52m 11 min read 9,080
Stop Hiding Who You Really Are: Be Authentic W/ Corey Poirier
Chris Do and speaker Corey Poirier reveal why true authenticity, not a filtered persona, is the most powerful asset for influence and connection.
Chris Do
Founder, The Futur™ · July 23, 2024
The Authenticity Imperative
Two words dominate the modern conversation around influence: personal brand and authenticity. They are often used together, but they live in a state of constant tension. One suggests a curated image, the other a raw reality. The pressure to build a polished brand often leads experts, speakers, and entrepreneurs to present a filtered version of themselves, believing it is the only path to credibility and success. But what if that is the very thing holding them back?
In a candid conversation with Chris Do, five-time TEDx speaker and author Corey Poirier argues that the most potent force in communication is not perfection, but its opposite. Poirier’s own journey is a testament to this idea. “I like to call it these days Chris, my origin story,” he says. It is a story that defies the typical expert narrative.
Poirier grew up in a small Canadian town, raised by a single mother, and barely graduated from high school. He didn't read his first book until age 27. The first two were Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People and Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. He admits he didn’t even know the difference between fiction and non-fiction, a fact that once cost him a second date.
“I certainly wasn't voted likely to succeed,” Poirier states. His mission now is to help others who started where he did, to amplify their message without the mentors he never had. His path wasn't academic. It was forged in the trenches of door-to-door photocopier sales, a job he took to learn the art of persuasion, much like Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki.
Even there, success was not immediate. Poirier operated under a constant 30-day probation called produce or perish, an agreement that meant he could be fired without notice at any time. It took nearly a year before his job was secure. His entry into public speaking was just as unlikely: he was tricked into performing stand-up comedy one night.
This is not the polished backstory of a guru. It is the foundation of a career built on embracing imperfection. It is the core of Poirier’s central thesis: stop hiding who you really are.
The Architecture of Connection
For those who want to command a stage, the first piece of advice is a counterintuitive directive: “Stop trying to become the next Tony Robbins.”
Poirier explains the fundamental error most aspiring speakers make. “When we ask people when they first start working with me, hey what's your goal, there's always some form of ‘I want to be the next Lisa Nichols, I want to be the next Brené Brown,’” he says. “And I'm like, why? Tony went out to become the first Tony Robbins. Lisa went out to become the first Lisa. You need to go out to become the first Bob.”
Emulating what great speakers do well is a strategy. Trying to become them is a path to failure. This is about building on your own authentic foundation, not adopting someone else's. From there, tactical skill becomes critical. Poirier outlined several non-negotiable rules for anyone who wants to not just speak, but connect.
First, rethink your presentation slides. Poirier points to the minimalist genius of Steve Jobs’s product launches. “At most on his slides, he would have a picture of the product,” he recalls. This was a revelation. Most speakers use slides as a crutch, filling them with bullet points and text. This is a mistake. The slides should be a visual trigger, not a teleprompter.
“I recognize that it's my story, so I don't need all these words to help me memorize,” Poirier explains. A single image of him performing stand-up is all he needs to launch into his origin story. The slides become reinforcement, not the main event. This approach also makes the presentation unique; the slides are meaningless without the speaker's narrative.
Second, every story needs a structure that resonates with the human psyche. Every talk should have a hero and a villain. This doesn’t mean literal characters. If you conquered an illness, the disease can be the villain. A person who gave you hope, or the concept of hope itself, can be the hero. “As humans, we love having things we can throw rocks at, the villain, and we love having things or people that we can cheer for, the hero.”
Third, respect the cognitive limits of your audience. This is The Rule of Three. A talk should never have more than three takeaways. For shorter formats like a TEDx talk, one is often enough. Poirier recounts a brilliant summary of this principle: “There's only four numbers in the world... one, two, three, and far too many.”
Once you get beyond three key points, you have lost your audience. This principle is baked into our culture, from the three-act structure of plays and movies to an innate psychological preference. Your talk should be organized around a few powerful, memorable pillars.
Slaying the Attention Span Dragon
You can have the most brilliant content in the world, but if the audience is bored, you have failed. This leads to Poirier’s most crucial distinction: “Content is king, and I agree with that. But what I would add to that is emotional connection is Queen. And in my experience, the queen rules the castle far more often than the king.”
A charismatic speaker delivering a mediocre talk will be remembered more fondly than a brilliant speaker who fails to engage. The question then becomes, how do you create that connection? It requires a toolbox of engagement strategies designed for the modern, distraction-prone mind.
The first tool is provocation. You can’t just talk at people; you must pull them into the experience. Poirier does this by challenging a universally held belief. He asks for a show of hands: “We all know it takes 21 days to create a habit, right?” Most hands go up. Then comes the turn. “What if I was to blow your mind and show you that it's not true?”
He then reveals the truth, citing the research from books like The One Thing, which shows the actual number is closer to 66 days. The creator of the 21-day idea was misquoted. By deconstructing a piece of common wisdom, Poirier achieves two things: he grabs the audience’s attention and establishes his credibility as someone who can teach them something new. “If that's not true,” he posits, “what else can I teach you that you've always believed to be true isn't true?” This approach is far more effective than just listing facts, a strategy explored in The Art of Listening & Communication.
The second tool is direct, intentional eye contact. It’s a cliché because it’s true. Poirier shares two powerful anecdotes to illustrate this. He recalls Chris Anderson, the head of TED, asking Brené Brown how she connected so deeply during her famous talk on vulnerability. Her answer was simple: she pictured the entire audience as the one person in her life who needed to hear that message the most. She spoke to them with the love and intention she felt for that single person.
He also shares a story from Tom Ziggler about his legendary father, Zig Ziggler. After a talk, a psychologist told Zig he was the most loved speaker on the lineup for two reasons. First, “the way you looked in our eyes felt like you truly cared about our result.” To do this, you have to genuinely care, which means speaking on topics you are truly passionate about.
The second reason was more profound. The psychologist observed, “You change up what you're doing every seven minutes.” This was the late 1970s, and the average time between TV commercials was seven minutes. Zig Ziggler, without knowing it, was fighting for the audience’s attention by shifting his energy, using a prop, or telling a new story, never letting them get bored and “go to commercial break in their head.”
Poirier’s update is stark. “Today we probably have two minutes. We don't have seven minutes anymore.” The modern speaker must be a master of variation, constantly mixing up their delivery to keep the audience locked in.
The Unfiltered Persona
Speaking from the stage is one thing. Living your message is another. The pressure to project success has created what Poirier calls a filtered world, and his antidote is simple: the unfiltered life.
“In a world where I feel everything is filtered, being authentic to me is being unfiltered,” he declares. To him, this means speaking your truth, especially when it’s hard. He sees the opposite everywhere: coaches on social media posing next to Cadillacs they don’t own to sell a dream of wealth they haven’t achieved.
“I truly have clients that are pitching, ‘Let me show you how to make seven figures,’ when they've never made seven figures,” Poirier reveals. “To me, that's the opposite of authenticity.” This house of cards eventually collapses. The truth always comes out.
Why do people do it? The quick answer is money. They believe fabricating a larger-than-life persona is the fastest way to attract clients who want a shortcut to success. They are afraid that showing their real life, their struggles, and their uncertainties will make them seem less credible. Poirier argues the opposite is true.
He believes vulnerability builds trust. “I think you're more creditable when a person says, ‘They get it. It happens to them too. They struggle too,’” he says. This is especially true of the most successful people he’s interviewed.
This is a core tenet for anyone building an authentic personal brand. Poirier finds that hyper-successful individuals are often the most authentic because they have nothing left to prove. Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of the 600-million-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul series, tells prospective authors, “If you want to publish a book with me but you're going to sell your car to do it or remortgage your house... I'm not your guy.” This integrity makes people want to work with him more, not less.
So where is the line? Chris Do challenges this, drawing a parallel to a young real estate agent leasing a nice car to project success. Is that so different? Poirier’s distinction is subtle but crucial. It’s about representation versus fabrication.
“I do think to some degree you have to fake it till you make it,” Poirier concedes, but with a critical caveat. The authenticity lies in what you claim. Are you telling people you have done something you haven't, or are you simply portraying yourself as capable and successful on your way to achieving it? The former is a lie. The latter is positioning.
The most powerful strategy, however, is to avoid this dilemma altogether. Poirier’s advice is to teach from page two. “If you're on page one, stop trying to teach the whole book,” he advises. If you have successfully built a six-figure business, you are uniquely qualified to teach others how to do exactly that. Trying to teach the seven-figure playbook you haven't lived is not just inauthentic; it’s a disservice to the massive audience that would benefit from your actual expertise.
Case Studies in Realness
Over his career, Poirier has interviewed more than 5,000 people, from global icons to unsung heroes. When asked who surprised him most with their authenticity, his examples are telling. They are people who have achieved monumental success not by hiding their flaws, but by leading with them.
His first example is Richard Paul Evans, the 46-time New York Times bestselling author of The Christmas Box and dozens of other novels. At a writer’s retreat, Evans didn’t open with his triumphs. He opened with his struggles. “The first thing he told us about... was about how he has Tourette's and how he's had Tourette's his whole life,” Poirier recalls. Evans spoke openly about his difficult upbringing and his continued challenges, even posting on Facebook about his weekly struggles.
This vulnerability had a profound effect. “You now feel like a part of this family,” Poirier says. “You feel like you know this writer.” This deep authenticity, far from diminishing his authority, created a powerful, unbreakable bond with his audience.
Poirier offers other examples of this surprising realness:
- Mark Victor Hansen: The Chicken Soup for the Soul co-creator is unapologetically himself, sharing his unabashed views on business and politics, areas many influencers avoid. He embodies the idea of “this is who I am, take me or leave me.”
- Tommy Chong: The legendary comedian is simply, authentically Tommy. At 84, he shows up with two different shoes, gets lost in an alley on his way to an interview, and instantly connects with people on a human level. His focus is on his craft and its effect on people, not on selling himself.
- Robin Sharma: The author of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari shares parts of his life most people would keep private. Like Evans, his willingness to be vulnerable creates a deeper connection.
The common thread is that these individuals, who have reached the highest echelons of success, are Radically authentic. Richard Paul Evans became a bestselling author as a self-published writer, a nearly impossible feat. Tommy Chong created a comedy legacy that is singular. Mark Victor Hansen sold over 600 million books. Their success is a direct contradiction to the idea that you must project an image of flawless perfection.
The Power of Page Two
The obvious counterargument is that it is easy to be authentic once you have sold 600 million books or written 46 bestsellers. What about the person still struggling, the entrepreneur who hasn’t “made it” yet? How can they be vulnerable without looking like a failure? This is the central struggle for anyone trying to build a career, as Chris Do points out in his own Personal Branding Masterclass.
This is where the idea of teaching from page two becomes more than a strategy; it becomes a philosophy. You do not need to have finished the book to help someone who is still on page one. Your current position, no matter how modest it may seem to you, is an aspirational goal for someone else.
The person who has just landed their first three clients is a hero to the person struggling to find their first one. The speaker who just got their first paid gig is an expert to the person terrified of stepping on stage. Authenticity is not about broadcasting your failures; it is about honestly sharing the journey from your current vantage point.
The pressure to perform, to filter, to present a life devoid of struggle is immense. It is driven by the mistaken belief that credibility is born from an absence of flaws. The reality is the opposite.
Credibility is born from resonance. It comes from the moment an audience member or client says, “They understand my problem because they have lived it.” That connection cannot be faked.
Stop trying to be the finished product. Your power is right where you are. Be the guide for the person one step behind you. That is not just authentic. It is valuable.
TRANSCRIPT
stop trying to become the next Tony Robbins and I think you have to recognize that if you get bored after 5 minutes or 2 minutes or 3 minutes then you shouldn't expect the audience to sit there listening to your one story for an hour in a world where I feel everything is filtered
being authentic to me is being unfiltered far too often that speakers don't know how to engage with the audience so can we dive a little deeper into this now I'll go one step further Tom Ziggler so Zig Ziggler's son uh when I asked him what he thought his dad did so well and
he said there's two reasons I think one is because Cory I'm excited to talk to you today because you are a person who's kind of near and dear to my heart and the things that you talk about you haven't just given one Ted Talk you've given not two not three but five TED
Talks the last count you've written multiple books but the thing I'm most interested in talking to you about today is there's two words that are kind of very Buzzy right now number one is personal Brand number two is authenticity and they're really related and I know you know a thing or two about
authenticity so the first question I have for you is for people who don't know who you are can you please please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit of your backstory yeah I like to call it these days Chris my origin story uh we feel superhero-ish even if even if I'm not
uh or super villain is but uh my origin story I grew up in a small tiny little town in Canada I was raised by a single mother uh barely graduated high school I didn't know the difference between fiction and non-fiction probably thing you should admit I actually had a girlfriend going on a
date and then not continue dating me because I admitted that uh but that was kind of my story when I started I also did didn't read a book until age 27 first books I read were How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie and think you grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
and I always said if you're going to start late those are good places to start but having said all that that's kind of my starting story and I usually share that to say a it doesn't matter where you start it's what you do next but B uh also to say I certainly wasn't
uh voted likely to succeed what it looks like today though is I aim to help other people who maybe start it where I start started so I spent a lot of my time aiming to help people that are trying to get their message out to more people so we might call it experts
influencers whatever term we want to put on it that's kind of my jam now and I think it's because when I started I didn't have any mentors I didn't have anybody that could help me and I just really had to figure out all the stuff in the trenches like I have the Battle
Scars you know we hear about the 10,000 hour rule and I always say I put in at least 10,000 in one when you say you first started cuz I'm trying to map out the timeline here where you're not an a student as far as I can tell i' I've listened to the Ted
Talk where you shared the story how does one go from not knowing what nonfiction and fiction is and not reading a book until age 27 what was that first start like for you for me the first start in terms of this path I'm on today actually well there's two parts to the path
that are very unlikely one I started in sales selling photocopiers door too the only other person I know in our sort of Journey that did that was Robert k who wrote Rich Dad pette and he said he did that because he wanted to understand sales and so you really do get to understand
sales when you're selling somebody a white photo photocopy or to replace the yellow one in the corner that everybody forgets they even own that was my start in the business world and even with that every month my manager was kind of threatening to let me go I I actually signed a thing Chris
that it was called pop a sheet of paper called pop and what pop stood for was produce or perish and what that agreement said is at any given time because you signed this paper he could let you go without notice it was like a 30-day probation every 30 days and it took me
almost a year before I wasn't going to get fired so even in my sales career I didn't start with any natural talent for S selling and then the other side of the spectrum a big change was whenever I got tricked into performing stand-up comedy one night and so again a person that isn't
down the path that I'm at down today like even comfortable speaking like I was that guy that was like no chance no interest and I got tricked which people are often asked how can you get tricked into performing standup comedy uh but that happened those are the two points when the journey started
I will add one uh little kind of nuance to that starting in sales and no background or experience the first ever uh sales training I had was a zig Ziggler VHS so for those that remember VHS uh videotape uh it was used really used and it was um the zig Ziggler talk that
he did for an hour and I can still tell you parts of that talk so super impactful but that was all I got for training from a Fortune 500 company and now we we're kind of fast forward throughout all this stuff and into your career and sales and I don't I don't know
what compels one to get into sales but it seems like you've been through the ringer with a job uncertainty and then kind of being tricked into doing standup but now I because I read this on your LinkedIn bio it says I help people get paid thousands per speaking engagement without selling from the
stage that speaks true to my like it rings true to my heart that's really cool is this kind of like the business that you're in right now you help other people speak from the stage so again back to kind of trying to help people with what I needed when I started but didn't
have part of it was that Ziggler training thing like how can a 40 the 48th largest company in the world at the time basically get me to write my name on business cards because they didn't want to actually pay for business cards until I proved I could succeed and gave me a VHS
to learn from sales so I said I want to change that for other people then fast forward x amount of years I started speaking and and everybody made it sound so easy and I wasn't getting the bookings they were getting and I'm like what am I missing I remember listening to this couple
on a CD put out by the National Speakers Association the NSA and they said all you have to do is build it and they will come and Chris I kind of joke now but I started building it nobody even heard the hammer and so I had no mentors nobody showed me the speaking
uh trenches and I'll be honest with you when you started from scratch with nobody to help getting paid to speak is not easy everybody loves to there's all kinds of courses online and Facebook ads that say let me show you how to get paid $50,000 for your first talk and stuff like that
I learned it in the trenches and so what happened was I started figuring out I'll call them hacks or shortcuts and eventually it became a superpower it wasn't at the beginning so what I started doing is I started posting so blessed to get paid to do what I love with pictures of me
speaking and what the fascinating thing started to happen the people that had been implying to me that they were getting paid all the time started reaching out and saying Corey between you and I I've done whatever 100 talks and I've never been paid how do I do this wow this is the thing
you probably see this L too but almost everybody now has sought after speaker in their bio or on their social media page and the people I'm talking to every day that are asking me how do I do this have sought after speaker on their by line so what happened was I ultimately realized
after teaching a lot of people one to one I maybe need to start teaching this on a bigger scale so back then we launched uh how to get paid to speak program it was like a 90day do it by yourself not done for you in a box type program and to skip a
lot of stuff in between today what that looks like is we have a thing called Blue talks which is Blu stands for business life universe I jokingly say we're like Ted X be Chicken Soup for the Soul so if they got married and we'd be the baby that came back but ultimately 5
years ago we started creating the platforms so we started running events at Harvard Columbia Oxford Cambridge MIT and so on and started bringing on speakers a showing them how to crush it from that stage but then B the big benefit too is then they have a video of them crushing it on the
stage they can leverage forever we help them become bestselling authors through Anthology books we'll get bigname thought leaders to write the forward so then they can be involved in a book with Dr Joe Vitali from the secret uh or Ken Honda and so ultimately now we're creating the platforms and the stages while
showing them how to get paid to speak uh to your point I've always preferred get paid to show up and speak to having to sell from the stage now I'll be clear we run an event where we make an offer once a year and it it is truly possible to bring in more
Revenue selling from the stage but for me I love the idea of when I can go and just share because I've been paid for my time and I don't have to be trying to enroll people into a program so I found there was a big niche in that area a lot of people
are teaching selling from the stage but not a lot of people are teaching how do you get paid I'll say now didn't start this way but your full fee before you even show up to speak that Parts a little hard but uh but it it comes down to uh these days people don't
want to hand it a check anyway so if you can give an incentive for them to pay the second half of the the deposit the second half of the payment uh a few days before I find a lot of clients will but it does help as you know probably when you've been doing
it long enough they know you're not going to try to rip them off over a certain amount of money in R your reputation but these days I get paid the full fee usually before I walk through the door and that that's something I found a lot of people didn't know how to do
there's several components here and I want to get to the thing that I really want to talk to you about which which is authenticity but this idea of crushing on the stage what are two or three things that you help people with what are some tips because I have lots of friends who
want to speak on the stage and have a genuine desire but they also have fear and they want to be better as do I what are a couple things that you tell your students the people who enroll in your courses to do the first thing I tell them I'll call it not to
do is stop trying to become the next Tony Robbins that's the first thing because when we ask people when they first start working with me hey what what's your goal there's always some form of I want to be the next Lisa Nichols I want to be the next ber Brown I want and
I'm and I'm like why you know Tony went out to become the first Tony Robbins Lisa went out to become the first Lisa you need to be go out to become the first Bob whatever their name is um I mean so that's what not to do is don't come into this and try
to there there's two sides that too Chris there's the yes um try to emulate what they do well but that's different than trying to just like Steve Jobs and speak in the same monotone voice that Steve Jobs did cuz Steve Jobs had this unique way to speak with passion even though he wasn't
excited if that makes sense like he was very monotone but you felt this guy loves what he's doing but so going to the more strategic what I recommend people do just I whole things top of my head one example which seems so small but if you're going to use PowerPoint Andor if you
have to because one of the things that a lot of people don't realize they'll say well I don't like PowerPoint well that's fine but your client might so you might go to a conference where they have 10 speakers and they're using PowerPoint and it's not comfortable for them to have you go free
form or they might not be comfortable with you going free form so one of the things that I changed over the years that changed everything for me one of the and and I'll talk to this if you want me to but how I even decided when I was getting better and what to
change but ultimately when I realized I needed to change something because I was stuck at a certain approval rating what I did was I said I'm going to go watch top speakers the people that vote top speakers and see what they're doing that I'm not and the one I came to was back
to Steve Jobs is I noticed that when he was doing his product offerings at most on his slides he would have a picture of the offer like the of the product so it could be the iPhone when he was launching it and I'm like you know what my slides are filled with words
Steve slides have one image and so that was one first major change I made and it changed everything so I recognize that it's my story so I don't need all these words to help me memorize because I just need to see the picture and it tells me what the story isn't going to
share and so for example I share story often about my first night in comedy how I started and I didn't know to turn the mic on and I told my first two jokes so that the mic turned on so that became an opening story so for that story all I need is a
picture of me performing standup and I know the story and so first tip I tell people is get away from I even actually like using PowerPoint if you can do it this way but get away from the idea of using a PowerPoint as a crutch and you know with your bullet points and
words and all that and and do it so that you're the you're the um you're what they're there to see you're the message that just reinforces it so and the great part about that too Chris is you also get people that will then say well I'm going to just share all his presentation
well how he'll send my slides who cares if you send my slides and they see me with a picture of me performing standup how can anybody know what that is unless they were there so it's kind of a a side benefit if people want to you know I'm not I don't care about
that stuff because I don't live in that world meaning like of have not but I'm just meeting it they can't even like they'll say can we sat today well I'm like yeah but why don't you bring me in to do a a virtual so that way at least they know what the slides
mean because right now the slides mean nothing and uh so that's one thing is to get away from the words all over your slides uh another thing if we're talking just fundamental strategies every story should have a hero and a villain now what I want to clarify this it doesn't have to be
a person so if you're a speaker who conquered cancer cancer could be you can decide this but cancer could be the villain maybe the person that walked for you and gave you hope and made you realize you can conquer this was the hero and and again it could be just Hulk could be
the hero um it could be one doctor you worked with that said I'm not going to give you a certain amount of time because I know you can you can beat this but what I'm getting at is as humans we love having things we can throw rocks at the villain and we love
having things or people that we can cheer for the hero so make sure your your story or your talk as a hero and a villain is another thing I would mention another thing is the rule of three never have more than three takeaways if you're doing an 18 or a 5 minute Ted
Talk maybe just one but never more than three takeaways I interviewed this guy one time and I thought this was a brilliant way to sum this up he said Cory you asked me for some strategy I'm only going to give you three and I said okay and he said why do you know
why that is and I had already been talking about the rule of Threes And if you think about it in the world we work in three acts for plays movies so we're we've been conditioned to Lear in threes anyway but he said because there's only four numbers in the world that's why I'm
only going to give you three and I'm like what do you mean if there's only if there's four numbers how come you're only giving me three and he said well the four numbers are one two three and far too many so of course the implication is once you get Beyond three nobody cares
anymore uh so the rule of three the idea is it could be if you're doing a talk in customer service one takeaway could be what do we do when things go wrong you know in other words what's our like Disney has a at believe it or not a solution for if you lose
your keys your rental keys or your car at Disney because I've done both and they have a solution for it so it could be what do we do when things go wrong it could be how to we create a wow so when somebody walks out the door they go wow that was amazing
I got to tell everybody about that what I'm getting at is three of those things would be the three the rule of three uh the other thing I would mention is we all hear the term and I know we even use the term often uh content is King and I agree with that
but I what I would add to that is emotional connection is Queen and in my experience the queen rules the castle far more often than the king and so what does that mean in the real world it means that you can give a great talk and you can be brilliant during the talk
but if the audience is bored they'll still walk away saying why did I waste my time there but you can give and I I don't want to say mediocre because you always should give a great talk but you can give a mediocre talk but if you engage with the audience if you're charismatic
if you're Dynamic they'll still enjoy that talk more than a brilliant one even by the way which is weird Chris I've studied this even if they don't get as much from the talk they'll still enjoy it more because you connected with them you made it it could be as simple as saying how
many people here if I could get you a gig tonight and a standup comedy club would perform standup that could be a question I open with what happens is people put down their phones because they're like uh oh did he just ask me to perform standup comedy I better listen up because I
don't want to say yes without realizing it so what I'm getting with that at with that is in a perfect world you have great content the king but you also have the queen which is good emotional connection that's kind of a few different strategies I think if you start doing those early early
on you're probably five years ahead of what I was well that last one is really intriguing to me because I'm fascinated by this too is why do an why does an audience travel somewhere stay in a hotel sit in a dark room to have you give a presentation where you just talk at
them the entire time because I can just sit at home and watch a YouTube video I find that in the circuits in which I'm speaking at far too often the speakers don't know how to engage with the audience so can we dive a little deeper into this what are some things that you
could recommend besides like asking a thought-provoking question getting people to engage by raising hands or there are a couple other things that you can share with us I'll give you a combo that involves a hand but it's not really about that H one thing you can do is teach them something new in
the sense that actually blow their mind uh teaching them at something they always thought was true isn't true and the engagement part is is really just bringing them into it so I'll give you an example so it's more of an experiential learning for them but an example would be the 21-day habit so
there's a great book called The one thing uh you may have heard of it and there's a podcast around it as well in that book they reveal that the guy who created the 21-day habit said he was misquoted and it wasn't 21 days it was 61 days he said 21's when it starts
66 is when it's cemented but because North Americans we wanted the easier one we went with the 21 days so as an example Chris one thing I do sometimes to open up a talk because I want you to believe you can learn something new from me is I'll say okay in all honesty
let's start here we all know it takes 21 days of credit habit right show hands we all know that right so of course I'm goting you in and I'll say what if I was to blow your mind and and show you that it's not true and then of course I'll use the source
on the wall of the person that created it and you know show his quote what have you but I'm going to talk to them about how it's actually 66 days and again we've been led to believe it's 21 even commercials talk about it being the 21-day habit there's programs designed around it the
idea there is I pull you in by getting you to go yeah of course and then show you that what you've been taught isn't necessarily true so the idea there Chris is if that's not true what else can I teach you that you've always believed to be true isn't true or what else
can I teach you that you've never known and so that's to me that's experiential so it engages you because I've gotten you in by asking you you know this right um but the real big thing here is to teach something that they've never heard before or teach them something new that changes their
way of thinking so that's you know that's one example of how you can Engage The Audience okay so I'm going to go even simpler than that is just looking people in the eyes so when I say this there's a I seen a LinkedIn quiz going around people saying what is the number one
tra of speaking in your opinion that number one thing you could do with your body to pull the audience in and the one that I keep seeing come up over and over his eye contact now that's from the speaker and the audience meaning everybody answering that is saying cuz it shows which one
that person answered that shared it with you and so but it's the reason it's a cliche is because it's true you know and so eye contact is a huge one now having said that obviously there's ways you can make eye contact like you know there's uh really quickly trying to look at everybody's
eyes there's actually really truly intently gauging at people when you're talking there's various ways I'll give you an example uh well two things one uh Bernay Brown so uh Chris Anderson from Ted x uh or Ted really has shared that when he asked bernee Brown how she engaged the audience so well during
her talk she had said something to the effect of what I did was when I was sharing this message I pictured the whole audience as I think it was her sister but the person in my life that needs don't know this message the most and I Shar it to them as if they
were that one person to me that's using the eye contact but it's engaging the audience so instead of visualizing them naked you're visualizing them as one person that needs to know this message but because you're picturing somebody you love you're sharing it in a loving way now I'll go one step further Tom
Ziggler uh so Zig Ziggler's son uh when I asked him what he thought his dad did so well he shared the story one time about and this ties into engagement I believe as well Chris but he shared the story about uh how first of all uh he did a talk and a psychologist
afterward approached him and said Mr Ziggler you were the most loved speaker out there today now I won't get into the names of the other speakers there cuz I don't want to take away from them but he said you were the most loved speaker today he said two reasons I think one is
because the way you looked in our eyes felt like you truly cared about our result you truly cared about us now it's easy to say that but as you know it's not always easy to practice that so that's one thing truly showing the audience you care cuz you really do so you have
to truly care to show them you care the take away from that is to speak on something you're really actually passionate about but the other thing he said which I think is more profound is he said also Mr Ziggler if you want to know the other reason and of course z did because
he wanted to improve he said what I noticed is you change up what you're doing every seven minutes now this was the late '70s and he said the average time between commercials on TV is 7 minutes so that's our attention span because we've been trained by TV to have seven minutes attention and
for some reason he said did you know you're doing that in Zigler said I had no idea but somehow inherently he was making sure if he did the pump handle he used to use or another prop or a story he was changed it every seven minutes and so he was engaging the Audience
by never letting them get bored and going to commercial break in their head basically um so that to me is another way to engage the audience but here's the thing today we probably have 2 minutes we don't have 7 Minutes anymore you know that there was on Time Magazine they said the average
attention span now is that uh as short as that of a goldfish which they say is like eight seconds so the thing is we don't even have seven minutes so to me another way Chris is to make sure you're always mixing it up with something powerful quickly so you're never kind of just
as you said talking and this is the big thing you said talking to the audience you should be there for the audience and I think you have to recognize that if you get bored after 5 minutes or 2 minutes or 3 minutes then you shouldn't expect the audience to sit there listening to
your one story for an hour so that those are some other ideas hopefully that helps a bit and I'm happy to dive more into that but those are some ideas I think that you can use to engage the audience as well do you ever do crowd work where you're interacting with them and
using prompts and call and response I mean that's obviously that's absolutely another way um I will say you could it can be done as you know in an audience of 10,000 it could be done in a small audience uh obviously it's easier in a small audience but it can be done in a
bigger one but you obviously have to pick certain people you know it's a little harder to try to work a 10,000 crowd audience with call and response but yes I I actually do uh believe it's very powerful like whenever I talked about I said if I asked people how many people would perform
stand-up comedy well usually what happens so the end result of that is you usually out of a room of 2,000 people two hands go up and by the way part of the the engagement as well I don't if it's engagement but just trying to keep the audience with me is I'll usually make
a joke cuz I'll say okay that's fine two hands went up now my question is what if you're not allowed to drink alcohol before you go on the stage and then one hand goes down usually so then you're down to one hand well what I'm getting at is I might then engage with
that audience member that has their hand up cuz I feel that if they put their hand up they're not going to be that person that get shy and mad because you're engaging because they literally were willing to put their hand up but I might then ask them a question so let me ask
you this question and then I might start engaging with the audience and then I'll say is anybody else you know want to share anything there so I do that as well I just think it it it's done in a specific way like I think it's you know it's harder to do that with
a keynote it can be done it's harder to do that with a keynote but um but I think at the end of the day if you can do that it's extremely powerful another thing is to go with the audience you know so that's another thing that I've done over the years where I'll
actually go out and you know high five somebody and talk to people in the audience where I'm right there and there's times by the way I've had to do that not out of choice uh I did a talk one time I don't think many people can say they've done this I wrote a
an entrepreneur article about this what I learned from speaking in the dark and what happened was I went to this event and the downtown Corp lost all the power and so I go to the event and I look and I said where's the where's I I knew where the venue was but I
said can you tell me where the room is and the guy said oh it's over there and I looked and it's like pitch black so I started walking over there I thought maybe I'll Discover it as I get closer I'm like it's still pitch black am I at the right place so I
walked back to him and he said oh sorry yeah the power's out I'm like oh this is new so I went down there with my phone as my flashlight talk to the organizer she's like Cory if you want to leave I don't I don't care anymore and and it's funny I'll tell you
Chris the things that people worry about at the time she said my cookies are even ruined so she made cookies for it was like 250 people and she made cookies and her cookies got ruined because the power was so that was her concern but she said if you don't want to do this
I understand this is a weird circumstance and I said I'm all in this is like the coolest experience ever so I went in and the guy before me who was not a comfortable speaker was actually speaking by candlelight and piece of paper I thought it was brilliant and so I did my talk
uh I actually used my phone because I I wanted to keep the time I was worried with the no clocks the dark everything well I actually open up my PowerPoint on my phone and just kept it to the side on one of the tables and I look every now and then but I
did the talk in the dark and first of all it was kind of wild cuz the lights came back on and when the lights came back on we saw each other was the last 50 minutes of the talk interestingly as a side note uh on the form people said they were more engaged
in that talk than any talk they' been doing years I think it's only because they couldn't use their phone because we would have saw them use it so either they fell asleep or they really listened to your talk um but what I did the reason I bring that up is that had two
um generator lights each side of the room so I would stay there as much as possible as they so they could see me but then I would walk in between the audience and start talking about feelings and Sensations cuz we couldn't see each other so that's another thing too is actually being there
with the audience on the same floor level because often we're on the stage and it seems like we're above the audience so I think that's another way you can pull the audience in as well I love that and it's a sign that you're a very confident comfortable speaker that hey life gives you
lemons you're making lemonade and you're just deal dealing with whatever and you're you're making that an asset versus a hindrance to you I I want to be mindful of time because you know I want to make sure that we get to the meat of this which is something I really want to talk
to you about is there's something that you said like the currency of authenticity so first what is authenticity to you and and what what why is this valuable I mean authenticity to me ultimately in a world where uh I I did this talk called living the unfiltered life and in a world where
I feel everything is filtered being authentic to me is being unfiltered so I mean that's that's just talk like that's just where what I see it as so uh authentic to me means speaking your truth no matter the circumstance even when it's heard and actually even more importantly when it's heard but I
I'll go one step further my my wife says this seems to be my biggest pet peeve but is when people advertise like for example on Facebook and say let me show you how to get this Cadillac in 3 weeks or whatever and then what we don't see and I know as of clients
that have done this and then share it with me we don't see that when the video goes off the person that really owns the Cadillac comes out of their house says get off my lawn stop standing next to my car and filming and so for me I think we're in a world where
it's very easy to make yourself look like you've accomplished something you haven't and I truly have clients that are pitching let me show you how to make seven figures when they've never made Seven figures and so to me that's the opposite of authenticity what I feel with that is I feel eventually it
gets found out it just takes a while and so for me when when I say authenticity I think if you are trying to show somebody whether it's how to do something how to live a certain way what have you it should be congruent with what you're doing so you should be speaking your
truth now if you and I'm sure you're familiar with Frank Kern well Frank Kern puts up the Rolls-Royce and his wife on Facebook ads and gets engaged with that way but at least he truly that is his life at least it's truly the life he's living so to me it's about being authentic
it's just like you know now somebody can say they were featured on a certain let's say platform like let's just say featured on NBC ABC what have you uh but what you don't know is maybe what they did was they paid for a news release service that sent out a press release and
that they're featured on the back link back end of NBC so even if you type their name it won't come up with NBC it's not for me it's not that I'm trying to judge that person Chris but to me it's not being authentic and it's not helpful to the people that you're trying
to serve so I hope that explains it a bit but to me it's like living in Integrity speaking your truth as obvious as that sounds as natural as it sounds we seem to be in a culture where that's more rare than it is the standard and we're seeing literally people putting filters on
on their lenses on their software so that they don't look like the way they do people renting um backdrops that look like they're at fancy places and they don't live that fancy lifestyle or people pointing the camera into a very specific corner of where they live and that's the only part that looks
like that and everything else looks fake what is it that you think that is compelling people to to show up as someone else other than themselves I mean there's probably the wick answer which is in most cases we're talking about it's about driving revenue or money so in other words most of the
people are talking about are running a business so I think the first driver is and this is I mean it goes to what people want or at least what they think they want so people want to become a millionaire because I'm just talking loud but maybe they think life becomes easier that way
problems go away that type of thing so because of that then the other person going I better flip on the camera and talk about becoming a millionaire because that's what they want so I think on the big you know big high level the easy answer is people are thinking this what people want
and if I want to be successful I need to give them what they want and the other people are thinking that's what I really want so uh it makes sense that I should learn from somebody who's already done it and so what and and they're thinking well if I show them my real
life and that I do struggle and that I don't know what to do if the if the tire blows up on the way down the highway then all of a sudden they'll say well I can't buy off that person they're not creditable but I actually think it's the opposite I think you're more
creditable when person a person says I they they get it it's it happens to them too they struggle too they have the same problems I have too and so what I find which is interesting is when I interview people that we'll call maybe the top thought leaders uh so like Mark Victor Hansen
with chicken super the soul I remember I brought Mark in for an event we did and he has this uh publishing company and he says if you want to publish a book with me but you're going to sell your C to do it or remortgage your house or borrow money from the bank
he went uhuh I'm not your guy he said because my future days are taken care of you don't need to do this for me and to me that makes a person want to sign with Mark more because he's being authentic he's he's not like but I say this what I find fascinating is
the people that have been really successful are actually more authentic in some ways because of that meaning they don't feel the need to try to have to do this to get a client and I hope that makes sense and it's not to try to knock anybody but I feel often it's like the
person isn't there yet and they're thinking the quickest way there is to offer what people think they want and the best way to do that is to pretend I'm somebody I'm not really I I'm really not without realizing that more often than not more people will resonate with you if they actually understand
that you've been where they're at and you may even still be there I always say you should teach from page two if you're on page one stop trying to teach the whole book so just get to page two and if you can show somebody how to get to six figures and they're at
five or they're not even there yet then you have a whole new audience and you have an audience you can speak credibly to but if you're trying to get them to seven figures and you've only been to six it's not creditable and I think it's and in a lot of ways too it's
kind of foolish because you can serve better the ones that are at six or wanting to get to six figures which there's probably as many or more of them that truly want to get there so again I hope that explains it but I think the authentic side why people don't do it is
because it seems like there's more money and business and not doing it well I think there's also this idea of there's like safety and numbers so when you look out of in the media landscape whoever started it first everybody's doing the same thing so now you don't want to be the person who
who sticks out like a sore thumb and we know that there's certain things that you can show that signal to other people that you're successful I'm curious in your mind is this that different than people who say you're a real estate agent and you're young and you're new in the job you have
your your license and you're ready to go what did they tell you to look sharp dress for the job that you want not the job you have and if you have to go lease a fancy car because you're not going to trust an agent who shows you this house and and they're driving
up in a in a a beat up car I mean I I think we can understand that psychologic like you're you're coming in with a T-shirt and a pair of jeans and flipflops I'm like why am I trusting you to sell me this house like I don't understand so I don't think there's
anything wrong with that and it seems to make a lot of sense why why is it on social that it feels very different and it feels very fake and disingenuous what's what's the difference in your mind or or is there any this maybe goes into a different area but if that person that's
driving up the real estate agent with the car and with the nice clothes are we saying that they're saying they're successful or implying because you know on one hand they can still be authentic and still drive up with the nice car in the nice suit you're still like okay well they're probably mooving
some homes or do they go up and kind of Jingle the Rolex and say you know last week you know breaking records and sold the seven homes here's what happened so I think it to me that's what I think the difference is so I I think that the realtor um should show up
presentable should show up you know like they're they're having some success because again why would you want them to sell your home if they can't sell any other homes so agree completely on that and I also think that person that's trying to get you to six figures uh that's been there should show
up presentable meaning and presentable can be subjected too right cuz d v can go up the stage with mustard on his shirt and get paid $100 and some thousand for a 45 minute keyote and it makes sense I think it's also depending on your audience but I think to me this is where
I think the difference lies is are you making up stuff to back up who you are or are you just implying so in other words if you go do that same video and you say let me show you how to create abundance let me show you how to become successful let me show
you how to do all these things then to me we can argue whether or not you're abundant are successful right but if you're going and saying let me show you how to make seven figures and you know deep down you've never done it then I think that's different so same with the realtor
they might say you know last week when I sold a home but they might have only sold a home in the last two months but they might look like they sold lot I think that from a business perspective makes sense to me but if they come in and say again uh I sold
every house on this block let me show you how I did that and then you actually end up talking to one of the owners and say I've never seen that Realtor before to me that's the difference between the two so I I do think you should I do think and okay I'm going
to sound bad saying this but I do think you to some degree you have to fake it till you make it like meaning I do think you know you're not going to go and put the video out well I shouldn't say you're not going to most people won't work if you put the
video out and say I've never never been successful I've struggled my whole life uh now I'm going to show you how to become successful like that could work for one person because it'll be a unique angle but for most people it's not going to work so I get that I just mean I
think the authent authentic side is are you telling people you've done something you haven't versus are you portraying you've done something you haven't there's a lot of nuance and intentionality behind this I I I think I get what you're saying if you're grounded in truth and reality and it's aspirational I think we're
all fine with with that it's when you go to misrepresent and intentionally to try to fool someone where none of us are okay with that I think and I think part of the problem is in our culture especially like say here in America where I think we desire certain things we don't want
to do the hard work and so when somebody shows us a shortcut we're kind of gullible like we're kind of in on fooling ourselves and so we buy into the image and the trappings and later on we're like that didn't work that person doesn't know what they're talking about well didn't you see
the 17 signs and so as I I don't know if it's PT Barnum who says this but it's like there's a sucker born every minute and don't no one ever went poor underes or estimating the the ignorance of people so it's like well we'll sign up for anything I think and so that
creates this weird pattern of behavior and so we want to move as far away from that as possible if you want to show up as a truly authentic and genuine person now I know there's something very unique about you you've interviewed a lot of freaking people I think over 5,000 people in your
experience and if you can talk shop a little bit here who have been some of the most authentic people that surprised you this is I mean so this is a good good question because it relates to what we're talking about I mean if I'll give a little plug if that's okay but it
ties in uh so I have this new book that we're putting out the enlightened passenger and you and a good example of what not to do would be me launching this book and while I'm still on the launch showing other people how to launch a book you know that type of thing but
the person that wrote the forward the reason I showed the book is the guy that wrote the forward his name is Richard Paul Evans and he's a 46 time New York Times bestselling author he's um his first book was the Christmas Box it sold I think 8 million copies when I when I
talked about authenticity whenever I went to his writer Retreat I just went to his second one uh last week but a year ago almost to the date I went to his first writer retreat at the writer Retreat he shared stories like so he talked about becoming a successful writers and how when he
started it was all about you know driving a nice car almost like we talked about with the realtor because you wanted to believe people people believe your book was selling well like it even went that deep but what's so fascinating now is the first thing he told us about when I met him
I had didn't know him that well before was about how he has Tourette's and how he's had Tourette his whole life then he talked about uh his mother and the struggles he had with his mother um I mean I didn't get he's open about this but his mother being an alcoholic and what
that was like growing up and how that informed his writing so he actually talked about his and even today today he talks about his challenges and the struggles he still has on Facebook still posts about a struggle he'll have this week and at the same time he's putting in a book that'll become
a New York Times a selling book to me I'm not saying that's the right way to do it but when you said you asked the question of who surprised me with their authenticity it surprised me how deep he was willing to go into his life to these aspiring writers he met five minutes
before and what I will tell you is being to his Retreats twice you now feel like a part of this family like you feel like you know this writer like all of a sudden you're like I get to know this writer who I read all his work at a level I don't know
any other influencer in fact uh my wife has said to him she said you know I don't know what it is about you but she said I feel different about you than all the other influencers Cory's introduced me to and I think it's because he's so vulnerable but it also is authenticity he's
not trying to say yeah like in other words while I'm writing this book you know I also uh could go to a book signing and there could have been a snowstorm and I could be showing a picture with two people at the book signing even though most of my book signings might have
500 people so he's a person that really Uris me uh if I go beyond that um I mentioned um Mark Victor Hansen earlier Chicken Soup for the Soul uh Mark is another person who has surprised me by his authenticity and I will say uh Chris that even includes how he feels about business
how he feels about politics you know an area where a lot of people won't go and I'm not even saying they should but I'm saying um I totally uh am impressed by his ability to say this is who I am and you know this is take me believe me I don't make apologies
and so I think influencers that still come across as I'm still in it I still love doing this and I still struggle uh and and I've had many many interviews with people that are like that another one I did recently was with Tommy Chong you know sort of from the teich and Chong
comedy duo yeah and Tommy is just Tommy like there's you can't get more authentic he's 84 he's showed up wearing two different shoes we we I was interviewing him at the trador on the Sunset Strip in LA and he got lost in the alley like it was just you know everything about him
was just true and then he he came out I don't know how he figured it out but the producer that was with me who runs a show in uh a station in Hollywood Tommy first thing he said he said what part of Edmonton are you from in Canada I don't know how he
figured it out but he just said oh L Edington people know each other and there's just something about him that's so engaging and authentic and whenever I was trying to talk about what do you guys have coming up for chich and Chong he's like oh we got lots coming up it's going to
be lots of fun just check out our website like just very um authentic about I I care about uh changing people's lives allowing them to escape the crappy day they might have with my comedy um but I don't need feel the need to sell you on it and so I guess just dis
disarming in a good way those are some of the people I just uh Robin Sharma wrote monus sold his Ferrari and a bunch of other books the leader who had no title I was just at an event with Robin same thing very authentic like just sharing parts of his life that most people
don't share and again it's not to say that it's the only way to do it or the best way it's just Chris what I've noticed is when you you ask about who surprised me those are people that when you meet them I felt going into it it would be a totally different scenario
I felt like I'd be kind of um they'd be presented a certain way and it didn't end up being that way they were just really like here's who I am love me or dislike me and yet uh all those people I just mentioned have done something nobody else in history has done Mark
Victor Hansen what is it 600 million books is the number we here now sold the only other person you can say has done it is Jack Canfield right so I they did it together uh Tommy Chong along cheat had done stuff as a comedy do and nobody's ever done Richard Evans 46 time
New York Times best selling author uh he got on the list as a self-publish author which was almost unheard of what I'm getting at is they're authentic and yet they're still having as much or more success than everybody else so I hope they answered the question because I was trying to drive when
you said who surprised me versus who is your best interview I wanted to go into again authenticity I think some of my audience would be sitting there saying well they're highly accomplished people they don't have anything left to prove so of course they can show you who they are and they're at ease
because they've made it what if you haven't made it like how do we kind of are authentic and vulnerable in the moment how do we be how do we accept ourselves and show up as us cuz that's a struggle that so many people have so what I would say worked for me and
I've seen it work for many others now it's not to say it's going to be easy uh it's I mean I I've interviewed people and it's fascinating what people have turned down when they were struggling because it didn't feel right I mean if I go to to a popular story I have to
go to Rocky Sylvester Sloan and how you probably heard that story got offered $300 or $400,000 uh for the script to Rocky but the catch is they didn't want him in the movie and by the time they're done I think they got the 700,000 and he was still saying no not unless I'm
in the movie he ended up settling for $30,000 and and basically uh a partner Rocky like being Rocky um there's an example of somebody who was starving like he notably they said he had $50 to his name he had sold his dog um so what I'm getting at is that's an example somebody
who's doing it whenever it matters and to your point um when they're not comfortable and cushy he was still turning down what probably would have set him up compared to $50 and he still didn't because it didn't feel right that's a segue to say one of the things I talked about in this
book now the book's a fictional Parable but it's revealing interestingly enough the seeven the interviews that I've done with thousands of thought leaders it reveals the 10 lessons I learned from them so it's really what we're talking about right now um but one of the things I talk about and I believe this
is a way that you can decide what a yes and a no is and if you stay True to this it's a way that you can actually be authentic in the no so I recommend people write a personal mission statement and what I found when I've asked people in in uh events conferences
meetings Summits I've said how many people here have a personal mission statement it's usually one hand and if it could be you know a thousand people could be 50 people and so I always say well all these companies these top companies have a mission statement and they know it and when you go
there it's often on their wall how come we as people don't have our own mission statement but here's how it serves me so this goes to the point about here's how it allows me to decide what a yes or no is even before you know the successes um and and by the way
I'm still at that point where I still struggle with what a yes and a no is and I still struggle uh you know daily with oh I'd love to achieve this and and why am I not achieving this I'm still every day trying to grow but um as far as the mission statement
I WR a mission statement that uh flows like this I want to be the guy who motivates inspires educates entertains and donates and what that means to me Chris is somebody says do you uh we like think you're a good idea for this show and let's say the show is about knitting let's
say it's not a fit for me but years ago I would have been like yeah it doesn't matter it's a show it's going to help me get further I'm going to get money for the show um now what I do is I truly look and say how is this going to play against
what I want to achieve how is this going to play against my my mission and my alignments and so I'll say is it how many of those is it and let's say it's zero or one now I'll say even if it's going to be heard it's going to be a no it's going
to have be a no because it's not in alignment with where I need to go it's now again like I said just because I say that doesn't make it easy to say the no but this is at least how I identify what a yes and a no is so if it's four or
five of those meaning it's going to allow me to motivate any almost any talk you deliver is going to hit five of those so that could be an easy s but let's say as an example they want to pay me a lot of money and at the same time I don't I don't
agree with who the company is there's a prime example right it would be easy to take the money but I have to look and say this is about a bigger Legacy than just today and so it's not easy to say that but by having that mission statement in front of me which is
handwritten I can always remind myself that's what I want my legacy to be those five things if I go work with this company that I don't agree with will I be able to sleep at night what's my long-term Legacy going to be like and again it's not easy but that visual of knowing
what I stand for and knowing what I stand against is going to help me make the difference uh I will give you a side story that was just shared to me that kind of backs us up now I don't know how much money he had at the time so we can go either
way but Ken Honda shared the story with me recently that whenever the um when crypto was just starting somebody because he has a book called Happy Money somebody wanted him to actually be an ambassador for happy money they want to buy the rights they were going to give him a million dollars and
then he would get a percentage of course on as the stock market grw on this new Happy money and he did a little due diligence on the company he said Corey was the hardest no I've ever said but I said No 3 years later they got investigated for fraud with whatever one they
used and he said my whole brand would have been destroyed forever well he said that was a hard not meaning it was hard to say not to that uh but at the same time he knew what he stood for and he knew what he stood against so Chris I know that's not like
a strategy per se but I think if we can get really dialed into what we want our Legacy to be and what we want to stand for and against I think it gets a little easier to stay in our truth about what we're willing to do and what we're not willing to do
but I I'm not going to lie to you and say it's ever going to be easy especially whenever you might be struggling and don't know where the next food's going to come from and somebody puts an opportunity in front of you that's one of those things that you got to sit there with
yourself and say again how do I want to sleep at night and what do I want to look like five years from now at the beginning of our conversation you like well maybe I'm the superhero or the super villain I don't know and you said well if you're going to give a talk
every hero needs a villain and so you said to us what your mission was to educate to inspire and and to donate and there's a couple other words to use in there what is Corey's arch nemesis wow uh this I mean that's a great question and I go in two paths because one
path the quick easy answer is I'm a very social person and so for years I've had to kind of battle the idea of saying stuff and then later walking away going oh I should have just stopped before I said that what have you so you know second guessing used to be a villain
or an arch nemesis of mine and so I guess I would say that was my own um both self-worth but also me um worried about how people were judging me and taking things personally and all that kind of stuff and I feel I've worked through that and said you know what I am
who I am Take Me As I Am um but still that still rears its head from time to time and then I think uh probably the other one uh sort of arch nemesis is this going to sounds so weird uh but being comfortable so I've went the opposite scenario I used to be
very uncomfortable being uncomfortable you know so I had a tiny little comfort zone I struggled if I was trying to step outside of it at all now and I do think it's a challenge now my challenge is is that I need to always be uncomfortable to be comfortable so I have to to
be stimulated I always have to be doing stuff that's uncomfortable and I don't think that's a good thing because I okay I'll correct that I think it can be a good thing but also at the same time how do you ever just kind of sit in peace you know we want to talk
meditation or how do you just sit in silence and be present in the moment if you're always thinking about oh I got to do something that's pushing my envelope you've done the whole swing of the The Arc or the pendulum there from a person who wants to be comfortable and then decides to
expose yourself to discomfort and then now you're realizing that you can't always be in a state of chaos and maybe that's where I'm at right now in my life because my wife's like why do you sign up to do so many things I'm like CU this is how I feel alive right now
so whenever we're sitting quietly not doing anything I will fall asleep I literally fall asleep and said babe I just can't help it I'm not stimulated right now and I I think that's that's like a cautionary thing for all of us to learn to feel excited just doing nothing absolutely I I agree
with you 100% Chris and I I think uh one thing I will add to that is yeah after interviewing a lot of influencers one of the things I've discovered and this is a common challenge that nobody talks about is a lot of us live in this world of next so we we say
I can't wait till the book out and I hold in my hand and then you hold the book in your hands and you go okay what's next now like not sitting in that achievement I find after interviewing a lot of influencers I noticed it's something none of us talk about because nobody wants
to kind of admit that weakness that we can't just enjoy and so what I tried to do and again it's not always easy but I've tried to enjoy the journey and so recently in the last few years you'll find me saying the quote what if the journey is actually the destination so what
if reading the or writing the book is part of the destination what if marketing the book what if doing interviews for the book what if talking to people is part of the destination not just holding the book in your hand but I do think see that that's a big challenge that people face
so yes I would it's just like always having to be stimulated is almost always what's next what's the next thing I can jump into I've noticed this and I feel this way myself that the people who are very successful they just love the journey the destination just the byproduct there is no destination
they just love doing this thing and that's what keeps them going day after day month after month year after year as opposed to people who chase a result or a destination and they don't get there as fast or it doesn't look the way they think they just quit they move on and so
they they live from one failed attempt after the other and then then next thing you know you're too old and you you you have nothing left and you haven't accomplished anything you got to love the journey itself Cory it's been a pleasure talking to you I want you to do this tell us
the name of the book tell us when it drops and give us your best pitch as to why someone should read it wow okay on the spot the book is called as I said the enlightened passenger uh it drops on June 25th uh so uh it's basically we're in pre-order stage right now
as you and I are talking but depending on the they're listening to this cuz it's Evergreen uh June 25th 2024 so I can honestly probably say whenever you're listening to this it's out uh so the book also when you get it through our website which I'll give you the website you actually get
five instant bonuses and uh the great part about that is we still send you to the same retailer to buy the book so you're getting it from the same place it's just you come back with an order number get some bonuses that's this is the book.com so this isthe book.com I triy to
make it easy and then as far as the why it's it's basically a fictional parable in a lot of ways I wrote it when I was in the space of Al OG Menino's writing The Alchemist cesan prophecy so the pitch I would have is if you have read those books or heard about
those books you've heard that they've changed things in people like they've literally uh moved people in terms of growth cuz not every book does that uh I aim to be the writer of another one of those books so if you want to grow if you want and I'll add this if you want
to learn the 10 top lessons out of the thousands of interviews I've done distilled into one little tiny book it's a very it's 90 Pages a tiny little pocket book uh then I think this is the book for you that would be my picture on the book wonderful so I know that's an
unusual URL so just to make sure I got that right it's this isthe book.com you got it perfect everybody this isthe book.com I'll will add the link in the show notes in case you're there everybody thank you very much Corey for being part of our podcast hey it's Corey porier and you're listening
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“In a world where I feel everything is filtered, being authentic to me is being unfiltered.”
— Chris Do
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