The Science of Success with John Mitchell

00:00:00
John Mitchell: If 95 percent of your daily actions are subconscious, the only way you can have a higher level of success than you currently are having is to influence those unconscious daily actions. Your success in each area of your life, whether it's your career or marriage, comes down to the cumulative effect of your daily actions.

00:00:30
Seth Heckaman: Welcome to the Construction Disruption podcast, where we uncover the future of building and remodeling. I'm Seth Heckaman of Isaiah Industries, and with me today is co-host Ryan Bell. So Ryan, we are getting to do this interview together. Todd is unable to join us this morning. So excited about that. Todd usually kicks us off with a couple of dad jokes. I know you are a connoisseur of dad jokes as well and have a couple for us to start off with here this morning.

00:00:59
Ryan Bell: I do. What do you call a factory that makes OK products?

00:01:03
Seth Heckaman: I do not know.

00:01:04
Ryan Bell: A satisfactory.

00:01:08
Seth Heckaman: That's a good one.

00:01:09
Ryan Bell: One more. How do you track Will Smith in the snow?

00:01:13
Seth Heckaman: No idea.

00:01:13
Ryan Bell: You follow the fresh prints.

00:01:17
Seth Heckaman: One of my favorites. So good deal. Yeah, I think I only have my Twitter account still active because I follow the dad jokes feed on there. So those are some good ones. But well, thank you, Ryan. For those of you listening, we know that you know that here on Construction Disruption, we cover a wide range of topics. All of them are focused on helping those in the building and remodeling industry propel us to a greater level of success. So over our episodes, we have covered varied topics such as new sales technologies, 3D printing, you know, worker recruitment and training, trying to solve the skilled labor shortage we're all facing. And even senior housing. But in this episode, we're going to take a look at those, you know, day-to-daypractices, which can create success for any of us. And we are joined today by John Mitchell, hailing from Austin, Texas. John is the founder of Think It Be It, a human performance company for high achievers. John teaches the full secret to success from Napoleon Hill's bestselling Think and Grow Rich. And he teaches how to apply that secret in just 12 minutes a day. So, John, thank you so much. Welcome to Construction Disruption, appreciate you joining us here this morning.

00:02:33
John Mitchell: Hey, glad to be here.

00:02:34
Seth Heckaman: Fantastic. So just with that brief and simple introduction, no doubt our listeners and viewers are anxious to hear what you have to say. John, you grew up in Texas. Graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. Your background, you went into the business world as a CPA and eventually became an entrepreneur, and you had what most folks would call a solid, you know, solid success, a great career. But then about 20 years ago, you tackled finding the full secret of Think and Grow Rich. Anxious to hear more about that. And that was really when you really blew the doors open for yourself and you started helping others as well. So what was your career up until about 20 years ago? And what brought you to this place of knowing that there had to be more out there for your career, your life,and those around you?

00:03:23
John Mitchell: Well, Seth like you said, I started out as a CPA, and when I got to be 30 and decided I want to be an entrepreneur and I launched into the real estate industry as a developer. And then in my 30s and 40s, I was in like seven different businesses. But when I hit 50, I just wasn't as successful as I thought I should be. And you know, I had two goals in my life. To make enough money so I didn't have to work and find the woman of my dreams and so on both of them at fifty I was falling short. And on the money, I always made $200/300 a year, but never close to seven figures a year. And as materialistic as this sounds, I just did the math and I saw that to have the exceptional life I wanted, I had to start netting over a million dollars a year. And on the girl at 50, I never been married, although I got to say I did a lot of interviewing, although my friends would probably call it begging. I prefer to call it interviewing. But so at fifty, I'm like, Well, how am I going to change this 20-yearhistory of low six figures a year? And so I don't know, probably three months after turning 50. It just comes to me one night. Go find the top book in the world on success and apply that book literally word for word to my life. So I'm like, That's a good idea. But I didn't know if there was one book above all others. So I get up that night and did the research, and I see that there's one book been read by 100 million people, and the next best-sellingbook on success has been read by less than 10 million people. And that book is Think and Grow Rich, and I bet both you have it right, right?

00:05:15
Ryan Bell: Yep.

00:05:16
Seth Heckaman: I have.

00:05:16
John Mitchell: Right, right. So I'm like, Boy, this is perfect. This is just what I'm looking for. And so I'm like a heat-seekingmissile. The next day, I'm at the bookstore, I buy the book, I read the book. And then I discovered a problem. The book says there's a secret for success, but he only gives you half of the secret, it's on the reader to figure out the other half. Well, I'm bummed, I need the full secret. And so I mope around for probably three weeks and one day I just wake up. I go, John, just man up and figure out the full secret. And so over the next two months, I just immersed myself in the book and I figure out the full secret and a 12-minute-a-day technique to apply it. And so I start applying it to a new business. I started in the reverse mortgage business and like immediately, my income starts doubling and doubling to where four years later, I'm netting $3 million a year, which was twenty-fivetimes what I'd ever made before. And of course, I felt so blessed, but I could see why it was happening. I mean, for the first time ever, I was proactively influencing my autopilot and I could just do things I could never do before. And they were all happening automatically without thinking. And if it truly felt like having a superpower and I saw that it worked because I was focused only on what moves the needle, I tripled my discipline. Now I could do the habits I could before, and I had new ideas in my head consistently every week that just weren't coming in before, and I became fascinated that you could take two key scientific principles and so materially impact your success. And so to wrap this up, I want to share this with the world and I got enough money, so I didn't have to work. But I guess about seven years ago, I sold my company and about a month or two later, I met the former president at the University of Texas, and he said, Hey, you gotta teach this at the University of Texas. Why don't we teach it together? And so that started the process seven years ago. But my joy of life today is teaching this superpower to driven entrepreneurs, just to take their income to nearly seven figures a year and make their path easier than mine was.

00:08:00
Seth Heckaman: Wow. Obviously incredible power and all that you learned and inspiring now taking that forward and helping others. So I have to ask though, you netted the income, did you find the girl?

00:08:12
John Mitchell: I did find the girl. Thank you for asking. And you know, it's funny. It was all about the money back then. But I see that that was pale in comparison to finding my life partner and all the other things that sort of came from this process. The money was the external part of it, but the other parts were so much more than the money.

00:08:37
Seth Heckaman: You know, so much there we'll want to unpack. For those of our listeners who haven't read, Think and Grow Rich, can you share, you know what half of the secret is in that book and then lead into the other half you were left to develop on your own?

00:08:50
John Mitchell: Absolutely. So right at the start of the book, he says there's a secret for success, but I won't give you half the secret, and the half that he gives you is that everything starts with a thought. Well, I'm like, OK, I buy that. But you know, where do I go from there? Right? I mean, I didn't argue with it, but that, you know, where do you go from there? And one of the things I saw in Think and Grow Rich that was so unusual was they talkedabout how you should apply science to your life, to your success, which was an idea that was foreign to me. And the book is based on one foundational idea. And that idea is that 95 percent of your daily actions are unconscious. And you know, I think what's interesting about that is, you know, we hear so many facts that are thrown at us and we don't really know what's true and what's not true. But think about that. If 95 percent of your daily actions are unconscious, the only way you can have a higher level of success than you're currently having is to influence those unconscious daily actions. I mean, it's pure math because your success in each area of your life, whether it's your career or marriage, comes down to the cumulative effect of your daily actions. So you've got to influence those daily actions because that's what determines your success. And since 95 percent of them are unconscious, the only way you can influence them is by proactively with intention, influencing the safe, conscious mind. I mean, it's amazingly simple.

00:10:41
Seth Heckaman: Yeah and just thinking back over the course of my day, I can easily see how it would be 95 percent and more and beginning to, you know, affect that huge chunk of time and energy and inactivity would be a total game-changer.

00:10:54
John Mitchell: Right, and you know, here's the other thing that's interesting about it. So once you get that 95 percent of your daily actions are unconscious, that's the big domino. If you get that and really believe that and I encourage people to Google it if you don't. But once you get it, everything gets a lot simpler. And here's the fundamental problem that every one of us has. We're innately wired for survival and couple that with 95 percent of your daily actions being unconscious, here's the effect. When you open your eyes each morning. First of all, you're on autopilot most of the day innately wired to be fear-based, reactive, and negative. Because you're wired for survival. That's how you're innately wired which was great when we were running from lions, daily survival was a big deal. But it's exactly the opposite of what you need to be if you want to be productive, creative,and happy. And so often I see with people that I work with, they tell me I have this innate feeling that I'm playing this game of life at 20 or 30 percent of my potential. And boy, I relate to that, too. Well, that's why because if you're not doing anything to override that, that innate programming, of course, you're operating way under your potential. And you know, I think this is so foundational understanding that you overcome your innate programming by overlaying new programming that's again based on Think and Grow Rich, that you should be creative instead of fear-basedand reactive.

00:12:47
Seth Heckaman: Fantastic. I love that, those three words of the goal of that transformation, productive, creative, and happy.

00:12:54
John Mitchell: Right.

00:12:54
Seth Heckaman: We can be more of each of those three things. We're going to be more successful and more satisfied, no doubt.

00:13:01
John Mitchell: Right. Right. Can I share with you one other thing sort of the science I'm going to tell you sort of the secret and all about that? But one of the foundational things I think for the audience to understand besides, you know, the other things I've just mentioned is that here's how the human mind works. The conscious mind sets your attention and is influenced by logic, but the subconscious mind is only influenced by repetition. And I'll give you an example of this. Let's say you want to lose weight. Well, the intention to lose weight was determined by the conscious mind based on logic, but based on health metrics. Well, the reason people aren't losing weight is not for a lack of attention. It's just a lack of influencing the part of the brain that controls the daily actions, meaning they're exercising, they're eating and again, that part of the brain. And again, 95 percent of daily actions are unconscious. That part of the brain doesn't care about logic. It's actually controlled by a more primitive part of the brain that is defined solely by repetition. And that's where this 12-minute-a-day technique comes and you reprogram your autopilot through this, this repetition, and that's why it's so, so powerful, I think. Does that make sense?

00:14:33
Seth Heckaman: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, reading ahead of this interview and listening to some others that you've done, you know, you mentioned frequently these two key scientific principles. So just to make sure, yeah, we're clear on what those two keys are. Is it this idea the subconscious versus conscious distinction?

00:14:52
John Mitchell: Yeah.

00:14:52
Seth Heckaman: And then the wired for survival element that you know, we default to if we're not influencing the programming ourselves?

00:14:58
John Mitchell: Right, right. You know, there's probably four or five sort of foundational scientific principles. Another one that's pivotal is I don't know if you know too much about the reticular activating system, which is basically the filter for the brain. And you know, when you program yourself properly, you bring in things into your consciousness that that are coming in now. And so that's another key part of the science.

00:15:30
Seth Heckaman: Yeah, we all want to know then how do we take control of these, these key elements that you know so often we're just are running in the background that we have no control over, you know, through this only 12 minutes a day that can really transform our lives moving forward?

00:15:45
John Mitchell: OK, well, let me let me explain it so. So as I mentioned, the part that gets you this is that everything starts with a thought. Well, once I had spent two months and immersed myself in it, I realized the full secret is what you envision in detail on a daily basis is what shows up in your life. And what that really means is when you step back from your life and you create immense clarity you know exactly the person you want to be, exactly what you want to accomplish and precisely how you're going to achieve your clearly defined goals. And you create that clarity and then you feed that clarity to yourself 12 minutes a day. After about 21 days, the science kicks in and the magic starts to happen. The subconscious mind starts accepting that programming, and it influences those unconscious daily actions. And then the upgraded daily actions create the life you want. I mean, it's powerfully simple. You follow that?

00:16:51
Seth Heckaman: Yeah. So through that repetition, you're helping your subconscious, you know, see that vision for itself and start working toward that end.

00:17:01
John Mitchell: Right, and you know, here's another thing. The subconscious mind doesn't respond to things that are general. So, and that's the art of this is as you are creating this clarity, you have to make it very specific. Like if you can't tell your subconscious mind, I'm going to be successful. Way to general, you got to explain to it, here's what successful looks like exactly. Here are some behaviors that I need to take to be successful. And so and that's the other thing sort of in this process of creating this clarity you're defining here's the ideal me. Myself, regarding my health regarding my marriage, regarding my spirituality,and regarding my business. So you create clarity and being specific in those five areas. And then you also define the improvements in each area. You're also essentially living in your life quarter by quarter, and you're defining three goals one each quarter. One for your career. One for your marriage. One for your health. And your you're defining, here is the goal, here's the why behind it, here's the three or four key behaviors you're tracking on the bottom of our template your performance on those behaviors. But again, it only take 12 minutes a day.

00:18:29
Ryan Bell: How do you recommend laying this all out? I'm assuming it's part of your coaching is this process for determining all this. Like, I have a dream board that I created basically with just images that cover like health and family and leisure and stuff like that. And I do not do a good job of looking at it daily. I know I should open it up and look at it probably every day, but it sounds to me like there needs to be more to behind that process to really train my brain down that path.

00:19:05
John Mitchell: Well, true. But you know, kudos to you for doing what you're doing because this is the first sort of step to establish the goal. You know, it's interesting. You remember the Secret a while back, ya'll remember that? Y'all too young for remembering the Secret?

00:19:24
Ryan Bell: Maybe.

00:19:26
John Mitchell: Well, well, you know it was this, oh, I don't know, around the year 2000. Oprah was big, and so it is a big thing and it was sort of you envision whatever you want and it'll come to you and to some degree is based on Think and Grow Rich. But I'm like, Well, it takes way more than just envisioning what you want and it comes to you. Sure, that's a part of it. But you gotta identify the key behaviors as well.

00:19:57
Ryan Bell: Right.

00:19:58
John Mitchell: And yeah, and you know, let me share something that's sort of personal that I don't always share, but I think it's just pretty, it's pretty important. And I'll be vulnerable, maybe a little. So, you know, you heard my story at 50 and I'm trying to figure out how to be more successful. Well, the other thing that was sort of going on in my life was my mom was dying of pancreatic cancer. And I remember, like every day I'd go to the hospital after work, and so you're and you know spend time with her and then I'd walk out in the cold, dark parking lot and just cry my eyes out because I knew I was losing her and I didn't want her to see me crying because then she would know that she was dying. She probably knew anyway. But, and so this goes on for like two months. And I see that what was really going on with me was like my parents gave me everything. They sent me to the Jesuit High School in Dallas. You know, best schooling, even though they probably couldn't afford it. And I'm there in that parking lot every night and I'm crying from losing my mom. But I'm also crying from, you know, what am I doing with my life? I'm not making a difference in this world. I have an average life. And you know, I'm like, I hate the average life. I mean, I know I'm capable of so much more that, you know, I'm not really honoring all that she gave me. And, you know, now I see that there is probably the thing that caused me to dig into Think and Grow Rich at the deeper level than anybody on this planet ever has. And I say that, you know that appreciating how precious life is was such a game-changerfor me. And as I started, you know, dealing with all that and, you know, obviously very emotional. One of the things that I sort of looked at was, I'm like, you know, I think I'm a really competent entrepreneur. And you know, if you'd asked me to rate myself on a scale of one to 10, I probably would rate myself, probably an eight in my 30s and 40s. Well, once I crossed over to netting seven figures a year, I'm like, Whoa, I wasn't an eight. I was closer to a three or four. And I think this is the problem with a lot of people. I thought I was an eight because I worked harder than all my friends, but working hard doesn't necessarily translate to being competent as an entrepreneur. And that was the confusing part of it. And I saw that once I got on the other side of that fear, I saw what being confident as an entrepreneur really was, I mean, it's being highly focused only on what moves the needle, defining what that is. And being myopically focused on it. It means being highly organized. It means bringing in the wisdom of experts and in your head on a consistent basis, basically using a system. It requires stepping back from your business a couple of times a week and just thinking, deep thinking which is something I'd like to teach your audience at the end. And there's, you know, three or four other key habits and so I, as I've worked with clients, you know, I met if I did what I call mentoring plus methodology, that mentoring is teaching them that focus in the habits. But I think the thing that separates this from everything else in the human achievement field is that we make those habits and that focus show up automatically without thinking in your thoughts and actions. And I see that in the coaching business and the success and human achievement field today. Generally, what itis taught is good strategy and oftentimes really good strategy. But hey, you know, you got great strategies coming out of your ears. What you got to hear is those great trends show up automatically without thinking, and that's exactly what separates this from everything else in human history. And that's why I say I refer to it as simple. Well, you know, it is a superpower if you really can truly influence your autopilot. So if stuff is happening automatically without thinking that is a superpower.

00:25:21
Seth Heckaman: It makes perfect sense because you know, you can work harder and you can move things forward, but working harder if still,95 percent of that effort is outside of your control.

00:25:31
John Mitchell: Right?

00:25:31
Seth Heckaman: It's still a key limiter. And so being able to harness that and take control and leverage it for what you want to accomplish. You know, I do want to thank you for that vulnerability and that, you know, another key component of your story with your mom. And you know, as we connect with folks, we hear so many that have those key moments through their life that really opens, expands the perspective, and opens up what success really means like means. And we talk about these strategies and obviously making more income and being successful is a part of that. But to what end and what do we then use that for? And that's beautiful. So thank you.

00:26:11
John Mitchell: Sure. And you know, I have people say to me, Well, this won't work on me. I'm like, Hey, this works on everybody, it's pure science. It can't not work. But, but here's the thing. It's not necessarily right for everybody, you know? Yes, it works on everybody. But I see that for this is only for driven people. And I'll give you an example of why I say that. About four years ago, I went and met Darren Hardy, who I think is the top expert in the world on success. You know who Darren Hardy is?

00:26:52
Seth Heckaman: I don't offhand,

00:26:53
Ryan Bell: I do not.

00:26:54
John Mitchell: Well, he's a pretty amazing guy. He used to be the editor of Success Magazine. And I mean, truly amazing guy. And a lot of people consider him the top expert in the world on success. So I go and I'm meet him four years ago because I wanted to see if there was anything similar to this and or maybe he would see a fly in it and stuff. So I sit down with him and he looks at it and he looks at it and he goes, you know, this is good. He looks at it closer and goes, Wow this is really good. He says John, People aren't going to spend 12 minutes a day on this and I'm like, Darren, how the heck can that be, you know, it 25x-d my income. Time Magazine did a cover story on the science behind this. We're applying the same concept as the top book in the world on success. I'm like, How are people not going to spend 12 friggin minutes a day on this? And he goes, John, you're new to the success business. He says, The dirty little secret is that most people won't do anything to impact their success and achievement in life. He says, You've got to find people that are driven where a higher level of success is an absolute necessity. He says, you know, for most people, it's just merely a preference. And you know, that was so enlightening to me and proved to be so true. And you know, my partner and I work with clients, the main thing we're looking for is people that are driven because the 12 minutes a day is easy. The hard part is creating that clarity in their situation. Now we help them with that. But we're all about impact. And if we don't sense that they're driven, you know, they're not a good fit for us because our goal is always to double the income our client made last year. And if we don't think we can do that, we won't take the client. And so and then also we give a money-backguarantee. So we've got to be sure that they're going to do the work. And so that's a key part of what we do. But this is only for driven people.

00:29:17
Seth Heckaman: Are there key indicators, or do you get tipped off quickly when you're meeting those folks and can tell whether there's someone where the rubber is actually going to meet the road on these principles?

00:29:30
John Mitchell: You know, that's a great question. You know, from doing this long enough, we pretty well know and you know, sometimes people go, I don't know, I don't know if I'm driven or not. Well, if they're wondering about it, they're not driven. I mean, you know it, you know if you are or you aren't. You know, I just taught my class yesterday at the University of Texas full of 20-year-olds, and we're having that discussion of do you think you're driven or not? Because I didn't know. I don't know, you know, at 20, I don't know if I thought I was driven or not, but I see that they think they are a lot of them, not all of them, obviously. But I thought that that whole idea of, are you driven or not is interesting.

00:30:11
Seth Heckaman: Yeah, absolutely. So you've mentioned this template a couple of times. So can we dig into that a little bit of how you come alongside and really the nuts and bolts of helping this driven person, you know, create this clarity in these goals and how I think you mentioned quarterly earlier, but how frequently you go through this process as well?

00:30:31
John Mitchell: Well, you know, basically, we're creating clarity to a level that most people have never dug in that deeply. And I think it really takes sort of this back and forth between us and our clients because you can give them a questionnaire and they can do it on their own. But, you know, I think it's that third party pulling it out and going, come on. I need that clarity, but I also need it more specific because it's going to influence your subconscious mind. Again, it's got to be so specific so we can't have it being too general, which is what ends up happening initially. And so that's sort of how it works is once we get that clarity to the degree that we want, then we put that clarity on our template and once it's on the template, it evolves and with them, you know, they'll make changes to it on an ongoing basis. Big changes on a quarterly basis, but ongoing changes throughout the process. You know, one of the things that we see with this is it gives people an immense sense of control over their life to a level beyond what they've ever experienced before. Because, you know, they're having real clarity about, here's who I am, here's my top three goals, here's what I'm about, here's how I am in my marriage, here's my goals and my business. And you know, in the end, the business will have defined what my business looks like three years from now, the four or five milestones to get there. The strategy for success, the two or three things that move the needle, your succinct business plan. The linchpin is you to go to the next level, you know, like six or seven key things. And you can imagine if you're creating immense clarity with that and you're feeding it to yourself every day. Of course, you feel this amazing sense of control over your life, and I see that what we all want more than anything else is control over our lives because we oftentimes don't feel it. And that's why stress just goes away when you do, because, you know, stress is always related to your sense of control over your life that that makes sense.

00:33:09
Seth Heckaman: Of course, it goes back to that, that original wiring you mentioned earlier. We're constantly afraid and looking for threats. And if we can eliminate that and feel like we're setting our own course, that stress starts to diminish.

00:33:23
John Mitchell: Right, you know, I'll give you an example. You know, we talked about, we're talking about money. But I'll show you how this sort of happens automatically without thinking and this just happened not too long ago. So I was going to go to San Antonio to visit with one of my clients. My wife joined me in San Antonio, about 90 miles from Austin. So I tell Ginger, I go listen, just meet me at Starbucks and we'll drive off together. So I go and I get to Starbucks before she does. And it's around Christmas, and so I decide I'm going to have a brownie. Well, I have that brownie and I'm eating that brownie and one of the things that I feed myself in my 12 minutes today is that I'm aware of everything I've put in my mouth. OK, so I'm eating that brownie and I'm aware of it, and the brownie is not very good. I'm aware of it, but I finished. And so we're driving, we get in the car and go to San Antonio. I don't feel very good. I've certainly lost my appetite and I get home that night and went I'm going to change my template. And I'm going to go, I'm going to change it. One word from instead of I'm aware, I'm evaluating everything I put in your mouth. Instead of being aware of everything I put in my mouth, I'm now evaluating. Well, the next day, Ginger and I go and meet her son for dinner at a Mexican food restaurant, and I order tacos and they come and they're not very good. And again, and but this time I'm evaluatingwhat I'm putting in my mouth. This time I just slide those tacos away and I don't eat another bite. And all of this happens automatically without thinking. And you know that that night I'm lying in bed. I'm like, Wow, that is amazing how I'm reprogramming my autopilot. And changing one word changes the behavior of eating the whole thing versus pushing it away. And you know, you see how, how powerful I think this is.

00:35:49
Seth Heckaman: That's so interesting, that example, because listening to it, I'm thinking, you know, it's powerful how conscious you've become of, you know, such a broader spectrum of what's going on with you and around you. But you describe it as it's happening without me thinking. So, you know, it goes back to, you know, what we've been talking about from the beginning of making your subconscious more conscious and but still, you know, letting it leverage you toward towards your goals rather than away from them.

00:36:17
John Mitchell: Right, right.

00:36:18
Seth Heckaman: Two that you've built all these practices in your life on a daily basis where you don't wait for the next quarter to make that change, you make the change the next night. You're implementing it the very next day.

00:36:28
John Mitchell: Well, you know, you're growing and evolving and, you know, sort of once you open this, this rabbit hole of clarity, you know, there's always another layer of clarity, but you can't get that next level of clarity until you get to the previous level of clarity. And you know, I see that it impacts my marriage big time. And then and you know, for your for your audience, I have something because I hope everybody finds this interesting. But how do we sort of dip our toe in the water? And here's what I have for you. I think you really have to set aside time to just think, to deep think. And this is a habit that the top entrepreneurs in the world like Elon Musk and Bill Gates, and it's something few people do. And you know, a lot of your audience is in the real estate business because that's where I started, and I see how powerful this idea of thinking two times a week. And here's how you do it. So first of all, you got each thinking session is going to be about 30 minutes. So you decide, where am I going to do it or when I'm going to do it probably first. I do it on Wednesday mornings and Saturday mornings or Sunday mornings. Wednesday, because you're halfway through your week and the weekend because you're just more reflective. Than where you got to do it, usually your most comfortable place in your house. Like I live on Lake Austin and have a deck that's on the lake. And so I go out there. But where wherever you want to do it, that's your favorite place. Not your normal work section, but your favorite place. And then each session, each thinking session is going to be 30 minutes long, and there's three steps to this. So the first 10 minutes and oh, you're staring down at your thinking path, which is basically a blank sheet of paper with the entire slide, right? So as you're staring at those blank piecesof paper for the first ten minutes, just write whatever comes to your head, just write it and stuff will come. Then, the second part. Figure out a question to ask yourself. Now write that question down and then answer that question. Again, it's important, write that question down and then answer that question, and that probably will take, to find the answer, probably take you 20 minutes. And then at the end of the same session, you draw a line, and the last thing you write and you list the two or three takeaways and then you also list the two or three action steps. And then you take those actions steps that you put in my mind, put them on next week to do, so you're connecting your thinking to taking action. And the reason this works, guys, is because when you're again, you're proactively influencing your subconscious mind. What happens is, let's say you get your week going on Monday and a lot is coming at you. You know, you're talking to people, you're learning things. But in the moment, you don't necessarily understand what's the significance of what you just learned of the conversation you just had to your life, but you gave your subconscious mind a couple days to process it and a venue to feed it back up to you. Watch what happens. And you know, I'll give you an example of this. I have a client that's up in Portland, he's in, a lot of my clients are in the real estate business, he's in the storage facility business and he makes a couple of million dollars a year. You know, half my clients are making seven figures a year. Half of them are want to make it, particularly, you know, making six figures a year. Anyway, so he becomes a client and we're going through this thing. And I tell him we'll do a thinking session on what we need. Well, he does a thinking session and when he comes back and tells me, says, you know, I think what moves the needle is getting properties that I've already acquired, finished and producing income. That's what moves the needle. And I'm like, no, I don't think so, just from my standpoint, I don't think so. I said so let's do a thinking session together. So we get into it, and I think the question is like, what's your specialty? He goes, Well, you know, I can see opportunities in storage that other people can't. So I'm like, OK, let's just concentrate on that for a minute and not talk. So we remain quiet for a couple of minutes and I go, Wade, you know, I think what moves the needle in your business is getting more problems in your evaluation pipeline and having metrics around a monthly goal. Well, he took that one idea, which was already in his head and he applied it. Now he's gone from making two million dollars a year, to four million dollars a year, primarily from that one thing. And again, yeah, he's the one that's talented. He just had to see at a deeper level. Well, what made a difference.

00:42:26
Seth Heckaman: Power of that intentional time which slips away from us in, like you said, it's leveraging all the processing going on behind the scenes and taking a step away and really then becoming conscious of what we truly know and making use of it.

00:42:44
John Mitchell: Right, right. And you know, for your audience, here's what I got. I got abouta short video that explains this process of setting aside time to deep think twice a week. The video explains it in more detail. Also, the questions to ask yourself to clue you into it, and also an easy way to buy your thinking tablet through Amazon. I think it costs like 15 bucks. But this is such a game-changer. And you know, the key to this is this is not just, well, OK, I'm going to think twice a week. The bigger picture here is this is the initial step to proactively and with intention influencing your subconscious mind because again, that's what the top book in the world on success is all about. And I think our methodology is, is how you do it. This is that first step into it.

00:43:44
Seth Heckaman: Fantastic, where can they find that video?

00:43:47
John Mitchell: You know, they can go to thinkitbeit.com/cd for Construction Disruption. We're going to set up a landing page for your audience. And so if you put it in the show notes at thinkitbeit.com/cd.

00:44:10
Seth Heckaman: Yes, we will. We will link to that in the show notes and I'm excited to visit it myself. So that's the twice-a-weekpractice. Twice a week, 30 minutes to walk through that, that deep thinking exercise. I want to ask here, though, what does your 12 minutes a day look like or how do you coach your clients on what they use that 12 minutes for after they've, you know, gone through the process of creating really specific clear goals in those three areas of their life personal, relationships, business, you know, have the actions, steps have the metrics. How do they then, you know, every day, you know, take that in 12 minutes to move it forward?

00:44:52
John Mitchell: Well, basically once we create that clarity, we put it on our template, and then they and they can physically hold the template in one hand, which is pretty cool because you hold your life in one hand. And they just raise the template and they just feed it themselves every day. So that's essentially how it works.

00:45:13
Seth Heckaman: And I'm sure as part of that, you can't help but kind of visualize it in your mind, what that's going to look like, what that's going to feel like,and start dreaming about all the changes that then come from it.

00:45:29
John Mitchell: Yeah, and you know, that's a good point. You know, you're reading it, and which then causes you to sort of visualize it, you know, your basically priming the pump. I mean, like what you're doing with your vision board, you know that's pure visualization that I think that what makes it more effective is when you give it more detail and specificity to it through like this. And then you're really priming the pump for seeing your life at a deeper level and you're actually through science impacting your daily actions.

00:46:09
Seth Heckaman: Fantastic. John, we are nearing the end of our time together. This has been powerful, just hearing and having this kind of roadmap begun to lay out for us of how taking these intentional steps, you know, having the drive and discipline to take just, you know, small amounts of time each day to be intentional and what that can do for our lives moving forward. Before we wrap up, is there anything that you had that you wanted to touch on that we haven't touched on yet?

00:46:35
John Mitchell: You know, one thing that I'll share with you, maybe to end this is something that just happened to me not too long ago that I think, would be instructive. So my stepdaughter, Hannah, had a baby like right around Christmas, I guess it was like the week before Christmas. And so Ginger and I go over there the day after the baby is born. We're over at her house, and Ginger and Hannah leave me alone with the baby. And so I'm sitting there holding that precious little boy and I'm thinking, Wow, you know how precious life is and and and he's going to live to be 100 years old, you know? Think about that. Most of those babies today will live to be 100 years old, and there's going be a lot of stuff that happens. But what he makes of his life is going to come down to him taking control of his life and making his life what he wants to as opposed to, you know, letting life just happen and his ongoing mindset. And so, you know, I, you know, I'm thinking about that. And I guess the message for your audience is your life is precious. And if you're feeling the scarcity of time like I was at 50, you've got to step up and make your life what you want it. And if you can't keep on doing what you've been doing because you can't get the same results? And I find that this is a new way of doing life, a new way of being an entrepreneur. And, you know, just imagine playing the game of life with full control of your life and where you're influencing your autopilot. And so if this interests you, I want to help you because I feel so honored and blessed by what this has done to my life. I want to help other people. That's how I honor the blessings I have.

00:48:39
Seth Heckaman: Beautiful, thank you, John. And if someone wants to connect with you to get that help and support, how is the best way to go about connecting with you?

00:48:47
John Mitchell: Just john@thinkitbeit.com.

00:48:50
Seth Heckaman: John@thinkitbeit.com, include that in the show notes as well. Before we finish, the last thing we have here on Construction Disruption is a little bit of a lighthearted ending to each of our conversations that we call our rapid-firequestion round, where the questions range from a little more silly, some a little more serious. Audience, John does not know if he agrees to answer these questions, any of these questions coming ahead of time. But John, are you willing to answer our rapid-firequestions here today?

00:49:22
John Mitchell: Absolutely, absolutely.

00:49:24
Seth Heckaman: Fantastic. So Ryan and I are going to alternate on these. We have seven total so.

00:49:30
John Mitchell: You're going to double team me.

00:49:32
Seth Heckaman: Yeah, exactly.

00:49:33
John Mitchell: Okay, I'm ready for you guys.

00:49:35
Seth Heckaman: Here we go. Well, and this one's appropriate for you since you do teach a class. But maybe if you were to teach a class other than what you're teaching currently at the University of Austin. If you were a school teacher, what subject would you teach?

00:49:50
John Mitchell: You know, great question. It's funny, I'm going to teach my class how to find their mate in life and how to have a great relationship with their mate, which, you know, think about it, at 20 years old. They're clueless about that. But it is so important in life.

00:50:09
Seth Heckaman: Beautiful.

00:50:11
Ryan Bell: Yeah. What do you think is one of the most important things one person can say to another?

00:50:16
John Mitchell: Wow, that's a good question. Let me think about that. You know, I tell you, I think that one of the things that's powerful is when you're talking with somebody, you have a different perspective than they do on life, you know, and this just happened yesterday. You know, I'm at the doctor's office and the little girl that's doing the test and I spent an hour with her. She's thirty-fiveyears old. She tells me that she's been a receptionist for, you know, fifteen years and now she's moving up. And I'm like, You know, that is great, that you've had the perspective to, you know, step back from your life and see that you want more. And so to answer your question, I think giving people perspective, but you got to meet them where they are, not necessarily where you are, but where they are, so they can see things about their life that they're probably too close to it. I see this all the time with my clients. You know, they're so close to it, they can't see the forest for the trees. So I hope that answers the question.

00:51:24
Ryan Bell: It does, yeah.

00:51:25
Seth Heckaman: Great answer. If you had the opportunity to take an unusual mode of transportation, something you've never taken before and probably never will. What would it be?

00:51:34
John Mitchell: An unusual mode of transportation. You know this, I'd be out there. But I think, you know, transporting your mind to another place is a pretty interesting idea. A few years ago, I met a guy that worked with the CIA, and the way I met him at the Monroe Institute and he was a guy that ran the CIA's department for transporting mentally to another place, they call it remote viewing. And so that'd be it for me.

00:52:20
Seth Heckaman: Interesting. I'm going to look up remote viewing, so.

00:52:24
Ryan Bell: I love that, good answer.

00:52:26
John Mitchell: He told me, can I tell you one other thing that just blew me away?

00:52:29
Seth Heckaman: For sure.

00:52:30
John Mitchell: You know, so I spent like six or seven hours with him, and he tells me, I said, OK, you obviously worked for the CIA, you know a lot of stuff. I don't know if you can tell me this, but you believe in UFOs. He said, Yeah, I've experienced a UFO. Do we have time to tell you this quick story?

00:52:51
Seth Heckaman: Yeah, we have to hear it now. Sure.

00:52:55
John Mitchell: Right, right. So, so yeah, I said, really you experienced that. He said, So I'm stationed in the military camp in the area around Bermuda and the military. The U.S. military is out there because ships get lost. Not the Bermuda Triangle, but they, you know, they have a purpose out there. He says one day he's out there one night with a buddy of his. And again, this isn't a flight. This guy literally is the top guy in the U.S. military that did remote viewing. So he's anything but a crackpot. And he says, they're walking on the beach all of a sudden this orb comes down, and it's about 100 feet above them, and it's just unbelievable. And it's hovering for about a minute and then it takes off and it takes turns that are impossible for a spacecraft. Well, they're like blown away. They go back to their barracks and in the middle of the night, one of them gets up and has to go to the infirmary because he's feeling terrible and he gets in there and they go, Well, you have been exposed to massive amounts of radiation. And you know, and they go, What? What happened? Well, they don't, he and his buddy don't really want to tell them what happened because, you know, it just sounds too unreal. And it could hurt their military career. And, you know, I almost hesitate to tell that story because it sounds so far out, but I'm just telling you that's what he told me. And I thought, Wow, that is interesting. That's the closest I've ever gotten to really getting any sort of inside information on that. So whatever that's for.

00:55:06
Seth Heckaman: I'm not sure if I'm happy I heard that story or... Ignorance is bliss. Maybe I don't know, we'll see.

00:55:13
Ryan Bell: But I'm glad you shared I am pretty sure I saw a UFO when I was younger, and I've always questioned my, what I saw.

00:55:21
John Mitchell: Really.

00:55:21
Ryan Bell: But yeah, the more I.

00:55:22
John Mitchell: Right, that's interesting. Did you really?

00:55:24
Ryan Bell: Yes, I believe I did. I was sleeping and there was a bright light or something that kind of woke me up and I looked out my window and it was this huge bright light and then it like shrunk very quickly in phases, I guess. I don't know, but I didn't tell anybody about it forever because I'm like, Oh, no, I was just seeing things. And but for the more I think about it, I'm I don't know. I woke up with a weird feeling too.

00:55:48
John Mitchell: Right, well, you know, there's you know, we think we know everything.

00:55:51
Ryan Bell: Yeah.

00:55:51
John Mitchell: You know, we know so little.

00:55:54
Ryan Bell: Right.

00:55:54
Speaker: You know, and I tell you, I think in the next 10 or 15 years. Of course, I'm biased because that's what I do. But I think you're going to see people, the science is going to prove more and more of this power of the subconscious mind to, where to a large degree, what we're talking about today is going to be mainstream in, you know, 15 years from now.

00:56:21
Seth Heckaman: So we got to get on it early, that way we're leading the way rather than getting lapped on someone else harnessing it.

00:56:28
John Mitchell: Well, you know, like I told my class yesterday, I said, Listen, you want to be, you want to have the average life and do what everybody else does. You want the exceptional life, do what most people are not going to do.

00:56:41
Ryan Bell: A lot of truth in that. Alright back to rapid-fire.

00:56:43
John Mitchell: OK.

00:56:45
Ryan Bell: If you were to name your daily driver, what would you name it?

00:56:49
Speaker: My daily driver.

00:56:50
Speaker: Yeah, like a car.

00:56:51
John Mitchell: You talking about the type of car?

00:56:54
Ryan Bell: If you were going to give it a name, if you were going to name your car, what would you name it?

00:56:58
John Mitchell: OK, well, I call it the Batmobile because I have a Lexus LC 500 and it looks like the Batmobile.

00:57:08
Ryan Bell: Nice.

00:57:09
Seth Heckaman: When you were a child, what did you want to have as your grown-up career?

00:57:12
John Mitchell: Boy, that's a great question. You know, I was always into sports, and so I probably wanted to be the quarterback in the Dallas Cowboys.

00:57:22
Ryan Bell: What's the worst piece of advice you've ever been given?

00:57:27
John Mitchell: That's interesting.

00:57:29
Ryan Bell: That's a tough one.

00:57:30
John Mitchell: What's the worst advice I've ever been given? I'd say, get along with everybody.

00:57:37
Seth Heckaman: I like that.

00:57:38
Ryan Bell: Yeah.

00:57:39
John Mitchell: You know, nothing happens if you get along.

00:57:42
Ryan Bell: Yeah.

00:57:43
John Mitchell: But, yeah. And I don't know. Maybe that's that in some cases, not helpful. But I see that, don't just accept things from the way they are.

00:57:55
Seth Heckaman: Sure. Harmony does not always equal best for everybody involved.

00:58:00
John Mitchell: Right.

00:58:00
Seth Heckaman: Last one, question number seven, if you had to eat a crayon, what color would you choose?

00:58:07
John Mitchell: Yellow.

00:58:07
Seth Heckaman: That's a good answer.

00:58:08
Ryan Bell: That was quick. Why yellow?

00:58:11
John Mitchell: I don't know. I just, I think yellow is my favorite color.

00:58:14
Seth Heckaman: Good.

00:58:14
John Mitchell: I love what you're doing here. It's cool.

00:58:17
Seth Heckaman: Thank you. Mr. Miller couldn't join us. Todd couldn't join us for the interview, but he joined us with the rapid-firequestions. So we'll ask him next time what color of a crayon he would eat if he had to. So, John, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us and such powerful content. You know, packaged first and foremost in your heart for people what they can do for their lives and the lives of people around them. I just, I love that message, that preciousness of life, that you shared a holding that baby and how we can then care for ourselves, reminding ourselves that our lives are precious and the lives of our family and colleagues and everyone else we come in contact with. So thank you so much for your time today. And yeah, so appreciate what you're doing.

00:59:05
John Mitchell: OK, thank you.

00:59:06
Seth Heckaman: Fantastic. Thank you to those of you who are listening as well for joining us for another episode of Construction Disruption. If you would, if you are enjoying this time with us, we ask that you leave a review or rating on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever else you are consuming this podcast. Until we are back together once again, encourage you to yourself, whoever you are coming in contact with. Make a difference out in the world. Make someone smile. Provide some encouragement. So much good can be done if we all make that our goal and focus. So until the next episode of Construction Disruption, take care, God bless, and I look forward to our next time together.