Transforming Failures into Riches through Storytelling with Danny Brassell

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. I’m excited for today’s guest. he’s the co-founder of the Well-Crafted Story Workshop, and what he does is he helps to empower leaders to transform their personal experiences into powerful business stories that inspire action, drive growth, and create a lasting impact.

So I’m excited for this episode. We’re talking to Danny Brassell. Hey Danny, you ready to rock?

Danny Brassell: Thanks so much for having me, Tim, and thanks for spreading some joy around the world. We need a lot more of you.

Tim Melanson: Thank you. Right on. So we always start off on a good note. I think we already just did, but we’re gonna keep it going here with a story of success that, can be inspirational to us.

Danny Brassell: you put me on the spot there, Tim, because the first thing I train people to do is, stop speaking about your successes and start talking about your failures. ’cause not everybody in your audience has succeeded, but they’ve all failed.

And the more you share your own vulnerabilities, the more you’re gonna be able to connect with your audience. And so, if I was gonna write my autobiography, it would be called Pivots because I’ve had probably [00:01:00] 28 lives so far.

About 30 years ago, I used to be a journalist. I covered President Bush Senior in the 1992 presidential election, and I had a great job. Got to meet editors of all these great newspapers. One Major Daily offered me the city beat for $16,500 a year, and then a friend told me they were hiring teachers in South Central Los Angeles for $25,000 a year.

So I became an educator for the high pay. and I did that for many years, wound up becoming a professor. And then in 2005, my wife and I attended a real estate seminar, which turned out to be a scam, and we lost everything, and I could focus on all the negatives, but I’m a positive person.

So first of all, my wife is my soulmate. I put her through the ringer and she stuck right by me. Incredible human being. Second of all. I no longer think that money’s the end all be all. ’cause I realize you can lose it just like that. Third, I try not to judge other people anymore, Tim. ’cause if I was somebody who saw what I did, I’d say, well, you deserve that.

But now I realize I. If you don’t know everything about a person, you really don’t know anything about a person. [00:02:00] Fourth, I became a Christian, which I’m always embarrassed to admit, but the more I read the Bible, not the first screw up to find Jesus. fifth, I didn’t want to file for bankruptcy, and my accountant told me, well, you have to make this much more money this year in order to avoid bankruptcy.

And so I hit that number right on the number. I started speaking on the side, and then the next year he gave me a much higher number. Tim and I hit that number right on the number. So in year three, I thought, well, maybe I should set a higher number. And so basically during one of the worst economic downturns in world history, I was able to build up a very successful speaking business, which was, doing great.

And then in 2020, a thing called Covid came, and people asked me how my speaking business was doing. I’m like, oh, it’s great how I lost 200 speaking engagements last night. ’cause they just shut down the world. And so my next pivot was to coach, which I had always resisted. Because you have to know this about Tim.

I have to know this about me, Tim. I have a very high standard. I want you to succeed and I’m gonna hold you accountable and I’m gonna be on your back until you will succeed. Well, I found that working with entrepreneurs and executives was [00:03:00] fantastic ’cause they do the work and I’m actually really loving it.

So you can interpret those as successes or failures or any way you want to.

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s awesome. That’s a great story pivot. Yeah, because I mean, it’s funny that you mentioned that because the next question that I always ask is the bad note. It’s, you know, there is a lot of failure in business and I agree with you a hundred percent that I wanna make sure that people hear it.

’cause you know, it’s one of the things that I think probably stops a lot of people from going after what they want is that fear of failure. And if they keep on hearing people who’ve had that success that you just heard over and over and over again, talking about the failure too, that I’m hoping that you can say, well, you know what?

Maybe it won’t be so bad if I go for it and I fail. Right.

Danny Brassell: Well, hopefully your audience, there’s somebody out there struggling right now and you know, that’s great. You have to struggle. It just doesn’t, nothing’s ever handed to you, at least nothing that’s worth having.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s true. and when you think about it, I get excited. it’s exciting to go after a problem, right? It’s like, ah, it’s just [00:04:00] not working, and that’s what kind of keeps you going. Whereas if you just, mosey on into something and just, you win, you lose the fire quicker.

I find it’s more fun to go after complex problems that you’re having a hard time with.

Danny Brassell: Well, that’s what I like about you, Tim, is you and I are in the same industry. We’re not into just griping about the problems. You and I were having a conversation off camera about politics and how neither of us has any interest in it because. Politics is just nonsense. You and I are about solutions.

I’m always interested in solutions. It’s kind of one of my pet peeves when I hear a speaker say that they’re a thought leader. I’m like, well, who needs another thought? I’m a results leader. I help you get results. You don’t need any more thoughts.

Tim Melanson: Yep. I agree. We have plenty of those, right? Oh, I love that. So now is there, a big mistake though that, you hear all the time that is not that big of a deal, but people, tend to fall into that same trap over and over again. Maybe you can help us to [00:05:00] avoid it.

Danny Brassell: Well, I’ve probably made all of ’em. So just look at my life. I’ve made all kinds of mistakes. I’ve had bad business partners, I’ve had bad business ideas. they’re one of the worst things I ever did was, that saying, if you build it, they will come, which is complete nonsense. my philosophy now is if they want it, then you build it.

what it was kind of interesting falling into, The business I’m in right now, the well crafted story workshops, my business partner and I coach Jimmy Hayes Nelson. I call us the professor and the poet because I come from an academic background. He comes from Broadway and we do a really good job of, working with each other when we work with clients

Stagecraft and how to create a more convincing presentation. and that’s why I love your show. ’cause you’re actually serving people out there that are in the trenches. And I’m a big believer in the quickest way to grow your business is through speaking. And you know, yes, I’ve worked with some,

Pretty famous people. You know, I’m not gonna brag and name drop and do all those things. but the people that I appreciate the [00:06:00] most, the people that I love working with are people just like you and me in the trenches that have started their own business. a lot of ’em are terrified to speak.

And I’m here to tell you that it’s a, it’s a skill you can be taught. I can totally teach any, I was working with a guy last week, an Indian engineer in Silicon Valley. who was very nervous about connecting with his audience. He is like, oh, Danny, please, you have to make me funny. Nobody likes listening to me.

And I, he has a very difficult name to pronounce. I’m not gonna give you his real name. but the way we changed his presentation is now he starts off, he’s like, hello, my name is Shakar Maja. Hardin Gee, I sure hope I’m pronouncing that correctly. And all that does, you don’t have to be a standup comedian, you just need your audience to just start laughing and nodding like, oh, this guy’s okay, this person.

They don’t take themselves too seriously. The other thing I talk talked about with you off camera is my favorite audiences are always Canadians. ’cause Canadians never take themselves [00:07:00] seriously. They laugh at everything, and it’s just the always my favorite. My favorite crowd. I was actually speaking at an event in Can Ascus outside of Calgary, years ago.

And the speaker before me, I, I didn’t listen to his speech, but he had a very basic name like Dave. I don’t know if it was Dave, but I’ll we’ll say it was Dave. And so I always like to acknowledge the speaker before me and I’m like, oh, you know, it’s like Dave just said and every time I said his name, 1500 people just start laughing hysterically and I’m like.

What’s the deal? I mean, his name is Dave. There’s no way I’m mispronouncing Dave, what’s, what’s going on here? And I get off stage and the conference organizer, she has her, her arms crossed, and she’s like, well, you’re pretty, pretty informal down in the states, aren’t you, Danny? And I’m like, Who’s Dave?

And she’s like, he was runner up for the Prime Minister in our last election. I’m like, oh my, and to his credit that night we drank Crown Royals until two in the morning. So I’m, I’m drifting. Get me back on, on, on Focus for you.

Tim Melanson: [00:08:00] Well, you’re not really drifting too far because I really do wanna talk about how to get fans and I mean, that is, I’m telling you like one of the things that when I first started my business, And when I first started even looking into business, I think a lot of people start their business going, okay, you know, I’m really good at, you know, whatever it is, X, and I’m gonna start a business because, you know, I think I could do better than my company’s doing.

I’m gonna just go break out and do my own thing. And then they realized real quick that you have to be pretty good at sales in order to get to that point. And a lot of people, I mean, I wish there was a sales class in my, you know, elementary school. I think that would’ve been helpful. But we don’t get those things really in our formal education.

So I’m wondering, you know, what is it that you have to do in order to, and I, I think I’m hearing it, you have to be good at telling stories, right? So tell me more about that.

Danny Brassell: Yeah. Storytelling is everything. And, and the biggest mistake I see with most entrepreneurs is the exact same mistake I made when I started my business 25 years ago.

That was a big mistake, Jim. I [00:09:00] tried to do everything on my own and I guess I, I’ll give the example. A few weeks ago my toilet broke and my, my wife asked me to, to fix the toilet. And so I, I called the plumber and got the toilet fixed for $900 and she was yelling at me.

She’s like, I told you to fix the toilet. And I’m like, I did fix the toilet. I called the plumber. And he was able to fix it very quickly. He did it the right way and he’s worth every penny and she’s like $900. That’s outrageous. I’m like, I get paid outrageous sums of money for coaching and for speaking.

It’s because I’m good at it. I’m not gonna waste time doing things I’m not good at. And so really a ninja strategy for everybody listening is don’t try to do it all yourself. I don’t have competition.

I’m always trying to figure out how I can help people, especially when you’re first starting out, well, maybe you’re not gonna pay for me as a coach, but maybe you’re really good at marketing and you can help me with marketing and I can help you in crafting your presentation. I mean, those are the types of, you know, that bartering, to help you get going.

storytelling. I’ll give you a, this is the first exercise I usually take my [00:10:00] clients through and everybody at home can do. later on, sit in a comfortable chair with a pen and paper libation of choice beside you. And for an hour I want you to write down every story that’s ever happened to you.

And I don’t, I don’t mean write the whole story, I just mean triggers. Like the time I lock myself outta the car in front of Costco, the time dad Spillt mustard on his tie at that fancy restaurant you’ll find in like an hour. You’ll come up with about a, about 500 stories like this. So that’s the first part of the exercise.

The second part of the exercise is then I want you to figure out, well, what’s the story really about? Oh, this is a story about delegation. Oh, this is a story about perseverance. This is a story about loyalty. so if you were to look at my computer, I literally have hundreds of folders with tens of thousands of stories.

So whenever I’m trying to make a point in a presentation, I know exactly where I can go to find a story. And I mean, it doesn’t have to be too complicated. I’m working with a guy right now. He’s climb the highest peak on all seven continents. he swam with sharks in Madagascar.

He did the [00:11:00] Iditarod, and I’m like, Boder, nobody can relate to you. Nobody’s done those things, but everybody can relate to peeing their pants when they were six years old. All of us had that moment. those are the best moments. And so I’ll show you a way I do this. So I’ll give you an example.

So when I was an elementary school teacher, every other teacher at my school went through hundreds, if not thousands. Bandaids every single school year. I mean, kids like bandaids, they work better than smokes on the prison yard. Well, every single school year, I went through exactly one bandaid, and my colleagues always ask me, what’s your secret?

Well, I. On the first day of school, I always have one chubby little boy, we’ll call him Paco. He’s picking at his scab all morning long. Finally has success. After recess starts bleeding, the annoying little girl next to him is rubbing her nose, raising her hands, says, Ms. Relle, Paco is bleeding. I’m like, oh my goodness, Paco, you know what you need?

You need a bandaid. Now, 33 little heads look my way. I’m like, I got a drawer full of bandaids in my desk, and I don’t have ordinary [00:12:00] bandaids. I have mighty Morphin Power Ranger bandaids. And I’m gonna give you the Green Ranger ’cause he is the coolest. Now Paco’s grinning ear to ear. All the kids are smiling.

I take Paco on my desk. I say, oh, before I put on the bandaid, we gotta clean out the wound. So I show the kids the rubbing alcohol. I’m like, Hey, Paco, hold onto my hand. This might sting a little bit. I start pouring the rubbing alcohol. He’s screaming Bloody Murrah. I put on his bandaid

Anybody else need a bandaid? My students. Can have a skull fracture and they will never ask me for a bandaid. Ladies and gentlemen, I am not going to provide you with bandaids today. I’m going to provide you with practical strategies on how to use speaking to grow your client base. See how I took the story.

I like humor. I don’t like sad. I like, you know, life’s too short. I want people laughing. and so I’m just, I’m using humorous anecdotes to guide them along to the different points I want to make.

Practice it, it, it makes permanent.[00:13:00]

Tim Melanson: Right on. So now, okay, so these stories obviously would work well on a stage or anything like that. however, do they translate really well to like, you know, social media posts or to any of those other, like do they work well?

Danny Brassell: Yeah. So what we’re, what Jimmy and I are doing is we call it a well-crafted story. When I covered the president, it was his stump speech. In superhero movies, they call it the origin story. Start with why Simon Sinek would probably call this your visionary statement. Daniel Pink in his book drive would probably call this your Purpose Driven Talk.

What this is, is this is how you introduce yourself to new audiences, and it’s flexible enough that it can be used as a one hour keynote, or it can be a 20 minute breakout, or it can be a 32nd elevator pitch to somebody. also flexible enough. You can be delivering it to a ballroom or to a boardroom, or to a classroom, or to a courtroom.

Heck, one of my clients, he used it in the restroom and got a gig out of it. it’s a flexible, how am I introducing myself? How do [00:14:00] I, how do I intrigue people? I mean, probably the easiest way for the audience to think about this is. You’re looking at a, at somebody that you want to date, how can I get them interested to go out for that second date?

This is what I’m always trying to do. And that’s, that’s the only way I evaluate the effectiveness of a presentation. I mean, some people say, oh, wow, you had a standing ovation and everybody thinks you’re a great speaker. I’m like, well, that’s fine and good, but all I care about is, is your audience going to take the next step?

Now the next step can be, it can be like an unpaid offer, like, you know, Subscribe to my podcast or, book a free phone call, or it can be a paid offer, like, buy my product or invest in my coaching program. But that’s the only way we’re evaluating the success of your presentation is are people actually going to take that next step with you?

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s great. I think that nowadays we do have more opportunities to talk to people about our business because of things like social media, right?

Danny Brassell: Of course, of course. I mean, and Jimmy, coach Jimmy, he’s much better at social media than I am. You know, when it comes to Instagram, I’ll post [00:15:00] things, but I’m not by no means an expert on that. I like books and things like that. I like conversations.

I’m good with the podcast and things like that, which is, a good, strategy for everybody out there. If you’re gonna work with a partner, find a partner that has strengths that you don’t have.

Tim Melanson: Absolutely. Yeah, that’s huge, right? Because we can’t, be good at everything, You’re better off to find people and like you said earlier, even bartering and finding partners that can help you in all parts of your business. Then you all grow together, right?

Danny Brassell: Absolutely.

Tim Melanson: Now it sounds like a lot of your learning has come from, you know, trial and error, But what about people? Do you have mentors? Do you, do the mastermind thing? is that part of your, business?

Danny Brassell: Yeah, I’ve been blessed with lots of wonderful coaches throughout my life, and that’s what I always point out to people is, you look at the most successful people in the world. They all have coaches. I mean, tiger Woods is the greatest golfer ever to live. He has a putting coach, he has a driving coach, he has a short game coach, he has a mental coach.

But so, and I’ve had, I’ve been blessed with, lots of wonderful mentors, both physically [00:16:00] and then, you know, I’m a big reader. You don’t actually have to meet people, to actually learn their wisdom if they’ve put it in books.

Jack Canfield’s, one of my mentors, I couldn’t believe when I read his book, the Success Principles, I’m like, man, you put a $25,000 coaching program into a $20 book. But the fact is a lot of people won’t read the book and I’m kind of cheap. I’d rather go to the public library and read a book than have to invest the $25,000.

Now, eventually I did have to invest, money for one-on-one coaching, I’m a big believer in, learning from people and it’s just kind of like, you don’t realize this, Tim, you’re kind of an inspiration for me. I was using you as an example with my son the other day ’cause he just dropped outta college and I said, you know what, Sean?

Here’s what you should do. Start your own podcast and interview all the people you’d like to learn about their different fields and their expertise and I bet you you’ll stumble upon something you’re interested in that you didn’t find when you were at the university.

So thanks for that inspiration, Tim.

Tim Melanson: it’s an incredible, yeah, it’s a great idea. and really that is one of the main reasons why I’m [00:17:00] continuing to run this podcast. It is my mastermind. Right. And, it’s an opportunity to get all the best tips and all that from people that have, you know, gotten success in just about anything.

Like I think it’s a really great way. No, it is a lot of work, I will admit.

Danny Brassell: It is. But again, you need to know. I mean, that’s what I love about we were talking about this. You have no idea who’s listening. It’s amazing how things happen that way. I had a coach. And she would, I don’t think she’s alive anymore, but she was one of the best coaches I had because of her. when I’m stopped at a traffic light, I realize I’m surrounded by a million dollars worth of vehicles.

She got me thinking in a totally different way, an abundance mindset, and she used to do these things. She called idea parties and like a mastermind, and she limited it to 30 people, 30 strangers. And in my church we have a thing called haves and needs. Where like some people say what they have and other people say what they need and we kind of help one another out.

So she had a similar thing in [00:18:00] her idea parties. And so, I’ll never forget, I was at an idea party in Kansas City again, just 30 of us are total strangers, and she asked this one guy, what do he needs? He’s like, I need a monkey. And all of us are laughing and she’s like, well, why do you need a monkey? He’s like, well, I’m an insurance agent and I had this monkey, and kids love the monkey and they play with the monkey.

And their parents would buy insurance from me ’cause they love the monkey. But the monkey died and it’s illegal to import monkeys into the United States. It’s the weirdest story I’ve ever heard in my, all of us are laughing hysterically, and so she just shrugs her shoulders. She’s like, can anybody help?

And I’m not even kidding, Tim. Creepy guy. He sits there and he’s like, I can get you a monkey. And it turned out that this guy happened to be one of the five authorized exotic animal dealers in the United States. Just happened to be in the room. And I decided there are no coincidences anymore. There’s providence, but there’s no coincidences.

that’s actually really a good strategy for all your entrepreneurs out there is like, hey. Somebody to [00:19:00] help you with marketing, start putting it out there because you might be talking to like the grocery store bagger and they’re like, well that’s interesting ’cause my sister, she’s a marketing agent and she’s been looking for somebody that has your skillset.

Maybe you can barter. So put things out there. I’m always amazed at and that’s why I think you’re so smart with your podcast. ’cause. You’re getting. I mean, think about it. You’re doing what I always tell people, there’s only two ways to get better at speaking. first of all, you gotta watch lots of speakers.

I mean, I watch 10 speakers a day. I watch televangelists. I watch politicians. I watch comedians. I watch ’em in front of big groups, in front of small groups, in front of men, in front of women. Here, I’ll give you a ninja strategy. I watch a lot of award shows because when a person wins the Academy Award, they only have 45 seconds to connect with their audience.

Now, most people waste their time. They get up there like, I wanna thank God, I wanna thank the Academy. They’re stupid. Nobody pays attention to ’em. But every now and then, a guy does an incredible job. So about a few years ago, a guy named Joe Walker won the Academy Award for best film editing Will. This is Hollywood.

The important people are in the audience, [00:20:00] the actors, they don’t care about film editing, and they’re scanning the camera’s, scanning the crowd. You can see nobody’s paying attention. And Joe Walker, he’s British, he gets up there and he speaks very slowly. He’s like, A lot of people don’t know this, but when phrased properly, the term Academy Award nominee can be used as an insult.

Now the camera’s showing the audience and people are leaning in like, what’s he talking about? He, he goes on, he is like, for example, yesterday I got to an argument with my 17-year-old daughter and she said, well, academy Award nominee Joe Walker. All of a sudden you see everybody laughing hysterically. He gets off stage.

Denzel Washington wants to meet him. Sandra Bullock wants to meet him. Brad Pitt wants to meet him. Time Magazine said it was the highlight of the Oscars. Wow. 30 seconds. Well done, Joe. The second way you get better at speaking is one of my mentors was a guy named Jim Rohn.

And Jim used to say, you can’t pay other people to do your pushups, translation. You gotta do the work. You know your podcast. I [00:21:00] guarantee you, Tim, the first time you did this podcast, it sucked. The second time you did it, it sucked, but it didn’t suck as bad as the first time. And now you’ve been doing it so long, you’re completely comfortable.

It’s very organic the way you do it, but you had to work at it. And it’s the same for all of us, all of us, you know? I’m not good at marketing yet. I’m not good at speaking yet. These are skills they can be trained and with practice, you’ll get a lot better. I’m sorry, I’m on my, I’ll get off my soapbox.

Tim Melanson: I, Hey, I agree with you a hundred percent. I’ve always liked, I’ve always been fascinated with speaking. with public speaking, and I remember in school, the reason why I did it this way was because we were always offered this option. Hey, you can write an essay.

Or you can do a speech that’s like, whatever, like three minutes. I’m like, what? Why would I wanna write a huge essay when I can just go talk about this for? And I, that was my reasoning. So I ended up doing those speeches that ended up getting me pretty good. But I was always fascinated ’cause it was very [00:22:00] small percentage of the class.

Very small. But that’s because I guess people are very, very scared about speaking in public, right.

Danny Brassell: Well, Jerry Seinfeld says that, human’s biggest fear is public speaking. Number two is death. So if you ever go to a funeral, people would rather be in the coffin than delivering the eulogy. I mean, I was in India probably about six years ago, pumping up a school, and all the kids were all pumped up and come up to me afterwards, all excited.

And then I have this 6-year-old boy has tears in his eyes. And he’s like, how can I succeed? And I noticed he’s missing his left arm. So I crouched down to his eye level and I’m like, you know, when I was your age, I went to 18 different schools before I was 12, Because I stuttered and eventually I went to a school and a teacher worked with me one-on-one, and she would sing things to me and I found I could sing ’em back without my stutter.

Kinda like the movie, the King Speech. And eventually I lost my stutter and I became a swan. But I looked at that boy and I’m like, isn’t it interesting that the little boy everybody used to make fun of because he couldn’t speak right now, gets paid ridiculous sums of money to [00:23:00] travel the world to do what?

And he gets this big grin on his face. He’s like. Speak. I’m like, don’t let anybody ever tell you what you cannot do. that’s the inspiration for everybody out there is, hey, you know, yet you’re not good at this yet. But everything is, I’m convinced of that.

Tim Melanson: Well, I love that. And that leads right into the next topic about practicing, right? you have to practice to get good. And, other than, like I imagine that, practicing speaking is probably one of the most important things you can do. But what about other types of routines?

Do you have any other routines in your regular life that, are practices for you?

Danny Brassell: Yeah, I definitely have a whole routine. I have it written down, so I think all of us are creature of habits. you know, I’m a big fan of, wonderful speaker and, author is Robin Sharma. He wrote, the Monk who Sold His Ferrari, but he also has a great book called The 5:00 AM Club.

And I was already doing sort of what he was talking about. I have another friend, he was in one of my masterminds, was Hal Elrod, has a great book called The Miracle Mourning. And, Hal has one of the few acronyms [00:24:00] in my life that always stuck in my head. And so he says, you should always start your morning with Lifesavers and Savers is an acronym to break down into, six, 10 minute chunks.

So, s is you start in silence. Then a is for affirmations. Then V is for visualization, E is for exercise, R is for reading. And then the final S is for, scripting, which is journaling. I always begin my day. I’m a writer, so, I write to begin my day. I usually start, I’ll read my Bible and listen to some Bible verses I like to listen to positive things.

but I always start the day reading and I try to always end the day reading. once a day I take what I call as a thought walk. even if it’s. 20 below zero outside, I get in my coat and walk and for a half an hour I just walk and I’m in nature and I’m thinking about, well, what can, am I doing better?

Whatever problem I’m trying to figure out. those are some of my better strategies, my habits that I go through all the time. The thought walks [00:25:00] really. do a lot and I don’t actually look at social media. I look at it once a day, usually like at 10 o’clock, and I spend about 15 minutes on it because I once attended, Davey, Ty Bursky had this wonderful.

Time management seminar, which always cracks me up. there’s no such thing as time management. There’s only priority management. he had a great exercise where for two weeks.

I had to keep track of how I spent every minute of my day. And you have to be honest. And so I did it and I’m like, oh my gosh, Tim. In a week. I had spent like 12 hours on social media. That is a day and a half of work I was wasting on social media. I’m like, to heck with that. So I hired a gal that does my social media now.

I’ll check it every now and then, but she’s the one posting everything. there’s no way I’m gonna waste my time doing that. Jimmy. loves social media, so he’s always posting things to promote us on Instagram. I guess the one thing I do is on LinkedIn every Wednesday morning we do a q and a, and I’ll respond to things like that, but those are the better habits that I have.

what do you [00:26:00] think is the most productive habit you have, Tim?

Tim Melanson: Oh, I think time blocking for me has been a big one. Right. and I’m just, actually, my wife was just doing it today too. but the, what is it called? Pomo Daryl Method where you, where you work for a certain amount of time. I think it’s 25 minutes, and then take a five minute break. So we’ve just started implementing that.

Social media is such a tough one too. Like, because think, especially when you’re a solopreneur, a lot of businesses down on social media, i, I most of my business from social media. And so to not spend time on social media where that’s where most of my business is, is it’s a bit of a, what is it called?

It dichotomy. Right?

Danny Brassell: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: but I

Danny Brassell: I’ll use, yeah, YouTube is like a big one for speaking and so I make sure to, I’m very well represented on YouTube, and then LinkedIn. And, I think you probably would agree that probably one of the biggest mistakes a lot of people do is they have their Facebook and their LinkedIn and their Instagram [00:27:00] and I’m like, you know, get good at one, get good at one, and make that the one, the one that you engage your clients on.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree. And, so for me as a musician, one of the things that I’m getting into is that, TikTok seems to be working really, really well for music. And so I’ve got that going. And then I’ve got my LinkedIn, which is really good for business. And Facebook is also good for my business. But the other ones I’ve, I’m like, Instagram doesn’t do anything for me.

I don’t, I mean, it probably would if I were to work on it, but I, I gotta focus on something right.

Danny Brassell: No, and I agree with you, especially with your musical background. TikTok is fantastic. What you just told your audience, hopefully they were listening, is, you’ve experimented on all of ’em, and what you found was TikTok was the most effective for you.

that’s really good advice for everybody listening.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. But when it come back to the habits, I think that the time blocking and also another really big one, and I need to get better at doing it every day, but the goal setting, like just writing down what your goals are for the next day is huge. And it’s [00:28:00] so funny that I could literally map it on the days that I write my goals down for the next day, I get ’em done.

And then when I don’t get distracted, it’s just, it’s messed up.

Danny Brassell: know, I’ll give you one of my coaches. Well, it’s a father son Steve and Rob Shallenberger. They’re out of Salt Lake City and Steve has a bestseller called Becoming Your Best. He has 12 different principles, but the thing that Rob and Steve taught me, and they have these planners that they sell, and I’ve bought it every year for the last 10 years.

And the habit that they taught me, which is fantastic, is called pre week planning. So every Saturday morning I get my planner and I plan out every minute of my week for the following week. And at the very top, you have seven different categories that you can create your own categories with up to five goals in each category.

I used to be a teacher, so everything has to be like simple. So they all start with F. So I got my focus goals, my financial goals, my fitness goals, my family goals, my faith goals, my fun goals, and my fulfillment goals. And so it adds up to 35 [00:29:00] goals, and then I take those goals, my insert throughout the week where I’m going to get those things accomplished.

And I’m a guy that loves checking boxes, and if the box isn’t checked, I freak out. And so I find that that’s really, it’s even better than doing it the day before. things are fluid throughout the week and you might change some things, but that pre week planning has made me so much more productive.

and it’s made me a much better human being. ’cause it gets me focused, you know? I don’t think balance is ever actually possible with people. They gave an exercise. I know it’s not unique to them. ’cause Zig Ziglar was another one of my mentors, and Zig had a very similar exercise and it’s called spokes in a wheel.

And so what you do, and everybody listening can do this, is you draw a circle and then you come up with your seven spokes. So I just gave you my seven spokes is financial, fitness, faith, fun, fulfillment, family, and focus. And so what you do. For each spoke, you give yourself a score of one to 10 on how well you’re doing.

Ten’s the highest one’s the lowest. So how am I doing [00:30:00] with my faith? Well, I read my Bible every morning I go to church. Yeah. I’m gonna give myself an eight. Great. How about your, your fitness? you know what? I’ve been eating fairly well and I’ve been exercising. I’m gonna give myself a nine. Okay. How about, your family?

You know, last week I was on the road traveling. I wasn’t really able to see. Spend much time with ’em, I’m probably gonna give myself a two. how about financial? I’m like, well, I’m kind of, so, so I haven’t booked all the gigs that I want right now. I’m gonna give myself a five. that’s the first part of the exercise.

The second part of the exercise is now you have to connect those dots. And if they don’t form a perfect circle, you’re out of alignment. You’re out of balance. and so you could have all tens or all twos or whatever, but they have to all be the same.

A lot of the, like I look at Robin Williams was one of my role models growing up. I love Robin Williams. I’m like, here’s a guy that made millions of people around the world laugh and he was suffering from depression. and there’s so many people out there with depression and I’m like, oh my goodness, this person didn’t realize how much he was affecting all of us and it kills me.

He didn’t have that, that little thing in his head that [00:31:00] that balance. And there’s so many people like that or, you know, like you see like a wealthy guy and he’s like 400 pounds overweight. And I’m like, dude, who cares if you have all the money in the world if you’re going into the grave pretty soon?

so it’s always about, and you know, you see people, they’re very successful and they’re on their third wife and I’m not judging anybody. I mean, I have plenty of flaws and that’s what I like about the pre week planning is it’s. Putting my flaws right in front of my face every single week.

Hey, I did a good job with my fitness last week. I wanna keep on my fitness, but I haven’t done enough with financial or something. that’s really, been a very powerful habit for me. the book, becoming Your Best by, Steve Shallenberger.

Steve is a great human being. His son Rob is a great human being They’re two of my favorite human beings. and they’ve helped me enormously on my mindset.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Yeah. the circle that you were talking. About, I think I saw that also in the compound effect.

Danny Brassell: Yeah, Darren Hardy did it also.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I remember doing that exercise and it was very interesting just trying to make it, but you’re [00:32:00] right, the balance is so difficult. ’cause when you spend time on one thing, you’re obviously not paying attention to the other thing.

Right. And so it’s constantly spinning plates, trying to get everything to balance right.

Danny Brassell: Aaron has a great anecdote, so I agree with you. I love the Compound Effect. I think that’s an excellent book. His other book, the Entrepreneur Rollercoaster, I think is something everybody else should read as well. He gives an anecdote where he, I think he was in the Caribbean with his wife and they were eating dinner with a billionaire and his wife, and he was very unimpressed with the billionaire.

He is like, man, this guy’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. He doesn’t know that much. And this billionaire, CEO said, I don’t need to, I have a CFO. They’re really good with the finances and my director of marketing is the best at marketing. My job is to make all of them.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Danny Brassell: how do I get everybody playing together? I mean, just ’cause you’re good at the guitar. If you’re not in sync with the drummer, you’re not producing the rhythm that you need. So, I thought that was a really interesting anecdote in that book.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree. so in my band, that’s my role. I try to be the worst player in the band.

Danny Brassell: That’s

Tim Melanson: to put people that are better than me and make them play well [00:33:00] together. Right.

Danny Brassell: Love it.

Tim Melanson: So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

Danny Brassell: I’m excited. we’ve kind of stumbled upon something that we didn’t realize was gonna happen for our business. So the way our business used to operate for the well-crafted story workshops is, At least once a month, we get about 12 people in Dallas, Texas at a bourbon club. And for two days we help people create their well-crafted story.

But what happened was a lot of companies they don’t like sharing, like their company secrets in front of strangers. I actually love having 12 people, strangers, because that gives ’em enough with, with 12 of ’em, between Jimmy and me, we’re gonna give ’em the one-on-one attention they deserve.

But I think it’s also important for you to practice in front of your peers and to watch where other people are making mistakes. I think that’s very valuable. But I also thought that was interesting that people, you know, they have their proprietary process that they, they don’t want competitors to look at or whatever.

And so now Jimmy and I have to sign all these non-disclosure agreements with people. [00:34:00] So now what we’ve been doing lately, for example, we went to a major tech company in Silicon Valley last week. flew out there to them. That way they save the time and expense of coming to Dallas.

We work with their people for two days, and then we provide, this is just the teacher and me. I check up on my people like once a quarter. ’cause I’m like, Hey, have you done this? Let’s talk about your success. ’cause I will be on you. It is something, it’s actually one of the reasons I had to leave teaching.

’cause I’m a perfectionist and I want everybody to succeed now. It killed me. ’cause some people don’t want to succeed. It’s not as much now with entrepreneurs, ’cause most of them, you know, they put their hearts into what they do. School was a little bit different. but I really want people to succeed. So, yeah.

So now what we do is, we go to a lot of companies, Usually about, we’re at a different company at least once every other week, sometimes once a week, helping out their teams. And then, so I’m really excited about that. We take ’em through the process, I was talking to a CEO the other day, and, he’s like, well, why should I, he’s like, I’ve [00:35:00] got my speech.

Why should I teach it to, to my team? And I said, well, the ability for your organization to survive and thrive beyond you is directly related to your people’s ability to tell your story without you. And he’s like, whoa,

I hate these dang non-disclosure agreements, but, we’ve worked with some really good companies and they’re really good at the way they craft stories. now I’m just thinking of companies we’ve worked with. I, but they’re the best companies. It’s always, you know, Steve Jobs with Apple.

He said, the best storyteller wins and he is right, is, how can you communicate your story better than the people around you.

Tim Melanson: So who would be your ideal market? Like who would you be looking to connect with?

Danny Brassell: Well, I, well, here’s a simple, this will sound horrible, but this is, I always say when people used to ask me who was my ideal audience, I said, the one that can pay my fee. I mean, and actually there’s a lot of truth to that. I mean, I don’t want, I always tell people I have two friends that are waiters.

One is. A waiter at Morton’s, which is a [00:36:00] Highend steak restaurant. The other one is a waiter at Applebee’s, my friend that’s a waiter at Morton’s, he averages about $150 tip per table. The guy that works at, Applebee’s, his average tip is about $8. And his customers were like, I wanna order a steak, but can you make half of it?

Medium rare. And the other half, well done. I don’t wanna deal with people that are a pain in the butt. I’m too old now. I’m like, you know what? I wanna have fun. So, I, we actually work with everybody. I worked with a woman about two months ago, you know, so when we start, the very first question we ask people are the two clarity questions, which is, who is your audience and what’s the problem you solve?

You’d be amazed at how 95% of people can’t answer one or both of those questions. So this woman, she had the best niche I’ve ever heard of, so she makes. Saddles for professional polo players. Now that is, that is a very specific niche. She made $800,000 last year doing that. I’m like, my gosh, I need to learn how to make sandals for professional polo [00:37:00] players.

We worked with a guy and he’s grown his plumbing company business now. he went from one truck to now he has 28 trucks. I mean, he is making, I think he might be making eight figures a year. Now. We’re not talking seven figures, eight figures as a plumber. and I’m like, damn.

And that’s what I, again, I told my son, I’m like, you don’t need, I think, college degrees. And I’m not here. I’m an educated person. I believe in education. That said, I also believe that, I believe there’s other avenues than the traditional route to education, like having a podcast or, you know, There’s lots of different things.

And so this was a guy, he probably had about a high school degree, but he has a highly profitable company. So again, the long answer to your short question is, we work with all types. but I prefer people that are entrepreneurs, people that are doing it on their own, because these are highly motivated people, executives we work with, they’re not as motivated because they don’t have as much,

Tim Melanson: Skin in the

Danny Brassell: much at stake as entrepreneurs, but I, I let, there’s nothing that make, we worked with a [00:38:00] guy, Gustavo, should be president of the United States. We worked with him two years ago. So Gustavo came to America 30 years ago. I. You know, didn’t speak a word of English. Did every menial job on the planet invested every dime into real estate.

30 years later, the guy’s worth like $40 million. I’m just, just an amazing story. And so I told Gustavo exactly what I just told all your audience. Like, there’s two ways you get better at speaking. You know, watch speakers, and then you gotta go out, go out in there and, and speak.

And he said he was going on a podcast that night. I’m like, good Gustavo. Here’s my phone number. You have to call me tomorrow and tell me how it went. So here was his offer. I worked with a lot of people with a lot of offers. Tim, his offer was, he’s a four month real estate coaching program for $40,000.

Now, that’s a high ticket offer, but again, I told him, Hey, you gotta make the pitch. He calls me up the next day, Tim. He’s all excited. He is like, oh my gosh, Danny, you’re a genius. I’m like, should you go on the podcast, Gustavo? He’s like, yes. I’m like, did you make the pitch?

He’s like, yes. I’m like, did you sell any? He’s like [00:39:00] 23,

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Danny Brassell: Tim. Reading’s my specialty, not math, but if I’m doing my math correctly, he made $920,000 that night on an offer we had crafted that afternoon. We’ve been in touch since then. He’s made eight figures off of this speech, and the reason I share that story is I’m just so proud of him.

You know when people talk about fulfillment, it drives me nuts. A lot of these people are charlatan’s. Fulfillment is taking your check. That’s not fulfilling to me. Yes, I like to get paid, but what’s fulfilling to me is that you succeed. And so a person like Gustavo, I’m just so proud of him and I hope he exceeds my income 20 fold.

He’s wonderful. and he did the work and I just want to give him as an example to everybody in your audience. ’cause I know there’s people out there because they’re struggling. All of us have been there. You and I have been there What was it? Kobe Bryant? He said, you work in the dark so you can shine in the light.

Like right now, it might be dark for you, but your day, your day will come.

Tim Melanson: So how do we find out more?

Danny Brassell: Well, as a thank you to you and your audience for having to listen to all my [00:40:00] stories, I want to give everybody, their own, story guide. So if you go to free story guide.com, I’m gonna provide you all with a free, storytelling blueprint. What this is, is the actual process that Jimmy and I take our clients through on how to develop their own.

Well crafted story. What this does for you is it takes the guesswork out of what are the elements behind an effective presentation and how to, succeed in building up more clients for me? And what this means to you is we take the guesswork out of everything and that you’ll be able to.

Grow your business and have that lasting impact that you’ve always desired. You just get all of that@freestoryguide.com. And Tim, I just want to thank you again for all that you do. You’ve inspired me, you keep on doing it. And, I appreciate you, my friend.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Well, thank you so much, Danny. This has been a lot of fun.

Danny Brassell: I gotta get back to New Brunswick. it is one of the greatest places on the planet.

Tim Melanson: Oh, definitely look me up if you come here. thank you again for being on the show, and thank you to the listeners for listening in. we’ll see you next time on The Work At Home Rockstar Podcast. Make sure you go to [00:41:00] workathomerockstar.com for more information.