How to be a huge success by just being you! | Level 10 Living

Lance: Welcome back to Lance Wallnau‘s Level10 experience. You know who Level10 experience is? It’s like the ultimate actualized place to be. It’s funny when I was in Singapore. In Asia, Level10, everybody understood Level10 was optimized actualized living. When I come to United States, they don’t get Level10. But in Asia, they get level ten. Why is that? I don’t know. 

Mercedes: I don’t know.

Lance: Carl, I don’t want to start the program off with a question nobody can answer. But I think it’s because in Asia where they think in terms of Level10 universally as being the optimum level and that’s what this is all about. How to live life at the optimum level, and it’s about living life based on what the Bible teaches as insights. But we very seldom get into the all the domains of what comes with it. I was listen to Jordan Peterson, the great Jordan Peterson yesterday, he said that in building a manifesto. He was talking about building a conservative manifesto. He said, in kind of an answer to the communist manifesto.

He said, it occurred to him that you have to first have a structure and the bottom of the structure is the great questions. And he said, therefore, religion and theology provide the first level of at extract questions about the ultimate questions and ultimate issues. Then we move up onto the other levels of therefore what is the most important? What is transcendent? What is ultimately the ultimate values? How should we be living in time in light of eternity, in light of mortality, what is ultimately important. These are transcendent questions that then give you the next level which is therefore how shall we live? How shall human beings connect? What kind of communities do we build? What kind of culture do we want and how do we ascribe meaning to things? Level10living is the course that starts off with the question of many of you are Christians in my audience. I know that. But we never really get into building the psychology of living this Christian life. Or moving on up that pyramid into what are the policies. What kind of culture would you create?

Jesus gives us the task of discipling nations of literally looking at nations and saying, here’s a way to do economics. Here’s a great way of doing community. Here’s a great way of establishing justice. But we often don’t show up with these conversations, because I think we believe that our ultimate life strategy is to get born again, prosper, be in health, and go to heaven when you die and pretty much that that’s it. We don’t think in terms of the ramifications of giving to humanity a well-thought-out analysis of what is in the domain of psychology that a Christian can mine out and sift out and find in terms of peak performance psychology. What is in the realm of physiology, the physical universe. What’s in the realm of economics, and that’s part of what we’re going to go into right now. For that reason, my son Carl’s with me here. Mercedes Sparks is with me. Both of them have been and are I guess you’ve been exposed to everything that I teach because that’s how you grew up with me. Obviously, Carl, you’ve been with me for 7 years, Mercedes. We’re a learning company and a teaching company. We get involved with everything from politics to economics to business to arts and now, we’re talking about peak performance.

I want to talk about the Collins model, because I go into secular research to find out where the parallels are. Because if it’s true in the secular researcher finds the truth, then I’m going to find the parallel in the Bible. I will always find truth is parallel or maybe I can do it this way, parallel this way. What is true in in in the earth below I’ll find the spiritual principle that lines up with it.And I’m always looking to far it out from research how this thing true? So, for instance, today I’m realizing that a lot of the post COVID mass and anxieties that people have coming out of COVID. People became disconnected from community. And so, a lot of dementia and a lot of social anxiety has been fostered because people were living in isolation. And the data starting to come out on how important it is to have connection. Not virtual but actual physiological proximity to other human beings in community together and how healthy it is to live that way and how unhealthy it is to be in solitary confinement for your own soul to be disconnected and cut off from other people.

So, let’s flip this over here. We’re on our manual right now. We got 4 of these. This is your ultimate life strategy cracking the convergence code. Convergence is that point in your life where you and it’s rarely achieved but it can be, where you’re doing the thing, you were created to do before you were born. And you’re stepping into the moment in history that essentially was the moment for which you were in the mind of God ideally suited to make a contribute. So, in that model we have some Jim Collins research he did good to great and he has a thing called, I think this is the hedgehog principle, Carl.

Carl: I think so.

Lance: Alright, and when we’re coming to this, we’re going to go to page 19 in our manual and we’re looking at this level right now. We’re looking at the psychology of peak performance basing it on. We already have our theology, our supposition laid down that you’re created with a divine design for a purpose. Now, when you discover that purpose and you optimize the gifts God gave you to fulfill it, you’re starting on the track of destiny and so Carl, walk us through a little bit about what Collins has in his hedgehog concept.

Carl: Sure. Happily, like my dad mentioned, if you want to join us in your ultimate life strategy on page 19, that’s where we’re looking at. This particular information comes from the book,“Good to Great” by Jim Collins. So, there’s 3 primary things that you should be focusing on with the hedgehog principle or the hedgehog concept. First and foremost, what are you best in the world at? What can you possibly be in the top of your field in the world? One thing I really like about Bruce Lee, I would consider him a missionary from our arts personally. After he came to America it just started spreading like wildfire over here in the States. But one thing that he said is there’s always going to be somebody out there who’s better than you, always.

So, what you need to do is you would need to wake up in the morning with your mindset on the enemy and beating them. So, what is something that you would either be challenged at or that you could be a top contender in, and that’s the first and foremost thing. Second, what are you passionate about? What actually gets your electric current flowing? What is that gets you up and out of bed in the morning? What puts off sleep at night? What is something that you’re so eager to work on that time seems to fly by? You end up entering into that state of transient hypo frontality where you’re in a state of flow. What is it that you’re super-duper passionate about? What could you be the most passionate about in the world?

And then finally, because you got to eat. What drives your economic engine? What actually pads your wallet? What puts you in a place of success, frugality, abundance, affluence that allows you to actually help those around you to feed your family and when you have those things and you focus on those three things specifically and that’s called the Hedgehog Concept. Now, he also has some other ideas in here like maybe there’s an overlap on 2of the 3. So, if you’re looking at what you’re best in the world at and what you’re most passionate about, you love it but it doesn’t actually pay the bills. So, you still have to work. You still have to make that money or maybe you’re passionate about it and it drives your economic engine but you’re not the best in the world at it.

Then, it’s like you get paid to do it and that’s awesome, but you’re no longer thriving in the capacity that you were built to thrive in. or you look at what drives your economic engine and you’re the best in the world at it. You’re succeeding in it. Great, congratulations. You got the money. You’re really good at it but you’re not passionate about it. So, you’re not really caring really about it. It’s like, yeah, it’s nice. Yeah, I get paid, but I really live for the weekends. Like that kind of thing or the other way around. Maybe you don’t actually have any of these. Maybe you just need to focus on one right now. Maybe that’s where you’re at which is totally fine. What’s something that you have shown aptitude for in the that you could be the best in the world or at least in the top one thousand. Like what’s something that could drive your economic engine.

If you’re not making any money and you just file for unemployment, that’s fine. We all need some social help every now and then but you got to get out to work. You got to at least apply. One of my friends growing up, he said that he was putting in applications every day and his dad told him that if he didn’t file five applications every day, he wasn’t trying to get a job. Maybe somebody needed to hear that today. If you’re not actively pushing yourself to try and get out there and be the best you even just level up from a level–1 to a level-2 dude. Like you have the capacity within you to do that and that’s what this hedgehog concept is. It’s focusing on what you’re best in the world at what you’re super passionate and driven to accomplish as well as something that drives your economic engine.

Lance: I love that what you’re saying is so true. Mercedes, what would you, if anything what do you have any thoughts you want to add to that model?

Mercedes: Yeah, I guess I think it would be interesting to know from both of you. This is a really unique model. I just think sometimes people don’t even know what am I good at. When you say what are my best in the world at, how would I know what I’m the in the world at. And then even things that you’re passionate about. Sometimes people don’t even know how to tap into that. You’re like what do I like to do? I remember being asked by a business coach once. It’s like,what do you like to do? How do you like to spend your time when you’re not working? And I was like, well work is fun. I don’t know. Like I didn’t have an answer, and so she really kind of challenged me of like outside of work if you weren’t doing that what would you be doing? And I thought, well I’ve always wanted to learn how to horseback ride. And I’ve always wanted to learn how to ballroom dance. And she was like, why don’t you pick one of those? And so, I picked ballroom dancing and I loved it.

I did ballroom dancing for almost 5 or 6 years when I was in Florida and it’s a whole different part of you that gets up locked. So sometimes people don’t even dream. They don’t even know what they’re passionate about.

Carl: Yeah.

Mercedes: Because we’re so focused on the tyranny of the urgent. And so anyways, I’d love to know from you guys like how is somebody discover inside themselves what am I passionate about and what am I best in the world at?

Lance: That is a great question and this is something which I want you at home and you are watching this or listening to a podcast to think about. What can you be best in the world at? Not what are you good at, but what can you be best at? What are you ultimately the most passionate about? And is there a way you can monetize your intersection of skill and passion? Because I think it was Andre Matisse who was one of the great gifted French impressionist artist who did not know he had an aptitude to paint. He was laid up with pleurisy pneumonia the age of 14, 13 years old in Paris. His mother had to nurse him to health and gave him some paints and paper in order to just help her son put up with spending all day in the upstairs attic apartment with pleurisy pneumonia for like a whole month. She looked at his artwork and she thought, I know most mothers think their children are geniuses, but I really think my kids got talent.

She took it down to the Louvre, the Lou as they say in Paris. She took it down to the in Paris and presented it to some art masters and here’s what they said. ‘Who has he been studying under?’And they said, ‘No, he’s not studying under anyone.’ They said, ‘No, no, this clearly is a mistake. Who has been showing him how to use the brush and the paint?’ And she said, ‘I thought he had a gift but honestly, he just started painting like couple of weeks ago.’ They made a trip while he had pleurisy pneumonia to visit him at his house to see him do what he did and gave him a scholarship to study with them at the Louvre in Paris. The point is he didn’t know he had a talent and he didn’t know he had a passion until he experimented with something he’d never done before.

Can I say to you, don’t say no to the opportunity to experiment, because you never know what you’re going to be really good at until you take a shot at it. Do you remember that Strength Finder for a long time, Strength Finder still popular? The first 20 pages of the book on Strength Finder has a great story. I think it’s where I learned this. I read this and in Strength Finder, what they say is that everyone Carl has maybe 4 or 5 synaptic connections in their brain that some capacity that they’ve got of the multitude of ones you’re born with that like your body goes through an acid wash and it reduces your capacity down to the strongest remaining kind of like synaptic links. And it could be that it’s going to be in the area of empathy or the area of logic or the area of imagination, but that’s why String Spiner kind of breaks it down to what are the strongest latent kind of like connections that you’ve got with the way you’re designed. I meanthere’s there are certain synapses, you could create. You could form over time. You could build it, right. That’s neuroplasticity. How the brain can create those connections.

Carl: Right.

Lance: But I bring that up because you might have some kinesthetic. I mean, I don’t know if this falls in the same category. Do you might have some physical skill, a balance skill, a juggling skill, a musical aptitude or something that you don’t even know you’ve got. And you won’t find out until you experiment and so your 20s, your teens, and even in your 30s, it’s really important not to obsess over what you do and don’t do. It’s important that you observe a lot of things that you do and discover what you do really well.

Mercedes: I have also heard you say Lance that a lot of times it’s things with why people come to you. What are people coming to you and asking for help with and that’s also a good indicator of what you’re best in the world at. So, I get asked a lot of times like financial things, strategy things, female leadership type of stuff. Or like what do you think? What would you do in this case scenario? So, I like to look at those things and I think that’s a good indicator of what you’re good at, because it’s somebody else observing you thinking oh you have mastery in this area. Let me ask you a question.

Lance: And this is like where I was going to go and I got lost in an illustration. I remember…

Mercedes: Sure, it was. I was just like.

Lance: Yeah. Sure. Sure. ADHD guy. So, I remember Covey was with suggesting to clients that you don’t know what you’re really good at, you think you know what you’re good at. But ask the people that are closest to you a question. Ask them, what two or three things do you see me doing consistently and what talents am I exhibiting on a consistent basis that you say are the strongest talents that I exhibit compared to others? I’m trying to find out what are the two or three things that I do best and I don’t want to be a general practitioner and I respect your opinion.Give me some detail as to what it is I’m doing when you see me doing something that if I do something that is superior or really effective or good or makes an impact or an impression on you. Could you tell me what the heck it is?

Now, here’s what’s interesting. I thought I knew myself. I mean, I wrote this this a lot of this curriculum, right. I did this experiment with other people.

Mercedes: You did what?

Lance: This experiment.

Mercedes: Yes.

Lance: And I went to my friends and I said, I’m doing this course and I’m asking for feedback for. I’m telling people, the executive coach, tell an executive coach ask you, what two or three things am I consistently significantly good at doing? Not occasionally, but consistently good at delivering. I remember the feedback I got actually clarified for me what I thought I knew and it was Dave Metcalfe that put it the best. He said, ‘You have a real facility for hearing a conversation and summarizing spontaneously the salient points that connect the dots and what was said so that everyone has an aha at the end of the conversation.’ I thought, what? And I went back and I read it again. I said, ‘I didn’t know that. I didn’t know it.’ Which is why I’m telling you. Ask other people what you do. And notice Mercedes said. What do they come to you for? Because they see it. So, Carl, I’m interested in you, in this sense because you have your band is your passion.

Carl: One of them yeah.

Lance: One of them. But what do they come to you for in terms of, what do people come to you for and I’m wondering is music part of what your team is coming to you for? What do they want from you on the team?

Carl: It’s not music. I keep it light. I show up. I’m committed especially to the process and the project. I love the creative endeavor. I love getting an idea for something and then partnering with other artists in order to make it real. So, I think one of the reasons Cliff brought me on and he actually even said this to my face. He’s like, ‘Dude, I didn’t bring you into this band because you’re the best bass player I know.’ You’re not, and I was like, thanks Cliff. Love that. But he was like, no, it’s because one, I’m going to summarize and paraphrase, but it was like if you’re holding court people will listen. Because I’m not the same caliber of a reductionist as you are. I can’t reduce the entire primary plot point of the conversation, but I can get the high points and then put it into a palatable sandwich and then be like, okay, here’s what I’m hearing you say. Here’s the real time feedback. Here’s what I think we’re going to do as a consequence of that. Is everybody on board? No why aren’t you board. So, I’m able to go through the three steps of the work of leaders in real time with other people.

Lance: Which is.

Carl: Vision, alignment and execution. Also, I’m an inventor and a coach and that’s one of the reasons that I invented Marvel Metrics is to help convert people’s dreams into goals, into actionable objectives. That’s something that people have come to me for. Some of my clients actually will be like, okay, I want to level up my life. I want to live a Level10 life. I’m like, alright, great. That’s excellent. That’s why I’m here. Let’s break down. What is a Level10 life look for you? And a lot of people who I work with who are a little bit older, some people who may have had children or even grandchildren, they don’t dare to dream anymore. So, that’s one of the very first things that we have to do. I think that’s what I bring to the table in part is that I’m radically committed to the idea of being willing to dream. It’s great to have your head in the clouds but you need to have your feet on the ground too. Yes, don’t put your head in the clowns, Mercedes. There it is.

Mercedes: I’m so sorry.

Carl: Again, I keep it light and this is why people bring me around.

Lance: No, but I think listen, what you said there is such a mouthful.

Carl: I know. I was jumbling it out. I’m sorry.

Lance: No, no, no. But it’s it has elements. I think you ought to go watch this little interview again because what you said is you got a leadership gift for helping them to collaboratively create agreements to advance creative projects.

Carl: Yeah.

Lance: And that’s a huge thing because a lot of people that are highly creative and gifted are not good at facilitating.

Carl: I agree.

Lance: Vision, alignment, execution.

Carl: Well, that was my big issue with the work of leaders and the 4 disciplines of execution is that I was lacking in follow through. So, the 4 disciplines of execution, are you focused on the wildly important goal. You act on the lead measures that will impact your lag measures. You have a cadence of accountability usually through a scoreboard and you keep a compelling scoreboard. So those are the 4 points. And I figured out ways to do scoreboard like with my band for instance. When we were working on songs, we would actually do check marks for different sections of the song to make sure that we all got it down path and we made those nice objectives. We made it nice and clean, but I wasn’t following through on executing. So, that was why I focused on the 4 disciplines of execution and in essentialism, you explore all of your options. You eliminate the trivial many then you execute the vital few. So, that’s again, why I invented Marvel metrics and also what I do in my coaching practice is I help people find practical steps to attain the goals that they’ve set for themselves.

Lance: How do people contact you with your coaching practice these days?

Carl: If anybody is interested, please, please, please send me an email at Carl@Lancewallnau.com. I would love to hear from you.

Lance: Alright, so you might have questions about what he’s talking about and he’s a mouthful. The kid’s brilliant, really.

Carl: Thank you.

Lance: And he’s gone beyond me and as I invested in his in a whole new area when I got done with all this research. He was going on and he was looking at peak performance even from a physio point of view which is neurochemical.

Carl: Yes.

Lance: Which is a big deal. I mean, Tony Robbins, other guys talk about it. That there’s like you talk about pre, what prefrontal, what’s the thing that you call?

Carl: Transient hypo frontality, which is when your prefrontal cortex shuts down. So, it’s not pulling a bunch of energy, because using a prefrontal cortex, it’s the primary C suite of the mind. It’s put it simply. It’s basically like the manager or the admin of the mind. So, it takes a lot of energy to use but transient hypo frontality means that you still have access to that information without it pulling all the information and all the energy. And also, one thing I do want to add realfast because we’re talking about how to find your skill set, how to find what you’re the best in the world at. Some people think that means that as soon as you put pen to paper, you’re just gone. You’re thriving, you’re flying, it’s amazing. That’s not the case.

When we study flow, we find out that it always, always, always starts with struggle. So, you’re going to struggle before entering into flow which is a good thing, because you’re actually building up the neurochemicals that are necessary to have that incredible chemical cocktail in the brain.

Lance: This is so interesting to me. I got to say something though. A lot of my audience, I had, this happened with a guy we’re working with, I won’t mention his whole name but it’s a guy named Pee. I had to say one part of his name, but I had hundreds of my students and people I work with that all had a vision for career development in doing their thing and I attract people like me. Oddly enough. People that are expressive and that want to train, teach, communicate, activate, and live it in a leadership modality.

Carl: Right.

Lance: And be it do it as a Christian. The problem is I flooded the zone with non-profit visionaries. Meaning, they met me in ministry. My love is of course seeing the Bible unfold which is a book of the apostolic work of the ministries, right. In the churches. Not surprisingly, when it comes to what drives your economic engine, I got a call from this other company saying, ‘Man, this the challenge because we got a lot of people here that are all in the non-profit zone and we’re usually working with business people.’ And I said, ‘Welcome to my tribe.’ Let me tell you something. Even nonprofits have an economic engine. You want to talk about some of the most sophisticated economic engines. Go to Joyce Myers. Go to Kenneth Kobana. Here you go. Jesse Duplantis. Any ministry that is functioning with a multi-million-dollar media budget or a large facility or a large church attendance or large conferences. They have mastered the process of what they do and there’s an economic part of that and they understand how that works. Collins had so many inquiries from Christians and churches and pastors and ministries who loved his research.

Carl: Right.

Lance: That he had to actually write. He didn’t know if he’s going to write another book, but he ended up writing a booklet. It’s called Good to Great for the non-profit sector, because he said there symphony’s symphony halls and there are the American you know historic society. There are all these nonprofits in the world other than ministries that they want to be great too. And so,you have to find the metrics. Your marvel metrics idea. You’ve got to find the metrics.

Carl: Right.

Lance: You can attach to how do you measure performance and how do you cast your vision so that people can invest in your economic engines. That makes a to you. Investing in your economic engine. You’re inhaling.

Mercedes: Yeah, I was just going to say, I’m realizing on our podcast, we don’t have any visuals for people who are listening. So, when we talk about what are you passionate about, what are you best in the world at and what drives your economic engine. The visual that goes along with that is a Ven diagram. There are three different circles that overlap and in this very center is the win. So, I was just realizing all of our people on the podcast don’t really know and then there’s a between what you’re best in the world at and then we have in here what you’re passionate about and just so we’re clear on how do you know what your passion is. You wrote in here; you can do this thing 24/7 and you never get tired of it. You can do it 24/7 and never get paid.

Lance: Yup.

Mercedes: So, when we’re talking about passion, it’s like Carl and his band, right? That’s what we’re saying. It’s like, I’ll do that. I’ll do that.

Carl: That was low Mercedes.

Mercedes: What? It’s certainly not driving the economic engine, Carl.

Lance: That’s what he meant.

Carl: Yeah.

Lance: They have some great albums.

Mercedes: They got some great albums.

Carl: Thanks. Yes.

Mercedes: But I think it’s almost worth even thinking about doing a broadcast on essentially which is what I do with you is how do you monetize the things you’re passionate about.

Lance: It starts with this. Listen to me. We got 45 seconds while you’re listening to me. It’s very important. I want you to go to “Level10living.com”. “Level10living.com”. You get 10% off this material. You’re getting coaching here that I charged in my consulting days out there in a second where 5-to–10,000 a day to work with a client when I was brought in for a company thousand bucks an hour. I don’t do that anymore, because to me believe it or not it didn’t excite me. What excites me is talking to you. Go to “Level10living.com”. Get all 4 of these manuals and join us so that when we’re going through here you can learn to monetize the passion and the gift that God gave you. Because God wants you to be able to fulfill a vision he put in your heart and lack nothing. We’ll see you again in our next episode.

Closing: Did you enjoy this latest episode? Please remember to share it with your friends.Because the more knowledge you have, the better equipped you are to navigate the world.