have a too high of a golden reach, you know, who am I to tell them that they can’t reach that goal? Heck, no. But we need what we need to do is we need to start to break that big goal down into smaller goals, step by step by step by step so we can reach the top of the goal that we want to reach. If we just go, Hey, I want to climb Mount Everest, and that’s what I want to do tomorrow, you’re gonna have a rough COVID. But if you practice for six months of, you know, climbing other mountains and and getting your body prepared for it, then the task is not so daunting, because you did the work you put in the time. And that’s what it’s all about is is just, what’s that next step? Are you okay? You got that big goal? I love it. Let’s go, what’s next step? What’s the next thing that we need to do? What is that, and that’s what we need to be focused on. It’s good that we have the end goal. But after we have that goal set, then it’s just step by step by step and to be patient. So often, we are not patient, we are not, we want things right away, we want things instantly. And you know, what if it’s, if it’s a lofty goal, it might take years to get, and you got to be okay with that. What you need to do is enjoy the journey. Enjoy the now getting there. I use this analogy. I love analogy.
So that’s why I throw out a lot at you. When you see a kid building Legos, right? The most fun they’re having is when they’re actually building the Legos, building something, you know, they may have fun, after the fact to show their parents what they built. But when they’re having the most joy is actually when they’re in the moment building Legos. And that’s what we need to do. When we have a goal, we need to enjoy building those Legos. That’s the that’s that’s the secret sauce. It’s not actually the goal. It’s the journey to get there. That’s the that’s that’s where you build the character is going after it and and setting that goal and taking action. Because I’ve set so many goals in my life where you know what, I didn’t reach it. But you know, and now looking back, though, and you know what? I’m glad I didn’t reach it, because because I went through this journey. And now I want to go this way. And I wouldn’t have I wouldn’t have thought of that if I didn’t go through this journey path.
What about people that want to get to those goals, but they’ve had so many times of failures before that’s such a hard, because your mind automatically goes back to those previous failures, like every time you go up to bat, and you strike out, you know how some people, I don’t know if any listeners are out there that have played baseball, or softball, but you go up to bat and you get into these funks of not hitting the ball. I don’t know what happens. But obviously your mind focus isn’t there. Because you wouldn’t be in a funk. You just, you’re just struggling with life. Every time I get up there, I can’t do it. So you can’t do it. Right? It’s just keeps on occurring. Just keeps on Well, my past history says I failed at doing that. So I can’t go down that road.
So how do you do that?
So you look at anybody that you think, quote unquote, is successful. And whatever that is, it could be in relationships, it could be in business, it could be in anything. And I’m going to tell you right now that every single one of those persons, people failed over and over and over again, probably more than other people failed. But you know what, they were okay with it. They were okay with failing and getting back up, because it one step closer to their goal, one step closer to going you know what I learned from that? Thomas Edison. I, you know, I don’t know how many inventions he had. But there was 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of 1000s of failures for him. But he kept learning from those failures. And I think that’s extremely important that we that we that we know that that we all fail, if you’re not failing, you need to set a higher goal for yourself. Because that’s where that’s where the learning, that’s where the growth comes into play is failing. Because you learn so much failure when things go right. You really don’t learn that much. But when things don’t go right, you learn so much more. So I challenge you to get uncomfortable and set these lofty goals and have failure be an option.
Be just part of the journey. That’s right. Yeah. Did you have any final notes that you would like to mention to the listeners? You’ve had many, many good ones. But yeah, well, I developed a Facebook group called rewrite your story. And we, we have people all over the world. And we have a safe space where people can tell their stories with no judgment. Please, just help each other and push each other up.
And we do monthly meetups, where we get together, we have a topic, and we just lift each other up, and we’d be vulnerable with each other. We tell people, you know, what, this month has been really good for me, this is what I’m going through. And what is discovered is another person will say, you know what, I went through that a year ago, and this is what I did. And you’re like, Oh, really, I’m not alone. Other people go through this. So it’s a beautiful thing. And people are developing friendships out of it. People are developing professional relationships. They’re doing business with each other. So it’s a great thing. So if you’re in the Facebook world, rewrite your story, we’d love to have you The more the merrier.
Oh, that’s beautiful. Because I think people need that support. You know, he definitely need to know that you’re not the only one struggling or not the only one to fall down on their knees and, like, beg for mercy sometimes. Please, please listen. Yeah, so no, thank you for sharing that. And I have included that in the description box below for everybody, as well. Oh, you remember that? You? Yeah, remember the grip? I think? Yeah. See ya. And I think by talking with others from around the world, it just shows that you can feel those feelings and that you can move through them, I guess, you could say, and that you have people behind you doing the same thing. That’s, that’s awesome. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so very, very much for sharing your unbelievable story that you, you know, you struggle with on a daily basis. But I shouldn’t say struggle, because you don’t. You don’t allow it to inhibit you. You don’t allow yourself to struggle with it. You think of it as a moving part that turns?
I guess, I don’t I don’t know how to explain that. But. But, yeah, I just find it fascinating. And you’re so motivating and inspiring. I hope that all our listeners have, you know, can overcome their tweets I’ve talked to I’ve had a lady on who had a leg amputated from cancer. I’ve had people that have been raped, and I’ve had people on the show that have been mentally abused, and car accidents and so many wonderful things have come come out of issues. And I did want to mention that having a backup plan. like Paul here had many different choices. And part of it isn’t always just financial, but it’s spiritual. And it’s about loving yourself and being able to win once you love yourself, you’re able to do many things in your career in your relationship, and possibly in your backup plan because you’re going to feel a little bit more secure in yourself to to be better prepared for those that love you. Because everybody has people around them that love them. And they want to be better prepared because they know they’re not Superman, even though they think they are. So thanks so much, Paul, for coming out to our show today. You’re a delight to have on I feel honored that you’ve come out and I’m looking forward to more fun things in the group on your Facebook group and, and listeners, please like share and subscribe down here below. Paul’s gonna make me sing my song about clicking the bell. Ring that bell ring that bell down there in the corner. Ring the bell and push the subscribe button. There you go. I did it just for you.
Thank you, thank you. song from a 70 ring. He just need that little background music to go along with it.
Well, people don’t realize that you know they don’t realize they can like the button and share it And they don’t realize that there’s this bell I know my sister even said what are you talking about? What’s the bell? So there you go.
Thank you so so very much for coming out to our show today. I hope that we’ve inspired you. You can be the Superman but only when you’re prepared for the unexpected because everyone has a story that will bring you to your knees and be the survival guide. And that’s what Paul’s doing for everybody. He’s had a quite a story that is brought him to his knees and now he’s out there helping others accomplish their goals and their missions and their passions in life. Thank you so very much, Paul, thank you so very much. So stay safe everyone. Be kind. Till next time. Bye.
Website https://acalltoaction.coach (Get your free guide How to Rewrite Your Story)
Facebook Group Rewrite Your Story https://www.facebook.com/groups/458141012065090/?ref=share
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