Full Transcript for Break Your Internal Barriers First to Scale | Insights from Mike Irving

come back to that then and explore that a little bit. Mike Irving: Sounds good Matt Wolfe: The, the only other thing I'll say by way of introduction is I'm just sorry I didn't end up on the boat. We had fun meeting the other day. We were both on boats and, um, we coulda had the dual Boat podcast, but we'll, we'll just have you come back. Mike Irving: There's an idea there. We could do that again in the future. Matt Wolfe: That's not a bad, that's not a bad title. Mike Irving: Hmm. Human First Question --- Matt Wolfe: So the first thing we like to do... In, in a second we'll sort of get into your background and what you're doing at Advanced Business Abilities and all of that. But you know what? We were talking the other day and I was sharing with you, we have this new program we're rolling out, it's called Scale, Scale Beyond Referrals, and it's for B2B service providers who are in these high-trust, high-relationship spaces, and are really relying on referrals and [00:04:00] warm introductions to get by. They kinda gave up on marketing a long time ago 'cause it just wasn't working. We helped them understand why that happened, and a big clue to that was that it wasn't... The, the strategies they were being given weren't built for building relationships. They weren't built to create moments of human connection. 'Cause ultimately we have to, to tru- for someone to trust you, you know, to guide them forward as a leader. For someone to trust us to take on their marketing strategy, to, for someone to trust them to take over their finances. These are big asks. We have to know the human behind the brand as well. And so we start with a human question and, and it's just this. Childhood Dreams --- Matt Wolfe: For you growing up as a kid, you probably did not imagine yourself leading a wonderfully effective business leadership or- organization. So what did you think you would be doing when you were a kid? Like, where, where'd you think you were gonna go? Mike Irving: Man, you're making an assumption that I feel grown up. Matt Wolfe: You don't have to. Mike Irving: Oh, [00:05:00] good. A- as a, as a kid, I wanted to play baseball. I grew up in Boston. Matt Wolfe: Oh, cool Mike Irving: I loved the Red Sox. Roger Clemens was, you know I grew, I grew up watching the Red Sox every summer, and I loved baseball, and yeah, I, I really wanted to be a baseball player. And, and it was kind of confronting that, okay, well, maybe I, I don't quite have the talent for that, uh, led me on a different journey. So, but baseball player. There was a while I wanted to be a fighter jet pilot. Apart from that, I d- I didn't really think too much about, well, what was my career gonna be. I, I, I just went about life and played baseball and studied, and I did well at school, and that was that Matt Wolfe: Oh, that's cool. So you were kind of content to let the direction emerge at that point, or like you're gonna figure out where it was all going? Mike Irving: Yeah, I don't know if I felt that way back then. but when I look back on it now, that's kind of what I see. I mean, I went to university and studied [00:06:00] biology. What did I think I was gonna do with a biology degree? I have no idea. I just kind of felt like science was... I understood it, and, "Oh, let's, let's do that." Um, there wasn't a lot of thought and intent behind my decision-making at the time. Matt Wolfe: Man, it's crazy how these things worked. I was very foc- once I hit high school, super focused on I'm gonna be in theater, I'm gonna be an actor, and, you know, and I did that for, like, 25 years, and then I did the late life pivot thing into full-time marketing. Different kind of storytelling. So you just never know where these things are gonna happen. What ABA Does --- Matt Wolfe: Let's just, let's capture a little bit, I'd love to capture a little bit just about Advanced Business Abilities, you know, where you are today and what your company is doing for people, just an overview. Mike Irving: Yeah, uh, absolutely. So, um, 20 years we've been, we've been operating for, and today we have clients on every major continent of the planet, apart from... No, no, including South [00:07:00] America. We're, we're still a ver- relatively small team, so we're a, we're a team of five, and we help the members of our community to identify and remove emotional, mental, and energetic resistance that stops them from being able to achieve or, or do what they want to. And I, I often talk about it this way. I'm sure you know people who they, they know the things that would be the best things for them to do. In business, a lot of business owners know w- w- what are the things that would be the best things for them to do, but that doesn't mean that they can go and effortlessly do them. And, and often great plans are laid, but they're not executed. And the reason they're not executed is because of the resistance that the person feels when they go to start, or they're in the middle of, or they're close to completion [00:08:00] of, and that's the, that's the thing that we help with Matt Wolfe: Yeah, I think that's part of what I picked up on from you is that you're just, uh, you're, you're clearly aware of the holistic picture and the, the just the very humanness of what it is that we do. You know, th- this stuff never... This stuff is never just about business strategy, right? Like, when we're doing marketing strategy, we are running right up against people's fears about the future as we sit in discovery and talk about what's possible. especially when you talk about niching down an audience, you know, not being all things to all people, but really identifying your ideal client. That terrifies people. Um, the truth is it's liberating, it's expansive, it, it makes you grow even though it feels like a paradox. But, but, you know, people run into all sorts of things. Or we see people who, um, you know, aren't giving them... We talked about this

the other day. They're not giving themselves enough credit, um, not celebrating all that they have actually accomplished, which is part of having the confidence to, to move forward and do new things, [00:09:00] so. Mike Irving: Yep, I agree. Self Acknowledgement --- Mike Irving: And, and another problem exists that, that it's one thing to celebrate the things they've accomplished. It's a different thing again to ensure that they acknowledge themselves for doing the things that they said that they would do, irrespective of whether or not it achieves the outcome that they wanted. And I find that that's actually a major source of resistance for a lot of people, because if they, if they skip over that step of acknowledging themselves for keeping the agreements that they made in the first place, then they're, they're actually effectively waiting to see if anybody external to them acknowledges them for it. And so it's a way of giving away all of the power that you have by not acknowledging yourself for keeping your commitments Matt Wolfe: Yeah. That's so powerful. And, and when we talked the other day, you offered me a really helpful correction 'cause I jumped in, I was like, "Oh, I love that. I love encouraging [00:10:00] people. I love telling them they've done great things." And you offered a good twist. You were like, "Wait, wait, wait." Make sure they acknowledge themselves, right? That they actually give themselves that gift, and that was, that's really gonna stay with me for a long time. Mike Irving: Yeah, cool. That's, that's-- I, I, I'm glad because that's a, that's a thing I learned 20 years ago that changed my life. Matt Wolfe: Well, let's talk about that for a minute. 'Cause I don't always do this, but I, I think in your case, you know, uh, sometimes we talk to people who've been running a business their whole life, then we talk to people who were in the business world and pivoted into more of a consulting coaching role like where you sit. I would love to hear a little bit more of that background that got you to the place of starting Advanced Business Abilities, and maybe capture a little bit of that, you know, you mentioned earlier that 20- that guy 25 years ago was not in this space, couldn't do this work. Now, how, how did we get here? Mike Irving: Yeah. That's-- It's a-- I will share as much as I am, am [00:11:00] able to in a, in a short, succinct period Matt Wolfe: Yeah. Australia Sales Hustle --- Mike Irving: Um, so when I was 21, I landed in Australia, and I was originally only supposed to be in Australia for six months and then go back to the United States and finish my degree and go and be a normal human being and get a job somewhere and, and do all that. And I, I fell in love with Australia to a point where I decided that I wanted to stay, and that meant, first of all, getting a visa to be able to say and stay, and second of all, uh, finding a way to earn some money. So I was able to do both, and the way that I was

able to earn some money was I got a job going door to door doing sales, commission only. So residentially, um, and, and business to business eventually as well. But literally, you know, door-to-door sales, pounding the pavement and, um, learning how to deal with rejection and, and learning Matt Wolfe: Oof Mike Irving: to sell. And if I didn't sell, I didn't earn money, so that became a pretty important skill to get good at. I [00:12:00] actually started a business 18 months later I was recruiting people and teaching them how to sell and running direct sales campaigns on behalf of large corporate businesses. Customers thought we were employed by the large corporate business, whether it was a phone company or an energy company. But the reality was we were all independent, and I had a team of people at one point 300 sales reps in three cities across Australia. So I learned how to sell and, and kind of went, "Oh, okay. Hold on. This is how that works. Okay. Well, let's go." And I started a business, and I ran that business for, uh, we'll call it eight years. Matt Wolfe: Okay. Mike Irving: Um, almost nine. Now I started that business when I was 22 Matt Wolfe: Mm. Mike Irving: Don't ask me Don't ask me how that happened. I, I mean, geez, I thought I knew it all at 22, and by the time I was 24, 25, I realized I have no idea what I'm doing. But I did it and when I started to realize that I didn't know as much as I previously [00:13:00] had thought I knew, I decided to start hiring coaches. I wanted to improve myself. I wanted to get better at business, so I hired business coaches. And I was starting to get a bit stressy because I'd done really well, but then kind of, you know, had the... I had the rollercoaster of business going on. And, um, so I'd done really well, but I was young and dumb, so I didn't save any of that money. And then it was, "Whoa, I'm in trouble now," and, "Oh, okay, I gotta dig myself out of the hole." Like, I hit the wall and, all right, how do I get past the wall? Matt Wolfe: Yeah Mike Irving: I got things moving again, started hiring a coach to help me, and all of a sudden things went down again. It's like, well, hold on a second. What happened there? So I, I hit the wall again, got up, dusted myself off, and pushed through and forced my way around or under or over the wall, and hired a different coach. And all of a sudden go down again. Not... And I'm not saying that happened because of those coaches, but what I found was happening was [00:14:00] these coaches would come in with lots of great systems to implement. Matt Wolfe: Hmm. Mike Irving: Lots of great how-tos, you know, 50 ways to do this, 100 ways to do that. Matt Wolfe: Yeah Mike Irving: And what I was finding was happening was I'd meet with them and they'd go, "Right, this next seven days we're gonna implement these three systems." And they'd walk out and I would go and attack the next seven days, and of course things go wrong, and business happens and, you know, you're putting out fires. Matt Wolfe: Yeah Mike Irving: Seven days later they'd come back, "How'd you go? Did we get those systems implemented?" And I'd be going, "No, man, I, I had this and then this and then this and then this and then this and I worked 100 hours and I'm... Geez, like, what's wrong with me?" Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Hitting the Wall --- Mike Irving: So in 2005 and, and very early 2006, I was not in a good space mentally, emotionally. I had gone to the doctors 'cause I wasn't feeling well, and the doctors prescribed me medication for depression. And I can [00:15:00] remember sitting there looking at the script and thinking myself, "Hold on a second. It's been my job for almost nine years now to not just maintain my attitude myself, but to teach other people how to do that, and to teach other people how to set goals and, and to keep other people motivated on their goal. How did I end up here? Something's wrong. Somehow I've gone left when it was better to go right, and I don't understand how I got here." Now, I made a personal decision. I would never recommend this for anybody else, but I made a personal decision to not fill that script. And when I look back that time on, on that day, I can see that I made a decision that day where I'd been driven by a question for a long time, which was the question called: How do I create my own reality? I've read all these [00:16:00] books. They all, they all tell me I create my own reality. But man, none of those books actually lay out the system. None of them give you the, the full equation. It's a, "Well, if you have this reality right now, that means you're doing this, this, this, and this. And if you want this reality instead, stop doing these three things, start doing these five extra things, and over time and distance, you'll get there." None of those books could tell me that And I can see looking back on that day, I, I looked at the script and went, "No, hold on. Something's wrong. This is just gonna mask whatever the source of the problem Matt Wolfe: is. Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: I'm not doing that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna find, I'm gonna find out where I've gone wrong here." Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Reality Creation Mentors --- Mike Irving: And within a month of that day, I met the group of people that I now refer to as my research team. So I was turning 30. their age at, age at the time was 64, and I met them. [00:17:00] was introduced to them. And in a six-month period of time, these guys helped me to understand exactly had I gone left when it was better to go right, and, then they helped me understand more and more the answer to that question called, well, how do you create your own reality? And that, that initial six-month period that I spent with them, that was the seed that is now Advanced Business Abilities. I ended up asking them to mentor me. I shut down the business that I had been running for almost nine years, I made a decision that I wanted to

learn everything about how they did what they did for me, because I, I, I felt that I could combine my eight years of experience in sales and building teams, and if I could learn how to do what they did for me, I'd be able to help a lot of people over the next 30, 40 years of my life Matt Wolfe: Wow. Wow, that's incredible. It's, you know, [00:18:00] I, I can't imagine bearing that much responsibility at that young of an age. although I say that, and I had a similar experience where I had- I was given a lot of responsibility. I think I was 22, 23, asked to be the worship leader at a big church, like 1,200 people a week. That was my version of what you experienced, and I wasn't ready for it, you know, in terms of maturity and all of that. And I- my response to it when it wasn't going well and, and, and, and, you know, now I get to talk about this in therapy but, you know, my response to it was to go and hide, you know, and just kind of find places to hide, whatever that meant. Literal hiding, 'cause I had a little cubby way back in the corner of the church you know. Emotional hiding, what- you know, whatever, masking. But I found all these places to hide, so that people wouldn't see that I was scared, didn't know what I was doing, whatever. And I- and there were people who could have mentored me that I didn't embrace, and I wish that I had been able to do that at the time. [00:19:00] But, you know, I sometimes you have to hit the wall to make that choice, have that understanding Mike Irving: Yeah. Well, so, so I, I wanna make sure you're not giving me too much credit here because first of all, when I was 22 and I started a company, Matt Wolfe: I Mike Irving: had no idea what that meant. I, I... That was... I'm a managing director. I had no clue what that meant. Matt Wolfe: Yeah Mike Irving: any idea about fi- fiduciary responsibility and governance, and I, I, I-- It was just like I was-- had a group of people around me that were all kinda doing a similar thing, and so, "All right, let's go. We'll, we'll have a crack." and then the closer I got to 30, the more I found myself hiding I didn't know what I was feeling, and I didn't know how to explain it, and I didn't know what was wrong. And man, I remember having a day where I w- went in to run my morning meeting, which I would do every day for a group of salespeople, and the meeting was designed to, you know, help them [00:20:00] focus for the day, get them enthusiastic about going out and hitting some goals. And I ran the meeting, and they, they all left, and normally I would go up to the front of the office and get ready to start my admin day and, you know, interviewing, et cetera. Well, the sales team left, and I went and hid in the back parking lot, and I cried my eyes out, and I had absolutely no idea why. Matt Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah Mike Irving: I had no clue what was wrong, Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: and I'd spent nine years wearing this mask of, "I, me- I know what I'm doing. I'm, I'm setting goals, and this is where we're going." And, And, so I had this mask on of I'm supposed to be in control, and I'm supposed to be the leader, and I'm supposed to know it all and have a plan, and I don't understand what I'm feeling, and I don't have a plan to deal with it 'cause I don't understand what I'm feeling, and I also don't have anybody that I feel like I can talk to about it. Like, what am I d- what am I gonna do here? I, I don't know [00:21:00] what to do or who to turn to. Matt Wolfe: Yeah. What stands out to me in your story, and it's not uncommon at all, and I, I resonate with it from different directions too, like, you, you were set up to sort of feel bad and feel like a failure and beat yourself up because of the paradigms that we all assume to be true. And so what I mean by that is as leaders, we feel like we have to figure it all out on our own, right? And that's, it's really an incomplete form of leadership. Really, like, I would call it, like, a false picture of leadership. You should have... It, it's vital to have a coach, an outside perspective, or mentors, or these older people. Like, I think it's really meant to work that way. Or you were given the system, right? And we've experienced that at Brand3. I've seen other businesses struggle with that. You were given a system that somebody said, "Well, this works for everybody," which only sets you up to think, "Well, oh my God, it didn't work for me." The system is incomplete. Mike Irving: There's something wrong with me. Matt Wolfe: Yeah, and it's incomplete [00:22:00] without... I would, yeah, well, you have a better perspective on this than I will, but I, I mean, I think the systems that we read in the books and we learn at the conferences and are given to us, right, are incomplete because they haven't yet met the reality of all the humans involved in the story and on the team. They require a human on the outside to come in and help implement them, but there are versions of that, right? And so I've seen versions where people come in and they say, "I'm your human to help you implement this system that works for everyone." But they're really just trying to make you do it the same way everyone else has done it, right? Instead of really coming in to say, "Well, this is, this is, this system is a bunch of helpful ideas, but we gotta figure out how they unpack, how, how you get buy-in, how you adapt them, you know, for the environment you're in." I don't know, am I onto anything there? Implementation Blocks --- Mike Irving: Look, I don't, I don't disagree with you and, and, and I'll take it one step further based on what I learned, first of all, for myself, and then the theory that I applied to [00:23:00] creating advanced business abilities and what we've learned since then. So, I look at it this way, and this is true now more than ever before. 20 years ago, I had coaches coming in and saying, "We've got 50 ways to improve this and 100 ways

to get better at that, and all these systems we're gonna implement." The how to run any business, it's all available for free, Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: and that's true more today than ever before. Matt Wolfe: Hmm Mike Irving: Have a conversation with Claude, and you can, you can get an answer to how to do anything that you want to, including stuff that you have absolutely no understanding of at all, Matt Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah Mike Irving: So the real problem is not the how-to The real problem actually comes in implementation of the how-to. And the block that stops implementation always happens between your two listeners. Always happens in your thinking first. And [00:24:00] so we can describe this as negative thinking. I will often describe it as resistant-based thinking, restrictive thinking. And it's the thinking that we go through when we're looking to implement something that actually creates the block in the first place. And so we don't come in and work with the members of our community to tell them how to run their business more efficiently. They they know way more about how to run their business than we ever will because they're running it. What we're able to do is come in and ask enough questions in order to help them see the way that they're thinking that is no longer serving them. And that's the thing that's getting in the way of them implementing. Now, that's what I learned for myself. The problem was me. The problem was ways that I was thinking, ways that I was communicating, first of all, with myself, second of all, [00:25:00] with other people, including members of my team. And I was actually creating resistance both in myself and in the members of my team. Well, no wonder we didn't get past where I wanted to get to. I was the problem. Matt Wolfe: Yeah. This is great. I, you know, so a- as we know, the theme of the podcast, right, we're talking to B2B service providers with a heart for service. You know, they care about the clients they serve, they care about the results, and the question becomes, if I'm gonna scale, if I'm gonna grow, how am I going to continue to serve people well? How am I gonna stay true to my core values? How am I gonna be, you know, successful maintaining all that integrity and growth as a leader? I think we've talked a lot on the podcast so far about, like, external obstacles, but we haven't talked as much or, or nearly enough about the internal blocks, you know, that hold people back. So I j- this is so great. So what are some of the biggest... You know, as, in all [00:26:00] these people you've worked with, what, what are some of the biggest blocks that you see them, you know, putting on themselves to being able to scale successfully, serve people well, and grow? Mike Irving: That's a, that's a great question. Three Pillars Success --- Mike Irving: And, um, and so to answer that question, 'cause there's... There are a lot of answers to that question. and every single person is a unique individual, so there's, there's not necessarily a, Oh, it's, you know, it's generally th- these two or three things." Except that I can answer it by talking about the, what I'll call the three pillars to success. Matt Wolfe: Okay Mike Irving: And, and, and the reason I wanna talk about that is because the, the real source of the problems are when people don't follow these three pillars to success, and and that opens up to a whole conversation there. So the way that I tend to look at it is the, the first pillar to success, I'm gonna call it radical awareness. Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: [00:27:00] And so that, that involves you making sure that you're completely aware and that you are really confronting the true reality around your own strengths, weaknesses, blind spots, Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: additudinal issues, competency issues, and aptitude issues. And that's, you know.. If you get people who, when you ask 'em... If they're talking about a problem and you're asking them, "Well, you know, what's going on? How come that's not going the way you want it to?" When you start hearing people tell you all about the external problems that are stopping them, my... That's an indicator for me there's not really radical awareness there. Because I, I always work... I find it extremely valuable to take a, an approach to every part of your life where you view it as though you [00:28:00] create your own reality Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: And what that approach does is it supports you whenever anything goes great. It supports you to go, "Okay, what did I do or not do? What did I say or not say? What were the successful actions I took that produced that result?" And when things don't go great, same thing. What did I do or not do? What did I say or not say? What were the actions that I did or didn't take that produced that result? Matt Wolfe: Yeah Mike Irving: Because it happened, so I created it somehow Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: Now, I'm not saying to take that attitude, you know, literally with every single thing in life, but I find that's a really helpful approach to take. When something great happens, all right, what was it? What did we do? And when something terrible happens, all right, how did I, how did I contribute to the creation of that problem or that negative outcome? Matt Wolfe: [00:29:00] Yeah Mike Irving: The, the second pillar is total accountability, which actually aligns with that radical awareness Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: And the third pillar is then conscious creation Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: You're gonna get closer to conscious creation by taking total accountability and radical awareness because you'll start to identify the successful actions and the non-successful actions, the successful attitudes and the non-successful attitudes Creating Safe Space --- Matt Wolfe: How do you help people through... Okay, so I, like I mentioned, I just like

dropped earlier that I've, that I'm back in therapy, right? I don't think I've talked about this on the podcast yet, but the catalyst for me to go back was, uh, we just adopted our son, who's almost three years old now, right? And I was like, I wanna be, make sure I'm, I don't know, tuning up to be a better father. Then the business thing came up and I became a partner at Brand3. I was gonna be responsible for more other humans, right? Just the stakes in every way seemed raised. I go there [00:30:00] and, you know, I think a big theme for me I found is, is the fear of being seen having done something wrong, the fear of making mistakes and, and 'cause I'm... There are patterns in my life where I'm just so hard on myself, right? And that's getting better, thank goodness. But how do you... So all of that, boy, that was a long way to get back to my question, but the question is, how do you get people past the fear of seeing themselves wholly, right? Of, of, of living in radical awareness and, and honestly facing, "That went great. This, not so much." And why? Mike Irving: Yeah, that's a great question, um, because it's, it takes a lot of bravery to be really open and honest, and it takes even more bravery to be not just open and honest with yourself, but to be open and honest with another person and Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: tell another how- you really feel and what really bothers you and what really presses buttons. Cuz we all buttons [00:31:00] that get pressed, right? And they get pressed in a variety of dis- different circumstances and by different people in life. Hav- having... I don't have any children, but I have a harem of godson and a niece and a nephew and, you know, god, goddaughters. They're not necessarily, but I look at them that way. Matt Wolfe: Yeah Mike Irving: You know, I, I know how good they are, and they can be at pressing their parents' buttons, and I know how good they can be at pressing my buttons, Matt Wolfe: right? Mike Irving: So, so we, we all go on this journey. The question that you asked is how do I, how do I get somebody, uh, beyond the fear of that? Matt Wolfe: Hmm. Mike Irving: And it's a great question, but I, I don't. Matt Wolfe: Oh. Mike Irving: That's, that's not my role. Matt Wolfe: Okay Mike Irving: My, my role is just to be there and ask questions and be with them and to observe whether or not they go there themselves. Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: Now, if they don't, that's okay. Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: Right now might not be the time. Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: But this [00:32:00] goes, this goes along the same lines as, like, how do you choose your clients? I'm not gonna attempt to ever force somebody to go there or or nudge them to go there. I'm gonna with them and see if they go there, and if they do, then I'll offer support. If they don't, that's okay. It's, it's far better to ensure if you're gonna go down that journey with somebody, super important that they're choosing to go down the journey, not that they're forced to, or that they're corralled into, or that they're convinced to. It is their choice. So allow, allow them to choose. Just create the space where they can feel safe to choose yes if they want to Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. I, boy, to me, you know, good coaching is so much about g- or counseling I suppose, but creating space, right? Useful, curated, guided [00:33:00] space, but where people can make those choices for themselves. And I, I, I would call those spaces fairly sacred 'cause we just don't have them much in our lives. We just don't. And I, I even think the, the marketing dis- and brand discovery sessions we do that way, right? Those are times to reflect and think about where they've, where our clients have been and where they wanna go, and to make some pretty important choices that they just don't have the space or the bandwidth to think about. And I, I just, it was fu- I was just talking yesterday to a, a, a coach who's working on a marketing project, and they told me this story of, uh, new client that came in, and at the beginning was very much in, like, go-go, aggressive, ambitious mode, and it was all about, "I wanna get a career at this place," right? "And this is the career track I'm on, and these are my goals, and this is what I wanna talk about." And three sessions later, because of the space that had been created, the conversation changed to, "You know what? I think I've lost my spark. I think I've [00:34:00] lost my compass." Right? So she went from, "I know exactly where I wanna go," to a very useful conversation about, "Actually, I've lost my sense of direction and focus, and let's talk about that and find that." But what a useful... But only because there was space made, you know, in the course of about three hours to make that shift. Mike Irving: Yeah. Yeah. I-- that's, that's it. Um, you know, the, the people that, the people that engage with us, the members of our community, they, they tend to have a few things that are common about them. And one of those things is that they actually really want to understand themselves. So sure, they wanna grow their business, they wanna generate more revenue, they want to expand, they want to take on more clients. All of that is true. That's all... I think that's true for an- almost any business. But there's something more, there's something deeper. They wanna understand themselves, they wanna understand what makes them tick. They wanna understand the reasons that they react to certain things in certain [00:35:00] circumstances, maybe they're not happy with the way that they react sometimes. They want to improve those things. Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: That, that is where the, the radical awareness and total accountability, pillars actually mean a lot. Matt Wolfe: Hmm. Diagnosing Root Causes --- Mike Irving: We, we have a tool that we use where if I sit with somebody and that space is created

and they say, "Well, yeah, I do want... I'm looking for some help with A, B and C." Okay, great. So A, B and C are things you wanna change. Well, if we wanna change those things, the thing about those things is that those are what we will call non-ideal conditions in your personal or professional life. So whatever those non-ideal conditions are you create those non-ideal conditions. You're creating them somehow. So if we just go to attempt to change those non-ideal conditions, we're [00:36:00] actually working with an outcome, not with a cause. So our first task, if we want to help you change those non-ideal conditions, our first task is to work out, well, what is it about you that's creating those? Is it an attitude? Is it an incompetency in a certain area? Is it an aptitude problem? Is it a belief system? Is it a button that exists in you that's getting pressed in those circumstances? And until we establish, well, what is it about you that's creating those, then we're really just attempting to work with a result rather than the true source of that result. And so we have a diagnostic tool that we use to help us to achieve that. And it takes a couple hours for somebody to complete. So it's not like a quick little 15-minute personality test. It's really thorough. And it reveals those underlying attitudes and belief systems and decision-making [00:37:00] processes that tend to contribute to the non-ideal conditions that we create in our lives. That's kind of another step. Like, let's create that space first where people can choose. And then let's really diagnose the source of the problem. And then they can choose again whether or not they agree with it and whether or not they actually want to do something about it. Matt Wolfe: Wow. What a gift, I mean, to have that space and that experience. Scaling Challenges Ahead --- Matt Wolfe: I wanna turn it back to you for a second again. So as you think about your journey of having grown, scaled the business that you have now of Advanced Business Abilities, where have you gotten stuck? What sort of challenges did you see along the way in terms of, you know, growing, continuing to serve people the way that you wanted to serve them? What, how's that look? 'Cause you got 20 years under your belt Mike Irving: I do. I do, which means I've got lots of mistakes under my belt too. Lots of, lots of errors and, and things that I did that didn't work that I learned from. Matt Wolfe: Yeah[00:38:00] Mike Irving: So I, I think one of the most challenging parts of life and business generally is continuing to be willing to inspect the ways that you create your own problems. Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Evolving Business Problems --- Mike Irving: And a- as we grow a business, when we start a business, we have a certain set of problems that we're working on solving. And then as we solve those problems, what happens is a new set of problems turn up that we didn't expect, and so then we work at solving those problems.

And all, all of a sudden we solve those problems, and there's now a whole new set of problems that turn up that we didn't expect. And, you know, that happens over a long period of time, and this is gonna sound funny, but there's plenty of people who are actually dealing with the problem of, "What do I do with this money?" Now, that sounds weird, but I, and I, and I, I only say that as a way of kind of illustrating [00:39:00] what I'm talking about. When we start a business, we have a certain set of problems. As we continue and we expand the business, we, we grow into different sets of problems. Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Buttons And Resistance --- Mike Irving: One of the problems that I found particularly early on was that I still had more work to do to remove my own resistance and my own buttons that were being pressed. And when those buttons were pressed, your buttons will cause you to react in an unintended way. And when we have an unintended response or reaction to a set of circumstances that occur, our unintended response doesn't tend to be a positive one. Matt Wolfe: Right. Yeah. Well, w- I, I, if, if, if you're willing to say, what were your buttons, or what were some of them? Trait Profile Wakeup Call --- Mike Irving: Um, so, so I'll, I'll tell this story. So when I first took the... I call them the predictor profiles. When I [00:40:00] first completed our diagnostic tool, we measure forty-nine traits. I'll, I'll say forty-nine factors of success. And so a couple of those factors that read for me were that, first of all, my critical trait and, and critical is defined as your tendency to be judgmental, your tendency to, to see faults and problems in, in others, right? So on a scale of zero to a hundred, the further below thirty, the better. And if your trait, if any of the attitude traits are up at thirty or above, that trait's gonna be a way that you create problems for yourself and for others. Well, my critical trait was sixty, Matt Wolfe: Okay. Mike Irving: So it was double where the problem starts, right? Now, combine that with a competitive trait of a hundred, and we [00:41:00] don't know how far above a hundred it is 'cause we only measure from zero to a hundred, and, and healthy is kind of like below eighty, right? Matt Wolfe: Right Mike Irving: And then combine that with a patience trait of zero And therefore we don't know how far below zero and it's zero to 100 and healthy starts at like 39, right? Matt Wolfe: Yeah Mike Irving: And then, and then also combine that with... So what have I talked about? I've talked about critical, competitive, patience, and then combine that with an attention to detail score of zero. And a healthy attention to detail starts at 39 Matt Wolfe: Right. Right. Yeah Mike Irving: so super critical, um, competitive to a point of wanting to win at all costs, Matt Wolfe: Hmm Mike Irving: Zero attention to detail, and zero patience. Man, I was a nightmare. Matt Wolfe: I Mike Irving: would've been a nightmare. Matt Wolfe: Mm. Mike Irving: Anybody listening to this who [00:42:00] worked in my sales training organization 25 years ago, I apologize. Like, and it's not that I was always bad, but man, you know, that combination of traits, when I confronted that and I looked at that, I went, "Wow, okay. I'm really creating some problems for myself Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: And so when those buttons got pressed, how do you react when your buttons get pressed? You go to defend in whatever way you've learned to defend. Matt Wolfe: Hmm. Mike Irving: So you might go on the attack, you might get upset and raise your voice. Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: So yeah, I had challenges in those areas. And I even found after I went through my first six months of transformation for myself, man, that did an enormous amount to help me to change. But I still found a year and two years later, and even two and a half, three years later, as I had become a coach and I'd started [00:43:00] to test my theories and I started to produce and help clients to change, I still found that there were circumstances where those buttons could get pressed and that damaged relationships. That wasn't ideal. That wasn't what I wanted to have happen. It happened and I learned from it. And I then went and did a whole bunch more work with my research team to go, all right, hey, I've made an error here and I've made an error because of my own resistance. Come on, guys, let's go. How do we solve this? Matt Wolfe: Hmm. Mike Irving: And then kept going. And that research team, there was three people, three members of that team. Two of them have now passed away. And I learned a huge amount of incredibly valuable lessons from them. One of which is that at the age of 81, when he passed away, Bernie, he was still working on himself and working with me and my team Matt Wolfe: Wow Mike Irving: of 81 the week he [00:44:00] passed away. Sharp as a tack mentally, body was failing, but he was still working on and being coached using our systems and processes. He was allowing me and my team to coach him to continue to support him to remove resistance that was restricting him at the age of 82. Mentors As Research Team --- Matt Wolfe: I wanna understand a word that you're using here with your team g- 'cause you, you, you call them your research team, the people who helped you really figure out what you needed to do, you know, how to move forward, how to get past your blocks, all of that. But to me, that sounds like a lot more than research. Like, it almost sounds reductive, right? 'Cause these are... They're clearly, like, mentoring and helping you live in radical awareness, right? Like, all of these things. So I'm just curious, like, how did they get the name research team? Mike Irving: well, they had been working in the field of developing people for 50 years when I met them Matt Wolfe: okay. Mike Irving: [00:45:00] For 40 years when I met them,

so, you know, here I am at 30 years old. They've, they've done a lot of the work. I come along at 30, they're semi-retired, and I come along and go, "Hold on a second. You, you know stuff. You know stuff that I want to know. Matt Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah Mike Irving: Come on." I... When I was 30, I didn't, I didn't understand what I was asking them to do. When I asked them to mentor me, I can tell you I did not, I did not understand what I was asking them to do. Matt Wolfe: Of course Mike Irving: I believe that they understood what I was asking them to do, but I, I can tell you I did not. Matt Wolfe: Yeah Mike Irving: Cuz they had already been doing it for a very long time. And so when I came along and went, "Okay, hold on. Putting my hand up, guys. I want, I wanna know everything. I wanna understand this." Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: And they had already spent the previous nine or 10 years researching a, they had [00:46:00] hit their own wall twice in the organization that they had built, and it had come crumbling down. And they... After the second time, they, they got together and went, "Right. Well, let's, let's shall we, shall we have another go?" And they all agreed not to because they didn't have an understanding of what the real problem was that had stopped them the first two times. And so they went, "Nup, we're not doing that until figure out what's actually gone wrong here." So they kept working and researching and aiming to understand, and they solved that problem. Once they solved that problem, they were kind of like, "Hmm, in my 60s now, I don't really know if I wanna go out and work that hard." But then I came along And so that's why I call them the research team. Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: Now I differentiate. There's the research team and then there's the team I'm building. So it's not just Matt Wolfe: Right. Mike Irving: me delivering the service that we Matt Wolfe: Right Mike Irving: Deliver So [00:47:00] there's, there's a differentiation there as well Why Leaders Need Coaches --- Matt Wolfe: I just, I, I think the main reason I wanted to punch in on it a little bit was I, I just love the very simple concept, which I was really only introduced to a few years ago, that every leader really should have their team, you know? The people supporting them should build their own team, and I, I don't know that everyone's heard that yet. That that's, um... Just like we were talking about earlier, it's not that you it's not that you, like, need a coach to fix something terribly wrong about you. It's you should have, right? There's, there's a, there's just a natural way of things that we have sort of cut ourselves off from. This simple idea of having your team, your community, your tribe, and your mentors, and the people around you. Or your coach, and this people that sees you in a way that you can't, and can speak into your life in a way that no one else in your life can, and we just need, you know... These are good and wonderful things, I guess is my point Mike Irving: I couldn't agree more. I, I find that they're essential. And [00:48:00] they're essential if you really want to continue to develop yourself, your skillset, your thinking, your decision-making. Michael Jordan had a coach until he retired Now, if, if the best athletes in the world have coaches that they engage with in order to support them to, to spot the blind spots or to spot the weaknesses and to improve them and to really capitalize on their strengths and have that objective viewpoint to direct their attention, 'cause that's really all it is, right? A, a coach takes an objective viewpoint with your permission in order to direct your attention to things that are important and valuable to give attention to, Matt Wolfe: Yeah Mike Irving: including your own reactions and responses and, and, uh, ways of communicating that are ineffective or, ways of communicating that you're not aware [00:49:00] of, right? Everything we do communicates, and so we are either constantly communicating very intentionally, which will produce intended outcomes likely, or we actually end up communicating unintentionally, which then will produce unintended outcomes, and it's not often that those are positive Matt Wolfe: Wow. I'm just gonna say that again, both for the audience and for my sake. Every everything we do communicates. Everything. I feel like I've heard versions of that, and I just, I can't describe why, but it's landing with me like a ton of bricks this time. It's just so true. Brand Story And Client Journey --- Matt Wolfe: Well, I, I'd like to just explore briefly, you know, one of the things we like to look at is, uh, how a business has learned to both talk about and live into the client journey, I guess is the way I would say it. So if you, if you got a B2B service, any kind of service like that, which is all based on a relationship, and this is true of marketing in general, you're, you're gonna have a really hard [00:50:00] time starting that relationship until you have a really good story about who you are and the people you serve. The, the story between the business, the ideal client, is the story of that relationship. And that's so powerful. People don't understand. That's brand strategy, what I'm talking about. And, you know, a lot of people are like, "You mean my colors and my logo?" And I'm like, "No, no, no. The story of who you are and who you serve, and what that relationship really looks like." And when you understand that, obviously you're gonna market in a better way. Obviously, your sales process is going to improve and accelerate the sales process. But it also, continues to cascade. The benefits and the impact of doing that work cascade into client experience, where you have a chance to actually live up to the promises of all the big, shiny words on your website, right? And make them become a reality. And even culture. So we like to sort of look at that sort

of flywheel of, of, of the client journey that's all impacted by brand. So to start with, have, how has your understanding of how you tell the story of what you do over [00:51:00] 20 years with people, how has that changed as you've talked about, "This is h- this is who we serve, and this is the difference that we make for them"? Mike Irving: It, it's changed a lot. and, and at the same time, it, it has changed in subtle ways, which is what makes it change a lot. Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: it hasn't... It's not like it's changed in 180-degree direction, Matt Wolfe: Yeah Mike Irving: it, it's changed 0.1 of a degree at a time over 20 years. And each of those changes have occurred as a result of a real experience with a member of our community. Because as we keep learning from them and the impact that what we're introducing them t- to has on their personal and professional life, we can continue to narrow down the way that we talk about that and the explanation we give. One of the challenges that I had was, you know, y- if you sit me down with somebody and, and I can have a conversation with them, [00:52:00] I will communicate with them based on things that they say and things I observe about them and, and, you know, information that they give me. And I can help them to have a really good understanding of what we're about and how we go about supporting people with their problems, right? Man, attempting to, like, create \a website that does that, oh, that was really difficult. Matt Wolfe: Yeah Mike Irving: And I I demonstrated one thing to myself over about, I don't know, probably a six-year period, maybe a seven-year period. The thing I demonstrated to myself is I got no business building a website. Like, that's, that's a really bad job for me to do, right? Matt Wolfe: Yeah Mike Irving: I, I, don't under- I don't understand how to... Not, not just the technical parts of actually creating a website, but the messaging and the wording and, and how you actually... Put me down with 10 different people, and I can have 10 different conversations that help them understand what we're about. But ask me to create a website that [00:53:00] will communicate to everybody the main message, yeah, I, I failed at that. I was really bad at that. Matt Wolfe: Well, I think... So first of all, the, the marketer's version of, of what you do is we... The reality is everyone's just too close to their own story, and so we all need, you know, just as you help people reflect on the actions they're taking in their life, the, the, the same thing applies to the, the story. We're just too close, and we're dug into it, and so it's, you know, we all struggle with it. You've articulated the, the core struggle that every B2B service provider has, right? If I get them in the room, this is great. I know there's, I got a 80 to 90% chance we're gonna move forward, but the trick is getting them in the room. And ha- and, and the benefit of having that clear storytelling on the website, elsewhere, you know, where your presence is out in the world is, is when it's clear, then you're building trust before they get in the room. Then you're building relationship before they get in the room. So all of that is being strengthened and accelerated, and the [00:54:00] website is really the first, in the world we live in now, it wasn't always this way, but the... it is now the first place where that story appears, right? The first sort of core place where that story lives. That's why we feel that anxiety. But you did something so important, I just wanna highlight that... or you are doing actively from the way you tell the story. A lot of times people have the message out there, and they're like, "I don't think people are getting it. I don't think, I don't think this is landing. I don't think this is going well." And so they go internal, right? To say, "Well, what else could we say? Let's get around a table and figure out what else we could say," rather than listening to the people who you have in front of you now and letting that guide you. That's just so important. How has your sense of, um, not sense of, but even how you h- has it changed... Sales As A System --- Matt Wolfe: How do you sell what you do? Has that changed over the years? Mike Irving: So it's, it's funny. That hasn't changed. Matt Wolfe: Okay Mike Irving: Well, okay, hold on a second. H- how we, how we sell it hasn't changed. The, the, you know, the [00:55:00] packaging, yeah, sure, that's changed in bits and pieces and, and ways. Um, but, you know, one of the things that we help the members of our community with is sa- sales is not... Like, sales is not magic. Sales is not a gift-of-the-gab skill that you're either born with or you're not, right? Matt Wolfe: Right Mike Irving: Sales is... So I think I was really lucky. When was 21, I started going door to door, commission only sales, and I saw quickly that sales was a process. It was a system. It, it wasn't based on being funny. It wasn't based on telling jokes or, or having a script. It was a system, and so there were things that you pay attention to, and, and once you understand that system, like, that's it. You can sell, you can sell anything as long as you believe in it, right? what I learned after I m- met the people that I call the [00:56:00] research team is I didn't really understand sales back then. I could see it was a system, but I, I really learned the system from the people -that I started working with 20 years ago. And based on a set of principles, models, and, and processes that govern the system of selling, that hasn't changed. And, and that hasn't changed in 60 years. That's still the same as what it was 60 years ago. The thing that has changed, again, to talk specifically about our business, the thing that's changed is perhaps packaging. you know, what, what do we call or label the thing that we're giving you? It's still the same thing that we were selling 20

years ago. We've developed processes behind that, but yeah, we still sell the, we still sell the same concepts, and we sell them the same way Matt Wolfe: That's, you know, I think that gets undervalued because over time, you know, our culture shifts, people's resistance, [00:57:00] their savvy to how we do all these things shifts. And, and actually the sha- how we shape these things is usually less a question of what's convenient for someone and more about it's relational, right? It's like what is gonna help them feel a sense of trust and stair-step into this thing in a, in a way that works for them. Delivering Value And Trust --- Matt Wolfe: And what about client experience? The way you, you serve a unique thing, right? This is, uh... And, and I think people undervalue how hard it can be to deliver coaching and, and this kind of relationship that you offer well. So, you know, what have you learned about that over the, over the years? Mike Irving: it's funny because that, that actually ties into sales quite a lot. Matt Wolfe: Okay Mike Irving: Because if you, if you think about way that someone makes a decision to take an action. So they make a commitment to take an action, and a person does that, [00:58:00] whether it's... whether we're talking about a sales conversation whether we're talking about a conversation between a leader and a member of their team, Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: Leadership and sales and ma-managing a client relationship, they actually all use the same skills, and they're based on the same principles. They're just applied with different intent. And so the main thing that I have... This, this might sound really simple when I say this, so I'll, I'll just forewarn that. The main thing that I've learned is whatever commitments you make to whoever you're talking to, whether we're talking about a client that you have sold a, thing to, or whether we're talking about your wife who you've made a commitment to do a certain thing for, what-whatever it is, if you have had somebody make a commitment to take an action because it's aligned with something that they desire, [00:59:00] and you've been involved in them making that commitment, then that also means that you have made specific commitments involved in that process. So the most important thing to do is make sure that you do Matt Wolfe: what Mike Irving: you said you would do, and make sure you check in with them that they see that you did what you said you would do, Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: and then continue the relationship. Keep asking questions. Find out what's happening, how are they going. And I don't care what service you're selling, I don't care what widget you're, you're offering, that process is the same Matt Wolfe: Yeah. That's great. You know, the only piece I would add to that is the need to also communicate that you've met the commitments. And so in, in your space it's a little more, you know, clear 'cause you're in the room with people, these things are happening, you're delivering the service live. But there are s- many services, right, where people miss... When you get to client experience, they really miss, they miss two big [01:00:00] things. They miss the opportunities to help people understand the ongoing value of what's being, uh, what's been provided. Okay, no, three things. They miss the opportunity to provide value, they've missed the opportunity to continue to educate and remind people of the things they were excited about when you started the relationship. I tell my team, I say, "Look, this is your mantra. Clients forget everything." And, and I don't mean that in an insulting way or anything, I mean they have other things going on, and it's our job to help remind them, "This is why we set the strategy this way. This is why we went down this road. And if you remember one month ago, uh, between all the other things you've talked about, this is what we talked about. This is why we're here today." So to reset that for people. Mike Irving: I, I just was gonna say, I, I, I talk about that and think about that in, in terms of it is the management of perception of value Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm Mike Irving: And throughout the client experience, [01:01:00] every person, every salesperson, every business owner, and, and therefore every team in the business has the task of ensuring that they are managing the perception of value. And, and I wanna be clear that, that I'm, I'm not saying your task is to influence their perception of value positively, uh, or, or to manipulate it. I'm saying even to the point of being totally willing to ask a question about whether or not they are seeing the value, and being willing to experience them saying, "No, and I'm not happy." You... It's important to be willing to hear that, and then take that information and ask more questions and find out what you can do to alter their perception of value, to make sure they are getting value Matt Wolfe: Yeah, that's wonderful. Oh, the other thing I was gonna say is we forget sometimes to celebrate the things that they've accomplished along the way, too, and the milestones. And [01:02:00] now I know, thanks to you, I've gotta make sure that they celebrate for themselves. So, um, so in terms of value, I think I've got y- we've got a great sense of the wonderful va- we've only hit, you know, skimmed the surface, I think, of all the value that you bring to your clients. I think you've brought tremendous value to people today just in that we're focused on this internal peace, right? These things that hold people back from the inside. I think we've spent a lot of time today validating the, the, the goodness and the, rightness of having help and not being on your own. So I just thank you for reminding us of those things today. Behind The Brand Questions --- Matt Wolfe: I know we've been at this for a while, and we're, we're about out of time, and I, I wanna... W- the last thing we always

tend to do, we call it our behind the brand questionnaire, and it's really this simple idea. If you're a B... Like I said earlier, if you're a B2B service and you are, in a space that is built on relationships and trust, to market, to sell those things, we're gonna have to give people a, an encounter with you, the human. So not just the good information that [01:03:00] you put out in the world, not just the good thought leadership, you know, all of that stuff, but who is the human having the thoughts? So we try and dig a little deeper just to figure out who you are. And for anyone who's thinking about, you know, "Boy, I might really wanna work with Mike," this will give them a few insights. Um, got about eight questions here. You good to go? Mike Irving: We might go for it, no problems. Happy to Matt Wolfe: Awesome. Oh, seven. I miscounted. Oh, anyways. Okay, so what is your go-to karaoke song? Or if you don't like karaoke, what do you wish you could sing? Mike Irving: So go-to, anybody who knows me that's listening to this is gonna giggle right now. So go-to karaoke song would be Tennessee Whiskey Matt Wolfe: Okay. Awesome. Mike Irving: Chris Stapleton, Tennessee Whiskey. Mate, I love it. It's fantastic. And I've spent, I've spent many a night on the back of a boat with a whole group of friends across the world singing Tennessee Whiskey. It's been fun. Matt Wolfe: That's awesome. That's awesome. Mine is, by the way, is '80s glam rock. [01:04:00] Anything '80s glam rock, give it to me, 'cause I was in music theater. I was a high tenor, and so, like, I can, like, it's a chance to, like, play around. but I Mike Irving: Yeah Matt Wolfe: do it better with whiskey, though. so what- Mike Irving: Give me a few glasses of wine and I'll be, I'll be a great Chris Stapleton. Matt Wolfe: Right? Just I'm ready to go. Um, what is the last thing that made you laugh out loud? Mike Irving: I'm thinking about you doing Matt Wolfe: Yeah. Mike Irving: glam rock. Matt Wolfe: That's right Mike Irving: fa- that would be fantastic, mate. Matt Wolfe: We have to make that happen someday. Mike Irving: On the back of a boat, sounds great. Matt Wolfe: Yes. Yes. What is your favorite way to get away from it all? Mike Irving: Boating. Matt Wolfe: Yeah Mike Irving: Yeah, bo- boating and I, and I love traveling, I love, I love camping. I've spent 20 years going four-wheel driving all across Australia. More recently in the last 10 years, boating. Going away, drop an anchor, [01:05:00] being away from everybody and spending time with people that I really care about. Yeah, that's, that is just a, a fantastic way to unwind. Have a couple glasses of wine, have some really nice food. Yeah, that's perfect Matt Wolfe: Awesome. Yeah. I can relate to that. You're further down the boating journey than I am, but I've just felt hints of that, that, um, how much that can mean. What smell reminds you of a specific place or time? Mike Irving: Have you been to Africa? Anywhere Africa? Matt Wolfe: I ha- well, I have, uh, but I've only been to Morocco. I've been to Casablanca. Mike Irving: So, so I've been to Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, South Africa. Africa has a smell, Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. Mike Irving: and there's a, there's a smell particularly in Botswana that just-- I can transport there instantly. Um, there's a, a business there run by a couple of friends of mine called [01:06:00] Lataka Safaris, and, um, if you ever wanna go to Botswana, they are the people to do it with. And yeah, absolutely spectacular. Transports me there mom- in a moment effortlessly Matt Wolfe: Isn't that incredible? Yeah. What is one day in your life you would like to relive? Mike Irving: Well, am I, am I reliving it because it was fantastic, or am I reliving it so I can have a mulligan? Matt Wolfe: It, it's player's choice and it's so funny you said that. We did another interview this week where it was the mulligan for the first time. Mike Irving: Well, I'm gonna give you a mulligan. Matt Wolfe: Okay Mike Irving: So, September 14th, 2025, Matt Wolfe: Ok Mike Irving: my wife and I were taking the boat up around the, the northeast corner of Newfoundland, and we were cruising underneath Fogo Island, and we, we got into this place. There's a provincial park there called the Dildo Run Provincial Park, and Dildo Run is a waterway that [01:07:00] goes from there, it's nice and protected, and then you come out and you can cruise into Lewisporte. We got in there and we dropped anchor and had a fantastic night and woke up the next morning. And so the next morning, September four- 14th, this is the day I would like to have a mulligan for. Woke up in the morning, planned to have a really nice relaxing morning, drink coffee, have breakfast, and then when the time was right, there was gonna be a slack tide, we could go under this bridge and head into Lewisporte. So I went down to the engine room to do all my normal morning checks and get the generator started so I could put the coffee on and I would have a mulligan of that, that morning because the end result of that morning is I'm now missing a part of my finger. And, um, I would do that one over again. I would make sure that I don't put my finger anywhere near the belt on the generator. There's my, there's my mulligan moment, mate. I'd like to have that day over again. Matt Wolfe: Yep Mike Irving: We actually went, we went back [01:08:00] there, uh, less than a month ago, and we dropped anchor at the exact same spot this year and, um, and I got my mulligan. I got to have my do-over and, and have the morning that I wanted to have last year. So, uh, we went through a healing process, so we're Matt Wolfe: good. Mm-hmm. Honestly, that's so important, right? And it's something to transfer to everything we're talking about today. But in boating especially, I rem- the, one of the captains that taught me earlier, or, or at, at the beginning when we bought our boat, he

said, "You're going to have some emotional events." It's so funny. Actually, that was a very British way to describe it, even though he's from the Pacific Northwest. He was like, "You're going to have some emotional events. I've had them with my wife. We've had..." You know? But, but they cause fear, right? There are things that happen when you're boating where you just realize, "I don't know how to handle this. I'm in trouble. I'm very vulnerable right now." And then you want to go back and recapture that because it's about, it is about finding that calm back and that centered. So I'm, I'm just glad you had that moment, [01:09:00] uh, 'cause I, I recognize how important it is Mike Irving: I'm, I'm also glad that it wasn't worse than what it was because it could have been a lot worse. I could be lose-- I could be missing, you know, three or four fingers instead of just part of one. So it's okay Matt Wolfe: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. What three words would your loved ones use to describe you? Mike Irving: Intentional Fun And A deep thinker Matt Wolfe: Mm-hmm. That's great. Um, and this is the last one. Purpose And Next Steps --- Matt Wolfe: What would it mean to have truly succeeded in your work? Not the company and its mission, but you personally to have succeeded in your own quest? Mike Irving: It, it would, it would me- it would mean that I have fulfilled my life's purpose Matt Wolfe: 嗯。 Mike Irving: Yeah. It, it would mean that I have, I have done what I, what I've chosen to do And I've, and I've achieved I've achieved the [01:10:00] outcome that I'm aiming to achieve Matt Wolfe: Do you have a name to that purpose right now, or is it still finding a Mike Irving: I can talk about it in plenty of ways, um, but one of the ways that I will talk about it is we, we have an intent, I have an intent make the world a better place. And the approach that we're taking to achieve that is, well, one person at a time. Let, let's help one person at a time be more able to intentionally create and achieve what they want to, and be able to intentionally choose the way they communicate with any person about any subject in any moment, and be able to choose the way that they respond. And if we can achieve that with one person at a time over a period of 30 or 40 years, that's gonna mushroom out, and we're gonna have a better version of the world than what we live in today. That's what I like to [01:11:00] think Matt Wolfe: That's powerful. And that just further illustrates why you were the right guy for us to talk to today on a podcast called The CEO's Heart for Service. You know, this is who- we, we just love to talk to people like you. I've enjoyed this so much. People who are difference makers, we look for the helpers, we look for people with that heart for the podcast, for our clients, all of that. So I j- I can't thank you enough for being here. I feel like I could go on for hours, but, um, who has the time? So, so can you let people know, what is the best way to, engage with you, interact, reach out to you if they're so inclined today, which I hope they are? Mike Irving: Yeah, happy to, and, and if it's helpful, I'll, I'll say two things. So you can engage with me on, on LinkedIn or just go to advancedbusinessabilities.com. And, um, we've created a, a free executive effectiveness benchmark tool. And so if anybody would like to spend 10 or 15 minutes just responding [01:12:00] to a few simple questions, uh, it's, it's gonna give you a 90-day plan and a, a benchmark report so that you can see how you're going in terms of your thinking compared to your, your peers. And if anybody would like to do that, if you go to execbenchmark.com, it's totally free. It'll take you 10 or 15 minutes max, and, uh, if you get value out of that, I would love to have a conversation with you to see how we can help you implement some changes. I Matt Wolfe: Amazing. Mike Irving: I hope that's helpful. Matt Wolfe: Yeah, execbenchmark.com. Okay, amazing. For our side of the table, we have... I've mentioned earlier, we have this new program, Scale Beyond Referrals, for B2B service providers who gave up on marketing and got frustrated and are trying to get by on referrals and warm introductions. We're gonna help you understand why it just never clicked, introduce you to a framework for relational marketing, and we do that in an, in an initial workshop. and you can find information about that at [01:13:00] scalebeyondreferrals.com or at brand3.net. Okay. Wow. Thank you again, Mike. Um, I just can't thank you enough. I hope lots of people reach out to you. Mike Irving: Thanks for having me, Matt Matt Wolfe: And, uh, again, this has been Matt Wolfe from Brand 3, and we'll see you next time ​ [01:14:00]